Volume 14 Number 119 February 2020

KRISTALLNACHT Herschel Grynszpan, the 17-year-old son by Gaby Kopelman of one of the couples thus deported, was living in Paris at the time. On November The years of Hitler’s rule had been 7, hearing of his family’s expulsion, difficult enough for any Jew then Grynszpan, carrying a gun, went to the living in Germany, but the “Night of German embassy, intending to kill the Broken Glass” in 1938 was a German ambassador. The ambassador watershed. From that day on, events was not there that day, and Grynszpan were categorized as before ended up shooting another embassy Kristallnacht or after Kristallnacht. I official, Ernst vom Rath, who died two was fortunate: no harm came to me days later. or my parents on that night. But no Jew, not even a child, remained This was the match that set off the untouched by the experience or its already smoldering fires. aftermath. On November 12, Goebbels announced In July of that year, a law had been that the killing of vom Rath was an passed requiring Jews to register and attack by “International Jewry” on the to carry identification cards. It meant German Reich, and that night Nazi youth that anyone could be stopped roamed the streets, beating up Jews and wherever he was, asked for his card, breaking the shop windows of Jewish and at once identified as Jew or non- enterprises. Some 26,000 Jews were Jew. On October 28 three months arrested and sent to concentration camps, later, 17,000 Polish Jews, some of and 7,500 businesses were destroyed. whom had been legal residents, Because of the many windows smashed, though not citizens, of Germany for this night came to be known as the night decades, were sent back to Poland. of broken glass, Kristallnacht. Since Poland refused to accept them, For me, memories of the night of broken these poor people were marooned in glass started the next morning. miserable internment camps on the Polish frontier. I’d bolted down my breakfast and come charging down the stairs, book-bag

strapped to my back, ready for my even a briefcase, left to go into hiding at usual ride to school. My father’s the villa of his friend Ilusha Pollack, in garage and its workshops lay in back the outskirts of Berlin. Pollack was also a of our apartment house, and Jew and a fellow Russian émigré, but one Krupenio, the garage manager, would blessed with a mistress, a Frau Kreiss, often drive me to school. But on that whose husband was well connected in morning, I found Krupenios’s the higher echelons of the Nazi Party. brawny arm stretched across the back door of the house, barring my way My mother phoned my Uncle Albert. A out to the garage. “No. Not today.” short while before, Albert’s wife, my mother’s sister Toybi, had left her What? Why? husband and 3-year-old child and run off to Argentina with her lover, a petty “No school today. You go up. Tell crook, well-known to the police. father come down. Now!” I didn’t Relatives from the four corners of the protest, but raced up the stairs; it was world had pleaded with Albert to let all very exciting, and who cared them take the child out of Germany, but about going to school, anyway? I he had refused all such offers. stormed into my parents’ dim bedroom. “No school! Krupenio says Now once again, there was no reasoning to come down!” with him. No, Albert had no thought of going into hiding, leaving little Tommy My mother, frightened-faced and behind to the mercies of the Gestapo. pale without make-up, sat up in bed, Absurd, argued my mother, even the clutching the blanket. “What Germans were not after 3-year-olds— happened? What’s wrong?” there were limits, after all! But Albert was not to be moved—bad enough that I was impressed to see that my father, the boy’s mother was gone, should he a rather formal man who did not sit now lose his father as well? And if Toybi around in shirtsleeves even in his ever found out he’d left the boy alone, he own home, hastily drew on his was certain she would never return to trousers over his cream- and violet- him. striped pajama pants. “Stay inside. Don’t answer the door!” This, flung So, Albert stayed on in his apartment, over his shoulder, as he rushed out sitting there waiting for the Gestapo, the door and down the stairs, as clutching to his breast the Iron Cross though to an appointment long he’d earned in World War I, fighting for awaited and only accidentally Kaiser and Fatherland. Later that day, forgotten. they did come for him. Despite his Iron Cross, Albert was thrown into Sometime that same morning, my Oranienburg, a concentration camp not father, taking nothing with him, not 2

