Tag Archives: post-Holocaust

April 13, 2015 · 6:04 am

My Father’s Family

by Suzanna Eibuszyc (Calabasas, CA)

My parents both grew up in a large, closely knit family. My father’s loyalty and love of his family was one of the things that attracted my mother to him. The thought of going home to Poland, back to their families, was what kept them alive during their six years in Russia. Family represented a place of safety and a source of strength.

There is one story that resonates with me to this very day. My father’s family had a tradition. My mother had told me how for generations, his extended family gathered in a small house, in the woods, for two months every summer outside of the city of Łódź. Adults and children came together to exchange ideas, enjoy each other’s company, and share good food. To me, this was like a picture taken out of a romantic, Victorian novel. I could see them dressed in their best white linens, entertaining each other. Lounging, talking, laughing, and playing loudly among the trees and green grass.

Abram Ejbuszyc was silent about his past. He never uttered a word about what happened to him during the war or about what his life had been like before the war. From my mother’s stories, I know that he did not want to die in a Russian jail after he was arrested for not wanting to give up his Polish citizenship. His only wish was to stay alive in order to come back home to Poland. He made it back only to find his entire family had been murdered. He was the sole survivor. This knowledge pushed him into a dark despair from which he never recovered. He became silent. I cannot help but wonder if his silence was a form of self-imposed punishment.

Studies have shown that there are two kinds of parents among survivors—those who cannot connect and those who cannot separate from their children. My mother could not separate herself from her two daughters. It was as if she was afraid she would lose us at any moment. To live, my father had forsaken his family and consciously or unconsciously, he chose to suffer the consequences alone. He was tormented by survivor’s guilt; the terror was visible, inscribed on his stern face and in his sad eyes. The shock of finding out about the Holocaust and not knowing how his loved ones died resulted in nightmares, anxieties, and depression. My father detached himself from us, as if he was afraid to make a close connection and lose his loved ones all over again. By not talking, he contained the trauma he lived with, hoping not to pass it on to his children. He became a stranger to the new family he created after the war and we were deprived of a loving father. To this day, I know only that my father fled Łódź. The Germans were rounding up Jewish men and deporting them to labor camps. He ran, and in so doing, he saved his own life, abandoning his mother, father and two sisters. He was never able to forgive himself.

My father’s family came from Jews of Włoszczowa, a small town not far from the city of Łódź, they settled there in the second half of the nineteenth century. Father’s extended large family in Łódź was religious, prosperous, and well-known in the community. He came from philanthropists who supported the arts and gave money toward education. They all died in the Łódź Ghetto and in Auschwitz.

After the war, he returned to Łódź to find that his large family was decimated. My father never learned the details: that his father, Icek Dawid Ejbuszyc, his mother, Ita Mariem Grinszpanholc, and his older sister, Sura Blima, were deported from the Łódź Ghetto to Auschwitz in September of 1942. A hospital record shows that his younger sister Dwojra died of Unterernährung, of malnutrition, in June of 1942. She was thirty years old. I was able to uncover this information about my father’s family in recent years. When those records became available through documentation centers, however, this information was not accessible in the first few decades after the war when my father was still alive.

A document survived the war proving that my father’s family did in fact exist and prospered in the city of Łódź. A deed to real estate made my father the owner of two homes that before the war belonged to his parents. These properties were both plundered by the Germans during the war and then taken over by Polish Communists after the war. Because survivors from Russia were forced to settle in the southwestern part of Poland as part of repatriation, my father was not allowed to return to the city of his birth. After the war, property that was not destroyed ended up in the hands of ethnic Poles. Many Poles did not expect that their Jewish neighbors survived and will be returning home. They falsified papers and claimed real estate property as theirs.

My father discovered in the courthouse records unfamiliar names on the titles of his family properties. While he was alive, he traveled regularly to the courthouse in the city of Łódź and fought to reclaim his parents’ two houses. As the Communist regime took over, it took control of all private properties. People like my father lost all rights to what belonged to them. After the collapse of Communism, the Polish government estimated that the value of all the property belonging to the survivors and their descendants to be in the billions. At the same time, and to this day, Poland has not recognized property restitution or compensation for any of the survivors, Jewish or non-Jewish.

My father endured an impoverished exile with only one hope, to return to his homeland. His mind was forever haunted by memories of never saying good-bye to his family. He spent years trying to find traces to his family’s summer house. There was no closure for my father; he never was able to reunite with any of the physical remnants of his family’s happy past as if to tell him those happy days never took place. He survived Russia, and died alone on a very cold December day in 1961, far from his new home in a hospital in Klodzko. My mother, my sister, and I, while very much alive, were shadows in his life after the war. It was not that he did not deserve us, but that he was unable to emerge from his despair. He simply could not recover from what he had lost.

Born in Poland, Suzanna Eibuszyc graduated from CCNY where she took classes in the department of Jewish studies with Professor Elie Wiesel, who encouraged her to translate her mother’s memoir into English. This piece is from her new book, Memory Is Our Home, published by ibid-Verlag, in which she attempts to “shed light on how the Holocaust trauma is transmitted to the next generation, the price my family paid when we said good-bye to the old world, and the challenges we faced in America.”

