FLIGHT TO FREEDOM

The true story that follows demonstrates the indestructibility of man’s nature and beliefs. Humans have very often been sacrificed in defiance by those who attempted its fundamental changes. My father, Leon, was an example of the success of those who held fast to their ideals.

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Leon dared to lift his head slowly and only barely above the waterline in that foul smelling swamp careful to avoid any of the czar’s patrolling Cossacks. His eyes burned in the murky stagnant liquid. He carefully parted the surrounding tall swamp grass and punk reeds, well hidden from his pursuers, to peek a look. No one was on the narrow dirt road that bordered the swamp, but he could hear fading voices.

It was 5:00p.m. of an October day in 1903. The sun was beginning to fade and the night coolness crept silently over the land. He was so close to the German border, yet so far as to getting there and crossing into freedom. He never regretted the risky escape.

Of those who tried it, friends at home rarely knew their fate. If they succeeded it might be several months before receiving a letter from them. If the runaway were caught a barrage of bullets would end his attempt. Those at home would never know the outcome unless the anxiously awaited letter arrived; if it didn’t he was probably dead.

If you were born in Russia, you were expected to die in Russia.

There were many rumors of immigrants who heartlessly left their wives and children behind in Europe and easily remarried in America. Leon expected to meet a few when he got there.

The country at that time was a fertile land of farms and hard working farmers under the Romanov family of Czars. They ruled with an iron hand. With no compassion for the millions of serfs who suffered poverty and indifference from them. The Romanovs were among the greatest of art dilatants. Their personal art collections in the Hermitage museum compared well to France’s Louvre museum. No expense was spared, when it came to satisfying that addiction.

Their spendthrift lifestyle and callous attention to their subjects eventually led to the violent assassination of the entire family while imprisoned in Yekaterinburg during the communist revolution in 1918. The legacy left behind was an anarchistic, bankrupt unstable land, ready for an experiment in a radical form of government.

Prior to the revolution and after, there existed a strong royally fomented policy of discrimination against Jews that was pervasive and encouraged throughout most of the population. Severe restrictions on employment and contrived disrespect for Jews forced them to live in ghetto like villages at the largess of the crown. To heap further indignities on this hapless race, the Romanov’s ordered the nearby stationed Cossacks to ride through these defenseless ghettos and randomly ravage a portion of the village to remind the unfortunate citizens of there lowly status. In a Godly spirit of conciliation these very raiders were sometimes invited by their victims to a wedding or a happy religious holiday, as a demonstration of survivability and an appeal to their humanities. The victims honestly felt that many Cossaks were sympathetic and had no real heart in following such baseless orders.

Into this miserable but stoic level of society one day in 1884, was born one Leon Pskov into a world and family of a hardworking saloon keeper in a ghetto village near Minsk. He and two older brothers helped their hard pressed parents in their large fruit and vegetable garden and in the saloon at night.

Universal military service was mandatory. The call came for an older brother. The parents appealed on the grounds that the stronger older brother was needed for the many chores on their little farm, and were permitted to send the youngest, Leon instead. They knew the consequences of being a Jew in the army; constant harassment, the dirtiest assignments and indefensible beatings. They had no other choice. When the soldier left the family they parted like Spartan’s, heroically facing inevitable death, never to see each other again.

Leon was inducted and quickly ordered to clean the horses and their stables. This duty was permanent and never assigned to others. Commissioned officers were ordered, that Jews always be assigned back-breaking time consuming tasks to break their spirits. They took the time to personally bully Leon. The stench of horse manure was always upon him.

“You won’t get out of here alive, Leon!” It was no idle threat. I was too young to understand its full meaning when, in later years and then only upon our urging, he unwillingly recounted the details of his troubled youth. Leon understood their intent and began to plan his escape. There would be no opportunity to see his family because the home of an army deserter would be watched for an attempted visit before disappearing.

Generally the world-wide penalty for desertion is prison, rarely death before a firing squad. However, the Russian military command showed no mercy. Execution of deserters was without exception and was viewed as a warning to others; Jew or gentile alike. Fugitive male civilians suffered the same fate; women fugitives were sent home without punishment, if they were caught.

