The Right of Return

 For the unindoctrinated, allow me to explain that the Right of Return is something all Jews, around the world, share.  It is in answer to the existential crisis born of anti-semitism and the aftermath of the Holocaust. It is the universal right of any Jew, anywhere, to “return” to the State of Israel. We have the right to go and instantly upon arrival, claim citizenship.  I have it. My brothers and sisters have it. My parents too. Despite the fact that Mom was not a Jew at all (quite the contrary!)

 Many of you don’t know this about me, being a naturalized Israeli. I speak good, if rusty modern Hebrew. Read and write at probably a first grade level at best, still, enough to make out a bit. I was 18 when we left a very cushy life in the U.S. to claim our Right of Return. I remained about 7 years.  How all this came about is not the story I plan to write today (another day perhaps).

 I was not raised in the least small way as a Jew. In fact, I was baptized in a Lutheran church at birth. We went to Sunday school. Learned all our little Bible verses. Knew all the traditional hymns (still do). said The Lord’s Prayer. Did the Christmas Pageant, Mary, Joseph, the baby Jesus in a Manger, Wise Men, Shepherds out standing in the field.  

Holidays – Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter – were spent in the company of my mother’s family mostly. Good, churchgoing Northern Baptists in Pittsburgh where they attended weekly prayer meetings, Church services, sang in the choir. Today is not their story either. Another time I suppose.

 My Jewish upbringing consisted of two things: The very occasional occurrence of a Bat or Bar Mitzvah of my distant cousins whom I scarcely knew. Secondly endless repetitions of the soundtrack to Fiddler on the Roof blasting in the car on long trips. Each song – every note, all the lyrics - burned into my everlasting memory. It is the only music all seven of us could agree on during long drives – Ocean City each summer at minimum.  Happiest memories of my childhood.

 But about those holidays…

 As a kid, you don’t really think much about it. But somehow, in the deep recesses of my mind there were ephemeral shadows in the furthest corners of the room. Mom’s family – grandpa, grandma, Uncles Richard and Bob, their wives and kids, Aunt Peggy too - all present in the flesh. Great-grandmas Jones and Barker too when I was very small. All very much alive.  But those shadows. Who were they?

 My Dad never spoke about his family. His mother, my Grandma Gelbman, was not around much. My mother didn’t like having her around. I don’t recall ever spending a night in her home. She lived in distant Miami. She was the subject of much hilarity to us. She had a thick Yiddish accent which we mocked. She wore bright red nail polish and matching lipstick. She laughed a lot. My dad had nothing very nice to say about her.

 Dad never said  anything at all about his family. Not even his father and sister. Nothing at all. He was only 5-6 when they arrived in New York.  I knew he had a sister. And that she and his father both disappeared into the smoke and ashes of the Holocaust. We had but one photograph of them, all four, Grandma, Dad's father, his sister Rita and little Henry, just a toddler. It was a lovely studio portrait. Rita with a giant bow in her hair, Grandma smiling as always, her hair in tight little finger curls popular in the late 20’s and early thirties.

They were strangers to me and no one ever spoke of them. I only knew Rita’s name and nothing about their father.

 I was obsessed with them. Am still.  I read every book and memoir on the Holocaust that I could lay my hands on from the time I was able to read and choose books on my own at the library. Somehow, I got the notion that Rita might have survived. She was just an adolescent at the time, no more than 12 or 13. I was never able to get an answer to the question of what Grandma was able to discover in the aftermath of the war. No one talked about it.

It haunted me, these ghosts who lingered faintly around the edges of our family holidays. Unknown. Unspoken.

 When I was fourteen, curiosity got the better of me. I secretly wrote to my Grandmother and asked her about them. In return, with no explanation, no letter or any other clue, she sent me a large manila box. It was filled with photos. Letters. Telegrams. Postcards. All from the ghosts.  I didn’t tell anyone (eventually shared them with my younger brother Michael).

