Kaddish (1984) - full transcript

He was a survivor.

A handful of the Jews of his town
came back from the war

and it was something
he always impressed upon me,

that he was a survivor
and that we were a survivor family,

that I was named after his father,

named after somebody who’d been —
Who’d been murdered because he was Jewish.

When I got married,
I didn't want to have children.

I didn't want to have children.

My father told me,
I think when I was young,

that he didn't want to have kids.

I think I knew that when I was young.



I guess it must have made some kind
of impression on me.

Begin then, with your town,
what Jewish life was like.

I come from Nad Caroi,
which is in Transylvania.

In 1919, as a result of World War One,

the region of Transylvania,
which had been part of Hungary,

defeated in the war,

now became part of Romania.

We were approximately 4000 Jewish people.

How many survived?

Approximately 200 people.

The whole life centered around...

the community.

The whole life centered around
the family, naturally.

The more persecuted you are,
the more closer you become to your family.



My parents could afford to send me
in kindergarten,

and seldom happened that those 250 yards

I was able to make it peacefully.

Something always happened, like...

“Dirty Jew.”

I don’t know how they recognized me as —
As Jew,

but other little children
were running after me, calling me

“Filthy Jew, dirty Jew,
why don't you go to Palestine?”

As we grew older...

things became tougher.

In 1940, in accordance with
the Hitler-sponsored Vienna Awards,

northern Transylvania was reacquired
by a now-fascist Hungary,

an ally of Nazi Germany.

My father, should rest in peace,

he was a great Hungarian patriot.
He served in the Hungarian Army.

He was such a “Hungarian”

that he didn’t wanna learn not even
to say, “Good morning” in Romanian.

So, when they came in, my father thought
that these are the Hungarians

who left in 19I9.

But unfortunately they were not
the same Hungarians.

The young Jews were taken away
to labor camp.

After three years they let me go.

Life for Hungary's
Jewish population was extremely difficult

but was still far better than for the
rest of European Jewry,

which was being systematically murdered
at Auschwitz and other death camps.

The Hungarian leadership,
while fascist and anti-Semitic,

still considered its Jewish citizens
to be Hungarian

and refused to deport them
to extermination camps

in spite of Hitler’s repeated requests.

This situation was to come to
a sudden and tragic end

when, in 1944, losing the war

and fearing his Hungarian ally
was about to desert him to join the enemy –

– An Ankara dispatch says

German troops have occupied Hungary.

I'll never forget, in March, 1944,

March 19,

listening to the radio Sunday morning,
we heard that the Germans occupied Hungary.

I said to my parents,

said, “Look, there are only two ways

to probably to escape.

One way is to go in hiding
and the other way is to go to Romania."

We were Romanian citizens.

The border was not far.

But my parents were old, and …

– not that old –

and somehow they, they couldn't believe
that anything serious could happen.

My mother said, “Look, you are young,

you decide what you want to do
with your own life.

If you think that to go into hiding is
the answer, do it by all means.

We don’t see it that way, we can’t do it.”

And... and, and sure, it was
a very difficult moment.

My parents didn’t believe me.

They were not told by the leadership
what happened in Poland.

The people didn't know
what happened in Poland,

and the people didn’t want to know
what happened next door in Czechoslovakia.

The leadership wasn’t working.
The people weren’t moving.

The people didn't listen to – to rumors

because they said, “These are rumors.”

I said, "I'm too young to die,

and I'm going."

My father and mother were deported

to Auschwitz and killed.

In less than two months,

from May 15th to July 9th, 1944,

435,000 Hungarian Jews
were deported to Auschwitz

where 400,000 of them were murdered.

Among those killed
were Joseph and Hannah Klein,

parents of Zoltan Klein.

Another 100,000 would be dead

by the time the war was over.

I'm going to be 25,

which... which is... which is when...

Which is how old my father was
when the Nazis came in.

This is constantly on my mind.

You know, I say, “Well,
my father had to go into hiding,

leave his family and
everyone was carted off and

he was my age,” and...

this puts a certain...

It colors your whole life,
there’s no question about it.

There was a Romanian peasant

who didn’t know how to write,
didn't know how to read,

but was a very, very good-hearted man.

He took care of a forest,

and took in three Jewish youngsters.

We made our own boonker — bunker,

about four feet high,

and five or six feet long,

and ten feet or eight feet wide,

and we buried ourselves there

May the 2nd, in 1944.

And we didn't see the sun

till October 27th, 1944.

I never would have believed

that we’ll survive there. I called...

I called that place our graveyard.

We did get along fine,

only about four or five months

after being in the bunker,

one of my friend got a temporary

nervous breakdown...

Luckily temporarily.

What happened is

he started to yell, to scream

and …

we didn't know.
We... we got scared — that’s in a forest.

There was a hole in the –

in the – on the bunker.

So the voice go far.

And I jumped on him

and I put my jaw

in his mouth.

And my friend held his...

His foot and – and hands.

And as I put

my jaw in his mouth,

he bit me.
It’s — it’s still here.

The General Electric
news program: The World Today.

And here's Douglas Edwards.

The Russians have freed
another of Europe’s capitals, Belgrade.

They've also captured Debrecen,
Hungary's third city,

and Berlin says the Red Army

has penetrated 7 miles inside

East Prussia.

On southward, Transylvania

now is completely free of Germans.

We came back to our town

and we found nothing

but amazement and surprised

of the gentile people

who said, “You survived? How come?”

“You are back?”
Everybody expected

that we'll never come back.

They took away all our belongings.

They robbed our houses with furniture.

They occupied our houses.

I don't know why the Jews, after the war,
didn’t go around

slaughtering non-Jews.

I used to be very angry,

used to be really angry at my father

and all these other people

for not having done that.

Just destroy it and start something else.

Many or most of us decided, “This is it.

Let's look for a different place to live.”

It took me from 1947 till 1950

to get to America.

And when I came to this country,

I don't think that any born American

was a greater patriot than I was.

One Sunday I went into the grocery store.

And I didn't even realize he was there.

There’s this guy, standing and...

looked absolutely gorgeous,

with these beautiful striking white teeth,

you know, which I thought were false...

They were so gorgeous. And...

my friend introduces us.