During his service, Leon’s censored letters to his parents never mentioned his intolerable living conditions. It would only have hastened his demise a bit sooner.

Working with horses gave him the opportunity for a quick exit. His only danger would come when his absence was discovered and the relentless chase would begin. The czar was particularly vindictive when it came to deserters, especially Jews.

Leon waited until nightfall to saddle up the horse chosen for his escape. The national border was protected by one line of soldiers placed one mile inside the Russian side, each placed about three hundred feet apart, in fixed position, enough to hear a shout from the other. A second line, about five hundred feet behind the first, and much more sparcly separated than the first, paroled a line constantly in motion to and fro. The army camp was a few yards behind that line.

Leon supplied himself with bread and water, rugged clothing and little else. If he crossed into Germany that would be sufficient. If he were caught, it would not matter. He remembered a narrow path he could use to avoid the guards at the barrack’s entrance and walked quietly ahead of the horse until he reached a point sufficiently distant from the guard’s station. He then mounted his mare in a slow trot off the main road, towards any opening that would lead him to the German border. He never stopped to sleep. It was important to distance himself from the camp as quickly as possible before his absence was discovered. The position of the rising sun kept him in the proper line of direction.

That morning the camp commander was notified of Leon’s disappearance on roll call. “Get after that Jew bastard and bring him back to me!” he shouted in a stupor of purple rage; then pleasantly contemplating Leon’s painful torture before sending him to the firing squad. His men spread out in all directions, aware of the commanding officer’s further rage visited on them if Leon were not found.

Leon was within five miles of the German border when he heard the shouting Cossacks and their trampling steeds as they poked their swords into every bush. He remembered passing a hidden swamp off the main road. He left his horse in the woods, ran across the road and climbed into the murky biting liquid. He swam quietly to the far side. A sudden cry from one of the searchers announced discovery of Leon’s horse. Leon feared that a more intensive thrashing search would now begin. The last ripple on the surface of the swamp died leaving no sign of its hidden deserter. The men were desperate in their search and loudly cursed Leon for spoiling what might have been a quiet day. Broad daylight was now upon them and Leon kept his head behind some tall grassy stalks that seemed to thrive in that vermin infested slush.

The leader of the search party crossed the road, looked over the swamp and suspected Leon to be in it. He didn’t care to have his men wade into it and thought ‘no one could live very long in it.’ Some swamps harbored poisonous snakes and his demise in that swamp would be preferable to the torture he would suffer before the merciful firing squad. In a combination of laziness and compassion this hardened Cossack closed his eyes and turned back to his men.

The God’s were with Leon that day; a day he never forgot. When all was quiet Leon washed himself in the icy waters of a nearby stream He was now without food or supplies.

Leon’s next obstacle was the double line of soldiers patrolling immediately behind and inside the boundary line a few miles ahead. It was almost dark now, but the setting sun silhouetted the moving men’s walking patterns, which Leon memorized and carefully crept on his stomach between them as he advanced slowly ahead. He had to reach the border before sunrise or he would surely be spotted. The two patrolling lines were now behind him and open fields lay ahead. ‘That was a good sign’ he thought. After an hour of continuous crawling, a line of short white posts appeared across his path. He didn’t stop until he passed well to the other side. It was probably a line demarking the actual border. He saw no one as he continued, hoping to hear a German voice. It was not long in coming.

“Hände auf Wo gehen sie?” shouted a most welcome belligerent voice. The dawns early light showed an armed soldier pointing a pistol at the bedraggled Leon who had all he could do to stand up. Instinctively he answered, “Tovarich,” sinking to his knees, “Hilf bitte.” They rushed to his side, refusing the demands from Russian soldiers on the other side of the line to return the fugitive. The Russians properly remained on the other side of the white wooden posts.

The Germany of early 1900’s was a far cry from the Hitler who followed thirty years later . . . proudly military, yet highly democratic; tolerant of all races. Their advanced social concepts and a well engineered burgeoning economy set an example for others. Barbarosso, the King of Germany, had no particular love for Russia, not withstanding the custom of intermarriage between royal families of Europe. It seldom helped to create a royal spirit of camaraderie when political differences arose between them. The Tsarina Mother of the Romanov family was of German decent, to quote an example. The German advanced spirit of social development and awareness of Russian negativism, by any persecuted Russian was a welcome immigrant.

