The Holocaust Family Memoir Family

Suddenly the apple is so sweet, so pungent, I am back in the Bronx in my grandfather’s roach-infested kitchen. The heavy scent of baked apples mixing with the faint odor of Raid spray permeates the three-room dilapidated apartment. Every eight minutes the EL train vibrates at eye level through the household and drowns out the perfect point someone was trying to make, already at the top of their lungs. A fine dust hangs in the sunbeams that manage to find a way through the grimy windows. 

Dust and dirt are everywhere - Papa is blind in one eye and has glaucoma in the other. My mother and I set to work cleaning everything, chasing the roaches from one place to another but never out completely. Papa says he can feel them run over him in the night. We shiver. 

There are black marks from the newspaper all over the dishes. We dreaded the time we had to tell him we could not eat the soup from smudged bowls, roach babies floating in it. Imagine cooking without seeing. Food was a centerpiece of those hours. So was opera music, and painting on the cardboard slabs extracted from shirts fresh from the cleaners. 

A bond was formed of sights, smells, and culture. A common purpose, made comfortable via the senses. A catalyst quote from the news propels our conversation, finding a path through the still waters of the afternoon. An impassioned, inspired letter to the mayor or to Supplemental Social Security. I would mimic the opera on the radio to my grandfather's delight. In my 20’s,  I would be his voice crying out for social justice. I served a function. I was entertainer, peacemaker/interpreter, secretary. 

Arguing was also a centerpiece. Mom and Papa, and before that, Dad, locked horns frequently and then would retreat wordlessly to separate corners, deliberately rattling at each other through the Sunday Times, as loudly as possible. For me, it was as if they were still yelling. Rustling newspapers was an act of aggression. Even now on the bus into the city, I wonder what those people have against me, if they rattle, turn, or fold their paper without end, a form of slow torture.

My grandfather steadfastly refused to leave that grimy sixth floor apartment on Townsend Avenue, just off Jerome, long after my Uncle Max died. 

In a prior apartment on Walton Avenue, they played cards in the tiny galley kitchen under glaring bare lightbulbs. Gin rummy. I would try to hold the cards, but my hands were too small and there were too many. They wouldn't let me play for long. One afternoon they had a friend with a dachshund over and I played all day with that dog, so happy to have a companion. Another day there was a boy to play with outside. We took pictures. I never saw him again. Only two afternoons of true fun, out of years of afternoons with nothing to do. 

A whole childhood mostly in the company of adults. 

Papa did have a lot to give, despite his emotional shortcomings. He taught me a love of debate, the joy in conversation, the detail in art and the pastime of painting, the beauty of opera and how to get lost in it, the duty of activism and the satisfaction of accomplishment. How to turn a liability into an asset - he would get short of breath and use his stops to punctuate his sentences. The comfort of a simple home-cooked meal, the healing of a hot bath, the excitement of learning and discovery. I felt a kinship like no other. He was truly part of me and I of him. I wanted him to approve of me, to love me. He did the best he could. He single-handedly saved three other people from the Holocaust and supported them. This cannot be ignored. 

His relationships with others always came down to control. Finally, my mother and I accepted this because he was sick. She wore her hurt from this effort almost constantly. Papa didn't know what to do at the end. He had always prided and projected himself as knowing just what to do. He was cornered in the end. I was scared, angry, and in denial. I feel guilty I wasn't there for him. I remember his knees knocking when we took him to the Kingsbridge nursing home. The only indication I ever had that he was afraid. I couldn't even say it's going to be OK to him. We enjoyed visiting him there and walking in the small fenced in park that was part of the grounds. We brought him Chinese food but the last time it was rotten and so was our experience. 

We took a bus, he and I down to Washington, DC. He wanted to see it before he died, he said. We met two kids my age (20's) and I stayed up playing cards with them while he went to bed. 

As a fas.

bring us joy and laughter every day.

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