And I said, “How do you do?”

And he said something in Hungarian.

And I said, “Nice to have met you,”
and I walked out of the store,

and that was it.

And after I left my friend tells me

he said to her, “You see that girl?

That's the girl I'm going to marry.”

When she told me this,

I said, “This guy is not normal.

I mean forget it,

I want nothing to do with this person.”

You know, I figured

this is not a normal way to react!

I hadn’t really consented to marry him
till he promised he would become Orthodox.

He came from a very Orthodox background

and he knew everything.

It’s just that he... he
became a nonbeliever.

I always knew that I was living
with a survivor. Always.

He had very bad dreams.

Just this same recurring nightmare

that he was back,

back in this “boonker,” as he called it,

and that the Germans were catching him.

I think he conjured up all sorts of

horrible ways
that his parents died, which...

It was just terrible

to live with something like that.

But they stopped after a while I think.

Or maybe he just didn't tell me about it.

I felt that I’m trapped
and there is no way out.

Where is there to go?

There was no place to go.

There was no place to hide as a Jew.

Everybody hates you.

What – what future, what future

could a young man have?

He didn't see a very bright future
for the Jewish people

after what he had gone through,
and after all...

The history of the Jews,

which he knew a lot of.

And he just felt, you know,

"What’s the point
of bringing a child into the world?"

But, I mean, I would have none of that.

I said,

“I just — I will not
live without children.”

I just wouldn't.

But of course, once we had –

once Yossi was born,
he was hooked. That was it.

He was ecstatic.

His whole life became a parenthood.

He’d get up for the feeding
during the night.

He'd diaper the baby.

He'd come home from work,

and if I had bathed him,

he'd be very upset.

This was something
he looked forward to all day.

He wanted to constantly teach him.

I was his pupil.

Who else did my father have
who would listen to him?

I was a cap... a captive audience.

From the time he was a little baby

and he’d say, “Daddy, tell me a story”...

We had to tell him a story

before he went to bed.

And the stories my husband would tell him,
his bedtime stories were,

you know, about the Jews in Europe
and the Holocaust.

And … I would... I would read him the –

you know, Dr. Seuss books.

I’d lie down there and
just waiting to hear some,

some kind of stories

that’ll make me sleep peacefully

and he would just start

telling me about this hole that he dug

and... and... and... and being chased and,

and people being rounded up

and... and these two pictures

on the wall of... of his parents and...

And how they were killed, and –

– How normal everything was

and then gradually

what started happening and,

you know, about my grandparents and …

just really pretty much

everything that went on

during the Holocaust.

We were just so aware of it

without even talking about it.

Just the fact that they had
one set of grandparents

or that they had any grandparents

when all their friends had none.

– I have friends

who are also children of survivors,

but it wasn't really talked about openly

for whatever reasons, either their parents

just couldn’t deal with it,
it was too painful for them.

But my father always discussed it with us,

he wanted us to know.

If they will not be prepared

or not know about our past tragedies –

– Emo... emotionally prepared.

– Emotionally.

– They should be emotionally prepared.

– They should be emotionally prepared

what happened and how it happened.

When I was younger, I idolized him.

I always looked at him
as being larger than life,

just the fact that, that he had survived

when so few others had.

He knew every step of the way what to do.

And I always felt, "Well, I have to know
every step of the way too, what to do.

And could I do it?”

And growing up, I just wasn’t at all sure.

I had one... one nightmare, dream,

which recurred often,

of being chased by Nazis
on the Coney Island boardwalk.

Everybody was walking around

eating cotton candy

and I was screaming at people,

"The Nazis are here,”

and everybody’s just eating cotton candy.

I was killed.

I know they killed me.

With me, the bottom line is,

“What would you do

if this country was taken over by Nazis?

Would you hide me,” for example.

“Would you give me space under your bed?"

I was afraid as a kid of going mad.

I don't think my parents were ever aware

of the fact that I was not,

quote, "a happy child."

I would pretend to be very happy

and I could never talk to them

about what was going on inside me.
I couldn’t talk to anybody about it.

I couldn't talk about how the Holocaust
affected me to my father.

He didn't talk about how it
affected him personally.

So I grew up so controlled.

Everything was so in

that it was almost as
if my real life was just,

just underground, subterranean,

and all my emotions were underground.

Well, I started writing

when I was — I don't know, nine, ten,

and I thought I was a poet.

He was in his room

and he comes out with three pages

of writing about the swastika
and about Germany.

I said, “Where did you get this from?"

He said, “From my head.”

You know, I think the first thing
that I wrote

was his story.

Yeah, the first thing that I wrote
was his story.

And I was – I was eight or nine years old.

And it was called

“Out of the Clutches of Death."

And I sent it in to this

Jewish paper, The Jewish Press.

And they ran it in the centerfold.

I would write just nonstop.

I wouldn’t go out of the house.

Sundays, I didn't go out. I didn’t —
I didn’t play ball.

I didn’t do any of these things.

And one of my sisters-in-law said to me,

“Why do you let him write

constantly about such morbid things?

Why don't you tell him to write about

the sun, the moon, the stars?” I said,

“How can I tell him what to write about?

He's got to write
what he feels like writing.

You can't just tell him

‘Why don't you write about

something happy?’”

Anyway, it seems that –

that what he was writing he was feeling.

And all these sad things,

the poetry that he wrote, I mean,

some of it, when I look back now,

how could I have even thought

that he could have been happy

writing these things?

How did your husband respond

to what he was writing?

He was — he thought it was beautiful.

He was tremendously impressed
with his talent.

We had formed a group in 6th grade,

a Zionist discussion group.

This was a group,

I would say, mostly children of survivors.

These were all kids in Borough Park.

We were convinced that –

that –

some kind of holocaust was imminent.

Let's talk about
growing up in Borough Park, okay?

You're growing up in a community

where... where you've got shuls,

you’ve got shteibls

named after towns
that were destroyed in Europe.

You’ve got Belz, you’ve got Telz,

you've got Satmar, Sighet...

Straight down the line, every town,

and community in Europe that was wiped out

has its little base

of operations in Borough Park.

You have the same Hasidic sects

as existed before the war.

