Blame it on Rio

I am in a scene from Goodfella’s.

It is 2am and I am in my car outside a warehouse in Queens. The weather has cooperated with the movie like setting with a soft fog and gentle mist. There is the smell of jet fuel in the air as the warehouse is owned by American Airlines. The parking area was empty and dark, the only light coming from a single bulb above the entrance of the building and reminds me of the light play in “Nighthawks” by Hopper. The inside of the car is completely dark as the engine is off. There is little conversation and frequent looking at our watches, as we await the designated hour to make our big move. Every tick of the clock seems to be as loud as a hand clap. Time seems to hang in the air like the mist that surrounds us..

This is a moment that had been in planning for months. Books had been studied in depth. Research had been thoroughly conducted. Endless dialogue had been engaged to make sure that our plans would be executed well and to our liking. I knew, beyond any reasonable doubt, that we had done all we could do to prepare us for this moment. We were ready for all contingencies. We were ready as anyone could be. But, still, doubt creeped in like a ninja ready to assassinate any confidence I had.

I was reminded of the old saw for war planners. “The battle plan disappears with the first shot.” What if all goes wrong. What are the things we have not thought about…? The doubts are an endless loop and I know that only action can replace my fear. Doing is almost always better than doing nothing.

2AM. The appointed hour. I turned to my partner and said “Are you ready.” She nodded yes and simultaneously we emerge from the car, closing the doors gently, and make our way to the Hopper doorway.  Anticipation causes each step I take to multiply the butterflies in my stomach logarithmically. I reach for the door and pull hard. It is locked. For a moment of panic, I fear that the plan has gone terribly awry.  I search the outside of the door and see a squawk box with a button on it. I press.  A buzzer sounds, an electronic lock clicks, and we open the door.  Just like that we were inside. Phase 1 complete

After so much time in the dark we are temporally blinded by the fluorescents in the warehouse. Disoriented, I look around. It does not look like a warehouse to me. The ceilings are low. No long rows of shelving packed with merchandise. Just a long booth with a plexiglass window covered with sheets of papers of assorted color attached with scotch tape that is yellow from age. I am a little intimidated by the plexiglass cage, why do they need a bullet proof enclosure,  but bravely I walk over to it and push a piece of paper through a slot cut into the plexiglass that is similar to those you see in “token” booths on the subway. A man appears from the recesses of the booth startling me. He had been obscured by the paper covering the glass.  Grabbing the sheets of paper, I have place in the slot he reads as if it were the most important document presented to anyone since Moses came down from the mountain.

He disappears back into his booth. I can see nothing but there is the sound of paper being moved, clipboards being removed from hooks and then replaced, and the scuffling of feet on what I imagine is concrete flooring. Eventually he makes it back to the opening, I now see he looks like Steve Schirripa, from the Sopranos, and speaks into a microphone and says in a Brooklyn accent that is so thick that it seems fake “ “License and one other form of id.” My hands are not steady, so I struggle a little pulling my license and a credit card from my wallet and place them in the slot hoping against hope he does not see how unnerved I am. He looks at the picture on the ID and then at me several times before he is reassured that I am who I say I am. He copies down some information onto a sheet attached to a clip board, loudly stamps a piece of paper and hands it, and my id’s, back to me.  Pulling a larger microphone down from the roof of his booth he booms out in Brooklynese “Hey Lou. The people are here for da  dawg. Bring dem da dawg!”

He smiled a crooked, sweet smile of the type normally reserved for small children and puppies and points to a door adjacent from his plexiglass fiefdom and says. “Go dehr.” We go.

The door leads to the warehouse proper. It is the length of a football field and half as wide, 50 ft ceilings with 5 rows of shelving stacked with merchandise spaced far enough apart so a car could drive down the aisles. But there was no one there. Just silence. My companion and I just look at each other and shrug our shoulders wondering whether or not Brooklyn has directed us here as some sort of a practical joke on people from Manhattan.   I resist the impulse to go back and ask him whether we were in the right place. Instead I pace, like the trope of an expectant father, back in front of the door thinking about the events that had brought me to this place.

The morning of Sept 11, 2001 had blossomed a perfect day. A clear blue sky, mild temperatures. The type of day that made you wish you were Donald O’Connor singing with Debbie Reynolds “Good Morning.” My exuberance for the new day had propelled me to the office a little earlier than my normal 7am and I was making great progress on getting the work of the day behind me when I was shocked by the arrival of my always late assistant, Michelle, arriving at 8:30 am with coffee in hand to bribe the boss. I like bribes so I accepted and we spent a few minutes chit chatting about nothing more serious than the standings in MLB.

A few minutes into our conversation we heard an airplane going over our building clearly very low and going quite fast. This was highly unusual considering our location in midtown and I commented on it to Michelle “That pilot is going to get fined. You aren’t allowed to fly so low and fast over the city.” What I didn’t know then that plane was about to change the world by being the first plane to plunge into the World Trade Center.

I found that out a few minutes later when someone ran into my office to tell us that the World Trade Center was on fire. We rushed to the floor to ceiling windows on the south side of our  27^th floor offices. There we had an unobstructed view of the black smoke gushing from the ruptured tower. It is there that we learned that this was an act of terrorism. It was from there we saw, with our own eyes, the 2^nd airplane hit, a flash of orange and then black smoke that we originally thought was a secondary explosion. It was there we saw with unbelieving eyes the first tower crumble and then the second.

I won’t bore you with the details of the abandonment of our offices or my zombie like march home to the Upper West Side.  I won’t tell you how my apartment became a lifeboat for some I knew, and some I didn’t, who couldn’t make it home. I don’t need to tell you how many times I saw on CNN the towers being hit and the towers collapsing.

When I fell asleep that night no one knew how many had died. I did not know that my boyhood friend Todd Ranke had died when the second plane wiped out his offices. What I did know that day had indelibly changed my perception of the world. Life is fragile. That you never know when you get up in the morning whether you are going to make it out alive. I fell asleep knowing that there were things in my life that I had not done that I needed to do. That I had left unsaid feelings that needed to be said. That I had postponed what could be postponed no longer.

The next day I did not work. The city, the country, the world was in a fugue state knowing what happened but unable to process all the consequences. I decided, in a sense of meaningless defiance, that I wasn’t going to let those bastards change my life and went for a training run for the Chicago Marathon, which I had foolishly committed to running and was less than a month away. My route took me from my apartment at 76^th and Riverside through Riverside Park to the Hudson River Greenway. The West Side Highway directly adjacent to the Greenway was free of traffic, until I got to the Chelsea Piers where a que of ambulances began and continued the nearly three miles to ground zero. When I got within a half mile of the pile the path was blocked but the smoke rising from the collapsed building hung in the blue sky of the new day, testimony to the largest ever funeral pyre of US citizens.

As I made my way back home I once again wondered how the terrorist attacks of the day before were going to affect me. What changes did I need to make in my life? If there is no tomorrow what do I need to do today? My thoughts were scrambled and fleeting. So many things in my life were not the way that I wanted them to be. So many things had been put off as I try to steer my life to a path I thought I wanted that my inner dialogue became more white noise than cogent thoughts.

My run ended at the stairs that lead from the Greenway’s bike path to 72^nd St. Sometimes,  when I felt physically strong,  I would run up these steps but that day I had nothing left in the tank so I plodded up the stairs and crossed under the West Side Highway. There I paused, as I often did,  to look at the dogs playing in the dog park. 5 years earlier I had moved back to New York and had been forced through unfortunate circumstance to leave my German Shepherd Dog, Suki, in Massachusetts. As a consequence I had become one of those New Yorkers who greeted every dog who looked at him. Watching the dogs at joyful play in the dog park was one way that I could get what I called my vitamin K9. My girlfriend at the time had been more succinct, she had said “You need a dog.”

Suddenly, out of the many scrambled fleeting thoughts came one. I need a dog. I had postponed it long enough. For the next few months, I searched to find the perfect type of dog for me. While many had recommended a shelter dog, I decided not to go that route even though very admirable, but because I wanted a clearer understanding into what I was getting myself into. Books were read. Videos watched. Friends were consulted. And still I could not figure out what breed of puppy I wanted. I became obsessed with the subject and I am sure that I became quite a bore on the subject to friends and family alike.

Then one afternoon my sister called “I have found the perfect dog for you. I just met one on the elevator. Soooo cute. He is a golden doodle. So friendly. And his owner says he is super smart and get this. They don’t shed. Look them up. You’ll see.”

I looked them up. I found out that Labradoodles were originally bred in Australia because two friends were lamenting the fact that their recently blinded friend could not get a seeing eye dog as he was allergic. They applied to the Australian government for a grant to breed a dog that was non allergenic and smart and sweet enough to be a seeing eye dog. After years of research, and likely a few beers, they came up with the Labradoodle, a true breeding cross between a Labrador and a poodle. The breed clicked everyone of my boxes. I was sold.

The challenge was finding someone to sell me a dog. I checked with every breeder in the United States and apparently, I was not the first person to hear about the breed because not only didn’t they have any puppies, but their waiting lists were filled up for years. In desperation, I contacted one of the original Australian breeders and asked if they had any recommendations on where I could find a puppy. Her response surprised me. “How about one from us? We ship worldwide.” After a little research into how they shipped their dogs…better than first class…I gave them a deposit for a dog and for months heard nothing from them. I would love to say I was not obsessed with puppies during this time. That my focus remained on things that were in front of me such as my job, family, friends and relationships. However, that would be less than the truth. I was obsessed with learning about dog training and feeding. I watched Cesar Milan until I could predict his next sentences. I fantasized about dog names including Shamsky  (Jewish Player on the ’69 Mets,) Fenway (after my favorite ball park) and even Summit (after my home and a cheer in high school S-U-M-M-I_T, Summits the best.) But nothing stuck.

On the evening of July 4, 2002, I received an email as I step off an airplane in Seattle. It was from my breeder and included a picture of what was probably the cutest puppy who had ever been born. I wrote her back immediately thanking her for the photo and note but also enquiring if my puppy had been born on July 4 as Australia was 12 hours ahead. Her response came back quickly, yes, and I realized the puppy’s name had been decided for me. A “doodle” born on the 4^th of July needed to be named Yankee. Even if the dogs owner is a Red Sox fan.

That summer was one of anticipation. Not only was the Carly Simon song on an endless loop in my head but everyday seem to drag. Yankees arrival date seemed not to grow closer. I filled the time with re reading such classics as “The Art of Raising A Puppy” and “How To Be Your Dogs Best Friend” by the Monks of New Skeet and about a half dozen other books all relating to how I could be a better human to Yankee. I watched endless shows on dogs on the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet.

One of the books recommended I interview vets before puppy came home. As a consequence, I made an appointment with a highly touted vet. It did not go well. Not only was she confused and insulted as to why she was being interviewed about the position of being my dog’s vets but when I told her of his breed (Labradoodles were not well known at the time) she became indignant. Why was I bringing a “mutt” all the way over from Australia when there plenty of dogs for adoption in shelters here in the USA. I tried to explain to her that this was a “new” breed that reproduced true and had been developed by the Australian Government, but she kept on referring to Yankee as a mutt. Needless to say, she was not hired on but taught me about the “petinista” culture in City. A name I coined for those people who had such narrow views of pet ownership that they could tolerate no others except their own. For example, the Mercedes Vet. A woman vet who did not have an office but traveled to people’s home in her chauffeur driven Mercedes to treat those animals trusted to her golden care. And their was the heiress who came to your home to wash your dog while wearing her diamonds and rolex.

By the end of the summer, I had managed to find a dog concierge (yes, they exist) who would arrange everything from dog walking and sitting to any other needs your puppy could want. And a doggy day care that would come a pickup your hound from you in the morning and deliver him home to you in the evening. I was ready.

So, why was I so nervous standing here on the loading dock of a warehouse in the middle of the night at JFK? Everything was ready for his arrival. Perhaps some of it was the same sort of anticipation that new parents have after waiting 9 months to meet their child. I had only waited 6 months but some of the fears were exactly the same. Will the puppy know me (I had sent a worn t-shirt to Australia 6 weeks ago) so that he would have scent memory of me?) Will I love the puppy…what if he is a disappointment? What if the puppy is sick or ailing from the trip?

Just as my litany of doubts was reaching fever pitch, I hear the sound of a forklift’s tires screeching on the polished concrete floors of the warehouse. I turn in the direction of the sound as I do it appears, forks laden with a palette about 6 feet above the ground, and on the palette a dog shipping crate with a little black nose sticking out from it. I was smitten.

The forklift came to rest in front of us and lowered its cargo to the ground. The black nose was joined by a raspberry pink tongue and barks that sounded a little Australian (no, really) and a bit squeaky. The case was vibrating from what I can only imagine was wagging. Be still my beating heart. But before I could even look through the grill of the crate, the driver of the lift hands me a clipboard and says, “Sign this.” I don’t even look at what I am signing and manage to scribble something resembling my signature. Paperwork complete, the driver, who resembles Joe Pantalone and speaks with a very distinct Queens accent says “Cute little motherfucker” before driving away.

We decide against opening the crate inside the warehouse as I want our first meeting to be in private. Call me sentimental and old fashioned. At the car, I place his crate on the ground, and unhook the latch that holds the grilled front closed, and out bursts this beautiful apricot colored fluff ball who first runs around in a circle a couple of times before launching himself into my arms his whole body wagging. It is a singular moment of bonding that is sealed with many licks from him and girlish giggles from me.

The ride back to Manhattan is spent with more time spent looking at this precious new creature in my life than on the road. Thank god it is the early hours of the morning with little traffic or we might not have made it home.

The walk from the car park to our apartment is dotted with two firsts. One of which you could bronze if you really wanted to and another that just disappears in the gutter. But that does not make me less proud. Yankee has made his mark on New York.

We are exhausted. It has been a long day and a very emotional night. We decide that as much as we would like to play all night with the puppy that sleep is our first order of business. In preparation for slumber, we place Yankee in his new crate along with a well-worn t-shirt of mine and an old-fashioned water bottle for comforting warmth. The puppy easily goes into his crate but the minute I slip under the sheets, and when he could no longer see me, he begins to whine. I try to be patient, (what is the dog equivalent of Ferberization) but he does not stop, and my heart is to frail to resist him. Eventually, I lay down on the floor next to the crate and place my fingers through its wire sides so Yankee can smell them. He quiets and eventually both of us fall asleep.

The next morning, after an early walk, I am in the  bathroom to take a well needed shower. Yankee follows me in and had the tub rim been lower he would have followed me into the spray. I decide to serenade him.

You are the puppy that I’ve always dreamed of
I knew it from the start
I saw your face and that’s the last I’ve seen of my heart

It’s not so much the things you bark to me
It’s not the things you do
It’s how I feel each time you’re close to me
That keeps me close to you

Yankee does not bark his approval, but I can tell from the way he licks my leg when I get out of the shower how much he appreciated my song stylings.

……….

“My love.”

“Yes.”

“You know that you have told me this story a thousand times.”

“Sure.”

“And you know that Yankee is the first dog I ever loved, and he is forever special in my heart.”

“Okay.”

“So why are you telling me this story again. It is late don’t you think we should go to sleep?”

“Yes, we should go to sleep but there was a reason I was telling you the story.”

“Which is”

“Well, part of Yankee’s story is that the idea of him was born out of a time when we realized that there are no guarantees in this world. That we are never promised tomorrow. Only today. That it is up to us to seize every bit of happiness and joy out of every moment of every day.”

“And?”

“Look how well Yankee turned out….and right now with all the talk of death and horror that the Covid 19 virus has produced and with Richard’s death….”

“And?”

“You are not going to make it easy on me are you. I thought…I thought…it might be a good time for us to get another puppy. It would be our affirmation of life.”

“You know we have talked about this before. How difficult it would be to get another dog with the amount we travel and often live in other places.”

“I know but just think of the puppy smell. And the sweet licks and cuddles.”

“My love, you know how hard it would be for us to have a puppy right now.”

“But I have a thought on that…. perhaps we could get a miniature labradoodle. One who could ride on the airplane with me when we are in Rio.”

“My love…”

“We could get a black puppy with a little white star on his chest.”

“Paul”

“And since he had the right coloring, we could name him after your favorite football team “Botafogo”, or Bota for short. How cute would that be? “

“My darlingo…don’t you think it is time to fall asleep.”

“Okay, but can we talk about this tomorrow?.”

“Good night my darling. Sleep well.”

The backyard of my parents’ home is back lit by the setting sun. The oaks, elms, and evergreens and even the lawn seem to glow a yellowish orange, as if they are working overtime to catch every bit of light before the world falls into darkness. I am sitting in the sunroom, on the couch, watching the gloaming unfold. My father who has spent the better part of the afternoon having an animated conversation with himself is asleep and I am sorry he is not awake to enjoy the pretty scene unfolding outside these windows.

I think about the word “gloaming” and wonder about its origins. It is so close to glowing and that is what the backyard is doing right now. I go to the dictionary on my iPhone and look the word up and find that is from middle English and is related to the word glooming as in when the darkness sets in it becomes gloomier. I love word play and so does my father. Family legend has it that he learned English by going to Ronald Coleman double features and reading the English dictionary. A testament to that is that one of his favorite possessions is an old copy of the Oxford English Dictionary that he keeps on display in his office. He and I often have long speculations and discussions about the origins of words. No more so than during the last two years when he was desperate for mental stimulation of any kind. It was a game, albeit very nerdy, that we loved to play together.

I turn to tell him what I had found out only to come to a triple realization. My father was asleep. That even if he wasn’t asleep his current mental state would not allow him to comprehend the origins of words and finally that I would never have these types of conversations again with Pop. It is  the final realization that cracks me like an egg and the pent up emotions of the afternoon spill out of me. It is a silent cry as I don’t want him or anyone else to hear my anguish, but my face is awash with tears, my nose dripping , and my throat feels as if I had swallowed a grapefruit whole.

I cannot tell you how long my private pity party went on but it is interrupted by Didi, one of my father’s home healthcare aides. She tells me in her soft Haitian accent that she needs to prepare my father for the evening…his diaper changed, catheter drained, bed sores dressed and the like. I ask if she needs help and I spend the next twenty minutes helping her move Dad around his bed as she did all the difficult tasks like changing his fouled diaper and dressing his sores. It leaves me too much time to look at what the ravages of this disease has done to my father’s body. He has almost no muscle left, his skin lays limp and sallow, against protruding bones and joints that look far too big for this withered body. He looks for all the world like the images of the inmates at Nazi concentration camps, a fate he barely escaped, not the happy grandfather being cared for by his family at home.