 The letters and other documents were in German, Polish and Yiddish. I could not read a word of it. By some strange stroke of luck, at almost the same time I received that box, there was a story in the local newspaper about a Polish Merchant Marine who had fallen overboard from his freighter while coming up the Chesapeake. He landed in the local Annapolis hospital. A translator was found for him and somehow I connected with her. She was able to translate all of the documents for me. She wrote them out in longhand on loose leaf notebook paper. I poured over them day after day. The ghosts had life breathed into them at last. They had names. Rita's name confirmed. She printed in her own childlike hand in some of them. Most were written by my great grandmother, Anna. My Dad’s maternal grandmother. My grandfather’s name was Jakub. Called 'Kuba' for short. Jakub Rosenberg (I knew the Rosenberg part). Grandma had a sister, Klara.

There were four siblings actually. My grandmother, then called 'Fela' which became Phyllis in America (it is also my mother’s name). Fela was the eldest. Next was her brother, Arthur, then the sister, Klara and finally Josef. Josef was a half brother and younger than the rest.  I knew Josef. He was my Uncle Joe. He’s called Juziu in many of the letters. But I knew him as Uncle Joe. A handsome, dashing European man who lived in New York with my beloved Aunt Fran. They have two children, Andrea and Marc. My only known cousins on that side of the family that I had ever known. They are little older than I and my siblings. Uncle Joe passed unexpectedly in 1969. I was just nine years old. But I remember him well.

 Despite the shadowy specter of the others, Joe was real. He survived the war in Europe. He has a remarkable story (as so many do).  Mysteriously I have always known about Joe’s story.  It was like learning to swim or ride a bike or knowing how to read. I cannot remember a time when I did not know how to do those things and I don’t recall not knowing Joe’s story. Curiously, Joe told it to my mother, not my Dad.  He told her the story in some detail but I don't think all of it made it to us kids. For all my mother’s  failings,  she could elicit things from people others never heard. Except for her own kids, she had an acute ability to listen to other's stories. And remember them. She always found Uncle Joe’s story remarkable and related it to us from a very early age. She never cottoned to most of the rest of the distant Jewish family – the “Cousin’s Club” as my New York relatives called them. She especially never much liked Grandma (though it was mom who cared for her in the end). But my Mom loved Joe and Fran and their kids like no others.  So did Dad. And so too did all of us children  because they did. I’m not going to tell Joe’s story here. Again, one for another day.

 I was in search of OUR story. 

 On and off over the years I would take a stab at uncovering more of the story. I did not have much success. I was told everything was destroyed during the war. I could find no trace of Rita, Jakub, Anna, Klara or any of the rest of the large extended family.

 But I kept at it. Like shred of tattered fabric I worried it time and again. I would find some loose thread over the years and tug at it until it unravel a little more.

 Finally, the miracle of Ancestry.com unlocked a swath of sealed doors for me. I had little to begin with, but the story came out in dribs and drabs. I had names. I guessed at dates of birth. The records began to surface.

 At the very end of his life my Dad suddenly recalled  the name of the ship he and grandma sailed over to New York on and even remembered that they sailed from Genoa. Out of nowhere.  With that I was able to find the ship and the passenger manifest with their names on it. That led to the rest of the immigration story and unlocked a host of other resources.  It was BIZARRE that he just spit it out one day.  I often wonder  what else was locked in that traumatized little boy's head.  I begged him long ago to try hypnosis but he would have none of it.

 Hardly anyone knew that I'd been on this "quest" to discover our family's story from a very early age. I was always fascinated with Dad's origin. And mine. Probably because he never  talked about it at all. He claimed to have no memory of it. Incredible what trauma does to the mind to protect us from our demons and ghosts.  

 I went back to the letters received from my grandmother all those years ago. Mostly written by Anna (my grandmother's mother) telling us about all the others.