Now after the war,

this was seen as a strength,

the fact that they were able to regroup

and to, to teach – to teach their kids

and to raise a generation

that looked exactly

like the generation
that had been wiped out.

And somehow as a whole,

this community was supposed to –

was supposed to compensate for Europe.

And... and it –

it just always seemed to me that,

look, if, if Belz, the Belzer shteibl
is on 47th Street, right?

Now if Belz was... was destroyed,

why couldn't –

why couldn't 47th Street be destroyed?

We used to talk about

guarding the community.

Will there be an uprising

of the Borough Park Ghetto?

This was – this was a constant theme.

And how would the defense be organized,
you know?

13th Avenue is very vulnerable,

you know, it’s very flat

and there are a lot of stores

and you would wonder who would hide you

because the whole community is Jewish.

I joined an organization

called Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry.

Also, this was in 6th grade.

I mean, this was really at the beginning

of the Soviet Jewry movement

and we all joined up.

They... they gave us
a special Borough Park rate,

25 cents membership,

elementary school rate,

and we just signed up dozens of people.

We were their membership.

We started going down to rallies.

My husband was
absolutely thrilled with this new

interest of his

and he encouraged it a lot.

I mean, there wasn't a demonstration

that we didn't go along with.

Once he asked me, "What would you do?

How far would you go in demonstrating

for... for

these Jewish causes?”

I said, “l would go as far as lie down

in the middle of the street

and if a car has to go through me,

I would let it go through.

Yes, lie down in the middle of the street."

So he did.
He sat down in the middle of the street

with my daughter.

They were jailed.

Didn't bother me.

It's okay. If they are jailed for

their brothers' suffering,

unjust suffering,

let them be jailed.

They'll survive.

I was jailed about two or three times

in New York and in Washington

for sit-ins, disrupting the peace.

It was all for... for Russian Jewry.

Yossi was always there,

but I don't think
we were ever in the same bus.

It was always afterwards,

you know, he’d say,
"Oh, you were arrested too?"

I was a professional Jewish demonstrator,

not a professional general demonstrator.

I specialized.

You know, it's like medicine.

You specialize in certain areas.

Day and night, we used to have

demonstrations over here,

stand and chant and push cops

and cops would push back

and people would go to jail.

We bailed him out.

I mean, I cannot tell you how many times

this child was bailed out of jail.

Yes! We’ll shout a little louder.

We are Jews!

We couldn’t be prouder!

You know, they always used
to ask us, “What are you accomplishing?"

And it's true, you know,

you make one demonstration,

ten demonstrations, you don't accomplish.

But I think what we accomplished

was a revolution.

150,000 Jews left the Soviet Union.

It was an unprecedented exodus,

and people were telling us before that,

“lt’s never gonna happen.

You’re never gonna get ‘em out.”

The American Jewish community

was viewing itself as a community
that had made it,

and we didn't see ourselves as
people who had made it.

We felt we were,

we were a persecuted people,

that nothing had really changed,

that our experiences in America

was just a temporary aberration.

I had decided at that point

that I really hated America

because I had just read
that America didn't let Jews in

during the war

and I became really rapidly anti-American.

I wouldn't stand for
the Pledge of Allegiance in school.

I was also aware of what American Jews
didn't do during World War II,

and that... that played very heavily.

I just didn't want to be a spectator.

He told his father
on Yom Kippur night, I think it was,

that he was going to go to Russia.

The plan crystalized around

the Emigration Office in Moscow.

The initial plan was
to take over the office,

and...

declare it –

declare it the property of world Jewry

and issue visas,

issue visas to Russian Jews,

invite Moscow Jews
to come to the Visa Office

and …

just let 'em out.

I was surprised,

but my answer was,

“Okay, if you think that’s

what you think it’s right to do,

do it.”

I didn't believe, I'll tell you the truth,

I didn't believe

that he'll go through with it.

On the day when we had the demonstration,

we just walked into
the Moscow Emigration Office,

and … nobody had followed us.

Seven of us had walk –

Seven of us walked in.

We had made banners on sheets

written in Hebrew, Russian and English.

And we …

tried to take over one of the offices.

It was just instant tumult.

They just dragged us out,

put us on the street,

beat the shit out of us,

told us to go home.

Now we didn't go 4,000 miles
to be beaten up,

and told to go home.

You can get that in New York.
You don’t –

you don't have to go to Moscow for this.

Uh...

So we decided to...

We tried to get back into the building.

We couldn't get in.

They wouldn't let us back in.

So we sat down,

we blocked traffic
in the middle of the street

until the KGB came and took us away.

I never want to relive

another holiday like that.

I mean, we did nothing but cry

that... those first two days of Passover.

The two of us were just sitting and crying.

We knew that something
dreadful would happen.

And of course,
when the newspapers called us,

"Did you know that your son is arrested?”

We were held by police

while crowds of... of bystanders

kicked us, called us “Jid,”

which means "kike" in Russian,

spit on us,

and these people were not arrested,
and we were.

And in the station, in the police station,

several of us were kicked in the groin,

were kicked in the stomach,

and were pulled around by the hair.

Then they took us
to another police station.

They called us down one by one

to this official's office

and the translator informed us

that we had violated the hospitality
of the Soviet Union,

and we were being sentenced

to three years of strict regime labor camp.

He paused dramatically.

And he says, "However, since you are
first time visitors to our country,

we don't want you to leave

with a bad taste of the Soviet Union.

So we're going to allow you
to extend your stay,

and to finish your tour,

and we'll take you back to your hotel.”

They’re pulling her away as though
she did something wrong!

But what she did was absolutely right!!

And more people should be
doing what’s right!

This is a mother of one of them!

– I’m the mother of one of them!!

Never again!

– And I’m proud of him!

I wish there were more people like him,

that would stand up for the betterment

of man and mankind!!

Never again!

Never again!

Never again!

Never again!

Well, after the Russian trip

things were very anticlimactic

for all of us, I think.

People changed.

I think that after ten years or so

of being involved in protest activities

and of being a professional demonstrator,

you begin to ask yourself other questions

in terms of... of your personal life,

in terms of Jewishness as well.

I think you want to know,

is that the sum total of being Jewish?

