AN EXPERIENCE

I made my entrance onto the stage of life at Lenox-Hill Hospital in June of 1939. As far as I know there was no big fanfare or any cataclysmic event to mark the occasion. Just a simple stay in the hospital, a taxi ride home, the adoration of my big sister and my parents, formula and diapers.

Although my parents were Jewish they did not practice the tenants of the faith of their fathers but did maintain the high moral ethics of their own upbringings and passed them on to their children.

My mother’s father attempted to keep a Kosher household but in our own home we relished the succulent flavors of ham, bacon, crab, shrimp, lobster and clams. Grandpa was a kindly man, soft spoken and quit handsome for a man of seventy years. As a young man he had been a Cantor in his synagogue in Vilna Lithuania. I inherited his singing voice and musical talent.

Living in a Judaeo-Christian neighborhood gave me the benefit of celebrating both the Jewish and Christian holidays. Christmas, Chanukah, Passover, Easter – all were fun but for me they were meaningless as far as having any religious meaning.

New York City was an exciting place during the closing years of World War Two. How well I remember my mother taking my sister and me to the Planetarium Park to be entertained by the military as they would stage their mock or “Sham” battles for us. . The sham battles always ended with the Nazis’ being defeated and a massive smoke screen covering the staging grounds.

A neighbor in our apartment building was the Block Air-Raid Warden. Whenever the sirens would sound, he would rush outside to turn off the street lamps and make certain everyone’s windows leaked no light. Inside, we would quickly lower a thick curtain over our windows and then open a Hide-a-Bed which we would get under for protection.

Now it all seems so silly, remembering how we would squeeze under that bed. I suppose to a four or five year old it seemed like the thing to do but just how much protection could a Hide-a-Bed afford us seeing as how we lived on the ground floor of a ten story apartment building. But there we would lie until the “All Clear” signal was sounded.

Almost any night one could see the dancing shafts of lights above the city as search lights crisscrossed the night sky seeking enemy airplanes.

Every Friday evening we would go to a Chinese Restaurant for dinner and then go to the neighborhood movie theatre where we would watch the latest filmed footage of the war in the “Movietone News”. It didn’t really matter what the feature was, the important thing was the newsreel.

To my young and formative mind, Germany represented the dark side of life. With their aggressive march through Europe and the persecuting of my people, Germany seemed to be a place for me to fear and mistrust.

I was in camp during the summer of 1945 when the announcement came over the P.A. system that the war was over with Germany. I can remember how we frolicked and rejoiced as only children can do, at hearing the news.

Soon after came the knowledge of the atrocities of the death camps; Baden-Baden, Bergen Belsen, Dachau, Auschwitz, Treblinka, Buchenwald, Sobibor.

In the years that followed I was caught up in the excitement of the birth of the Jewish state of Israel. In my junior High School we received new films each week showing the slow and bitter fight for Jewish autonomy in the Middle East. Occasionally there would be news of another war criminal being brought to justice.

After the war I can remember the Berlin Air Lift and the great Eastern wall. Although I felt sorry for a people being held captive in their own land, I still had the negative feelings of my youth hidden away in some dark recesses of my soul.

In the years that followed I discovered that I had many relatives and friends who harbored intense emotions regarding Germany. My own feelings were of mistrust and apprehension.

Our apartment building was situated next to an old church. Originally it had been built as a Jewish synagogue. I first became aware of the existence of the building when it was purchased by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. A large Bronze plaque bearing the name of the Church caught my attention. I knew who Jesus Christ was from a historical perspective but the plaque also said, “Manhattan Ward, New York Stake”. Now I knew I lived in Manhattan and it didn’t bother me that the word “ward” was used in conjunction with the borough in which I lived but I was convinced that the word stake had been misspelled. Everyone knew we lived in the STATE of New York! I was convinced that the people there either did not know they spelled their sign wrong or they were too cheap to buy a new one.

As the years passed, my Sister and I felt a need for greater spiritual nourishment. What we sought did not seem to exist within our own faith. At one time I asked my parents if there was a God. I am ever so thankful for their unbiased answer. I was told that when I grew older I could find out for myself. Eventually my sister led me to the church next door which we came to accept as the Restored Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Many years later I had the opportunity to travel to Germany with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in concert tour. Although our performance schedule was hectic, we did have some time for sight seeing. One of the places we visited was Dachau. There, old wounds were opened, old fears drawn out from dark recesses and paraded before my minds eye. Tears were shed, tears of pain and sorrow, tears of fear.