The site of his withered body fills me with anguish; my strong father, my hero, reduced to this? When Didi no longer needs my help, I kiss my father on the forehead and say “I love you Pops” and immediately find my way to the kitchen and pour myself a drink.

———————————————

The surgical waiting room and the waiting room of the Intensive Care Unit is a shared facility at Overlook Hospital. It is made up of two rooms and more closely resembles a break area in an auto plant than hospital waiting room. The first room is made up of heavy tables and chairs that belong as props in “That 70’s Show” as they have grey Formica tops with accent pieces made of wood veneer. They are scattered about a room made bright by a skylight and accented by a sideboard that has Formica to match the tables and chairs and there is a payphone that too is a relic of a time gone by. The other room is a more traditional waiting area. Here the lights are turned low and its grey tone is matched by a carpet that has seen a marathon of pacing. Tables, couches and chairs ring the room and no doubt looked worn and old even when they were new.

The mood here is much the same as it was in the Emergency Room. People would not be here unless someone they cared about was in a desperate circumstance. The difference is that in most cases the initial shock of knowing that a person they love is on the brink has left. By now they know the score. They have some idea of what to expect. For some it means hope and for some it means prayers and secret deals with god to get their loved one through the next few minutes, hours and days.

Mom and I entered this area 6 hours previously full of hope. After all, Dr. Knightly told us that Dad would be back walking in six months and this really nothing more than a little carpentry work to help Pops achieve his goal. I have tried to relieve the anxiety and boredom of waiting by teaching my mother to play scrabble on the computer and when that fails tournaments of solitaire where we try to beat each other’s score. But nothing works. Every tick of the clock seems a little slower than the tick before and adds just a little more anticipatory tension to our moon. This increases logarithmically when we sail by the 4-hour time we have been told that the operation would last.

When the Dr. does finally meet with us, we are strung tighter than a tennis racket at the US Open. He informs us that the operation went as well as could be expected for a man Dad’s age. That it had taken longer than anticipated because they had to stop at several points when his blood pressure fell so low, they were forced to pause until it could be raised. Mechanically, they had stabilized Dad’s cervical spine by placing a series of plates and screws. That everything looks good for Pops to make a full recovery but only time and extensive rehab would be able to determine if, and when, he would walk again.

Dad never walked again.

Long stints at rehab facilities such as the Kessler Institute and Runnels Hospital and Rehabilitation Center followed. Invariably, he would be making good if not great progress in getting his feet back under him when he would develop an illness born of the cure. There were urinary track infections from a catheter. C-Dif, a bacterial infection of the lower intestine, that required a fecal transplant to cure.  Several pneumonias and colds. Each of these illnesses required hospitalizations. Each negated any progress he had made in regaining his strength that would allow him even partial mobility.

Eventually, the decision was made to bring Dad home and set him up in the Master bedroom. It was large enough for us to create a “suite”. There would be a place for sleep, a work area and a bathroom that was large enough to accommodate his wheelchair. Home health care workers, visiting nurses, and me, on weekends, could give Mom a helping hand. Medical care would be provided by us taking Dad to Summit Medical Group which was nearby.

This worked for several months. Then one morning in December Mom found it difficult to rouse Dad. When he is taken to the hospital where it is discovered his kidneys are failing. This is not entirely a surprise. In 2000, he had been diagnosed with non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma which was localized around one of his kidneys. Chemotherapy and radiation had beat the disease down but in the process it had severely damaged one of his kidneys. The healthy kidney has worked overtime ever since and now it was kidneys showing signs of shutting down. His nephrologist, Dr. Gelber, is a kindly, well-spoken, and patient man calmly explained to Pops that he needs dialysis. Without it he will die. Three days a week he will have to go to a dialysis center, be dialyzed and then returned home. Dad questions his diagnosis, the protocols and is generally dismissive of the idea. He says he needs to think it over.

When the Dr. leaves he announces he does not want to do this. It is too much. It would mean an ambulance coming to the house three days a week. Him being carried down 2 flights of stairs in doors and ½ flight outdoors, then transported for 30 minutes to an hour to the dialysis center, 6 hours there,   and then returned home. He did not want to live his life that way. We plead with him to reconsider. We beg him to think not of the inconvenience but of the life it would maintain. That is not his time. This argument goes on for a long time with both side sides being testy. Eventually, we manage to convince Dad to test the protocol for six months and to re-evaluate.

——————————————–

It is a beautiful June morning when we arrive at the Summit Medical Group to see Dr. Gelber for a regularly scheduled check-up. He tells us how well Dad is doing. His blood work looks excellent and the dialysis is working extremely well. This is when Pops stuns us. He tells the Dr. he no longer wishes to continue with the treatment. He claims that he never believed that his kidneys were malfunctioning, and that the dialysis is superfluous. Gelber uses logic and scientific fact to persuade him that he is wrong. I used emotion and indignation as attempt to divert him from the path that will result in death. . Mom appealed to his intelligence. We nearly harmonized we were so in tune with each other.

Dad remained adamant that he did not need dialysis any longer. He, a man who had dedicated his entire life to science, did not make an argument based on data but feeling. It was confusing and upsetting and I was about to launch into a more impassioned expression of my upset when Dr. Gelber interrupted me by asking Pops “Do you understand what will happen to you if you decided not to continue with dialysis? That you will likely go into a coma and we may not be able to revive you. That even if we can revive you we may not be able to get you back on dialysis. And that you will die without dialysis….”

Pops, paused for a second, and then looking Dr. Gelber in the eye replies “yes.”

Gelber then replies with resignation “Okay” and proceeds to tell my parents about what they can now expect. I am only half listening as I am enraged. Furious with my Dad for being so stupidly pig headed that he cannot see that he needs to have the dialysis to live…not listening to reason…not listening to those who love him. I am livid with the Dr. for rolling over so easily. Isn’t he supposed to promote life not allow someone to willfully take his own?”

It is not until a long time later that I understand what happened in that room. Dad was not telling the Dr. that he did not need dialysis anymore. He was letting his physician know that he had enough. The three times a week of being carried up and down three sets of stairs, the hours of boredom as his blood was cleansed, the tortuous trip back and forth to the clinic in ambulance and the exhaustion that followed had robbed him of a life. He was telling the Dr. that he was getting sicker not better. That he was ready to face what is next because what was here was no longer tolerable for him. But he was telling it to the Dr. in a way that would spare hours of us arguing for life, trying to change his mind, and perhaps succeeding. Hours of pain and heartache we would all feel that he thought to spare us from.

Dr. Gelber got it even when Mom and I did not.

Thinking back, my father’s performance that afternoon was the greatest act of courage and compassion I have ever seen. Even as he was leaving us, he was teaching us how to be brave and how to really love the ones you care about.

That weekend, my sister and her family came to our parents’ home. It is a splendiferous late spring day with warm temperatures, light wind with a French blue sky dotted with cotton ball clouds. I have brought some of my father’s favorite foods from Barney Greengrass in New York City: Lox, Sable, Whitefish salad, Pastrami, Chopped Liver, and bagels. My sister has brought cake and cookies. We feast and delight in each other. Cate and Oliver, my sister’s children, charm my dad with pictures they have drawn and with their hugs. After lunch we sit outside on the deck enjoying the day and basking in the glow of Pops who is reveling in every moment of this day.

Later, we are sitting in the television room when Dad becomes confused and irrational. The march towards the inevitable has begun.

——————————————

After I eat dinner with my Mother, and she retires to her bedroom I go and pull up a chair next to Dad’s bed. His mouth open, as if in mid snore, and his breathing is labored. I hold his hand and find myself feeling like the little boy I once was, when holding his hand had protected me from the world. It makes me feel lost and sad but glad I could be here for him and for me.

For Jews, the time between life and death is considered extremely sacred. It marks the conclusion of the person’s journey on earth but also tis the beginning of the soul’s eternal life in heaven. I have been told that at the moment of passing every positive thought, word, or deed that occurred in this person’s life is concentrated into a pristine spiritual light and then this light is revealed to the world and to the heavens where it continues to shine and effect those in heaven and on earth. I want to be here for Dad’s moment. I don’t want him to be alone.

My thoughts are interrupted by Didi. She tells me that she believes it is time for Dad to have a little morphine as it will help with his breathing. She cannot administer the medicine as she is not a nurse so that tasks fall to me. It is not a difficult task. Just placing a few drops of a liquid into Pop’s mouth but my hand is shaking so badly that I am embarrassed by my performance.

After my embarrassment with the morphine I reward myself with several fingers of Woodford Reserve bourbon and take it out to the front steps and sit. After 45 years it is a familiar view. The manicured lawn with two gigantic old oak trees that pepper the ground with acorns in the fall. I see the houses where, as a child my friends lived. I am convinced in the moment that if I squint hard enough and listen carefully I would be able to see and hear echoes of one of the endless games of street baseball or football that were played there.

I walk into the yard and I feel a profound sense of gratitude to Pops for the fortunate life he made for us here. Here we were safe and free to explore. Here we learned to learn. Here we were loved and cherished. I look up in the night sky and see Orion and a few other constellations whose names I can’t recall and say a prayer. I ask god to show mercy on Pops. That he has suffered so much the last couple of years. That he has done so mostly with grace and humor. Please take him tonight so his suffering ends and the endless exploration begins.

When I walk back in the house, I can see that Didi is examining my father. Checking his pulse, his breath sounds. I ask her “How is he doing.”

In her rich Caribbean accent, she replies “He is about the same.”

Not wanting to say the obvious out loud. “Are we okay for a while? Can I catch a few hours of sleep?”

“You’ll be fine.”

I go to the television room which is directly adjacent to the sunroom where my father is ensconced. I collapse on the couch pulling a blue green mohair blanket over me and tucking a pillow under my head. Sleep comes quickly and is dreamless.

Didi wakes me around 1AM. She says “Mr. Paul, I think your father needs more medication.” Barely awake I stumble to the kitchen and getting the morphine out of the refrigerator I measure out a dosage which I administer with greater ease than before.

I ask, “How is he doing?” She tells me that his breathing has become more labored, but she still does not think that anything will be happening tonight. I return to the couch and surprisingly, as I am not an easy sleeper, I fall back into a dark sleep. Later I would begin to believe that this was a father’s gift to his son.

Several hours later, I am awakened by Didi nudging my shoulder. She whispers “ Mr. Paul I am so sorry. Your father is gone.”

The first emotion I feel is shame. I feel like I have let my father down in not being there for his final moment. This morphs into anger with Didi for letting me go to sleep thinking there was time and not waking me when she saw he was in extremis which turns to shame for being angry at Didi for anything as she has done more than her share to ease Dad’s passage.

However, when I walk into the other room, and see my father’s lifeless body all those emotions are replaced by overwhelming grief, sorrow and self-pity. I stand over him overcome. For a few moments I say nothing because my brain has ceased operation and when it resumes all I can think to say is “Oh, Pops” and kiss him on the forehead and sob as if I am  in a silent movie.

When my crying has subsided to just a few tears Didi puts her arms around my shoulders and says, “He is in a better place.” While I have my doubts that there is anything beyond this place,  I pray now that there is. I thank her for her kind words and being so gentle and caring with my old man while he was alive. She gives me a nod of acknowledgement and lets me know she needs to call her supervisor so she can come and certify Pop’s death and clean the body.

It seems wrong that anyone needs to do anything right now, but I tell her to go ahead as I have my own grim task to take care of. I need to tell my mother. I walk up the flight of stairs that leads to Mom’s bedroom and knock on her door. Without waiting for a response, I say “Mom, he’s gone.” I hear a guttural sob and she tells me that she will be downstairs in a few moments. I reply in a whisper worthy of a sleeping household “I love you “and return to the sunroom where my father is waiting.

I am standing next to the bed that holds my father’s remains when Mom arrives at my side. She looks at him for a moment before breaking into sobs. I put an arm around her and try to provide her with comforting words. “He got to die at home and what a blessing that is.,” “Think of his journey and how lucky and fortunate it was for him to make it here.” And, “He loved you so!”

Of course, none of this ameliorates Mom’s pain and saying them gives me no comfort at all. But they were words that needed to be said anyhow because they were the truth.  Dad, was born into abject poverty in Vienna before the war. They lived in a one room apartment with a bathroom down the hall and where the icebox was the ledge outside the kitchen window. His family managed to escape to the States months after the war began. He went back to Europe to fight as an officer. When he returned home, he became a distinguished and noted scientist and raised three children who adored him and pampered 4 grandchildren who loved him more.

The love he held for my mother was fierce and unique. The fact that a Park Avenue debutante would fall head over heals in love with a penniless immigrant speaks volumes about both of them. While my father tried to recover from his illnesses he would often reminisce about their early marriage. He told me, for example, when my brother was only months Dad had been transferred to Denver from Illinois. My parents  had decided that until he could find them a place to live that my mother and brother should live with her parents in the city. He told me he missed them so much that the time they were apart were the loneliest times he could remember. And, how he had never been happier to see anyone, when shortly after July 4, 1956 when David and Mom had walked off the plane in Denver he had never been happier…which is how I learned, by doing the math, when I had been conceived. They loved to fight often screaming to make their point and was only as an adult that I realized that this was how they expressed themselves and drained the toxicity from the marriage. They knew each other’s buttons and when to push them. But they knew each other’s strengths. When, during the last days of Pop’s lucidity, I promised Dad that I would be there for Mom. He said “Don’t worry about her too much. She is far tougher than you think.”

At that moment, standing next to my father’s lifeless body, she demonstrated her toughness. . She dried her eyes with one of the Kleenex that she perpetually kept in her robes and said “I need to call the funeral home” and left.

I retreated to the couch next to the bed in which Dad lay and began to think of how I wanted to memorialize him. It was difficult. Every new sentence I would create in my head, each cherished moment recalled would produce tears of self-pity and sadness. Thinking that I would not be able to share my words with him, made me sob.

Eventually, I wrote “He escaped the holocaust. He fought a war. He was married to my mother for nearly 60 years. He raised three children and cherished 4 grandchildren. He was my father, my travel buddy, my friend, and always my hero. This morning he passed quietly into the next world. I am grateful for his life, his love, his legacy, and his peace.” And weep some more.

The doorbell rings. It is Didi’s supervisor. She is very straightforward even bossy considering that it is 4 AM and my father lies lifeless a few yards away. She tells me that she needs to fill out the paperwork required by the state to issue a death certificate and then she and Didi need to clean the body as after death all of the sphincters relax. This is far more information than I need to know and when she asks to be alone with the body I readily accept and disappear into the TV room.

While waiting for Didi and her boss to complete their grim task. I debate with myself about calling my brother and sister at this hour to share the news with them. On one side it is so early and waiting a few hours will not change the news and perhaps it is better for them to sleep now because as later it will be more difficult. On the other hand, Marissa did say she wanted to be told of things as they happen. Thinking about it, I do not really have a choice and decide to call M first. The phone is picked up on the 2^nd ring by my brother in law. I am happy it is him answering the phone because I did not relish the task of telling my baby sister that her Daddy has died. He is British and takes the news stoically but his rush to get me off the phone tells me how difficult the news is for him to hear as I know he both admired and loved Dad.

Next, I call my brother and I am not surprised at all that his phone goes directly to voice mail. I leave the grim message. Him not answering the phone is yet another log on the flames of anger I am feeling towards him. Already stoking the fire is his inattentiveness to Pops while he had languished these past few years and his refusal to quit a tennis game and pack his vacation home early to come and have a final goodbye with Dad yesterday. These are hot flames and I know that over the course of the next few days and perhaps even years they will be difficult to extinguish let alone control.

The doorbell rings again. At the door, are two somberly dressed men who look like they are out of central casting for morticians. They express their condolences to Mom and me and asked to be taken to where “your loved one is resting.” I find their wording cloying and offensive but lead them to the sunroom where Didi and her boss are just finishing up their tasks. I introduce the two groups to each other and realize both are in the business of death and wonder how people can deal with these things every day and remain sane. The undertakers ask for privacy as they need to “prepare:” the body for transport. I am not sure exactly what this means but I want no part of it.

Didi , her boss, Mom and I retreat to the kitchen. There they explain the paperwork of death. How “Dad”, because he was in hospice care, does not need to have a Dr. examine him for a death certificate to be issued. How, even though “Dad” died in the home, that does not to be disclosed should we want to sell to property. I stop listening. Not because the information she is sharing is not valuable. It is. But her continued use of the word “Dad” I am finding ridiculously hard to deal with? This was my Pops. Not hers. But I tamp that down. She is trying to be kind and helpful and being angry with her would make her feel bad now, and me later. She asks my mother to sign some papers and they leave with Didi giving hugs to us both as she exits the front door.

The morticians, the men in black, as I have nicknamed them in my grief addled, sleep deprived brain, have completed their task. They too come to the kitchen table with their paperwork of death. They need my mother to acknowledge that they have been authorized to cremate the body and wish to know what kind of “receptacle” my father’s “remains” shall be placed in. These terms annoy me. They seem unfeeling and clinical when referring to Pops. He deserved special words.

Signatures and approvals received, the men in black wheel my father, now shrouded in a black body bag and resting on a trolley, out through the dining and living room and down the front steps. I follow them as they make the short walk down the slate path that leads from the stoop to the driveway. They place the gurney, with my father’s body in the back of their hearse. I watch as they drive down the street I use to play on and disappear into the last vestiges of the night.

I think “Dad’s last trip.”

Then, in the cold and dark of the pre-dawn, I cry the cries of a child unbidden by age. They come in gasps and soft cries. They make my chest heave and deny me the ability to speak or even swallow. At that moment I do not believe there has anyone ever who has been sadder than I am at this moment. It takes moments which seem like hours to compose myself.

As I turn to go back in the house. I see a lonely star just above the treetops. It reminds me of the Kabbalistic belief that at the moment of death every positive thought, word, or deed that occurred during a person’s life is concentrated into a pristine spiritual light and this light is revealed to the world and in the heavenly sphere where it continues to shine above and below.

Perhaps that wasn’t Pop’s last trip after all. Tomorrow I will go looking for that star again to make sure.

My parent’s yard was much bigger when I was a child but it is still plenty big enough for my dog Yankee to tear across the front lawn doing his version of a NASCAR race. He runs around me in circles, tongue flapping, tail wagging and getting more excited with every lap as we approach the front door of the house. For the past 10 years he has been my best friend and companion and for the past two years he has been acting as a therapy dog for both of my parents. From the gyrating motion of his tale and the speed of his laps I can tell that he is very excited to see them.

