Cecillia Etkin
Cecillia Pollock Etkin’s faith in Judaism sustained her in her in seven concentration camps during the Holocaust. In 1950, she emigrated to the Seattle Orthodox Jewish community where she lovingly served as the “mikveh lady” for 27 years, from 1970-1997. Born in Sighet, Romania in 1922, Cecillia was deported to Auschwitz in 1944 where her parents and many siblings were murdered. In 1945 Cecillia emigrated to New York City, married Seattle native Nathan Etkin, and moved to Seattle with him where she ran her own dressmaking business and raised four children. As Seattle’s first volunteer “mikveh lady” she prepared the ritual bath according to Orthodox Jewish law, and counseled brides and married women, converts, the sick and the elderly, who sought her quiet spiritual guidance.
The interview focuses in-depth on Jewish life in Romania and Etkin's experience in the concentration camps, detailing how she cared for her friend Roszi, as well as Etkin's later work as a "mikveh lady." Cecillia describes her childhood in Romania and how she and her ten siblings learned to daven and sew from their father, a pious tailor. Before Hungarian occupation and pervasive antisemitism, Cecillia remembers good relations with non-Jewish neighbors who lent local Jewish children hand-designed festive garments for Purim celebrations. Even the Romanian military band in summertime played Hasidic songs in the park for their Jewish patrons. After the Germans invaded in 1944, twenty-year-old Cecillia was deported to Auschwitz, where her parents and several siblings were killed. She and "lager" (camp) sister Roszi kept each other alive until liberation a year later. It took Cecillia eighteen years to speak of her tragic experiences, and ever since, she has toured Seattle public and Jewish day schools, educating the youth. In 1945, Cecillia emigrated from Sweden to New York City, where she met her future husband Nathan (Nate) Etkin, a Seattle native, at a B'nai Akiva Youth event. After they married, in 1950, the two moved to Seattle, where Cecillia ran her own dressmaking business, Madrona Fabric and Sewing Center, from 1960-1970, while Nathan ran the local shul, Ashkenazic Bikur Cholim. Cecillia remembers when, in 1970, she was asked first to volunteer then work for the Seattle Mikveh Association. "Going to the mikveh is a wonderful thing. [I]t's a way of life," she says. Cecillia reflects on her role as the "mikveh lady" and her many roles and responsibilities. She prepared the ritual bath according to the strict halachic laws of niddah and ministered to those who came through its doors: brides, married women, converts, the sick and elderly, many of whom sought her quiet spiritual guidance and sage advice.