I continued to gather the facts as they slowly unraveled from these documents and records. I stored them like pebbles in a secret little sack. I've compiled quite a lot of documentation, photos and various records to trace the "facts" of our story. I think I have most of what is known of the historical record. The narrative has been percolating for many, many years. Only now am I weaving it all together. How I regret that I’d not spent the time and effort gathering the oral history from both parents, Uncle Joe, Aunt Fran and of course my Grandma Phyllis.  Nothing to be done about that now, they are all with the ghosts in the darkest corners of the dining room. Together at last.

 I've made a couple false starts - or hesitant ones anyway – taking stabs at writing it all down. I have an outline written but I have a feeling I will depart from that considerably. By necessity, I shall fill the gaps with what I imagine to be the "dialogue" -- one that has tripped through my head all these years. It needs to happen before my own mind and memory begin to fade. So here am I, today, putting pixelated pen to paper.

 My cousin, she of long ago New York fame, asked me recently to explain how my father and grandmother came to be Americans. She and I share a common Grandmother, Anna, and we have periodically exchanged information about that connection over the years.

 Their story, the story of Phyllis and Henry, my grandmother and father, are the jumping off point for mine.

 Here are the begats: Phyllis Gelbman, as I knew her, was born Fela Bloch in 1905. She married Jakub Rosenberg in 1929. Rita Rosenberg was born a year later, and  Henry, born Heinrich Rosenberg or “Heinele” as he appears in the letters, was born in 1934. They lived in a town called Bielsko-Biala, in southwest Poland, or Silesia (then a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire). The borders shifted a lot in those day.

In Bielsko-Biala was a park, called “Zigeurnawald” which translates to “Gypsy Wood.”  On the edge of the woodland park, there is a  Beer Garden. Filled with food, drink, music and life. The Bloch Family Restaurant. Owned by Fela’s parents. The family all worked there. Fela, her sister Klara, Arthur and Joe.   I have photos of tiny Heinele perched on his mother’s knee at an outdoor table with Kuba, a bottle on the table and toddler Rita peeking over the tables edge. There are musicians nearby – a guitar and standing double bass easily visible. Waiters in waistcoats and tails with white aprons around their middles.

 Even in faded grayscale, It is full of life. It is the quintessential European tableau.

 How then, did they arrive here? How does one explain how Fela and Heinele alone, of all of them, sailed to America, in the middle of a raging war, from Genoa, Italy?

 Why Fela and Heinele but not Rita and Jakub?

 Enter the Nazis. The photo of the restaurant is from about 1936. In 1939 the Germans stormed across the Polish border. The Blochs. The Rosenbergs. The Frankels and the Hupperts all fled by train eastward, into what is today L’viv Ukraine, then it was L’vov, in Soviet occupied Poland.  From there, the Rosenbergs continued on to Moscow. And it is there that a bizarre turn of fate emerges.  Fela presents herself at the U.S. Embassy claiming to be a U.S. Citizen. And so she is.

 A new set of threads begins to unravel.  It is the Bloch Family Restaurant. Established sometime around 1880.  By grant to Baruch Bernard Cohen Bloch. His son, also Bernard, bears three children, Jakub, Arnold and Selma all of whom come into a controlling interest in restaurant.  Arnold sails off to seek his fortune in America. Selma disappears into the shadows but Jakub remains with his parents in the beer garden on the edge of the Gypsy Wood.

 This part, I must imagine. I imagine that a young Anna, then Anna Kurzowa, works at the Restaurant and there she meets Jakub, the young and handsome son of the owner. Jakub has come back from his military service to the Emperor Franz Joseph. I have a photo of a young Jakub Bloch in a Hessian military uniform. 

 I imagine an torrid, illicit affair as Papa and Mama Bloch would never bless a marriage with the hired help. Jakub, determined to forge a future with Anna, sails off to join his brother Arnold, now established in Bridgeport, Connecticut in the New World.

