With Historic Artifacts

Dr. Jack Jacob Bornstein MD 1903-1956

A young Jack, aprox. 1920

   

A classic tale of success, persecution, survival, and finally, redemption.

 

The life and Times of Dr. Jack Jacob Bornstein MD from his birth in 1903 Central Europe to his untimely death in Brooklyn New York in 1956. Along the way is a classic tale of success, persecution, survival, and finally, redemption.

 

Dr Jack Bornstein with his son, Stephen Francis, Brooklyn, April, 1949

His son, Stephen Bornstein’s own childhood was inexorably affected by his parents’ experiences in the period just before and during the Second World War. Born in 1948, while the crematoria's ashes were still warm, Stephen Bornstein‘s parents felt it was either their obligation, or they themselves were so traumatized, that they made sure their son was vividly aware of the horrors that had recently transpired. Add to it Bornstein‘s own trauma from his father’s untimely death in his presence at eight years of age, and the stage is set for a multi-generational story of collective and personal tragedy, shared hope and individual actualization.

Jack Bornstein, first day school, aprox.1909, Oderfurt

 

Jack, Jacob, Bornstein was born on June 1st, 1903 in Oderfurt, (now Privoz, Czech Rep.) in what was then the Austria Hungarian Empire, just across the Oder River from the Kaiser’s German Reich and not far from The Czarist’s Russia border. Basically at the intersection of three great aging European empires.

 

(R to L) Jack J. Bornstein, sister Steffi, brother Mundy, aprox 1910.

His Father, Samuel Bornstein (1880?-1937) originally from Katowice, 92 miles up the Oder River, had married Francesca Bornstein (1880?-1944, maiden name and hometown unknown) probably around 1901.

Samuel, Shmul Bornstein (1880?-1937) and Francesca Bornstein (1880?-1944)

At the time of Jack’s childhood, Samuel had a typical Bohemian restaurant and local pub with lodging accommodations upstairs. Many years later, it was mentioned as a family joke, that those rooms served as a house of ill repute. Nevertheless Samuel was honing his skills as a restauranteur which he later put to good use in Berlin in the 1920’s.

Jack with mandolin, Oderfurt, 1911

Little is known of Jack’s early years. The first born, Jack had two younger siblings. His sister, Steffi Bornstein-Schacher (1905-1943?) and a brother named Mundy (1907-1949?). Jack developed a life long love for music and learned to play the piano and mandolin. Stephen‘s mother, Maly said Jack did have a serious crush on his first cousin. A beautiful blondish haired girl shown in a tatted photo with Jack and other young men.

Jack with first crush, his cousin, aprox. 1921

All four of Stephen’s grandparents spoke German at home and named their children with Christian names while making every effort to modernize and assimilate.

 

Goldie Einhorn, Aaron Einhorn's (Jack's future father-in-law) mother, still remembered living in Hamburg's medieval Jewish Ghetto.

At this time, before World War I, both the Austrian Hungarian Empire and the German Reich had very liberal policies towards Jews. The Austrian Hungarian Empire, itself an amalgam of hundreds of ethnicities, used knowledge of German and service in the military as a path to full citizenship without having to become Christian. The Empire’s capital, Vienna was almost 25% Jewish and Germany’s capital, Berlin had a prestigious growing Jewish community. Jews could be found at all levels of professional and the civil services. Even the coming World War I, would only further enhance Jewish opportunity for advancement. It was the beginning of what will become a golden period of three decades for Jews in Central Europe.

Jack's future in-laws, Araron Einhorn (1884-1949) and Gisela, "Gittel" Einhorn nee-Bondi (1885-1968).

 

Gisela, Gittel Bondi, Aprox 1904, before marriage to Aaron Einhorn

Both sets of Stephen Bornstein‘s grandparents advantageously, spoke German without Yiddish accents and although moderately practicing Jews, appeared socially as fully assimilated.

World War I and everything changes.

WWI provides the assimilated Jews of the Axis Imperial Powers new opportunities to further ingratiate themselves with the gentle majority.

 

Samuel joins the Imperial German army. Living on the border, service in any axis armed forces was fluid. For example, Hitler, also was an Austrían, served with the Germans.

Europe before WWI, 1914

Little is known of Samuel’s World War I experiences other than a close relationship he developed with his highly decorated commanding officer (iron cross, II class), a fellow Jew who ends up marrying Francesca, Samuel’s widow, sometime in 1939-1940. Supposedly to protect her as a wife of a WWI war hero, it also complicates any possible visa arrangement to the US during 1941. More about Francesca’s fate further on.

During WWI, Samuel Bornstein makes a lifetime friendship with his highly decorated commanding officer, a fellow Jew.

After World War I Europe changes entirely. The Versalles Conference and subsequent treaty is based on self determination for all various ethnicities of the former empires. The map of Europe is completely redrawn, several countries that only symbolically existed before, are now a actual reality.

 

Europe after WWI, 1919

Jack’s hometown, Oderfurt, finds itself now in the newly created Czechoslovakia. The long-standing tensions between the German and the Czech speaking communities is now out in the open. With the Czechs now in control, the situation has become reversed.

Sudetenland, German speaking portions of Czechoslovakia, that Hilter demanded

 

Ironically, long-standing tensions in these mixed language border regions, known collectively as the Sudetenland, continue to percolate and will in 1937, end up being one of the reasons Hitler gives for his aggression against Czechoslovakia and brings Europe to the brink of war

The situation for individuals who displayed any pro German loyalty in the past was now getting uncomfortable in a newly proud independent Czechoslovakia. Samuel, having served with the German armed forces in the war, certainly wouldn’t have earned him as a restaurateur many friends.

WW I over, a new Europe emerges, Samuel and Family move to Berlin.

 

Berlin in 1920, was becoming a true European Capital.

So in 1919, Samuel packs his bags and moves with his entire family to Berlin, where the all the real action is. The actual reasons for picking Berlin is unknown, perhaps it was the presence of Francesca’s nephew, Dr. Stuckholt, a young, prestigious and politically connected physician that helps with his decision.

Dr. Stickholt, Jack's first cousin, 1925, Offical Dr. of Italian Red Cross

Samuel opens up the ‘Tivoli Gardens”, a two-story establishment with a café-restaurant on the first floor and a dinner club-nightclub on the second floor, in the famous Bayerischer Platz district. He differentiates his restaurant by providing special healthy but tasty cuisine for people on restricted diets (sugar, salt or fat).

 

Typical two story Berlin resturant, dinner/night club Samuel opened, 1920

This is the kind of well patronized establishment where businessman conduct all their affairs from tables with telephones on long cords. it’s open until the early hours of the morning. Samuel prosperous.

Little is known of Jack’s early years in Berlin. He dreams of becoming a professional musician, however his father is adamant on him becoming a doctor like his cousin. This lifelong conflict between his love for music and his duty to medicine, will follow him and affect the way he treats his own son’s early education and devotion to medicine.

Jack in first car a DKV, 1930

By 1921, Jack Bornstein is accepted to Berlin’s renowned Humboldt University as a premed student and also serves on the university’s orchestra as a pianist.

Little particulars are known of Jack’s university period, other than a semester he is forced to takeoff because of his father‘s kidney illness. He whiles away the long, late hours of a restaurateur, by playing the piano in the restaurant’s dinner-nightclub.

Jack in Berlin, 1920's medical student

In 1928 a German Jewish businessman from Guatemala City, named Schacher travels to Berlin in search of a bride. He makes a date through family contacts to meet a young lady named Hannah at Samuel’s cafe.
 

As Hannah, the future wife of Samuel’s youngest brother, Mundy (actually younger then his nephew, Jack) tells the story in Rio de Janeiro in 1976, Schacher spots a captivating, dark hair beauty, Steffi descending the club’s staircase and he instantly falls in love. After a whirlwind affair, they Marry and Steffi leaves for Guatemala.

 

Jack becomes a medical doctor

Jack graduates in medicine from Humboldt University, Berlin, 1926

Jack graduates as a medical doctor in 1929 and having served as the well liked and admired conductor of Humboldt University's Student Orchestra.

 

He immediately enters practice with his first cousin. Dr. Stuckholt, One of those Jews of “enlightened” Central Europe, striving to appear completely assimilated.

Authentic "Schmitte" dueling scar and Stickholt's surgically applied scar

Dr. Stuckholt even went so far as to having the traditional aristocratic “dueling Scar”, the “Schmitte” an exclusive university society “badge of honor”, surgically applied. Stuckholt had by this time become a respected member of the Italian Fascist Party and had been for the last four years, the personal physician to Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, The Papel Nuncio (and future Pope Pius XII) to Germany. Who himself, is at this time enjoying the Berlin highlife, throwing lavish parties attended by famous German politicians and the diplomatic corps.

Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, Papal Nuncio, Berlin, 1925

 

Cardinal Pacelli a well known Germanophile, (the Italian press refers to him as “Troppo Tedesco”, Too German) had arrived in Berlin in 1925 and leaves back for Rome in 1929, about the time Jack joined his cousin’s practice.

 

Jack's new title of his cousin's medical practice,  Berlin, 1929

 

Stuckholt and Jack’s practice flourishes at this time as the appointed “Official Doctor of the Royal Italian Consulate” and “The Official Representative of the Italian Red Cross (Croce Rosa Italiana ) in Berlin”. Stuckholt ingratiated himself with powerful labor union officials, many of which become Nazi Party members. Their waiting room often had patients in Brown party uniforms.

 

 

 

 

Jack's Italian Red Cross Lapel pin which he proudly wore on his doctor's white lab coat from 1933 through November 1938.

 

 

Back of Jack's Italian Red Cross Lapel pin

A young 26 year old Jack at time of his graduation from mdical school, Berlin, 1929.

Steffi, Jack's sister, gives birth to a daughter, Hertie Schacher, in Guatemala City, 1929. She grows increasing very lonely and desperate. Trying to save his daughter’s marriage, Samuel sends his youngest son, Mundy to Guatemala. Mundy quickly gets involved in an illegal lottery scheme, and is forced to leave the country in the middle of the night. Steffi desperate, finally runs away with her jewelry and husband’s cousin, and after traveling through Mexico and the United States ends up in 1934, back in Berlin, at her parents home, broke and with a young, four year old daughter.

Hitler comes to power Jan. 1933.

 

Hitler conviences Hinderberg to make him Chancller. Jan. 1933

In 1933 Hitler comes to power. Although he never wins a majority in the Reichstag, Germany’s parliament, he convinces the President, Hindenburg to make him chancellor. At first he directs all his anger at the communists, politicians and free trade labor unions. After the dubious Reichstag Fire, he’s granted emergency powers and uses it to further consolidate his dictatorial power.

After the dubious Reichtag's Fire, Hitler assumes complete power.

Prestige, Romance and Italian Awards for Jack. 1934-1938

 

Maly Einhorn, Jack's new love interest. in hair advertisment, Berlin 1932.

 

Maly at her beloved beach, Holland, 1917, with Mother and Aunt Adela

 

Maly spent WWI in Holland, Here is Gisella Einhorn's Dutch identity papers

.

 

 

Maly 1921, Berlin, with her sister Rene and Father Aaron

Maly grows up a comfortable Berlin childhood with parents and five siblings, all of whom survive WWII.

Maly.16, in Berlin, 1926, with parents, brothers, Max & Ludwick

Jack, 31 meets Maly, 24.

 

Maly Einhorn. Stephi Schacher nee Bornstein, Jack's sister, Jack, and his mother, Francesca on a date at the seashore in Germany, probably 1934. 

 

Sometime in 1934, Jack meets Maly Einhorn-Bondy (1910-1986) Maly’s Family had been during World War I in neutral Holland, and only returned to Berlin in 1920. Since 1931, a young Maly, often reluctantly chaperoned by her brother, Max, had been working in Berlin’s Jewish influenced film industry. 

 

Maly when Jack met her, Berlin, 1934

 

With movies like Fritz Lang’s $million production of “Metropolis“ and his ground breaking talking film, “M”, Berlin’s film industry rivaled Hollywood’s. A well-known classical actor, Felix Bressart, is taken with Maly, and becomes her mentor.

Maly in newspaper for a theatrical promotion, Berlin, 1930

Maly (on right next to her sister Rene), enjoys life like most German Jews under "The Second Reich", the Wiemer Republic

Felix Bressart with Jimmy Stewart, Hollywood - 1938

Peter Lorre, Maly's contemporay also lost his union membership, 1934.

 

In 1934 a new line for religion appeared on the “Movie Actors’ Guild Union” card. Soon all the Jewish actors and writers are fired. Felix along with other actors like Peter Lorre, Marlena Dietrich and Billy Wilder soon emigrated to the United States.

