By Larry Peterson
Mom died from leukemia way back in 1961. She had
just turned 40 and, at the time, there were no cures, no chemo and no
bone-marrow transplants. She was dead within six months of diagnosis.
We lived in the Bronx in a five floor walk-up. Grandma
lived up on the fifth floor and we were down on the third. Grandma gave up her apartment and moved in
with us downstairs. I guess it was to help take care of the “little ones”; I
was 15, Carolyn was 13, Danny was 11, Bobby was six and Johnny was two). But,
it was not a good thing. Grandma hated dad because, for some bizarre reason,
she decided he had killed her daughter and let him know it every chance she
had.
I have no explanation for this nor will I ever. None
of us do. Hey, we were kids, what did we know. Grandma’s grief was so intense
that Dad could not handle it. It was just the way it was. Dad solved the
problem by avoiding Grandma as much as possible. He just began hanging out in
the local saloons which actually gave Grandma a real reason to yell at him.
On March 8, 1963, Grandma had a massive stroke. I
saw her standing seemingly twisted in a body spasm and managed to drag her to
the bed. I held her in my arms as she summoned the strength to say an Act of
Contrition. Looking me dead in the eye, she
slowly slurred each word. Then we said an “Our Father” together. I was crying
like a baby and so were my sister and brother, Danny. Dad was in the other room
with Bobby and Johnny, waiting for the priest to show up. He was not crying.
When we finished praying she closed her eyes and
became comatose. Father Quirk arrived and administered Last Rites. She died a
few hours later in the hospital. That moment is etched forever in my brain’s “like
it just happened” memory section.
What does Krakow and World Youth day have to do with
all of that? Well, the first question that must be asked is, who was Grandma’s
husband, our Grandpa? We were kids and had never asked. We never thought about
it. That’s what kids do—take things for granted.
But then Mom was gone and Grandma was gone and Dad was
drinking heavily. He died two years later. We had never gotten to the point of
asking, “Hey, where is Grandpa?” Just like that it was too late. As adults we
never found out—until four years ago. And now, with the Pope going to Krakow,
Grandpa is in the forefront of my mind.
Krakow was Grandpa’s hometown.
 |
| Forced deportation from the Krakow ghetto, 1942 wikipediacommons |
Our Mom had a brother, my namesake, Uncle Larry. He
had been in the 8th Army Air-Force during World War II and his plane
had been shot down on a bombing mission. He survived the war as a POW in the
infamous Stalag 17. One time I asked him about his dad. He told me, “He died.” He
never said another word. That was that. Then
we grew up, our folks were gone, and we lost contact as we began our own individual
lives.
About four years ago I received a message on
Facebook (kudos to Facebook) by none other than my long lost cousin, Vicki,
Uncle Larry’s oldest. She had been on a “quest” and located me. Like dominoes
perfectly colliding, my sister and brothers and cousins all reconnected. Now,
to the point of this essay.
What follows may seem implausible but it is true and
we have the documentation to confirm it. Vicki had been wondering about the
missing Grandpa too. Her dad told her the same thing he had told me. Now he was
gone. But she never stopped wondering and began a journey into the world of
genealogy. Lo and behold, she unraveled
the mystery of the missing Grandpa.
Our grandma was an immigrant from Austria. A devout
Catholic who never missed Mass, she married a man by the name of Isidore Schul.
This was our grandfather. He was a Hebrew man from Krakow. Our maternal grandfather
was Jewish. Shocker of shockers, the immigration papers and naturalization
papers all confirm this. He made it to America in 1907.
We cannot understand how these two unlikely people
connected, got married and had two children, one of them our own mother. But it
was so and that mystery will never be unraveled. We dubbed our long, lost,
mysterious grandfather, Grandpa Irv. He and grandma split up when Mom and Uncle
Larry were young children. Grandpa Irv died in the Bronx in 1965. We will never
know more than I revealed here.
But here is the thing. Cradle Catholics, we are also
25% Jewish. Grandpa Irv was the only one of his family to get to America. His
parent’s names were Simon and Regina Schul. Simon and Regina are our
great-grandparents. We do not know if they died in the Holocaust or before it
began but apparently, from what Vicki discovered, Grandpa Irv’s siblings did.
Probably in Ravensbruck but it might have been Auschwitz.
For me, personally, I am humbled by this connection.
Jesus, the Blessed Mother, St. Joseph, their
relatives, St. Ann, St. Joachim, and the apostles etc. were all Jewish.
They were also the first Catholics. And today, as I write this, Pope Francis is
in Krakow, Grandpa Irv’s hometown. I feel connected to it all and the Holocaust
has a whole new meaning for me. It is all part of my heritage. My “own people”
were killed there. SHALOM
*This article also appeared in Aleteia. org on July 28,2016
*This article also appeared in Aleteia. org on July 28,2016
©Larry Peterson 2016 All Rights Reserved
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