Statistics

At the gym, it  takes twenty-two laps to walk around the track for two miles. Counting backward this morning, I decided to record for myself the most significant event in my life for each of those years.

At twenty-two, I bet my husband we would conceive a child with one unprotected lovemaking session or I would not "bother" him about a second child for another year. On October 31, our daughter Linda was born.

At twenty-one, I voted for the first time, for John F. Kennedy and it was the first time my choice for a candidate for president won the election.

At twenty, I gave birth to my firstborn son just nine months after we were married. That's how I knew I'd win the bet! Folks were counting; I wore more and more safety pins strung together to keep my jeans closed. My son wore my mortar and tassel at age three months!

At nineteen, I was married after a year's courtship and engagement. Without birth control, we married early. 

At eighteen, I switched colleges due to a business downturn in the economy and my refusal to accept a scholarship. I could not tolerate the pressure and I had learned how to study.

At seventeen, I traveled to Germany for the summer after winning an essay contest my mother encouraged me to write. She wanted me to be her eyes and ears, to see what was left of the country she so loved before the advent of Hitler.Then, my first month at college, the girls locked me in a bathroom stall and held the door closed until I learned to insert a tampon.

At sixteen I held my first summer job. I was a gopher in a law office in the city, as in Go For coffee, go to the Hall of Records, deliver packages from one law firm to the other.

At fifteen we moved from the city to the suburbs, where I had my own bedroom for  the first time and traded in my babyLouis heels for black and white oxfords and pleated skirts.

At fourteen I traveled to school each day by public transportation as the local elementary school went to eighth grade and the high school began in tenth.

At thirteen I fought with my mother to let me wear stockings and those  babyLouis heels.

At twelve, I learned about the birds and bees and my mother handed me a box of Modess and a belt and said "You know what to do with these, right?"

At eleven, I asked the rabbi if I could lead junior congregation services as I knew the liturgy as well as any of the boys. I was told I might be unclean and was therefore excused from that obligation.

At ten, I went by bus to a large Conservative hebrew school where we delighted in the birth of Israel, sang Palmach songs and raised money to plant trees in the desert. My Grandma Rosa and my Uncle Julius arrived from Switzerland where they had spent the war years, having been rescued by my Aunt Friedl. They were only permitted to remain in that country for two years after the war ended.

At nine, I took the bus with my Oma and Opa who arrived from Germany six months before, to get their First Papers to becoming American citizens and they discovered I understood what they had been saying in German since their arrival.

At eight, I began religious aftershool and I learned to recite the Four Questions at the Seder table three months after my mother was reunited with her parents who had survived the war.

I also had a second sister to walk around the block with until she fell asleep in her carriage and I could park her near my mother's open window.

At seven I had eye surgery twice to correct amblyopia which the doctors had tried to correct by having me wear a pirate patch over one eye.And then we banged pot lids together to  make a lot of noise because the war was finally over. My mother finally was contacted by HIAS that her parents were alive.

At six, my Uncle Joey who was a soldier on leave from the war went with us to the seashore and won a large doll who I  named Linda.

At five I was afraid. The police stopped my father from sending small pieces of paper up the kitestring, assuming he was sending messages to u-boats off the coast.

At four, my sister was born and my mother tried to  interest me in a doll, but all I wanted was the real baby.

At three, we moved to an apartment where I held the clothespins while my mother hung out the wash. I also helped her collect the small strawberries she planted in our victory garden in the back yard.

At two, my mother's brother and his wife arrived from Palestine and lived with us until my uncle was accepted into the Army where he could go back to Germany and help fight the war against Hitler.

And at one, I listened and learned German nursery rhymes and stories while my mother was alone with me and my father went to work. She missed her old life and her dog Toddie who she had to leave behind when they moved here to run away from the Nazis.

Excitement and Anxiety: the Inside Scoop

I feel happy that both of my grandsons visited me today. I cooked a favorite meal for them and had their favorite snack in the freezer for dessert. Dinner had an hour more to bake when they arrived, so I used the time to share with them, the photos of the laying of the Stolpersteins in front of the house where my grandparents lived. They heard me retell my experience; they were attentive and interested. The older one is psyched to go to Auschwitz, although we both realize it won't be a fun day. He said he really wants to go to experience some of  what my uncle Wolf and the million and a half others suffered.
Grant wanted my brisket recipe but Austin said he won't need that for a long time as Grandma is going to live until 120!
The boys are getting along well, there seems to be little of the teasing that used to happen between them and they shared the dinner well, even asking me if I was going to eat any before they scarfed up the whole platter. They seemed more relaxed around me, but the visit was a short one.
I am not feeling relaxed, however. I resent the year in Grant's life that I missed and I regret the turn he is taking in buying himself an air gun which shoots bb's and going to an arena to practice shooting people. The influence of his father's brother, the retired border patrol agent, offends every fiber of my being.
I told him I believe we are put on this earth for more than to have fun, that I believe we are here to make the world a better place for our having been here. He said he was glad I said that as he feels the same way, sometimes, but that a small group can't change anything. I shared that I try to enlarge the group slowly so change can happen. I did not elaborate. More for another time. 

