Moving back to the United States was a “culture shock,” and the country’s sounds and sights left Tova’s heart longing for the beauty and vibrancy of Israel. The family purchased a three-bedroom house near Rutgers in New Jersey and were financially “comfortable,” but Tova was plagued by feelings of emptiness and uselessness.

As she wandered the grounds of Rutgers one spring day, Tova stumbled across registration day and coincidentally spoke with a guidance counselor who piqued her interest in signing up for courses at the School of Social Work. The counselor told her that she was nearly guaranteed a full scholarship if she studied gerontology, the effect of aging on an individual and society. The day felt like “serendipity.”

Tova’s internship proved fulfilling as she found ways to help the elderly face complex challenges, particularly mental and emotional stresses in their lives. Making such a difference helped Tova to find a sense of purpose for her own life. She learned a great deal from her clients and realized that feeling heard and seen is transformational for a person’s own self-image.

A few years later while visiting Israel, Tova missed her return flight home. She decided to spend additional time with her father, and their time together was natural and intimate. He read aloud to her about the Holocaust experience as tears filled both of their eyes. This was the final time the two would see each other; just as Roma “gypsies” had predicted when he was a young boy, Papa died at the age of seventy-two, in 1983.

Tova found a sense of purpose in helping other refugees upon their arrival in the United States. She worked to give “a new generation of asylum seekers . . . the same opportunities [she] had” been given. She was able to use her experiences to help survivors of the World Trade Center tragedy following September 11, 2001. When she told them about her past, “it was as if a dam had been breeched,” and they wept as they conveyed their own sense of guilt for being able to escape while so many colleagues had been killed. Tova understood. 

Tova then began to accept public speaking invitations, believing that sharing the painful lessons of the Holocaust could help to teach people about “danger signals” and prevent other genocides. Friedman “fervently hopes” that her efforts have not been in vain and that sharing her personal experiences will help to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive.

Committing so much of her life to helping others meant that Maier was often the parent who navigated the duties of parenting their children. He loved tasks such as appointments and teacher conferences and particularly enjoyed playing with the children, something Tova never learned to do. His sudden death on March 31, 2020, “left an irreplaceable void for the entire family.”

In January 2020, Tova was able to return to Auschwitz for the seventy-fifth anniversary of the liberation of the camp. She found the experience “uplifting” as hundreds of survivors gathered to celebrate the lives they had lived since then. The stories they shared were of “triumphs and endurance,” not past sufferings. Friedman believes that a spirit of resilience is within each human being, helping everyone to overcome adversity and “extraordinarily difficult challenges.”