Deja Views of an Aging Orphan: Growing up in the Hebrew National Orphan Home

By Sam George Arcus and E.M. Nathanson

To quote from E.M. Nathanson (author of THE DIRTY DOZEN and numerous other works and fellow alumnus of the HNOH) who wrote the FOREWORD to the book:

The title of the book - DEJA VIEWS... - is itself a meaningful play on the French phrase deja vu - meaning, roughly, the startling feeling that strikes you that what you have just experienced you have experienced before. To anyone who shared those times, DEJA VIEWS OF AN AGING ORPHAN will be an exciting time travel adventure, comprehensive, varied, textured and evocative. To those who lived in those times but had no knowledge then of the milieu of the books real life characters and stories - and to those in the generations that followed, such as the children and grandchildren of the Home boys - the book will be a voyage of discovery.

Many of the anecdotes and people profiles in the book, though not all of them, were written as columns that appeared over the years in THE ALUMNUS, the monthly publication of the Alumni Association of the Hebrew National Orphan Home and its successor institutions, Homecrest and Hartman-Homecrest. They are word pictures that have ripened and matured and been revised over the years by more acute memory and input from others. Some of these stories and brief biographies have even achieved the status of myths and legends. In addition, sowed amidst these pages of real persons and event, as a sort of literary seasoning and entertainment, are some short stories, identified as fiction, but which illuminate with their own truths.

The index alone is a cornucopia of memories. The variety of people and themes that are remembered and summoned into the book is impressive. Some evoke nostalgia for a time that we didnt know was that good when we were living it; some bring a laugh - or a tear. And the focus is always on the boys - and the adults they became.

In addition to the foregoing, I believe the best description of my book is contained in my INTRODUCTION, which is therefore reproduced here in its entirety.

My older brother Al, myself and my younger sister Henny all became half-orphans upon the death of our mother in February 1929. Our father had to place us in orphanages when he found himself unable to provide the care required by a 9 year old boy, his 7year old brother and 2 year old sister. A1 and I were placed in the Hebrew National Orphan Home on Tuckahoe Road in the outskirts of Yonkers, NY while Henrietta was put into the Israel Orphan Asylum on East Second Street NYC. This separation was necessary because the HNOH accepted only boys, ages 6 to 16 (later HS graduation) whereas the IOA accepted boys and girls, ages 2 to 5. It was while I was in the HNOH that I became a "full-fledged" orphan, when my father died in 1938. And Ive been a "full-fledged orphan" ever since--although I didnt start "aging" until just a few months ago when I turned 78.

But some years before that, my then new daughter-in-law, Susan was describing my wife and myself to her mother, including the fact that we were orphans (my wife having been raised in the Pride of Judea Childrens Home on Dumont Ave in Brooklyn where I worked after I had left the HNOH). To which Susans mother replied, matter-of-factly: "Well, so am I. And so is your father!" Momentarily surprised, Susan then elaborated: "No mom. I mean they were orphaned as children and raised in orphanages." Her mother hesitated and then said: "Oh".

This anecdote illustrates the fact that ultimately we all become "orphans". But that is not the focus of this work. Its focus is the child who lost one or both parents at a young, tender age and subsequently was placed in an institution--the orphanage. So when I titled this work "...OF AN AGING ORPHAN. I wasnt focusing on an older person who had been orphaned as an adult, but on an orphaned child who, fortunately, has been aging nicely. I say "fortunately" because I

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 1, 2000
• ISBN: 9781462844814

Sam George Arcus

The author is a 78 year old, semi-retired, MSW social worker who spent most of his professional career in “institutions” including camps, Jewish Community Centers and now, monitoring nursing homes. He has had many professional articles published, including his most recent, HANDBOOK FOR VOLUNTEERS IN THE LONG TERM CARE OMBUDSMAN PROGRAM.

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Copyright © 2000 by Sam George Arcus.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Contents

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

PREVIEWS OF DEJA VIEWS

PART 1: THE ARCUS FAMILY

PART 2: THE HOME’S HISTORY

PART 3: BUILDINGS, GROUNDS & FACILITIES

PART 4: LIFE STYLE & CULTURE

PART 5: MORE LIFE STYLE & CULTURE

PART 6: CLUBS, TEAMS AND ACTIVITIES

PART 7: EDUCATION: SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS

PART 8: SIGNIFICANT EVENTS

PART 9: DOGS OF HNOH

PART 10: PERSONAGES AND PERSONALITIES

PART 11: THE DARK SIDE OF HNOH LIFE

PART 12: OTHER VIEWS AND LETTERS

PART 13: MY LIFE AFTER HNOH

PART 14: THE HNOH—A FINAL ASSESSMENT?

