A JEWISH JOURNEY
SHELDON COHEN
Copyright 2012 Sheldon Cohen,
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0744-9
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I appreciate the assistance given to me by Rabbi Howard Schwartz who read the book during its early evolution. All his help and constructive criticism not withstanding, any shortcomings that remain are my own responsibility.
This book is fiction based on actual events. The main characters are fictional.
I am a first generation American. In 1904, my mother, a three month old, came to the United States with her parents. All her life, she would claim to be born in Rochester, New York, her first residence in the New World. In her old age, when we had the celebration honoring Ellis Island she changed her story, bragging that she had passed through the famous Island as an infant. My father, aged four, also arrived in 1904.
As a youngster, I heard stories about how my grandfathers “fled the Czar.” They came from Tiktin, Poland, (Yiddish), Tykocin (Polish), an area under Russian dominance called the Pale of Settlement
As I grew up I heard other stories about my heritage, including one told to me by my maternal grandmother about how she, as a young child, witnessed pogroms including the beheading of a Jew by a sword wielding “Cossack” on horseback. From my step paternal grandmother I learned of her twelve brothers and sisters lost in the holocaust.
Later in life, I learned from my uncle’s daughter that my maternal grandfather deserted the Czar’s army rather then face the persecution of the Jewish soldier. Right before he was hoping to leave Russia-Poland and join his family in the United States, a compassionate Russian guard said, “Let the young man go. His family is already there.”
An interest in learning more about my heritage surfaced after I retired and had more time to reflect on such matters, so I studied the history of the Jews in Eastern Europe and their struggle with anti-Semitism, Hitler, World War II, the anti-Nazi partisan resistance in Europe and the Holocaust. After much study, I put together a fictional account, based on actual events, of five generations of a German and a Jewish family that I hope will be informative and interesting to the reader.
Although the book has past relevance, in the present era of terrorism and rising anti-Semitism, it has current relevance as well. He who fails to learn the lessons of history is doomed to repeat it.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to Amanda, Megan, Carly, Alexa, Ethan, Emily, Derek and the brave men and women willing to fight terrorism, whatever form it might take
PART 1
OBERAMMERGAU, GERMANY
(1843-1904)
CHAPTER 1
On a clear day in Munich, the peaks of the Alps are visible some sixty miles to the south. Many Munich citizens travel in this direction to the town of Oberammergau. The trip is a beautiful and tranquil journey taking the traveler past shimmering, clear green lakes. Soon one sees pale grey mountains looming in the distance. The journey starts a slow upward ascent as rolling hills transition for almost a mile above sea level. The travelers then find themselves encircled by grey and white peaks surrounding the beautiful village of Oberammergau in the Ammer River Valley. Countless travelers make the journey for the sole purpose of observing the famous Oberammergau Passion Play.
In the 1840’s, the part of Caiaphas, the Jewish high priest in Jerusalem during the time of Jesus, was given to Hans Bauemler. He was the town blacksmith; a quiet, hard-working man who no one expected could play the part with such a mission driven relish. As Hans said, “I never dreamed I could be a good actor, but when you believe in a role and want to show the power of the devil, it just flows out of you.” He was forty-two years of age and had a fiery red beard. When perfoming on stage, his bushy eyebrows angled up at the periphery and served as a perfect match for the double horned crown perched on his head. A priest’s robes could not hide his massive arms, which added to the determination and strength necessary to portray the part of the high priest. The bass voice he projected, audible to the last row of the audience, did the same. A man of few words, Hans took on another personality when he played the part of Caiaphas. He was a great draw for the townspeople who came to hear the story of their Lord, and also to see and revel in the transformation of Hans when he stepped forth on the massive stage.
As he worked over his anvil in his blacksmith shop, the heat and light from the fire defined his massive upper body musculature. He had the appearance of a Michelangelo sculpture with every muscle well delineated.
His son, Otto, fifteen years old and taller than his father, was overjoyed that his part in the play was that of one of the crowd of Jews influenced by Caiaphas. Otto was more like his mother, as verbal as his father was non-verbal. He was gregarious and outgoing and was a leading debater in his high school class. This would be his first experience and would give him the opportunity to work with his father. What he didn’t know was that this experience before an audience would also give him a head start on his future career
Otto stood in front of the mirror and practiced his lines under the watchful eye of Hans. With his pointing right index finger punctuating his voice and with his eyes staring straight ahead, he said, “Take him away; death to the false prophet and blasphemer. He looks tired. Let him rest on the cross.”
“That’s fine, Otto. Say it a little louder. Pretend you are talking to the last row of the audience. My job, as the high priest, Caiaphas, is to stir up the crowd. After Jesus is condemned, I will say no more. Then you and the other Jews scream your lines. Point your finger at Jesus when you say it. Show the hatred on your face. Scowl. We do an important job when we play these roles. We must never let people forget what the Jew devils did to our Lord.”
“I will never forget, father.”
CHAPTER 2
In 1633, “The Black Death” visited Oberammergau and eighty-four citizens died. This was not the first time this plague had decimated Europe. In the years 1348 to 1349, twenty-five million people perished.
Unknown to humankind in the fourteenth century was that the disease was caused by bacteria. It would take five centuries until Louis Pasteur would develop his germ theory of disease. Until this groundbreaking discovery, superstition and fear ruled as the etiologic mechanisms for all diseases and catastrophic events that befell humankind.
The Plague had different names depending on the way the disease manifested itself.
The physicians of the day were helpless and many met the same fate as the victims they attempted to treat.
Bacteria carrying rats were the cause. Fleas fed on the rat’s blood and the bacteria multiplied in the intestinal tract of the fleas. They would then bite man and regurgitate the bacteria into the victim’s blood stream. Within days, large swollen lymph glands known as bubos would appear. Secondary manifestations could then include pneumonia and/or septicemia (blood poisoning). Death would result from respiratory failure due to the pneumonia, or massive internal bleeding as a hemorrhagic complication of the septicemia.
As the fleas bit more and more victims, and as these victims met their relatives and friends, the infection disseminated and the disease became a raging, uncontrollable epidemic.
In the minds of the populace, the causes