Is it demonstrations?

I would start by asking myself

what is the kind of life that I wanted

for Soviet Jews all those years?

What did I envision for them?

What kind of a future?

Individually by themselves,

a Jew is not someone who wears –

who wears a beard and payis.

A Jew is not someone

who davens three times a day.

A Jew is not someone who gives to U.J.A.

A Jew is not someone who... who, uh,

who’s a nonconformist.

Put it together and see what you get.

What do you get?

I get... I get the image
of someone who, uh,

who's constantly...

who’s constantly on the verge.

On the verge of annihilation,

on the verge of... of, uh,

revelation – constantly on the verge.

I was in therapy at that point.

And I would go to, um,

to this Borough Park Mental Health Clinic.

And many times I said to him,

"Should we go to the psychologist also?"

I felt that maybe that would help.

He said, “This has nothing to do

with you and Daddy,

absolutely nothing.”

I saw myself as walking

very slowly and very stunned.

I couldn't even think

what I would be like five years

from then or two years from then.

It was just absolutely inconceivable

to me …

to think ahead at all,

which was the exact opposite

of what my father had been
telling me all those years to do:

“Think ahead, you have to plan ahead.”

He tried always to egg him on,

"I want you to make a speech here,

and I want you to make a speech there."

And Yossi resented that.

He didn't always feel like making speeches.

And my husband was always encouraging him,

you know, “Write an —
Did you write an article?

Did you do this?”

It was very hard for me

to break from his influence.

I had moved out of the house.

I was supposedly writing.

I wasn't writing.

It was a very bad period.

The last thing I wanted to do
was hear from my father

what I should be doing.

What I tried to do

was to really break away from this legacy,

just to break away from it, leave it.

And saying, “Okay, I don't want to survive

and I don't want to not survive.

I'd like to be just normal

and just... just an American

and just forget about all these things."

Really, nobody ever tried to kill me

because I was Jewish.

I kept telling him

“Look, I have my own life.

I don't want to be led all my life by,

by something that happened
before I was born.”

If anyone thinks

that anybody who was born as a Jew,

by denying or disowing

Judaism

he will be more,

or he will be safer...

35, 40 years ago,

they …

proved that this will not help him.

You have to be a Jew because –

because they hate you and

because they, you know,

you don't have a choice,

so you gotta be a Jew.

So,

as long as you were born

a Jew, might as well

stay – stay as a Jew, and know

what your past and present

being is.

30 years ago or 20 years ago,

I felt secure.

Today I do not feel secure here.

Listening to the talk shows,

if you open the radio

you will hear people calling in.

No matter what happens,

if the law is too liberal,

is the Jew.

If the economy is bad,

it’s the Jews’ fault.

Let's not – let's not delude ourselves.

Nobody likes us.

Nobody likes us.

You see the U.N.? There is the U.N.

That's the most unjust place.

Now you ask me,

do I see any hope for my children?

Because when I got married

I said, “There is no sense

to have any children.

What future do they have?"

So now, I would say, "Yes,

they do have a future

and the future, the future is Israel.”

If the Jewish people will be united,

I don't care if 200 million

will be against the Jewish people.

They will not win!

It sounds ridiculous,

but this little people

can withstand anything

if we are united.

What would have happened if

in the 1940's we would have had an Israel?

We would have had a place where to go to!

There was no country in the world

who would have taken us.

Last night,

at a reception at the home
of Ambassador Dinitz,

Mr. Begin read The Megillah,

the scripture which tells the story

of one of the few happy holidays

on the Jewish calendar,

the holiday which is celebrated today.

The holiday is Purim,

and it celebrates the deliverance

of the Jewish people.

There have been many Purims

for the Jewish people over the centuries,

times when all seemed lost,

but because of miracles

or extraordinary individuals,

the people were saved.

His relationship with me,

all of our personal relationship

was framed by politics.

… the Prime Minister of Israel,

Mr. Menachem Begin.

Those were the code words that we used.

The Jewish State

is the only state on earth

about which a modern
document has been drawn up

declaring

that it should be destroyed,

wiped off the map.

We would sit and have discussions

and I would say, “You know, I’m afraid
that Israel is going to be destroyed.

I’m afraid It's going to
happen here again.”

– There is no other democratic
country like... like... like Israel.

He would say, “No,
can’t happen again.”

Hearing him say it reassured me.

Instead of it being the other way around,
you would think, right?

I mean, here's a guy who had been
through it once before,

knows, knows what can happen,

knows what people can do.

He's telling me, “No, don't worry,”

and I 'm sitting there saying,
“Listen, listen,

it’s gonna happen again.”

I think he was telling me,
you know, "Don’t worry, don’t worry.

It’s, it’s – it wasn’t a mistake
for me to bring you here."

And I was, I just wasn’t sure at all.

Dad, if the American people have to choose

between oil for their cars

and support for Israel,

what do you think they would choose?

– That's the big mistake.

There is no —
Nobody has to choose... chose.

Nobody has to choose.

...Are you sure it wasn’t a mistake?

That... that everything you’ve done
the past 30 years, since the war,

Iiving your life

as if survival is possible

wasn't a mistake?

And that this has all been an illusion

and your life is just as much
an illusion as Borough Park?

The fights that I used to have
with my father at the Shabbos table:

Friday night would come,

and all week,
this is what he was looking forward to,

to be with the family.

And Shabbos would come
and I would sit there

and I would start saying, “Well,

why do we do the same boring
thing every week?

Always the boiled chicken,

and singing these same ridiculous songs.

And... and it’s enough already."

And... and he would start to boil
and he would say, "Okay,

what would you want to do for Shabbos?"

I would tell him, "Well,
we need a new Judaism.

We need a post-Holocaust Judaism."

And he would say,

“You can’t eat boiled chicken
in the post-Holocaust Judaism?"

I’d say, "No, there’s no room for it!”

Well, I always thought I was different from

most people my age in Borough Park.

And my life right now is a carbon copy

of everybody my age in Borough Park.

I get up in the morning, I go to shul.

I come back, I open up my business,

I'm a businessman.

I'm no longer a freelance journalist.

Now I'm selling candy.

My parents took a two-week trip to Israel,

a vacation...