As Yankee sets new speed records running in circles I look up at the house my parents bought in 1967 when I was 10. I remember moving in. It was so different and scary. Different because this house, a split level colonial, was so much different from the modern style ranch house I had spent most of my first ten years in. Scary because I was the new kid on the block and had left a group of friends that I had known since earliest memories. As I step onto the front steps of my parents’ house, I remember the moment that fear faded way. It was the first day we moved in and we had the doorbell rang and when my mother went to answer she saw two 10 year little men, Danny Sylvester and Todd Ranke,  standing on the stoop, their Sting-Ray’s laid helter skelter on the front lawn. They were wondering if any kids moving in and could they come out and play.

Funny, all these years later, I still felt like the new kid on the block even though my parents were the only ones left from those days. I think of Danny now leaving in Georgia and writing him on September 12, 2001 to let him know that Todd was among the missing and presumed dead in the World Trade Center. I had only seen Todd a half dozen times since High School but his death had personalized the terror attack for me even though I had witnessed the entire tragedy with my own eyes. Seeing the horror and knowing that Todd had perished as I watched gives me nightmares to this day and climbing these steps I never fail to think of that first day, when he and Danny asked if my brother  and I could come out to play.

Yankee is doing his best imitation of a good dog sitting at attention and waiting for me to open door to my parents’ home. When I do he races into the house looking for my father first racing up the two flights of stairs to the master bedroom and when he doesn’t find him there clumps back down the stairs and dashes into the kitchen to see if he can snatch a friendly pet from my mother. He finds my mother sitting at the kitchen table reading a book and he immediately thrusts his head into her lap for a proper pet but my mother on seeing me gets up to greet me a look of relief and happiness on her face. Happiness because my mother revels in the love of her children and relief because she knows that she will not carry the burden of my father’s final journey by herself and the hug she gives me tells me all that more.

She tells me “I am so glad to see you” and she hugs me harder.

“I missed you too Mom. How is he doing?”

She shakes her head and says “I don’t know. He isn’t eating very much. He is not drinking. Most of the time he is off on another planet jabbering away about things we cannot understand and then out of the blue he says something that is completely cogent. Completely in gear and you wondering what is going on….” She shakes her head and hugs me a little harder

“Let me go say hello.”

My father loves the outdoors. When my parents decided to expand the kitchen, they decided to add a sunroom at the same time.  Directly adjacent to the kitchen it serves an extension to the existing dining room. It was designed  with great care to ensure that it would allow as much of the outdoors inside as possible. Two of the walls are entirely of glass, a vaulted ceiling with a half-moon window at the top, and sight lines were such that no matter where you sat in the room it was nearly impossible to see anything but the old growth trees and lawn of my parent’s backyard. It had quickly become my father’s favorite room in the house. It is where he would read the newspaper, where he preferred to entertain guests and when the weather was too cold or too wet where he preferred to write. So when it came time to bring my father home for the last time it seemed the best place to place his hospital bed and the accoutrements that went along with it.

Walking into the room it is very hard not to let my emotions get the better of me.  Pops is in his bed, a sheet and blanket covering him to his chest, his head propped up with pillows. His illness had not robbed him of his looks. He handsome and his face belied his 86 years but even with the sheet and blanket covering him I can see how emaciated he was. When this adventure had begun his 6’2” frame carried 222 lbs. Now he weighed just over 140 lbs. The man who had for most of my life had epitomized strength was now so weak he could barely lift a fork. The towering intellect that had made him one of the most important and respected men in his field was now reduced to incoherent ramblings.

I lean over and kiss him on the forehead and said “Hi Abba.”  Abba is not the name I normally called him. Most often it was “Pops” a name I gave him in high school that originally was meant to be a little disrespectful but had become an endearment as I grew older. But years ago, when I traveled to Israel with my Dad I had learned of his “secret” Zionist past and how he plotted to immigrate to Israel before his parents had managed to arrange passage to the United States. Sometime during that conversation I had learned that he loved being called Abba. It made him “kvell” and ever since then when I wanted to be tender with him it is what I called him.

He looked up at me with a surprise look on his face and grabbing my hand in a very strong grip said “Pablo, how was Rio. I am glad that you are home. ” I am completely taken back. According to both my mother and sister this man had been talking nothing but nonsense for the past few days, yet he had remembered that I had gone to Rio.

“It was great Pops. Elaine sends her love and kisses and told me that when you get well you must come and stay with her in her house. She has a room waiting for you.” He gripped my hand tighter and looked at me with a raised eyebrow as if to say “come on, don’t bullshit a bullshitter. There will be no trip.” I grip his hand a little tighter and double down “You will love her house. The bottom floor has walls of glass and there is lovely garden where you can see some beautiful birds and monkeys. And there is a pool where you can rehabilitate yourself. “

My father smiles back at me, his eyes flashing confusion and awareness, as if he were searching for words and cannot find them. Finally, he was great difficulty says “It is good to see you.”

“You too Pops.”

I walk to the couch adjacent to my father’s bed and sit and try to engage Dad in conversation. But the spark of awareness that was there when I walked into the room has slipped away. He continues to talk to me and ask me questions but the sentences are disjointed and don’t make any sense. At one point he begins to recite “The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson with a gusto that suggests that he is channeling some old memory, perhaps a school recital. He booms out:

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

‘Forward, the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns’ he said:

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’

Was there a man dismay’d?

Not tho’ the soldiers knew

Someone had blunder’d:

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die:

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

Listening to him, I am  relieved that he is lost in a difference place. It is comforting to me that he doesn’t know what it is happening to him; that he is lost in some old happy memory that provides him with joy as opposed to being trapped in the reality of the present and facing the unknown of what is next. But there is also a part of me that wonders whether his selection of poetry is totally at random or if there is a deeper meaning. Is he undertaking his own charge into the valley of death.

It is late on very hot, extremely humid day in mid-June. My mother and I are waiting in my car for the ambulance carrying my father in the parking lot of the Berkley Heights Nursing and Rehab Center. The facility is housed in a building that looks like it could be inexpensive chain hotel; a single story brick building with a high, steeply angled, roof. It is surrounded by a large green lawn with little landscaping. It looks pleasant enough but for some reason this place is giving me a very bad feeling that I try to rationalize as just heebee jeebees that I have gotten from too many investigative reporters on television exposing awful conditions in nursing homes.

But I know some of the bad feeling comes from doubt that we have made a good decision to place my father here as rehabilitates in preparation for surgery. As a family, we had almost no familiarity with nursing homes, rehab facilities, and the like. All of my parents immediate relatives had either died quite suddenly or after a relatively brief illness in hospital. Fortunately, or so we thought, the hospital offered assistance in making this decision through their social work staff. I don’t know why I found it surprising that this advice would come from that department. Perhaps, it was because I had always thought of social workers as professional who helped people through various emotional and psychological trauma’s in their lives and while I suppose that our families situation could technically fit that definition the service they provided did not.

Instead of providing with counseling and advice they provided my parents with brochures from the various facilities and arranged interviews with representatives any facility that they wished. They provided no counseling or advice. When we asked them what they thought of one facility or another they would tell us that it was against the policy of the hospital to offer any opinion. When we pressed them a little harder they would tell us that if they could venture an opinion it would not be based on anything but conjecture as they have never visited any of the facilities.

I understand the legal limitations that companies operate under these days. If they made a recommendation and a client had a bad experience that they could and probably would be become part of a law suit. But that is sort of like saying a Dr. doesn’t want to provide you with a diagnosis because he is frightened that he might be wrong and be party to a law suit. The Hippocratic oath states “First, do no harm.” How can a hospital send someone to a rehabilitation center without knowing how the facility operates and do no harm. To us and our experience the social workers in the hospital while kindly were acting more like the three monkeys covering their body parts than medical professionals.

My parents had made the decision to go to Berkeley Heights Nursing and Rehab Center under pressure on a single afternoon, while I was at work. They had been told that my father was being discharged the next day and they had to make a decision immediately. It didn’t given them anytime to check online to see if the facilities have outstanding violations, or to have someone in the family physically inspect the facility. They told me at the time that the reason they had made the decision they did was because the facility was near enough to my parents’ home that my mother would feel comfortable driving there herself, they supposedly had very good rehab facilities, and there representative seemed bright, trustworthy and helpful. But in the end it is a blind decision made more with hope than with solid information.

The ambulance finally arrives we walk to catch up with my father in the lobby of the home. We are not alone there. There is a crew of about 20 residents in wheel chairs in the lobby. They are dressed in clothes that looked plucked from the steepest discount bin and their level of self-sufficiency range from being able to push their own wheel chairs to drooling. They are all staring at us and remind me of a scene from a Stephen King novel or from George Romero’s night of the living dead. It is, in my over active imaginative way, as if they are they are to consume my father and indoctrinate him into this netherworld of human existence. I am both scared and disturbed by the scene.

The walk to my father’s room does nothing to relieve my fears. We walk by several rooms where elderly people lay in their beds staring up at the ceiling, mouth agape with only a television to keep them company. I cannot believe we are putting my father together with these old people.  He is 84 years but he has never been old to me. Two weeks ago he was driving to New York several times a week to advise students, he was working on both a professional manuscript and a novel that he hoped to have published and now we were putting him a home where people are barely living and are being warehoused until death. All that I see scares me and tells me that we have made a horrible mistake placing my Dad here.

But there is also something else within it that scares me. I see myself in a home like this. I am single and have no children. When I get old is there where I will live the final days of my life and warehoused and forgotten? The thought chills me and blink my eyes and shake my head in the hopes that it will knock the thought from my consciousness.

My father’s room is what you might expect from a chain motel 3 months before undergoing major renovations. The room has faux wainscoted walls that are painted white where they are not scraped to the bear wood by indiscriminate movement of furniture. There is armoire made of pressboard that would not pass muster at Walmart that contains a small television. There is a matching locker made of the same material and in the same condition. The floors are linoleum and non-descript except where the floors are scratched and gouged. The bed, which is twin sized, is in the far corner of the room as if it is hiding from the rest of the world and who can blame it.

As nurses and ambulance attendants move my father to bed from gurney a fight breaks out in the hallway between a staff member and a resident. There is a lot of yelling at full volume, the resident claiming he has not been given his medication and the indignant staff member telling him to wait his turn.  They begin calling each other names that suggest they know each other’s habits and sexual preferences before someone separates the two of them before the argument escalated to blows.

Our introduction to this facility had not gone well from the horror film greeters, to the warehoused patients in the rooms we passed, to the unnerving fight we had just listened to. I was horrified and a brief look at both of my parents faces showed me that I was not the only one who was disturbed by this place. My mother was wide eyed and looked as if the thought of touching anything would cause her grievous injury. My father while stoic, had a look on his face that I only seen a few times before…at Yad Vashem and a cemetery in Sopron, Hungry where his Uncle Ede is buried…it is a combination of sadness and anger.

When the folks attending to my father leave the first thing I do is close the door to my father’s room and turn to my father and say “So what do you think?” He looks at me and gives me his brave face and tells me that is nothing he can handle for the few weeks. I tell him that he doesn’t have to stay here. That we can find a better place for him if this place is not to his liking. He tells us that it is okay. That he only has to be here for a few days and that he can handle “Berkley Hardware” for a few days. He is making a joke, referring to a store we frequented when we lived in this town and is a few blocks from the facility.  I am relieved to hear him make a joke evening though this place is not funny in the least to me.

It is with great trepidation that we leave him that evening and as I kiss him good bye I whisper in his ear “You don’t have to be a tough guy. If you don’t like this place just say the word and we will find you something better.” As I drive away  I can’t help but feel as I had abandoned and failed my father.

The next day we return. We are shocked to find his hands looked as he has engaged in a bare knuckle brawl. According to the staff he had somehow managed to wedge his fingers into the loose wainscoting on the wall. They did not apologize for the loose boarding nor did they fix it. They simply bandaged my father’s fingers and moved his bed a little farther away from the wall. In fact they didn’t apologize about a lot of things over the next 10 days. They didn’t apologize for dropping one of my father’s medications on the floor and then insisting that my father take it or for the vile things they said to him when he refused. They didn’t apologize for the daily fights that took place between the residents of the home and the staff that seem to bully them more than caring for them. They did not apologize for the amount of time that it took the staff to respond to my father’s request for a bed pan that more than once left him shitting on himself. They didn’t apologize for a litany of things that made my father’s time at “Berkley Hardware” a time of pain and suffering as opposed to rest, recovery and healing.

Needless to say the inadequacies of the staff and the facility drove us all crazy. My mother was the most effected. Not only because they were slowly torturing the man she had loved for 62 years but because she had grown up the daughter of one of the earliest gerontologists practicing in New York City. His care of the elderly, seasoned with love and kindness, differed greatly from Berkley Hardware where their version of care seemed to be flavored with indifference and disrespect.

From the beginning we begged Dad to let us find him a better place to recuperate. We could not trust this place and we were more than fearful of his mental and physical health. But every time we brought it up he refused to even consider being moved. At the time I thought it was sheer stubbornness on his part but looking back on it now I wonder if it wasn’t something else. Perhaps he was trying to prove to himself that despite his depleted physical condition he still had strength. That even he was not strong enough to walk, mentally he was still as strong when he survived the Nazis in Vienna and the battlefields in Europe.

It was great relief that 10 days after my father’s arrival at Berkley Hardware we returned him Overlook Hospital for the operation that we hoped would return to him the use of his legs.

It is early afternoon on Thursday July 12, 2012.

It is a hot humid summer’s day. The type of day weather forecasters like to warn you to drink plenty of fluids, put on copious amounts of sunscreen, and not to go outside if you have any respiratory problems. Cicadas buzzing in the background and somewhere in the distance I can hear a lawn mower’s growl.

I am standing in my parent’s driveway, next to my sister’s car. She is just leaving and I have just arrived. We talk about my father’s medical condition. Over the past two years he has been fighting his body and time in a losing battle with the inevitable. For the last six months he has been fighting the failure of his kidney’s by undergoing dialysis three times a week. Four weeks ago he made a decision to stop his treatment which after a week sent him to the hospital with acute uremia. Three weeks ago we brought my father home to die.

When we had him settled at home and hospice care in place I left on a trip to Brazil to visit the woman I love.  It was not an easy decision to make. I recognized that there was a possibility that my father could die while I was away. But I knew that we were playing a waiting game and that my staying at home would not change any outcomes or that I would have any positive effect on his care. I also knew that I needed to be with my “namorada’s”, she had just lost her father and I knew that being with her would give me the strength I would need after my father’s last chapter was written. She would give me the hope I needed to carry me through the despair that was coming.

My sister had been taking up the slack in my absence. Looking at her in the afternoon sun I am a bit overwhelmed with how fortunate I am to have her as a friend, an ally and a sister. I ask “How he is doing.”

Marissa responds as she normally does, airily with a sense of humor. These are tools she uses as a shield against many things. Today I know she is holding off the grief and sadness she feels about my father’s impending death. Who can blame her. I wish that I had the same ability to replace the heaviness of my heart with humor. “He is doing fine. Goofy.  I am not really sure that he knows where he is but he is in good humor. Yesterday, he was chit chatting all day long and then recited from heart The Rubaiyat of Omar Kayem. And then he slips into long conversations about absolute nonsense but enjoying every word. He was not making any sense but he was very funny and charming.”

“And Mom?

Marissa raises a single eyebrow, a trait she picked up from our father, and replies simply “You know.” I do know.  My mother has been heroic in the past three weeks let alone the last two years but she also has an overwhelming need to control all that is going on around my father and has minor and major meltdowns over minor and major things when they go wrong. Who can blame her, it is her way of coping but her need to manage and edit every situation can add to the stress level of the household significantly.

“I love you M.” And I give her a kiss on the cheek and a hug that hopefully lets her know how much I cherish her. Just as she is about to drive away I lean in the car window and ask “If I see a significant change in his condition do you want me to call or would you prefer to just to call  in for updates.” I am asking the question not because I question her devotion to Dad but because one of the sad facts that I have learned over the course of the past 25 months is that people handle grief very differently. If she were like my brother she would bury her head in the sand and tell me to call her after the last act is written. Or she could be more like me with a need to be there in the end…to make sure that Dad’s passing is gentle, surrounded by all the love we feel for him.  I believe it is better to ask the question than to live with any regrets unspoken and destined to fester.

“Good question” and then after a minute of thought says “Call me.”

As she drives down the street that we grew up on, I make my way up the slate stairs to our front door. There is a part of me that can’t wait to see my father. I have missed him while I have been away. He always loves when I am on trips, especially recently. He loves the adventure and the stories I tell him of life on the road. This is the first trip in my adult life where I have not been able to call and talk to him and I have missed the connection. I also know what is inside awaiting me and dread opening up that door.

It is early in the morning on May 26, 2010 and I am a bit of a panic because I have slept a little later than I wanted to and I am rushing to my office to make a conference call with my Israeli teammates. Luckily, a cab was just passing my building as I emerge so I breathe a deep sigh of relief as the cab makes it way across town on 65^th St.  I take the time to check my email. As many of the people I work with are in Israel they have been at work for at least the five hours and there is usually a surfeit of email at that hour . I am shocked when I flip on my phone to see there are six voice mails from my mother beginning at around 4 in the morning.

Nothing ever good comes from a call in the middle of the night from your parents and my mother’s message is no exception.  My father had fallen on a walk from the bed to the bathroom. He could not get up after his fall and had called my mother to help him. Even with her assistance he could not get up because his entire right side had been paralyzed by the fall. They were now at the hospital. I tell the cab driver to turn around and take me back to the building as my priorities of the day have changed.

Emergency rooms are not amusing places to be. They are full of desperate people whose lives who have taken an unexpected, horrific turn. Folks like me, who have been called with the news of their loved one’s plight, add to the general tension. A horrendous turn of event has transpired with a person they love, and they are caught cold and are struggling to keep up with events and make sense of a new reality. They arrive at the Emergency Room carrying their anxiety like luggage. I was guilty of this myself as I entered the Overlook Hospital Emergency Room. My anxiety compounded by the difficulty of trying to escape New York at the height of rush hour.  I am not a steering wheel pounder but I am surprised that it had survived the trip with all the abuse I had inflicted on it on my drive to Summit.

When I reach the admitting desk, I ask in a voice that is so angst ridden that I barely recognize it as my own “What room is Ernst Rothkopf in. The tone of my voice surprises me and I realize that I am not going to help my parents at all if I walk into my father’s room with that level of unease. When the attendant gives me my father’s room number I take a deep breath,  force a smile on my face, and will myself to notch it down.

Dad is laying on a gurney in an exceedingly small examination room towards the back of the ER. He is wearing a cervical collar and there is pain and some other emotion I can’t identify etched on his face. Mom, sitting next to him in a folding chair, is holding his hand. When she sees me she say’s to my father “Look who is here!” and  gives me hug that contains a choked sob that signals how relieved she is to see me.