This excerpt is from Memory Is Our Home by Suzanna Eibuszyc, (c) 2015 ibidem Press/ibidem-Verlag, Stuttgart, Germany. ISBN 978-3-8382-0712-4 (US paperback); ISBN 978-3-8382-0682-0 (EU paperback); 978-3-8382-9732-2 (Hardback). Pages 145-147, reprinted with the kind permission of the author and her publisher.

If you’d like to order a copy of the book, visit: 

US: http://cup.columbia.edu/book/memory-is-our-home/9783838207124

http://www.amazon.com/Memory-Our-Home-Remembering-Generations/dp/3838207122/ref=sr_1_1/183-8888061-1272939?ie=UTF8&qid=1427124207&sr=8-1&keywords=Eibuszyc

EU: http://www.ibidemverlag.de/product_info.php?language=en&gm_boosted_product=Memory-is-our-Home&XTCsid=6063e8185eac56a71ac51cd3104518e7&Edition-No-ma=Memory-is-our-Home.html&products_id=1715&=&XTCsid=6063e8185eac56a71ac51cd3104518e7

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January 26, 2015 · 8:37 am

The Language of Poetry and Cinema Meets the Language of Grant Writing

by Janet R. Kirchheimer (New York, NY)

Writer and child survivor Aharon Appelfeld stated, “After the death of the last witnesses, the remembrance of the Holocaust must not be entrusted to historians alone. Now comes the hour of artistic creation.” I am producing BE•HOLD, a cinematic performance film that explores poetry written about the Holocaust, with director Richard Kroehling. The film showcases poetry written by survivors, their descendants and modern poets, both Jews and non-Jews, grappling with the Shoah and its aftereffects. The poems are presented by poets, survivors, actors and people from all walks of life, along with music and interviews, to create a deep well of voices responding to evil.

My parents were born in Germany. In 1936, my mother was six years old when she was backed up against a wall at school, and kids threw rocks at her because she refused to say “Heil Hitler.” Her parents got her out to a Jewish girls’ orphanage in Amsterdam, the Israelitisch Meijesweishaus. There were one hundred and four girls. Four survived. My mother came to America with her parents and an older sister. When my father was sixteen, he was arrested on Kristallnacht (two days of rioting sanctioned by the Nazi government on November 9 and 10, 1938) and sent to Dachau. My father’s parents, his older sister and younger brother were murdered in Auschwitz. My parents lost over ninety-five percent of their extended families in concentration camps. I want to make BE•HOLD to honor my family, those who survived and those who did not, and to honor all the murdered, all the survivors, their descendants and those who fought against the Nazis.

The team making BE•HOLD is Richard Kroehling, a two-time Emmy Award winning director who filmed “A. Einstein: How I See the World” with William Hurt for PBS, and Lisa Rinzler, a multi-award winning cinematographer who has worked with Wim Wenders and Martin Scorcese. I met Richard at a conference less than three months after my father died, and we discussed our mutual love of poetry. Two weeks later, we decided to make a film. We talked for almost a year about BE•HOLD, discussing our vision for it, poems and poets we wished to film and ways to raise funds. I was observing the traditional Jewish year of mourning for my father, and many times this film felt as if it were a gift from him. It gave me a goal, something to focus on.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti said, “Poetry is the shortest distance between two humans.” Richard and I are driven by the possibilities of expanding the limits of what is purely literary and purely visual, and we believe that the language of poetry and the language of cinema can be brought together for profound and powerful results. We watched them collide and were there to capture on film what happened. During each filming, a poetic moment took over and the results were different than what we had planned for and always more than we expected.

Grant writing is new for me, and I am trying to wrap my head around the idea of quantifying art. I’m still not sure I know what funders are asking for after writing grant proposals this past year. I understand that funders need to know where their money is going and that a project they fund will be a success. It’s different than creative writing. In a poem, if I know where I’m going, know everything I want to say, there’s nothing left to discover or surprise me in my writing. This is what I’d like to do: meet with a potential funder and say, “I can’t give you a pitch. I’m not a fundraiser. I’m a poet, teacher and filmmaker, and here’s why I’m passionate about BE•HOLD and why the film matters.”

On grant applications, I complete sections such as: log line, short and long description of the film, summary of content and objectives, narrative treatment, timeline, director’s vision, then upload a producer, director and cinematographer bio and filmography, upload the progress reel, fill out the budget form, list monies raised, funding sources and describe marketing and distribution plans. The next question asks what kind of metrics will be used to show that the film is a success. I understand why most of my artist friends don’t apply for grants.

Trying to make a film that is doing something new is difficult. There are so many people applying for grants from the few organizations that give them to filmmakers. But, I continue to fill out proposals and raise funds. Richard and I believe in BE•HOLD and that it offers a new approach to Holocaust remembrance. We also believe that the film imparts the ongoing relevance of the Shoah: that the past is not simply in the past, but rather a vital part of the present and future.

Janet R. Kirchheimer is the author of How to Spot One of Us (2007).  She is currently producing BE•HOLD, a cinematic poetry performance film. https://www.facebook.com/BeholdAPerformanceFilm.  Her work has appeared in journals and on line in such publications as Atlanta Review, Limestone, Connecticut Review, Lilith, Natural Bridge and on beliefnet.com.  She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and received Honorable Mention in the String Poet Prize 2014. 

