Jacqueline

Jacqueline came into her husband Alan’s life when he was 12. After being smuggled out of Europe and escaping to the United States, holocaust survivor, Jacqueline, was placed with a foster family that lived just a few steps away from his home. Becoming friends with his sister brought her into Alan’s life nearly every day. Neither one could have guessed that she would one day be his Parkinson caregiver every day of his life.

Born in France of eastern European Jewish parents, Jacqueline Grossman Massing learned early about the cruelties the world can cast on the lives of the very young. And, in order to survive the emotional as well as physical trials of life in hiding, she became a resourceful and mature survivor before her time. For 11-year-old Jacqueline, survival was not a choice, it was a necessity.

That survival instinct has numerous faces for her. A major one is anger. But rather than being destructive, her anger becomes the fuel for positive action! One example is her artwork. During her adult life, Jacqueline remained “in hiding” from the nightmares of her childhood, and, over the years, anger built up in her soul. But much of the otherwise destructive nature of that anger she processed as uplifting peak experiences through her sculpting, and she became a prize-winning sculptor. Another manifestation of her anger led her to pen and paper, and she became an author. Her memoir, “Chased By Demons,” is the national prize-winning account of Jacqueline Grossman’s survival in World War II under Hitler’s occupation of France, her birthplace.

Perhaps her most impactful emotional manifestation and outcome—not only for her and her husband, Alan, but for all of Orange County’s Parkinson Community — is her most recent ‘outburst of anger,’ the “PEP4U” gym. PEP4U stands for “Parkinson’s Exercise Program for(4) WUellness.” It is a gym where victims of Parkinson’s Disease can get wellness training free of charge to slow down the progression of their disease!