Monday, August 04, 2008

A Girl With an Apple.

Post 491 ~ ~ ~ Tuesday, 5th August, 2008.

Hello my friends ~~ I trust all is well with you all
as it is with me. Shopping day today, so all stocked
up again.

There are a couple of birthdays coming up folks.
My friend, Margaret has hers on the 7th August.
And on the 8th August my friend Embee who is the
husband of Chris B. Hi Chris, and a very Happy
Birthday to Margaret and Mike.

I have a nice story to follow, which I
was wise enough to type last night. It is long, but
well worth the read ~ and it's a true story.

I hope you enjoy it, as I did.

(This is a true story and you can find out more by
Googling Herman Rosenblat. He was Bar Mitzvahed at age 75.)

August 1942. Piotrkow, Poland.

The sky was gloomy that morning as we waited anxiously.
All the men, women and children of Piotrkow's Jewish
ghetto had been herded into a square.

Word had gotten around that we were being moved. My
father had only recently died from typhus, which had run
rampant through the crowded ghetto. My greatest fear was
that our family would be separated.

"Whatever you do," Isidore, my eldest brother, whispered
to me, "don't tell them your age. Say you're sixteen."

I was tall for a boy of 11, so I could pull it off. That way I
might be deemed valuable as a worker.

An SS man approached me, boots clicking against the cobble-
stones. He looked me up and down, and then asked my age.

"Sixteen," I said. He directed me to the left, where my three
brothers and other healthy young men already stood.

My mother was motioned to the right with the other woman,
children, sick and elderly people.

I whispered to Isidore, "Why?" He didn't answer.

I ran to Mama's side and said I wanted to stay with her. "No,"
she said sternly, "Get away. Don't be a nuisance. Go with
your brothers."

She had never spoken so harshly before. But I understood.
She was protecting me. She loved me so much that, just this
once, she pretended not to. It was the last I ever saw of her.

My brothers and I were transported in a cattle car to Germany.

We arrived at the Buchenwald concentration camp one night
weeks later and were led into a crowded Barrack. The next
day, we were issued uniforms and identification numbers.

"Don't call me Herman anymore," I said to my brothers. "Call
me 94983." I was put to work in the camp's crematorium,
loading the dead into a hand-crank elevator.

I too felt dead. Hardened, I had become a number.

Soon, my brothers and I were sent to Schlieben, one of
Buchenwald's sub-camps near Berlin.

One morning, I thought I heard my mother's voice.
"Son" she said softly and clearly, "I am going to send
you an angel."
Then I woke up. Just a dream. A beautiful dream.

But in this place there could be no angels. There was only
work. And hunger. And fear.

A couple of days later, I was walking around the camp,
around the barracks, near the barbed-wire fence where the
guards could not easily see. I was alone.

On the other side of the fence, I spotted someone, a little
girl with light, almost luminous curls. She was half hidden
behind a birch tree.

I glanced around to make ssure no one saw me. I called to
her softly in German, "Do you have something to eat?"
She did not understand.

I inched closer to the fence and repeated the question in Polish.
She stepped forward. I was thin and gaunt, with rags wrapped
around my feet, but the girl looked unafraid. In her eyes, I saw
life.

She pulled an apple from her woolen jacket and threw it over
the fence. I grabbed the fruit and, as I started to run away, I
heard her say faintly, "I'll see you tomorrow."

I returned to the same spot by the fence at the same time
every day. She was always there with something for me to
eat - a hunk of bread or, better yet, an apple.

We didn't dare speak or linger. To be caught would mean
death for us both.
I didn't know anything about her, just a kind farm girl,
except that she understood Polish. What was her name?
Why was she risking her ife for me?

Hope was in such short supply, and this girl on the other
side of the fence gave me some, as nourishing in its way
as the bread and apples.

Nearly seven months later, my brothers and I were crammed
into a coal car and shipped to Theresienstadt camp in
Czechoslovakia,

"Don't return," I told the girl that day. "We're leaving.
I turned towards the barracks and didn't look back, didn;t
even say good-bye to the little girl whose name I'd never
learned, the girl with the apples.

We were in Theresienstadt for three months. The war was
winding down and Allied forces were closing in, yet my fate
seemed sealed.

On May 10, I was scheduled to die in the gas chamber at 10 AM

In the quiet of dawn, I tried to prepare myself. So many times
death seemed ready to claim me, but somehow I'd survived.
Now, it was over.

I thought of my parents. At least, I thought, we'd be reunited.
But at 8 AM there was a commotion. I heard shouts, and saw
people running every which way through camp. I caught up
with my brothers.

Russian troops had liberated the camp! The gates swung open.
Everyone was running so I did too. Amazingly all of my
brothers had survived. I'm not sure how. But I knew that the
girl with the apples had been the key to my survival.

In a place where evil seemed triumphant, one person's good--
ness had saved my life, had given me hope in a place where
there was none.

My mother had promised to send me an angel, and the angel
had come.

Eventually I made my way to England where I was sponsored
by a Jewish charity, put up in a hostel with other boys who had
survived the Holocaust and trained in electronics. Then I came
to America, where my brother Sam had already moved.

