The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland (23 page)

Brake told about coming to Newfoundland and being raised in a home where it wasn’t permitted to talk about Judaism, a fear that stayed with him throughout his adult life. If his stepparents reacted so violently to his being Jewish, how would others respond if they knew? He decided it was best never to tell anyone about his past. Ten years ago he told his wife and his children, he explained, because he couldn’t hold it in any longer.

Despite keeping it a secret, Brake told the rabbi he never stopped thinking of himself as a Jew. He showed the rabbi his walking stick. On the handle was engraved a tiny Star of David. Some nights he would wake up at three in the morning, having just dreamed of the religious music he’d heard as a child in Poland. A few days ago, he added, his mother came to him in a dream.

Brake remained stoic, almost detached, as he recounted the story of his life. He was glad the rabbi had sent for him, though. He had wanted someone like the rabbi to hear what he had to say so his story would not be lost when he died. Both Rabbi Sudak and Baila Hecht were moved by Brake’s words. They told him he should tell his story to more people. They encouraged him to visit schools, like the one they were in now, and to talk to the children about the Holocaust and about anti-Semitism. With so few Jews in Newfoundland, they argued, it was vital for him to come forward and provide a living example to refute those who denied that such events as the Holocaust had ever taken place.

Brake listened to their pleas. His family, though, didn’t want him speaking out. They wanted him to leave the past alone. Brake wasn’t one to call attention to himself, anyway, he said. “I’m a secretive person,” he explained. But he’d needed to tell someone. And now that he’d told the rabbi, he felt a weight lift off him. After almost two hours, it was time for Brake to get home to his wife. He thanked the rabbi and Hecht for listening, picked up his cane with the tiny Star of David, and slowly shuffled out the door.

And with his departure, Rabbi Sudak stopped wondering why he had he been brought to Newfoundland.

Courtesy of 103 Search and Rescue

R
oxanne Loper heard a knock at her door and opened it to find Pat and Frank Fletcher outside with a van. They’d driven up from Steuben, Maine, that morning to carry the Lopers and the Saaristas across the border. Roxanne felt guilty because the Fletchers had cut short their vacation in order to help them.

They would all cross the border into the United States at a small town on the St. Croix River called Calais. It took a little more than an hour to get there, and the line of cars waiting to cross stretched more than two hundred yards. For Roxanne and Clark, the border was significant for two reasons. First, it meant they were home. The attacks on America had made them anxious to be within its borders again. For the past few days they’d noticed Canadians flying American flags at half-mast in honor of those who had died. They believed the best way they could show support for their own country was to stand proud within it.

The second reason the border was significant was Alexandria. As soon as their adopted baby girl set foot in the United States, her legal status as an American was secure and she would be instantly designated a lawful permanent resident and a United States citizen.

As the line of cars moved slowly toward the checkpoint, Clark decided to walk Alexandria across the bridge and into the United States. Wanting to capture the symbolic moment, he yelled for Roxanne to grab their camcorder. Halfway over the St. Croix River he found a line marking the border. Clark set Alexandria down so one of her feet was on the Canadian side of the line and the other was on the American side. He told Alexandria to wave to Roxanne.

“Alex becomes a citizen the hard way,” Roxanne declared. “You had to walk and take boats and fly and drive and your country was attacked.”

On the American side of the river, they turned over a large envelope to immigration officials. The sealed envelope had been given to them at the U.S. embassy in Moscow and contained all of Alexandria’s paperwork. By the time Alexandria was done being processed, the others were just making it across the border. From there, the Fletchers drove them another ninety miles to Bangor, Maine, the closest town with a car-rental agency open on a Sunday. The Lopers rented a car, the Saaristas a minivan. And once the two families were set, the Fletchers wished them well and returned to the vacation they had interrupted to carry them into the United States.

Since they were headed in the same direction, the two couples followed each other down Interstate 95. Driving through Boston, Roxanne took out her video camera and photographed the signs for Logan International Airport. Clark provided the running commentary, noting how the two planes that struck the World Trade Center had flown out of Logan. Their drive home had turned into an unintended tour of the sites involved in the terrorist attacks.

Taking turns behind the wheel, they drove through the night, and as they approached New York City, they encountered a series of detours designed to keep people away from where a massive rescue effort was still under way around the clock. They reached Washington, D.C., late Monday morning, and stopped that night in Tennessee. One more long day of driving and they’d be home.

I
n Gander, only a handful of planes were still waiting to leave. Eithne Smith and her husband, Carl, were hoping they could arrange for one of the planes, particularly one of the flights headed for New York, to take Rabbi Sudak and the Hechts. In the morning they drove to the airport, and Carl, being a Mountie, was able to go down on the tarmac to speak directly to the captains of the remaining planes. As Eithne and the others waited in the terminal, Carl pleaded his case to the pilots.

One pilot initially agreed to take them, but at the last minute was ordered by his company not to allow additional passengers on his plane. All of the airlines were fanatical about security and would allow only a plane’s original passengers to board. After several hours wasted at the airport, the group returned to the Smith home to decide what to do next.

The timing for traveling home was tricky because they were approaching Rosh Hashanah, a two-day holiday that marks the start of the Jewish New Year. As with the Sabbath, they weren’t allowed to travel. Rosh Hashanah would begin at sundown on Monday, so if they didn’t leave in the next twenty-four hours, they would have to stay in Newfoundland until Thursday.

Both Eithne and Carl Smith were perfectly willing to host Rabbi Sudak and the Hechts until Thursday. They even made contingency plans to create a special Rosh Hashanah celebration using the local Lions Club and inviting people from town to participate. But they also knew it was important for the rabbi and the Hechts to be with their families and with others of their faith at such a holy time.

