Faye Cukier, author, dancer, actress, and Holocaust survivor, has died at 100

Faye Cukier, 100, formerly of Philadelphia, author, dancer, actress, musician, and Holocaust survivor, died Monday, Jan. 23, of failure to thrive in a nursing center in Cologne, Germany.

The daughter of Polish Jewish parents, Ms. Cukier arrived in her mid-20s alone in New York from Belgium in 1948 after evading the Nazis in Germany, Belgium, and elsewhere in Europe during World War II. She moved to Philadelphia in the early 1950s and supported herself by matching her considerable skills to the needs she found around her.

Poised, agile, and trained as a dancer, she taught belly dancing, modeled clothing, and earned a role as an extra alongside Jayne Mansfield and Dan Duryea in the 1957 film The Burglar. She spoke seven languages, so she worked as an interpreter for the Philadelphia court system, played piano and sang popular French songs in clubs, and moved easily over the years between family and friends in the United States and Europe.

In 2006, Ms. Cukier published Fleeing the Swastika, her 400-page memoir about surviving the Holocaust. The book appeared in both the United States and Germany, and it led her to readings at the German Society of Pennsylvania and elsewhere, publicity tours, and interviews on radio and TV in both countries.

“I lost my youth while hiding,” Ms. Cukier told journalist Louisa Schaefer in a 2006 interview for Deutsche Welle, an international broadcast company based in Germany. “I’ve tried to recapture it through writing my story.”

Born June 15, 1922, in Cologne, Faye Cukier and her parents fled Germany to Belgium in 1938 and spent years on the run, hiding from the Nazis and struggling to survive. Just 16, she quietly made money by teaching French and English in Belgium, and selling diamonds and jewelry with others on the black market.

She witnessed friends and neighbors being killed and abducted, tried unsuccessfully to escape over the English Channel, and was nourished at one point for weeks on only chocolate and sardines. The family endured, said her daughter, Nanette Arndts, “through intuition, rebellion, and sheer courage.”

“My mother could have been bitter due to her experiences running from the Nazis,” Arndts said. “But she was the antithesis. My mother was kind to anyone, gregarious, outgoing, glamorous, and continuously smiling.”

Ms. Cukier was married briefly after arriving in the United States. After a divorce, she met Philadelphia native Leonard Goldman when she hired him to file her tax return. They hit it off, married in 1956, lived in Northeast Philadelphia, and had son Curt and daughter Nanette.

She never did pay her husband the $5 he charged for the tax service, her family said. They divorced in 1977 and remained friends. He died earlier.

Ms. Cukier was interested in world history and art. She loved actress Marlene Dietrich, enjoyed swimming and talking to people wherever she went, and “wanted to be wherever the party was,” her daughter said.

She traveled often to Germany and was close to family and friends in both Cologne and Philadelphia. “I think it’s part of constantly trying to rediscover my youth,” she told Schaefer in 2006. “I find a bit of that in Cologne and when I’m writing.”

In her article, Schaefer said that Ms. Cukier “exudes a youthful flair with the bright scarves, bunches of dark hair, and shiny jewelry she wears. The twinkle in her eye and her mischievous grin, however, are the real hallmarks of her inner youth.”

In an online tribute, a friend said Ms. Cukier “lived an incredible life with great humor and a zest for life.” Her granddaughter Melody Arndts said: “She loved the company of others and learning their culture and language. There is much to learn from a woman such as my grandmother.”

Her grandson Jordan Arndts said: “She truly was beautiful inside and out, and taught me much of what it means to truly be alive.”

“Sometimes,” Ms. Cukier told Christian Peregin in a 2010 story for the Times of Malta, “tragedy turns into triumph.”

In addition to her children and grandchildren, Ms. Cukier is survived by three great-grandchildren and other relatives.

A celebration of her life is to be held later.

Donations in her name may be made to the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History, 101 South Independence Mall East, Philadelphia, Pa. 19106, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place SW, Washington, D.C. 20024.