A combination vacation and

they went for the unveiling

of my grandmother's tombstone,

who had died the year before.

This was Sunday two weeks ago.

It was just about the end of their vacation

and it was ten in the morning that Sunday.

I was alone in the house.

I get a knock on the window

and it's my aunt and uncle.

They told me that

“Your father is very sick
and you have to go to Israel.”

And by that time he was already dead,
and they knew that,

they didn't want to tell me.

I'd lived through

that moment of being told
that my father was dead

many times.

He had three heart attacks altogether,

this last one was his fourth.

And I always felt

that he was living

purely on will.

The doctor in Israel said

that he didn't have a heart left.
There was nothing left.

I wasn't surprised.

It was all used up.

He's buried right near my mother's parents.

And …

I was thinking about a lot of things.

Well, at least...

my grandparents were,

at least we know where they're buried.

I mean, my – my grandfather
had eight brothers who …

who were gassed and …

no trace of their, of their burial site,

no connection,

no proof that they ever lived.

My grandmother lost her family.

And here they are, the two of them,
buried in – in Jerusalem.

Two old Jews buried in Jerusalem.

I mean, isn't that the way
it's supposed to be?

And I know that my father wanted it
that way too, for himself.

He always...

Well, he wanted to live in Israel.

He had plans to live there.
That’s all he talked about.

So, this was the next best thing,
being buried there.

When they lowered the body

into the hole,

all I could think of was

the hole that he had hidden in

during the war.

It was about the same dimensions

that he had described it as,

just enough,

at least as far as I imagined it to be,

just enough

to lie down in.

We sat shiva for the customary week.

And I think the hardest part

of the shiva

was seeing my father’s friends coming in.

They all seemed to me at that point very,

very vulnerable people,

really almost like children.

And …

and I just wanted to console each of them

and I really didn't know how.

I've come into the business now,

I figure for a year,

to show that the business can

outlast my father.

I mean, this... this place was his life.

This is where he came in.

Then he'd go across the street, back home.

The next morning, my life.

Yeah? What's doin'?

Yeah?

How're you doin'?

Fine, fine, what's up?

How's Mommy feeling?

Not so good, huh?

My mother can't do this business alone,

emotionally and physically.

She was in the hospital a few months ago.

She has a heart condition.

She can't do the business on her own.

I have to be here,

and I have to pretend
that I know what I'm doing –

– Everything is under control …

– and pretend that,

that I'm a businessman.

– How're you doin', Ma?

Yeah? You don't sound so good.

I got 'em for four dollars yesterday.

– She gave it to you for four dollars?

– Yes.

Yes! He remembers.

– Did — the Bucaleers?
He got it for four dollars?

Those boxes yesterday?

– Which ones are those?

– The Bucaleer. Let's recheck it.

– Give me a big slip, eh?

– Need a big slip? All right,
let's get out a big piece of paper,

we’ll write it up.

I think my sister is going to be fine.

She's going to get engaged momentarily.

It’ll be good for my mother.

The fellow she's getting engaged to, Glenn,

I think is going to be a son to her.

You know, I,

I'm walking around

as if I’m head of the family,

as if, I was always meant to be
head of the family,

as if it's
the most natural thing in the world.

But, when you grow up with death,

you're just not stunned by it.

And I haven't been stunned by this.

And... and I've found that my –

my reactions to things

have been amazingly similar
to what they were three weeks ago.

What’s the problem?

That I sound...

I don't sound angry

and I don't sound passionate.

I sound like I worked –
I've worked everything out already.

Everything is all worked out.

It’s not – it’s not all worked out.

There's just something wrong with –

with accepting a father's death

with such equanimity.

I mean, a father who –

who his son loved.

Of... of not even being able to admit
how much I miss him …

of constantly just denying it.

What’s wrong with that, is that,

is that I miss him very much.

What things do I miss about my father?

That he was a character.

The way he would go into a doctor’s office

and just announce to
the people sitting there

that Henry Kissinger is worse than Hitler.

People would be shocked. You know,

they would – they would just raise
their newspapers.

I miss him talking on the phone with,

with a friend of his
who he used to call every Sunday,

and they used to just talk about politics,

about what's happening with Israel

and how crazy America
doesn't know what it’s doing to itself.

We used to kiss and embrace,

especially after fights.

We used to kiss all the time.

Every morning.

I miss that.
I miss kissing him in the morning.

The sense of loss is also,

is also — it’s a Jewish loss, that,

that the survivors are really,
are really going.

I’m very afraid.

I’m... I’m... I’m very afraid of,

of living in a world or...

Of bringing children into a world where,

where there aren’t
survivors of the Holocaust living.

That year that I spent

running the business and,

and moving back to Borough Park...

I had been away at journalism school

in Chicago,

and I had no intention of moving
back to Borough Park.

But that's what I did.

And I found myself going back to the shuls

where he had davened in,

in the different places that we had lived

in Borough Park.

And …

I found myself thinking,

"What would my father...

What was my father thinking

in 1945?

What did he have to do?

What – what did he decide to do?”

And when there was no order

he decided to create his own order.

And that’s what I decided to do too.

Orthodoxy would be a
very easy way out for me.

It would enable me not to –
not to face …

a lot of the contradictions that I feel.

It would just be a very easy way
of dealing with things.

Growing up,

I sensed that there was something wrong

with the fact that,

that the family life was …

was almost perfect,

what a – what a Jewish family

is supposed to be.

The rituals disturbed me

because I saw our family as

reenacting something
that had been murdered...

The Shabbos,

going to shul,

the yarmulke, the... the tifillin,

the whole thing had been wiped out.

And I was …

I guess I was very frightened.

I said, “If this is what happened to
millions of Jewish families

who lived exactly the way we did,

what’s going to happen to us?"

Mazel tov!

Glenn, mazel tov, mazel tov.

Glenn, mazel tov.

Higher! Higher!

My sister will be a very good
Jewish mother.

I think that’s what she's preparing for.

I think that's the kind of daughter she is.

I'm certainly not that kind of a son.

She grew up almost the opposite way as me.

It’s almost as if she looked at me
and said, "Well,

this is not what I’m going to do."