My father growl back at me “What are you doing here.” This is not him being unfriendly or unappreciative. It is actually just the opposite. He has always put his children first and me being here is makes him feel he is taking advantage of me. It is also his way of saying to me “I love you and I am glad you’re here but I can’t be a tough guy if I admit to it. “ I lean over and give him a kiss on his forehead and say “I don’t know. Someone called me and told me that you were hanging out here and it sounded like fun so I thought I would drop by.”

He smiles at me despite his pain. We have both completed the ritual of two males who love each other very much but are more comfortable with code.  I ask him gently, “So how are you doing?” He tells me simply that he has felt better and after I acknowledge that I have seen him look better and then ask “Tell me what happened.”

He tells me that around 3AM he had gotten up to “take a leak” and had stumbled near the foot of his bed and then fell. When he tried to get up from his fall, he found he could move his arms or legs. Frightened he had called for my mother, who was sleeping in a different bedroom, until she had arrived. Together they had tried to get him up but to no avail.  Finally, they had called 911 and they had come and taken him to the hospital.

My father’s fall is not a surprise to me. He has been having problems with foot neuropathy (lack of sensation) for over a decade.  I first noticed it on our trip to Alaska almost a decade before when he could not maintain his balance walking in a lake. He had seen specialists in orthopedics, neurology, physiatry, and even chiropractic medicine’s but none, to his frustration, had provided him with an adequate explanation to why he had developed neuropathy or how to treat it. Some of his frustration was self-inflicted. My father is a man with an over powering intellect and in most cases he is the brightest guy in any room. And he is a scientist. The combination produces a healthy skepticism about any answer if the person offering that opinion could not adequately explain it. If a doctor offered him a solution that he couldn’t explain or justify my father would at best question it or ignore it all together.

For example, we had visited a physician at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York who is considered the foremost expert in the world on neuropathy. The Dr. said he did not know whether he could help Dad, but he had some approaches that he thought would be worth trying. The first step (pun not intended) was my father having some MRI’s taken of his neck and spine. Dad told him that he just had MRI’s taken and in fact had brought them with him, but the physician had insisted that new ones needed to be taken otherwise he could not treat my father. My father had grumbled about this for weeks. Delaying and postponing getting the tests done because he just couldn’t or wouldn’t see the need in taking this tests.

I ask him if he is in a lot of pain and he says no as long as he remains still he doesn’t hurt that much. So, I say “A priest, a rabbi and a reverend walk into a bar and the bartender says What is this, a joke?” Pop grimaces and says “Carol, he is trying to kill me.” This is a part of our normal banter when he has been hospitalized. I tell him bad jokes that he has heard hundreds of times before and he pretends to be pained by them. It is our way of acknowledging each other and telling each other we love each other without getting sappy about it.

Eventually, a Dr comes in. He, like many emergency room Dr’s, is very brusque and to the point. He tells us that he is from the Summit Medical Group, a collective practice of physicians in the area that treats the old man. He says that my father’s x-rays have come back negatively and that his neck is not broken. That they can’t determine whether or not my father has had a stroke but for now they can remove the cervical collar because it is not doing my father any good. He also casually mentions to us as he is removing the collar that the likelihood is that Dad will never walk again. He either is completely oblivious to his patients comfort or distracted or both because he is very rough with my father removing the cervical collar resulting in my father screaming in pain as the collar comes off. I have never heard my father in pain before and I am stunned into silence by his pain and the Dr’s awful behavior.

After he leaves, I am so angry that I cannot speak. I don’t know how physicians are trained to behave around patients but clearly they should not drop bombshells like a person never being able to walk again casually as if they were describing a case of flatulence. They should never be in such a hurry to accomplish a task, like removing a cervical collar that they cause the patients to scream in pain. I am about to head out the door to find the physician and give him a piece of my mind when another Dr appears at my father’s bedside. She too is from the Medical Group, a neurologist, and she wants to test my father to see if my father has had a stroke. Where the first Dr. was brusque and abrupt, she is patient and gentle with my father. She completes her exam and lets us know that she doesn’t think my father has had a stroke but that there is likely some neurological damage to the neck and wonders why they have removed the cervical collar. When we explain that the previous Dr. has done so she just shakes her head and gently places the collar back around my father’s neck.

As she leaves the room I ask her if I might talk to her for a moment.  Stepping into the hallway I thank her for the kindness and then tell her that I want part of the medical record to show that the first physician is not to see or treat my father. His behavior and actions were outrageous at best and  I thought the Nazi’s had treated my father with more compassion. She asks who it was that treated my father and when I tell her, she gives me a look that tells me that this is not the first complaint she has received about this guy. She promises me that she will be guiding the case from now on and for me not to worry. As I go back to my father’s cubicle I realize that medicine in this time is more about process than the patient and that Pop’s treatment would depend as much on us as it will the Dr’s,  some of whom seem to care more about the amount of money they bill than how they treat their patients.

The rest of the day slides slowly past. It is taking time to find my father a bed on the neurological floor of the hospital. I tell my father jokes and we chat but he is pretty heavily drugged and so he sleeps most of the time. Mom and I chat but there is only so much we can talk about while my father is sleeping so we are most lost in our own thoughts.

I wonder whether the damage to my father’s spine is permanent. If he is paralyzed what will it do to the man who at age 84 still went to work every day, who worked out three times a week, and who been living an independent life since grammar school. I try to push thoughts out of mind that are negative but deep in my soul I know that this is the beginning of the end.

Mom is dozing in her chair. Even though it is early afternoon her day is already 12 hours old. I wonder what the consequences of the day will mean to her. It is not difficult to recall a conversation from a car ride on a hot summer’s afternoon, the last time Pops had been seriously sick. “I have never been alone” and the tears that followed echo in my memory.

The Henry Liss Neuroscience center is located on the fifth floor of Overlook Hospital. It is considered one of the best care facilities in New Jersey for those who are experience neurological disorders and it is named for a close friend of my parents who was a pioneering neurosurgeon. It is here they bring my father late in the afternoon. As the nurses examine my father and get him settled into the room, my mother gives Henry’s wife Amy a call. She is hoping that she can use Amy’s resources to find the best available physician to treat my father.  Amy, who takes her husband’s legacy very seriously, promises that she will call a surgeon that Henry trained, Dr. John Nightly and make sure that Dad is treated with the utmost care. We leave the hospital that evening knowing that we have done all that we can and hopeful that Dad will recover the use of his legs

I arrive at the hospital early the next morning as a member of Dr. Knightly’s team, Dr. Singh are beginning their exam of Dad. He is very arrogant and is wearing his lab jacket as if it is a ducal robes. I am instantly reminded of the old joke “What is the difference between a neurosurgeon and God? God doesn’t operate on the brain.” He is confident, brusque, and speaking so quickly you wonder if he is late for another appointment. He informs us that Dad has taken a profoundly serious fall. (Thanks) That if he had fallen a little harder or landed just a bit differently, he would either be paralyzed from the neck down or dead from his cervical spine being driven into the brain stem. He tells us that the only way for us to proceed is operate on Dad to stabilize his spine or even the slightest of spills could kill him.  However they cannot operate on him now as they need to reduce the swelling and give my father time “to rest” before the surgery.

Dad asks him whether he will regain the use of legs again he tells him, brusquely and with little apparent consideration that there is a 99% chance that he won’t. That is his parting line and it leaves us feeling far worse than when he walked into the room.  Mom, the daughter of a physician is outraged over his behavior and uses language to describe his behavior that is better suited to a rapper than a grandmother of four. We  agree that we need more medical opinions than the one that was just provided so my mother once again gets on the phone with Amy Liss and gets her to promise that she will get Dr.Knightly to examine my father directly.

We spend the rest of the day sitting my father. My mother reading the ink off the NYTimes and I working on my computer. My father spends the day shuttling between tests to further map his injuries and sleeping. In our own way we all are thinking of how bad the situation is and how much worse it could have been. We all secretly hope for some magic way out of this hole we have found are selves and worry about what the future holds for my Dad.

The only good news of the day comes when they start administering glucosteroids to my father. They are being given to him to reduce the swelling of his spinal cord but they have a wonderful side effect. They take a man who has been worrying over whether he would walk again and turn him into a confidence generator. My father has always been optimist, how else does one survive a holoacaust, a war to end all wars, and George W. Bush but now he is like a good vibe transmitter. His mood is so good that I take a picture of him to send to David and Marissa. It shows him in a hospital gown, cervical collar around his neck, smile on his face giving the camera a middle finger salute. At the moment, I thought it was a turning point…a moment where he made the decision that he was going to fight back against this piece of bad luck and perhaps even kick its butt.

We get further encouragement on his prognosis the next morning. Dr. Knightly arrives followed by an entourage of attending physicians and nurse practitioners. They huddle about him in much the same way as drone bees attend to a queen as she makes her way through the hive.  Normally, this type of entrance would leave me a little cold. A Dr. arriving with entourage is sort of like a man arriving on a first date with driving a Porsche, it makes you wonder what other type of deficiencies he may have. However Knightly is very personable. He charms my mother and father by saying lovely things about their friend and his mentor Henry Liss and then in very calm tones proceeds to tell us that from what he can tell from the various images that have been taken of my father’s neck that he very nearly killed himself in the fall. A little more energy one way and the spinal column would have crushed the brain stem; a little the other way and my father’s spinal column would have snapped. That at this point, Dad’s spine is severely unstable and that the only way to ensure that Dad’s next fall will not kill him is to surgically reinforce the spine by fusing his cervical spine.

My father asks him “Will this operation allow me to walk again?” Dr.Knightly responds without hesitation. He says” There is absolutely no reason that within six months after the operation you shouldn’t be walking again.” The relief felt by all of us at this point is palpable. Give this guy anything he wants, he is saying he can help my Dad walk again. We forget in the moment that he is a surgeon, who like a mechanic on a car can and will promise you anything about the success of the repair because he is not the one who will have to drive the car afterwards.

My father asks when he can have this surgery and Knightly lets him know that his body needs to heal a bit before they operate. Not only does the swelling around the spinal column needs to subside but he needs to regain his strength as the procedure he is suggesting is massive and will last at least five hours. Knightly also explains my father’s recuperation can’t take place at home…we need to find a facility that can care for him medically for several weeks while he heals. He tells us that there will also be scheduling issues that need to be worked through and some more images that need to be taken and the details will be handled by his staff. We thank him and he and his entourage disappear as if they had never been there.

{To be continued tomorrow May 15, 2020}

Last night I dreamt I was at “big” Kings on old Rt. 24 in Short Hills.

It is a supermarket that I know so well that I can put together a shopping list on an aisle by aisle basis. I guess shopping in the same store for over 40 years will do that to you. But in my dream, I was not there to do a “big” shop. I was there on a tactical mission. First stop, aisle one to pick up a loaf of Calandra’s Italian Bread. Then a quick sprint to aisle three to pick up a large jar of Skippy Super Crunch Peanut Butter. I don’t remember paying for either item but found myself in the front seat of my car spreading heaps of peanut butter on chunks of that delicious crusty bread. I could not stop. I just kept eating more and more.

Then I woke up. I found that I still had the taste of peanut butter in my mouth. It was such an intense flavor that I found it impossible to roll over and go back to sleep despite the fact it was 3am. Every time I rolled over and tried to fall asleep the taste sensation of me eating peanut butter on Italian bread would return.

Here is the odd thing. While I like peanut butter and almost always have a jar in the fridge (yes, I am one of those) it is not even close to being one of my favorites. Yet, I could not for the life of me get the taste of peanut butter out of my mouth. It was so intense that it forced me out of my bed and downstairs to the kitchen for a mid-sleep snack.

I was joined by Romeow on my kitchen raid. I am amazed how much noise a single cat can make walking down the stairs. He is making more noise than I am, and I am wearing flip flops. It might be time to cut back on his food ration.

The cat, tail in full question mark position leads the parade into the kitchen. He runs (more of a swaying waddle) and leaps surprisingly well onto the counter where his food is kept. I am relieved when he does not crack the granite on landing. Then he meows. It means, I have learned, feed me (imagine Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors with a Brazilian accent and slightly more intimidating) Commanded, I pour a little kibble in a bowl and when he looks up at me as if to say “What are you kidding. More is required” I vow to let Elaine put the beast on a diet.

Cat tended to; I open the pantry doors in the hopes that I will find something that will supplant the peanut butter craving that I have developed in my sleep.  Ideally, I would find a jar of Skippy’s finest sitting there awaiting my arrival. Sadly, that is not the case. The care package my nephew Sean has sent me 3 weeks ago, that contains this precious cargo,  has been held in customs for three weeks. I scan the shelves and finally fixate onto a basket that contains our collection of crackers and other savory snacks.

I am excited when I see a familiar metallic blue bag that I suspect may contain peanuts. While not the chunky stuff I am jonesing for, it is adequate for tonight’s craving. When I examine the bag more closely I am saddened to find Amendoim Tipo Japones and this variety is “Mais Croconate.” For those of you lacking Portuguese language skills it means extra crunchy peanuts Japanese style. Many people enjoy this style of peanut, which is essentially a deep-fried batter dip peanut and, in this case, extra crunchy. I enjoy them from time to time. But at this moment in time I am wondering why you take a perfectly good product and batter dip it. I feel the same way about Oreos at state fairs. Just say no. And so, I do.

There are a variety of other crackers in the bowl and my eyes light on a product called. Pit Stop Recheado Integral Peito de Peru. It sounds melodramatic (imagine it being said dramatically with a deep male voice with a Lusophone accent.) It means whole wheat crackers stuffed with turkey breast filling. I decide to eat it, while I am scrounging up something else that can better soothe my itch for peanut butter. I am surprised when it actually tastes good. Sadly, there are only two crackers and my hunger are quite a bit bigger than that so I continue my foraging.

This takes me to our refrigerator. I did not want to go here as what is stored inside almost by definition will have to be reheated in the microwave. I have long thought that if you are having to use a microwave during your dark of night food scavenging, it ceases to be a snack and becomes a meal. And, I am on a snacking mission.

I see almost right away the remains of our meal from the night before. Chicken parmesan. Back home in New Jersey this is one of my favorite comfort food meals. I revel in the rich bath of Napolitano red sauce and its rich coating of Mozzarella, But I have suspected for sometime the Italians who immigrated to Brazil came from a different region than those who came to US and the New York Metro area. The sauce is not as rich, and the chicken looks like it has been blessed in sauce instead of bathed. The Mozzarella tastes different and is stingily applied. Finally, they add a layer of ham between the chicken and the cheese. It is not unlikeable. It is just not home.

This leads to other food imponderables.

Why ham in everything? Well maybe not everything but the lasagna I had the other night had a layer of ham in it. It didn’t taste bad, but I would have preferred a layer of mixed ground beef and Italian sausage. The other day Elaine ordered a side dish of French fries, hearts of palm, and ham. Again, not bad, and high marks for imagination on the pairing, but I am still left wondering why?

Don’t even ask about Pizza. Perhaps I am spoiled having grown up in the region that is responsible for the finest pizza in the world but the Brazilian version while having a crust, sauce and toppings is more like soggy bread with stuff thrown on top. For god’s sake, they eat it with a knife and fork. The most stunning indictment of Brazilian pizza is that the best we have found is delivered by Dominos.

I would love to find those familiar Chinese food take out containers in the refrigerator. I would love some everything fried rice, mooshu pork, sesame noodles…. But I know I won’t find the remains of anything like that in the refrigerator because as far as we have been able to determine it does not exist in Rio. Mexican…yes, Japanese…yes, Arab…yes, kosher. Yes, German…yes but Chinese no. Well actually that is not true. There is a restaurant called China Box, but the food is so vile it begs the question that the most popular food in the world has not established a foot hold here in South America’s most populous nation.

Perhaps it is the farofa factor. Farofa is a toasted cassava flour usually served with egg, bacon and other add ins. It has a subtle flavor and a texture that many consider akin to sand. I like it. But when I am in the United States, I don’t miss it at all. On the other hand, when Elaine is in the states, she yearns for it, so we keep a supply of manioc flour in our pantry.

Then there is Brazilian cream cheese. It tastes good, albeit differently, then what we have back home but instead of having the consistency of butter it resembles plain yogurt. If you could find a bagel there would be no schmearing, it would more closely resemble spritzing.

I close the refrigerator door. There is nothing within that interests me. Briefly, I consider raiding he freezer and my stash of Ben and Jerry’s Doughlicious but in addition to its being precious merchandise my hungry is more savory.

It is then I realize what my dream was all about. It was not about Skippy Extra Chunky. It was missing my comfort food at a time when comfort food consumption should be mandated by law. Wasn’t it Shakespeare who once wrote “An Oreo, an Oreo, my kingdom for an Oreo.” Sadly, I leave the kitchen realizing that there is nothing here that will scratch that comfort food itch. “Perhaps, Sean’s care package will finally be released from customs tomorrow.”

When I reach the stairs, I make a note to ask Elaine if we can order from Bob’s Burgers (can you believe it) tomorrow. Their milkshake, French Fry, 200-gram cheeseburger combination is as close to American comfort food as you can find near us.

I crawl into bed. Elaine is gently purring, and I know that all the comfort in the world is wrapped up in her. But still, I fall asleep hoping to dream of Sloppy Joes.

Mark Twain was fond of saying “There are three types of lies. Lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

I was thinking about that particular quote while reading The New York Times this morning. I had just read an article by  Michael D. Shear, Maggie Haberman and Linda Qiu titled “White House Orders Staff to Wear Masks as Trump Misrepresents Testing Record.” The article said that Trump claimed (and proclaimed via large banner adjacent to the podium) “America leads the world in testing. While the statement may be true in absolute terms it is patently false on a per capita basis. Germany, Russia, Spain Canada, and Switzerland and at least 20 other countries do better than US in testing per capita.

I thought the article an important read. I thought that if  people read the article would help inform that about the misinformation that the White House is perpetrating in regard to Covid 19. I was thinking of posting it. But then I remembered that quote and all the arguments that I have had with “Trumpists” (a term coined by others, but I take to mean an unwavering supporter of Donald Trump.) Typically, they love to use random falsehoods and statistics to claim that the mainstream media is misrepresenting the truth. In this case, the President delivered his statistical argument that we had tested more people per capita than “South Korea, United Kingdom, France, Japan, Sweden, Finland, and many other countries”

Then I thought of another statistic, that my wife and I had been discussing a few minutes earlier. We both noticed that when we post serious articles (e.g. an article I posted yesterday about Trump’s racist remarks to a CBS reporter of Chinese descent) they have a very low response while flippant or off color remarks about similar subjects produced large response from social media. An example of this might be a post my wife and I created about  President Bolsonaro of Brazil on Sunday. Using a meme originally created for Donald Trump “If you could heal Covid 19 sacrificing just one person, who would it be and why did you choose Bolsonaro.” That meme generated over 1,000 shares before it was blocked by Facebook as “hate speech.”