Jack and Maly dating, Berlin, 1934.

Newly dating, Jack and Maly coincidentally shared a common connection. Henry Winkler’s, the famous American TV actor (The Fonz) maternal grandfather, Dr. Hadra has a pharmacy downstairs from Jack’s medical practice. He had repeatedly tried to set up Jack with his daughter Ilsa.

Ilsa Winkler nee Hadra, Maly and Rene's friend, from Berlin, 1934, with her son Herny "The Fonz" Winkler.

 

Meanwhile, Ilsa is one of Maly’s and her sister Rene’s better friends. Both of which serve as bridesmaids during her upcoming marriage with Harry Winkler. Maly and Jack would remain friends with the Winkler’s after they immigrated to Canada and helped them secure a visa for the United States by assisting in the birth of their son, Henry in New York City, 1945.

 

Jack Weds Maly, Berlin May, 1935

 

Maly and Jack wed in May of 1935, Berlin, Nazi Germany

 

Actual marriage license, Berlin, may 1935

 

Marriage certificate May 15,1935

Gift card from Jack's benefactor, Cavalieri Bandini, Italian Consul in Berlin

Gift card from Hombolt's Student Orchestra to their Conductor.

Names from members of the Hombolt's Student Orchestra.

 

In May 1935 Jack and Maly wed in Berlin. They honeymoon in Italy as a guest of the Italian Red Cross.

Maly on Honeymoon in Italy, May-June, 1935.

 

 

Couple's thank you cards upon retun from honeymoon.

 

In December 1935, Maly older sister Rene, marries Kurt Goldstein. He is from Konigberg, East Prussia, (now Kaliningrad, Russia) the spiritual center of Traditional Teutonic Mythology. Kurt actually gets an employment contract to sell commercial German hairdryers in Argentina. The couple leaves shortly for Buenos Aires.

Maly's sister, Rene moves to Argentina, saves brother Lulu, and her parents.

Actual invitation to Rene's wedding, Berlin,  Dec. 1935

The Vatican, Communism, and the Holocust. 

 

The same year, 1935, Cardinal Pacelli is promoted to Vatican Secretary of State. He also signs a Concorde with Nazi Germany just as he has with Mussolini’s Italy and Franco’s Spain. Obviously, the Vatican is tying it’s fate with Fascism.

Cardinal Pacelli signs Reichskonkordat, July,1933, Vatican now has treaties with all three Facists regimes.

At this point it would be helpful to note what had been happening in Eastern Europe concerning the Catholic Church and the communist threat.

Since 1905, Leon Trotsky (lev Bronstein) had become the Menace of "Int'l Jewish Bolshevism".

 

After watching the Bolshevik Revolution in five short years destroy 1,000 years Russian Christianity, including the complete annihilation of the titularly head of the Easton Orthodox Church, the Czar and his entire family.

The Battle of Warsaw, 1920, marked the end of the Red Army's westward advance.

 

The Vatican had come to the conclusion that communism is an existential threat to Roman Catholicism, and all of Christendom. It had become known, that the killing of the Romanoffs, an incredulous act, with far reaching consequences, was planned, orchestrated and carried out by Jewish Bolsheviks.

Both the Instigator and the Executioner of the Romanoffs were Jewish.

 

 The future Pope and the Bolsheviks.

 

Eugenio Pacelli as he appeared in 1920, the Vatican Nuncio to Germany.

 

 

1921 the Soviet Republic of Bavaria is established, again with Jewish bolsheviks at it’s helm. Pacelli, The Papal Nuncio to Germany at the time was stationed in Munich and is almost killed before a quick military coup overthrows the Communists. He writes a scathing report back to the Vatican totally blaming the Jews. Pacelli informed his superiors in Rome that "the capital of Bavaria, is suffering under a harsh Jewish-Russian revolutionary tyranny"

 
Polish-Soviet War, 1919-20

 

Polish-Soviet war (1919-1920) poster showing Trotsky as the devil.

 

In 1920-1921, a short bloody indecisive war was fought between Poland, which is the most Roman Catholic country in Europe and the newly formed Soviet Union, the Red Army and Trotsky at its helm. Warsaw was almost captured and catastrophically to this day, all of the Ukraine fell under the Soviet’s sphere.

Poland was couragously saved by it's exclusively Roman Catholic officer corps.

 Dr. Stuckholt flees to Italy

 

In late 1935 or early 1936, as Maly tells the story, Stuckholt calls one night at about nine and inquires how much money Jack has in the bank. He asks him to go to the bank in the morning, withdraw it and bring it to the office. Jack complies. Stuckholt takes the money, hands him his keys to the practice, leaves immediately for Rome, where he becomes Pacelli‘s Vatican physician, and converts to Catholicism. With his Jewish marriage now annulled he’s free to marry his Italian mistress.

 

What Did Stuckholt Learn?

What prompted Stuckholt to sell his part of the medical practice for what ever money Jack had in the bank? What was going to happen that it would make money suddenly irrrelevant? Was it simply his desire to marry his mistress? Or something far more ominous? What did he learn, and from whom? Perhaps his own Nazi Party Official patients? Did they tell him the future for Jews in Germany?

 

Or was it from Pacelli himself, giving him "The Big Picture"? The Vatican's epic struggle with it's perceived mortal enemy, Jewish lead international Bolshevism.

 

Later, Pacelli becomes Pope Pius XII

 

In 1939 Cardinal Pacelli becomes Pope Pius XII. Stuckholt lives the entire World War II hiding in the Vatican as a “prince of the state” until his own death from a heart attack in 1953.

Jack's cousin, Dr. Stickholt will become Pope Pius XII's personal physician.

Prestige and Accolades

 

Jack is now sole owner of the prestigious practice. Awards and accolades follow. Later in 1937 Jack and Maly are invited to Italy to receive an award and a beautifully inscribed commemorative silver and crystal vase. They eventually bring the vase with them to America. While in Italy they attend an official state dinner also attended by Mussolini.

Back in Germany, in early 1936, Jack learns that the window for immigration to Palestine is closing. He and another close Jewish doctor friend, Dr. Alfred Efraim, travel to Palestine to claim their residency. They even take their first areoplane ride, flying from Haifa to Jerusalem in an attempt to make the deadline. They file the request in person, and return to Germany. Jack is planning on studying podiatry and foot orthotics to overcome the German doctor surplus in Palestine at the time. Several months later, in November 1936 the rejection arrives through the mail. Jack saves the letter for the rest of his life.

Actual envelope from British authorities in Palenstine. 1936

Jack's actual Residency rejection letter from Bristish Palestine Authorities.

 

While in Palestine Jack meets with Maly’s younger brother, Ludwig, “Lulu” Einhorn. He was sent by his father Aaron, in 1935 when the Jewish students were thrown out of German high schools.

Maly's brother "Lulu", shown here with Ben, 1932, had been sent to Palenstine, 1934.

 

Jack probably met him in Haifa, near where he was living at a Kibbutz, working for the “Jewish Agency“ clearing out the Hula Swamp (considered a controversial project even today). Jack diagnoses him with Malaria.

Upon his return to Berlin, he recommends to his father-in-law, Aaron that Lulu should be brought home. He reenters Germany during the “1936 Berlin Olympics” relaxed immigration policies. He brings with him some ornamental iron work that he made at the kibbutz. Maly actually brings them to the United States when she emigrates. Shortly, Rene manages to obtain an Argentinian visa for him. He leaves Berlin to live with his sister in Buenos Aires.

 

Ludwig Einhorn prospers in Argentina, initially works with his father Aaron, Marries Ingard, has a son Roberto (shown here at his marriage to Adriana), and daughter, Gaby with husband Tommy. Argentina, 1984

 
Jack's father, Samuel dies

In February 1937, Samuel Bornstein suffers a stroke and dies. According to Steffi’s daughter, Hertie Schacher and Maly Bornstein’s recollections, these are how the events of that day transpired:

Samuel Bornstein, Berlin, aprox. 1937

Samuel took his seven year old granddaughter Hertie with him to work at the Tivoli Gardens café in the morning. Hertie had become a troubled, unruly child, which Steffi blamed on using a Guatemalan Indian wet nurse with her as an infant.

Sometime during the day, the local Nazi health inspector shows up, eager to find violations at this Jewish run restaurant. Looking for reasons to close it down or “Aryanize it”.

While he’s inspecting the kitchen, Hertie puts her finger in one of the cupcakes and licks the icing. The Nazi official seeing this, grabs Samuel by the scruff of his neck, pushing him up against the wall calling him a “dirty Jewish swine, trying to make Germans sick”. Hertie becomes hysterical, hitting the Nazi, yelling for him to “let my grandpa go”. The Nazi releases Samuel and he slumped to the floor. Hertie’s recollections end there.

At about 9 o’clock in the evening, Jack and Maly receive a call from his mother, Francesca, asking him to please come to the house, “Hertie’s behavior has become impossible”. Jack always had a calming effect on Hertie, she “loved her uncle Jack”.

The couple drives up to find Hertie hanging out of a third floor apartment window screaming “they’re trying to kill me”. Certainly not exactly the kind of situation that a Jew in 1937 Germany wants to exhibit to his Gentile neighbors.

Jack succeeds in calming Hertie down. Wishes his parents a good evening and drives home.

At midnight they receive a call from Francesca at the hospital, Samuel had a stroke.

After Hertie went to sleep, Samuel sat down to listen to the Czech broadcast news on the radio. Hearing the outrageous lies and demands that Hitler was making on what was then Czechoslovakia, he becomes enraged and because of all the high blood pressure during the day, suffers a stroke. He died early in the morning at the hospital. He was 57 years old.

Samuel Bornstein's Obituary, Febuary, 1937

Jack keeps and brings with him to the United States, in its entirety the intact 1937 Berlin Jewish community newspaper where Samuel‘s obituary appears.

 

Actual copy of the Berlin Jewish Community's newspaper, Feb. 1937.

Interest in Palestine was of major importance.

 

This artifact still exists and is incredible window into how the embattled, once prestigious, Jewish community was trying to deal with the increasing dehumanization by the Nazi authorities.
 

With Palestine closed, the barriers to an American visa appear insurmountable.

With escape to Palestine closed by the British, Jack and Maly focus on the United States.

There are however considerable barriers to entry.
    1.    You need a visa slot for your particular country of origin and citizenship. Jack is considered a “stateless person” because both Germany and Czechoslovakia refuse him citizenship. With Italian government help, Jack receives a slot.
    2.    A $5,000 ($93,000 in 2020 funds) investment or deposit is required for each and every individual immigrating in hard-to-get US$ dollars.
    3.    You still need a US Financial Sponsor to cover any possible future costs to the Government.

The couple writes to Maly’s uncle Ben in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. He is her mother, Giselle’s younger brother who was sent to the US in 1914 by his father to avoid the Austrian daft. Upon arriving in America, he is quickly drafted, but because he only speaks German, he is sent to work in Florida, making concrete ocean going barges for the whole war.

Now, by 1937, a successful used auto parts dealer, he gladly accepts. The next problem is how to get the money out of Germany.

Jack is awarded "Medagila d'oro"

 

In Febuary 1937 Jack is awarded The Italian Red Cross, Golden Medal of Honor. The Medagila d'oro de Cruce Rossa Italiana. Jack and Maly travel to Italy. They received the award at state dinner. They sit two tables away from Benito Mussolini. His back is to them.

 

Actual letter from the Italian Ambassador informing Jack he had been awarded Medal.

 

Actual Italian Red Cross award Jack receives in 1937

 

Maly in Rome with Jack to accepted award, March, 1937

Jack and Maly receive award at State Dinner with Mussolin.

The Italians craft an ingenious plan.

 

In July 1937, Jack with the help of the Italian Consul, Cavallari Bandini create an ingenious subterfuge to fool the Nazis.

Actual letter written by Italian Consul, Cav. Bandini, requesting a new X-Ray.

Jack with New Siemens X-Ray Machine, at Ocean Parkway office, Brooklyn, 1941.

Jack decides to buy a state-of-the-art Siemens x-ray-fluoroscope machine (the equivalent of today’s CAT scan machine).

There had been embargo against German manufactured goods since organized by international Jewish groups in 1933. The USA’s RCA x-ray machines were far inferior. There was certainly nothing like it in all of New York City at that time.

The USA had instituted a boycott of all Germna goods in 1934 inresponse to a Nazi Boycott.

The Nazis had Implemented an Anti-Jewish Boycott in 1933.