 It is 1903. Jakub Bloch arrives in the port of Baltimore. According to the passenger manifest, on the line below his name is Anna Kurz. They were presumably considering immigration  but arrived as tourists. I do not believe Anna and Jakub were married when they arrived in Baltimore. I have imagined that mama and papa Bloch back in Zigeurnawald objected to their marriage and so they ran away together to America. Jakub's brother, Arnold Bloch, had been in the U.S. for quite some time. Together, Arnold and Jakub opened a bicycle repair shop and may have had other business ventures as well. Fela, Jakub and Anna’s firstborn, is born in Bridgeport in 1905 while they were still on tourist visas even after arriving two years earlier. Baby Arthur arrives in 1907 – Jakub and Anna still here on tourist visas.  Fela and Arthur  were "anchor babies."  Both born in Bridgeport. And American citizens.

Anna and Jakub stayed in Connecticut until 1908 or 09 at which time they set sail back to Europe. Both their young American children in tow. Either onboard the ship or shortly after arriving, Jakub died of influenza. He's buried in the Jewish cemetery in Zigeurnawald. I am almost certain that Anna was pregnant with Klara on board that ship given her date of birth and Jakub's date of death. Klara would never have known her father which explains why she was, much later,  so close to Joe (her half brother) and HIS father Abraham Huppert.   It must have been quite a nauseating voyage for both Anna and Jakub.  He down with flu and she pregnant.

 When Jakub died, Anna retained a controling interest in his share of the restaurant. Arnold, still in America and had no interest in it. I'm not sure how things played out with the sister, Selma, still shrouded in a mystery I shall  continue to try to solve.

 And so Anna came to run The Bloch Family Restaurant. Fela, Klara,  andArthur all help her and it is very popular. There are picture postcards of it and it is something of a tourist destination.  Anna eventually meets and marries a frequent guest, Abraham Huppert. With Abraham, she has one son, my Uncle Joe.  In 1929, Arthur departs for America never to return. Perhaps he saw the way the winds were blowing in neighboring Germany? Or maybe the Depression made America seem like a better opportunity? I’m told by Arthur’s son, that he left to avoid military duty under the Austrian government.

 Much later,  Fela, Arthur and Klara inherited the beer garden through Anna, as surviving spouse of Jakub Bloch. or so the determination was made by the U.S. State Department following World War II. After the war, Fela, Arthur and Joe sought to regain the property. The State Department, examining their claim which is supported by documents (Wills, mortgage etc.) which together established Fela, Arthur and Klara as rightful heirs.   I still have not retrieved those yellowing records from the State Dept. archive (in Prince Georges County, Maryland) but I have State's decision which cite to the Wills and a mortgage on the property.

 Henry, my father, or “Heinele”  as he was known, was born in Poland in 1934. He never set foot outside Poland until they fled from the Nazi's in 1939. His U.S. citizenship is derived through Fela’s – who - because she was  born here - is automatically a citizen. She had to prove it in Moscow, and I have the State Department letter confirming that she did. Heinele – my Dad - benefited from a  change in U.S. immigration law in 1934 - the year dad was born. That change made it possible for Fela, a native born citizen,  to claim U.S. citizenship for him as a birthright. Jakub Rosenberg, my grandfather, had no such luck. Dad's older sister,  Rita also had no claim to a visa or passport because she was born in 1930 - BEFORE the law changed that saved both Dad and Grandma's lives. 

 With fresh new passports Fela and Heinrich, leave Rita and Jakub in Moscow and wend their way through war-torn Europe. They  eventually land in Genoa, Italy. From there they sailed for New York on a ship called "Rex”. The passenger manifest lists them together: Phyllis and Heinrich Rosenberg. She has already anglicized her name.   Jakub Rosenberg, having no visa and no claim of citizenship of any kind, remained behind in the USSR. From there he returned to Lvov under the Soviets. That's where Joe, Klara and Anna eventually found themselves under the Germans in the Jewish ghetto at Lvov. There they remain, in my imagination, with the others - Klara and Gundi (her husband) together with their two small children, my grandmother,  Anna, and many others. All remained in Lvov. Never to be seen again. Except Joe.