PART 15: THE ORPHANAGE IN THE 21st CENTURY

DEDICATED WITH LOVE TO MY FAMILY

My Wife of Over 55 Years, Adele Son Norman, Daughter Rochelle (Shelly) Daughter-In-Law Susan, Son-In-Law George And the Four Grandchildren, Sara, Megan, Peter, and Amy

AND TO THE MEMORIES OF

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FOREWORD

By E. M. Nathanson

Sam Arcus was my first editor. I was about eleven, Sam seventeen or eighteen, editor of THE HOMELITE, the monthly newspaper put out by the boys of the Hebrew National Orphan Home. He made room on the staff for some very junior, wannabe reporters to write about the activities of the younger groups in the Home, and I presented myself as a candidate.

He might have said something like, Okay, kid, let’s see what you can do,—which is what another newspaper editor out in the real world beyond our childhood home said to me some years later when I was working as a lowly copyboy and asked for a crack at being a copyeditor.

Sam gave me a chance and that newspaper editor gave me a chance and—combined with what I learned elsewhere in the Home, in school and in life out in the world—I ran with it and went on to write and edit for newspaper, magazine and book publishers. After more than fifty years in the word business—if you include those teenage years when I was on THE HOMELITE staff and later its editor—I’m still running on the substance and spirit of those early opportunities.

I always thought that one day I’d write a book about the Home—a novel rather than a factual history, because it would give me more leeway to get into the characters’ heads, create events that might or might not be modeled on actual events, and move my fictional characters and incidents around to fit in with actual happenings. I knew, though, that to do a real and proper job I’d have to do a great deal of research. Imagine my delight to learn that Sam Arcus had already done it. Like some of the world’s more noted historians—Tacitus and Winston Churchill, for example—part of this history Sam lived himself or witnessed; and that which came before and after his years in the Home he has been gathering into a treasure trove of people, anecdotes and events for decades.

The title of the book—DEJA VIEWS…—is itself a meaningful play on the French phrase deja vu—meaning, roughly, the startling feeling that strikes you that what you have just experienced you have experienced before. To anyone who shared those times, DEJA VIEWS OF AN AGING ORPHAN will be an exciting time travel adventure, comprehensive, varied, textured and evocative. To those who lived in those times but had no knowledge then of the milieu of the book’s real life characters and stories—and to those in the generations that followed, such as the children and grandchildren of the Home boys—the book will be a voyage of discovery.

Many of the anecdotes and people profiles in the book, though not all of them, were written as columns that appeared over the years in THE ALUMNUS, the monthly publication of the Alumni Association of the Hebrew National Orphan Home and its successor institutions, Homecrest and Hartman-Homecrest. They are word pictures that have ripened and matured and been revised over the years by more acute memory and input from others. Some of these stories and brief biographies have even achieved the status of myths and legends. In addition, sowed amidst these pages of real persons and events, as a sort of literary seasoning and entertainment, are some short stories, identified as fiction, but which illuminate with their own truths.

The index alone is a cornucopia of memories. The variety of people and themes that are remembered and summoned into the book is impressive. Some evoke nostalgia for a time that we didn’t know was that good when we were living it; some bring a laugh—or a tear. And the focus is always on the boys—and the adults they became. It reminds me of a lyric we used to sing:

"We are the boys of the HNOH

You’ve heard so much about …"

Reading these many DEJA VIEWS, you will either remember too or be delighted for the first time. Either way, the reader will be in for an education and a treat.

In closing, I have to respond again to Sam Arcus’s question to me almost sixty years ago when I handed in my first newspaper article. He looked at me suspiciously and asked something like, Who wrote this? Did you write this? Yes, I did, Sam.

[After many early years as a newspaperman, magazine editor and writer, E.M. (Mick) Nathanson began to write books. He is the author of four published novels: THE DIRTYDOZEN; THE LATECOMERS; A DIRTY DISTANT WAR; and KNIGHTS CROSS; and one non-fiction documentary novel, IT GAVE EVERYBODY SOMETHING TO DO. More books are in progress.]

INTRODUCTION

My older brother Al, my younger sister Henny and I all became half-orphans upon the death of our mother in February 1929. Our father had to place us in orphanages when he found himself unable to provide the care required for a nine-year old boy, his seven and a half year old brother and two and a half year old sister. A1 and I were placed in the Hebrew National Orphan Home on Tuckahoe Road in the outskirts of Yonkers, NY while Henrietta was put into the Israel Orphan Asylum on East Second Street NYC. This separation was necessary because the HNOH accepted only boys, ages six to 16 (later HS graduation) whereas the IOA accepted boys and girls, ages two to five. It was while I was in the HNOH that I became a full-fledged orphan, when my father died in 1938. And I’ve been a full-fledged orphan ever since—although I didn’t start aging until just a few months ago when I turned 78.

But some years before that, my then new daughter-in-law, Susan was describing my wife and myself to her mother, including the fact that we were orphans (my wife having been raised in the Pride of Judea Children’s Home on Dumont Ave in Brooklyn where I worked after I had left the HNOH). To which Susan’s mother replied, matter-of-factly: Well, so am I. And so is your father! Momentarily surprised, Susan then elaborated: No mom. I mean they were orphaned as children and raised in orphanages. Her mother hesitated and then said: Oh.