There was a large marble wall with cast letters mounted on it. The message read something like this: “In memory of the brave men, women and children who died in this camp”. My reaction to the memorial when I first saw it was surprising to me. I remember thinking “If they were truly brave, they would have died in their homes and in the streets, fighting bravely for their freedoms, not here, huddled together like sheep waiting for their slaughter!”

In the many years since the war years of my childhood I have made many friends, many of whom are of German origin. On an individual basis I had no problem: It is easy to love a person based on their own merits. But always, in that dark recess – hidden away in a labyrinth of memories was the fear, the mistrust, the apprehension of that place my childish mind remembered as “Germany”.

When my eldest Son turned nineteen, he was called to serve a voluntary two year proselytizing mission for our church. I can still recall the excitement and anticipation we felt as we waited for him to open his mission call letter and read to us where he was to serve. Somehow, in my heart, I knew he would be called to Germany and it was therefore no surprise when he read he was being called to the Germany Dresden Mission. I was excited for him but deep inside I could feel the churnings of the old apprehensions and fears.

Because of the latest “news expose” on the rising anti-Semitism in Germany, I suggested to my Son that he not tell people of his ancestral origins. It seemed ironic to me that a boy of Jewish extraction should be called to preach the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ in the land which had once attempted to eradicate all Jews from the face of the Earth.

Two years passed quickly. We decided to meet our Son in Germany and tour the land he had learned to love. Again, I found the child hiding inside – remembering the catastrophic evils of the nineteen forties.

On the morning of the third day we were in Germany I had an experience which changed my life forever.

It was early. I was lying in bed listening to a beautiful violin concerto being broadcast over a television channel. The music was incredibly delicate and sweet. All at once, it seemed a vision opened to my mind. Perhaps it was just my imagination but it seemed like I could see a moving picture in my mind while at the same time I could witness my own surroundings.

I saw a man standing in front of a basin, shaving. My vantage point was from behind him, a little above and just to his left. I could see his face in the mirror before him.

He was of dark hair and quite handsome. He held a shaving mug in his left hand and with a brush in his right, he worked up a lather and daubed it on his face. Then, with a straight edged razor he proceeded to shave himself. When he was finished shaving, he padded his face dry with a white towel, then patted on some cologne. The sequence finished with him dressing into his uniform.

While viewing this entire shaving sequence, I kept seeing a series of flash-backs of scenes from the war. I saw German troopers searching door to door for Jews. Troops with bayonets were running after Jews fleeing down the streets. I saw Jews being herded into cattle cars for relocation. I saw the death camps, the gas chambers, the burial pits and the ovens. All these images flashed before my minds eye, interspersed in this vision of a man shaving. All the time I could hear the violin concerto in the background – giving an air of sophistication and detachment to what I was seeing.

Somehow, I knew that it was this man who was the one responsible for these atrocities. He was not the Fuhrer or even an officer. He was just a soldier with a job to do. But he had seared his own conscience so that whatever he did to the Jews meant no more to him than the fate of a mosquito.

Suddenly my perspective changed. Instead of seeing this parade of grotesque snapshots from the past, I was now feeling the emotions and fears of my own people. I could feel their utter hopelessness at having nowhere to turn for help. I felt their abandonment and the pain of their betrayal. I began to weep uncontrollably. Then, as suddenly as it had begun – it ended. The violin concerto had ended and so had the vision. But what I had learned shall live on.

I was wrong about the Jews who died in the death camps, they were hero’s. When your captor shows no mercy, do you allow him the victory over your dignity as well? No! Those brave Jews went to the death camps knowing full well there was no way out. The only way left for them to fight that great evil madness was to maintain their dignity to the very last.

I was also wrong about the German people. Germany was not a nation of people against the Jews. It was a handful of madmen who were devoid of all conscience!

Several days later we were visiting with a member family of our faith. We had had a wonderful reunion with our Son and had just spent a lovely evening with these newly made friends. The father of this German family asked me if I would offer a prayer. I heard myself praying, “Father, we are so grateful for the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and that it binds us together as brothers”.

And indeed it had! No more were their opened wounds of the past. The old pains and sores of my childhood had been healed. It is my prayer that such a healing may take place throughout the whole Earth.