I am 26, I am living with my mother.

It is not a permanent arrangement.

I mean, I’m in no particular rush
to leave but,

but I will be leaving.

And she knows that.

In April...

Every 26 years there’s some kind of

it’s called “Birkat Hachama”...

“Blessing of the Sun.”

– What we're doing in New Jewish Times

is, in effect, trying to make

some kind of collective sense

out of the chaos that each of us feels

in our personal lives,

either moving from an Orthodox
background to –

to something that’s – that’s

spiritually in flux.

Or going the other way,

somebody who’s come from
a really assimilated Jewish background

who became … very Jewish.

– Are you complaining that there's
too much religion in the – in the piece

or Orthodoxy?

– Well, religion.

Well, this is the religious section.

Probably half of us
are children of survivors.

We set the tone of the paper.

– Okay, now, the "People" page,
actually, that might be a good idea.

People who are – who are involved in –

in survival techniques.

What do you people think of

reviving “Things to Come?”

– Can I have a vote for bringing back
“Between the Lines”?

– “Between the Lines” has
a sense of humor to it,

it’s a funny page,

and “Things to Come” usually is very –
is usually bad news that’s coming up.

I mean, that... that’s what it’s been.

We’ve been accused of –
of... of being alarmist and apocalyptic.

One guy came into the office, he says,

“You know, how can you say

that there’s going to be another Holocaust?

How can you – how can you tell?

How can you write that?

How can you say it?”

And you know, we’re... we're not –

we're not saying that there will,

that there definitely will be one.

But what we're saying...

What — the theme of the paper,

really more than anything else

is that these are apocalyptic times,

and that these are times of upheaval,

of personal upheaval,

of collective uncertainty.

And what we're trying to do

is find some kind of a voice

for Jewish identity.

What does it mean for us,

for our generation

to grow up after the Holocaust,

the first generation with
the State of Israel a reality...

What does it mean for us
to be growing up in America

where... where we
have full... full frigidaires

and... and the only – our only relationship
to the Holocaust is nightmares?

We're addressing ourselves

to any Jew who’s uneasy,

any Jew who feels that

all of the existing

religious, political ideas, structures

within the Jewish community

don't answer the needs of –

of what's happening to Jews today.

They're all, practically without exception,

holdovers of another time.

And... and almost no one is speaking

to Jews … who are in flux.

– Everybody’s looking for something.

Everybody's in flux.

– And in the process of dropping –

– You're dropping out of Borough Park,

I’m dropping out of Riverdale.

He’s droppin' out of this,

we're all dropping out of something.

But yet, we don't want to
just fall into America.

– It’s not only people dropping out,

It’s also – it's a
cross-fertilization process,

because people are dropping in –

dropping out of America and

dropping into Judaism at the same time.

Frieda, how do you feel, though, about

coming to this paper from Borough Park?

– Oh, it's generated an enormous amount

of tension for me.

You know, I'm still in that world.

– You hear this –

Frieda’s brother called – called her up

to relay the message

that the paper is sick

and she shouldn't have anything
to do with it.

It’s doing terribly in Borough Park,

really, really terribly.

I did a piece

for the November issue, called,

“Punks, Hasidim and the End of the World.”

And what I was trying to do in the piece

was to

create a mood

of people who are living with –

with the certainty
that apocalypse is coming.

And I selected the punks
of the East Village

and the Hasidim of Borough Park

because the Hasidim had survived
an apocalypse

and now were waiting for the Messiah,

and the punks were acting as if

the Apocalypse was happening right now.

The piece was written with a lot of love
about Borough Park,

about a lot of the
rebbes and the survivors.

But just the fact that it appeared
with punks

and... and that there were these pictures,

these wonderful pictures —
Of these strung-out punks

dancing all over the page

and then these rebbes, you know,

davening...

Just really jarred people in Borough Park.

I didn't – I didn't expect it! I didn’t –

I really didn't expect that kind of
negative reaction.

There was a time

when I would have been very happy

to – to be an outsider from Borough Park.

But that time isn’t now.

I really want to maintain
some kind of connection there.

I'm beginning to live my day-to-day life

more as a Jew now,

and trying … to extract what –

what is eternal from Jewish tradition...

What’s vital now and what'll be vital

a hundred years from now,

if we can speak in such optimistic terms.

On the one hand, I... I would say

without any certainties,

without – without any long-range plans,

because in these times

you don't attach yourself

to mundane se... security.

Because in these – in these times,

there is no security in things,

in... in... in a settled family life.

There just isn't.

Married life is great.

It’s been a little over a year and a half,

and we’re expecting a baby,

hopefully, the end of June.

I worry about, about my sister's baby

and... and, and... and about what –

what does it mean to, to be so tied down,

and... and to be responsible for... for –

for helpless... helpless beings and,

and... and to be so
tied down to, to a home,

and... and a business –

something that’s, that’s not portable,

that –

that you can't put on
your back and... and...

And go to – to the woods if you have to,

or... or... or cross oceans?

And I think that’s what's coming.

He’s really not ready.

He’s not ready to get married yet.

I would love it, of course.

Any mother would.

But I – I mean,
I don't even talk about it to him

because what's the point?

You know, he knows I want it.

And what’s the point of my harping on it,

nagging him into it?

It's not going to come sooner.

And he's having a good time.

He's enjoying life right now.

I hope!

I do believe that things are coming apart.

I’m very much afraid

of the 1980's and beyond.

We’re living in a time
of such obvious decay.

It’s not only the urban decay.
It’s a cultural decay.

Is it going to be race riots?

Fascism from the right?
Fascism from the left?

You can pick your paranoid fantasy,

but I think we’re on the verge
of something unhealthy.

Everything that made the Holocaust possible

is inherent in our society today.

The consumption,

the materialism
that you just get sucked into

more and more.

There are very few values that –

that people will admit to having now.

And if they do have values they –

they keep it to themselves. It’s not
something you brag about.

Take the punks as the extreme example

of... of I think what society,
mainstream society

is going through now...

This whole idea of "Live for today,”

of abandoning

any pretense of concern
with the soul, with anything immortal,

of just saying, “It’s all nonsense."

Total materialism.