The subterfuge was this: The Italians would, in writing, request a new x-ray machine to serve the substantial Italian community in Berlin at the time. The equipment would be delivered to their official medical representative, Dr. Bornstein. The machine came packed in several huge wooden crates and after opening briefly, was immediately shipped to New York City. Inside the crates, Jack and Maly were able to put family photos, important documents, even household items. Few, if any other refugee fleeing Nazi Germany ever have arrived in the US with such things.

Jack is finally given an open US visa slot in early 1938.

However, when he and Maly go to the US consulate to pick them up, Jack is ask by the consul if he could delay his departure for six months, so they could give his slot to another Jew, who had already been incarcerated.

Reluctantly, Jack agrees.

1938 was is the difficult year for German Jews. In March, the ”Anschluss”, The annexation of Austria takes place and the Jews in Vienna are severely brutalized. Austria is predominately Roman Catholic and has deep anti-Semitic tendencies that had been held in check for more then a century by the Habsburg Rulers.

In August of 1938, The Italians felt they could no longer defend Jack, they were preparing themselves for implementing new Italian discriminatory racial laws in November 1938.

The Italian council in Berlin, Cav. Bandini writes a great letter of reference for Jack to use in “Amerika”. Unfortunately it is in german and not much use to him in Brooklyn.

Cav. Bandini writes a great letter of introduction for "Amerika".

Max Einhorn, aka Max Horn, Maly’s younger brother, is now a successful commercial artist in New York City. He even sends a handmade card with a pink cheeked cherub peeking out from a cut out window on the envelope. The card extolled the virtues of their future life, all together in America.

Max Einhorn, Maly's artist brother, coming to America on a Frieghter, 1938

 

Envelope for Max's card he sent Maly in 1938 from New York City

Max's 1938 card extrolling virtues of living in America

Jack's medical practice gets Aryanized.

 

September 1938, Jack’s medical office is officially notified of impending Aryanization.

As Maly described the scene, “The uniformed Nazi doctor enters the office and storms past the waiting room filled with cowering Jewish patients and into the examining room. Jack’s there with a female patient, and in a loud voice, orders the Nazi doctor out of room, yelling that “I am still the doctor here”. All the Jews in the waiting room cringe”.

 

Jack goes into hiding.

After that incident, Jack decides to go into hiding until his visa slot becomes available.

That in itself is no easy matter, since all people in Germany were required to have their current residency registered with the local police. Jack finds a widow with no registered men at her address willing to let him stay. He’s not allowed to walk around during the day, when the apartment was supposed to be empty and could only walk at night in his stocking feet.

Now he needed to register with the police in order to procure the necessary documents to have on his person at all times. Lack of those documents on the street meant immediate arrest.

These are the same papers that you see in all the movies, when the German soldiers menacingly request, “show me your papers”.

Actual Police residential registration papers.

30 Kaiser Wihelem Strasse, apt 1,  Actual Home of the Einhorn Family in 1920- 1939.

On October 4, 1938, Jack and his mother-in-law, Giesella, go to the local police station, to register Jack as a border at Maly’s Einhorn family Kaiser Wilhelm Strasse home.

 

Actual Police residential registration papers with explanation.

 

Key to above artifact:  

1. Police Regisration. 

2. Original date applied, Oct.1, 1938.  

3. Date accepted, Oct. 4, 1938.  

4. Maly's family home address at 52 Kaiser Wheilem Strasse.  

5. "Subtenant" underlined. 

6. Family name on lease "Einhorn".  

7. Jack's name and birth date, 1.6.03, and birthplace: Oderfurt.  

8. Maly's birthdate 15.9.10.   

9. Jack's signature.  

10. Gisela's signature. 

 

Jack now has the necessary cover and can safely go into hiding. This is obviously only a temporary measure, until the next available US visa slot opens. He carries this paper on him all the way to the boat and probably in his coat pocket all the way to America. It survives to this day.

At the beginning of November 1938 they leave the radio on in their apartment at their “10 Alte Schönhauser Straße”
apartment/medical office (so it looks like there’s someone still home ) when they lock the door. Maly defiantly throws the keys down the sewer at the nearest street corner.

November 9th to 10th, 1938
“Kristallnacht” 

 

Krystalnacht, first offical German anti-jewish program Nov. 1930

After the assassination of an obscure third secretary at the German embassy in France by a infuriated “stateless person” (like Jack’s own citizenship status), a Polish Jew. Nazi propaganda minister, Goebbels uses The incident to create an anti-semitic media frenzy encouraging ”spontaneous outbursts” from an outraged populous, supported by the violent thuggery of the SA, who commit excesses that outrage the civilized world.

 

Nazis arrest Maly's Father and brother Ben.

Burning hundreds of synagogues and over 6,000 Jewish businesses, looting homes, killing hundreds and arresting over 30,000, all while incredulously, the police and army did nothing to prevent it or stop it.

 

Governmental endorsement let the world know of the Nazis' real intent.

This signals the end to any efforts of appeasement the Democratic nations of the world had displayed towards Hitler and his Nazi regime.

Maly’s father Aaron Einhorn, and her youngest brother Ben are arrested because of dubious citizenship. Maly is able through connections, to intervene and get her father released.

Aaron and Ben are arrested at Maly's family home on Kristallnacht.

Ben at 17, is however packed up with several thousand others and deported to Poland, where by the way, he’s never been. He and thousands of others, end up practically abandoned in the no man’s land between Germany and Poland.

Ben as he appeared the last time Maly saw him being deported.

Maly’s last view of him is infuriating, watching him in an open truck, mockingly giving her the Nazi salute as it drives away into the early evening.

Meanwhile, Jack is watching all this transpire from his hiding place. After two weeks he’s had it, he calls Maly and says “come on over I’m going out”.

 

 

Actual letter, dated Nov. 19, 1938, Jack has Arron,  his father-in-law write in english to the British Consulate in Berlin asking for temporary asylum while awaitng their US Visas. Obviously never sent.

They decide to venture out during a blackout. Hitler is already practicing for war. Under a special war time restricted black out street light, next to a bus stop, they run into their friend, Italian counsel, Cav. Bandini.

He immediately says “Doctor Bornstein, where have you been? We’ve been looking all over for you. Your US visa is ready to be picked up”. It was right out of a Hollywood movie. Maly starts crying.

The counsel gives Jack a note written on the back of his business card “that will get you past the police surrounding the US consulate”.

The next day, a hopeful Jack and Maly make their way through the desperate crowds surrounding the consulate, the police and army and are let into a room where they await the consul. he walks in and says “Dr. Bornstein we have your visa application ready, however, we only have one available at the moment. You go now and your wife can join you six months. The consulate will be in touch with your wife when the second visa comes available”.

He goes to the open door and calls for his secretary to come in. Once in the room he says to her, “please prepare Dr. Bornstein’s visa application.“ He then nods, turns and leaves the room. In a desperate and courageous gamble, Jack hands the secretary both passports.

In early December 1938, Maly and Jack prepare to leave. They are leaving behind Maly’s parents, also actively seeking to leave Germany. They are desperately trying to buy a visa to anywhere in Latin America. Their daughter Renee and son Ludvick are now in Argentina. Only Ben, from the immediate family, who has finally been smuggled into Poland from the border’s no man’s land, will then be left in Europe.

Berlin in 1938 had become a repressive dangerous city for Jews

By 1939, Berlin had become a very different place.

 

 

Berlin 1938, was also a very sophisticated city

Goodbye Berlin, Hello New York

 

In late December 1938 they board the train from Berlin to Róterdam. Maly tells how at the Dutch border, the Nazis were violently rousting Jewish travelers under the excuse of looking for hidden valuables being smuggled out. A kind conductor takes sympathy on the young couple and locks them in a compartment as they transverse the border and say goodbye to Germany forever.
 

At Róterdam they board the just launched in May of 1938, SS Nieuw Amsterdam.

 

The ship was brand new and the pride of Holland at the time.

The ship although not the largest at that time was considered an innovation and was the pride of both Holland and Holland American line.

 

Maly’s brother, Max, by this time a talented commercial artist had worked for the ship line first in Holland and now in New York City creating those iconic ocean liner art and much of the printed pieces on the ships.

 

Max Einhorn, by Nov. 1938 was working in New York as an artist for ship line.

 

One of few pictures of Max working, 1939, New York City.

 

The seven day crossing must’ve seemed surreal to the traumatized couple. Imagine, after five years of constant, creeping, dehumanization, to now be attended to as a respected passenger on an elegant cruise liner.

 

Niew Amsterdam sails into New York habor, Jan. 1939

Jack and Maly arrive in New York.

1939, New York City, new home, new allegiances, new survival strategies, old recurring horrors from Germany.

On cold December day in 1938, a 36 year old Jack and a 29 year old Maly, sail past The Statue of Liberty into New York Harbor and dock at the Holland American lines passenger pier on the west side of Manhattan.

 

Maly’s Uncle Ben and his wife Sadie drive the 358 miles from McKeesport directly to the New York pier. The group may have stayed one night in a hotel, but very shortly they’re living at Ben’s guest room in McKeesport.

 

Mckeesport 1939, was a very modest place.

 

Uncle Ben’s sons drive in from their University to meet their cousins from Germany. 60 years later, in 2000, Maly’s son, Peter, was introduced at a “Pennsylvania branch” family affair as the “The son of the two young refugees that Ben sponsored before the war“.

 

In McKeesport, Maly and Jack were in shell shock.

McKeesport in 1939 was a group of giant steel mills surrounded by workers’ housing. The sky was always black from smoke. Certainly a far cry from cosmopolitan Berlin. Maly would silently cry herself to sleep every night. 

 

After two weeks, Jack announces they’ve had it. They thank Uncle Ben profusely for his hospitality, promise to keep in constant touch, and hop the train to New York City.

 

New York City 1939 was a city of dynamic growth.

 

Maly had alwasys planned on visiting the USA as tourist, but never move here.

Once off the train, the couple makes a beeline for Forest Hills, Queens. Where the majority of the Berlin Jews have settled. They’ve created a little community, and managed to ingratiated themselves, in a very proper Prussian way, among the local Jews and are even making up jokes.

 

The refugees marvel and make jokes at the availabilty of consumer products.

 

The exiles even make fun of them selves and their really amazingly lucky situation.

 

“A newly arrived German speaking refugee goes shopping in Queens and is amazed by the beautiful oranges that were not available in Berlin. Unable to speak English, she motions to the proprietor that she wants to buy them. He responds, “listen lady, these are not juice oranges, these oranges are not for juice”. Visibly shaken she rushes home. “Hurry up Herman”, she screams, “pack the bags, they won’t even sell us oranges here“.

 

Many of Jack’s Berlin patients are now living there. Some were older and distinguished, some wealthy also managed, like Jack to get some of their assets out. Comically, Maly maintains the strict German protocol and still refers to them by their last names practically until the day she dies.

 

Maly, in 1940, Forest Hills Queens N.Y. USA.

Buster Crabbe, internationally known Olympic swimmeer lived in Maly's first home in America.

 

One of Maly’s fondest memories from this time is that Buster Crabbe the famous Olympic gold medalist swimmer and movie actor lived in the same building. His biography states that Crabbe starred at the Billy Rose's Aquacade at the New York World's Fair during its second year (1940), replacing fellow Olympic swimmer and Tarzan actor Johnny Weissmuller. The site of the 1939 World‘s Fair was less then 10 minutes from Forest Hills.

 

Maly and Jack's first home in New York was 10 minutes from the fair

 

Maly really never mentioned the fair, which must’ve not left a big impression on her, and is only really famous for hosting the debut of television. One can only assume that the young refugee couple had more pressing matters on their minds.

Max is also living and working in New York City, making an outlandish salary of a $100 week as a commercial artist. Maly’s main concern is about her parents still in Berlin. Jack’s concern was taking the United States medical license exam. It is only given in English, a language neither of them speak yet.

Jack wasn’t alone. One of his oldest friend, Dr. Alfred Efraim, whom he traveled to Palestine with, had immigrated a year earlier and had passed the exam. There must have been dozens of German Jewish doctors studying to take the exam at the same time in Forest Hills alone.

Little did they know that their own personal family struggle for survival would soon be playing out on the world stage. They will find themselves pawns in an international Game of chess. The whole family would soon find immersed in a Joseph Goebbels propaganda drama that still resonates until today.

Probably sometime in April of 1939, just as the young refugee couple was settling into the apartment and marveling at American prosperity, either they or Max receives a telegram from Maly’s parents in Berlin.

Arron Einhorn was able to procure two visas to enter Cuba at the cost of about $US60,000, paid to the Cuban counsel in Hamburg. They had already booked passage on a ship leaving Germany with 900 other Jewish refugees, several of which were coming directly from concentration camp.

