Vivian Goldstein was born August 31, 1924 in Munkatch, Hungary and passed away in Boca Raton, Florida on March 21, 2020.
She lost her mother and younger brother during the Holocaust, while her father survived Dachau and she survived Auschwitz. After her liberation at age 21 by British troops, she met her American husband Leo in Europe during his military service, and immigrated to the US with him after the war.
Vivian had three children with Leo—Alan, Karen and Gary—losing her first child to medical illness in infancy. She and her family lived in New York City until 1981, where her husband had a career in the post office and she worked in retail. She and her husband then moved to Boca Raton, Florida in the 1980s.
A long time member of Hadassah, Vivian lived a devout life. She loved the beauty of horses, classical music, and gourmet food. Her favorites were shrimp in lobster sauce, mushroom stuffed raviolis, pastrami on rye, lobster salad with quiche, and smoked salmon on challah. She went to live concerts of Mozart, Vivaldi and Beethoven, and liked to watch MGM’s great movie musicals on TV, such as Singing in the Rain, Gigi, and The Sound of Music. Her favorite ballets were Swan Lake and The Nutcracker and she even managed to find Hungarian movies.
And she was tough. During her last six years, she overcame a compression fracture, pneumonia, congestive heart failure, and skin cancer, and she did it without complaining. Yet she had a gentle soul. No matter the day or the situation, she was always her polite self.