Leon was well treated for the first time he could remember. Charitable organizations were permitted to station themselves close to their borders for immediate assistance to those needy refugees, who were successful enough to make the crossing.

One such group, the Hebrew Immigrant Aide Society, helped any of all faiths who sought help. The Russian government, as a formality, demanded Leon’s immediate extradition. That demand was just as quickly denied.

Leon blessed them all for their attention to a serious infection from the swamp. He was left with a very irritable skin condition, and low fever for the next few weeks; but at the same time he couldn’t forget that he owed his very life to the swamp. The organization was kind enough to send a letter to his family, who eagerly awaited such news of his successful escape. He was very grateful. My father could not praise their efforts enough and vowed to reciprocate when he was able. They also arranged for a train to the port of Danzig and paid for steamship passage for himself and a few others who were gathered together for a voyage to America. While at sea he had heard such compliments from the crew about America that he loved the country even before he arrived there. No truer patriot ever set foot on American soil when he debarked at Ellis Island in 1903.

An uncle, Sol Greenberg, who had a shoe store in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, met him. Sol was married to Leon’s mother’s sister and was a tall heavy man that matched his robust personality and sonorous voice that carried far, even when he whispered. He was thrilled to have his nephew under his wing and brimmed with optimism.

“Leon, this is a wonderful country. You have a freedom here you will find no where else in the world. You have undreamed opportunities. The streets are not exactly paved with gold, but if you dig a little it is not far below.

“Uncle Sol,” said Leon, “It all sounds very exciting. I can see that you have become your own boss. I am sorry I had to leave my family, but I cannot wait to get into my new life, whatever it may be.” The three hour trip from Ellis Island to Brownsville was arduous with ferry, horse and buggy and street cars. While travelling, Sol kept talking, his voice attracting everybody’s attention. But Leon was engrossed with studying the new sights along the way.

This happy meeting was an event that brought to a close Leon’s incredible safari from the Devil’s abyss to a veritable paradise. The lifting of the shackles of serfdom and the new spirit of freedom, the rebirth of one’s self respect, that engendered indescribable feelings of well-being permeated him for the remainder of his life.

“Leon,” said Sol, “I can use some help in my shoe store, maybe open a second one with your help. How would you like that?”

“Uncle Sol, I will always be grateful for your help and will do my best not to be a burden to you and your wife, Becky. I am so lucky to have a family here in this new world. I will make you proud of me. . . you will see,” boasted young Leon.

Sol Greenberg did pretty well. He had a commodious private house on the edge of town. Leon was given a private room, a far cry from his cramped ghetto hovel in Russia.

‘I could not believe I was anywhere but in heaven’, he repeated many times when recounting his escape from Russia years later.

Leon prospered well, fulfilling his uncle’s expectations in every way.

In 1907 there existed in Western Russia, the important railway junction of Baranovichi, the home of the Goldsmiths; Max and Tanya, parents of young Joseph and Sadie. This village was busy with railway business and had less than the traditional religious discrimination against Jews. Max was a patron of the arts, delving into politically permitted group discussions of everything but the tyranny of oppression. As relief they wrote and presented amateur plays that cautiously bordered on such concerns. Through his father, he was fortunate enough to own the building in which his family lived on the ground floor and rented the upper to a bank; Max was a rare envied capitalist among his peers during that depressed period of history.

My father impressed on Max and Uncle Joe the importance of defending oneself against jealous attacks, and to maintain strong belief in one’s own integrity.

Underground newspapers and the travelers carried stories of the spirit of liberal thought and permissiveness blossoming in Western Europe. America was already known for its hard fought freedoms enjoyed for over a century.

Sadie and Joseph, spiritually strong liberals, considered escaping to America. They were young enough to rid themselves of historic social repression and start new lives; to breathe free. Many felt that way, but the specter of leaving the comfort of the family and uprooting themselves from friends and familiar pleasures, no matter how meager, was enough to dampen the fires of uncertain adventure.

Not so with Sadie, she was ready. Joseph declined. He would not abandon their parents, and decided to make the best of a difficult decision.