This essay is reprinted here with the kind permission of  The Best American Poetry Blog http://thebestamericanpoetry.typepad.com/the_best_american_poetry/ where it first appeared.  

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November 3, 2014 · 7:00 am

Kristallnacht

by Janet R. Kirchheimer (New York, NY)

Born in a small town in Southern Germany, my father hid, along with his parents, older sister and younger brother in the basement of their home during Kristallnacht. Translated as the “Night of Crystal,” Kristallnacht is often referred to as the “Night of Broken Glass.” It was a wave of violent anti-Jewish attacks that took place on November 9 and 10, 1938, throughout Germany, annexed Austria, and in areas of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia occupied by German troops. Instigated primarily by Nazi Party officials and members of the SA (Sturmabteilungen: commonly known as Storm Troopers) and Hitler Youth, the name Kristallnacht reflects the broken glass from the windows of synagogues, homes, and Jewish-owned businesses plundered and destroyed during the violence. Numbers vary, but over 1,000 synagogues and businesses were destroyed, at least 100 people were killed and over 30,000 men were taken to concentration camps. On November 10, 1938, my father was ordered to report to town hall. Along with nine other men, he was arrested and sent to the concentration camp Dachau. He was 16 years old. 

Town Hall

“What for?” my father asked. “What
did I do? I’m only sixteen,” and
the gendarme told him if he didn’t

like it, if he asked any more questions, he could go home,
they’d arrest his father instead. And he saw his father
paying his tax bill in the next room,

and he didn’t call out, afraid they’d arrest him too, afraid
his father would want to take his place, and
the gendarme said he had a job to do, a quota of ten men,

and he didn’t care how he filled it. And my father
knew the gendarme, went to school with his daughter.
He was told to empty his pockets, turn

in any money and weapons, and he turned in
his pocketknife, and told the gendarme he had to go
to the bathroom, and another gendarme, Wilhelm,

took him, and he knew Wilhelm too. He told Wilhelm
not to worry, he wasn’t going to run away, and
Wilhelm said he knew, but he was doing his job.

As my father and nine men were loaded on a truck
that said “Trink Coca-Cola” he turned and saw
Wilhelm crying like a child.

Breaking Laws

Kristallnacht
broken glass
Nazis arrest him
a boy sixteen years old

Dachau
November 1938
a striped cotton uniform
it’s almost winter

he shares a bunk
with a man in his fifties
who freezes to death one night

the next morning a kapo tells him
take off the man’s long underwear
do it quickly
before the SS come for the body
you will freeze at night too
if you don’t

it is the custom of some Jews
not to wear clothes from a dead body
and to save one’s life the rabbis teach
one must break custom

he washes the underwear that night
places it over a chair
next to the woodstove to dry
sleeps on it
still damp
to make sure
no one will steal it

Janet R. Kirchheimer, the author of How to Spot One of Us (Clal, 2007), is currently producing BE•HOLD, a cinematic poetry film https://www.facebook.com/BeholdAPerformanceFilm.  Her work has appeared in many journals and on line including Atlanta Review, Limestone, Connecticut Review, Lilith, Natural Bridge and on beliefnet.com and Drafthorse http://www.lmunet.edu/drafthorse/main.shtml.  She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and received Honorable Mention in the String Poet Prize 2014. Janet teaches poetry, creative writing and memoir classes in New York City. You can contact her at janetksivan11@aol.com.

These two poems, “Town Hall” and “Breaking Laws,” are from How to Spot One of Us (Clal, 2007) and reprinted with the kind permission of the author and Clal.

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September 8, 2014 · 7:30 am

Deja Vu

By Sheldon Hersh (Lawrence, NY)

It should hardly be surprising that as a kid growing up in Boston during the 1950’s, I nearly always went about sporting my beloved Red Sox cap. I worshiped the Sox but wore the cap for an entirely different reason. I wore it because my father demanded that I do so. No, not because he was a fan-he was not and never had been. In fact, he could not make any sense of the sport of baseball and often wondered aloud how it was that grown men got paid by running like lunatics from one place to another.

My father was adamant and would never give an inch. No amount of arguing or pleading could possibly change his mind. “You must wear a cap. I do not want you to go out in the street with a yarmulke (skull cap) on your head. My son, there are too many people who hate us and if given the chance, would be only too happy to do us harm.” He would then relate a series of events detailing how Jews suffered in Europe–how they were demeaned, mocked and yes, at times, beaten in many a location including Poland, the country of his birth.

As a Holocaust survivor, he was in possession of a treasure trove of illustrative stories to make his point. Recollections would emerge of how unwary children were abused and ridiculed just for being Jewish. He would go into exacting detail of how the innocents were chased and often assaulted while the shouts of dirty Jews reverberated on the street. And the final insult, the coup de grace, was that the yarmulkes were nearly always pulled from the victims’ heads and proudly thrown to the ground. Joy and shouts of victory came when the yarmulke was ground into the soil, debased and spat upon. “But we’re in America,” I would helplessly chime in, “those type of people are not here.” “Listen to me my son. There will come a time when you will remember my words. There will always be people who hate us. They may not always say or do anything but they hate us nonetheless.”