They would be leaving on May 17, 1939, Departing Hamburg, on the SS St. Louis.

A tale of International drama played out on the world stage.

The SS St. Louis incident is so famous it almost does not need to be told here.

The Bornsteins and Einhorn's personal drama will soon be played out on a world stage.

Aaron and Gisela's, SS St. Louis boarding pass, 1939

 

The Einhorn's must have been exuberant about leaving Germany.

Poster from SS St. Louis movie, 1976

 

Countless documentaries, Hollywood movies with ensemble casts, books, and articles have been written about it. Most historians agree, it was orchestrated from the beginning by Joseph Goebbels to show that the rest of the world would not solve the German’s “Jewish problem”. It’s purpose was to allow Germany cover so it could deal with the Jews on their own terms.

 

The video below is a 5 minute documentry on the MS. St. Louis, 1939.

 

 

 

Artwork for 1976 ensemble cast movie "Voyage of the damned".

The SS St. Louis was never intended to disembark in Havana.

But for now, none of that was even imaginable. Maly was ecstatic at the idea of seeing her parents soon. Cuba in those days was a regular destination for New Yorkers. It was a scenic 26 hour train ride to Key West in comfortable sleeping cars, and then a four hour ferry ride to Havana.

Aaron and Gisela at railing of SS St. Louis, May 1939

 

Maly parents’ bordered the ship as scheduled with no problems. not much is known about their time shipboard. One photo was taken of them standing by a wind swept railing with the ship’s lifesaver beside them, and what would appear to be all of their valuables Gisella’s hands.

 

The ship arrived on May 27, 1939. The problems started from the beginning, the ship was not allowed to dock, but anchored in a far corner of Havana Harbor. Only two dozen passengers were allowed to disembark who had Cuban or US passports. The Cuban government declared the visas void, claiming they had been sold by a corrupt counsul who absconded with the money.

The entire world watched the German-Jewish refugees' plight.

 

What transpired then was a worldwide frenzy of both back channel diplomatic efforts and highly publicized fundraisers to provide financial assurances for any country willing to take in the refugees.

Rabbi Stephen Weiss and HIAS (yes, The same organization that in 2018 President Trump accused of organizing with George Soros the caravan in Honduras and is ostensibly what was the trigger for the killing of 12 Jews in a Pittsburgh synagogue) took the lead in raising a $1,000,000 ($19,000,000 in 2020$) in financial assurances. 

 

The world is out raged with the drama playing out on the front pages of all the capitals in Europe and major cities across the United States. 

 

The US Secretary of State, Cordell Hull and US Secretary of Treasury, Henry Morgenthau both unsuccessfully petitioned the Cuban government. Roosevelt himself is urged to get involved.

 

The SS St. Louis is finally ordered to leave Cuba.

 

SS St Louis is ordered to leave Havana, June 1939

Finally, the German Captain Gustav Schröder, heads to Miami, and circles off the coast of Florida for a few days while various Jewish organizations plea to Roosevelt. Cordell Hall, persuades Roosevelt not to let the Jews land. The captain Captain Schröder, even considers running the boat aground off the coast of Florida or later off the coast of England.

 

 

SS St. Louis circles off the Florida coast, shadowed by patrol boats, June 1939

On board the SS St. Louis the remaining 902 passengers form a committee to. negotiate for themselves. Aaron who writes and speaks english, is chosen to be the spokes person for that language. Press releases from the refugees themselves are radioed in many languages to anybody listening around the world. In the end, four countries in Europe are pressured into help and decide to divide up the refugees amongst themselves.

The Einhorn‘s luckily go to England. All of the others who remained in Europe, were eventually rounded up by the Germans and only about a third of those survived the war.

 

The St. Louis was to remain in Havana for at least two weeks. Jack, Maly with Max pool their money and decide that Max should travel to Havana. Once there, a small boat can be arranged, like other people have been doing and row right up to the hull of the ship and attach money and messages to strings to be pulled on board.

 

Max travels from New York to Havana, May 1939 to see parents from ship's railing.

 

Max travels south and he actually get to see his parents from a small row boat, shouting at them at the ship’s railing and passing a package of money. He returns to New York depressed with news that the ship had left Havana.

 

However all three become elated when they learn that after the ship docks in Antwerp on June 17, 1939, Aaron and Gesella will be settled in England albeit temporarily.

 

Imagine these young refugees watching their own personal tragedy play out across a truly world stage, with factors beyond their control determining their loved ones very future.

 

Although only a temporary respite at least Maly’s parents are safely in England. It is now only two months before the beginning of World War II.

 

Jack and Maly take a six week job in a Catskills Jewish summer camp as the camp’s doctor and nurse. It gets them out of the city during their first sweltering summer, something they would not have been used to after growing up in Berlin.

 

Maly with friends, newly arrived in USA, 1939

After a cool summer in the mountains they return probably just before September the first.

 

Germany Invades Poland!

The terror of seeing the world at war, even from a safe haven.

The beginning of World War II in Europe did not have much immediate effect on the young refugee couple. Jack had been in contact with his mother, Francesca through the mail. He was also able to send packages through his contacts in the international Red Cross. Maly could also now write to her parents in England.

Only Ben, 18, now in Poland alone was in peril. He had been living with a cousin, Pollick (who actually visits Ben in New Jersey 1980) in Warsaw and was called up for the Polish draft, to report on Monday, September 4, 1939. Of course, the war started on Friday, September 1.

Ben flees east in front of the advancing German forces, into the part of Poland that Soviet Union had just occupied. Overnight, unbeknownst to Ben, the Soviets pulled out and the Germans moved in. He awoke to hear German being spoken on the street below. Shortly later he was arrested and spent the next six years in brutal slave labor battalions, dank uranium mines and finally the death camps.

 

Ben survives, with Maly‘s help comes to America in 1949, prosperous, marries, has a daughter, dies at 80, outliving all the other Einhorns and by 2020, through his offspring, has three lovely great-grandchildren.

 

During the rest of 1939 and into 1940, Jack studies hard to take the licensing exam, and after six months of intense work he’s ready. He does however develop a momentary mental block for the English word for sugar. He develops such an intense headache that it will return frequently throughout the rest of his life. He does however, pass the test.

Dr. Alfred and Elisa Efraim,  in Bay Harbour Island, Florida 1987. He was one of Jack's oldest friends. He served in WWI, in the German Asian Corps in Palenstine. He was caotured by Gen. Allenbee, spent two years as a POW in Eygpt. Emigrated to US one year before Jack

Now with a fresh medical license in hand, he has to figure out how to even begin a practice from cold in a strange country. While visiting his close friend, Dr. Alfred Efraim, at his new office in Brooklyn, he suggests that Jack take the bus at the corner to the next major thoroughfare and look for an office there. and that’s how Jack arrives at Ocean Parkway.

Jack and Maly in front of their new office at 120 Ocean Parkway, Brooklyn NY

There he finds 120 Ocean Parkway, a two year old, six story building with a uniformed doorman. There was even a doctors office available for rent. The Tenant before, a Dr. Barkin, was moving his practice to Manhattan. A good omen. Jack rents it on the spot. He now has a home for his brand new x-ray machine. He even builds a dark room in the building’s basement.

 

Growing a medical practice where nobody even knows who you are, can be a challenge. Now imagine not even speaking the language. Jack learns to speak Yiddish which helps with the Jewish patients and he already speaks Italian which helps with many of them living in Brooklyn.

 

His brand new Siemens hi-tech x-ray machine however gains popularity among the neighborhood Brooklyn doctors.

 

They want the x-ray picture but they don’t want their patients to meet the new German doctor. So it falls on my mother to run the machine, while father stepped into their residential apartment. This intense exposure to x-rays may have led to Maly developing leukemia 40 years later.

 

Jack also attendes to patients at the Brooklyn's Municipal hospital.

 

Jack receives admitting privileges for the prestigious Israel Zion (now Maimonides) hospital in BoroPark. Brooklyn.

 

He is now settled in and ready to pursue a new life in America. However, the dark shadow falling over much of Europe, weights heavily on the young refugee couple.

 

Efforts of Jack to bring his mother from Berlin proves impossible. Her new surname as a result of her recent marriage with his father Samuel’s World War I commanding officer, blocks any hope.

 

Starting in 1940 and continuing into 1941, the Jews of Poland and Czechoslovakia are rounded up and put in ghettos. The same dehumanization that the Germans visited on their Jews over six years are now being felt by millions in 6 months.

Because America is still neutral, they have access to news reports of increasing brutal atrocities. To most of the world they seem totally incredulous. To Jack and Maly they’re painfully real.

 

Warsaw Ghetto Wall Constructed.

 

In April 1940 construction on the wall surrounding the Warsaw Ghetto begins. Jack’s uncle Mundy, Samuel’s youngest brother, his wife, Hannah, (Steffie‘s friend from 1929) and their two sons, Gunter and Horst, actually saw the wall be built, managed, with some nail biting moments, to leave Poland by train for Italy and then make their way to Palestine. When approached on the train by a Nazi officer and asked their names. They reply "Horst und Gunter" typical germanic names. If they would have had Jewish names, they would have been taken off the train.

 

Hannah Bornstein, Steffi's friend, her sons Horst, "Harry" Born and Gunter Born, and Mundy Bornstein, Jack's favorite Uncle, who was younger then him, (father Samulel's youngest brother). Photo taken in Palensteine, where they escaped after seeing Warsaw Ghetto walls being constructed.  Apox. 1942  

 

At the end of May 1940, the English army evacuates from France and and the Germans consolidate their control over France and practically all of Western Europe.

 

In June 1940, the Italians declare war against the Allies. English forces invade Italian Libya from Egypt. The fighting in North Africa begins. 

 

In September 1940 the US government implements a military draft. Jack, now 36 years old is declared 4-F, because of a narrowing of his aorta, commonly called the “widow maker”. He does however get a position with the selective service, as a Doctor examining perspective draftees at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn.

 

The battle of Britain, in which Germany wages brutal air campaign to prepare for the invasion, ends in October 1940.

 

The Einhorns have been waiting in England for their daughter Rene in Buenos Aires to send visas for Argentina. With visa in hand, Aaron books passage on an English flagged ship, sailing to Argentina in the height of World War II. Because of the submarine threat, their ship is blacked out at night and they are instructed to sleep in their lifejackets. Because Aaron keeps kosher, the couple survives on canned tuna fish which they brought on board when they embarked.

They make it safely to Buenos Aires. 

 

Now Maly’s parents are safe with her sister and her brother Lulu. A tremendous weight is lifted off Maly’s shoulders. 

 

Jack’s mother is still living in Berlin, with his sister and young neice. His brother Mundy fleeing the Nazis east, has made it safely with his wife and child to the Soviet Union.

 

By January 1941, while much of the world is at war, Brooklyn and America are still at peace. But the perceived threat of war and America’s vast military buildup, has begun to pull the United States out of a decades long economic depression.

 

In March 1941, Roosevelt signs “land lease” into Law. From this point to the end of the war, American manufacturing is on a wartime footing. The depression is officially over.

 

Jack’s medical practice was beginning to prosper thanks to many of his old patients from Berlin, now living in New York.

 

Maly’s brother Max, was doing particularly well. His style of illustration had found favor among the Madison Avenue advertising agencies and he was making four times as much as a commercial artist as Jack was making as a doctor.

Things are about to change.

 

On June 22, 1941, the Germans invade the Soviet Union. Their overconfidence proves to be their fatal flaw. Mobile Nazi killing units called “Einsatzgruppen” begin operations throughout Eastern Europe just behind Wehrmacht with the task of killing all Jews and communists. The Holocaust begins in ernest. By September 1941 the Nazis are killing thousands of Jews in occupied Ukraine and Belarus.

 

On July 24, the Japanese occupy French Indochina. The US imposes an oil and scrap metals embargo. The Japanese military machine will run out of oil in less than a year. It’s only option is to occupy the oil fields in Dutch Indonesia.

 

The Bornstein’s watch all this with great trepidation from the relative comfort of Brooklyn. German forces in the Soviet Union and North Africa appeared to be winning.

 

President Roosevelt had made it clear to the American people and it’s adversaries, that there is an existential threat to the democracies of the world.

 

The situation in Berlin for Francesca has become increasingly dangerous. Although she is supposedly protected because of her new husband, she’s still subject to all of the discriminatory laws against Jews in the capital. As more Jews are being deported, she’s growing increasingly isolated.

 

News reports reaching New York were not good. The Germans were victorious almost everywhere. By December 3, 1941 they were within 5 miles of Moscow. The Soviets had lost millions of men 10,000 airplanes and thousands of tanks. The Germans had still not had any major military reverses.