Sadie, with minimum food and clothing, amid tearful good-byes, accompanied by her brother left for the border several miles away. He sadly separated from her as she walked into the wooded terrain, to go bravely on alone. She was aware of and hoped for the assistance on the German side of the border; and that all would go well. Unfortunately it did not. A Russian soldier caught her. She cried and desperately pleaded for him to let her go. He refused.

“Just turn around and go back home,” he ordered without bothering her any further. She pretended to return towards home, and waited behind a large tree until nightfall. She had no intention of coming all this way just to go back home again. The darkness helped evade any Russian soldier on the second successful attempt. The dependable Hebrew Immigrant Aide Society, ever on the German side, welcomed and assisted Sadie in every possible way. Sadie was very proud of her self and dearly hugged her rescuers.

Sixteen days later, after a stormy voyage to America, during which Sadie suffered from a bad case of sea sickness and developed a strange life-long antipathy toward butter. Arriving in Ellis Island, she waved a thank you to the great lady who welcomed those “storm tossed” by the sea, and who could now breathe the fresh air of freedom.

To those who never experienced such disruption of immigration, words have not yet been created to truly describe the elation and mental exhilaration following the happy flight to liberty.

An English aunt who had married a Goldsmith family refugee who fled to Great Britain some years before, was there to meet her. This lady, proper and prim, evoked the essence of a Queens’ etiquette and spoke the Kings’ English. Although they had never met, they were pen pals through the many letters between them. She offered some food and drink to sea-weary Sadie, while they hugged.

Thirty years old, Aunt Annie, lived in Brownsville, as a private secretary in an insurance firm. Her demure English character made her a delight to the other office girls. Her husband had suffered a painful death from tuberculosis two years later, after they emigrated from England and Aunt Annie couldn’t be happier with Sadie’s arrival.

The time was ripe for a turning point in one of life’s happy events. It was the kind of event, that when later reviewed, cast a new light on life’s vicissitudes that, at the time, seemed desultory; but later changed the course of one’s life.

It was the time for Sadie to meet Leon.


The show window of Sol Greenberg’s shoe store on Pitkin Avenue, definitely avant-garde, with the latest European imports, and was not to be missed by Sadie’s style-conscious eye. It was the place a destined event; hardly like the stilted meeting of prearranged marriage brokers. To be more exact it was the moment that Leon, sitting on his low stool slipped a dressy high buttoned shoe over Sadie’s slim ankled foot and looked up into her fabulous dark eyes for approval. She was attracted to both the shoe and its provider. It was a heaven found in a shoe store.

Leon knew he had made a sale in both departments and engaged Sadie in light conversation as Aunt Anna looked on. The shoes required some minor adjustment and would be ready the next day.

“He’s a tall handsome man and so kind and gentle. I like him,” said Sadie on the way home.

“That’s all true.” said Aunt Annie, ever cautious. “But remember he’s only a shoe clerk. “What’s his idea o f a future, I wonder.”

“I’m not worried,” responded Sadie, gyrating flippantly in rapturous circles. “Just between you and me it’s love at first sight.”

Annie brought up her full English reserve strength to admonish her, in her finest English vocabulary, “Desist with your dancing around and listen. You’ve only been here a short time. You will meet many more people. So please, control yourself.”

A day later Sadie and Aunt Annie returned to pick up her pretty high buttoned shoes.

Leon and Sadie stuck together like two magnets. He invited her to a concert. She didn’t mind where he took her, as long as he was there.

Aunt Annie graciously declined his same offer. In the weeks that followed their attachment grew stronger. In spite of Aunt Annie’s advice, a marriage was in the making.

On November 25, 1909 a grand ceremony at Castle Gardens Hall made them man and wife.

An important part of Sadie’s life had been determined. Leon while very happy and thankful for Uncle Sol’s generosity always had visions of being his own boss. He thought he could do better that way. In his short spurts of spare time he interned himself with a home builder to learn a new trade. He enjoyed creating beauty and utility from drab vital sub parts; and loved working with wood. Uncle sol took no offense when Leon laid bare his plans.

Sol cried as he spoke, “Your family not only helped me to get started in a new country, but also to begin this present business with the little they had. No matter what you do with your life, yours and Sadie’s welfare and good fortune will always be uppermost in my mind. I will miss you here. But expect to see you and Sadie in our home often. As a celebration of your new venture I want you and Sadie to be our guest’s at dinner tomorrow night.” Becky hugged Sadie in approval.

