07/06/2026
As I posted earlier, Mom after World War II went to the Displaced Persons Camp at Feldafing, near Munich. Only two brothers from father’s family survived, and only two sisters from my mother’s family survived. In that DP Camp, the older brother married the older sister, and in America the younger brother married the younger sister, my parent.
It turns out that in Brooklyn, the uncle of the brothers settled prior to the war, and sponsored the boys to take them to America. This Uncle Usher treated my father as if he was a village bumpkin. He showed him how a toilet flushes, as if in Krakow, Poland, they did not have flush toilets! He took my father in a car in 1947, and explained to my father, that this mode of transportation had no horses to pull it, expecting my father to respond with awe. In Krakow, they had cars, so he was familiar with them, and in Munich after the war he rode a motorcycle. My father smiled and accepted the instructions about life in America. All went fine, until they had a flat, and my father got out of the car, and changed his uncle’s tire. Uncle Usher did not say a word the remainder of the trip.
My father married mother in October of 1947 and had four sons in a period of 9 years. I was the second. The home that was the first that I remembered was in the Brownsville area of Brooklyn, in the top floor of a two flat. There were 2 bedrooms, and our family of 6 lived there. The parents had their own bedroom, and the two “little boys” as Abe, my older brother and I called them, had the second bedroom. Abe and I had a trundle bed, which was like a high riser, one bed under the other which was in the living room. Each night we pulled out the bed, and every morning put it back in, because that bed was disguised as a couch in the living room during the day.
I once asked Abe, my older brother, where we kept our clothes, and he said he was not sure, but he thought we had the bottom drawer of the “little boys” dresser. He and I did not need much space, since I had shirt for each day of the week, and a better shirt for Saturday, which was our Sabbath, one or two pair of pants for the week, with a better pants, and suit coat for Saturday. My Mom did the laundry Saturday night, and the cycle restarted.
Since I was the second oldest, and the difference between Abe and I was about 2 years, I always received his hand me downs. Abe being a husky and me being thin, I had a lot of belts. When I was about 9 years old, I asked my mother “Why Abe always gets new clothes, and I get hand me downs. I want new clothes!” Mom told me “Tatele (little father in Yiddish), your brother breaks in the clothes for you! Do you have chafed skin or rashes from having to break in new clothes?” I thought for a moment and realized that my brother was doing me a great favor at his own expense. I felt quite bad, because I really did like Abe. I didn’t realize how clever my mother was until my bar mitzvah, and I received a new suit! To Be Continued…..