 

Imagine how the young refugee couple felt when they saw all the pro Nazi sentiment in the US.

As late as Feb. 1939, The German-American Bund were still holding rallies in Madison Square Garden.

 

The isolationists in the United States were still very persuasive. More than 25% of Americans at that time actually had German ancestry. The German American Bund, once very powerful in 1939, had been luckily discredited by December of 1941, still making trouble by persuading followers to evade the military draft.

From all aspects, December 1941 did not begin well for the traumatized German Jewish community in New York City.

 

And then...December 7, 1941,

Everything changed.

 

In coordinated sneak attacks, the Japanese simultaneously attack multiple targets throughout East Asia.

 

President Roosevelt declares war against Germany, Dec. 11,1941.

 

The United States declares war against Japan and Germany and inexplicably, 10 days later Italy (possibly to move around Vatican Bank assets).

 

At this point, most knowledgeable people including it turns out, much of the Japanese and German military high command, had agreed, that because of America’s resources, industrial might and physical isolation, that inevitably the Allies would triumph.

 

There was still much pain and suffering ahead, much of it, unfortunately would be born by the millions of lives of European Jewry. 

 

Practically all communication between America and anyone in Nazi occupied Europe was now very difficult, if not impossible. Jack reached out to his contacts at the International Red Cross. From here on, they would be his only method of contact with his mother, still living in her Berlin apartment.

  

Max Einhorn gets drafted.

 

Maly’s brother Max, gets called up. After examining him, Jack proclaims “they’ll never accept him”.

 

Max Einhorn aka Max Horn, in uniform with trade mark pipe.

 

Of course they draft him. One look at his skills, and they sent him to the Air Force model making detachment. He spends the rest of the war making miniature three

dimensional cork and latex models from stereoscope reconnaissance photographs. these miniature models of prospective targets are used to train the B-17 and B-24 bombardiers with the top secret Norden Bombsight.

Top secret Norden Bombsight gave the Bombardiers control of the plane over the targets.

 

The bombsight was so secret that it even left the plane with each Bombardier.

 

Bombardier accompanied by security carrying the top secret bombsight.

This unique bombsight, actually gave the bombardier control of plane from the pilot once they reached the vicinity of their targets. This would permit pinpoint bombing. The main disadvantage was the bombing run had to be undertaken during daylight hours. Unlike the English, that would blanket bomb at night. Eisenhower himself regarded that as cruel, revengeful and really not focused on winning the war. The American bomber crews took tremendous losses.

The Americans conducted pinpoint Daylight bombing, The British, Nightime carpet bombing.

Daylight bombing was more productive and dangerous.

Actual 10 minute WWII newsreel showing top secret Bombsight usage during the first "B-17 Superbomber Raid in Europe".

 

 

Max eventually will reach the rank of sergeant, forever bitter he was passed over for Lieutenant. The reason he gives, that his commanding officer, whom himself was Jewish, did not want to appear that he was giving preferential treatment to his fellow coreligionist. To add insult to injury, the Army delayed discharging Max until late 1946, using his commercial art skills for re-educated materials and saving them thousands by not having to use an outside advertising agency. 

Max Einhorn, 1946, with artwork for US Army.

Comically, many of the design professors that Stephen Bornstein had at Pratt Institute in 1970, served with Max during World War II. One of his teachers, the plaster shop master technician, Joe Campo, when asked if he remembered Max, answers: “Boy, was he a queer duck”. When told, Stephen’s brother Peter responded: “Bingo!” 

 

Nonetheless, this posting gives Max a front seat in the war, first in England and then following the US Army through Europe. Eventually he actually ends up in Berlin, assisting the US Army civil administration.

 

When recognized by a old neighbor on the street in his American army uniform, he recoils when told that “Very good, we can now be allies together in the next war against the Russians”. 

 

Like all of the German Jewish refugees in America, none of which had any plans to ever return to Germany. Many were loathe to even speak German on the streets. All of them embraced their new allegiance with great fervor and energy. Maly actually becomes the Air raid warden for her building.

 

Stephen and Peter spend many childhood hours laughing at the thought of their Mother running around in front of the apartment building, with a megaphone and helmet shouting up at people in an overwhelming German accent “to put out their lights” during periodic blackouts.

 

With the US in the war.

The Germans feel free to act. 

 

Unbeknownst to the world, a top secret meeting is held on January 20, 1942, in the suburbs of Berlin, in an aryanized Jewish family’s villa, at a place called Wansee.

 

The conference was a super secret meeting called by the SS leadership in a former Jewish owned villa on “lake Wan”.

Wansee, a name that will forever be synonymous with history’s worst crime against humanity.

 

In keeping with the German character, meticulous verbatim notes are taken. Two copies of which actually survive the war, and become evidence at the 1946 Nuremberg Trials.

 

There was only one item on the agenda, “The final solution to the Jewish question”. Although during the 90 minute meeting several other revealing Nazi plans were discussed.

 

The participants were high ranking SS bureaucrats and practically representatives from all of the departments in the Nazi Reich

Basically, SS Reinhard Heyrich and Adolf Eichman told a group of cabinet level functionaries plans for killing all the estimated 11 million Jews in Europe. 

 

The necessary technology had been experimented with and several of the actual camps already set up.

 

Most importantly, because United States was now in the war, the Nazi leadership no longer felt the Jews were useful as hostages.

 

During the “fogs of war” the opportunity presented itself. Using highly coordinated SS units, Jews would be collected and shipped from country to country, east to west. All Jews, with no exception, would be eventually systematically worked, gassed, and cremated.

 

The plan was so chilling, that the Nazi government ministers attending the meeting were speechless.

 

The Auschwitz-Birkenau and the existence of system of many camps was to be kept ultra secret.

They were informed of future the industrialization of death for the complete extermination of European Jews and eventual repatriation of all their assets.

What distinguishes this plan from previous governmental organized anti-Jewish programs (ex. Russia 1905) was the sheer scale of it (11,000,000 victims).

Equally unique, would be that “biology determined destiny”. It would end in total extermination, there would be no exceptions.

The Process used cyanide gas crystals on a huge scale.

The actual method would be highly efficient and avoided using precious ammunition. A crystaline cyanide pesticide, Zylklon B would gasify when exposed to air. There was no carbon monoxide machinery, that had proved unreliable. 

 

It required multiple mechanized crematoria operating around the clock.

 

The bodies would be taken from the underground gas chambers directly to adjacent crematoria. The ashes will eventually be buried in large dynamited pits.

Every Jewish arrival would be tattooed with a unique number.

 

Most important, accurate death records could be kept. Every Jewish arrival received a unique alpha-numerical tattoo, no matter what age. These numbers would be recorded upon the body’s removal from the gas chamber. All the data would be kept on an IBM owned subsidiary’s keypunch data management machine. This company was owned by the US Senator Prescott Bush until March 1942, when he divested it after being threatened with violating the “trading with the enemy act”.

 

 

This the Hollerith Punch Key Machine, used at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Camp, Produced by DEHOMAG, the Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft, a subsidiary of IBM since 1922

The ultimate use of this data would be after the war to return to the various places of origin of these millions of victims and with the Germany now in control, repatriate their physical and financial assets for the Reich.

The Nazi leadership's motivation was both racial and financial.

The SS would create a company to store and replenish the unstable crystals in metal tins with a short shelf life. Not unknown in the US, from 1929, the Public Health Services used Zyklon B to fumigate freight trains and clothes of Mexican immigrants entering the United States.

 

From 1929, Zyklon B was used to fumigate freight trains and clothes of Mexican immigrants entering the United States.

 

Several theatrical reproductions of the meeting have been done.

 

The Nazis divulge plans for both the Jewish Holocuast and the Complete Germanization of Poland.

 

This 90 minute video below is an exact dramatization made from the meeting's verbatim notes. It was a super secret meeting. Although the most well known focus, "The elimination of European Jews and Jewish led Bolshevism" was discussed in depth, another topic also surfaced. The complete "Germanization of Poland" and destruction of all it's Slavic peoples and culture. If known, this would have created a complete and irreparable break with the Vatican.

 

 

 

 

The discussion of the“Cozzi Affair”

 

Most interesting for Stephen Bornstein, during the meeting, they spent several minutes discussing the “Cozzi Affair”. The Jewish widow of a high-ranking Italian official had been sent to Auschwitz, and the Italians were demanding her release. 

 

Reihard Heyrich, architect of the Holocaust, is himself assasinated in June 1942

 

In Heyrich’s own words

”No one sent to Auschwitz can ever be released, it must be kept totally secret. let’s make sure in the future that any Jews protected by the Italians are not sent to the camps. They’re “Jew Lovers”. That’s why they never win any wars."

 

It is this order from directly from Reinhard Heyrich himself, Stephen Bornstein believes, that kept Francesca Bornstein off the trains bound for Auschwitz until the last train left Berlin in August 1944.

 

Arron Einhorn, Maly's Father with Francesca Bornstein, Jack's Mother in Carlsabd Czechoslovakia. possibly 1937

  

Holocaust Museum documentation on last transport to leave Berlin for Auschwitz, Aug 12, 1944.

 

Also discussed during the meeting was the future Germanization of Poland. All Poles would be divided into four groups. The two with German genetic characteristics will be spared. The others with Slavic features will be sterilized, and so Poland will become German in less then two generations.

 

The Vatican, whose main concern in the war was maintaining a Roman Catholic Poland would have found this plan totally unacceptable.

 

Eventually in August 1944, the Vatican demands that the German troops evacuate Warsaw, as they have Paris and Rome during the same month. They want the advancing Soviet troops to find the very Catholic “Polish Government in Exile” in control of the city. 

 

The Germans unequivocally reject the demand. For 63 days the Nazis systematically destroy 95% of the city and kill over 20,000 Free Polish Forces, all while the Soviets sit quietly on the east side of the Vistula River. They had wanted the polish resistance destroyed so they could install a communist regime. 

 

The Nazi plans become public.

 

The Bornstein couple, safely in New York, will slowly become aware of this monstrous plan with the rest of the world.

 

In July 1942, the first reports of the Holocaust become public knowledge. The New Republic publishes the first article.  

 

The Nazi plan required utmost secercy. If not, the whole project would fail!

 

In July 1942 "The new Republic" publishes the first reports of atrocities.

The author writes “There are some things so horrible that decent men and women find them impossible to believe, so monstrous that the civilized world recoils incredulous before them. The recent reports of the systematic extermination of the Jews in Nazi Europe are of this order”.

 

Fry, the author, goes on to provide concrete numbers of Jews who have been deported or fled their home countries. And in what may be the most damning paragraph of the piece, he outlines the exact methods the Nazis were using to torture and murder the Jews. His reports would be the first that most Americans would hear of cattle cars, death camps, and systematic extermination.

 

Unimaginable reports of 2 million jews murdered in Poland, start to appear.

In December 1942, The New York Times prints a small article of a report (buried on an inner page) of unprecedented and practically unbelievable Nazi atrocities against the Jews of Poland.

 

Jack also loses all communication with his sister Steffi. No one, not even Hertie, who survives the war will ever find out what happens to her.

 

Maly and the Einhorn family lose touch with her brother Ben. No one will hear from him again, until Max finds him after the war living in Berlin.

 

Slowly through 1942, 1943 and finally in 1944, The allies gain inch by inch the ground leading to Berlin.

 

During the war, Jack needs new tires for his car. Since they are unavailable to civilians, He drives to McKeesport where Maly’s uncle Ben now has the largest selection of used tires on the eastern seaboard.

 

At some point during the winter of 1941 or 1942, Jack sends Maly with her single friend Ethel alone to Miami Beach.

The girls get off the train to do some sightseeing somewhere along a stop in the south. Maly chose not to remember the name of the town. They get on the bus, and as one does in New York City, immediately move to the back. Maly nonchalantly, still speaking little English, takes a seat next to a black person. The bus driver pulls over, gets up, goes up to Maly, and starts yelling at her. Maly unable to understand what he is screaming about, jumps off the bus and ends up walking back to the train station.

 

Maly and Jack in Brooklyn office, aprox. 1943

 

For the young impressionable Jewish refugee, the message was unmistakable, and something she frankly thought she had left back in Germany.

 

Maly never forgets the incident, and repeated it many times to her two young sons growing up completely unaware of Jim Crow in Brooklyn.

 

Nevertheless Maly had a great time in Miami, and never forgot it, always discussing it with a little glint in her eye remembering the opportunity to be a single girl again with her friend Ethel.

 

Jack and Maly learn the painful truth.