far from Berlin. The random arrests of Jews ceased after a short time, and my parents were able to Once Albert was arrested, leaving return home a couple of weeks later. I Tommy in the care of his nurse, know now that, during their absence, Albert’s apartment provided a safe Krupenio had risked his liberty, and hiding place for my mother—there perhaps his life, to bring my parents was no reason for the Gestapo to clothes, papers, and money, as well as make a return visit. Her presence carrying messages from husband to wife there also provided some comfort for in their separate hiding places. He could little Tommy, who had never before not have been ignorant of the risks been separated from his father and involved, but undoubtedly thought of had never stopped longing for his them modestly as the sort of thing one mother. One morning, my mother decent man did for another. Krupenio found him hiding in Toybi’s closet. was a man in a trap, caught up in events Tommy’s face was buried in one of he could not possibly have foreseen her dresses. “It smells so of when he’d first come to Germany, Mummy,” said the little boy. married a jolly German girl, and settled into our little attic flat. At that time, there was no thought that children might be in danger, and After Kristallnacht, I inevitably was I remained in our apartment in the more acutely aware of the dangers seen care of our maid Martha. Neither I and unseen that surrounded us. After six nor Martha knew the whereabouts of weeks of incarceration, there was Uncle my parents, a secret entrusted only to Albert’s return after his release from the Krupenio, whom my parents counted Oranienburg Concentration Camp. on to keep an eye on their household. It was a memorable event—the scene An attempt was made to persuade me took place in Uncle Albert’s living room, that our parents were going away on and the image of his emaciated, ravaged holiday and that this holiday face, his sunk-in eyes, and the gray extended to the schools. I don’t know stubble sprouting in sparse tufts on his how convinced I was, but it was a shaven skull, has never left me. fact that my school, serving Jewish children, was closed, leaving me free As my mother told me many years later, to play all day long. All in all, I recall Uncle Albert had found the relentless that time as not too unsettling, even hunger worse than the beatings. Never though I was not allowed out of the afterwards was my Uncle Albert—my house, except in the evening, when well-turned out, elegant uncle—to be for half an hour, under Krupenio’s without a crust of bread in his pocket. protection, I could run around the garage yard. *****

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A CRUST OF BREAD NOT YOUR TYPICAL by Steve Schnur BURGLAR He appeared with a creak at the top by George Kurz of the stairs. On February 2, 1995, Elisabeth and I It was two o’clock in the morning. went out for a lovely dinner at the I awoke with a start from the sofa Ryland Inn. The next morning, Elisabeth below. had trouble finding the pocketbook she He descended without any warning. had taken with her. She searched the kitchen. I searched the car. Neither of us What could he be after? What found any trace of the pocketbook. possible thing, When all of the world was asleep? “The last thing I remember is setting it A doctor, a sandwich, or something on the floor next to my chair at the to read, Ryland Inn,” Elisabeth said. We called A soda, an ice pack . . . or me? the restaurant with a description of the missing handbag. They were certain that He went to the kitchen and tore from no such item had been left there the night a loaf before. A generous portion of bread. But instead of putting it into his “It must be around here somewhere,” I mouth, insisted. We searched a second time, but He held it high over his head. to no avail. Perhaps the handbag had indeed been left at the Ryland Inn, and “Bread, bread, such glorious bread, another customer or an employee had And God bless America too. made off with it. However, there was a I came here from Poland not that second item that Elisabeth realized was long ago, missing from her desk in our kitchen, a A terrified, penniless Jew. desk calendar. Furthermore, we had found our kitchen door unlocked that “But here we are safe and here morning. Usually we are careful to make we are free, sure our doors are all locked at night. My wife and my children and I. Perhaps we both had overlooked the And here we can speak, and here unlocked kitchen door the night before, we can vote. but that was a third thing that was I’m grateful, so grateful am I.” unusual. ***** Elisabeth knew the handbag had contained money, a credit card, house keys, car keys, and so forth. We resisted the thought that anyone had broken into

