Not All is Lost: A Letter of Gratitude and Remembrance

Wolf, Simon, Bascha Mahler, Krosno, Poland, 1932

Warren Blumenfeld writes a letter to his Polish Great-Grandparents and reflects on his journey of being Jewish and gay.

—

Dear Great-Grandfather Wolf and Great-Grandmother Bascha,

Though I have never written to you, I have carried your image and felt your comforting presence ever since that first day when your son (my maternal grandfather, Simon) told me about you. One day, when I was very young, I sat upon Simon’s knee. Looking down urgently, but with deep affection, he said to me, “Varn,” (through his distinctive Polish accent, he always pronounced my name Varn), “you are named after my father, Wolf Mahler, who was killed by the Nazis along with most of my 13 brothers and sisters.”

When I asked why they were killed, he responded simply, “Because they were Jews.” Those words have reverberated in my mind, haunting me ever since.

During that happy reunion, he had no way of knowing that this was to be the last time he would ever see you and those others he left behind alive.

As you know, according to Ashkenazi Jewish tradition, a newborn infant is given a name in honor of a deceased relative. The name is formed by taking the initial letter of the name of the ancestor being honored. I had the good fortune to being named after you great-grandfather. As it has turned out over the years, you not only gave me my name, but you and great-grandmother Bascha also gave me a sense of history and a sense of my identity.

◊♦◊

Simon left Krosno in 1912 bound for New York, leaving you and nine of his siblings. (Already in this country were one brother and three sisters). As he left, a series of pogroms targeting Jews had spread throughout the area. He often explained to me that he could only travel by night with darkness as his shield to avoid being attacked and beaten by anti-Semites. He arrived in the United States on New Years’ Eve in a city filled with gleaming lights and frenetic activity, and with his own heart filled with hope for a new life.

He knew it meant certain death for people he had grown up with, people he had loved, people who had loved him.

Simon returned to Krosno with my grandmother, Eva, in 1932 to a joyous homecoming — for this was the first time he had seen you since he left Poland. He took with him an early home movie camera to record you on film. While in Poland he promised that once back in the United States, he would try to earn enough money to send for his remaining family members who wished to leave, but history was to thwart his plans. During that happy reunion, he had no way of knowing that this was to be the last time he would ever see you and those others he left behind alive. Just seven years later, the Nazis invaded Poland.

Simon heard the news sitting in the kitchen of his home in Brooklyn. He was so infuriated, so frightened, so incensed that he took the large radio from the table, lifted it above his head, and violently hurled it against a wall. He knew what this invasion meant. He knew it signaled the end of the Jewish population in Eastern Europe as he had known it. He knew it meant certain death for people he had grown up with, people he had loved, people who had loved him.

◊♦◊

Simon’s fears soon became real. He eventually learned from a brother who had escaped into the woods with his wife and young son that you, his father Wolf, and a number of his siblings were killed by Nazi troops either on the streets of Krosno or up a small hill in the Jewish cemetery. You Bascha, his mother, had died earlier in 1934 of a heart attack. Other friends and relatives were eventually loaded onto cattle cars and transported to Auschwitz and Belzec concentration camps.

Simon never fully recovered from those days in 1939. Though he kept the faces and voices from that distant land within him throughout his life, the Nazis also invaded my grandfather’s heart, killing a part of him forever. My mother told me that Simon became increasingly introspective, less spontaneous, less optimistic of what the future would hold.

In this country, my own father suffered the effects of anti-Jewish prejudice. One of only a handful of Jews in his school in Los Angeles in the 1920s and ‘30s, many afternoons he returned home injured from a fight. To get a decent job, his father, Abraham, was forced to anglicize the family name, changing it unofficially from “Blumenfeld” to “Fields.”

He gave me so much: my enjoyment for taking long walks and sitting in quiet solitude, pride in my Jewish heritage, and most of all, my ability to love.

My parents did what they could to protect my sister and myself from the effects of anti-Jewish prejudice, but still I grew up with a constant and gnawing feeling that I somehow did not belong. The time was the early 1950s, the so-called “McCarthy Era” — a conservative time, a time when difference of any sort was held suspect. On the floor of the U.S. Senate, a brash young Senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy, sternly warned that Communists (often thought of as Jews in public perceptions) corrupt the minds and homosexuals corrupt the bodies of good upstanding Americans, and he proceeded to have them officially banned from government service.

◊♦◊

In terms of gay and lesbian people, during this era, there were frequent police raids on gay and lesbian bars, which were usually Mafia owned; the U.S. Postal Service raided gay organizations and even published the names of their mailing lists in local newspapers, and people lost their jobs. Gays and lesbians were often involuntarily committed to mental institutions and underwent Electro-shock therapy; some were lobotomized.

Not knowing what else to do at this time, my parents sent me, beginning at age four and lasting for the next eight years, to a child psychologist because they feared that I might be gay (or to use the terminology of the day, “homosexual”). And as it turned out, their perceptions were indeed correct.

Great-grandfather Wolf and great-grandmother Bascha, you would have been proud of Simon. He was a loving and caring father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. He gave me so much: my enjoyment for taking long walks and sitting in quiet solitude, pride in my Jewish heritage, and most of all, my ability to love.

◊♦◊

I believed that before the end of my days, for me to be able to say that I have truly accomplished all I needed to accomplish in this world, I must travel back to Krosno.

I recently looked up the word “holocaust” in the dictionary. Among the listings was the definition: “genocidal slaughter.” As I read this, the same nagging questions came to me as they did that first day Simon told me about your death—questions concerning the very nature of human aggression, our ability for compassion, and, to those generations following World War II, our capacity to prevent similar tragedies in the future.