I served in the US Army during the Korean War, and returned
to New York City after two years. By August 1957 I'd opened
my own electronics repair shop. I was starting to settle in.

One day, my friend, Sid who I knew from England called me.
"I've got a date. She's got a Polish friend. Let's double date."
A blind date ? Nah, that wasn't for me.
But Sid kept pestering, and a few days later we headed up to
the Bronx to pick up his date and her friend Roma.

I had to admit, for a blind date this wasn't so bad. Roma was a
nurse at a Bronx hospital. She was kind and smart. Beautiful
too, with swirling brown curls and green almond-shaped eyes
that sparkled with life.

The four of us drove out to Coney Island. Roma was easy to
talk to, easy to be with. Turned out she was wary of blind dates
too. We were both just doing our friends a favor. We took a
stroll on the boardwalk enjoying the salty Atlantic breeze, and
then had dinner by the shore. I couldn't remember having a
better time. We piled back into Sid's car, Roma and I sharing
the back seat.

As European Jews who had survived the war, we were aware
that much had been left unsaid between us. She broached the
subject, "Where were you?" she asked softly. during the war?"
"The camps," I said. The terrible memories still vivid, the
irreparable loss. I had tried to forget. But you can never forget.

She nodded. "My family was hiding on a farm in Germany, not
far from Berlin," she told me. "My father knew a priest, and he
got us Aryan papers."

I imagined how she must have suffered too, fear, a constant
companion. And yet here we were, both survivors, in a new world.

"There was a camp next to the farm," Roma continued, "I saw a
boy there and I would throw him apples every day."

What an amazing coincidence that she had helped some other boy.
"What did he look like?"
"He was tall, skinny and hungry. I must have seen him every day
for six months."

My heart was racing. I couldn't believe it. This couldn't be.
"Did he tell you one day not to come back because he was leaving
Schlieben?" Roma looked up in amazement, "Yes."
"That was me."

I was raedy to burst with joy and awe, flooded with emotions.
I couldn't believe it. My angel.

"I'm not letting you go," I said to Roma. And in the back seat of
the car on a blind date, I proposed to her. I didn't want to wait.

"You're crazy," she said. But she invited me to meet her parents
for Shabbat dinner the following week.

There was so much I looked forward to learning about Roma,
but the most important things I always knew; her steadfastness
her goodness. For many months, in the worst of circumstances,
she had come to the fence and given me hope. Now that I'd
found her again, I could never let her go.

That day, she said yes. And I kept my word. After nearly fifty
years of marriage, two children and three grandchildren, I
have never let her go.

Herman Rosenblat of Miami Beach, Florida. U.S.

This story is being made into a movie called The Fence.
This e mail is intended to reach 40 million people world-wide.
Join us and be a link in the memorial chain and help us
distribute it around the world.
Please send it to 10 people you know and ask them to continue
the memorial chain. It wil only take a minute to pass it along.
Thanks.
<><>

Sorry it was so long, but now I just have to find jokes.
Actually the first one comes from Mike, Embee. Thanks.

The Senile Virus which affects those of us born before 1961.
Symptoms of the Senile Virus.

1. Causes you to send the same e-mail twice.
2. Causes you to send blank e-mails.
3. Cuases you to send e-mail to the wrong person.
4. Causes you to send e-mail back to the person who
sent it to you.
5. Causes you to hit " SEND" before you've finished the
e-mail. Remember?

I don't remember if I sent you this one
Funny I don't remember being absent minded.

God grant me the senility to forget the people I never
liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones
I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference. Now that
I'm older, here's what I've discovered :


1. I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it.
2. My wild oats have turned into prunes and All Bran.
3. I finally got my head together; now my body is falling
apart.
4. Funny, I don't remember being absent minded.
5. Funny, I don't remember being absent minded.
6. All reports are in; life is now officially unfair.
7. If all is lost, where is it?
8. It is easier to get older than it is to get wiser.
9. Funny, I don't remember being absent minded.
10. Some daysyou're the dog; some days you're the hydrant.
11. I wish the buck stopped here; I sure could use some.
12. Kids in the back seats cause accidents.
13. Accidents in the back seat cause kids.
14. Funny, I don't remember being absent minded.
15. It's hard to make a comeback when you haven't been
anywhere.
16. The only time the world beats a path to your door is when
you're in the bathroom.
17. If God wanted me to touch my toes, He would have put
them on my knees.
18. When I'm finally holding all the cards, why does everyone
decide to play chess.
19. It's not hard to meet expenses. . .they're everywhere.
20. The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.
21. These days I spend a lot of time thinking about the
hereafter. I go somewhere to get something and then
wonder what I'm here after
22. Funny, I don't remember being absent minded.
<><> Some of those are too true to be funny.

One from my son Geoff ~ ~

Why men don't write advice columns. . . .

Dear Ted, I hope you can help me. The other day I
set off for work leaving my husband in the house
watching TV as usual. I hadn't gone more than a mile
down the road when my engine conked out and
shuddered to a halt.

I walked back home to get my husband's help, but when
I got there I coudn't believe my eyes. He was in the bed-
room with a neighbor lady in a compromising position.
I am 32 and my husband is 34 and we have been married
for twelve years.