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our house. After all, there was no we had found it unlocked that morning. sign of forced entry. Possibly someone who had a key had entered We felt very disturbed that an intruder though our kitchen door and taken had been in our house and gone about her the handbag, but why would anyone business so quietly that neither of us was be interested in the desk calendar? In awakened! On the other hand, we felt any case, we eventually decided to fortunate that we had not been threatened call the police. Elisabeth described with physical harm. the missing items to the patrolman A couple of weeks later, we received a who came to investigate. We had call from the police that a group of boys little expectation of ever recovering had discovered the two handbags in a the lost items and proceeded to have river and turned them and their contents the locks on our doors and the locks in to the police. The contents included on Elisabeth’s car changed. A couple the desk calendar and just about of days later, Elisabeth became aware everything that Elisabeth had that a second handbag, usually kept remembered as being in the bag, plus a in the kitchen, was missing. few things she had not remembered. About two weeks later, a story broke Only the cash, jewelry, and keys were in the papers about a 41-year-old missing. I went to police headquarters, female attorney who had been identified the items, signed for them, and apprehended and confessed to brought them home. Everything was multiple burglaries in several towns hopelessly water damaged. The police in Hunterdon and other counties. granted my request for the name and Nearly all involved physicians’ address of the boy who turned in the homes and offices. Money and drugs items, so Elisabeth could send him a were the principal items stolen. We thank-you letter. received a call from the police telling When the burglar was sentenced, in us not only that our house was one of addition to monetary penalties, she was the physicians’ homes broken into, required to make financial restitution to but also that the burglar told the 10 persons—all of whom were police how she had gained access. physicians, spouses of physicians, or She had made two small holes in a window screen, allowing her to reach medical groups—and to serve four years in with two fingers and unlock the in a New Jersey state prison. She was screen to raise it, then pry open the given credit for the 447 days already window and climb in. Sure enough, served, a large part of which had been we checked the screen in the area she spent in a drug rehabilitation center. described, and it had two holes. She When she became eligible for parole five must have let herself out through the months later, all victims were invited to kitchen door, which explained why 5

provide input to the Parole Board’s DOGS Victim Input Program. We made two by Doug Meaker recommendations: that she perform community service with a nonprofit Once we determined that Tiny viewed all organization and continue in a drug children as potential enemies, we owned rehab program as an outpatient. no other dogs. We were already blessed with the presence of a number of dogs Additionally, she was placed under because Hope, our eldest daughter, who “Intensive Supervision” and had to lived with us for several years, owned, complete restitution to the victims of whelped, and trained a number of dogs. over $4,000. The happy ending to the She still does, but in her own home. story is that by December 1998, she had completed restitution to us and Hope’s first experience was with Mandy, presumably to all the other victims. a pound puppy, she got soon after she moved to Philadelphia. She said we ***** might be concerned about her safety in AT PENNSWOOD the city and added, “Meet my by Henry Martin protection,” as she showed us a cute little ball of tan fluff. Well, Mandy grew into a full-sized dog with a German Shepherd appearance and a Husky voice. No one messed with Mandy! However, growing up in house of cats left Mandy a little confused about her identity. One day, Hope, returning from school, happened to look up and said to herself, “I hope I didn’t just see what I thought I saw.” She went up to the fourth floor and—sure enough—there was Mandy helping her cat buddy Henry chase squirrels across the roof next door. Hope managed to get Mandy back in one piece. ”…and now, our special hearts and flowers salute to Valentine’s Day, please welcome Dr. Henry and Mandy were buddies, as I’ve Edward D. Eads, world renowned cardiovascular expert.” said. Henry would pick a fight with another cat and then go sit between ***** Mandy’s paws, as much as to say, “Meet my big sister! OK, she looks like a dog. But she’s really a cat; I have the Rooftop Agility Test to prove it.”

