Margot Zipora Kaiser

Watching as her mother and grandmother prepared traditional Jewish dishes, Margot Kaiser never thought as a child that she might want to take notes. Years later, with no one left to consult, she had to do the best she could from memory. Fortunately, her memory was good. In re-creating those old family recipes, Kaiser found that she was able to stay connected in spirit to the family life she had once known - and which had been shattered so abruptly. She would never forget how she had felt, receiving the news that her parents had been arrested by the Nazis. Eleven years old at the time, Kaiser didn't know what to do or what to think. Something else she didn't know then was the significance of a place called "Auschwitz." But she would learn in due time. A longtime Tulsa resident and member of Congregation B'nai Emunah who lost many family members to the Holocaust, Margot Strauss Kaiser died Saturday. She was 82. A graveside service was held Wednesday at Rose Hill Memorial Park Cemetery under the direction of Fitzgerald Ivy Funeral Home. Kaiser was born in Germany and spent much of her childhood there. But in 1938, with Nazi persecution of Jews escalating, the family moved to Le Havre, France. "It was voluntary," said her younger brother, Jacques Strauss of Queens, N.Y. "But many of the families who stayed would be deported soon after." Later, following the start of World War II, the Nazis took over and occupied France. As a result, everything changed for the family. In July 1942, Josef and Alice Strauss, Margot's parents, were arrested and imprisoned in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. Margot and her brother, four years younger and her only sibling, were taken in by a Jewish orphanage in Paris. From there, they changed their names and went into hiding. For the next two years, until the liberation of Paris, they lived with various French families who sheltered them "at their own risk," Strauss said. During this tumultuous time, with no word coming of their parents' situation, he took comfort in his older sister. "She was very protective of me," Strauss said. Finally, in 1945, the war ended. But with it came the news they had hoped never to hear: Their father and mother were dead, killed at Auschwitz. Margot and her brother were adopted together by a family of Turkish Jews. They continued to live in Paris, attending boarding schools. Immigrating to the United States in 1953, Margot met her future husband, Walter Kaiser, in New York. The two married and settled in Tulsa, where she worked as a registered nurse, he as an accountant. Among the many things she cherished about family life, Kaiser enjoyed cooking, especially those old recipes from her youth. Her son, Jerry Kaiser, said her love of cooking "was something that was always there, as far back as I remember. Lots of cookbooks, cooking for us, for other people. She made an exceptional Challah bread. I've never had any like it. And great pastries." Challah, along with chopped liver pate, were Kaiser standards on Jewish holidays. Add to her Jewish and German heritage the influence of her adoptive parents, and Kaiser's culinary repertoire had international flair, including in it Turkish and French dishes. Whatever the dish, it stirred memories. There were some even, such as from her native Germany, that her brother didn't share. "I was too young to remember our life in Germany," Strauss said. "But Margot had many memories of it, and they were very important to her for the rest of her life." Kaiser's survivors include a daughter, Alice Simone; a son, Jerry Kaiser; her brother, Jacques Strauss; and four grandchildren. Graveside Services will be 12 Noon, Wednesday, August 7, 2013, at Rose Hill Memorial Park Cemetery. FITZGERALD IVY CHAPEL 918-585-1151

Margot Zipora Kaiser

May 21, 1931 - August 3, 2013