 

Reports of unimaginable proportions continue to filter out of Europe. Roosevelt takes great pains to prevent unsubstantiated reports of atrocities from reaching the American public. He even go so far as to refuse to transmit them in diplomatic pouches from the US Embassy In Switzerland.

 

Roosevelt makes repeated efforts to prevent the perception that this War is being fought for the Jews.

 

In April 1944, highly credible reports on Auschwitz reached New York.

 

Finally in April 1944 the Vrba–Wetzler Report was released and printed in over 400 headlines worldwide. This highly documented and substantiated account contain detailed sketches from the report: showing the DAW, Siemens and Krupp factories and the four gas chambers and crematoria. 

 

The Allied High Comand knew all about the camp's operations, yet chosse not to bomb the camp directly or easily repaired rail lines.

 

Also on 4 April 1944, a Mosquito plane from 60 Photo Recon Squadron of the South African Air Force flew out of Foggia base in Southern Italy to photograph the reported artificial rubber factory. It was the IG Farben factory at Monowitz, only 4km from the Birkenau death camp. In order to ensure complete coverage of the target, it was common practice to start the camera rolling ahead of time, and they inadvertently photographed an Nazi extermination camp.

 

Because of this, American intelligence was able to discover in detail the operations at Auschwitz. Much debate occurred both then and even to this date about the wisdom of bombing the rail lines leading into Auschwitz.

 

These photos were not reported and hidden even to long after the war. Eisenhower himself decided there was no strategic military value in bombing the rail lines, which could quickly be replaced. And bombing the camp would result in too many civilian casualties. Winston Churchill famously said; “If you want to stop Hitler from killing Jews, we have to stop Hitler”.

It was equally feared that the Nazis could use the millions of captive jews as human shields, paralyzing the Allied forces by flooding the front lines with fleeing civilians.

 

The World now knew. It was printed in plain sight.

 

The Bornstein couple was painfully aware of it and reminded every day. Every time Jack would see his brand new Siemens X-ray machine, he was reminded it was made by the same company that was employing slave labor at Auschwitz.

Jack's family sent to Auschwitz.

 

What Jack didn’t know was that his Aunt, Augusta Bornstein, her husband, Samuel Schlessinger, and their three children (Steffi, Oscar and Heinrich) were all at Auschwitz at this time.

Actual Auschwitzentry form for Jack's Anut, Augsta Schlesinger.

 

She would die, the other four would survive, only for Samuel to die of diphtheria three weeks after liberation. The three children survive and go on to eventually foster large families in Israel.

Jack's connections with the Italian Red C.ross help him communicate with his mother

 

Jack was still in written contact with his mother, through the International Red Cross. 

 

Stephen was always told by Maly, that it was her marriage to Samuel Bornstein‘s WWI highly decorated commanding officer that was protecting her. The couple undoubtedly knew that it was Dr. Stuckholt and his connections to the Vatican that was the real reason.

 

Francesca Bornstein was still able to walk around unhindered on the streets of Berlin until August 1944. After the war, friends’ of Jack and Maly, Alfred and Eli Erhing (Who emigrated after the war) told of seeing Francesca on the streets of Berlin, walking alone with the Star of David sewn on to her coat. They themselves were living underground as Gentiles, and so were unable to approach her and speak with her. That was the last anybody saw or heard from her.

 

What happened in August 1944?

 

In Aug. 1944, The Nazis destroy Warsaw, yet give up Rome and Paris without a fight.

 

The victorious Allies entered Rome June 5th of 44’ without a battle. Now the Vatican’s Axis “slanted” policies would no longer be tolerated by the occupying Allies. The Vatican’s real enemy was always Communism anyway. Which they eventually succeeded in destroying, by pulling Poland out of the Warsaw Pact. 

 

The Germans Double cross the Vatican and they destroy Warsaw and any hope of a Free Post War Poland.

 

The Americans would just as well serve as their new benefactors. They will become the Vatican's main ally against the threat of Communism.

 

The Americans enter Rome in Aug 1944, The Vatican now has a new ally against Communism.

 

Could it be that by August 1944, the Nazis realized they no longer had to worry about a few Vatican protected Jews? 

 

Francesca is sent to Auschwitz.

 

On August 12, 1944, Transport 1/120 ID# 6036, left with Berlin’s last remaining Jews. Destination Auschwitz. Nazi propaganda minister, Goebel comes on the radio that evening and declares the city “Free of Jews” (Juden Frei).

 

Francesca, with other new arrivals herded off the transort at Auschwitz, Aug. 1944.

 

In Sept. 1944, Jack receives a letter from the International Red Cross, that “Francesca Bornstein was put on a transport and sent east, destination unknown. No further communication is anticipated”

 

Maly said “Jack’s hair turned white overnight”

 

During the war, Maly suffers several miscarriages. On her honeymoon in 1935, she had become pregnant. Knowing full well that a baby would complicate the Couple’s immigration possibilities, they decided to abort the fetus. A scratch or tear made at that time complicated subsequent pregnancies. The stress of the war and knowledge of what was happening in Europe certainly didn’t help.

Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviets on January 27, 1945. Barely five months after Francesca was sent there. Now, the full extent of the Holocaust became fully known. 

 

Maly and Jack on Coney Island Boardwalk some time 1940's

Jack and Maly try to pick up the threads of what had been their families. Slowly, out of the literal smoke and ashes, ghosts and skeletal loved ones began to emerge. 

 

Max finds Ben living with the janitor of their old building in Berlin. Jack’s youngest brother, Mundy is living in Siberia, sent by the Soviets when he decided not to commit suicide by joining the Red Army.

 

Four of the five Schlesingers miraculously survived Auschwitz. Even after one of them, Oscar is shot at the fence trying to escape. He makes it back to the barracks, and lives the whole rest of the war with the bullet in his leg. The father, Samuel, died from diphtheria a few weeks after liberation. His sons, Oscar and Heinrich emigrate to Palestine and fight in the War of Independence. His Daughter Steffi, and fiance remain in Czechoslovakia.

 

Augusta Schlesinger nee Bornstein (Jack's Aunt) son, Oscar, with his family in Israel, 1988. L. to R. Oscar, Sepie, Graziella (daughter-in-law) Sons; Ami and Rafi.

 

Rafi Schlesinger, his wife Yael and their 4 children with Stephen, Israel, 2016

 

Augusta Schlesinger other son Heirich, also emegrated to Israel, shown here, his son, Doron with family and Stephen, Israel, 2016

Only a few of Jack’s other family members survived. Jack had another cousin, Mouritz Glauser, from Posen. He also survived the camps. With Jack’s help, emigrated to America in 1950. Mouritz and Maly’s newly arrived brother Ben, bonded immediately, became good friends, even roommates later.

 

Miraculously, all of Maly’s immediate family survived World War II. Many years later Stephen illustrates a family painting “Einhorns 7 - Hitler 0”

 

Einhorns 7- Hitler 0, graphite painting by Stephen Bornstein.

Link to website on Einhorn Family WWII struggles.

Equally miraculous, Hertie, Jack’s neice is alive in Switzerland. The story she told was rather unclear, but this is how it unfolded.

 

Steffi managed to stay one step ahead of the Nazis. She spoke Spanish, and posed as a spaniard. She may have even had an affair with one of Jack’s patients who had become a Nazi official. Eventually the Nazis caught up with her.

 

Hertie says she remembers both of them being loaded onto a truck. Steffi starts shouting that her daughter is a Guatemalan national, a neutral country, pulls out her passport and demands that the Guatemalan counsul be brought.

He comes and takes Hertie into his custody. Steffi is taken away. Hertie’s father in Guatemala wires funds for a boarding school in Switzerland, where she spends the entire war. In 1947 she emigrates to United States and contacts her Uncle Jack.

 

Years later she would tell Stephen, that she received information that Steffi was one of the few survivors left alive after the liquidation of the Riga ghetto in November 1943 and transported to a concentration camp.

 

Dr. Stuckholt and The Pope continue on together after the war.

 

Photo of first post war Italian Government and Vatican officals.

Both Pope Pius XII and Dr. Stuckholt survived the war no worse for ware. He appears in a photo on the steps of the Vatican, a little head in a tan suit, enjoying the sun, among a sea of a uniformed officials from the first the post-war Italian government and Vatican hierarchy.

 

Close up of Stuckholt in rear. Only person not in dark suit.

The photo appears in a book that details some of the Vatican’s wild efforts to control communist coups spontaneously occurring in predominately Catholic countries around the world. 

 

Cover of book in which Stuckholt's post war photograph appeared.

From Italy, to Austria, Greece and throughout South America, communism had become an immediate existential threat. Poland was occupied but not yet completely subjugated.

 

Comparisons of above photo with Stuckholt's unusual ear position and jaw.

Photo overlay comparison, postion of eyes, ears.

Overlay of photos showing same eye distances.

 

The American OSS (today’s CIA) and the Vatican even devised a scheme to destroy a potential communist revolution in Italy. 

 

They actually spring the convicted gangster Lucky Luciano from a federal prison, secreted him into Sicily. Back in charge, Luciano organizers the mafia into anti-communist death squadrons, while the Catholic Church and the Italian government supplied the weapons. 

 

Dr. Stuckholt continues to faithfully serve the pope until he dies of a heart attack in 1953. Pope Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli) dies in 1958.

 

Twenty years later, a polish priest, who began his priestly journey hiding in a Krakow seminary during the August 1944 Free Polish Uprising, assumes the papacy. Through Pope John Paul II, and the tenacity of the Polish Church, the Vatican is finally successful in destroying it’s perceived existential threat, Communism.

 

The end of the WWII.

 

The end of the war with Japan in August 1945 heralds in a period of unprecedented growth in New York and America, both in economics and population.

 

The end of The War, was a bitter sweet experience for European refugee Jews.

 

The Berlin that Ben and Max found in 1945 was entirely diferent.

This Iconic picture sums up the feelings in New york in 1945.

Not only Berlin, Jack's cousins The Schesingers found much of Europe in ruins.

Like everybody else it seemed, Maly conceived and became pregnant either in late 1945 or in early 1946. This time she took extra precautions and was able to carry the baby the entire term. The baby, a girl, was born premature and in 1946 there was a little they could do with her premature lungs, and she died after three days. Maly said she would have named her Barbara.

Jack in 1947 Brooklyn.

Jack decides Maly needs an emotional rest. On one of the first, post war, commercial passenger bookings, sends her by ship to Buenos Aires.

Maly spends several very enjoyable months In Argentina with her mother, father, sister and brother.

 

Maly with parents Gisela and Aaron, Buenas Aires, 1947

She must have been rejuvenated by the trip because when she returns to New York, she conceives again and this time has a successful pregnancy.

 

1948 and Maly gives birth.

 

Maly and Jack's first born, Stephen Francis, Bornstein, Heb. "Shumel Ben Yacob" 1/29/1948.

 

Stephen Francis Bornstein, is born on January 29, 1948. In the Jewish tradition, he is named after Jack’s late sister, Steffi and his mother, Francesca. His Hebrew name is Shumel, Hebrew for Samuel after Jack’s father.

 

Maly Bornstein nee Einhorn, with her new born, son, Stephen, Feb. 1948.

Maly, Stephen, in front of 120 Ocean Parkway, Brooklyn, April, 1949

 

Jack is 45 years old, Maly, 38. Together they’ve enjoyed, social success with accolades, persecution, escape from Nazi Germany, witnessed the practical annihilation of their families, survived and triumphed over their enemies. The birth of their son must’ve seemed like a biblical redemption.

 

Max finds Ben alive!

 

Ben Marries Rose, survivor of the Czestochowa camp, has a daughter, joins the Painters Union and lives till 80 years. Shown here in Florida, 1988. (L to R) Avaham, Ben's brother-in-law, Ben Einhorn, Rose, Micheal, Avaham's son, Stephen Bornstein.

 

In 1945, Max, in Berlin, after finding Ben, emaciated, weighting a little more than 100 pounds. Max initially gets him admitted to an army military hospital. After Ben is discharged, Max sets him up with an apartment, American military identity papers and money. True to Ben’s easy going character, he trades coffee from one of Maly’s packages for a little canoe that he can use on dates cruising on the River Spree amid the ruins of post-war Berlin. 

 

Once back in America, Max is bitter about not being discharged with everyone else. His skills are too needed by the military and their efforts to smoothly reintegrate soldiers into civilian life. When he is finally discharged, in 1947, he takes the G.I. Bill and goes to art school at the University of Guadalajara, with a thousand other GIs. Enjoying the life in Mexico was a welcome respite after serving in Europe during World War II. It was also pleasant not to be a commercial artist for a while in the New York City advertising rat race.