This anecdote illustrates the fact that ultimately we all become orphans. But that is not the focus of this work. Its focus is the child who lost one or both parents at a young, tender age and subsequently was placed in an institution—the orphanage. So when

I titled this work … OF AN AGING ORPHAN. I wasn’t focusing on an older person who had been orphaned as an adult, but on an orphaned child who, fortunately, has been aging nicely. I say fortunately because I’ve considered the alternative to not aging.

So, why write this book? Not long ago a political personage touted the virtues of orphanages, particularly BOYS TOWN (founded by Father Flanagan) as an answer to society’s juvenile problems and childcare needs and a debate erupted, led by a president’s wife, who thought the suggestion totally ridiculous. And some time later, that same First Lady wrote a book maintaining that it took a whole village, and not just one family or institution to raise a child. And there was more debate. And each time I thought: What the hell do THEY know? Neither of them probably ever set foot in an orphanage, let alone met an orphan. For that matter, I’ll bet most Americans do not have the foggiest notion about orphanages other than that derived from Charles Dickens, epic novel OLIVER TWIST, on the one hand, or from the 1930’s film about BOYS TOWN starring Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney on the other. So I thought I could put my two cents in—along with the two cents of fellow-alumni—and we mined our memory banks and came up with the nuggets herein: columns of DEJA VIEWS, some biographies, news article, poems, some history and some short stories.

What makes the book unique is that it contains views and experiences of still alive (albeit in their late 80s and early 90s) HNOH alumni, going back to 1914, just a few months after the orphanage opened its doors at Seventh Street and St. Marks Place on New York’s lower east side; and views of other alumni, who though now deceased, nevertheless have been captured in print. In short, it provides a You Are There! experience.

DEJA VIEWS … is also unique in its use of a variety of genres and styles; i.e. the memoir, the essay, the news article, the short story, history and letters and correspondence. Many provide first person accounts of growing up in a Jewish orphanage in the 1920s and 1930s. It is this first-hand reporting (in contrast to the second and third-hand descriptions common to some academic studies) that breaks new ground. Thus both in style and substance DEJA VIEWS OF AN AGING ORPHAN is different, if not unique, in its treatment of a subject (child-care) that is still very current and of importance to society and its social policy-making.

The book begins with a PREVIEW OF DEJA VIEWS, a column titled New Arrivals, which describes my coming to the HNOH together with my older brother Alex. This is followed by what could be called a flashback, Part 1, THE ARCUS FAMILY, a brief history of the family’s tumultuous experiences resulting in the need for institutionalization. Part 2 presents THE HOME’S HISTORY, from 1912 through 1962, a significant chunk of the 20th century. That is followed by the bulk of the work consisting (for most part but not totally) of columns I wrote for THE ALUMNUS, a quarterly publication of the Alumni Association of the Hebrew National Orphan Home. The HNOH, my childhood home, later merged with the successor organization of the Israel Orphan Asylum—The Gustave Hartman Children’s Home—creating HARTMAN/ HOMECREST, all of which was finally absorbed into the Jewish Child Care Association of New York

Each DEJA VIEWS column is like a little bead—a small gem which when strung together with other beads comprises a necklace of precious but not always fond remembrances. Interspersed throughout the work are some short stories that also deal with life in the HNOH and provide a change of pace from the DEJA VIEWS columns. Other Parts focus on buildings, grounds and facilities; life style and culture; clubs, teams and activities; education; significant events; dogs of the HNOH; personages and personalities; and even The Dark Side in Part 11. Other Views are presented in the form of Letters and the reader gets a glimpse of My Life After HNOH. Part 14 provides assessments of the institution from a large number of alumni while Part 15 asks the question, Does The Orphanage Have a Place in the 21st Century?

It is my hope that this slice of life focused on the orphanage experience and covering a good portion of the now departed 20th century, will help to put into a more balanced and proper perspective the child-welfare issues we face upon entering the 21st century. In any event, as a kid in the Home, I often said (as did many of my orphan brothers): One of these days, when I’m outta here, I’m goin’ to write a book about this place.

It’s taken over 60 years, but here it is.

PREVIEWS OF DEJA VIEWS

1).NEW ARRIVALS (COMING TO THE HOME)

The trip to the HNOH from NYC took nearly four hours. Ms. Claire Fiance (the Home’s social worker) accompanied my father, my brother Alex and me. It was a long and tortuous journey involving taking the IRT’s Broadway/ 7th Ave Line to the last stop at Van Courtland; then taking a Toonerville Trolley to a village called Nepperhan; and from there slogging along an unpaved street named Tuckahoe Road for three miles until we came to the fenced-in, four story red brick building which formerly housed the German Odd Fellows Home. And on this April day in 1929 it rained all during our trek up Tuckahoe Road so that the street was a sea of mud and we boys took turns asking our father: Papa, why are you bringing us here? Papa, why can’t we stay home with you? Papa, I’m wet and cold. Papa, it’s hard walking in this sticky mud. Alex was nine and I was seven and half years old. We had lost our mother a few months earlier and Papa had tried to care for us via a variety of improvised but unsuccessful arrangements.