Leon, by dint hard work and perseverance surpassed his own expectations and earned respect to his contemporaries. His honesty and reputation were without blemish. “Sadie,” he always said proudly, “was the keystone of his success; always supportive and understanding in times good or difficult; self effacing to bolster his ego and decision making. They kept a kosher household and always prayed for dear one’s left behind under the yoke of discrimination and tyranny.

Incidentally, in 1918, the World War II peace treaty with Russia decreed that the nation of Poland was to be restored to its former boundaries, now Western Russia, after many decades of disappearance from world maps; when it had been over-run by Russia in the 19th century. The badly suffering Poles were ecstatically happy.

At about that time our family had increased by four healthy scrapping sons, with proper needs and punishments meted out according to age and disposition. My mother loved us all (Most of the time), but secretly pined for a daughter. She wouldn’t dare risk another son, so she never tried for one again.

Leon once again kept his head above water; this time not in the Russian infested swamp, as he once did, but through the maelstrom of the severe world wide 1929 economic depression.

Unlike the laid back and corrosive effect in Europe, American men scoured in every corner for the means to survival. Through their ingenuity and government help, we did see some improvement but never really recovered until years later.

My brother, Arthur, had become an attorney, while my brother Myron and I completed college. The oldest one, Bernard, preferred to remain with Dad in construction.

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Church Avenue, in Brooklyn, was my birthplace. Our playground turf consisted of the cobblestone roadway running in front of a line of stores, over which we lived. We rarely noticed the noisy trucks and horse drawn wagons and trolleys clanging, that paraded by with few breaks. Nevertheless, we did get a few good licks at “stick and ball” games. The trolleys were open air. The outer running boards were jammed with passengers hanging on for dear life waiting for a seat.

The frazzled conductor had to risk his life trying to collect nickel fares from the hangers on while fearing a fall into traffic passing by. That wasn’t all. All trolleys had a long slender electric pole pushing up from the roof of the trolley to an overhead electric power line. Just for laughs kids would run after the trolley and pull down on a cord disconnecting the electric pole from the overhead power-line, leaving the trolley to grind to a halt. The furious conductor had to run outside to the rear and reposition the electric pole, while passengers grumbled over the loss of time.

I should add that my precocious brother, Bernard added to the misery of trolley risks that befell the hapless riders standing on the running boards. He could not resist the strategic advantage he had over the trundling trolleys as he targeted them from his upper bedroom window with a supply of rotten tomatoes in his arsenal. He would strafe the enemy with a series of short barrages, slam the window the down and peek through the shade to revel in the mayhem he would cause to his furious riders. His repetitiveness finally pinpointed the authorities to the approximate source of the tomatoes. A knock on his door brought two police who pushed Bernard aside to search the front window for any signs of a tomato. No search warrants were necessary in the 1920’s. Bernard never left any evidence of his pranks, but his parents knowing his prankish character were sure of his guilt. Bernard, feigning angelic innocence suggested that they check elsewhere and not bother him. He did confide the truth to his brothers. But nevertheless, decided to cease firing; even though the sudden cessation of attacks might renew suspicion among the police.

Once again life settled into its mundane routine. Father thought it was time to consider a new home in a newly developed area on tree lined Linden Boulevard, a prestigious residential neighborhood in East Flatbush.

All of us admired Dad’s success and the wonderful home with all the latest conveniences. We were the first to do away with the traditional coal furnace and the drudgery of shoveling out dusty ashes each day. In its place was an oil firing heating system; an early improvement in home comfort.

My father owned an open air 1926 Willy’s touring car with seats almost as high as the tops of its four short doors. One day in 1930, I was with him as we returned from a Sunday inspection of one of his unfinished homes. As we swiftly turned from a corner onto Church Avenue I found myself flying out over the top of my low cut door onto the center of a pair of trolley tracks, looking up at an approaching trolley. The motorman and my father were both upon me in seconds looking for broken bones or bruises. But there were none. I used to joke about it later. “I’m okay Dad, I only landed on my head.”