It occurred to me, that while posting an article that is serious and contains valuable information, that could help inform and make those who read it more knowledgeable and, would make me feel better, the social impact would be negligible. And of course, the only ones who would comment or respond to it in any way are those who already agree with me. While there is value in sharing information with those who agree with you in that increases the group zeitgeist it would do little to change opinion or inform those who disagree with you.

So why post the article. It gives me an opportunity to vent my outrage and when people respond in the positive and to some extent negative, I feel rewarded. As a big fan of BF Skinner, I recognize it as a prize in the operant conditioning paradigm. Which of course keeps me posting so I can continue to get those attaboys. It also makes me feel like I am being heard which in the days of social isolation is especially important when you are 5000 miles away from home as I am. Perhaps, there is also a touch of a hero syndrome thrown in. Fighting the good fight regardless of consequences makes you feel larger than you normally would in life.

In other words, the only reason to post, is because it makes you feel better. That is not a bad thing. But understanding it is helpful self-awareness.

This first cup of coffee analysis also made me think of something else. Beyond, what I am going to post comes what am I going to believe? There is so much data mining going on right now to create statistics that support a person’s own point of view how do I discern what is a “lie, damned lie and statistics.”. With so much data mining to produce statistics that support a partisan point of view how do I know what “fact” is and what is data manipulation.

I believe the first rule is never believe anything that Donald Trump says as “the truth.” Statistically speaking it is unlikely. Since becoming President he has told nearly 20,000 lies, falsehoods, or misleading things. That is an average of over 16 untruths per day of his presidency.

BTW the above is an example of datamining to support a political point of view. But that brings me to my next point.

When I was in 8^th grade my social studies teacher was Mrs. Segal. She believed that the reason we should all want to study the social sciences could be found everyday in the newspaper, or on the nightly news from the networks. She keenly aware that history was a matter of perspective. That different people could view exactly the same thing and based on personal experience, training, and a host of other things, would see and report differently. As a consequence, she set out to teach us how to consume the news in a balanced way that would lead to a fair interpretation of the facts. Here are some of her tips:

• Read news sources from differing points of view. My own political points of view are more in line with CNN and the New York Times. But I watch Fox (usually at the gym as my annoyance with the commentators fuel the fervor of my workout.) and read the Wall Street Journal. While this may not ensure complete balance, it does provide perspective.
• Look for consistencies between news sources. Where news agencies agree is the most likely the nearest thing you will find to objectivity.
• Does the website employ standard, accepted journalistic standards such as multiple source rule? This does not preclude them from making mistakes or non-journalistic sites having valuable information, but it helps in removing the grain from the husk.
• Do they publish retractions? New sources that do not publish retractions cannot be trusted to publish the truth. Put it another way, if you had a friend who never admitted to making a mistake would you trust them when they told you they had not made a mistake.
• How do they make their money? News sources that have only advertising revenue are most interested in page views or copies sold so have a greater temptation to bolster sales through false hoods and half-truths to boost sales as opposed to new sources that have multiple sources of income including subscriptions.
• If what they are reporting, seems to be convenient to their point of view then it needs to be supported by outside, reliable news sources. E.g. If an anti vax website reports that Dr. Fauci has been linked to vaccinations that murder 1,000s then further investigation is required.
• Who are the authors of the story? If there is no byline search out verification of the story. If they have a byline, then you should check what else they have written. Were they plagiarists? Did they publish false stories?
• Check the date. News changes with time and what was relevant and important yesterday may not be newsworthy today.

All this from thinking about one Samuel Clemens quote. Perhaps less coffee at breakfast is in order…are their statistics on coffee consumption and tangential thinking?

The sign above the gate read “Arbeit Mach Frei.”

It was May 12, 2011 and I found myself literally staring at the gates of hell. The entrance to the most notorious of all the Nazi Death Camps: Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Being here was completely unexpected. A week previously I had been in my office on 5^th Avenue, directly adjacent to Madison Square Park, when my boss, Kobe, had phoned from Israel. He and another associate from our Israel office had committed to making a presentation to IBM in Warsaw on May 11^th. Now, for family reasons, he could not attend. He asked in the way bosses often make requests that are really directives, whether or not I would like to take his place. I did not need a lot of persuading. With over 3 million air miles flown and a permanently packed dop kit I was the definition of a wandering Jew. I had made a living for years getting on planes and doing business elsewhere. I loved everything about that lifestyle and Poland, while never on my bucket list, was a place that not only interested me, but I had never been.

Kobe reviewed the details with me. I would leave on May 8^th for Warsaw where I would meet with my associate Ehud. We would spend two days in Warsaw preparing for our Meeting on the 11^th with IBM. After that, I could spend a few days in Poland or wherever I liked as long as I was back in New York by the 16^th.

I told him I would go but “My mother is not going to like you very much.” Kobe, like all good Jewish boys, had a healthy respect for Jewish mothers and asked in a mocking tone “Why, what have I done.”

“You have asked her favorite son to leave her on Mother’s Day so he can travel ¼ way around the globe…”

“And…”

“You have done it on Mother’s Day.”

“Oy.” He chuckled and in a smart-ass fashion typical of him responded “When then you are just going to have to buy her a nicer present.” But he knew that there was more to what I said beyond the words I had uttered. He knew that a year ago my father, a very vibrant 85-year-old man, who commuted to NY and his office at Columbia University twice a week and, and regularly worked out at a gym, had fallen. Since the accident he had been unable to walk without assistance. After several attempts at rehab it had been decided to bring him home. This, in turn, had placed a tremendous burden on my 81-year-old mother.  Even with aid from home health care workers it had proved too much for her. As a consequence, for the better part of the past year, I had spent the weekend at my parents’ home in suburban New Jersey to spell my mother in her efforts as caretaker in chief.

Other than sleeping on a fold out couch in the television room, this was not a burden on me. I had just left a long-term relationship and was still in the process of figuring out where it had all gone wrong. As a consequence, I had few weekend commitments. Moreover, I liked my parents. They were funny, interesting, and wise. Spending time with them was mostly effortless.

We quickly fell into a pattern. I would drive out after rush hour on Friday nights and scrounge whatever dinner was left over. On Saturday and Sunday morning, my first job would be to get my father ready for the day which included emptying his cath bag, bringing him a bed pan and the consequent cleaning up afterward, dressing him for the day and then easing him from his bed into a wheel chair. After I gave him his New York Times, to read the ink off of, I would make Pops his breakfast: usually eggs, toast, yogurt, and green tea. While he ate, we would sit and kibitz, often for an hour or more. There was no set subject we talk about. It could by anything   from his time in the service to his years at Syracuse, from politics to computers, from old jokes to bad puns (usually made by me and greeted stoically by him. These moments were my favorite part of the week and a close relationship had grown closer. So close, we could often have a conversation without saying a word.

When he was settled for the morning, I would take my mother out to do her weekly shopping and whatever other errands she had to run.  Pharmacy, bank, post office, and supermarket were all part of the repertoire. After lunch I would take some time for myself but then either make dinner or order dinner for all of us. Clean up followed. And, then the morning process was reversed as I got Dad ready for bed and tucked him in.

Kobi knew all this. On his occasional trips to New York City we had discussed this at length over significant portions of Bourbon. He knew by asking me to leave over the weekend it placed additional burdens on my mother. But I think he also knew how much I needed to get away.

I called my parents right away to let them know about the trip. Thankfully, the old man picked up the phone as I feared the guilt my mother might place on me if it were, she to whom I broke the news. Letting Pops in on it first would allow him to break a trail for me. I let him know about the trip and that I would be leaving a little early on Sunday to catch a late afternoon flight to Warsaw. He was thrilled for me. The old man knew of my wanderlust and actively encouraged it. He took pains to try to convince me that I did not need to come out that weekend telling me “Don’t break your ass on account of us. “To which I had given my standard reply when he said this “Don’t worry about Pops. It is cracked already.” This never ceased to get a groan from him.  I then added “While I have you on the phone, what town did Grandpa from. I am going to have a day off and thought if I could, make a day trip, and visit.

“Your grandfather was a small town called Grodzisko. It is near Lvov. Too far for a day trip.”

“Hmmm. Okay. Well think about it. I have a couple of days and you have been there so any thoughts that you have would be very much appreciated. Let’s talk more this weekend about where I can go.”

The rest of the workday was putting together travel arrangements. I am a mileage whore; you need to be when you travel as much as I do on business. You learn very quickly status is everything and as I was the highest level possible in the One World Alliance, I knew that my chances for upgrade with them were good. The challenge is that they did not fly directly to Warsaw. I had to route myself through London on American and then on to Warsaw via British Airways. It would add a few hours to my trip, Heathrow is always a bit of a nightmare, but it would likely add to my comfort.

After consulting with Ehud in Israel we agreed to stay at the Intercontinental Hotel in Warsaw. It was rated high enough, was centrally located and more importantly had conference rooms available in which we could practice and refine our presentation.

When I got home that evening, I immediately began to pack two bags. One for the weekend and another for the trip to Poland. My apartment, at that time, was a basic cookie cutter NYC one-bedroom high rise apartment. You entered on a long rectangular living room/dining area with a small galley kitchen on the left and a bathroom and a modest bedroom on the right. The living space was dominated by my bookshelves. I have been collecting books since college and it would not feel like home unless they were on display as they represented more happy hours than I could possibly count.

As I skittered through the apartment collecting this and that to pack, my eyes kept falling on one volume in my library: Martin Gilbert’s chronological history “The Holocaust.” I first learned of the book in the New York Times Book review in the Summer of 1986. I thought it would be of interest to my father and mentioned it to him. After talking to him about it he had asked that I not buy they book as he would like to give it me as a present. I thought his intention was to buy me the book as soon as possible. That did not happen. When a few months had passed, and I had not received the book I asked him about it. His answer to me was abrupt, as if he wanted to change the subject “Don’t worry I have ordered it.” Several months later I still did not have the book, so I reminded him again of his promise. Again, he told me not to worry as the book had been ordered and I would get the book soon enough.

By the time the Holidays had rolled around I still had not received the book and was beginning to wonder if I ever would. On the first night of Hanukkah, I had dinner at my parents’ home. Gifts were exchanged and the proper and ooohs and ahhs registered. Literally on my way out the door, Dad handed me a gift-wrapped package that was clearly a large book. I enquired “Is this what I think it is?”

He looked at me, without meeting my eye or acknowledging my questions and responded in a choked voice “Don’t open it until you get home.” Baffled by his request, as I knew what the present was, I hugged him goodbye. When I embraced my mother in a good night hug, she whispered “He has had the book for months. It has just taken him that long to write the inscription.”

I did not open the present immediately when I arrived home, my mother’s message making me leary.  Instead, I put it on the coffee table in the living room and left it there. I knew whatever the inscription, it was likely to be highly emotional and I needed time to screw up my courage.

After a medicinal bong hit to steady my nerves, I unwrapped the gift. It was what I thought. The Hardcover edition of “The Holocaust.” No surprise there.  But the inscription. That was a shock. My father who rarely opened up about the War and the loss he felt had written:

Murdered 1939-1945

              Your Grandmother’s brothers:

                             Vienna: Heinrich Hess and Risa

                             Hungary: Alfred Hess, his wife, and children

                                           Rudolf Hess his wife and children

                                           Helene Hess

                             Slovakia: Hans Hess and his wife

              Your Grandfather’s sisters:

                             Poland: The three Rothkopf sisters, their husbands children, grandchildren one (it was actually two) of whom had the unspeakable misfortune of living in the village of Auschwitz.

              Your Great Grandmother’s Sisters

                             Belgium: Minna Hader and her daughters Maluina, and Grete and her grandchildren Bertie, and Jackie.

                             Vienna: Josephine (Pepi) Tuchler, who raised your grandmother.

              Your Great Grandmother brother:

                             Vienna: Jakob Tuchler and Gisella

Scores of cousins and friends

I remember them with love and sorrow.

Do Not Forget Them!

          Chanukah, 1986

Every time I have read those words since, I weep but, that night, I wailed.

The book became a catalyst in my life. It inspired me to go with my father to Israel, a place neither of us had never been, and where both had long desired to visit. That trip had, created a closeness an intimacy with my father I had not known while growing up. It was on that trip I began to call him by his Hebrew name and he mine. It became our way, in the years to come, for us to recognize our special bond.

That evening, on the brink of my trip to Poland, I stopped my packing and pulled the volume from the shelves and reread the inscription once again. As always, it struck a deep resonant chord. It also clarified for me what I should do while in Poland and spent the next few hours researching.

I knew there had been a number of camps in Poland. Chelmo, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdankek and Auschwitz-Birkenau. After re-reading the Gilbert book inscription  I knew I  was going to visit one of them . My hope was that using the Shoah database from Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust memorial, I could discover where my relatives had been murdered. Sadly, while many of them were in the database there was no indication in which camp they had perished.

My next thought was that I should make my decision based on distance from Warsaw. Treblinka was the closest. Only 1.5 hours from Warsaw but the more I thought about it the idea of visiting a place just because it was closer did not seem to be the best way to decide. I went back to my father’s description and it all became clear. I needed to visit Auschwitz. Not only was it the largest of the camps and the likely murder site of most of our relatives but it is where the Rothkopf sisters, my great aunts, had lived and likely died.

Before I went to bed that evening, I emailed the concierge at the Intercontinental Hotel in Warsaw asking how I could arrange for a driver and tour guide at Auschwitz Birkenau. When I awoke the next morning, the hotel had written, saying they could arrange everything but needed to make decisions about what type of car I wanted to use and the length of the tour at the camp. By the end of day, choices made, credit card provided, I had a confirmed reservation for May 12.

I couldn’t wait to tell my father about my plans but,  unfortunately, I got a very late start leaving the city that evening and did not arrive at my parents home until after my father had gone to bed.

The next morning, when brought Dad his breakfast, he asked about my trip. I told him that I would leave for Poland the following afternoon and arrive late Monday morning in Warsaw. On Monday Udi and I would likely site see as we would be jet lagged. Tuesday, we planned to spend most of the day in a conference room prepping for our meeting on Wednesday. After our meeting Wednesday Udi would head back to Israel but I was going to stay and extra and go to Auschwitz on Thursday.

I honestly thought this would make the old man proud. That his son was taking the initiative to drive 4 hours to pay his respect to his relatives who had been murdered. I had even thought he might ask me to say a prayer for the dead for him. I was not expecting it when he inquired “Why the fuck do you want to do that?”

Surprised and caught on my back foot I stammered “Because I can. Because I want to pay respect to our relatives who were murdered. Because I may never get to Poland again and honestly because I thought it would make you proud that I would take the initiative to do this.”

I guess he could see the hurt and confused expression on my face because his tone became more conciliatory. “It isn’t that I don’t think the idea of going to that place is admirable. I do. I really do. But why would you want to expose yourself to that kind of pain and heartache. It will rip you up.”

I thought I understood. A father wants to protect his children from undue pain and suffering. It is part of the job description. I replied as gently as I could “Pops…remember the inscription you wrote in the Martin Gilbert …You told me never to forget.  I promised you I never would. I thought that as long as I was near, I could pay my respect. So, they are not forgotten. To say the Kaddish for them. “

“This is not something that you need to do to remember them. I know you will not forget them. And we said our prayers for them at Yad Vashem. There is no need to add to the pain we already feel. They would not want it. I do not want it.”

I was taken back by his response. I thought he would understand completely. And perhaps he understood the tsores I would experience at Auschwitz better than I did. No doubt he was trying to protect me. It gave me pause and I hung my head in thought for a moment and said, “This is something that I feel I have to do….”

“I cannot talk you out of it?”

“No.”

The next morning was Mother’s Day I rose early and went out into our back yard to harvest a few sprigs of Lilacs. This was a long-standing tradition that had originated in the first home I remember, 34 Orion Road in Berkley Heights. My grandfather had given my parents a housewarming present of several lilac bushes. They always seemed to bloom around Mother’s Day and Dad would always pick a few stems, place them in a small vase on the breakfast tray we would bring to Mom so she could enjoy breakfast in bed. When we moved to Summit, one of the first things my father purchased was a new lilac bush and it, like the one at the old house, had bloomed like clockwork around Mother’s Day. To me, the delicate purple and lavender petals, and their heady, sweet scent became synonymous with the day and with the spring. Lilacs were renewal and a warm embrace encased in a floral wrapper.

Mom did not like to have her rest disturbed so before I left, I prepared her breakfast of Enterman’s coffee cake and coffee and left it on a tray on the kitchen counter along with the lilac blooms and a card from me.

Just before my flight departed, I executed another long-standing tradition. I called my father from the Admirals Club to let him know I was on my way. He would always ask “Where are you?” and when I would tell him I was at “The Admirals Club” he would laugh and say, “of course you are…”  That day, after our normal exchange and a few other pleasantries he added “I don’t think you should go to Auschwitz. It is pain you do not need. It will just bring you tears and heartache. Please. I am begging you not to go.”

There is an immutable law of psychology. Whenever a parent begs a child not to do something their resolve to do that thing is increased logarithmically. My response was pre-ordained. “Pops, I have to go.”

4 days later I found myself in a Mercedes C200 speeding through the Polish countryside on my way to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The trip, up to that point, had been a joy. Warsaw, which was largely destroyed during the war, and rebuilt by the Soviets afterward was vibrant and modern. However, they also showed respect for the past by maintaining the warehouses and bunkers of the Jewish Ghetto Uprising even projecting the faces at night of those who perished in that fight. The food was amazing and just to my taste (go figure considering my heritage,) the people friendly and with a large percentage of English speakers which made getting around far easier. Our meetings had been successful, and we felt the expense and time required was money well spent. However, jet lag, time change, hard work and perhaps a little too much Polish vodka the night before combined with an early wakeup call had left me exhausted. I found that it was difficult to keep my eyes open despite the gorgeous spring enhanced farmland and forests of Western Poland in which we were driving.

In the back seat, I found myself in the twilight between wakefulness and sleep. That place where thoughts flow effortlessly one after another and until one circles and sticks. I found myself thinking about the email that I received from my father the night before. It read.

Daniel Ben Zacharai:

I know you think you are doing a mitzvah going to the camp. It is admirable and I love you for it. But it is unnecessary. No one needs that pain. The dead do require it for them to be remembered.