As we walked through the main gate of the high-fenced property and up the many steps of the imposing—if not awesome—front stoop, we feared the worst. Inside the Main Lobby we gazed at a huge portrait of a very stern, white-haired man, cloaked in all black robes, glaring down on us through gold-rimmed glasses. It was a portrait (we later learned) of Justice Aaron J. Levy, the President of the orphanage. As we gaped and gasped at this portent, we were ushered into the outer office of the Home’s Superintendent, Mr. George Goldenberg. There Ms. Fiance turned over some papers for him to sign. When he returned them to her, she turned to Papa and said: We better leave now, Mr. Arcus. It’s a long trip back.

The separation of father and sons was heart-breaking, but finally we clinging boys and clutching father were separated, the father to return to an empty, lonely apartment on New York’s lower east side; we boys to begin a strange, new existence as inmates of an orphan asylum. And now, a strange man and a strange woman appeared in Mr. Goldenberg’s office. Alex was ordered to go with the man (Supervisor of Company C & D) while I was told to go with Mrs. Rubenstein, Supervisor of the youngest group, Company E. We hesitated, fearful of being separated, but the man gently but firmly grasped Alex’s hand and led him out of the office. As he left, he looked at me through tear-filled eyes and said: Sammy, if I don’t see you again, remember you have to say Kaddish for Mama tomorrow. I nodded and replied: I’ll remember Alec. And so we lost our mother, then our father, and now—it seemed—each other!

My first night at the HNOH will never be forgotten. I was ushered into a small dormitory accommodating only fifty boys ranging in age from six to eight. The other two dorms housed one hundred twenty to one hundred twenty five kids each. I was told to watch the other boys and do as they did. We stood in front of our iron-frame beds in rigid, silent attention. At a given signal we all undressed and put on pajamas and again stood rigidly in front of our beds. At another signal, we filed into two bathrooms with two rows of sinks, taking a minute or two to brush our teeth and swish some water on our faces. Then we marched back again into the dorm to stand in front of our respective beds. And at the appropriate signal, we climbed into bed. When the lights went out, it seemed my life’s future went with them. I sobbed uncontrollably as I tried to grasp and understand the unfolding events. Why was this happening to us? What had we done to suffer this fate? Why did Mama hafta die and why did Papa put us in such a dreadful place? And why couldn’t I be in the same dorm with Alec, at least?

And then Mrs. Rubenstein was at my bed trying to comfort me.

She wiped my tears and gently stroked my head and softly assured me that everything would be all right and that in time I would get used to it. And in time, I did. I spent almost twelve years at the HNOH.

End: NEW ARRIVALS

2): DEFINITION OF BOY’

(From the September 3, 1939 issue of The HOMELITE EDITORIAL)

What is a boy? A person who is going to carry on what you have started. He is to sit where you are sitting and attend to things that you think so important, when you are gone. You may adopt all the policies you wish, but how they will be carried out will depend on him. Even if you make leagues and treaties, he will have to manage them. He will take your seat in Congress and Parliament; assume control of your cities, states and empires. He is going to move in and take over your churches, schools, universities, corporations, councils and prisons. All your work is going to be judged, praised or damned by him. The future and destiny of humanity are in his hands, so it might be well to pay him a little attention now and then. Anonymous.

Being an all-boys institution—in fact the only one of all the Jewish orphanages in the New York metropolitan area—you can well imagine our liking this particular piece. Especially the part about … pay him a little attention now and then. However, with the perspective of nearly sixty years, and the knowledge of the women’s or feminist movement, I believe it wise to amend the piece slightly—by changing boy to child. (SGA)

End: DEFINITION OF BOY and PREVIEWS

PART 1: THE ARCUS FAMILY

INTRODUCTION

Why begin a book about an orphanage with a specific family history? Because, if it weren’t for the family history my older brother Alex and my younger sister Henrietta and I would not have ended up in such institutions. Al and I and would not even have been aware of the existence of the Hebrew National Orphan Home located in the rural outskirts of Yonkers, NY, and Henny of the existence of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum on Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan, NYC. And if I had not lived the orphanage experience then I could not have re-experienced the subsequent DEJA VIEWS. And there would be no book!

But perhaps even more importantly, the Arcus family history is such a fascinating one—encompassing world war, revolution, civil war, pogroms, bigamy, suicide, institutionalization, and best-laid plans gone awry—that it deserves to be told. And maybe made into a movie. Like Dr. Zhivago! Why not?

But until then, it will explain why I and my brother Al and sister Henny wound up in Jewish orphanages. And how columns of DEJA VIEWS came to be written.