My father’s insistence along with his many recollections have never left me. To this day, whenever I leave my neighborhood, I don my cap. No! Not a Red Sox cap. I now reside in New York and must be wary of all the diehard Yankee fans who would be only too happy to start up with a Red Sox guy. I work without wearing a yarmulke because I know only too well that my father would want it that way. “Don’t antagonize people. The yarmulke can bring out the worst in some.” And within the blink of an eye, he would produce a story or two to substantiate his dire warnings. When asked by co-workers or patients why it is I don’t wear my yarmulke, I never go into detail and simply reply that it’s just my custom not to do so while at work.

So what’s the point in bringing up the yarmulke at this time you may ask. Well the yarmulke has recently been in the news. Even though I initially tried convincing my father that people have changed and that we now live in an entirely different world, I must concede he was right all along. The current war in Gaza should serve as an awakening to those who are of the opinion that times have changed. That the evil our forbearers had to contend with is a thing of the past. We should all take the time and read about the appalling incidents that are so often brushed aside by many of our prominent news outlets. Worshipers being attacked outside of a synagogue or stores being threatened for carrying Kosher food are simply not news worthy.

Anti-Semitism has never left Europe and will likely never do so. This centuries old hatred raises its ugly head every so often and any excuse, no matter how inane, brings out the worst in people. Gaza just happens to be the flavor of the month. A severe downturn in the economy or unsettled weather somewhere in the Pacific is all that is needed to open the spigot once again. Occasional accounts often buried in the back of newspapers describe the hate that is on the ascendancy throughout much of Europe. The rants of kill the Jews can be heard in many a European city. Synagogues and Jewish owned concerns have once again been set ablaze. But for me, what captured my attention were the warnings from Jewish leaders that Jews in France and Belgium should no longer walk the streets wearing their yarmulkes. Boys and men were being verbally abused and beaten.

I find myself repeating my father’s words as I warn my own children to take heed and wear a cap whenever leaving the neighborhood. We are often referred to as a stiffed neck people, a proud and stubborn bunch that has defied all odds. We have learned to adjust, to adapt and persevere in spite of the challenges we must constantly face. So for the time being, at least, I encourage my children to wear a cap. It’s just safer.

Sheldon P. Hersh, an Ear, Nose and Throat Physician with a practice in the New York metropolitan area, is the author of Our Frozen Tears(http://tinyurl.com/kuzlscb), as well as the co-author of The Bugs Are Burning, a book on the Holocaust.

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August 11, 2014 · 9:05 am

A Question I Had Never Heard

Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

My friend, a city worker,
college-educated, asked me over dinner,
“Was the Holocaust partially propaganda?”
“You serious?” I said, shocked.
“I am. I can’t believe all of that happened.”
“All of that did happen – and more.”
I felt hurt by his ignorance.
How could I not be appalled?
It will not fracture the friendship,
but it will cause it serious injury.
“Did you read ‘Night’?” I asked.
“What’s that”?
“A book about the Holocaust, non-fiction.”
“No.”
“I will get it for you.”
We left the diner; I was still upset.
My teacher response: I gave him homework?
What an inadequate reply.
I should have said and done a lot more,
but what?

The author of twelve books for young adults, Mel Glenn has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years.  Lately, he’s been writing poetry, and you can find his most recent poems in the YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy,  edited by M. Jerry Weiss.

If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/

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April 7, 2014 · 8:48 am

My Olympics

By Ellen Norman Stern (Willow Grove, PA)

I didn’t think I had remembered. Or perhaps it was something I had wished to forget over the many years since it had happened.

But then the sight of the five interlocked Olympic circles, the flag-bearing gymnasts marching into the crowded spectator-filled stadium, the familiar melody of the Olympic hymn sounding through the television screen brought back a long-forgotten memory best not remembered.

In the summer of 1936, Berlin experienced an uncommon heat wave not usually felt in this temperate European zone. Earlier that late spring, as an eight-year old, I had suffered a heat stroke while playing in the school yard. As a consequence I was forced to spend the many days until summer vacation at home, dizzy and nauseous, lying on the bed in my darkened, spinning room, with a wet cloth covering my head.

Like everyone else in the city I hoped to be well again by the time August came around.

Then the much-awaited Olympic Games were to start in Berlin. The capital city was looking forward to become the site of a world event.

I had the fervent wish to be a part of it. To walk through the avenues flagged so splendidly with the banners of the Olympiad and Germany, its host country. To be in the crowd welcoming the many top sports champions from all over the world. To see them perform, perhaps. To witness their receiving the medals for which they had all struggled so hard.

How I would manage to achieve my dream I did not yet know. Nothing in the real Germany of the day favored the daydreams of a small Jewish child.

And yet…hadn’t I heard of things loosening up in the anti-Jewish world around me? Even from the hushed sound of voices in my parents’ living room rumors reached me that most of the fashionable restaurants in town were starting to remove the signs in their front windows, signs that spelled out Jews Not Welcome. “Even Dobrin and Kempinsky are among them,” I heard them mention two of Berlin’s top cafes. Many friends of my parents looked for every possible sign that the icy spirit of Hitler’s Germany was thawing before the eyes of the world.

Not many days later the sob-filled telephone call of my father’s secretary informed us that he had been arrested right within his office and that we had better not expect him home that evening because she assumed that he was taken right to prison. She had no idea what the charges were.