With Love

Poppa

 (Zacharai Ben Mordecai)

I was still having trouble processing why he was so adamantly opposed to me visiting the Camp. It was not like he had not visited a camp before. I knew that my mother and he had visited Dachau on a long-ago trip to Germany. Had Dachau been that bad? Was Auschwitz that different to him? And what about the day we had spent at Yad Vashem together? There, in the Hall of Remembrance, where the ashes of the murdered had been brought and interred, we had prayed and wept together separately. Why was going to Auschwitz any different?

On the flight from London to Warsaw I had re-read Night by Elie Weisel and a quote had stood out to me. “To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.” Didn’t Pops know I was going so that our kin’s sacrifice would not be forgotten? That they, the murdered, would not be forgotten?

As often as I went to put my arms around what made my trip to the Camp so off putting to my father, was as many times as I could not grasp it. And it hurt. Hurt, because not only did I not understand it but like most sons, I sought the approval of my father. His understanding of why I had undertaken this trip, was important to me. It gave me no pleasure to defy him, but it was something that I had to do. And perhaps he knew that. Perhaps because he knew me as well as he did, he knew the toll it would take on me? But a 54-year-old man knows how to protect himself emotionally. Doesn’t he. But perhaps, he did understand. Perhaps he saw himself in me and knowing us he was just trying too spare me a difficult day.

Unable to sleep, and lost in my thoughts, I gazed out the window of the car at the beautiful Polish farmland seeing nothing and registering little. We drove on.

The parking lot of the Auschwitz Birkenau Memorial and State Museum looks remarkably similar to a medium sized national monument in the United States. A moderate sized area for cars with bus parking closest to the entrance to the facility. The visitor center, located at the far end of the parking lot, looked like it was designed by the same people who designed visitor centers on highways as State visitor centers on Interstates. It rattled me that a place where the most heinous crime of the 20^th century took place would look so familiar to me.

At the center, I went to the information window and inquired about the private guide that I had arranged with the help of the concierge at the Intercontinental Hotel. I have never been a person who liked group tours. I had found that too often people lingered in the places I want to speed through or sped through the places I wanted to linger. Often there were people in the group who insisted on asking questions when, at least in my opinion, none were necessary. More importantly, I knew that this was likely to be a very emotional journey for me. One where the tears would come easily, and I did not want to be shamed by or share my sorrows with anyone. They checked a list on the computer and finding my name told me to wait in the lobby for my guide.

Her name was Anna. Petite with dark hair cut in a pageboy style she spoke English with only the barest hint of an accent. After exchanging introductions and pleasantries she asked me what had brought me here today. I managed to explain our family history including how two of my great Aunts had the misfortune of living in the nearby town without choking up completely. She nodded her head with understanding. This was not her first tour with children of survivors. She shared with me that if, during the tour, I needed a moment by myself that she would back away. That was completely normal for this place and not to be shy asking for it. She explained the tour. We would begin in the Museum because at this time of day it was not too crowded. Then we would go through the original camp, Auschwitz 1, then to Auschwitz 2/Birkenau and finally end with the crematoria and memorial.

The first thing I noticed as we approached the entrance of the Memorial were the colors. Everything is sepia toned, shades of brown on brown. This struck me as right. My images of the camp were not in color. It was a black and white place where the heinous acts committed here bled all color from the landscape, never to return.

The second thing I noticed was the sign “Arbeit Mach Frei.” The horrifically awful cynical words “Work Sets You Free” where for the majority who saw this sign it meant “We will work you and starve you until all hope is driven from you and you die.” As I  contemplated the mentality and evilness of the people who could create such a cynically evil sign, and my relatives who may have interpreted the sign with hope, as opposed to their epitaph, I broke down and cried for the first of many sobs that day. Anna, noticing, stepped away and gave me time to gather myself.

A museum, in my past experience, was a place you go to revel in the glory of man. The Louvre celebrates the glory that is the art of man. The Museum of Natural History celebrates the evolution of the world and of man. The Chicago Museum of Science and Industry celebrates man’s quest for knowledge and desire to improve the world. The Auschwitz Museum was not about the glory of man. Instead, it documented his descent into the evil and the vile.

One of the first things you see when you enter the museum is a map that shows how diabolical the Nazi’s were in the creation of the camp. Oswiecim, the Polish town that was to become known by its German name, Auschwitz , was a market town with multiple rail heads that allowed the Nazi’s to easily transport Jews from virtually everywhere in Europe quickly and efficiently, much like a manufacturer would import parts from multiple locations for final assembly. Its efficiency was horrifying enough but it made me think of my Aunt’s, who had grown up in a shtetl a few kilometers from here but moved to Oswiecim when they married. How they must have thought they had improved their lot when they moved here only to be living in a town that was going to become synonymous with Nazi extermination of Jews. A place where they would ultimately be murdered.

There was an exhibit of luggage confiscated by the SS. Each bag had the surname and address from whom it was seized. I struggled to scan them to see if I could find a familiar name: Tuchler, Hess, Hacker. I could not but I took a photo to show my Dad. Perhaps he could see a name of someone he knew.

Another display was of collected personal items that had been seized. Hair, shaving and toothbrushes that left me wondering whether my grandfather had made any of them.

There was a room full of collected shoes. Another of glasses and yet another of prosthesis. I found it beyond disturbing that the Nazi’s would give someone something as intimate as another’s artificial limb.

There were photographs of Jews entering the camp, being separated at the trail head and at work. There were photographs of individual inmates. I paused at each one. Looking for a tell-tale sign that we were kin and to take a photograph, that if I could ever muster the courage, show my father.

The last place we visited in the museum were the original crematoria built for the camp. They were small and if you had not been told of their past would have mistaken them for bread or pizza ovens. Their ordinariness was horrifying. As was the fact, that they were too inefficient for the Nazi’s final solution.

The museum exited onto a group of two-story brick buildings that Anna explained where the first transportees were housed and later were dormitories for the SS guard. But I heard little of what she said. I was still reeling from the exhibits and photographs in the museum and could not focus on her words. I asked her for moment and walked away so that I could have space to be alone with my emotions. There were people milling and as I had no desire to be around anyone, I walked down a small path adjacent to one of the barracks until I reached its end.

I had been looking down, staring at my feet for most of my walk, but when I reached the end of the path I looked up and saw something that shocked me. A hedge of blossoming, pale violet, lilacs. I was stunned to see color in an environment that I had always thought of in black and white and sepia tones. It was more than that. Here was a bloom that to me was synonymous with motherhood and all it engendered in a place that was the embodiment of evil.

How could something like that grow here? I stood, mesmerized by the lilacs. How long had they been here? Were they here when the camp was operating. Would the inmates have seen this dash of beauty and if they did would it give them hope or be a depressing taunt to their painful black and white lives. Would seeing the lilacs given them hope at a time when all you had left was hope.

Or was the hedge new. Had it been planted as a symbol of renewal and rebirth?

I knew I was overthinking this. I knew that I was just trying to distract myself from all that I had just seen. I also knew the distraction was working. Looking at and smelling the lilacs, had taken me away from the dark place the museum had left me to a place of beauty, warmth, and hope. They allowed me to go on.

The entrance of Auschwitz 2/ Birkenau is famous. It has appeared in countless movies including Schindler’s List. It has a large gate in which a train could pass and ends on a long wide earthen road that for all intents and purposes is a railway siding. At the end of the road you can see a thicket of woods with the remains of several structures, the crematoriums. Anna explains to me that this is where the trains carrying the condemned from all over Europe unloaded the human cargo. The SS would then separate the shipment, husband from wives, parents from children, friends from friends. She tells me that the lucky are told to go for processing. Women on the left, men on the right. The others are told to proceed to down the road to delousing, where they would receive showers.

It is impossible to imagine the human suffering that this small piece of land has seen. Anna provides context. She tells me that approx. 1.3 million people, or the population of Dallas had passed through these gates. Of these, 1.1 million, or the population of San Jose CA, would perish. When I think about the magnitude of suffering, I find myself being overwhelmed but I think of the lilacs. The hope amongst the despair, and it makes it easier to place one foot in front of the other.

As we move into the men’s camp, I see a group of teenagers, several of them shrouded in the Israeli Flag. They are singing the Hatikvah, the national anthem of Israel. Their tone is defiant, almost provocative as if to say, “don’t’ ever try to fuck with us again or we will bring the wrath of god down on you. I look an Anna inquiringly and she responds “Israel sends teen groups here all the time. They don’t want them to forget what it is that was lost and what it is they will be fighting for.” I nod in understanding. They are the lilacs. The flowers born of destruction.

We come upon a hut. One of only a few remaining in what used to be a sea of barracks. Anna tells me that the vast majority of the structures were destroyed shortly after the Russians liberated the camp in January 1945. It was a cold winter and they were living off the land. The huts were sacrificed for their wood and the warmth the fires they produced would provide. As we walk into one of these huts, she informs me that the German’s had modified the design of prefabricated horse stalls so they quickly could erect these structures. We step in. There is a long center aisle, on either of side are three rows of shelves, one stacked on top of another. Every 6 feet or so there is a vertical support that serves to separate the “bunks” from one another. Anna tells me that on each “shelf” 3 or 4 prisoners would sleep. But I know. I have seen the images. But now it is no longer a photograph.

We walk to the building directly adjacent to the prisoner hut. Anna tells me it is the latrine. We walk in. It is lined on one side with concrete slabs with 6’ circular staggered holes cut into them: 4 holes per meter of shelf. She explains that the prisoners were only given a few minutes time each morning to do their business and I find the idea of dozens of men squatting over the holes defecating unimaginable. But what she says next brings me up completely short. She tells me that one of the most coveted jobs in the camp, despite the risk of disease, especially in the winter, was cleaning out the latrine. It kept the prisoner from the brutal work outside the camp. Working, hip deep in the waste kept them warm when outside it was bitterly cold.

The thought of this, the baseness of it, makes me feel sick.

We leave the camp and begin the long walk from the rail head to the crematorium. Anna explains that the unfortunate who were selected for the gas chamber would have walked this walk hustled along by a phalanx of SS guards. They would have been told that they were going to be deloused and showered, which no doubt they would have welcomed after weeks confined to an overcrowded cattle car. I wonder how many knew they were walking to their death but went anyway. Could they smell the bodies burning?

There is not much left of the crematorium. Only piles of rubble and twisted reinforced concrete. Anna explains that the Soviet troops who liberated the camp upon learning of the purpose of the ovens, blew them up. That now they have been left to nature, to fade away with time. To prevent, man aiding in this disintegration it has been cordoned off by a yellow rope that surrounds its perimeter. I tell Anna that I need a moment. When she turns her back and I see that no one is looking I step over the rope and into the rubble. I look for and find a rock and a small piece of concrete that was once part of the building. When I step back over the rope, I tell Anna that I am ready to move on. If she suspects anything about my illegal excursion, she says nothing for which I am grateful.

Located between the sites of the two crematoriums, sits the Auschwitz Monument on a wide cobbled platform. At its base, encased in stone, are train tracks that are symbols of how the prisoners were brought to their slaughter. Up a few stairs, in the center of the monument is a modern sculpture that is supposed to resemble the faces of those who perished at the camp but to me looks like a mash up of Easter Island sculptures surrounded by geometric shapes. Evenly distributed in front of the statue are 20 granite slabs with a bronze top that has an inscription in each of the major languages of Europe. The inscription in English reads:

FOR EVER LET THIS PLACE BE A CRY OF DESPAIR AND A WARNING TO HUMANITY, WHERE THE NAZIS MURDERED ABOUT ONE AND A HALF MILLION MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN MAINLY JEWS FROM VARIOUS COUNTRIES OF EUROPE. AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU 1940-1945

It is in front of the English slab that I pause, and I ask Anna for a few moments for myself. When she has drifted away, I pull from my pocket a sheath of papers. I had thought long and hard about how I wanted to memorialize and honor my relatives. To let them know, they are not forgotten.

I place the stone I had collected from the Crematorium site, on top of the plaque honoring the Jewish tradition of letting the dead know they are remembered.

I recite a poem by Elie Wisel, from his book Night.

“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.
Never shall I forget that smoke.
Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.
Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever.
Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.
Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.
Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself.
Never.”

I had told Dad that one of the reasons that I felt like I needed to come to Auschwitz was because someone needed to say the Kaddish for our relatives who were murdered. They deserved, at the very least a prayer said by their family. As my Hebrew skills are at best minimal, I recite a transliteration of the Kaddish.

Yitgaddal veyitqaddash shmeh rabba. Beʻalma di vra khir’uteh. Veyamlikh malkhuteh, beḥayekhon uvyomekhon uvḥaye dekhol bet Yisrael, beʻagala uvizman qariv. Veʼimru: Amen.
Yehe shmeh rabba mevarakh leʻalam ulʻalme ʻalmaya.
Yitbarakh veyishtabbaḥ veyitpaar veyitromam veyitnasse veyithaddar veyitʻalleh veyithallal shmeh dequdsha berikh hu.
Leʻella min kol birkhata veshirata tushbeḥata veneḥemata daamiran beʻalma. Veʼimru: Amen.
Titqabbal tzelotehon uvaʻutehon d’khol bet Yisrael qodam avuhon di bishmayya. Veʼimru: Amen.
Yehe shelama rabba min shemayya, vehayyim ʻalainu v’al kol Yisrael. Veʼimru: Amen.
O’seh shalom bimromav, hu yaʻase shalom ʻalenu, v’ʻal kol Yisra’el. Veʼimru: Amen

It seemed wrong to me to say a single Kaddish for so many. They were individuals. The essence of the meaning of the Jewish tradition “Save a life, Save the world” is that each individual is a world onto themselves and each needs to be celebrated and mourned.  I have created a list of those of our family who have died:

 Heinrich Hess

 Risa Hess

Alfred Hess, his wife, and children

Rudolf Hess, his wife, and children

Helene Hess

Hans Hess

Rivka Rothkopf and her sisters, husbands, and children

Minna Hader,

Maulina Hader

Grete Hader and her grandchildren

Josephine Tuchler

Jackob Tuchler

Gisella Tuchler.

For each one them, individually, I say the Kaddish in English, because I want to say words for them I understand and feel.

May His great name be exalted and sanctified. In the world which He created according to His will! May He establish His kingdom during your lifetime and during your days and during the lifetimes of all the House of Israel, speedily and very soon! And say, Amen.
May His great name be blessed forever, and to all eternity!
Blessed and praised, glorified and exalted, extolled and honored, adored and lauded be the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, above and beyond all the blessings, hymns, praises and consolations that are uttered in the world! And say, Amen.
May the prayers and supplications of all Israel be accepted by their Father who is in Heaven; And say, Amen.
May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life upon us and upon all Israel; And say, Amen.
May He who makes peace in His high places grant peace upon us and upon all Israel; And say, Amen

Then I say one more. For those we had forgotten to remember and those we will never know because sadly, time, and faded memories have erased them.

By the time, I have finished, I am hoarse, and emotionally spent. I tell Anna that I am done, and she walks me back to the parking lot. I thank her and tell her how much I have appreciated her guidance and consideration. As we drive away, I catch one final glimpse of the lilacs.

Three days later I am back at my parent’s home. I find my father in his room, sitting in his wheelchair at the card table reading he uses for a desk, reading the New York Times. He does not see me, as his back is turned, so I give him a hug from behind. Hugging me back, he says “Your back. How was your trip.”

Instead of telling of the horrors I have seen and the overwhelming emotions that I have felt as I fear recounting those things would only upset us both, I say “There were lilacs.”

He looks puzzled for a moment and then because we have played this game many times before, he nods his head in understanding. He knows without me saying what I have found there. It was, after all the reason he did not want me to go. He knows I have no desire to upset him or myself, so it is better to fixate on something immaterial and a little odd. A distraction. He replies with understanding.  “Really?”

“Beautiful ones Dad. Light lavender almost white blossoms. They smelled beautiful.”

It is then I reach into my pocket and pull out the small piece of concrete that I have illegally liberated from Auschwitz and place it on the table telling him “I brought you a present.”

He looks down on this unremarkable object and instantly understands what it is and what it represents. He looks up at me with understanding and emotion in his eyes. We look at each other. Neither of us wishing to speak as it would unleash the underlying emotions that we both wish to keep buried. I know he is grateful for what I have done, and he knows how grateful I am that he managed to survive.

After a moment, he reaches across the table and takes it into his hand and then places it into his pocket and says, “Thank you.”

After processing at Ellis Island, they were greeted at the New York City docks by Marcus’s brother Max in his new 1939 Cadillac Fleetwood. I am sure there was a lot of back slapping and hugging involved in that reunion. They had, after all, pulled off by the skin of their teeth a great escape. Just months before the MS St. Louis with 900 Jewish immigrants were denied entry into Cuba, United States and Canada. While some were accepted into England most had to return to Europe. Most perished in the Holocaust.

What your grandfather remembered about that evening is butter. He claimed that they had not been able to afford or to buy it in Vienna for months and that he was so overcome by seeing it in copious amount it that he ate nearly a pound of it much to the delight of his Uncle.

The New World was literally a completely new world. They had come from a country that was at war to a country that was at peace. A place where at any moment they could be forced into menial and demeaning labor, or insulted spit upon or even beaten with impunity to a place where they could walk freely and without fear. From a country where food was scarce and expensive to where green grocers often gave away fruit when it was past its prime. They had gone from living in a two room apartment, a main room and a kitchen, with a common toilet and bathroom down the hall to living in a two family home at 8 Delay Street that not only had integral plumbing but a large eat in kitchen, a living room, two bedrooms and small yard with grape vines. They had a refrigerator where before they just had a windowsill to keep their perishables cold.

It was such a contrast to the life they had been living that when Ernst described his new life to a friend who been transported to England, the friend responded by saying he was in “fairyland.”

Danbury, about 70 miles NE of NYC, the town in which they settled, was well suited for them. Part of that had to do with the fact that their sponsors in this country, Max, and his wife Sarah, were well established in town.  In the 26 years Max had been in this country he had managed to carve out a prosperous life for himself. How he did so is not entirely clear, but no doubt brains, hard work, and luck played a role as did helping boot leggers during prohibition. At the time Max had owned a dry goods store, similar to a general store, and family lore has it that he supplied sugar to those interested in distilling liquor illegally. Whatever his role in prohibition, it must have been significant enough that he eventually received liquor license number 1 in the State of Connecticut when prohibition was repealed. The name of that store, Italian Importing Company, suggests that Max probably had ties to the Italian gangsters who were prevalent at the time and he certainly dressed the part with dark suits, fedora, pinky ring and flashy car. His businesses and personality, engaging and friendly, gave him a wealth of contacts in the town.

