Bay Area Jewish community activist Barbara Goldeen, Holocaust oral history specialist and widely respected divorce attorney, died of leukemia June 25 in San Francisco at age 71.
Goldeen was vice chair of the Central Pacific regional board of the Anti-Defamation League.
“Barbara’s leadership abilities were phenomenal,” said Midge Stone, ADL’s regional development director. “She was in the forefront of our committee on government affairs and before we knew of her terminal illness, she had been nominated to ADL’s national leadership board.
“Barbara didn’t wait to be asked to do a job,” Stone continued. “She often volunteered when she saw a need.”
A need to honor Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese official who helped Jews reach freedom during World War II, led her to join a small delegation traveling to Japan in 1995 to commemorate his efforts. The Japanese consul general to Lithuania during the war years, Sugihara — without his country’s knowledge — issued transit visas to Jews, many of whom were able to escape to Holland and from there to the Dutch island of Curaçao.
“She knew that Sugihara’s name was recorded with the Righteous Gentiles at Yad Vashem, but in Japan, an Axis partner, he had been removed from his post and sunk into oblivion,” recalled Jerry Milrod of San Francisco.
He and wife Lydia were among 10 who made the emotional trip with Goldeen to present a plaque to Sugihara’s widow.
Upon Goldeen’s return to California, she received word that she had qualified to play in the senior women’s tennis competition at the Maccabi Games in Israel. She won silver and bronze medals.
A longtime resident of Moraga, she moved to San Francisco two years ago, fulfilling a lifelong dream.
Goldeen’s skills as an attorney and a sympathetic listener led to her participation as an interviewer for Steven Spielberg’s Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation. She also became a board member.
She recorded the story of Ellen Baer of Orinda.
“I knew Barbara from Temple Isaiah, where we were founding members of the [Lafayette] synagogue,” Baer said. “I was always very reluctant to relive the horrors of my childhood. I had been approached before when the American Jewish Committee did their research. Barbara reminded me that time was getting short…”
Goldeen grew up in Portland, Ore., attended Reed College in Portland and graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1949. In her 30s and with four young children, she attended night classes at Golden Gate University School of Law. In 1965, she graduated first in her class.
She is survived by her children Ann Goldeen (and Barry Sears), Jeannie (and Michael) Conneran, William (and Ruth) Goldeen and David Goldeen, and by seven grandchildren. She is also survived by her friend, Richard Bridgman. Memorial services were held Monday of last week at Temple Isaiah.
Contributions may be sent to the Barbara Friedman Goldeen Fund for Holocaust Studies at Reed College, Portland, OR 97202-8199, or the Anti-Defamation League, 720 Market St., Suite 800, S.F., CA 94102-2301.