 It was in the forests near Lvov that my Uncle Joe – “Juziu” -  joined up with the Russians and Polish resistance. I believe they may have been Ukrainians, in that part of the USSR, not Russians. We have photos of Joe, on horseback and standing with a Russian general. It is said he cared for the horse and maintained the cars.  That’s a story for my cousins, Andrea and Marc to tell.

 Anna’s letters – and some recovered from Joe’s things much later (including some original poetry) - tell us where they are and what they are doing. Some are written in a type of code. Some were written in Ladino. Ladino, like Yiddish, uses Hebrew characters but is closer to Spanish. (Yiddish is Hebrew characters but closely related to German). The Ladino language correspondence use the latin alphabet. It took us forever to figure that out. Once translated, it is clear that they were speaking in a code and making efforts to escape. There are frequent references to going on a trip. By motorcycle and how it is repeatedly cancelled. We are guessing, but believe they were trying to get the U.S. family members to help them get out.  

Rita’s notes to her mother are in a childlike block print. She speaks Russian now as well. She is going to school and doing well. Some of the later envelopes and postcards bear swastika stamps from the Nazi censors. In 1942, they stop dead. Never to be heard from again.

 In all these years,  I have never found a single shred of information on Jakub Rosenberg, a very common name. I have uncovered no DNA link to connect me to any survivors of the Rosenberg family. Not one single  surviving relative.  My grandfather, had no Right of Return. He vanished.

 Grandma was born in Connecticut, a U.S. Citizen. Dad, born in Bielsko-Biala, is a U.S. citizen derived through her. They claimed their Right of Return and lived, giving life to me.

 There is another curious twist.

 Arnold Bloch, my grandmother’s uncle, still over in Bridgeport, married Bertha.... wait for it... GELBMAN. Bertha's much young brother was a man named. J. Louis Gelbman. Louie, as he was known, would be my grandmother’s Uncle by marriage. She would have known him as a very small child.  Many years later, when my grandmother escaped to the U.S., after the war and after all hope was lost that Jakub, Rita or any of the others would have survived, Louie and Phyllis would reconnect. They married one another in 1948. Louie became Dad's step-father. They were also somehow cousins though I don’t recall how precisely.    Louie, years before, had a daughter  by his first wife. His daughter was named Doris Gelbman. Yes, from whom I get my name. Doris would  later marry ... you won't believe it,  Stanley BLOCH --  Arnold and Bertha's son,  Also first cousins.

 It's a wonder we're not all cross eyed. Thankfully none of the cousins bore children together.

 I found it all terribly romantic. Especially Louie marrying my grandma all those years later. They were, apparently a true love match, something even my Dad recognized. Louie ultimately did adopt Dad and thus Gelbman is our legal name, not Rosenberg. I have the adoption papers among my stash of documents.  Louie was very, very good to both Dad and Grandma. He died shortly after I was born.

A Right of Return accounts for my existence. I have no existential crisis. Half of my  DNA places me firmly in Eastern Europe for many, many generations. Not a single solitary strand places me anywhere in the Middle East. Yet, here I am, owner of a passport granted by The Right of Return to a country to which I had zero connection. Not religiously. Not culturally. Not historically. Not genetically. The tattered fabric, the loose threads, the strands of DNA cross all boundaries.  I exist independently of any of those influences. I exist. Not an ephemeral shadow lurking as a faded memory in someone’s dining room.

POSTSCRIPT: After writing this, in conversation with my cousin, we have decided that it is long past time that WE should return to the old family homestead. We are making plans to go to Zigeurnawald and the Bloch Family Restaurant - which still stands appears to still operate as a restaurant. We will go in April. I will keep you posted.