We agreed that mother didn’t have to know about this.

This little secret bound us together more than ever. I noticed a predisposition in father’s increased attention to my well-being.

Whether it resulted from a paternal instinct or a hidden price to assure my silence in the matter, I will never know. At any rate, I accepted it without question because it suddenly opened a fissure into his normally latent personality.

I think he was as happy as I over the unexpected event that had the potential for tragedy but gave him the need to trust me, an obligation he rarely had before. Although, a slip of the tongue in this case would have minimal consequences, it demonstrated the basics that link human experience together; mutual trust.

There is a good feeling in placing a confidence in one who can be trusted, and for whom you would welcome reciprocation. On a very personal level the implicit trust in the eyes of a small child as he waits for a parents smile of loving approval, is a good example.

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1932 was not the best year to plan a voyage anywhere. The Great Depression was rampant. My parents always wanted to visit their families in Europe. They were in their forties at that time, considered middle aged, and planned to take the entire family. Bernard preferred to stay at home.

He weakly explained, “I’ll watch the house.” He probably needed more room to expand on his social activities.

In early July, 1932 we boarded the great German ship ‘Europa’, a large luxurious ocean liner, which was later captured early in WWII to become one of our largest troop carrier ships.

In those days the travel custom paid attention to the society class differences of its passengers by dividing the accommodations into first, second, tourists and third class; all separated by different dining and social gathering rooms. The third class were not permitted through the ships upper class decks. Everyone was expected to dress for dinner in the upper classes. Those in the third class dressed as they wished. We docked in Cherbourg, France and entrained to Paris. Saw the beautiful sights, the opera, the Folies Bergѐre, and continued on through Berlin to Warsaw, Poland. In Berlin, I couldn’t help but notice the patrolling brown shirts; Hitler’s preliminary members of the Nazi party, and early signs of Jewish discrimination tactics. Although the brown shirts never bothered tourists, my father recognized the beginnings of trouble, and decided that on our return trip we would avoid Germany and go through beautiful Vienna, Austria instead.

From Warsaw, Poland, a train to Baranovichi completed our trip. At the station, desolation as far as the eye could see. My mother ran to her brother Joe who had aged considerably in the twenty-five years since Sadie had left. He stood and cried, silently, hugging his sister. Sadie’s parents were gone. I always regretted that I never had the chance to know them.

The village cemetery was close by and mother insisted on visiting their gravesite before anything else. She and Joe prayed silently.

We moved about in the Russian form of a horse drawn taxi called a droshky. Joe’s two children, Mendel and Rivka, about our ages shyly hung back, bashful in the presence of visitors from that great land, America.

Sadie quickly introduced them to her boys, and with a little bit of Jewish they had studied in preparation for the trip and the little bit of English their father taught them, we got a long famously. They had no problem communicating; and were soon one big happy family.

My father took advantage of the city’s proximity to the Russian border to visit his family near Minsk, a short distance on the other side. Under Stalin’s law only direct relatives were given visitor visas. That left the rest of us behind. Such unilateral, dictatorial decisions were common, and caused us great disappointment.

For father it was a spirited reunion. His parents were in their seventies, and this would probably be the last time he would ever see them again. Their saloon had been closed due to the prohibition of private enterprise. His brothers had long since married and Leon was surrounded by his beautiful nieces and nephews.

However, their well being had taken a serious turn for the worse since the time he left in 1903. Most of the land had been appropriated and parceled out to individuals forced to become farmers with all the crops becoming property of the soviet; a tiny portion remained for the crop farmer. Severe penalties were meted out to anyone who tried to hide more than his miserable little share; or did not produce his expected crop yield. Their fate had been a cruel switch from one demagogue for another. Frankly, they felt the Romanovs were the lesser of the two evils, but loathed the commissars equally. Father was aware of their miserable conditions and left his two fully loaded suitcases of food and clothing, luckily bypassing the busy Russian border customs inspector who only paid attention to the American cigarettes offered by my father. He left after the maximum period of one week’s visit in a practically nude condition; every stitch of clothing he could do without he left behind. When he arrived back in Baranovichi, he carried one tearful souvenir; one that I kept for years as a reminder of the perpetrated poverty on a hapless people. It was the heal of a loaf of Russian bread, so stale and full of sawdust as to break one’s tooth biting on it.