When people have no values to fall back on,

they're going to want

to preserve the materialism at all costs.

And you have the structure already,

you have the technology,

you have the precedent.

Why not do it again?

The Holocaust was not

an emotional pogrom.

It was a rational, step-by-step,

planned extermination process.

And to this day,

it's the only coherent program

for solving the problems
of the modern world.

And sooner or later,

they're going to turn to the one man

who had a real solution –

and that’s Adolph Hitler.

He had the Final Solution.

And people are going to turn
to that approach,

to overpopulation

and diminishing resources

and a planet that’s going mad.

I've been saying these things for 15 years.

So, when we were kids,

you could ascribe all kinds
of psychological reasons for it, okay?

Children of survivors – this is –

this is the natural reaction.

They speak in apocalyptic terms.

But to still be talking,

and what’s even more frightening,

to have people who have no connection
with the Holocaust...

People who aren't even Jewish...

Talking in apocalyptic terms now,

that terrifies me.

You know, now all of a sudden

everybody's saying, "Hey, you know,

the Holocaust happened,” right?

What conclusions are they drawing from it?

Now they’re going to fit the Holocaust

into their previous frame of reference.

You just get the feeling you want to grab
people by the throat and scream at them.

I don't think 10 years or 15 years from now

we're going to have a paper

and we're going to be walking around

in three-piece suits and...

And... and we're going to be successful.

There’s no way. That's –

it’s not going to happen.

– What's with the money,
what’s gonna happen?

You have any plans?

– Money-wise?

– Yeah?

– Ah, right now, I know that
I have nothing in my pocket.

– I mean, you're talking
about driving a cab?

– Yeah.

– You're gonna do it?

– Only at night.

– You're gonna do Manpower, Jon?

– What do you want to do?

– A little factory work
one or two days a week.

Hopefully if it’s interesting

I could get a story out of that.

– So how are we
doing in this store over here?

What do we have, ten papers dropped?

– Well, we’ll never
sell them cause they hide us.

– They really - they bury us.

Look, what's – what’s the greatest
threat now for society, right?

They say it’s nuclear destruction.

Right? This is the greatest threat.

Now... now they’re already starting to say,

“Well, even if they drop bombs,

there'll still be people surviving.”

People will survive a nuclear war.

Yeah, they’ll be – they’ll be contaminated

with radiation, all the rest of it.

But – but people will still be around.

What kind of communities
are these people gonna form?

How are these people gonna live?

And you have to look at the Holocaust as –

as a miniature nuclear catastrophe

that was isolated in the heart of Europe

and struck just the Jews and overturned

the entire Jewish world.

Destroyed it, wiped it out,

just as if there had been a nuclear war

because nothing was left in Europe
for the Jews,

no institutions, nothing.

And that’s what my father...

You know, he speaks in, in...

In really post-nuclear war terms when

he talks about going back to his town

in 1945.

That’s the way I really imagine
it would be for us,

just coming out of – out of subways after –

after a nuclear war.

We came back.

It was a unbelievable …

situation.

We were one of the first ones

who came back to, to our city.

You could imagine,

we were totally irrational,

totally irrational.

We sat down and we took whiskey

by big glasses

and we just drank.

We drank a whole day

that we shouldn’t think,

because the minute we were sober

we couldn't cope with the situation.

So we drank and drank.

That was going on for a few weeks.

And on a nice day, I said to myself,

"God, this is not going to

lead us nowhere.”

And I just threw away the whiskey.

Whenever I ask myself,

"Why should I bother going on?”

I say, “Well, these people survived

the worst of... of whatever’s coming.

These people were right in it

and, and yet they were able to,

to stay human afterwards.”

You who survived

did not turn your backs on Judaism,

though you had every right to do so.

You didn't turn your back
on Jewish history,

though you were its greatest victims.

And finally, you didn’t turn your back
on faith in God,

the God who let us out of Egypt

and into the crematorium.

Did you pray while you were in the bunker?

– To pray as such, no.

We didn't ask God to help us.

We didn't ask God to help our nearest ones.

We just couldn't understand. We were –

we were besides ourselves

why this should happen
to the Jewish people.

So no, we were not praying, none of us.

And after – after that

we didn't pray either for a long time.

But …

after you become older,

after you get married — many of us...

Somehow the wheel turn back,

and just like,

if you could do a good deed,
God forgives you,

so they say …

so did we.

We forgave God

and we started to pray again.

I often asked him whether he believed

in the Jewish concept of God,

of a personal God.

He would tell me he doesn't know.

But he would say, “I know that

Jewish history proves

that there’s something special about this

little people,

the Jews.

I don't know what it is.

I don’t know why we're going through
what we' re going through.

But there must be a reason."

– Are you a journalist?

– I’m a journalist.

– I didn’t know.

– But I’m – I’m here for two reasons.

I’m – I’m writing an article,

but I'm also a child of survivors, so I'm –

– That’s good.

– wearing two yarmulkes at the same time.

Where were you in 1945?

– Dachau.

– You were liberated from Dachau?

After the war, how did you begin
to live again?

How did you begin a normal process?

– You see, we want to live
in spite of the Germans want to kill us.

We want to live.
If not, we wouldn’t survive.

We want to live so badly.

We want to tell the world what happened.

I think that’s why we survived.

Was the only reason.

You came back to Poland in 1945?

– I was back, and then I

escaped to Germany,

back to Germany. And then
I went to America.

– So you... you were in a D.P. camp

in Germany after the war?

– Right.

How did you make the transition –

– Yeah?

– when you got home

and you saw that there was nothing left?

– I came home and I found on,

on the grave from my grandmother,

on her grave I found from my...

I cannot.

It’s just hard for me.

I found the story of an uncle.

– Take it, take it easy.

– I found the story of an uncle

that he said he was with the 600 survivors

from Ghetto Lodz.

He said if somebody came,

you should know that everyone was killed –

– But take it easy.

My mother and six brothers, I lose them.

I have nobody in the world,
except my two kids.

We should take seriously

any threat

against our existence,

any expression

against any Jewish community

in any part of the world,

because it’s the crazy people

who do not change their minds.

Our ears

should discern

any tone of threat –

– The prophet Isaiah said,

– Take them seriously!