THE ARCUS FAMILY

Two quotations perhaps best typify the turmoil, trials and tribulations of the Arcus family, a saga of epic proportions and serpentine twists and turns:

"THE BEST LAID SCHEMES O’MICE AND MEN

GANG AFT A-GLEY"

Robert Burns: To A Mouse Stanza 7

"OH WHAT A WEB WE WEAVE WHEN FIRST

WE PRACTICE TO DECEIVE"

Sir Walter Scott: Lochinvar, Stanza 17

In October 1913 my father Nochem (Nathan) left his wife and two young children in Odessa, Ukraine (Russia) to come to America to earn enough money to send for his family—something thousands upon thousands of immigrants did. By late spring of 1914 he had enough to bring them over, but his Odessa family prevailed upon him to bring over a younger sister instead. Sonia would use her sister-in-law’s (Bashya’s) visa and passport and it would be only a brief delay for Bashya, whose children would presumably accompany Sonia to America. The children, however refused to go without their mother. And no one anticipated the Great War, the Russian Revolution and the pogroms—which reportedly wiped out Nathan’s family in Odessa. Thinking himself a widower, and without children, Nathan marries again in NYC, this time to my mother Mollie—whose own family was killed by the pogrom in Kharkov. They begin a new family, only to learn nine months later that Nathan’s first family is alive in Poland, where Bashya took her children to join her family after surviving the Odessa Pogrom.

NAMES, PARENTS, PLACES

The family name was originally not Arcus but Erkus. Erkus became Arkus at Ellis Island, in New York, when Nathan was asked how it was spelled and his Yiddish phoneticising of the first letter was interpreted to be A rather than E. The cause of the final change (the letter C in place of K) is a little more conjectural. My brother Al’s birth certificate listed his name as Alexander Solomon Argus and in attempting to rectify that error, the G

was changed to C because Nathan kept voicing the K sound not understanding that in English C frequently was pronounced like a K. And he finally decided to let it go at that. How was he to know that, years later, some of us Arcuses (or is it Arcusi?) would be dunned by members of the real Scottish Arcus clan to come forth and join them? In fact, there is a book (continually being updated) dealing with THE ARCUS FAMILY THROUGH TEN CENTURIES. We’re lucky to be able to trace our Jewish clan back one century!

Nathan’s first (and third) wife was Bashya Friedman, born September 1893 in the small Russ/Polish shtetl of Nesvizh, about nine miles north of Kletsk—a town with a Jewish history going back to 1529—to a dirt poor Jewish family. She had four brothers and one sister.

Nathan’s second wife (my mother) was Mollie Srulowitz, daughter of David, born July also 1893, on the outskirts of Kharkov, in the Ukraine. Other siblings and relatives are unknown except for an Uncle Moishe only vaguely mentioned. He had gone to America some time earlier and wanted to bring his sister (Mollie’s mother) over first, but was convinced to take Mollie instead. And before he could bring over any other members of his family, World War I broke out on August 1, 1914.

A crucial element in any family history is geography. Where did we come from? For our family there are six communities of pertinence, located in what is now Poland, Belarus (formerly Bylorussia or White Russia) and Ukraine … keeping in mind that between the two World Wars there were many national boundary shifts. So, when my stepmother Bashya spoke of Nesvizh being in Poland—that was before WW II, after which Nesvizh reverted to Belarus. Nathan’s family lived in the Odessa region of the Ukraine; Bashya’s family was from the Nesvizh/Kletsk area while Mollie came from Kharkov in Ukraine. Bashya had relatives in Kiev, the capital city of the Ukraine. And the sixth community—which I have never been able to locate on any map and which was probably obliterated entirely during WWII—was Chipowitz, or Szipowitz, or Czipowitz (or God knows how many other variations), located in the Odessa region on the north shore of the Black Sea. (See map included with this section on page 30.)

NOCHEM LAZER ERKUS—NATHAN LOUIS ARCUS

My father was born in November 1884, the second of three sons of a Jewish family of horse dealers in Chipowitz, Odessa, about 200 miles southwest of Kiev, provincial capital of Ukraine, part of the empire of the Russian Czars. Nochem (Nathan) had 13 sisters and two brothers, Meyer and Liebchik. The youngest sister was Sonia. The family was relatively prosperous in comparison to other Jewish families in the area. However, tradition dictated that the oldest son (Meyer) would inherit the entire legacy to avoid the minute splintering of properties that would otherwise result. So quite early Nochem realized that he would have to leave the family and its business—which is why he agreed to serve the terms of his two older brothers in the Russian army.

While conscription was compulsory, one could pay someone to substitute for him (usually for 400 rubles, about $200 American). Thus Nochem earned himself $400, which he planned to use for his future emigration to America. So, counting his own two years plus the four years for his brothers, Nochem spent a total of six years in the Czarist-Russian army, entering on October 1, 1902, a month shy of his 18th birthday.

On February 8, 1904 the Russo-Japanese War erupted and Nochem found himself in the thick of it. He was wounded twice, once by a bullet to the left wrist at the siege of Port Arthur (January, 1905) and again by a lance wound to the throat—that almost killed him at the last hours of the war—just before the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth (August 29, 1905)—engineered by President Theodore Roosevelt. Having miraculously survived the lance wound to his throat, Nochem served another almost three years in the army, stationed all over Ukraine, Byelorussia and Poland (partitioned by

Russia, Prussia and Austria/Hungary some years before). His last billeting was in the Nesvizh/Kletsk District where he met Bashya and began courting her. In November, 1908 he was discharged from the army, hung around Nesvizh and in 1909 married Bashya Friedman and returned with her to his home in Chipowits/Odessa.