It took my mother several days of frantic investigating to discover that the charges were “bicycle theft” and were brought by an unknown party.

This type of “denunciation” had become a standard procedure in our day. Anyone with a grudge was using it to get “even” for an unknown slight. Especially if it was against a Jew.

However, it seemed particularly ridiculous in the case of my father. Even I knew that he hardly needed to stoop to such a crime. While we still lived in Hannover, prior to moving to Berlin, he had been a successful businessman driven by a chauffeur; my mother, a fashionable, artistic lady whose household had included a cook, cleaning maid, and a laundress. Why then, bother with such a lowly accusation?

A clue emerged a few days later when my mother received a letter from the police. She opened it with shaking hands, only to drop it with an outcry of horror.

“You are hereby informed to report immediately to the Olympiastadion in Grunewald where you are required to help in the construction of the “Reichssportfeld” by doing Feld-Arbeit clearing the grounds for the upcoming Olympic Games.

“This action is required in reparation for the charges incurred by your husband’s prison sentence and subsequent costs borne by the German government.

“Heil Hitler!”

I, of course, had not the slightest idea what all this meant. All I knew was that at last we, my mother and I, would be traveling to the site of my dreams, the Olympic Stadium in the Grunewald. And I was overjoyed!

Every morning of that summer of 1936 my mother and I boarded the U-Bahn (subway) at our stop in Charlottenburg and rode to the end of the line in the Grunewald Forest. Since no one was at home in our family, my mother was forced to take me along every day of her work. Each day she carried a sandwich for me and a bottle of water, plus a sunhat and appropriate clothing for me to wear during the heat spell. After all, I had already experienced one sunstroke.

This area was to be the future home of Berlin’s 1936 Summer Olympics. It had been designated long before, in 1912, by the International Olympic Committee.

The First World War had prevented any games from taking place. In 1933 when the Nazis came to power, the party decided to make the most of the tremendous propaganda occasion by using the Olympic Games as a showplace for the upcoming progressive world of the Third Reich.

The plan was the construction of the Reichssportfeld, a huge arena that was expected to take two years to build.

One of the sites included in the field was the Waldbuehne, an amphitheater with the capacity to seat 25,000 people.

It was this location which would require the labor of my mother and the many other women who were forced to convert the area into a showplace.

I had no idea of any of this when we arrived for work the first day.

With other women who had shared the train ride we climbed up the subway steps. A huge rock-strewn field of weeds awaited us at our destination.

I held my mother’s hand with one hand and carried my sandwich bag and a book with the other. We were met at the top by brown-clad SA men who registered us and turned us over to matrons who led us to a nearby cabin. There the women changed their dresses into more appropriate attire for the work ahead. Before each person left the cabin she was handed a rake and a hoe.

I do not remember any other children present. My mother settled me into an available chair, said that she would check on me whenever she could, and told me to be good.

And then she stepped outside into the burning sunlight and was assigned a stretch of the large field.

I could see her from my chair inside, although she was out of reach of my voice. In the stuffy heat of the cabin I saw my pretty mother chipping away at rocks or bending down to pull out the weeds she had loosened. It was an unreal, nightmarish view I wish I did not have to witness. It may well be the reason I have tried to forget this episode for a major part of my life.

So began each long, hot day, boring and tiring and far from my dreams of the Olympic experience. It was not until the sun began to set that the hoped-for hour of going home arrived.

August 1 arrived, and with it the opening of the 1936 Olympiade.

It was a time before television brought events into every home. I was not able to view the grand episodes I had hoped to see.

Eventually I saw pictures of the rock-strewn weed-filled field, which was now a lush green carpet terminated by a beautiful amphitheater named the “Dietrich Eckhard Buehne.” Another area of the terrain housed the special box of honor where Adolf Hitler greeted his guests. Everything was grand and splendid and politically motivated. The “Fuehrer” was shown bursting with pride, just as another evil dictator named Vladimir Putin would posture unsmilingly in a similar situation in another country many years later.

The sound of the Olympic Hymn in 2014 brought it all back. How little things have changed!

Born in Germany, Ellen Stern came to the United States as a young girl and grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. She’s the author of numerous books for young adult readers, including biographies of Louis D. Brandeis, Nelson Glueck, and Elie Wiesel. Her most recent publication is The French Physician’s Boy, a novel about Philadelphia’s 1793 Yellow Fever epidemic.

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March 24, 2014 · 10:07 am

An Appreciative Smile

by Sheldon P Hersh (Lawrence, NY)

He stopped rather suddenly at the door pausing to take in the room’s layout and carefully eyeing its contents. Visibly on edge, he began to fidget nervously as though preparing himself for some  unforeseen danger that could possibly be lurking nearby. After all, he had managed to survive the war when so many had not. His short stature belied an inner strength and tenacity that had helped keep him alive during the most difficult of times. He had seen and experienced things that few could ever imagine and survival meant being constantly on guard–taking nothing, absolutely nothing, for granted. Although those horrific days have long since passed, he continued to feel ill at ease whenever finding himself in new and unfamiliar surroundings. Such indeed was the case today during this initial visit to the ear doctor’s office. Noting that all seemed to be quiet and in proper order, he took a deep breath, cautiously moved inward, and, as instructed, sat himself down on the waiting chair.

