Claudia Martyl Sisson Ph.D. (Sarfaty) (nee Karweik)
The world has lost a most beloved and pioneering soul.
Born in Berlin, Germany, Feb. 7th, 1927
Died Oct. 1st, 2016, NYC, surrounded and loved by family and friends.
Claudia lived at least 5 lives in her 89 years.
Born to an accomplished architect father, Erich Fritz Karweik and a talented craftsperson mother, Else Joseph Karweik, she was part of a large family of many aunts and uncles and grandparents, until WWII wrenched it all away.
At the age of 12, at the start of WWII, starting her second life, she was separated from her mother, father and the rest of her family and taken in, for safety, by Henry (Harry) Cobden Turner, his wife Elizabeth Turner and their children in Manchester, England, thanks Claudia’s mother’s friendship with Berlin neighbor Betty Mayer, and the additional friendship between Betty’s husband, German mathematician and physicist Hans Ferdinand Mayer and Harry Cobden Turner, a British Engineer.
Claudia did not learn until her 70’s that she had been one of the 10,000 Jews, Frank Foley, a British Spy in the Berlin Embassy, had helped to save, by processing her exit papers.
She also did not learn until later in life that her name, Martyl, had been used in 1939, as a secret code signature in a letter sent from Oslo, Norway, from Hans Mayer, (author of The Oslo Report), to Harry Cobden Turner, a friend and British Ally, speaking of Mayer’s efforts to help the British oppose Hitler.
Having been kept safe in England during the war, by the Turners (and by two other families during evacuations to the countryside; The Inghams in Bacup, Lancashire, and The Bougheys in Market Drayton, Shropshire), Claudia traveled by ship at age 19, in 1946 to NYC, her ship passing by the iconic, promising statue of liberty and began her third life.
After reuniting with her mother, she married the soon-to-be Reverend Dudley Ellis Sarfaty, contributed to the First Presbyterian Church communities in Selden, Long Island, and Hoboken NJ, and had 4 children, Stephen, Andrew, Philip, and Christine, somehow defying the medical prediction that she would never have children. She was a pioneer in the practice of natural childbirth in the 1950’s, insisting on it to her doctor with Dick-Reads book, Childbirth Without Fear, in hand. She would later tell her children that they were her greatest gift and contribution to life. She cherished her 3 grandchildren Joseph, Sam, and Nick.
Even though her hands were full raising children, her drive to contribute to the world led her to go on and earn her nursing degree (with high honors) in 1965 from Christ Hospital School of Nursing, Jersey City, New Jersey.
Her fourth life evolved as a divorced, working, single mom, raising 4 teenage children at a time when there were no neighbors doing the same or books or tv talk shows to help. Yet she persevered.
She worked as a head nurse in psychiatric hospitals in NJ and NY, promoting, advocating and fighting for the dignity and empowerment of mental health patients. (Head Nurse Bergen Pines, NJ; Unit Head for Psychiatric Residents, Bronx Psychiatric Center; Medical Administrator, Jersey City Job Corps Center for Women; Deputy Unit Chief, Kingsbrook Psychiatric Center, NY.)
Not allowing the hardships from her losses in the war and the struggle of being a single, working mother stop her, she returned to school, graduating Magna Cum Laude from Farleigh Dickinson University, in Psychology in 1971, completed the diploma program at the Post Graduate Center for Mental Health NYC in 1971 and still went further, and received her PhD in psychology from Union Graduate School, Ohio in 1977, thus signaling her 5th life.
She taught psychology at Nassau Community College, NY, Ramapo College, NJ, and Hunter Bellevue School of Nursing, NY.
Her doctoral work centered on reclaiming her young life torn apart by the war, and then bringing the compassion and self-understanding learned from those experiences to her rich and diverse independent psychotherapy practice with women, men, and couples. She emphasized and helped people gain self-knowledge and self-kindness, and helped people to find meaning in their lives.
In addition, as founder of Partners Anonymous, in the 1970’s, she pioneered a treatment focus on helping men break the gripping and futile cycle of domestic violence, helping her clients, learn how to handle strong emotions, and stop the harm to others and to themselves. She provided outreach public service and education on the topic as well.
Claudia led men’s therapy groups in the NY prisons where she emphasized the importance of self-knowledge, compassion, and personal insight. During her time in that role, she became affectionately known as “Doc” by the men who attended her groups. The work she did there was very meaningful to her.
Her own search for meaning in life led her to embrace Buddhism and meditation, Tai chi, and Qigong as a practice of compassion and understanding of self and others.
It was Claudia’s goal to remain vital in her life and to work until the end of her life and to pass quickly at the end.
Amazingly, though no one could have foreseen it, she reached this goal. She had just finished a very happy and successful vacation with all her children, their spouses, and her grandchildren at one of her favorite places in the world, the St. Lawrence River. A month later she was diagnosed with an aggressive leukemia. And two weeks later she was gone. She had worked until her last days, sending closure emails to her clients. She was able to speak to or see all of her children, their spouses, her grandchildren, her niece, and her closest friends. She even had one last night, surrounded by her children, with the soft glow of yellow lamp light, to tell and hear family stories one last time.
She requested that her ashes be spread in “her” two rivers. The Hudson River in NYC and the St. Lawrence River.
Her legacy lives on in the lives and hearts of those she touched so deeply with her tender loving care and wonderful open-hearted laugh……We miss her terribly and we never stop learning from the example she set forth in her life.
Stephen, Andrew, Philip, Christine, Lisa, Scott, Kate, Joseph, Sam, Nick, Lisa Marie, Toni Marci and family, Gerda Cohen and family, John, Helen, Stewart, Warren, Paul, Ruth, Kathie, Jim, Mickey, Mike, Ans, Jim, Josef Garatza, Jennifer, Joe, Cindy Glover and family, Clients, Men’s group, Rivers Arts Building Washington Heights community and many, many others. (See also New York Times In memoriam published Sunday September 30, 2018)