THE BEST LAID SCHEMES… .

Nochem still had aspirations to go to America. But first came his children. Manya (Mary) was born March 7, 1911 in Chipowitz/ Odessa and Herschel (Harry) was born October 15, 1913 also in Chipowitz. The war clouds were again gathering in Europe and Nochem, not relishing another stint in the army, decided now was the time to go. He left for America on October 29, 1913. Manya was not yet three and Herschel a mere infant. The plan (as with so many immigrants at the time) was for Nochem to establish himself in his new country, earn the necessary monies and send for his wife and children. But as Robert Burns wrote: the Best Laid Schemes … often go astray.

Nochem’s youngest sister, Sonia, was a very attractive, flighty and headstrong girl. She was five years younger than her brother, unmarried and causing her family in Odessa sleepless nights. So when Nochem was ready to bring his family over, in late spring of 1914, his family prevailed upon him to have Sonia use Bashya’s visa and passport and come to him in America. But Bashya’s children refused to go without their mother and Sonia traveled alone. How Bashya was to travel later without her visa and passport was never made clear. Years later, when Sonia was trying to establish her eligibility for social security benefits under her own name and identity, poetic justice (and Sir Walter Scott) dictated that she never existed! Eventually she managed to clarify matters with the aid of my sister Mary (Manya).

The first rescuing of Tante Sonia, however, was supposed to cause only a slight delay in Bashya’s (and the children’s) joining Nochem (now Nathan) in the United States. But Robert Burns had called it right: nobody expected a Serbian nationalist by the name of Gavrile Princep to assassinate the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand Hapsburg, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian empire in Sarajevo, Bosnia/Herzegovina, precipitating World War I on August 1, 1914 and putting a stop to all immigration—as well as any other peaceful pursuits!

The Great War raged from 1914 through most of 1918, but in early 1917 the Russian Revolution exploded, first with the moderate Kerensky regime and then the Bolsheviks overthrowing Kerensky in the October revolution in 1917. In attempting to consolidate their power and concentrate on winning the resulting civil war, the Bolsheviks signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on March 3, 1918 with Germany and the Central Powers thus effectively removing Russia from World War I. But the Civil War would rage for another two years, with pogroms erupting all over the former Czarist empire.

Bashya and the children lived with Nochem’s family in Czipowitz/Odessa all this time, with Bashya having some erratic contacts with her family in Nesvizh. But even these tenuous contacts ceased completely by early 1918. The Odessa Pogrom occurred first on April 7,1918 when the White (Czarist) army captured the city for a brief time and encouraged the peasants to slaughter the Jews. Bashya and the children were hidden in a secret cellar, but when the rampage ended and the smoke cleared, the Erkus house was a shambles and its non-hidden inhabitants either killed or missing.

The Kharkov Pogrom occurred a few weeks later on April 21st and as far as was known, most of the Jews in that community—including the Srulowitz family—were killed. The accounts of these atrocities reached relatives in America via stories in the Yiddish press with names of murdered family members printed in black-bordered columns. The tragedies became a common bond for people like Nathan and Mollie, who met each other at a Memorial Service at a synagogue in New York’s lower east side in late May, 1918. Within a few weeks the two were married and endeavored to reconstruct their shattered lives. The marriage was one of convenience—a couple sharing common tragedies. Neither knew the other well and were grasping at slender reeds. Nathan, at least, had his sister Sonia and her newly-acquired husband Bronstein, whereas Mollie was alone, since her uncle Moishe died suddenly soon after her wedding to Nathan. But the Jewish community of the lower east side encouraged such liaisons reasoning that new marriages and new children were required to offset the losses of war and pogroms.

NEW FAMILIES IN AMERICA

Solomon Arcus was born March 28, 1919 and the new parents, Nathan and Mollie were probably very happy. But just a few weeks later word came from Nesvizh in Poland that Bashya and her children had arrived there after traveling (on and off) for about nine months, going from Odessa to first Kiev. In Kiev they were very fortunate to find that some of their relatives had escaped the local pogrom by hiding in the woods and were able to provide them a modicum of hospitality and respite. They rested for some time in Kiev and then resumed their tortuous and uncertain journey to Nesvizh, village-by-village, farm house to farm house. Traveling mostly at night, they finally arrived at Bashya’s hometown, nine months after leaving Odessa, a distance of only 550 miles!

The Arkus household in America was distressed at the news, with Mollie particularly becoming distraught. After all, it meant that she was living in sin with a bigamist and that her child Solomon was a bastard! But by June the Rabbinical Court in NYC had resolved the dilemma by granting Nathan a divorce from Bashya retroactive to the presumed date of her death—on the condition that Nathan do whatever he could to assist Bashya and her children in Nesvizh. Nathan began sending some money at intervals and the crisis (at least for the Arkus family in America) appeared alleviated. For the Erkus family in Poland, however, the degree of alleviation remained problematical.