Anxiety and Excitement : What is the Difference or is there any? Trip Planning February 10, 2019

Somebody once said that excitement is anxiety without the stress. That's like my father helping me to tell my right hand from my left by telling me my left hand is the one that the thumb points to the right.
Today all the tickets have been purchased for our upcoming July trip to Europe: flights, hotels and rental car. I will not let myself add up the totals. I will be surprised when I get the credit card bill at the end of the month.
Austin is in charge of getting himself an international driving license and of downloading the app which gives driving directions in English for all of Europe so we don't have to stress about Polish or Croatian alphabets.
We will stay in Frankfurt at the same hotel where cousin Nora and I stayed when we traveled to Frankfurt in 2006 for the dedication of the "Stolperstein" in memory of Grandpa Salomon. We will visit the house where my grandparents lived and see the brass plaque on the sidewalk of the house. We will visit the memorial wall called the Mauer where the names of the 11000 Frankfurt citizens murdered by the Nazis are engraved. We will say a prayer for all my friends' and relatives' parents and grandparents who are memorialized there.  We'll do some sightseeing and then fly to Krakow where we will visit Auschwitz and Birkenau death camps where Uncle Wolf was murdered. We'll visit the Galicia Jewish Museum before heading out to see the countryside with the guide who will take us to the archives where my relatives' information is listed. Perhaps we will find the cemetery where our great grandparents are buried.
Then the guide leaves and we rent a car to drive to Vienna where we will stay in the same hotel that my husband and I visited when we were in Vienna on vacation.  Grandfather fled from Germany to Vienna when he was freed from prison, but the Germans had already taken over the country. Then we follow his footsteps to Zagreb, Croatia where he was murdered at Jasenovac concentration camp.
Four flights, seven hotels and a car rental! Now I have to find travel insurance.

The Trip begins to take shape

It seems I do small steps to accomplish this goal as the concept at times seems overwhelming. I am communicating with a genealogist in Krakow, who seems not to understand me or to distain my shallow level of interest. I don't know, but I don't get a clear vision of traveling with him. So I contacted another but I think he is in Ukraine, Lviv, not Krakow. We will see.

Austin is enthused. I showed him the letters and post cards yesterday. He was remarking on the postage stamps with Hitler's face and we discovered that Uncle Wolf was executed in Auschwitz. I had planned to spare him that visit, but now we will go. I chickened out of Birkenau last time. This year I will go and to the archives to see what we can discover. I thought he was murdered in Bergen Belsen.

So far, we will fly to Frankfurt on United, as I have enough miles for one ticket. I wrote to Renate who will be in town when we are there, the third week in July. We will see the apartment and the Stolperstein and visit the Jewish Museum which was being renovated when I was there last time and the the wall Mauer, where Grandpa Salomon's name is engraved alongside 11,000 other people from Frankfurt who were murdered by the Nazis.

Next, we'll fly to Krakow, visit Auschwitz, try to find the house where Uncle Marcus Spira lived when Grandma Rosa came to him in 1938 after she was deported to Zabozyn. We might take the train to Premsyl, then have the guide meet us there and take us south through the small towns. Maybe I'll find a rental car and do it ourselves. The problem is the alphabet. If we cant read the signs, we're better off with a guide.

From Krakow, we leave for Zagreb directly by plane or half way to Vienna and then rent a car to drive to Zagreb. Most of the cars have manual transmission and no air conditioning, so I'll probably splurge and rent a Mercedes, so I can participate in the driving. I can now see why my grandfather went to Zagreb. It is south of Vienna and the Nazis were not there yet. Unfortunately, a band of Ustazis formed the government of Croatia, breaking off from Yugoslavia just then and they were virulent Jew haters. It was they, not the Nazis who shot my grandfather.

Then we fly to Frankfurt, stay overnight in the airport hotel and fly home to New York where we will take a day to rest before Austin goes back to Phoenix.

