You Saved Me, Too: What a Holocaust Survivor Taught Me about Living, Dying, Fighting, Loving, and Swearing in Yiddish (24 page)

The day I asked if you wanted to come to High Holiday services with me: “I’d be like a dead pigeon before I go there.”

The day you tried to apologize for involving me: “When I’m gone with the wind it will be a lot less trouble for you.”

The day you wanted to express your extreme displeasure with greasy scrambled eggs: “I eat that, I be sick like a cat.”

Whenever you were making a serious point: “Listen good.”

All the days you wanted to know about me: “What’s news with you?”

What’s news with me?

My best friend appears to be dying.

The Big Cheese of Boston Holocaust survivors, the main specimen at ceremonies and anniversaries, the spokesman for all of you, told me the truth.

“There is no safety net,” he said in an accent like yours, although with a bit more polish to it. “There is money for Holocaust causes, but it goes in the wrong direction.”

One of the social workers admitted the same thing. She said donors give to Holocaust museums and memorials, and to schools and social groups charged with preserving the Jewish community, but there’s no fund specifically earmarked for survivors. Even the Claims Conference money allotted to agencies like hers isn’t exclusively for people like you. It’s also shared with impoverished Soviet refugees who may or may not have experienced direct Holocaust horrors.

“The needs of actual survivors aren’t being met,” she said.

Why don’t we weave a safety net? We’ll use the reparations money you’ve saved in the last few months to form a nonprofit that will help anyone else who had a bad life and deserves a good death. We can even call it that: The Good Death Fund. But there would be rules. Not just any bad life would count; this fund would be for genocide survivors only. Nationality or religion wouldn’t matter; we’ll take applications from Armenians, Cambodians, Tutsi—anyone who’s outlived their enemy’s final solution.

When things get bad for them, they won’t have to wait for help. We’ll never accuse them of threatening suicide as a cry for attention, as one of the Honchos did. At the end of their lives, they’d get a break.

It would be like the tiny group of people who manage a modest fund billed as Boston’s Jewish Safety Net. When I told the guy in charge of it about you, he offered to give you an interest-free loan. We were working out the details when strangers came to the rescue, but I will always be grateful to him. His kindness was such a welcome tonic after speaking to another so-called good guy who got my hopes up.

The Big Cheese, after hearing the resources I’d exhausted, told me to call a man who gave a lot of money to Holocaust causes and social service agencies.

I was skeptical.

“What’s his interest in this?” I asked.

“He’s a good Jew,” The Big Cheese said. “He’s a mensch.”

I called this mensch immediately.

He said he couldn’t talk for long because he worked at home as a stockbroker and was very busy. But he took enough time to listen to the abridged version of your saga and offered to set up a conference call with the bloodless stones we’d already tried to tap. He couldn’t figure out why The Big Cheese had recommended him. He wasn’t a social worker, he informed me, and only gave money to a Holocaust cause once.

“I’m not sure why he told me to call you either,” I said. “He said you were a good Jew and a mensch, and I was looking for one of those.”

“I hope I am,” he said. “But I can’t just hand out money to people.”

I didn’t bother to tell The Big Cheese.

The next time we speak, I’m going to insist that you tell me the secret. You know the one—about your wife. The terrible thing she did during your marriage? The thing your brother hinted about but said you’d have to tell me? When I asked, you refused.

“No,” you said. “I tell you about the war, yes. But not that. It’s private.”

Private? More private than insinuating that she went down on you before you were married?

I let it go, but every once in a while I’d ask again.

“So, what was that thing your wife did?”

“Ah,” you’d say with the hand wave. “Never mind!”

“I promise I won’t write about it. Come on. Just tell me.”

“No,” you’d say, and I could tell you weren’t going to budge. I think your stubbornness is really the secret to your survival. Hitler said die and you said no. End of story.

It’s been a while since I asked about the secret. Come on. Wake up and gimme a little gossip.

It was time to beg. I spent two days composing a fund-raising letter explaining your situation and sent it to every Jew in my e-mail address file. I told them about our stupid predicament, why you needed help from outside the system, and what I’d done already. I even managed to tattle.

“Some big players in the Jewish philanthropic community are aware of the situation, but they have declined to help.”

God, I wish I could have named names.

Within a half-hour of pressing
SEND
, the principal of the kids’ religious school called.

“I worked at Yad Vashem in Israel,” he said. “I know all about this problem.”

Even in Israel, Holocaust survivors aren’t necessarily revered. The
Jerusalem Post
reported that 33 percent of them are in need. Other reports put the number higher.

Perhaps the Israelis would like to borrow my letter. It actually yielded results. Family members offered cash. Kids turned over their leaf-raking money. Two guys who had sons on Max’s Little League teams and mothers who’d survived the Holocaust sent me checks. The wife of one of the guys told me they felt better giving their money to an actual person rather than to a charity. They were happy to be involved, she said, and other people would be, too.

“You’ve got people behind you now, she said.”

Well, what do you know? Humanity was back in the building. I still couldn’t pay for those denied days, but it was an encouraging start.

A few people shared connections.

One friend put me in touch with a Medicaid lawyer, who agreed to on-the-house assistance if I wanted to bring a hardship case against Medicaid. I appreciated the offer but declined his help. I didn’t have the energy to take on a government agency, and frankly, my beef wasn’t with Medicaid. I understood the rationale behind their policies. Besides, they aren’t my people. They weren’t breaking my heart.

An acquaintance wrote and said he had “pushed buttons” at the nursing home. He knew a nurse who worked there, and “could get anything done.”