As you know, I am by no means a very religious person, though I strive to become more spiritual and connected to you. I believed that before the end of my days, for me to be able to say that I have truly accomplished all I needed to accomplish in this world, I must travel back to Krosno. So, in the summer of 2008, I traveled back to Krosno. I took with me a DVD version of the film Simon and Eva took of you back in 1932.

Upon approaching the town of Krosno from the bus I took from Krakow, I felt as though I was returned back home to a place I have never previously been. I checked into my hotel room, and then walked around the town, this beautiful place with its narrow streets and charming buildings, rolling hills, small factories, and bustling train station – that same station I recognized from the film I had grown up watching.

Then I saw it, and as I did, tears came to my eyes. I was at the entrance of Market Square, the same square Simon filmed in 1932 as happy family members and other residents of Krosno shopped open air surrounded by horse-drawn carriages and vendors’ kiosks selling fresh produce and Kosher meats of all kinds. Though this time no outdoor vendors could be seen, I sat down upon a small bench and took in the sweet smells of fragrant flowers and vibrant pines wafting around me. The beautiful ancient buildings transported me back to a happy time when you walked peacefully and unencumbered on these same plaza grounds. I reached down beside me and pick up a small stone of remembrance of you to take with me now where ever I go.

◊♦◊

Walking a very short distance off Market Square, I chanced upon a local museum, Muzeum Podkarpackie w Krosnie (which I later learned is translated as Subcarpathian Museum of Krosno). I entered and asked the first person I met whether anyone spoke English. The person departed momentarily, and returned with Lucas Klopot, a young man who worked at the Museum.

And in their continuing effort to recover and preserve Jewish history and to reconcile and heal from a tragic past, Kasia organized, aided by Lucas and Dr. Jan Gancarski, their “Jewish Day” Exhibit.

I introduced myself, and informed him that I had a film of the Jewish community taken by my grandparents, Simon and Eva Mahler, back in 1932, and inquired whether he would like to view the film. With a look of surprise, he assured me that he would be delighted. Upon viewing the film downstairs on his office computer, he continued to alternate looking at the film to looking at me. He suddenly paused the film and collected his colleagues who watched in shocked astonishment. One colleague shared with the others that “This is the greatest documentation I have ever seen of Krosno’s Jewish community.”

The following day, Lucas introduced me to Katarzyna (Kasia) Krepulec-Nowak, local historian and assistant director of the museum who kindly gave me an English-language tour of this beautiful museum. Before I had to depart Krosno for my trip home, Muzeum Podkarpackie w Krosnie director, Dr. Jan Gancarski, presented me with a certificate, which Lucas translated for me from the Polish:

“The Sub-Carpathian Museum in Krosno sends heartfelt appreciation to Mr. Warren J. Blumenfeld for providing an unusually valuable material in the form of an historical film depicting Krosno in the year 1932. The Sub-Carpathian Museum in Krosno is happy to acknowledge this fruitful cooperation and hopes to continue it in the future.
With Respect,
Director of the Sub-Carpathian Museum in Krosno,
Dr. Jan Gancarski
Krosno 7.07.2008”

◊♦◊

I knew instantly that Kasia and I would be good friends for many years. This was confirmed when Kasia and Lucas organized a Jewish exhibit at the Museum in September 2010 profiling the Mahler family, with the film as its cornerstone. And in their continuing effort to recover and preserve Jewish history and to reconcile and heal from a tragic past, Kasia organized, aided by Lucas and Dr. Jan Gancarski, their “Jewish Day” Exhibit, January 16, 2011. Kasia extended a gracious invitation to me to travel to Krosno to present at this historic event. Joining me on our trip was my cousins, Bernard Cohan from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and Rabbi Gary Tishkoff, who resides in Israel.

Though the Museum auditorium holds approximately 125 people, an estimated 650 people tried to attend the “Jewish Day” event. Sadly, over 500 people had to be turned away.

Kasia introduced me to the audience. Wearing my grandfather Simon’s antique Tallit (Jewish prayer shawl) and a beautifully embroidered Kippah (Jewish skull cap), a gift Gary brought me from Israel, I presented my remarks, translated by a woman coincidently also called Kasia Nowak. I read a personal statement in which talked about you. In addition, I continued:

Lucas ran the film, and members of the audience sat transfixed as they witnessed the sights of their town during a time long passed.

“What happens here in Poland circulates around and through my consciousness and my soul like blood circulates around and through my body, and what is happening here today and in other museum exhibitions in the recent past is as cleansing, healing, and invigorating to my soul as is blood filtering through a dialysis machine.”

Following my talk, Gary recited and Kasia translated Kaddish, the traditional Jewish prayer for the dead. Before the prayer, Gary eloquently explained this tradition and added personal reflections about what this prayer means to him.

◊♦◊

Simon and Eva Mahler’s 1932 film portrayed the town of Krosno, and in particular, the Mahler family. This rare film is the oldest film of the town known to exist.

Lucas ran the film, and members of the audience sat transfixed as they witnessed the sights of their town during a time long passed. Some pointed to familiar landmarks. Others spotted possible relatives in the old Market Square. Some were visibly moved, tears streaming down their cheeks.

Great-Grandparents, this night I fulfilled a life-long dream of bringing you, your children, and your grandchildren home to a happy reunion.

Being both Jewish and gay, I truly believe I am “twice blessed.” I ask that you now, great-grandparents, stay with me and continue to be my teacher, my light, my guide. With you by my side, I can never be alone.

With love forever and ever, Warren

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