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Mandy was blessed by the Pope, and that dog handler, and you haven’t we think it went to her head. The established yourself as a dog expert.” She Pope had come to town—I forget continued in school. It was one of the which year and which Pope. It was few times I can recall giving parental announced that, in honor of St. advice. Francis, he would bless the animals. Well, very early in the morning, Hope’s next dog was a purebred Golden Hope took Mandy on lead with her to Retriever called Bear. He grew too big to witness this event. So Mandy was conform to the breed standard, so she there and blessed along with the neutered him and concentrated on other pets. She did have a certain obedience training competitions. He was attitude afterward. good at that—when he wanted to be. To show off his gentle mouth, she would put Hope would take Mandy with her to three uncooked eggs in and let him carry the local Episcopal church (the priest them and then break the eggs to show was a friend). They would go to the they were raw. early service and sit in the back pew. The priest said that, as he looked out There was one two-day competition held over the congregation of college inside because of bad, cold weather. students recovering from whatever Each ring was surrounded by curtains. they’d had the night before, it was Bear had done his stuff and passed the heartening to see Mandy sitting up day before. The second day, he went over with her ears pricked. He sometimes to the side of the ring and stuck his head felt she was the only one paying under the curtain, so all one could see attention. was his rear end with tail wagging. The judge said, “Is this the same dog I passed Hope was an excellent dog trainer; yesterday?” “Yes.” “OK if I laugh?” for example, she could put Mandy in “Why not? He’s blown it anyway.” So a “Down, Stay” outside a store, go in Hope retrieved Bear. As I said, he was and do her stuff, and come out to find good at obedience when he wanted to be, Mandy still there waiting patiently. but he dearly loved crowds and being the Hope was so good she considered center of attention, so he thought it was dropping out of Temple after two all fun. years and becoming a professional dog handler. I pointed out that she’d In another completion, one of the worked for a top professional one challenges was to leap over a bar; Bear summer and watched while he had to had done this many times. But on this kowtow to a woman with a lot of occasion, he picked up the bar, brought it dogs and more money than brains. I back, and laid it at Hope’s feet. “See, said “Hope, you don’t tolerate fools Ma, I retrieved the stick?” He didn’t gladly. You saw what happened with pass.

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Bear loved water, so Hope would Derby was bred three times producing take him swimming in the local 11, 12, and 13 puppies. Hope has made a canal. He’d leap off the bank into the practice of keeping one bitch from each water. One winter day, she took him litter and selling the rest. She tried to the canal, and he leaped off the keeping a male once, but he was so hen- bank, as usual, but onto ice. As he pecked he had no chance of strutting the slid across the ice, he looked back as way a champion should. Besides, the if to say, “Wha’d you do with the pack dynamics are simpler. There is one water, Ma?” alpha bitch, and that is that. The alpha need not be the oldest. The oldest are Goldens are a very popular breed, so allowed to retire and are quiet, so long as to be successful in the show ring, the youngsters let them be. which is how a dog becomes a champion and saleable in this Hope sells her puppies for a pretty good country, one has to have a price, taking a lot of care to make sure professional handler, which Hope the puppy is a good fit for its new home couldn’t afford and didn’t want. So, and family. Therefore, even though she for her third dog, she switched to Flat has the right of first refusal, she gets very Coated Retrievers, a less popular few puppies back, and those are due to a breed. These dogs were bred, change in the owner’s life. I asked once handled, and shown by private whether she could make money doing owners. this. “No, not and do it right.” I’ve lost track of how many bitches she has raised, Her first Flat Coat was officially bred, and whelped, although I’m sure she named High Hopes Run for the hasn’t. I recall she has about 150 on her Roses, but known to us as Derby. Christmas card list—owners who had a She was born 8/8/88 which made her puppy from Hope since she started in birth date easy even for this old 1988. codger to remember. Derby may not ***** have had the best conformity to the breed standard, but she had attitude MIGHTY MITE galore. When she entered the show by Elaine Ferrara ring, it was as though she told the judge, “You can let all those others As fellow veterinary student George and go home, because you know you are I are walking a cow with a blocked going to give the blue ribbon to me.” abomasum (one of her four stomachs) It was from Derby that I learned that from the barn to the surgery suite, Flat Coats had two conditions: George decides to let his rope go free. bouncy and dead. Later, I learned that some Flat Coats are actually mellow.

