A Time to Tell

Reminiscences prior to those fateful days are few and probably the same as those of most children.  My birthplace, Bad Nauheim, Germany, was and continues to be fairly well known. It is a health resort that has attracted the rich and famous.  Its mineral springs are allegedly beneficial to the heart and people continuously flock to bathe in those natural waters.  Thus it was no accident that my father practiced as a heart specialist there for fifteen years.  Among the many hotels, which hosted the bathers, there was a kosher establishment named Adler's and at least one synagogue, which still evoke dim memories in my mind.  My father was active in its administration and I remember that services were held during the year in one building, with another for summer use. Perhaps larger facilities were required to accommodate the many tourists that flocked there during that season.

Life is a series of choices and there was such a weekly decision that I had to make, even at such a tender age.  At the conclusion of the Shabbat (Sabbath) evening services, two lines of children formed.  One row received little cups of wine, which were filled from the Kiddush (the prayer sanctifying the Sabbath) cup over which the Cantor had chanted the blessings.  The other line received a blessing from the rabbi who placed his hands over each child’s bowed head.  I remember this little prayer taking no more than a split second and I always wondered how many good wishes the rabbi could possibly have squeezed into so short a moment. The weekly blessing which I received from my parents seemed to be much longer.

So I stood between the two lines with a serious problem.  Do I opt for the sweet wine or prefer the spiritual gift?  I must have been quite resourceful because I worked out a strategy whereby I would receive both!  My plan was to get as close to the front of one line as possible and, immediately upon receiving that prize, I darted for the other. Thus I learned how to try for the best of both worlds.  What I cannot recall is which line I entered first.  Perhaps it is better that I forgot.

My brother, Hans, and I were sent away from the house during the hours that my sister, Marga, was born.  Apparently the stork theory was extant even then because I remember my father explaining that if one placed sugar cubes soaked in a blue dye on a windowsill, the stork will deliver a boy. If, on the other hand,  the sugar cubes are dyed a pink hue, a girl is to be expected.  I don't recall the color of the sugar cubes that were placed upon the windowsill, but the stork clearly decided upon a girl.

Of interest is the fact that the local Jewish children were not delivered in the hospital, but in the home. This may not have been purely by choice. The ferocity of anti-Semitism in Germany was growing by the day. It is quite probable that Jews may not have been welcome in hospitals, barbaric as this sounds.  Hitler was already in power and I remember my mother's shock and anger when she was told by a clerk in a store, "I do not wait upon Jews."

I must retract the term "anti-Semitism." It bestows a degree dignity upon the perpetrator, creating the impression that he is guided by a certain philosophy against Semites.  Actually and sadly, there are many Arab Semites who could be termed anti-Semites, were this term not an oxymoron.  No, I prefer to refer to these individuals as Jew haters, plain and simple.  Their sole agenda is hatred and their venom is rarely based upon any facts.  They are propelled by a need to lift their low self-image and they accomplish this goal by berating others.  More often than not, they are not the most pleasant people in any aspect of their lives.