In December 1919, tragedy again enveloped Mollie and Nathan. This time it was the sudden death of Solly from swallowing pieces of broken glass. Mollie was shattered and she interpreted the development as God’s punishment—particularly of her. She was a tall, thin woman, tense and nervous, given to moody, dark spells which tragedies such as she was now again experiencing aggravated and intensified. But by June 17, 1920 her condition improved because on that date my brother Alexander (after the Czar by that name) was born. And sixteen months after that I saw the light of day on October 19,1921. And a relative calm settled upon the family. My Jewish name is Sholem, which means peace, you see.

The discovery of the existence of his first family in Nesvizh must have been a powerful incentive for Nathan to attempt to maximize his income. He had tried operating a horse stable, and running a furniture store with a partner but each endeavor proved unsuccessful. Now, over the objections of Mollie, he went to work as a mole in NYC’s construction of its Holland Tunnel. But, when several times he suffered from the bends, Mollie went to Nathan’s superiors and confessed that he was a Jew. Which, of course led to his immediate dismissal—and a sharp drop in income. While Mollie’s action must have been taken out of concern for her husband as well as herself and their two young children, it provided additional ammunition for intermittent and escalating marital discord. Each letter from Poland reminded Mollie of the immorality of her situation. What a joke God was making. But what really happened? Years later, my stepmother, Bashya told me—in bits and pieces.

BASHYA’S JOURNEY

In Odessa, in April 1918, the Erkus family, along with other Jews of the community, kept hearing rumors of pogroms in other places and thus reasoned that it was only a matter of time before they would become the targets. The Erkus house was a large structure having been added onto as the family grew, including disguised accesses to a hidden cellar. At first the family considered sending Bashya and the children to her relatives in Kiev, but with all the skirmishing between White and Red armies it was decided to keep the family together. The cellar was stocked with water, food, blankets and other necessities. When the first sounds of smashing and breaking occurring in Odessa reached the Erkus house, Bashya and the children were hurried into the cellar—which was then sealed off and the entrance camouflaged. In the darkness and dankness of the basement Bashya and her children could hear shouting, screaming, smashing and the crackling of flames consuming the upper structure. And they literally held their breaths—Manya (Mary) seven and a half, and Herschel (Harry) five years of age.

After what seemed an eternity—but calculated by Bashya to be about three hours—silence settled on the scene. She waited what she estimated to be another two hours before venturing out through one of the secret accesses. It was night but she could make out the destroyed upper structure of the Erkus house. She directed the children to stay in the cellar while she reconnoitered the burnt shell, finding a few bodies so badly burnt that she could not identify any of them. She then ventured further into the nearby shtetl seeking other survivors. Finding none she then reasoned that her best option was to try to reach her relatives in Kiev, 200 miles to the northeast. This small, attractive 25 year-old woman, marshaled her indomitable will and, stocking up with provisions and collecting her children, set out on a long, uncertain journey through perilous terrain.

They traveled mostly at night to avoid the armies and brigands pillaging the land. Bashya was surprised that not all the peasants in the Ukrainian countryside were anti-Semitic. Some, in fact, were kind and helpful! Nevertheless, she reasoned that it was best to go slowly and carefully in attempting to reach her distant destination. She ordered the children to stay hidden in the fields while she approached a farmhouse to determine its inhabitants’ degree of hostility or friendliness. And, only if there was no hostility did she move to reclaim her children. And in this way, farmhouse-to-farmhouse, village-to-village, moving mostly at night, making just a few miles per night did Bashya Friedman Erkus and her two children, Manya and Hershel finally arrive in Kiev, four months after leaving Odessa!

She was pleasantly surprised that some of her cousins had escaped the brunt of attacks against Jews in Kiev, although their small abode had been thoroughly savaged by street gangs. Still it was possible to provide some accommodations for Bashya and her children, albeit for a limited time only. So after a few weeks, she and her children were on the road again; or more precisely, making their way through fields and farmlands. Repeating the strategy that served them well thus far, they traveled the remaining 300 plus miles to Nesvizh, now in a reconstituted Poland. It took them another five months. And so, nine months—and 550 miles—later (after leaving Odessa) they arrived in Nesvizh, astonishing the Jewish community there as ghosts out of the recent past! It was not only an uncertain journey, but an incredible one as well—one that Mary would never want to talk about and one that Harry could only recall as having taken a very long time and estimating the distance to be over 1500 miles. For a child of five, at the time, it might just as well have been 1500 miles!