Regular airline service was slowly starting to come alive again on the island, but there weren’t any Air Canada flights leaving from Gander in time. Calling around, however, Carl discovered a commercial flight leaving from the town of Stephenville early Monday morning, which would arrive in Halifax in time for a connecting flight to New York. If everything went as planned, Rabbi Sudak and the Hechts would land in New York by mid-afternoon, long before sundown.

All they had to do was get to Stephenville, which was five hours away by car. Without hesitation, Carl and Eithne offered to drive them. Rabbi Sudak was relieved. It would have been impossible for him to rent a car and drive—for two reasons. First, no rental cars were available in Gander. And second, the strict rules of his faith did not allow him to be unchaperoned in a car with a woman who was not his wife.

Before heading out, they all had supper and enjoyed the last of the kosher food that had been prepared. Carl then gave the rabbi a parting gift—one of the large, flat-brimmed Stetsons that the Mounties wear. The rabbi was moved. He certainly didn’t have a hat like this at home in London. Later he pulled Eithne aside privately.

“Please teach me how to wear this hat correctly,” he asked. “Does this strap go under my chin or behind my head?”

They both laughed at the question, and Eithne explained that the strap was worn across the back of the head to keep the Stetson from falling off.

“I would have been mortified,” the rabbi said, thanking her, “if I had worn it wrong and embarrassed Carl.”

A little before 9
P.M.
, Carl and Eithne Smith, Rabbi Sudak, and Baila and Esther Hecht set off on the Trans Canada Highway in the Smiths’ minivan. The drive gave Carl and Rabbi Sudak a chance to talk at length. Eithne was amused by the rabbi’s ability to weave stories and lessons out of almost any subject. This fellow certainly touched the blarney stone, Eithne thought to herself.

Arriving in Stephenville at 2
A.M.
, they checked into the Holiday Inn just down the road from the airport. In the lobby, Rabbi Sudak asked Eithne if she would write down the names of her relatives, along with the names of her and Carl’s mothers, so he could pray for them, along with the members of his own family, when he visited the grave of the rebbe, Rabbi Schneerson, Before leaving Gander, he had gathered from Lakewood’s principal, Jamey Jennings, the names of his family members. Eithne found some paper at the front desk and wrote out a list of names and then everyone said their good-byes.

In the morning, the rabbi and the Hechts would take a cab to the airport and get on their flight to Halifax. They would arrive in New York in plenty of time to celebrate Rosh Hashanah. Carl and Esther, meanwhile, slept in late at the hotel before driving back to Gander. Even after years of marriage, they had every intention of taking full advantage of a nice hotel room away from the kids.

S
ure enough, a good night’s rest did wonders for Ralph, who appeared back to his old self on Sunday, in time for his flight home. Ralph was one of the last animals to leave. The Bonobo monkeys had flown back to Germany on Friday, the epileptic cat a day earlier. And the rest of the animals were slowly making their way home, too.

After six days it was over. Nobody had asked Bonnie Harris or Linda Humby or Vi Tucker or Doc Tweedie to volunteer their time and energy. They just did it automatically. They didn’t give any thought to what it cost—the food, the medical attention, the medication. They considered those animals to be their guests, no different from the human passengers.

When the last flight left Sunday afternoon, Harris went home and, for the first time in a week, watched the news. She had caught bits and pieces of the pictures showing the destruction in the States but hadn’t had the time to watch. Nor had she really wanted to. She and the other workers at the SPCA shelter had been pulling double duty all week—caring for the animals at the airport as well as all of the animals in their shelter in town. Now, like Ralph, all she wanted was a good night’s sleep.

O
ne hundred and twenty-six hours passed between the time the first plane landed in Gander on Tuesday and the last plane departed on Sunday. It would take several more days for the town to recover physically—the shelters cleaned, the schools reopened, the stores restocked—but much longer for the people to absorb the magnitude of what had happened.

In the past, it had always been easy for the citizens of Gander to drown out events in other parts of the world because they always seemed so far removed. Gander, after all, was a safe place to live. A community that prided itself on unlocked doors and friendly neighbors. Now they’d seen how a tragedy more than a thousand miles away could touch their lives directly. Not only had the world come to town, but so, too, did the world’s problems.

During those six days, people spent so much effort caring for the passengers that they didn’t spend any time thinking about what had happened in New York and Washington. And so their reactions were delayed. Coupled with the sadness of seeing their new friends leave, the ensuing stress played out in different ways. In the schools, teachers noticed some students reporting trouble sleeping or seeming unusually anxious. Diana Sacrey, a guidance counselor at Gander Collegiate, told them not to worry. It would pass. And eventually it did. What remained was a feeling of satisfaction.

Soon after the last plane left Gander, the provincial government in St. John’s contacted town hall and offered to pay for a giant party for all of the volunteers, as a way of thanking them for giving up so much of their time to help the stranded passengers. Town leaders accepted, believing their citizens had earned a pat on the back. And if the provincial government was willing to pay for it, all the better. As word spread, however, people in town overwhelmingly decided it wasn’t right.

Given the horrific events in the United States, this was not the time for revelry. More than that, though, there was no reason to throw a party just because they had helped a group of people who were in trouble. What other choice was there? How could you not help someone in trouble?

At that point the mayor did the only thing he could do. He thanked the provincial government for the generous offer, but told them the town had decided to cancel plans for the party. There was no need for a celebration. They did what they did for one reason only—it was the Newfie way.