“I am told that Aron should be getting in immediately,” he claimed.

A couple of people scolded me, gently, for expecting too much of Jewish organizations. Remember, they said, such charities are pulled in many directions. They’re overwhelmed with demands to fund institutions that strengthen the Jewish community, such as Jewish schools.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, because I didn’t want to be rude.

But honestly, I didn’t understand that argument. Aren’t we trying to build and strengthen the community in large part
because
the Holocaust knocked it down? So isn’t neglecting the Holocaust victims the ultimate hypocrisy?

The Germans didn’t believe you had worked in the Zychlin ghetto because, get this—you didn’t have proof. I guess you left your pay stubs in your file cabinet in Dachau, along with all the other records you’d toted through the necropolis Europe had become.

I found the rejection letter in your dresser drawer when I was searching for some bank statement or another.

“Your claim for Social Security (Ghetto-Work) is
NEGATIVE
.”

Germany’s social security is similar to ours. In both countries, people contribute a percentage of their earnings while working, then
collect during retirement. Apparently, there had been a chance for survivors to apply for the pensions even though they’d neglected to have the money taken out of their checks during the war.

Later we’d fill out the forms again. The law had changed. It turns out you could qualify for the retirement pension if you could prove that you’d worked willingly in the ghetto. You had to show that you voluntarily smashed stones on streets behind the Zychlin police station while being watched by people with sticks and guns, as opposed to being forced to do it.

“Nobody volunteered,” you said as we filled out the forms together. “There was no work.”

I was pissed that we had to deal with the stupid paperwork, but you insisted. I wrote while you threw out one-liners.

“Wit’ my luck, I get laid off from the ghetto!”

I included a note about the German government’s cruelty in getting your hopes up when they’d already rejected you. I doubted that you would receive anything more than another rejection, but I dutifully mailed the forms to Mrs. Glucksburg, a lady in Florida. I’m still not sure why she’s involved, though I think she’s the go-between for the survivors and the German lawyers.

About a year later, my cell phone rang.

“This is Mrs. Glucksburg,” a German-accented voice said.

Who?

“A large amount of money is coming from Germany,” she said.

Oh,
that
Mrs. Glucksburg. The ghetto reparations lady.

“Oh, hi,” I said.

“Yes, hello. How is your father?”

“He’s fine,” I said. “He’s not my father.”

She rolled on with her speech. She wanted the mailing address. She told me you would be getting a small monthly payment for the rest of your life, along with a lump sum to make up for the money you should have been getting since your first application.

Crap, I thought. More money to deal with.

“Will the checks be made out to him or to me?”

“No, checks cannot be made out to anyone but him,” she says. “And when he dies you will tell us.”

“So since I have power of attorney …”

She didn’t let me finish. The conversation was over.

“The check will be mailed to you. Good-bye.”

Then she hung up.

I guess it was good news for you to get the same social security as all of Germany’s old folks, but not for me. I’d have to open another account so these funds wouldn’t mix with the checking account I used to pay your phone bill and jeopardize your Medicaid eligibility. I’d have to bring you a second check to sign every month. I’d have to worry that you’d notice that one check was made out to me and one made out to you, something I’d successfully hidden until then so you wouldn’t freak out.

The pension didn’t arrive for so long that I figured Mrs. Glucksburg had spent it. When it finally came, it was years too late to be of any help.

My sister-in-law came up with the idea: Why didn’t we loan you the money and repay ourselves with the reparations checks that would keep coming in as long as you lived?

Wait, we could do that? Wouldn’t Medicaid have some objection?

Nope, The Enforcer told me, it wouldn’t be a problem as long as we could show that the money was in an account under your name. They didn’t care where it came from. He even typed up a promissory note for all of us to sign to make the arrangement legal. According to the nursing home social worker, with the loan in the works, you could get a bed as soon as one became available. They trusted me to come through with the payment.

All of which begged this question: Why the hell hadn’t any of the officials thought of this solution as soon as they knew they wouldn’t be pitching in? They’re the ones who were supposed to know the system.
I had no idea we could play with your reparations money that way, but shouldn’t they have known? A loan: how obvious.

But before we could decide which kid’s college account to plunder, and before I could write a letter telling my friends I didn’t need their help anymore, the Hanukkah miracle occurred.

Pretend for a moment that Hanukkah isn’t really a minor holiday pumped up to give Jewish kids a chance for merriment and gift-opening during the Christmas month. Focus instead on the miracle.

The Syrians were the newest Jew haters in town. While trying to stop us from practicing Judaism and otherwise do away with us, they trashed the big temple in Jerusalem. The Jewish bad-boy Maccabees defeated the Syrians, then got everyone to help fix up the temple for rededication. There was a lighting problem. They could only find enough olive oil to burn the eternal lamp, which illuminates the Torah, for one day.

According to the version I learned in Sunday school, they sent someone to get more oil, an errand that would take eight days. Surely, the light would be out by the time he returned. But wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, it kept burning the whole eight days.

Some people criticize the elaborateness of Hanukkah because they say it celebrates a military victory.

Some people got no respect for miracles.

I had e-mailed my fund-raising letter to the rabbi of the temple I belonged to (but barely attended). He said he couldn’t forward my
entire letter to the congregation, but he could send out a condensed version. He ended his appeal to them like this: “You will not get a tax deduction or any other reward for your generosity—only the satisfaction of doing what is good in the eyes of God.”

That hit a nerve. People didn’t press
DELETE
. They must have run to their checkbooks, because only a few days later, on the last day of Hanukkah, I pulled a four-inch stack of envelopes out of my mailbox. All of them contained something for you.