Albany - Gabriela Felicia Sherer passed away on August 16, 2025. She was 89 and lived a life that was challenging, fulfilling and full of meaning. She made lifelong friends from around the world, cared for family, friends and strangers, and wove together a global family.

Gabriela was born in Warsaw in 1936 to Anatol Truskier, a lawyer, and Aniela Truskier (Aniela Rojek), a schoolteacher. When the Nazis invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, Aniela and Gabriela were separated from Anatol, who was called to the east in the Polish Army’s failed attempt to regroup. A river separated the German and Russian armies and no one was allowed to cross, but locals began smuggling people across on boats in the dark of night. Aniela and Gabriela set out across the river one night in a small, crowded boat, but Gabriela began to cry, and the other passengers, fearful they would be caught, wanted to throw her overboard. Aniela held Gabriela tightly and insisted they turn back the boat to the German side. The next day she marched confidently up to the Nazi officer controlling the bridge, and in the perfect German that was one of the five languages she had mastered, convinced him to help them cross.

The Russians ordered all the Poles in their newly seized territory to accept Soviet citizenship (as they have done again recently in Ukraine), but Aniela and Anatol, who felt strongly Polish, refused to accept it. They were deported by cattle car and barge to a forced labor camp in Siberia, so isolated that there were no guards or fences, as anyone foolish enough to try to escape would die from wolves or starvation. But banishment to Siberia enabled Gabriela’s survival; in June 1941, the Nazis invaded Russia, and most of the Jews in the lands they seized were murdered in the death camps.

After the war Gabriela and her family returned to Warsaw, where she graduated from medical school. Her parents arranged for her to visit her aunts – who had survived the Warsaw Ghetto and the Majdanek, Skarzysko-Kamienna, and Czestochowa concentration camps, and resettled after the war in Albany – at a time it was rare to travel between the East and West blocs. In Albany, she met and married our father, Harry L. Sherer.

Soon they had two children, Paul and Gregory. When they were still in grade school, she resumed her medical education, studying for and passing the exam for graduates of foreign medical schools, then doing 36-hour shifts as an intern at Albany Medical Center. She became a child and adolescent psychiatrist, working with severely ill youth at the Capital District Psychiatric Center, the state mental hospital, where she worked until her retirement.

She and Harry built a life around family and friends, regularly hosting large groups for long dinners at their Albany home. She brought her love of the mountains from Poland, and the family regularly hiked the Adirondacks, while Harry taught the family to ski; Gabriela skied until she was nearly 80.

Her beloved husband Harry passed away in 2004. Gabriela soon had two grandchildren, whom she deeply loved and cherished.

Gabriela wove together a large group of cousins in Israel and Toronto from her mother’s side, creating connections with her children and grandchildren that live on today. While she was not religious, she felt strongly Jewish, and throughout her life read books about World War II, the Holocaust and the Jewish people.

Gabriela is survived by her sons Paul Sherer and Gregory Sherer; Paul’s wife Thrittima and their daughter Anika; Gregory’s wife Yiping and their son Justin; her first cousins from father’s side, Abe Lacheta, Rachel Weiss and Paula (Weiss) Cohen; many cousins in Toronto and Israel from her mother’s side; and many nieces, nephews and their children, from Harry’s side of the family, who are spread across the United States.

Funeral services for Gabriela will be held on Sunday August 24th at 12:00 pm at The Levine Memorial Chapel, 649 Washington Ave. in Albany. The family will receive guests prior to the service from 11:00 – 12:00. Burial will follow at Hebrew Tailor’s Cemetery, 1620 Western Ave. in Guilderland.

The funeral services for Gabriela will be livestreamed on Zoom and can be viewed with the following link: Funeral Livestream Link

Meeting ID :  812 7618 3073

Passcode:  727952

 

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