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The cow, taking advantage of the Commands the balcony, opportunity, leaps in the air, taking Where the stillness of the hour me with her. I yell, “George!” as Interrupted solely by benevolent breeze. loud as I can, hoping someone might Below, a gray squirrel hear and provide assistance. Does his random walk in fits and starts. A bluebird chances by. I grab the rope tightly across my The quiet stays. chest with both hands. And, the And so you know second I hit the ground, I dig my That life is good heels into the concrete. She’s off and And, without a spoken word, running, slamming me into a barn Give thanks. window, which fortunately does not ***** shatter. Letters to the Editors About 40 feet later, we come to a stop, accompanied by the whoops, LIGHTEN UP hollers and cheers of some veterinary students, and of a few professors too! What’s missing from your solicitation for VV input is a bunch of things we used to Not bad for a 98-pound city girl! get from residents other than the nostalgic category that increasingly holds It is no surprise that George went on forth at present. Now commentary, to medical school. opinion, recommendations, comedy/ ***** amusements/stories/jokes, “there but for the grace of God” items, etc., etc. are WHEN THE COCK mostly missing, other than recycled CROWS cartoons. Maybe I’m just out of step, but by John Wood I think a lighter tone at least occasionally would be welcome. In the cock-crow of a day, When a new day is a-borning, All the editors agree with this Light fills the eastern sky suggestion from our colleague Dick Before its source revealed. Piccolini. The cinema of dreams shuts down. Morning rituals begin. CONNECTION? And, yes, it’s almost cast in stone— The curtain lifts as the morning cup I was reading Kathy Hoff’s story about is brewed, Nancy Osborn and her involvement with Poured, inhaled, and sipped. the Whitman Massacre, that horrific A soft blue canopy event in Waiilatpu, Oregon Territory, With sleepy cotton clumps when Cayuse Indians killed the medical 9

missionaries, Marcus and Narcissus line began with brothers, sons of the first Whitman. The Cayuse thought the Spalding to arrive in Virginia in 1619. Whitmans had caused the measles deaths of many tribal members. Kathy, do you suppose, your ancestors and mine might have known each other A dim tickle started in my mind: in 1847? Perhaps a possibility, as it wasn’t there a Spalding connection seems they were at the same place at the with that sad event? (My mother was same time. a Spalding.) Delving again into the depths of the dusty Spalding Isn’t history fun! genealogy, I found it! The Rev. Sally Burkman Henry Harmon Spalding and his wife

Eliza, in the company of the Publication of Whitmans, were part of one of the Pennswood Village Residents first wagon trains on the Oregon Association

Trail in 1836. (Narcissa Whitman Founder and Editor Emerita: and Eliza Spalding were the first Paulina Brownie Wilker Euro-American women to cross Managing Editor: Anne Baber overland!) The Spaldings settled Contributing Editors: among the Nez Perce, near the Kathy Hoff, Jane Perkinson, present day Lewiston, Idaho. and Kay Silberfeld Typists: Sarah Pollock, Joanne Brown, The Whitmans traveled further West, and Maria Eisner and lived with the Cayuse, at Proofreading: Sally Burkman Waiilatpu, near the current Walla Distribution: Gerry and Don Abell Walla, Washington. Although Layout: Dick Piccolini relations were not always smooth Contributors: among the missionaries, Spalding’s All Pennswood Residents 10-year-old daughter, Eliza, had gone Email your contributions to to spend the winter at the Whitman [email protected] mission just before the massacre in or place typed hard copy in our open 1847. She was one of 47 hostages, mail box. Past copies of the mostly women and children, who Village Voices are in the Pennswood were held for nearly a month before Library on shelf 21. You are welcome being ransomed and liberated. She to read them (and leave them) there. served as translator, as she was the only captive who knew Nez Perce!

To satisfy my curiosity, I followed the family genealogy backwards, and found my line and Henry Harmon’s

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