Baldwin woman, 100, who survived the Holocaust by hiding in a convent, is honored as part of Holocaust Remembrance Day

When she was a teenager, Pina Frassineti, her mother and her brother, escaped the Nazis during World War II by hiding in a Roman convent, posing as nuns for two years.

Her grandfather, Octavio, an Italian rabbi, was not so fortunate. He was taken by the Germans and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Her father, Mario, spent the war hiding from the Nazis by sleeping in train cars. And other relatives were lost at the Dachau camp.

The Baldwin resident turned 100 last October, and she is one of the few remaining centenarian survivors still living to recount the Holocaust. Ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27, Frassineti Wax had a single message for those listening at the Merrick Senior Center Monday. 

"They have to be remembered," said Frassineti Wax, who married an Italian man, Mario Wax, who joined the U.S. Army. "We have to remember first of all, there were real people that were taken to end life like that in concentration camps."

"I had a very nice grandfather and he was taken one morning by the Germans," Frassineti Wax said. "He was brought to one of the camps and it was something we were not used to. We were Jews and it was my Nonno. He was taken away to die. That was something that touched me because I loved him so much. I think to remember them because we don't want anything coming in that terrible way. We should keep and remember them."

She was honored by officials including Sen. Chuck Schumer (D- N.Y.), Hempstead Supervisor Don Clavin and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who declared Monday "Pina Frassineti Wax Day" in Nassau County.

Schumer presented her with an American flag that was flown over the U.S. Capitol. He also read a proclamation that he later delivered on the U.S. Senate floor.

"Just by being here, you're doing a lot by reminding people and remembering," Schumer told her. "Pina’s milestone year, her hundredth, serves as a remarkable testament to her perseverance and triumph during one of the darkest chapters in human history, emerging from the horrors of the Holocaust with an unwavering commitment to surviving and rebuilding while ensuring that the atrocities committed are never forgotten."

Back then, the nuns at the Roman Church of Precious Blood shielded Frassineti; her mother, Bianca; and her brother Sergio, and an Irish nun taught them English, her grandson Gavin Wax, 30, of Manhattan said. 

As the war was ending, Frassineti was at risk of losing her leg to an infection, and her mother walked 10 miles to a U.S. Army base asking for penicillin, Gavin Wax said.

She and her husband moved from Rome to New York, where they were married for 44 years and had three children and six grandchildren. She finished her doctor of letters degree at Columbia University, Gavin Wax said. She went on to work as a professor at Lake Forest College, outside Chicago, before moving back to settle in Great Neck, Gavin Wax said.

Frassineti Wax said she hopes her story can be an inspiration for anyone experiencing persecution.

"I will always be appreciative of America that welcomed me with open arms when I escaped an evil world in Europe," Frassineti Wax said in a statement partially read by her daughter, Liza. "Although the world today is very different from 70 years ago, hatred must not be tolerated on any level, and we must remember that the road to death camps and killing fields is built with hate and paved with indifference. We must always seek to eradicate hate from wherever we see it."

By John Asbury

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John Asbury is a breaking news and general assignment reporter. He has been with Newsday since 2014 and previously worked at The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, California.