Progress January 19, 2019

Life moves on, sometimes in unexpecteed ways. Right, a cliche. But still. How often is it that I get bronchitis, go to urgent care, receive a prescription and the next day receive a call from the pulmonologist reminding me I have a yearly  scheduled appointment the next week.?
And how often does a woman I met at the Slo Walkers group share with me the name of another friend of hers who is also a child of Holocaust survivors?
Faye just phoned me. After discussing her heritage, she described a trip she took in 2006 with her adult children to Ukraine to research her parents' history. She provided the name of the researcher who assisted her. Alex Dunai, but when I went to his website, Google warned me off with many pages of warnings not to connect any further.
I wrote to Faye, asking if she has his email address and I friend requested him  on Facebook. We shall see what develops.
I attended a book group at the Cutler Plotkin Jewish Heritage Center last night because Nancy Siefer was leading the discussion and I respect and admire her from book group discussions at Temple Emanuel many years ago. The book is Rose Tremain's The Gustav Sonata..I haven't read it, but to me, after listening to twenty folks reporting on it, I felt it describes anti-Semitism before the war, subtle but omnipresent, an active second movement awareness of this time Swiss anti-Semitism during the war when they are asked to admit refugees escaping from parts held by the Nazis, and the final movement, called return, suggesting life returns to the more subtle non-inclusion of Jews as it was before. I could be all wrong, but my idea fits with what I know about Switzerland and how they related to my family.
Larry Bell runs the AZJHC and Nancy suggested we speak about my book and the possibility of presenting it there. I will drive down now to deliver him two copies and a membership application to join the Center.

Eighteen

A new play opened on  Broadway, Waverly Gallery. Some friends saw it, had questions about dementia and asked me to see it and to speak with them about it.
I bought a ticket but forgot to go.
A week passed. A friend phoned, "Phyllis, did you see the play about Alzheimers?"
Embarrassed, I asked the theater to honor my past dated ticket. Today they did.
I am a sad, wrung-out me right now. The play described a loving family struggling to make sense of an incomprehensible illness. It brought back so many thoughts, feelings and memories that I sit here flooded among.
And how on this weekend my sisters and I watched and waited as our well-loved mom took her last breaths eighteen years ago today.

My Teenage MeToo Moment

Never before revealed, but my story kept me awake all night last night. As women, we must support each other and change the culture of our global society.
I am eighty years old. As a student in a city elementary school, I excelled and was rewarded by “skipping” a semester, which would have made me graduate from high school in January.
To avoid that costly outcome, I attended summer school and took five major subjects in my junior year, putting me a full year ahead of my age mate peers.
I had a boyfriend who was two years my senior. He was sent to a military academy for a post high school year and then he enlisted in the Army. In that way, I avoided dating in high school. I began college in an all women’s  setting and both my boyfriend and I were in our home town for the December break.
We were delighted to see each other. He claimed he thought of me every day. I had my own fantasies. I remembered our dates which ended with kissing sessions in his Jeep, parked in front of my house until my mother started turning the porch light on and off, signaling she wanted me to come inside.
But now it was winter and my friend led me to the dark den below the floor where my parents and sisters were asleep. They no longer waited up for me.
We began kissing and he lifted me up to lie beneath him on the sofa. I was excited to be wanted, aroused and happy. But all of a sudden, I realized that this was no longer my young, inexperienced, fumbling boyfriend I had fooled around with six months earlier. This was a sexually experienced man.
One hand had opened the three buttons on my empire waisted sleeveless black velvet dress and had released one breast. The other hand was reaching to pull down my pantyhose. His body was heat on mine.
I released my mouth from his kiss and said, “Wow, I didn’t realize you missed me THAT much.”
He kissed my ear, placing his tongue in my ear. I wriggled.
“Really, I’m not ready for this.”
He ignored me and began sucking on my breast.
“ Your nipple wouldn’t be engorged if you weren’t ready,” he mumbled. “You can’t get me so excited and just leave me hanging like this.”
He began to use his overwhelming strength to pin me to the couch and pulled my dress up and my pantyhose down. As he lifted his body to do so, I rolled off the couch onto the floor.
“Let yourself out,” I whispered , as angrily as I could quietly. “ I am going upstairs to bed.”
Our house had only one bathroom upstairs in the hall and a powder room downstairs. I went into the bathroom to put myself back together, straightening my clothes and combing my hair. I even put on fresh lipstick, just in case my mother had heard a noise and woke up. I calmed myself down, breathing slowly, frightened and so alone.