When I confronted him, he tried to make out that he went
into the garden and heard a lady scream, and came to her
rescue but found her unconscious. He'd carried the woman
back to our house, laid her in bed, and began mouth to
mouth. When she awoke she immediately began thanking
him and kissing him and he was attempting to break free
when I came back. But when I asked him why neither of
them had any clothes on, he broke down and admitted he
had been having an affair for the past six months.

I told him to stop it or I would leave him. He was let go from
his job six months ago and he has been feeling increasingly
depressed and worthless. I love him very much, but ever
since I gave him the ultimatum he has become increasingly
distant. I don't feel I can get through to him anymore.
Can you please help? Sincerely, Susie Fox.


Dear Susie,
A car stalling after being driven a short distance can be caused
by a variety of faults. Start by checking that there is no debris
in the fuel line. If it is clear, check the clips holding the vacuum
lines onto the the inlet manifold for air leaks, If none of these

approaches solves the problem, it could be that the fuel pump
itself is faulty, causing low delivery pressure to the carburettor
float chamber. I hope this helps. Ted.
<><>

Never Argue With a Woman. Thank you Patty for this one.

One morning, the husband returns the boat to their lakeside
cottage after several hours fishing and decides to take a nap.
Although not familiar with the lake, the wife decides to take
the boat out. She motors a short diistance, anchors, puts her
feet up and begins to read her book.

The peace and solitude are magnificent.
Along comes a Fish and Game Warden in his boat. He pulls
up alongside the woman and says, "Good morning, Ma'am.
What are you doing?"

"Reading a book," she replies (thinking, "Isn't that obvious?")
"You're in a Restricted Area," he informs her.

"I'm sorry, officer, but I'm not fishing. I'm reading."
"Yes , but I see you have all the equipment. For all I know you
could start at any moment. I'll have to take you in and write
you up."

"If you do that, I'll have to charge you with sexual assault,"
says the woman.

"But I haven't even touched you," says the Game Warden.

"That's true, but you have all the equipment. For all I know
you could start at any moment."

"Have a nice day ma'am," and he left.

MORAL :
Never argue with a woman who reads.
It's likely she can also think.
<><>

Time to close for now, Sorry it is such a long post.
Look after yourselves and each other and keep
smiling. Love and best wishes to you all.
Cheers, Merle.

Post 491 ~ ~ ~ Tuesday, 5th August, 2008.
<><><>

10 comments:

Patty said...

Loved the story of the couple finding one an other again. I've read that one several different times and like it each time I read it. Thanks for sharing.

As for the car breaking down and husband found in bed with neighbor, is the woman stupid? He wouldn't get a second chance at my house. LOL

Rosezilla (Tracie Walker) said...

Loved the girl with the apples story! Very touching.

I was born nearly the end of 1960, so i almost missed some of the computer glitches! didn't quite make it to 1961 though.

The game warden and the woman reading reminded me of something that happened to my youngest son recently. he had his learner's permit but hadn't gotten his regular license. But the insurance company wanted to charge him for it anyway, because he could drive when he shouldn't, so he should have to pay in case he ever did! I said well when I go in to a store, I could buy everything in there, but should i have to pay for it if I don't? They said well he could reach over and grab the wheel when someone else is driving and cause an accident. I wish I could of thought of something like that woman in the boat did!

Carole Burant said...

Hi Merle:-)

Just got back from visiting my sons and now trying to catch up with everybody! I so enjoyed the true story of Herman Rosenblat...how wonderful that he and the girl would find each other again years later. As they say, God certainly can work in mysterious ways!!

Also enjoyed the jokes...you always manage to make me smile and laugh:-) I have to remember the Fish and Game warden story! lol

Take care dear friend. xoxo

Jim said...

Hi Merle -- You are doing great tonight! That Jewish fellow and the lady was nice, I haven't heard it before.
My favorite is the advice column. Mine is getting too serious, I wonder if my 'fans' would complain if I posted it as a Q&A?
Or something like it,
Cheers,
..
Oh yes, I'll wish Margaret a Happy Birthday on Thursday. She still looks for comments on her blog?
..

Puss-in-Boots said...

Girl with an Apple...what a lovely story, Merle. Some amazing stories have come out of those dreadful concentration camps.

Have a nice day.

Hugs.

Dave said...

Darn you Merle! First you make me cry, then laugh.... *S*

Jeanette said...

Hi Dear Merle,
I thought the story of Herman Rosenblat was long but well worth the read, a sad story with a nice ending...Good jokes "Never argue with a women" Hehehe... Stay well Merle hope to see you soon...Love janxxxxxx

Bear Naked said...

Merle that is the most beautiful story I have heard in a long time.
Thank you for sharing it with us.

Bear((( )))

Gigi Ann said...

Merle,

Enjoyed the story about H.R. and the apple throwing girl. So, nice that they celebrated 50 yrs together...

I always get a chuckle from your jokes...

Enjoy your week...

Ann

audrey` said...

Thank you so much for typing "The Fence" for us to read.
It's so touching.
The hope, the help, the acceptance... =)