He spoke of his visit for several days and made an impression so vivid as to alter my young impressionable personality to a more serious nature.

We passed much time touring the area in the well-known ‘droshkies’. The drivers were eager for fares in those difficult times. The area circling Baranovichi was quite barren except to the Northeast, where a few green speckled hills dotted the landscape as it slopped gently toward the distant North Sea. A cool bubbling stream ran along the many rail routes that led to the city’s central railroad station. For relief from the summer’s heat children loved to splash and play in it while parents dangled their feet in it from the banks. This was one of the few diversions in town.

The start of the Sabbath on Friday among the Jews is a strongly traditional day to remember the poor; to think of those less fortunate than themselves . . . to do God’s bidding.

My uncle’s dining room had floor to ceiling French doors that opened directly onto the sidewalk. A pair of such doors was left opened by those who participated and as a welcome sign to the needy. There appeared with regularity, a young boy of about ten years, always alone, pale, and hungry. He never entered the house, but waited for a family offering from the inside.

This particular boy, named Velvel (William) tugged at our heartstrings more than any of the others. His war widowed mother had immigrated alone to America, unable to support her boy and left him with a friend, hoping to call for him later. This friend soon abandoned him and left him a vagrant and kept the few zlotys entrusted to her for his maintenance.

Unfortunately, the day of his mother’s call never came; but not because she didn’t try. When our family returned to New York at summer’s end my folks began a search which required the better part of a year to find her. She had moved, remarried, and now with a three year old baby girl; and this poor lady had been abandoned by her husband. The two were living on a starvation diet in slum poverty.

My father needed no urging to help another in distress. Our home had a vacant basement with a private entrance. She gratefully accepted our offer to use it at no charge, but she insisted that she pay something eventually. My father wouldn’t hear of it and doubled his efforts to find her son. Letters to Uncle Joe in Baranovichi asking of Velvel’s whereabouts were disappointing. They hadn’t seen him for two months. Hilter’s creeping anti-Jewish influence into Polish affairs might have involved Velvel in serious conflicts or even death. Contacts at the Polish consulate proved futile. He was lost in the flotsam and jetsam of a disintegrating world.

Two or three weeks ago I had come from my happy elementary school graduation and was now transplanted into a world of dismal failure that reeked from every corner with depression, abandonment and futility. Even the birds sought happier neighborhoods. People were busy but there prevailed an air of robotic sluggishness in their movements, unnerving to a visitor.

Uncle Joe kept much calmer than his neighbors, always the literary romantic, hoping that things would straighten out by themselves. It was not to be.

I caught myself sliding into an altered view of the different philosophies that shook this world, sometimes so violently. Here were human beings not a collection of different species, as in the predatory animal kingdom, and except for minor differences, almost identical; but, who unnecessarily created groundless rifts among themselves that might have been avoided through superior intelligence, and so avoid annihilation of each other.

Perhaps man’s cerebral evolution will convince this blundering world that cooperation will always prevail over the dangers of imagined offenses that anger our neighbors; and will finally bring an end to the decadent ‘business as usual’ world of today.

Such an approach should create great personal incentive, not usually encouraged under socialism, and will prove that our inborn drive for self improvement will lead to a peaceful advances in which war and destruction will be fears of the past.

We were well into August and time to prepare for school this September was upon us. Preparation for our departure from Baranovichi began. Tanya cooked a special dinner that Friday. The air was sad but we were thankful for the wonderful opportunity we enjoyed, meeting each other for a lasting memory.

My mother’s and father’s families brutally died in the holocaust of World War II. My father could not hold back the tears when he reluctantly told the story about his family reunion in dismal Russia. He passed away in 1959, and my mother, ten years later, never the same after the loss of her family.

I cannot speak for my brothers, but I know that I returned to the United States a different young man; incredibly grateful to have sympathized and touched those who cried for the freedom that we here take for granted.

Hilter’s mad dream had come to an end.

The memories of those who sleep forever in the hastily dug trenches of their murderers will rise up as spirits in passing review before us in a burning effigy more fitting than pious words inscribed on a stone monument.

They cry out “Remember us!”