 

Stephen is raised like a little “King David”. Of course they hired a sleep-in nurse, Mrs. Schneider, older, highly experienced and very intimidating. She terrorizes Maly, who only gets to enjoy her son on Sunday, the nurse’s day off.

 

Mrs. Shneider, Stephen's sleep-in nurse, and Jack, and unknown observer. Brooklyn, 1948.

 

Almost comically, five years later, Mrs. Schneider is hired again for the couple’s second son Peter. When they leave Ben alone at their home with Mrs. Schneider and Stephen, the nurse storms out after the young boy orders the “old bag” out of the house. Where did he hear that term? Mrs. Schneider indignant, complaining to Ben how she nursed “that child” as an infant. Maly returns home incredulous that Ben couldn’t stop a five year old from totally controlling the situation.

 

Stephen at the Family's summer home, 1951, Hampton Bays, Long Island.

 

Sometime around the birth of Stephen, Jack decides to build a summer house in Hampton Bays, Long Island, about 2 hour drive from Brooklyn. At this time, Hampton Bays, just a stop on the Long Island Rail Road, was nothing more than high wind swept sandy bluffs facing Shinnecock Bay. 

 

Stephen in Hampton Bays, 1955

 

Herman and Elsa Figare, Jack’s old friends from Berlin, had already built a house there. It would be the only house the couple would ever own. One of Jack’s friends described once seeing him polishing the entry path’s slate flagstones.

 

Maly, Jack and son Stephen, Hampton Bays, 1952

 

The plan was that during the sweltering New York summers, Maly and Stephen would stay there while Jack would visit on the weekends. Maly of course would have to learn how to drive. So Jack bought her first Hydromatic car.

 

Jack bought a small open outboard motor boat. Small enough that he could carry the motor in the trunk of his car. He would love going fishing in the bay. He enjoyed taking his son and his little boat through the looming locks of the Shinnecock Canal into the Great Piconic Bay. 

 

Edith Piaf is one of Jack's favorite singers, herself tragic figure.

 

 

 

He would invite old Berlin patients and family to visit in the country. Everybody would go crabbing at night with flashlights from the pier along the canal. After, everyone would return home to cook the live “Long island soft shell crabs” scratching around in a big pot.

 

Paul Gilbert, one of Jack's good friends, with Jack's two sons, aprox. 1971. Paul said that Jack "Would have treated Hitler if he was brought in on a strecher'.

 

The horrors of Europe and the recent past seemed so distant.

 

Long Island was not Brooklyn. Stephen was the only Jewish kid on the block. When he was about six, he was subjected to a violent anti-Semitic attack from several neighborhood bullies. He fought his way out, using well practiced Brooklyn street fighting techniques. 

 

Stephen returns home, a bit disheveled and asks his mother “Mom, who is Jesus Christ and why did we kill him anyway?“

Shortly a woman shows up with a bleeding boy, accusing Stephen of biting her son. Maly questions her son to find out that several boys were holding him down, while another boy was bringing a large stone to hit him in the head.

Stephen told his mother, matter-of-factly, “This kid had me in a headlock, so I bit him”. Which is a permitted practice in Brooklyn when you’re facing an unfair fight. Maly, realizing what had transpired, becomes indignant, and accuses the woman, “That this wouldn’t of happened if she hadn’t been teaching her children to hate Jews.

 

Something like that never would’ve happened in Brooklyn. Jewish kids never walked through Irish neighborhoods unless they were in a group. And the Italian kids were never a problem.

 

The incident did teach Stephen that the differences between Judaism and Christianity were more than just Santa Claus, The Christmas tree and the Easter bunny.

 

From Stephen’s birth, Jack was determined for his son to avoid the inner conflict that he had struggled with much of his life, his love for music and his overwhelming dedication to medicine. And so, Jack made every effort to forster a true love of medicine in the young boy.

Jack always had big plans in medicine for his son Stephen, Brooklyn 1948

Stephen’s nursery had easy access from his medical office, where he could bring in patients to show off the boy.

Demonstrating to speak early, Jack taught the infant to repeat the names of the newly introduced antibiotic wonder drugs. At two or three, he taught him to explain x-rays films.

  

Jack would often take his son with him while making house calls to non-infectious patients, carrying a miniature medical bag and stethoscope, Stephen would examine the elderly patients first and tell them “Not to worry, they were going to feel better soon.”

 

Although during his entire childhood, there was a baby grand piano in the living room, which Jack played often, he never encouraged Stephen to take an interest in music.

 

The couple, at first used German to talk between themselves so that Stephen wouldn’t understand. However very quickly he demonstrated an ability and so they encouraged it. Stephen started kindergarten with a obvious German accent. 

 

Jack and Maly took advantage of New York’s rich cultural offerings. Like Berlin, it was very varied. They enjoyed the nightlife, occasionally a nightclub and dancing. Jack’s real pleasure was frequenting classical music performances. 

 

Maly complained he had a slightly annoying habit of taking sheet music to the Philharmonic and following along with the conductor. Sometimes inadvertently, under his breath, making instrument sounds.

 

Jack's actual perscription pad, an Internal Medicine Doctor's most powerful tool.

 

His real passion was medicine. Which was practiced quite differently in the 1950’s.

For one, doctors made house calls. They even had special MD license plates. They could park practically anywhere.

 

Usually in early morning the doctors went to the hospital to visit patients. Then they had office hours at their practice. Then they made house calls. And then sometimes depending on the illness, they went back to the hospital one more time. A grueling ten or twelve hour day. 

 

Chronic Amphetamine use was common, it had become heavily used during the entire war. Both overseas and on the homefront, it had become a go-to solution for working long hours.

 

Jack had a portable electrocardiogram machine. A 100 pound monster that he moved around on a gurney and folded it into the trunk of his car. It still managed to give him a hernia.

 

He had admitting privileges to two hospitals. The Jewish, Israel Zion Hospital (now Maimonides) in Boro Park and the sprawling New York City, Coney Island Hospital. His practice in internal medicine flourished, both from old patients from Berlin and new patients from Brooklyn.

He had developed an interest in arthritis and rheumatism. Jack worked at the hospital’s clinic, studied, took and passed the diplomat board in arthritis. He was now a Board Certified Specialist. Sometime in the early 1950s he was appointed “acting director” of the Maimonides Arthritis and Rheumatism Clinc.

 

Eventually the Clinic post will go to an American born "Good ole' boy" physician. Maly claimed, soon after his fatal coronary, that he died of a broken heart. An overly romanticized, and sentimental explanation. Stephen witnessed his father’s demise, which was clearly from a massive blockage of the LAD, the left anterior descending artery.

 

When Jack first opened the practice in 1940, Maly helped him in the office, especially with the x-ray machine. In 1948 when Stephen was born, Maly became a full-time housewife and the part-time nurse, Mary became full-time. Maly would still help out when it got busy which was often. 

 

In 1952 Jack’s younger son, was born. They named him Peter, because Maly liked that name in dutch, and Arthur, after her father, Aaron. Jack now had two sons, was professionally reestablished in America and allowed himself to begin feeling forfilled.

 

Peter Arthur Bornstein, born 1952, with Maly at summer home, Hampton Bays, 1954

 

During the summer 1954, with two kids, one of which is was a toddler, Maly decides to hire a governesses. She hires Frau Schultz, a 45 year old German women from Hamburg. One can only imagine what that interview must’ve been like. Or the subsequentconversation the couple had on whether to hire her. The two women would spend much of the summer alone together. They made a strange couple.

 

Several times Mrs. Schultz recounted the horrific WWII bombing of the her home city, which she witnessed first hand. Mrs. Schultz was always eager to indict The Allies for their excesses and atrocities. For Maly, she would listen to the horrors with mixed emotions.

 

Jack would come out and stay on the weekends. That I gave him a lot of time alone in Brooklyn. He had made several close American friends and they would hang out together. He particularly liked the Turkish baths in Coney Island. A mob favorite. He must’ve known that many of the other patrons were mafioso.

  

On one Monday morning before driving back to New York, Jack decided to burn a pile of leaves in one of those special wire enclosures. He had done it before with no problem. The place he used was at the extrema edge of the property in a group of spindly Long Island pines. He ignited the leaves, watched them burn for a while and then left Brooklyn.

 

Stephen and a neighbor’s boy are playing outside, wearing of all things, a red plastic fireman’s hat. It was a very popular childhood toy in the 50s. If you asked Stephen what he wanted to be when he grows up, he would say “A doctor and a fireman”.

 

Some burning embers escaped and start a brush fre. Stephen runs inside yelling “Fire! Fire!” Maly speaking with Mrs. Schultz, turns around, “Yes, Yes, now go out and play”. It took Stephen five minutes to convince Maly it was real. By then they needed to call the fire department. They came with sirens blaring, put out the fire, and even got to meet Stephen, as the boy that discovered it.

Maly’s driving left a lot to be desired. She wasn’t alone. Long Island had become a beehive of suburbia, and we have never drove we’re driving. Nelly gets a ticket somewhere near Southampton. Stephen was very young, and so unaware of all the nuances. But when recounted to him, it involved some sort of sexual advance by by the policeman. It turns out he had done this before and it was in his record. 

 

However, Maly ignored the ticket, and they actually came and arrested her one day. Stephen always remembered, his mother being driven off in handcuffs and the Town of Southampton police car.

The following summer, they sent Stephen to sleep away camp, to partially to have him mature, but really to give Maly a break.

 

Maly and the children would usually return to Brooklyn after Labor Day, some times later. At the end of September, 1955, the whole family was in Hampton Bays. The Jewish new year Rosh Hashanah occurred early that year, on September 17, just after Maly’s birthday. Stephen remembers going to a little white wooden colonial era clapboard synagogue in Southampton. The interior was painted all white with bright brass light sconces. The look was iconic Southampton.

 

Stephen still remembered it in 2020.

Jack had just turned 51 in June. In five months he would be dead. This was his last Jewish new year.

 

Feburary 1956

Jack suffers a fatal coronary.

What is an ideal death? For you? Or those you love?

Dr. Jack J. Bornstein at the time of his death, Brooklyn, 1956

What about a death so unexpected that neither you nor anybody else even saw it coming? A death that allowed you to enjoy life right up to the last second.

 

On Saturday morning, February 11, 1956, Jack awoke early and drove alone out to the house in Hampton Bays. It had a gas heater and an old style fireplace, acceptable for Long Island winters. February 12, a Sunday was Lincoln’s Birthday, so Monday would be a national holiday. His medical office would be closed. He was hoping to take advantage of the holiday.

 

Maly was not pleased. All sorts of martial doubts went through her mind. European men, doctors in particular, had ample traditions for infidelity. Nevertheless, Jack prevailed and didn’t come back until Sunday evening.

 

Jack and Maly argue. She says “Jack you’re killing yourself”. She was referring to his hectic pace. He grabs his son Stephen, and they both go out to a local delicatessen.

 

During the meal, a visibly excited, eight year old Stephen becomes a little agitated and get sick to stomach. Jack grabs him by his jacket and carries him out to the curb by street. Stephen, who had a sensitive stomach and a history of indigestion, throws up. Jack admonishes him. “How many times have I told you to relax when you eat”. And disciplines him.

When Stephen gets home he hides in his favorite place, but does not cry. He remembers actually being impressed by his own maturity.

 

The next day was Monday, February 13, the day before Valentine’s Day. A national holiday. A clear, crisp, sunny Brooklyn winter day. Maly’s brother Ben, who is off from his union job,came by early to paint the kitchen. Jack goes out in his bathrobe to walk the dog. He had bought a dog for Stephen’s birthday, January 29th from the pound. It was a white and spotted mute. His name was Skiper. The family kept him downstairs in the building’s vast basement. He wasn’t fully house trained yet. Jack stopped to talk to neighbors at the building’s entryway, still in his house coat and pajamas. Stephen sees his father from his bedroom window.

Jack comes in the apartment, talks to Ben, and goes to the bathroom. He then leaves and makes a immediate left into his two sons’ room. They were both there watching a children’s television show with a performer named Sandy Becker.

 

Jack is not feeling well, takes a seat on a blue toy chest near the door. He grabs his chest with his right arm, groans and falls on the floor. By the time Stephen can get to him, and try to open the buttons on his pajama shirt, he is most likely dead.

 

Stephen start screaming “daddy daddy”. Ben is the first one who hears it and comes in. He calls Maly. She sent him immediately running across the street to another doctor. There was no 911 at that time.