“Doctor, something tells me that you are a religious person. Are you orthodox by any chance?” he inquired just as I made my way into the room.

Hardly a question I would have expected from a first-time patient. It was the tone of his voice, however, laced with an equal mix of criticism and bewilderment, that caught me off guard. Sitting here before me, I thought, is a patient unlike any I had encountered before. Very few individuals would take the liberty to speak in this manner, especially before formal introductions were made and a doctor-patient relationship established. I could not think of any other patient or acquaintance, for that matter, with the temerity to ask such a question before meeting someone for the very first time. Yes, he certainly was different and only later on would I learn how remarkably different.

“Well, tell me, doctor, am I right? Are you religious?”

Not knowing how to respond to his persistent questioning, I quickly organized my thoughts and replied, “What is it exactly that makes you say that?”

Grinning proudly, he answered, “Well, every room in this office has a mezuzah, and not a one is covered with any paint. That tells me that the mezuzahs are routinely removed and probably checked every so often. Only religious people would bother doing such a thing. Isn’t that so doctor? Isn’t that what religious people would normally do?”

I nodded in silence, uncertain as to where this was all heading.

“What brings you here today? What seems to be the problem?”

“Oh nothing too bad,” he began.  “Just some ringing in my ears and I think my hearing may not be as sharp as it used to be.”

His distinctive accent, animated expressions and mannerisms were remarkably similar to what I had been exposed to while growing up. “I see you come from central Poland,” I remarked while removing a hefty amount of wax from his right ear.

But before I had a chance to attend to his left ear, he  turned abruptly in my direction. His face now sported a wide quizzical smile accentuated by the glitter of a solitary gold tooth.

“You are absolutely correct,” he exclaimed somewhat begrudgingly.  “But how could you possibly know? What tells you that I was raised in central Poland?”

It felt as though we were playing a long and difficult game of tennis and I had finally succeeded in gaining the advantage.

“My parents were also from central Poland, and they spoke with the same accent and often used the same expressions as you.”

In short order, we compared notes, discussed wartime experiences, and soon discovered that both he and my father were prisoners in the Flossenburg concentration camp. They were both liberated by American forces while on the same death march. For the first time since entering the office, he was at a loss for words. Just as the word ‘Mister’ left my lips, and before I could even mention his family name, I was cut short and reprimanded.

“By the way, doctor, from here on in, I want you to call me David. We have a lot in common, you and I. You must call me David.”

I had completely lost track of time. The door to the examination room suddenly opened and my receptionist entered advising me that a number of patients were still waiting to be seen and were beginning to complain about the long wait.

“Mr. …, I mean David, we have to end at this point. Forgive me but there are others waiting. Perhaps we can continue our conversation at a later time?”

He rose, took my hand, and declared, “I will be back doctor. I promise you I will be back.”  David was to  keep his promise in more ways than one can imagine.

There were times when David made appointments much like any other patient, but on other occasions he would arrive unannounced, usually when I was just about ready to leave for home.  During these latter visits, there would be a firm knock on the door and there stood David stating that he came to talk.

“We must talk. So few people want to listen. Nobody wants to hear about our lives back in Poland. No one wants to know what happened to us during the war. But I sense you have an interest in hearing about all that we Jews were forced to endure during that dark bleak period in our history.”

Well, David pushed the right button, and we spent many hours discussing his personal experiences during the Holocaust, Jewish life in Poland, and his views on religion.

He spoke emotionally of his family back in Poland, all of whom were strictly observant, God-fearing Jews. “How could it be that they all perished and I alone survived?” he would occasionally whisper when lost in thought. Although he had long since strayed from organized religion, David loved to describe Jewish customs and tradition in great detail. He spoke tenderly of a way of life that suddenly was no more, a life that had gone up in smoke along with the victims.

After an hour or so of conversation, he would check his wristwatch, finish his sentence, and then declare, “I’m sure you have had a long day and want to get home to your family so we will end here.”

In spite of the late hour, I knew only too well that he wanted to stay longer, but in spite of my best efforts I could no longer conceal my impatience. On many an occasion, he would call me either at the office or at home asking if I had a minute or two to spare. There was something that he wanted to share–a story, a thought, or perhaps a recollection. Once he began, he found it difficult to stop. He had a mission to complete, and complete it he would.

During one particular office visit, David entered excitedly and informed me that in six weeks he would be returning to Germany. “I have been working with some German officials about commemorating the death march we spoke about earlier. A number of survivors along with family members will be going back to revisit the route by marching from the camp to where we were finally liberated. Doctor, I think it would be worthwhile if you were to come along and see firsthand where your father spent the last months of the war. Come with us to Germany. There are a number of survivors who are returning with their wives and children and wish to retrace the death march perhaps for the last time. You will be able to speak to people who may remember your father. And, by the way, don’t worry. There will be plenty of kosher food. As a matter of fact the inn where we will all be staying is to be entirely kosher. Many of us are no longer religious but keeping kosher would be the proper thing to do while in Germany.” How could I possibly say no?

It is difficult to describe the survivors’ reactions as they retraced their steps as free men. Some would stop at particular locations revealing all that had transpired at one site or another. Talk of death and suffering permeated every discussion. There were some, however, who remained silent–their teary eyes making it clear to all that certain recollections were to be kept within.