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MOLLIE’S SUICIDE

Just as Nathan and Mollie were shocked by the news of his first family’s resurrection, so was Bashya shocked to learn that her husband had remarried and by the New York Rabbis issuing a get (divorce) retroactive to the presumed date of her death. She and the children were supposed to have joined Nathan in America in 1914. It was now 1921 and it was clearly evident that could not be the case. She and her children would have to make the best of it in Poland. At first she did receive a modest sum of money—while Nathan was working in the Holland Tunnel. But when he lost that job the money slowed to a trickle and finally to nothing for months at a time. Nathan finally found another job as a presser in a clothing factory at a fraction of his former wages working in the tunnel. Bashya’s brothers (especially Moishe Chaim, the oldest) helped wherever and whenever they could. And having her mother near provided some emotional support. The social and political environment was also unsettled because the Russian Civil war continued raging and Poland used that opportunity to grab a huge slice of communist Russian territory on Poland’s eastern border. And so Bashya and her children attempted to settle into a very uncertain future.

Meanwhile, back in America, the Arcus family on the Lower East Side of NYC was faring only marginally better. Nathan’s job as a presser provided him with barely enough to take care of his American family. Yet he felt enough guilt to send money periodically to Nesvizh. The quarrels between Nathan and Mollie increased and intensified. Evidently some of the arguments were about Mollie’s resistance to sex and having other children. How else explain the nearly five-year gap between my younger sister Henny and me, since Henny was born on July 16, 1926.

For a time, things calmed down at 65 Willet Street in NY’s Lower East Side. At least there was a lessening of quarrels between my mother and father. But one day, while with my mother as she was hanging out clothes on the roof—still slick from a recent rainfall—I slipped and fell upon some broken glass severely cutting my right hand just below the wrist. Fortunately there was a doctor on the ground floor of our tenement building and he attended to my wound. But my mother was distraught. For her this was a replay of the accidental death of her first-born, Solly. And all the old ghosts came back into her life! She became increasingly withdrawn and nervous. And this was evident not only to us in the household, but also to the neighbors on Willet Street. Meshugeneh (crazy) Mollie became the butt of jokes and the object of derision, by Jewish boys yet, one compassionate but disgusted candy store operator lamented.

I remember the violent arguments between my parents resuming and my mother retreating to a dark corner of the railroad flat, moaning and rocking back and forth, obviously in torment. Was she feeding on her guilt over the death of her family in the Kharkov pogrom? After all, she did come to America in place of her mother. Or was it over the death of Solly? Or over her marriage to Nathan while his first wife and children were still alive? Over having yet another child when the other two were still bastards—at least in her mind?

I remember lying in bed with my brother Alex and hearing raised voices through tissue-thin walls talking about strange people in strange places suffering terribly because of strange things called pogroms. And I remember Papa shouting to convince Mama: None of that is your fault! Or my fault! It was bashert! (preordained). And even today, I wonder if Nathan Louis Arcus believed it was bashert when Mollie Srulowitz Arcus threw herself off a tenement roof somewhere on Orchard Street on February 8, 1929? She was thirty-five and a half years old, Alex nine, I was seven and a half, and Henny was two and a half.

ORPHANAGES

For a few months our father tried to hold his second family together by having his sister, Tante Sonia look after our sister Henny and arranging with a local delicatessen proprietor to feed Alex and me. But finally, in April 1929 he placed Al and me in the Hebrew National Orphan Home located in the isolated, rural outskirts of Yonkers, and Henny in the Israel Orphan Asylum for infants and toddlers in Manhattan.

The trip to the HNOH took over three hours. The Home’s social worker, Claire Fiance, accompanied us on the tortuous journey, involving taking an IRT train to the end of its line, a street car to another end of the line and then walking the remaining two and half miles along an unpaved street called Tuckahoe Road until we finally came to the massive, four-storied, square, red-brick building which formerly housed the German Odd Fellows Home. Orphans? Odd Fellows? Germans? None of that was very reassuring, and why so far out from the city? Ms. Fiance explained that it had been determined that fresh, country air was healthier than dank city, ghetto air. So, on this bleak April day, it rained all the way on our trek so that Tuckahoe Road was a sea of mud. And we boys took turns asking our father: Papa why are you putting us here? Papa, why can’t we stay home? Papa I’m wet and cold! Papa I can’t walk in all this mud can you carry me?

The separation of father and sons at the orphanage was heartrending and the trip back to an empty apartment for our father must have been intolerable. It might have occurred to him at this time that all these problems could be resolved by the simple plan of bringing Bashya and her children from Poland, and then we kids could be taken from our orphanages to join one, united (if not reunited) happy family! The Arcuses and the Erkuses together at last!

Apparently Bashya agreed to such a plan for Papa began telling Alex and me that our stay at HNOH would be very brief because our new mother would soon be coming from Poland with our older sister and brother. Talk about total surprises! But again Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott intervened with their respective predictions. Assuming the availability of monies, Manya and Herschel (soon to be Mary and Harry) could come over as soon as they obtained their visas and passports. But hadn’t Bashya come to America a number of years ago? Rather than wait for this conundrum to be resolved, Mary and Harry agreed to come over, this time without their mother (December 29,1929) and the process of resolving Bashya’s dilemma undertaken in earnest. It would take another three years before she would finally arrive in America (November, 1932)—a good eighteen years after originally planned! In the