Sara, Max’s wife, was a good partner to him because she was much more calculating and transactional. She expected total loyalty and gratitude from people Max, and she helped. She was also opinionated and not to be trifled with which is what made her a politician. She founded the Danbury Taxpayers Association, an organization dedicated to limiting taxes and the role of government, and ran for Mayor many times, never winning. She was in many ways the Donald Trump of Danbury.

The other factor that benefitted them was the town of Danbury itself. The town had been established in the mid 1800’s as a center of the fur trade, especially beaver, that lived in the area. Beaver, and other animals were wildly prized for their fiber which could be made into elegant felt hats and the city eventually became known as “hat city” with many manufactures locating there to make use of the skilled trades. During the 20’s Danbury’s hat trade became famous for another reason. Mad Hatter’s disease. This was not really a disease but the environmental poisoning of workers with mercury that was used to remove the fur from animals. Symptoms included diminished mental acuity, irritability and tremors and shakes that eventually made it impossible to work. Labor unions fought for years for companies to use safer chemicals and eventually, in 1941, mercury was banned.

But Marcus’s work experience in the abattoir and being a brush maker made him a perfect candidate for a job in the hat industry as felt is made by the amalgamation of animal fiber through a chemical process. Through Max’s and Sarah’s connection he eventually found work at the Bieber-Goodman Felt Body Corporation a manufacturer of fine hats. Jenny too put her skills as a seamstress to work taking in “piece work” and joining the International Women’s Garment Union.

Ernst primary responsibility was to go to school which was not easy as English was not a language he knew well. At first, they put him into 2^nd grade but with each passing day and every Ronald Coleman film (he claimed the movies taught him English) and each reading of the dictionary got better and before long he was back with his age group in High School. Apparently, he was extremely popular there and even tried out for American football as opposed the football he loved playing in Vienna.

Ernie too had to contribute to the finances of the household. Primarily he worked for Max in his stores as a stock boy in the liquor store and in his grocery business. The later he loved because he could eat all the fruit he wanted as a sharp contrast to the lack of produce he had seen in Vienna.

Life settled into a pattern for them at 8 Delay St.  Everyone worked. Ernie studied hard in the hope of attaining the “Fairydust” dream of going to University to become an anthropologist or physician. Marcus would grumble about his studying and occasionally after a beer too many would rage about his studying and throw all his books off the kitchen table. This emotional and physical abuse would create a distance between father in son. In fact, after Ernie graduated from Danbury High School in June 1943, he immediately left for Syracuse University never to return home again except for brief visits.

With Ernie off at college, life on Delay St must have been exceedingly difficult. Jenny was a sweet soul, but Marcus was a man who liked to flirt with woman and drink. Generally speaking, that does not make for a stable marriage or quiet home life and what we can gather that was a fact here. There were rumors of bursts of tempers and beatings.

By August 1944 Ernie had completed his sophomore year in College and being 18 was drafted into the Army.  On the last day of the month Max, Jenny and Marcus drove him to Hartford where he was inducted into the army and sent off to Ft. Wolters, Texas for basic training. I am sure that he corresponded with his parents, but no letters were kept but knowing Pops sense of humor, he probably wrote them frequently about all the dangerous things that he was doing to make his mother worry. (Note: For the rest of her life Jenny would keep a piece of shrapnel that Pops had sent her having explained that it almost killed him.)

In January of 1945 Ernie was sworn in as a citizen and then immediately transferred to Ft. Sill Okahoma for Artillery Officer Candidate School. I have no doubt that it made Marcus and Jenny immensely proud as they saved the announcement of his appointment for over 75 years.

On the day that barely 19-year-old Ernie was assigned to OCS, January 27, 1945, Soviet troops liberated the German death camp known as Auschwitz-Birkenau. Rumors of the horrors of the death camps and the cruelty of the Nazi’s of the Jews had been circulating for years but the liberation of the first death camp must have come as quite a shock to the entire Rothkopf clan. Poles had called the town the camp was in Osweicim. It is within walking distance of the shtetl of Grodzisko where the Rothkopf brothers and sisters were born. Two of the three Rothkopf’s sisters lived in that market town. Max had visited them there in 1936 and it was there that he took the train to Vienna to visit with his brother and his family.

Auschwitz was followed by Buchenwald April 11; Bergen-Belsen on April 15; Dachau and Ravensbruck on April 29; Mauthausen by the Americans on May 5; and Theresienstadt on May 8. Each revelation of new death camps must have fueled anxiety, pain, fear and perhaps even some survivor’s remorse. Did their family and friends survive? Where do I go, whom to go to find out what happened to those I loved? Today, we expect instantaneous answers measured at worse in hours. Then information dribbled in single drops over long periods of time. Each day visit to the mail box must have been filled with hope and dread. Hope of good news and dread should there be none or worse the news that the one they loved had been consumed by the conflagration.

I never spoke to Marcus or Jenny about what those days were like. I was too young. But I know that loss never left your grandfather nor the hope of finding one of his lost relatives and friends alive.  I realized this one afternoon in kibbutz Lohamei HaGetatot in the Western Galilee region of Israel. The kibbutz was founded by those who survived the Warson Ghetto uprising and they had a small museum to remember that uprising and of the Shoah. It was our custom when traveling together and visiting museums to go off separately and see the exhibits at our own pace. When I had completed my tour of the museum, I went to look for Pops and found him staring at a large 2 meter by 2-meter photograph of Jewish slave laborers in Hungary doing roadwork. He was quite silent, and I could tell by his demeanor how upset he was, so I asked him what was wrong. He pointed to one of the people in the photograph and said “I think that is one of my Uncles. We never knew what happened to him.”

I am sure that the post war years were full of that sense of loss and survivor’s remorse for Jenny and Marcus.

What I did not know during our trip to Israel, nor for many years later, that as the camps were being liberated it is highly possible that Ernie was in Europe. There is a lot of mystery surrounding those months of his service. He admitted to being part of the recovery of the Crown of St. Stephen on his death bed but would not share what that role was. Further research suggests that sometime during his time at OCS, an unusual 6 months for a 4 month course,  he flew to Europe via Brazil, Dakar to help recover the crown and that he spent at least a few days in Vienna shortly after VE day. This is confirmed in his official Columbia biography and several fiction pieces where he mentions being in Vienna during that time period despite the fact that the incomplete army records show that he was Oklahoma at the time.

On a trip to Vienna together in 2007 we talked extensively what it was like to return to Vienna just 6 years after his departure. I wondered what it was like to leave as a 5’2 adolescent and return as a 6’2 adult to the city of his persecution. A city he had been forced to flee and was now returning as an officer in the conquering army. He, like most members of the greatest generation, was very understated about it. Sitting in a café beneath his boyhood apartment I asked him what happened when he had come across the landlady who had tormented him as a child now that he returned a foot taller and as officer in the conquering army. He told me that she was scared. When I asked how that made him feel he told me after a pause with a wry smile and said, “pretty good” and then changed the subject.

The reason for the change in topics was no doubt to mask the pain he also felt when looking for friends and family that had disappeared into the crematoria. He told me of the heartbreak of being unable to find those he loved such as his Aunt Pepi, in everything but biology his grandmother, and of lost Tuechlers, Hackers, and Hess’s. And of hearing the horror stories of the survivors including Uboaters, those who like Aunt Leni and Paul Grosz who had spent much of the war in a clandestine settlement in Vienna’s sewers.

I have no doubt that Ernie communicated to Marcus and Jenny what he found and did not find in Vienna. I am just unsure when he did it. Ostensibly the reason he was in Vienna was classified. He was not supposed to be out of the country. I am also sure that Jenny and Marcus were doing all they could to find lost and displaced relatives and that every trip to the mailbox was filled with equal parts dread and hope. Every return trip a mixed bag of disappointment, sorrow, or joy.

On September 28, 1945, while their son, a newly minted 2^nd Lt and home from his secret mission and while awaiting deployment to Europe at Fort Bragg, NC, Jenny, and Marcus stood before a judge, raised their right hands and repeated these words:

“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.”

And became US citizens. There is no doubt that both were dressed in their finest clothes and were escorted to the ceremony by Max and his wife. I am also sure that considering the post war mayhem, a new world that vastly differed from that of their birth and that this was Marcus’s fifth country of residence, becoming a citizen of the US must have been quite a comfort for them. They also must have paused to reflect their journey.  In just 7 years they had gone from marginalized, reviled sub-humans to citizens of the greatest country in the world entitled to all the privileges and obligations there off.

The Rothkopf’s life took on the air of normalcy. Marcus continued his work at Bieber Goodman. Jenny continued to do piece work for the ILGWU and Ernst, after his return from Europe and discharge from active duty in the Army,  returned to Syracuse University where he graduated with the class with whom he had matriculated .( No easy task considering the 2.5 years spent in the Army.)  He spent a year at Columbia thinking about being a writer and then enrolled at University of Connecticut, Storrs to get a Doctorate in Experimental Psychology.

That summer of 1948 he also met an 18-year woman, Carol Louise Zeman, who had been weekending at Candlewood Lake in Danbury. Mom’s recollection of that day always included a reference to how Dad had spent much of his time teasing her for being a Park Avenue dilettante. (Today it would be called negging and no doubt your grandfather would have claimed he invented it.) This was followed up by a dozen roses the next day. For her part, I think Carol was smitten from the beginning as this photograph taken that day shows.

Their relationship would result in marriage 4 years later and a marriage that lasted just a few months shy of 60 years

By all indications Marcus genuinely like Carol. She spoke fluent German so they could communicate with each other. And, apparently Marcus was a flirt. He had always liked pretty women and your grandmother was pretty and well put together. The combination made for a good relationship. It also did not hurt that she was the daughter of Park Avenue Physician and your grandfather was boxing above his weight class.

When Carol and Ernie got married on a very hot August 28, 1952 (there was no air conditioning in the apartment in which they were married and your grandfather perspired so much that the dye from his suit tattooed his skin) there was no one happier than Marcus Rothkopf

I can only imagine what must have been running through his thoughts that day. Surely, he remembered the shtetl he was born in and the difficulty he had in school and with his father. He must have contemplated his search for a life and the war, wounding, capture and captivity in Siberia that robbed him of his young adulthood. The struggle for a life in Vienna and how he managed to keep his family safe and eventually arrange their escape and passage here. Now just 12.5 years later his son, now a PHD, was marrying the daughter of a Park Avenue Physician. It is the stuff of “Fairyland” and I have no doubt that Marcus realized it and reveled in it.

The young couple soon moved to Chamapagne-Urbana Illinois. Ernst was working for the Air Force researching how to instruct young airman and had been assigned to Chanute Air Force Base, the home of Air Force field training command. While no correspondence remains, I have no doubt your grandmother wrote Jenny and Marcus frequently about their new life in the heartland of the US. I am sure that phone calls, which were awfully expensive for a couple living on Spam Casserole, were infrequent and probably holiday and life events.

No doubt one of those life events occurred in early Summer of 1955 when they called Jenny and Marcus to let them know their first grandchild would be born later that year.

First grandchildren are often celebrated as they symbolize the renewal of the family. The continuance of legacy. For Marcus, Jenny, Carol, and Ernie this must have been highly amplified. They had lost the country of their birth, most of their family and friends and now there would be a child born who could help rebuild the legacy that been lost in the Nazi ovens. If I listen hard enough I can still here your Great Grandmother Jenny kvelling about it.

And when a baby boy was born on December 24, 1955 it was no less a miracle to the Rothkopfs than the miracle that was celebrated on the following day. Even his name was chosen with great care. David, in Hebrew means “beloved.” David was the poet and warrior of the Jewish people. It was also to honor your Grandfather’s mentor David Zeman and your Grandmothers father, Fredrick David Zeman,  but the middle name Jochanon was chosen so his Hebrew name would be Jochanon Ben Zakkai, an important Jewish sage and the most famous scholar at the time of the second temple…a name that also paid tribute to your grandfather’s failed Zionist dreams.

Everyone was proud of their accomplishment. In the late spring of 1956 Marcus and Jenny took the train Champaign Urbana to visit with their first grandchild. Marcus was particularly proud, and he would take the baby for long walks in his stroller. What family secrets that were disclosed between grandfather and grandson is not known but what is remembered  is that Marcus returned from each of these trips with baked goods from the local bakery shop. Apparently, Marcus had been using David as bait in a flirtation he had been having with a bakery clerk.

Shortly after their return they that their son, daughter in law and grandson were moving even farther away, to Denver Co where Ernie had been transferred. It was not long after the transfer that Carol became pregnant with their second child who was born March 14, 1957. While not quite the event of the first his name was chosen to have significance to both sides of family. Paul was chosen to honor Paul Gross. As boys they had roamed the streets together. At wars end Ernie had looked for him desperately knowing that he not managed to leave the city and finding him at his mothers apartment having escaped the war by being a uboater and living with the city sewers. Herr Gross would eventually become the leader of the Jewish Community of Vienna.

In 1958 the last of the hat companies of Hat City closed. Bieber Goodman was no more and with that Marcus, now 70 years old, retired officially. But Marcus was not a man who could easily sit around and watch his garden grow. He needed to do something to feel valuable and alive. So he started working for the city of Danbury doing custodial work on the parking lots adjacent to his home on Delay Street. Every day he would take a wooden stick with a nail protruding from one end and use it to spear trash and place it in a large burlap sack he had slung over his shoulders.

This image of a shabby man, wearing shabby clothes, and smelling of beer and cigarettes is how I first remember Marcus.

In June of 1966 Marcus developed pneumonia and was taken to the hospital. This did not please him. He did not think he was sick enough to be in the hospital. Compounding it he could not smoke nor have his beer. Communication with the staff at the hospital difficult as he spoke English badly and there were many misunderstandings that caused him to be restrained at the wrist and ankles and to be sedated. When David and I had  visited him at the hospital I remember how black and blue he was and while I could not understand the German I remember how animated he was about leaving. It was a scary experience for a 9 year old.

Several days after our trip Marcus died. Not of pneumonia but of brotherly love. Max, compassionate soul that he was, had managed to sneak him a beer. No doubt Marcus enjoyed the beer. However, as kind an act as it was for Max to give his brother a beer. It was also a fatal mistake as the alcohol in the beer combined with his medications in an extremely negative way that resulted in his death.

Marcus’s loss to the family went far greater than the mourning to a loved one lost. It inspired Carol and Ernie’s creative nature. On March 25, 1967, just about 40 weeks after his death, Carol gave birth to a baby girl. She was given the name Marissa to honor Marcus’s memory.

————–

[A note to my nieces and nephews] 

When your Grandfather Rothkopf died I decided that I began to investigate his service during the war. I wanted to see if it would be possible to document what his involvement with the capture of The Crown of St. Stephen. Then, as now it fascinated me to think, that a man could keep a secret this big from his wife and family for so long over an artifact that nearly no one had ever heard about. One of the first thing I did was ask your Grandmother for any papers he may have accumulated years to see if there were clues contained within them that I could track. Mom, as you well know, was the opposite of a pack rat. She, the product of growing up in the NY City apartment, always felt the need to shed and was only to happy to provide me with a large collection of your grandfather’s ephemera.

Sadly there were no clues within that box regarding the Crown of St. Stephens. That quest continues.

However, one of the items in that collection caught my imagination. The accordion of postcards Marcus had bought in Port Said in 1921. They made me wonder why it is that these postcards had preserved for almost century. What had they meant to Marcus? What had they meant to Dad that they were still here. They made me think about Marcus, more than in just passing,for the first time in my life. It made me reconsider him with adult eyes and for the first time appreciate him for the man he was.

He had accomplished something that many people can claim. He had, largely on his own, saved his family. If it were not for him and his timeliness in applying for a Visa none of us would have existed. Instead, Marcus, Jenny and Dad would all have become some of the forgotten names of the Shoah.

Marcus managed this because he had a single trait that allowed this to happen. He was a survivor in every sense of the world. He survived a war. He survived a Gulag. He survived the Nazis. Realizing this made me here Pop’s voice when I was small and wanted to give up on a hike or whatever task was at hand. He would tell me “Rothkopf’, never give up.” Perhaps this is something Marcus drilled into to him as well. I do not know. What I realize now is that, like Marcus, it is a phrase I have lived my life by. Never give up…ever because where there is life, there is hope.

The deep dive into Marcus’s life also made me realize another truth. That our impression of people is often surface deep. We should not form a concrete opinion of someone until we have known there whole journey. What they have gone through and endured; what they are enduring now will help us understand them and appreciate them for who they are. In the case of Marcus, I had thought of him for years as the nasty old man with a stick in the park lot who had been cruel to his wife and to his child. Knowing his story as I do now I understand how a life faced with unimaginable adversities may have shaped him and allowed me to appreciate for what he really was: A man who saved his family which is feat few men can claim.

Looking at those postcards today, I no longer have any question as to why Marcus held onto those cards. They symbolize his journey, his passage between worlds and lives. It is a journey that is constant in life and I hope as you look them now you remember his journey and how he saved a family but also think about yours and the course you will chart.

The new family settled into a small apartment at 48 Ottokringerstrasse. The apartment had only two rooms. A kitchen that had no refrigerator except for the ledge outside the window and also doubled as a bedroom for Ernst and a living room that also doubled as a bedroom for Marcus and Jenny. Their bathrooms were communal and down the hall from the apartment.

The living quarters might have been tight, but they were surrounded by family. Jenny’s family. Jenny’s cousins, her mother’s sisters’ children, the Tuechlers and Hackers lived on surrounding streets as did her brother Robert and Alfred.

For the next few years, the family created a life for themselves in Vienna. Jenny worked with other women in her building sewing ties that they would sell to Winter’s, a large department store in Vienna. They would sew and chat and often socialize together with Grandpa often being the center of attention as he was one of the few children in this group of friends.

Marcus continued his work at the abattoir and was at least good enough friends with them that he preserved this photo of him with his co-workers.

Your grandfather went to school at a nearby elementary school.

He played at a nearby park and they all went to a Synagogue just a few blocks from their home.

On warm days, they would go to the Danube where they belonged to a beach club of sorts where people who were poor or of modest means could go and spend their time cooling off in the river and playing volleyball, soccer or other outdoor activities. According to your grandfather, the beach was not his mother’s favorite place. He thought that this was due  in part to his father’s flirtatious behavior with a number of women on the beach especially one who was the daughter or granddaughter of the Austrian coffee magnate Julius Meinl.