We paid homage to those who died while on the march stopping at a number of makeshift burial sites where nameless corpses were laid to rest soon after liberation. The haunting words of the Kaddish could be heard at each stop. This special prayer for the dead was recited in unison by the entire group. It mattered little whether one had forsaken religion or still happened to observe. The words of the Kaddish touched everyone’s heart and literally singed our souls. Thanks to David, I had the opportunity to visit the camp where my father had been brutalized and tormented. At the end of the march, I stood at the place where he had likely been liberated, rubbing his eyes in disbelief as American servicemen fast approached. And for that I shall forever be indebted to David.

David was always on a mission of some sort traveling back and forth to Poland and Germany, either seeking to right a wrong or fighting to keep the few remaining vestiges of Jewish life from disappearing.  He would arrive at the office seeking medical advice or simply wanting to sit down and talk for a while. David’s visits were becoming somewhat less frequent and I assumed he was involved in some new Holocaust related venture. And then sadly, two days before Christmas, I received a phone call from a friend of David’s family informing me of his death. Apart from the day, time and place, no other details were given. I rearranged my schedule and set out for Manhattan in the early morning hours on Christmas eve.

I approached the rabbi who had officiated at the service and asked who would be saying the Kaddish for David during the next twelve months.

“I’m not certain,” declared the Rabbi. “I did not know him very well. There are no sons and I know of no one in the family who is likely to do so.”

I remembered the very first time I met David and how curious he had been about my religious observance. What is there to think about, I thought. Before the Rabbi could offer a solution, I immediately volunteered to say the Kaddish. Given the choice, David would have preferred that  the Kaddish be recited by someone with a familiar face and an appreciation of all that he had endured during the Holocaust.  And so I say the Kaddish every day.

Just as I begin to recite the prayer, I sense David’s presence and can make out the defining features of his face. His customary smirk has now been replaced by a soft appreciative smile.  David seems finally at peace.

Sheldon P. Hersh, an Ear, Nose and Throat Physician with a practice in the New York metropolitan area, is the author of Our Frozen Tears(http://tinyurl.com/kuzlscb), as well as the co-author of The Bugs Are Burning, a book on the Holocaust.

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February 17, 2014 · 9:39 am

Sell Me The Child

by Sheldon P. Hersh (Lawrence, NY) 

I first heard the story many years ago and at the time, quite frankly, never gave it much thought. But when I heard the story a second time, I was shocked and bewildered. How would things have worked out had my parents relented and given their blessings to an arrangement that few could ever fathom? How could any sane individual make such a proposal and expect a positive reply? But judge for yourselves. Listen to my father’s story as he details an event that occurred right before the birth of my younger brother.   

On the days immediately following liberation, if a survivor had gained enough strength to stand before a mirror, he or she would probably have had a difficult time recognizing the image appearing on the glass surface. The reflection would likely be that of a  stranger dressed in rags with shaven head, emaciated body and deeply  sunken  listless eyes. That is how we looked as we emerged from years of darkness and entered a world ablaze with freedom and light. The years of suffering and abuse had taken its toll leaving us both physically and emotionally disabled. How could we ever regain all that we had lost and how do we go about rebuilding our shattered lives? Entire families were murdered, our homes and  possessions were long gone and we had virtually nothing but the clothes on our backs. We were the broken remnants of a forsaken people who had been sadistically tortured and systematically exterminated while much of the world stood idly by without raising a whimper in protest.

Who but a survivor could best appreciate  another survivor’s needs, fears and aspirations?  We quite naturally gravitated to one another. Friends became more than friends and often assumed the role of siblings and parents providing the comfort and support that could only come from a close family member. Each survivor knew that only another survivor was able to appreciate the  pain and sorrow that would  remain deeply implanted within each of us. After liberation, we were all displaced orphans who placed our trust in one another, relied on each other and yes, married one another.

I was liberated by US military forces while on a death march that originated in the Flossenburg concentration camp, the site of my last confinement. My struggle first began in the Lodz ghetto, continued in Auschwitz and finally ended in Flossenburg, a slave labor camp located in Germany. How we managed to survive when so many had not is a question that I am often asked but unable to answer.  After considerable thought, I came to the realization that perhaps it is better for all concerned that this question remains unanswered. Each response, each and every attempt  at providing an answer tends to appear so utterly superficial and woefully inadequate.

I was now free but had no idea how to go about restarting my life. My wife and three children were gone; I had no home, no source of income and no  documentation. Like most other survivors, I decided that my first priority was to return home in hope of locating any family member or acquaintance that may have survived the war.  Most would soon learn that few, if any, had survived.  And to make matters even worse, returning Jews were not welcomed back to their hometowns and were often threatened, beaten and, in some cases, murdered without the slightest bit of hesitation by the local citizenry.

Many survivors were quick to marry and start families. Survivors often married out of necessity and on many an occasion, for reasons that would often be frowned upon  today. We were pragmatic rather than romantic and realism far outweighed love and the idealistic and fanciful images of securing the ideal and perfect mate. I married a former neighbor who had lived with her family just a floor above my apartment in a working class neighborhood in Lodz, Poland. We were the sole survivors of  our respective families and our marriage proved timely and sensible for both of us.  We knew each other and trusted one another and that was more than enough. We were married in Poland but with anti-Semitism still an overriding concern, we decided to seek safety in Germany of all places. Two healthy children were born in a displaced persons camp a short while before we set out for the United States.