– “Thus saith the Lord that created thee,
O Jacob –

– I remember vividly as many of you do,

my arrival in Auschwitz …

– Fear not!

For I have redeemed thee!

I have called thee by thy Name.

When thou walkest through the fire –

… And our nostrils were filled –

– thou shall not be burned!!"

– with the acrid
fumes from the gas chambers

drifting all over camp,

day after day,

week after week,

year after year.

I don’t know what to make of...

I... I feel like I’m being shuttled

from one event to the other

and I haven't sorted it out.

Since I got here I've been trying
to write about

my father’s death and –

and just trying to...

I'm looking in people's faces over here

and trying to almost put together

a composite sketch.

And... and then on these
kind of off moments

I just get overwhelmed.

Like being inside the Yad Vashem Museum

the day that it started, and –

and I don’t even know what touched it off.

I think it was just seeing...

It wasn't even these pictures. I mean,

there were some horrible pictures.

There was – pictures I’d never seen before

of kids — three, four years old
with numbers on their arms — and,

and it was kind of like a, a silent movie

where they just kept flashing
these... these images

and people are... are
either just watching it

and sighing

or just saying, “Yeah, yeah,

that’s — I remember that.

That's how it was.”

Everybody wants to make

an important statement

and nobody knows what to say.

I would have liked to see some kind of a –

something enduring coming out of this,
some kind of –

something... something more than
just personal reunions on the one hand,

and the same old rhetoric on the other –

something about –

about telling the Jewish people
what it means to survive,

and now that these people are dying out,

what is it that they have to say
before they –

before they leave?

I think these people are still amazed
that they’ve survived.

And – and I’m amazed too.

But I’m disappointed.

[Crowd Voices Continue And Fade Out Under:

There are no words to express

the searing pain we still feel

as we gather here today,

knowing that there are six million of us

who cannot be here.

Imagine,

each candle that we held in our hands

is a symbol of over a thousand victims...

Our mothers, our fathers,

our brothers and sisters,

and yes, even our lost children.

It is for them that we have come here,

to keep our promise to them,
to our friends, to ourselves.

– All right, I was – I was pretty down
on the World Gathering

for a – for a few days,

really until the last day.

And …

and it’s funny because I think
I was judging it

the way my father would have judged it,

in that — yeah, it was all very nice

that people were getting together

and there were these reunions,

but what’s the message? You know,
what's – what's the statement?

I guess the first few days I just...

was walking through there,

first, I was – I was trying to be this –

this impartial observer
to write this story.

And, and at the same time

trying to feel what was going on

and not wanting to feel it.

We, the survivors, are growing older.

We may never again gather together

as we did this week.

The burden of preserving the legacy

of the Holocaust

is now to be passed

on to our children.

There was this legacy
that all the survivors signed,

a legacy to the second generation –

– And they had survivors getting up

and reading it in, in six languages.

And then they had their sons

answering –

– We dedicate this pledge

to you, our parents,

who suffered and survived.

– I really felt jealous that

there were sons and fathers there
at the World Gathering

because …

my father would have just seen that as –

as some kind of a –
of a culmination for him.

It would have just been
very, very important for him,

for the two of us to be there together.

We take this oath

to be handed down from father to son,

from mother to daughter,

from generation to generation.

– At one point I just sat there

and just started crying and –
and thinking that

it just would have been really nice

having him around at this...

Right now.

Remember and do not forget,

guard and protect.

Remember

and do not forget,

guard and protect.

Remember and do not forget,

guard and protect.

My sisters, my brothers,

in pain, in persecution,

in faith, in longing,

in bereavement, in orphancy.

How did it happen?

How could it have... have happened?

In Europe? In the twentieth century?

For six years?

The Jews knew
but they didn't pay attention.

They believed in civilization,

in culture,

in humanity.

They asked themselves until
the last moment,

"And what will the world say?”

What will the world say?

My friends,

had we met anywhere else,

perhaps we would not have
been able to resist

the sadness

that is part of our collective memory.

It is thanks to the fact that we met
here in Jerusalem

that it was bearable at all.

I think where it really hit me

was when a group of Yemenite Jews with –

with these long shofars

got up and –

– blew shofar for, for over a minute.

And I'd never heard anything
like that sound.

To me, listening to that,

it sounded …

it sounded like the heralding of,

of redemption.

I felt, at that point,

that here were
survivors from all over the world,

Jews who had really come back from –
from the other side,

and I felt that

all barriers between this side

and... and the other life were broken.

And … everyone was gathered there.

And I knew that that was the moment
that my father would have

sat there and just cried like a baby.

And I felt that we had finally come

to this spot after all this time.

We had come not as victims

but as survivors.

And that this is where it has to end,

and this is how it’s going to end.

And it doesn’t end in the camps and,

and it doesn't end in a hole in the ground.

But it ends at this place,

with these people as survivors.

I don’t think Jews would have survived

if after every, every …

persecution that we had

we dwelled on... on the destruction.

And what I came to see in my father

was not his victimization

but my father as a survivor.

And that’s what he had to tell me

and to teach me directly.

I believe that there is a godly spirit

that infuses Jewish history,

and I saw that from my father.

I believe a godly spirit infused his life,

in his survival,
in his decision to, to continue.

And – and I just don’t feel alone

because I feel that I –

that that’s in me too.

That’s – that’s my inheritance.

Standing there and seeing this stone

with his name on it, and this whole

litany of how he had gone through
the fires of the Holocaust

and... and his faith was tested

and he proved stronger
than the Holocaust...

It’s almost as if I had seen him
in some way

as a monument,

even when he was alive.

And I think he deliberately presented
himself that way,

to say “Look,

whatever I am, I’m more than that because –

because of what I’ve been through,
because of what I represent,

and I’m a monument.”

At the grave when I was davening,

I felt like I was talking to my father.

And I wanted to tell him that

I was his son in …

every way that – that he had intended.

If my father were alive today,

what would he say about me?

I think we'd still be having fights

about what I’m doing,

and he would say,

“What kind of a way is this to live?

You're not 20 years old anymore.”

But I think what he would say...

I think he would recognize

himself in me.

And I think – I think he'd be happy.