 

Did Jack know he was sick? He had been diagnosed in 1940 with the condition. It kept him out of the army. If he had known, could he have done anything. Did he have any symptoms and ignore them? Or did he just know what his fate was, and except it? His son Stephen has the same condition. Even angioplasty can’t fix it. Eventually you die from it. Unless of course, you die from something else first.

 

Maly told Stephen later that night, as he was in bed, that his father had died. She said she had seen him in the hospital and that he was very tired and wanted to go to sleep. Stephen wondered out loud why he just couldn’t take a nap?

 

Jack's simple headstone is a stones throw from Beth David Cemertary Holocaust memorial

 

Jack was buried at 9 o’clock the next day February 14, 1956 in keeping with Jewish tradition. Many many people turned out. It was a shock to everyone. The man was 51.

 

They actually sent Stephen to school in the morning while the funeral is taking place. As in Jewish norm, after the burial a seven day period of mourning begins. 

 

 

Several hundred people suddenly flooded the small apartment. Every guest told Stephen “He was now the man of the family, and his responsibility to take care of his mother and brother.

 

So ends Stephen’s childhood.

 

Maly was a wreck. Even if she had been prepared for it it would’ve been a shock. This was beyond imagination. She was kept medicated.

 

Everyone told her she had two young children to care for, and had to get her act together. Peter, who was three, was sent to stay with Ben and his new wife Rose, for a couple of weeks.

 

Stephen was kept at home, hopefully providing some emotional distraction for Maly.

 

Of course life changed inexorably for the three remaining Bornstein family members. From a middle class housewife, Maly suddenly became a struggling widow. The death was so tragic, the emotions so raw, that even Jack’s closest friends created distance between them and Maly.

 

The period following Jack’s death required a lot of effort on Maly’s part. She had to sell the medical practice. She had to sell the Hampton Bays house. She had to decide where to invest the little money the life insurance provided. The only real issue that Jack had addressed before his death was the burial plots. He had bought four, enough for the whole family only a year before.

 

Maly’s Brother Max was able to help a bit. His wife Greta, was never on the best terms with Maly, and Max himself was rather aloof. The couple traveled frequently to Mexico and Europe, and so really couldn’t be counted on. The three were basically on their own.

 

Maly and boys fly to Argentina.

Two years later in 1958, her family in Argentina convinced her to make a prolonged visit with both boys. Maly decided to go in the summer so the boys wouldn’t miss the school year.

 

Viscount turboprop, the kind Maly and family flew to Argentina, 1958

The flight on Aerolíneas Argentinas, a Viscount prop aircraft took 48 hours and made 5 stops. A long time on a plane for a 10-year-old and a five-year-old. The first stop out of New York was Havana Cuba, in the middle of the Castro Revolution.

 

Stephen, 10, at time of his Agentine trip, throughly enjoyed the expatriate experience

 

The prop plane flew low over the tropical palm tree hills on the entry to Havana airport. The air was warm and wet. Very tropical. It was Stephen‘s first view of the tropics and he never forgot it.

Some soldiers came on the plane, escorted a passenger off. The flight had a couple of hours stop while they refueled. The airport was bristling with the dictator’s military. Taking off to leave at night and flying over the black Cuban jungle, The pilot pointed out “The campfires from the Castro rebels”. Everybody ran over to one side of the plane. At this point he was still just a bearded romantic figure fighting in some banana republic.

 

 In a isolated, European influenced Buenos Aires, Stephen quickly learns to utilize his assertive New York City persona.

 

Argentina was a memorable experience for Stephen. He learns as much German as he did Spanish. But it was an and opportunity for him to become acquainted with Latin America, that would lead to a lifetime of interest.

 

Juan Peron, recently overthrown dictator, sold Argentine travel documents to Jewish refugees, like the Einhorns, requiring large donations to his wife Eva's charities.

 

Argentina 1958 is a very strange place. The dictator Juan Perón, had been overthrown only two years earlier, and Argentina’s atmosphere was still raw. Ever image, in every photo, in every magazine, of Perón had been blacked out. 

 

Stephen becomes aware of the unpredictable nature of Latin America politics. He also becomes aware, of what it means to be an American. He kind of fits the image of a 1958 New York kid in Buenos Aires. Argentina in the 50’s, is still so isolated, that practically any foreigner is an instant celebrity. Stephen plays the expatriate role to the hilt.

 

Maly, although pressured by her mother and sister decides to return to the US. Primarily because of Stephen and Peter. She didn’t feel that exposing the kids to a whole new culture and language would be the best thing for them at this point in their lives.

The Hi-point of Stephen’s trip and perhaps one of his life’s. His first visit to Rio de Janeiro.

 

Buenos Aires can be a difficult place in the winter. Although it never snows, back in 1958, the streets still iced over in the morning. The overall atmosphere was cold, dark, overcast or raining and damp. Very damp. And no central heating. Very European. It also had no holidays like Christmas and New Year’s, to break up the long winter months.

 

Maly in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 1958

So, after two months of winter, and the prospect of going into another winter when you get to New York, Maly decided to take a two week vacation in Rio.

 

For Stephen, Rio was like Disney World. Just one of the few places in the world, where he actually had family from both his father’s and mother’s side. For him, even little family, was an unusual treat. Even though he was meeting most of these people for the first time, it was still like seeing a light beacon in an angry sea. The few remaining family members scattered across vast distances around the globe.

 

Netti Waldman, Maly's first cousin in Rio with Peter Bornstein on a subsequent trip in 1966.

 

Maly’s cousin Natalia and her brother Willy families had been there before the war. Both had children, Natalia, two girls and Willy, four boys. Both had cars and took the visitors everywhere. The cable car to Sugarloaf, the cog railway, through the coastal rainforest to the Christ Redeemer statue.

 

It was having a family like Stephen’s friends had back in Brooklyn. Great fun.

 

Years later in 1981, Maly's sister Rene would visit Rio with her daughter Liliana, here with Netti Waldman, their cousin.

 

Nonetheless, Stephen is elated as Maly hosts both families at afternoon lunches at the hotel, enjoying hamburgers by the pool in swimming shorts. Just like a James Bond movie.

 

Rio is a tropical and beautiful city. And Maly had decided to stay at the Copacabana Palace. An aged, but classical hotel from another period. Certainly one of Rio’s finest addresses.

 

The Copacabana Palace in 1958, was considered luxury.

 

During the first week of the family’s stay, The President of Brazil was staying there, having given up his residence for the visiting Italian President. lucky for him he just slept there. Needless to say, Stephen and Peter were not the best behaved children, certainly not like this hotel was used to hosting.

 

Stephen and Peter would enjoy this pool.

 

The hotel’s famous pool deck overlooking Avenida Atlantico and the beautiful beach, became their personal playground. Running and giggling almost continuously around the large pool, which had a wide foot bath around the entire circumference. Maly preferred the beach, fond memories of growing up on the seashore in Holland.

 

The family returned to New York City before the new school year. Maly would become increasingly reliant on Stephen for sharing family decisions. Their interactions had changed from the traditional mother-son relationship. A respected psychologist would comment that it looked more like that of a bickering husband and wife.

 

Stephen enters Ditmas Junior High School and his artistic talent is recognized. He gets placed in a special arts class. His teacher Mr. Gaynor, a semi- professional artist, would befriend and mentor the young pupil for two years.

In the ninth grade Maly decides, at great personal expense, to send Stephen to a boarding school in Connecticut. Stephen at first was very homesick and then becomes rather independent. By the end of the school year and his return to Brooklyn, he’s basically become a young man.

 

Stephen spend the summer of 1962 with the American Youth Hostels cycling through the Canadian Rockies with a group of young kids. Upon his return, he starts to frequent the organization’s headquarters, around the block from Washington Square, Park. Now in the middle of Greenwich Village, Stephen meets other young people who identify with the beat movement of the 50s and early 60s. He starts to read poetry by Allen Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, Corso and Arthur Rambaud.

 

Maly becomes increasingly concerned, suspecting he’s hanging around with the wrong people. After several occasions when he stays out all night, Maly decides to involve the authorities to help discipline her son. She calls the police.

 

Stephen is incarcerated for ten weeks at the Spofford Youth House for Boys. A totally sobering experience. He befriends a Jewish psychiatrist, Dr. Peter Guggenheim, who is doing pro bono work at the facility. The psychiatrist decides to put Stephen under his responsibility and gets him released.

 

Stephen goes to live at the Stuyvesant Residence Home for Boys, on Saint Marks Place in the lower Eastside of Manhattan.

He now went from Greenwich Village to the East Village. The proverbial frying pan to the fire.

Maly was continuing to be as supportive as she could. However the situation was now beyond her control. She had sessions with Dr. Guggenheim’s partner, Dr. Abbot. She delt with her own issues as well. She concentrated a lot of her attention on her younger son Peter.

 

After Jack’s death, Maly was reluctant to date. It wasn’t just the optics, she genuinely felt uncomfortable. However, slowly, she decided to venture out. American men were completely different than European men.

 

Here is how Maly would paraphrase it:

“A European women would say “My husband is wonderful, he’s so considerate.” An American woman would say “My husband is wonderful, he helps with the dishes”.

 

Arnold Schuster, shown here with Peter apox.1960, was a gentle, easy going single guy that tried to be a weekend father figure to Maly's sons.

  

Obviously, Maly does not hold American men in the highest regard. She did however feel they were more sexually faithful. Basically, European men were extremely courteous but lacking in truthfulness.

Maly with Arnold Schuster, were friends for several years in the 60's after Jack's death.

Maly had met Arnold Schuster around 1961 and they dated for about eight years. He had never been married, very soft-spoken guy and tried to be a father figure on Sunday afternoons to Peter and Stephen.

 

Arnold had a little Thunderbird Convertible. The two boys could just about fit in the back with the top down.

 

Stephen eventually got his own $50 a month apartment in Brooklyn with Maly’s financial assistance. After his incarceration, Stephen realized he needed his mothers help, and so their relationship slowly improved. He managed to graduate high school and that was a major mile stone for both of them.

About 1962, Maly started working. She had several jobs, displaying a brand new invention; the Microwave , telephone sales. Working with Stephen proofreading military publications and finally working as an assistant office manager for a Haitian doctor in Brooklyn.

 

Peter goes to college in Des Moines and then lives at home off and during the next decade. In 1976, Stephen and later Peter moves to Miami.

 

Stephen and Peter Bornstein, Brooklyn, 1974

Maly at her son's Peter's Marriage to Loretta Lurie, Springfield MO, 1979

Peter and his adopted daughter, Sydney Bornstein, Brooklyn. Apox 1996

In 1978 Maly follows the boys south. She buys a condominium with her bedroom window facing Biscayne Bay. she says it reminds her of her childhood and Holland.

On the eve of her move from Brooklyn, Peter gets a job working in New York City, at the Coco Exchange and takes over her apartment in Brooklyn.

 

Maly buys a one bedroom condo on a small island in the middle of Biscayne Bay'

Maly really enjoyed the great views of the Bay from her bedroom window.

Maly quickly adapts to Miami. One of her closest friends from Ocean Parkway, Addie Tannenbaum, has a hair salon there. Maly helps out at the front desk. She can walk to the supermarket. There’s a convenient bus and Stephen, who is on a beeper, can come by and take her by car where she needs to go.

 

Outside of New York she seems to thrive. She meets a new gentleman friend, Henri Kolher. His German father sent him here in 1928. He soon became the main representative of major cuckoo clock manufacturers in Bavaria. He maintained that position right up to the war and immediately afterwards. Even in his 70’s he was still actively selling the clocks to major clients, like Disney World. He was very good to Maly. They dined out and traveled often. They took several cruises. Maly even went back to Germany with him.

 

Henri Kolher with Maly, Miami, 1982, They enjoyed each other's companionship and traveled extensively together.

 

 

 

 

Maly traveled back to Germany with Henri in 1979. She couldn't believe she every lived there.

 

Maly meets Steffi Schlesinger (Jack's cousin) in Switzerland, where she escaped from Czechoslovakia when the Russians invaded in 1968.

Maly with Henri, on a cruise, aprox 1984.

Maly lived in Florida 1976-1986

 

Maly lived in Florida till 1986 when she passed away from leukemia. The disease which developed suddenly in the summer of 1985 could’ve been the result of all that exposure to x-rays. She had helped Jack in the office for practically 15 years.

 

Maly's last picture, January 1986, Key Biscayene.

 

They are buried together at Beth David cemetery in New Jersey.

 

Jack and Maly's graves at Beth David Cemetery in New Jersey. Peter lying in background. Aprox 1995.

Together they weathered one of the most difficult periods of human history. Although they had personally escaped the worst of it themselves, they were forced to live it from a far.

 

They both loved their adopted country as few native born Americans could.