Survivors formed close bonds with one another. How could an outsider ever appreciate  what we had gone through? They could never possibly understand and there were times when outsiders, including those amongst our own people, became adversaries rather than advocates. Whenever Holocaust experiences were discussed, there were a good number of individuals who voiced outright disbelief and often accused us of exaggerating facts or spreading falsehoods. Some even advised that we not talk of our experiences so as not to upset friends and acquaintances.

I was once asked how I felt about bringing children into a world that tolerated the murder of so many innocent Jewish children. My response was simple and to the point. I had never come across any survivor who had the slightest reservation about having children. In fact, not having a child, left many emotionally devastated and deprived of joy and fulfillment. Now that you have the necessary background, permit me to share a story with you.

My family had befriended a couple who, like us, had married after the war. He was considerably older than she but what did it matter? They were both vulnerable and isolated and, like many survivors, decided to wed. Try as they may, they were unable to have children.  As each year passed, both grew increasingly despondent and were desperate for a child whatever the cost. They would often come to visit and showered my children with love and affection. We comforted the couple as best we could but their desperation worsened with each visit.

Approximately four years after we settled in America, my wife was pregnant with our third child.  We were once again paid a visit by our childless friends who now learned of the pregnancy while we were all sitting at the kitchen table talking about life back in Europe. I could sense that something was not right as they both fidgeted with their tea cups and eyed one another in a way that I found troubling.

Our friend placed his cup on the table and suddenly gave us a look unlike anything we had observed  throughout the many years of our friendship. With eyes awash in tears, the tormented fellow began speaking somewhat haltingly but with a tone that could only signify deep pain and desperation. “You already have two children and could likely have more if you so wished….sell me this unborn baby. I’ll pay you whatever you want but we need a child. Without a child we have nothing, nothing at all.” He continued in this vein without letup for a minute or two hoping to convince us to do the unthinkable, to consider the impossible. He promised the world if we would only agree.

I had to put an immediate stop to this madness and as my neck and chest began to tighten, I started out by telling them that I understood their grief and felt their sorrow. “This is nothing but foolish talk, the talk of sheer desperation. I know what you feel, believe me I know,” I whispered. “But we could never do such a thing. I wish there was some other way to help you but we cannot do such a thing.” Not another word was said. As I looked at this sad and desperate couple, I saw tears streaming down their ashen faces. My dear friend knew that I had already lost three children and would never agree to his request. But what was there to lose? He had to ask.

We remained close and whenever the couple  came to visit, they paid particular attention to my younger son, the baby they so desperately wanted for their own. I also noted a slight change in behavior whenever they rose from the couch as they prepared to leave for home. While adjusting their coats, they would take a longer than usual look back at the giggling toddler before slowly approaching the front door.

We were like brothers, perhaps even closer than brothers. Our experiences bound us together in a manner that defies description and can never be adequately put into words. My wife and I  would have gladly done  anything for this sad couple but this was one request we could simply not honor. Two or three years were to pass before they finally succeeded in adopting a baby girl.

Sheldon P. Hersh, an Ear, Nose and Throat Physician with a practice in the New York metropolitan area, is the author of Our Frozen Tears (http://tinyurl.com/kuzlscb), as well as the co-author of The Bugs Are Burning, a book on the Holocaust. “Sell Me The Child” is excerpted from Our Frozen Tears with the kind permission of the author. 

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December 2, 2013 · 9:21 am

Escapee

 by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

I could have been one of them,
made to stand in an open trench,
hands in the air, too young
to be embarrassed by my nakedness.
I could have been one of them,
made to walk in line
on my way to the showers,
with my mother whispering tensely to me.
I could have been one of them,
made to augment  the round number
of 6 million who were never heard of again.
Yet because of luck and/or God,
I made my way to American shores,
unaware of the horrors I had left behind.
That was my gift outright.
Second-hand survivors’ guilt
flicks at me now like fires from the ovens,
illuminating the ancient question of whether
I am worthy of such largess.

I could have been one of them.

The author of twelve books for young adults, Mel Glenn has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years.  Lately, he’s been writing poetry, and you can find his most recent poems in the YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy,  edited by M. Jerry Weiss.

If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/

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October 14, 2013 · 8:45 am

Numbers On My Arm

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

In Israel,
grandchildren wear their grandparents’
concentration camp numbers on their arms,
at once a strike against Talmudic law,
and a sign to future generations to never forget.
The numbers sit,
not on my arm,
but on my soul.
Who am I to declare such legacy?
What chutzpah I must have
to stand in line with those
who were marched to the ovens.
I am haunted by my escape.
What or whom
has given me license to live?
And why?
Why am I so blessed?
Or cursed?
You say I am not qualified to grieve?
How could I possibly know?
I know, I know.

The author of twelve books for young adults, Mel Glenn has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years.  Lately, he’s been writing poetry, and you can find his most recent poems in a new YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy,  edited by M. Jerry Weiss.

If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/

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