One of your grandfather’s favorite memories of this time was clothes shopping with Marcus. He was a sharp dresser and wanted his son to be outfitted properly. He especially wanted his son to have good shoes and he would spend a lot of time picking out the exact right pair for Dad to own. I have come to imagine that this had a lot to do with his time in Siberia where good shoes were necessary for survival and were likely in noticeably short supply. I have also wondered, from time to time, whether this is a genetic trait of Rothkopfs as I spend an undo amount of time picking out shoes.

There was also a darker side to Marcus. He liked to drink and often would return from work after a few beers with his co-workers in a very dark mood. Your grandfather who was at the kitchen table would often be the victim of his anger.  He would tell Grandpa that studying got you know where that only hard work got you anything and that he should prepare for a life of labor, not of books, often while sweeping your grandfather’s books onto the floor. Sometimes during these dark moods, he would hit Jenny. I know that these dark moods and temper tantrums scared and traumatized Ernst. But in talking about its years later he seemed to understand these dark times. That a man, like Marcus, who had been through such a difficult time was never going to be a saint or without scars from those awful times, but underneath it all, there was a man who loved and wanted the best for him.

If grandpa would not judge his father for the dark places his father went, I will not either.

By 1936 the Rothkopf’s life had stabilized.  The had an apartment that while not spacious met their needs. Marcus had a steady job that considering the state of the worldwide depression was remarkable. Jenny helped make end meet with her sewing and Dad was having a reasonably normal childhood centered around school, play with his friends, and religious training so he could become a bar mitzvah.

On June 19, 1936, a telegram arrived at Ottokringer Strasse 48 from Osweicim announcing that Max, who had started his European trip visiting his sisters and no doubt visiting his parent’s graves, would be arriving that day.

The brothers had not seen each other in over 20 years. One had become an American citizen and built a successful life in the United States and the other had suffered internment and the torments of a destroyed economy. I cannot imagine what their reunion must have been like, but it must have been emotional. Nor do I know what they spoke about as your Grandfather only recalls that Max bought him a suit. Their visit was short. Max’s ship, the MS Pilsudski departed from Gydnia, Poland on June 26. I am confident that one of the subjects that was broached Vienna Rothkopf’s immigration to the United States. The rise of the Nazi party and anti-Semitism, the impoverished nature of his brother’s life would suggest that Max would have certainly raised the topic.

[Authors Note: One of the questions that occurred to me while writing this piece was what did Max do for his sisters? Did he try to help them escape Poland or was it not a priority as during his visit Poland was a free and independent country from Germany.]

When Marcus decided to immigrate to the United States with his family is unknown. What is known is that the process of getting a visa to the United States was lengthy, complicated, long on hope and ripe with disappointment. In the early 1920’s believers in Eugenics, a pseudo-science that theorized you could improve the human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics, had managed to convince Congress to severely limit immigration to the United States. Due to immigration laws in the US he could not apply for a Visa as a “German” which had the most amount of visa’s available but as a Pole because that was his country of birth. Poland had ¼ the Visa allotment of Germany.

As a consequence, the process took years. Once you applied for the Visa, you then had to gather documents needed to satisfy the visa requirements of the United States. They included:

• Birth certificates for all members of the family. (As birth certificates were not common at the time, especially in small towns in Poland and Hungary, this must have been quite a chore.)
• Medical clearance.
• Tax documents
• Police certificates to prove you were not a criminal.
• Military discharge to prove you were not AWOL or avoiding conscription.
• An Inventory List of all the items you were taking with you, down to the pillowcase, that was given to the Nazi Government to prove you were not looting the country.

Once the paperwork was done you needed to prove that you had an American Financial Sponsor. This included getting a recommendation letter for that person along with a bank letter proving financial viability, tax returns and affidavit promising that you were be responsible for those whom you are sponsoring.

This must have been a tremendously time consuming and difficult process and while Jenny may have helped the burden of this work must have fallen on Marcus. Not only was it his brother who was his sponsor, but it was difficult enough for a man to get around Vienna at the time let alone a woman. I can only imagine the type of stress the collection of the documents, the waiting of letters from the United States, and all the other things that had to be accomplished would have been placed on Marcus.

Once all the paperwork was completed you needed to prove to the US consulate that you had a ship ticket and transit visas from the Nazi’s. Only then would the US Consul interview and determine whether or not you would be allowed to immigrate to the United States.

Time passed.

At the dawn of 1938, Austria was in rough shape.  Hyperinflation, the Depression, the burden of the Treaty of Versailles, the loss of stature by the dissolution of the old empire created a stew of political instability that resulted in wide spread scapegoating of Jews and the inevitability of the annexation of Austria into Greater Germany.
On the morning of March 12, 1938, the German Army crossed the border with Austria. Adolph Hitler, an Austrian by birth, entered the country later that day and spent the next several days holding cheering rallies across the country concluding with a triumphant rally in Vienna

The campaign against the Jews began immediately after the Anschluss. They were driven through the streets of Vienna; their homes and shops were plundered. In Marcus’s case it meant being forced to clean the sidewalk with a toothbrush and other acts of deference including the licking of the bottom of storm troopers’ boots. It meant listening to their anti-Semitic landlady say vile things to him, his wife and child and others. There was violence. Jews were beaten without consequence. Your grandfather once had a spear thrown at him that managed to hit him in the head. It was terrible for your grandfather but for Marcus it must have been exceedingly difficult as well. How do you respond when your child is hurt by a mob of anti-Semitic boys or your wife insulted by the landlady and others?  How do you deal with the daily personal insults? If you reacted with anger you would likely be beaten and arrested or worse killed. If you want to survive, to protect your family and have hope for leaving this all behind you you’re your mouth shut and your fists silent, which takes a kind of courage and will power I don’t know if I possess.

Aryanisation began, and Jews were driven out of public life within months. This included Jews not being able to ride public transportation including the trolley’s that Marcus took each day to and from his work. This meant he had to walk 5 miles each way, every day, just to earn a living.

Events reached a crescendo in the Kristallnacht pogrom of 9–10 November 1938. That night they burned down your Grandfather’s synagogue just a few weeks shy of the bar mitzvah he would never have. It was the night they arrested Marcus, while your grandfather hid under his covers, and was sent off to prison along with 6,000 other Jews. Marcus was lucky, as a war veteran he was released after a few days, but most were sent to concentration camps, and most of those did not survive the war.  Your grandfather was no longer allowed to go to school. Marcus lost his job and Jenny’s sewing and the few odd jobs Marcus could scrounge were their only steady source of income.

The Nazi’s made it clear. Get out of Greater Germany (Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Austria) or your fate would no longer be in your hands. For many Jews in Austria it became a part of daily life to find out what countries were offering up visa’s and go and stand in line to see if you could win the lottery and receive permission to enter that country. But as today, countries were reluctant to admit so many immigrants especially if they were Jewish. Anti-Semitism was rampant everywhere including the US

Your grandfather and his friends scrounged everywhere for a way out of Austria. Several of his friends went to Shanghai which accepted a vast number of Jews from Europe. His friend Edouard managed to become part of the Kindertransport program which took Jewish children and brought them to England while leaving their parents and all they knew behind. Others, like Dad’s cousin’s Lizzi, were sent to stay with family and friends in neighboring countries hoping being out of Greater Germany would save them. [ We have correspondence from Edouard that describes his life in England and how difficult it was for him to be separated from him family. Sadly, he died on the last day of the war as an airman in the RAF. Lizzi’s journey was also troubled the Aunt who was supposed to take in died while she was in transit and eventually, she was “adopted” by a Belgian family who at the outbreak of the war was trekked across Europe by foot to find safety first in Spain and eventually Portugal]

Young Ernie was nothing if not enterprising. He managed to get himself a visa to Palestine where he hoped to become a kibbutznik and call himself Zakki Ben Mordecai. It never happened because Marcus forbade it much to the frustration of his son. (It was a painful enough memory for him that it took me traveling with him to Israel to admit his Zionist passion. From then on whenever I wanted to be especially intimate with him I would call him abba and sign my name Daniel Ben Zacharias) Marcus insisted that the family stay together whatever the consequences. The gamble he was taking was immense and the stakes could not have been any higher.

On September 1^st, 1939, the stakes of his gamble were raised immeasurably when the German Army invaded Poland. The 2^nd World War had begun. For Marcus, the urgency to gain a visa must have been intense. He had bet his life and the lives of his wife and child on receiving that visa.  Every day the war news must have brought additional stress. Did he make the right decision not to allow his son the chance for a life in Palestine? What of his sisters and their families who lived so near the front lines in Poland? What was going to happen to his family if the Visa did not get through, Jewish men and their families were being arrested daily.

Finally, on November 8, 1939 the United States Consulate in Vienna issued visas to Marcus, Jenny, and Ernie. The same day an assassination attempt was made on Hitler’s life and somehow the Rothkopf’s manage to cross the Austrian frontier into Italy just before the border is shut. I have often wondered what it must have felt like to finally escape a country where you have been under the boot of oppression, with arrest just a knock on the door away, and the near constant fear of physical violence and verbal abuse to suddenly be beyond their reach. Joy, exaltation, relief, sorrow for those left behind, anticipation, fear of the unknown…so many emotions the mind would have spun as if on spindle.

Their train trip, with all of their belongings in just a few bags went from Vienna to Trieste. From Trieste on to Milan.

Somewhere on the outskirts of Milan Jenny’s first cousin (son of her mother’s sister) Benno jumped on the train to say hello to them before jumping off the train just as it pulled into Milan station. He had been arrested on Krystalnacht and forced to flee Austria under of threat of imprisonment or death and had been living a subsistence existence in Italy as he was an illegal immigrant.  One of the enduring mysteries to your grandfather was how Benno knew they were to be on their train (texting had not been invented as of yet) but he thought it could be that Benno * jumped on many trains in hopes of finding them or someone he knew.

From Milan they traveled to Genoa, which young Ernie no doubt noted was the home of the man who discovered America, Christopher Columbus, and likely shared with his parents as there is large statue of him directly adjacent to the main train station. There they were treated a luxury of a hotel, no doubt a rare if not first-time experience for them, while awaiting their ship. There, they also had a visit with one of Jenny’s relative, her Uncle David’s son, Hans. He had been trying to cross the Green line into France, no doubt to join the war effort, but had been unable to find a way to cross the border. He had not eaten in days, so they bought him a meal before their departure.

On November 25, 1939, just two days past Thanksgiving, the SS Vulcania sailed for New York with the Rothkopfs safely ensconced in their third-class cabin.

This was a ship of immigrants who had managed, by the grace of god, and doubtless hard work, to escape Europe as global war engulfed the continent. Friendships were made and conversations had about the circumstances of their current journey.

No doubt much of the conversation was said over meals at table 44 in the 2^nd seating in the third-class dining room. For many including the Rothkopfs this was likely some of the best food that they had in some time and certainly for the women making the journey a blessing not to have to prepare the three meals a day that they had to fit into their lives. I am sure time was taken at these meals to savor their escape and the freedom to be at leisure they had never known in their hard knock lives.  There must have been conversations about the world they had escaped from, the relatives and friends that were left behind and what would happen to them even as they made their escape. They probably compared notes on how they came to be on this ship and where their ultimate destination was and the life they would lead when they got there.

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On December 6, 1939, after nearly a month of traveling and 12 days at sea the SS Vulcania, cruised  by the Statue of Liberty and the Rothkopf’s were welcomed into this country at Ellis Island.  It is unknown what Marcus and Jennie thought of seeing that majestic lady with her up raised hand. I doubt that they knew of the poem written in her honor, The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus.

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Your grandfather from that point forward would call her Ladily and in happy tones recall that first trip into New York Harbor and his first sighting of land, A neon “Wrigley” sign.

(Part 4 Will be Published 5-8-20)

As the European powers, interlocked through a series of secret and not so secret alliances, blundered towards war, Marcus’s reserve status was cancelled and he was recalled, along with millions of others to active duty. It is highly likely that he was a member of the Austrian Hungarian 1^st Army which was billeted in Krakow not far from his family’s home in Grodzisko.

This is supported in part by family legend. According to the stories we were told Marcus was engaged in one of the very first battles of the war and was bayonetted in the rear end and taken prisoner by the Russians. The 1^st Army was engaged in one of the first actions of the war, “The Battle of Galicia” which took place from the 23^rd of August to September 11, 1914.  Early wins by the Austrio Hungarians quickly turned to a humiliating and devastating loss. In a little less than 3 weeks the Austrian’s suffered 100,000 dead, 220,000 wounded and 130,000 captured. The losses reduced the Armies effective fighting force by 1/3.

As they did with their political prisoners, the Russian’s sent their prisoners of war to Siberia in the far east of the country. This served a number of purposes. First, it took men who would be capable of fighting again if they escaped or were rescued and placed them over 3,000 miles from the battle. Escape would be nearly impossible not only because of the distance but because of the harsh climate where the average annual  temperature is -5C and where the lowest recorded temperature Is -62C. Its remoteness was another reason the Russian’s used Siberia as a dumping ground for prisoners. Even today the population density of Siberia is 7 people per square mile, half of that if you remove the cities from the equation. Looked at a different way, if Montclair NJ had the same population density as Siberia 18 people would live there. There were virtually no roads in and its main access to the west was a railroad.

The trip to Siberia was long and awful taking upwards of 3 months. Prisoners were placed in what were called “warm wagons”, a train car fitted with two to three rows of bunks, a stove and a bucket in the corner served as a latrine. At train stops they were supplied with hot water and were supposed to receive an “allowance” to buy their own food. Often they did not and were reduced to begging. During the entire journey they were never told where they were going or when they would arrive so the days and nights must have seemed endless and perhaps hopeless. I find it difficult to imagine the deprivation let alone the smell of a trip like this. What kind of social skills would you need to live with 100 men locked in a cattle car for months?

The camps varied in Siberia varied in  type. Some were the traditional camps surrounded by barbed wire fencing and others were more open where the prisoners lived in barracks within the town or city they were confined within. In the latter type of camps, prisoners had to report in daily but aside from that requirement they were free to do as they pleased. Others lived within work camps. The camp that Marcus likely went to, as it was opened up shortly after the Battle of Galicia and created for the prisoners from the Austrio Hungarian Empire was called Sretensk

It was an open camp. Prisoners were allowed to mingle with the local population and organize activities such as soccer, tennis, volleyball, and weightlifting, among others. They were allowed to practice their faith including the Jews who held services with the local rabbi.  To survive prisoners needed to work at jobs that included telegraph–post service, railroad maintenance, leather work, logging, photo ateliers, mills, construction work, production of building materials and soap. It may be here that Marcus learned a trade in leather work and brush making.

Despite not having to live behind walls and barb wires and, having the freedom to work and play, life was extremely hard for people in the camp. There was often a lack of food resulting in prisoners eating food stuffs such as onions for weeks and months on end (Marcus onionophobia.) There was also disease with several outbreaks of Typhus, which in the days before antibiotics killed many, and many other diseases. Contact with the outside world was extremely limited. Postal service was spotty and took months as did messages sent through the Red Cross. We do not know if Marcus communicated with anyone outside of the camp. He certainly could not have known where his brother Max was as he had fled to America in 1913,  but perhaps he could have communicated with his family in Grodzisko or Oswiecim. What is clear is the International Red Cross or the Joint Distribution Committee for Jewish War Sufferers have no record of Marcus Rothkopf.

The camps operation was interrupted by some seismic changes in Russia. First, in early 1917 the February Revolution overthrew the Czars. After a period of provisional government, the October revolution took place where Bolshevik and Soviet forces overthrew the government and promptly pulled Russia out of the war. A civil war erupted with the Reds (communist/socialists/revolutionaries) versus the Whites (anti communists/counter revolutionaries). The civil war lasted until 1923.

This put all prisoners kept by Russia in a precarious position. Not only did the life in the camp become much tougher as money to run the camps dried up and the prisoners left to fend for themselves but when WW1 ended on November 11, 1918 they were left in limbo. Not only had the country they been fighting for disappeared into the annals of history but there was no single entity to negotiate any release within Russia. So Marcus languished in Siberia for three years after the war ended until Spring of 1921 when he was finally released.

I cannot imagine his emotions as he set foot upon the ship in Vladivostok to return home. I am sure he was full of joy at finally being released and returned to a civilized world. I am sure that there was trepidation as well. Not only about his personal life. What was he going to do next but how had the world changed while he had been locked away? Old Europe was gone. The Austrio-Hungarian Empire, Czarist Russia, among other countries no longer existed and new countries such as Czechoslovakia Poland, Hungary and Austria had emerged.

The trip also must have been a great adventure. It covered 1/3 the globe, took well over a month and likely included stops throughout Asia, India, the Middle East.

The only record we have of this journey is an accordion fold of postcards of the Suez Canal that were bought in Port Said, at the mouth of the canal while the shipped waited its turn to pass through to the Mediterranean. Postcards, then as now, were not expensive items but I am sure he had extremely limited funds at that time so the decision to buy the cards must have been relatively important to him. They must have symbolized something especially important because he kept these cards with him for the rest of his life. Through two marriages, many apartments, fleeing Nazis and a new life in America he kept the post cards in pristine shape. The cards have value in their own right now as they are now nearly a century old but for me the real value of the postcards is knowing how cherished they were by Marcus and the imaginings of what he must of thought of when he looked at them.

Where Marcus went after he left the ship in Trieste is unknown. A new unexplored world awaited him at the same time he had just spent 7 years, nearly half his adult life, in a Siberian work camp deprived of family, friends, and female companionship. It was a greatly changed world.  The Austrian-Hungarian Empire was dissolved into a half dozen states. Vienna, once a premier world capital,  was now a backwater of international diplomacy and a thriving economy had turned to dust. Hyperinflation had settled in and and where 16.1 crowns used to be able to buy a US dollar it now required 70,800. People would go to bakery’s with suitcases to buy loaves of bread.

Perhaps he felt the need to visit family in Grodzisko or Oswiecim. Perhaps he went straight to Vienna to search for work and a new life. We will never know because your Grandfather never told me, and I do not know if his father ever had told him.

What we do know is that he eventually made his way to Vienna and found work as a brush maker, a trade he may have developed while he was in the camp. It was dirty work as much of took place in an abattoir where the animals were slaughtered, their hides treated with caustic chemicals and the end product of hides and bristles created.

Somewhere along the way he also met a woman by the name of Ernestine whom he married. Sadly, she died before they could have any children. Sometime in 1924 he met a 30-year-old seamstress by the name of Jenny Hess, the 10^th of 13 children from Sopron, Hungary. They married in June of 1925 and Dad came along in late December of that year which either means that Dad was the fastest developing fetus of all time or that he was conceived long before they married.

Part 3 May 7, 2020