Connecting the Holocaust and an Unsuspecting Family from the Bronx

By Larry Peterson

            Mom died from leukemia way back in 1961. She had just turned 40, and, at the time, there were no cures, chemo, or bone-marrow transplants. She was dead within six months of diagnosis.

her daughter's death was more than she could bare

            We lived in the Bronx in a five-floor walk-up. Grandma lived on the fifth floor, and we were down on the third. Grandma gave up her apartment and moved in with us downstairs. I guess it was to help take care of the “little ones”; I was 15, Carolyn was 13, Danny was 11, Bobby was six, and Johnny was two). But, it was not a good thing. Grandma hated Dad because, for some bizarre reason, she decided he had killed her daughter and she let him know it every chance she had. The death of her Sweet Lily (Mom’s name) was more than she could bare.

            I have no explanation for this, nor will I ever. None of us do. Hey, we were kids, what did we know? Grandma’s grief was so intense that Dad could not handle it. It was just the way it was. Dad solved the problem by avoiding Grandma as much as possible. He began hanging out in the local saloons, which gave Grandma a real reason to yell at him.

we said the Our Father together

            On March 8, 1963, Grandma had a massive stroke. I saw her standing, seemingly twisted in a body spasm, and I managed to drag her to the bed. I held her in my arms as she summoned the strength to say an Act of Contrition. Looking me straight in the eye, she slowly slurred each word. Then we said “Our Father” together. My praying and crying sounded like a blubbering mess of disconnected syllables. Carolyn was standing there with tiny waterfalls rolling down her cheeks, and Danny stood there, just staring. Dad was in the other room with Bobby and Johnny, waiting for the priest to arrive. He was not crying.

            When we finished praying, she closed her eyes and became comatose. Father Quirk arrived and administered Last Rites. She died a few hours later in the hospital. That moment is etched forever in my brain’s permanent 3D memory section.

            What does the Holocaust have to do with all of that? Well, the first question that must be asked is, who was Grandma’s husband, our Grandpa? We were kids and had never asked. We never thought about it. That’s what kids do—take things for granted.

"Did grandma have a husband?"

            But then Mom was gone, Grandma was gone, and Dad was drinking heavily. He died two years later. We had never asked, “Hey, where is Grandpa”? or “Did Grandma have a husband?” Just like that, it was too late. As adults, we never found out until several years ago. It seemed that fate caught us by surprise through Facebook.

            I received a message on Facebook (kudos to Facebook) from none other than my long-lost cousin, Vicki, Uncle Larry’s oldest. She had been on a “quest” and located me. Like dominoes perfectly colliding, my sister and brothers, and cousins all reconnected. Now, to the point of this essay.

            Our Mom had a brother, my namesake, Uncle Larry. He had been in the 8th Army Air-Force during World War II. On New Year’s Eve, 1943, his plane was shot down on a bombing mission. He was captured and survived the war as a POW in the infamous Stalag 17. One time I asked him about his dad. He told me, “He died.” He never said another word. That was that. Then we grew up, our folks were gone, and we lost contact with Uncle Larry and our cousins as we began our individual lives. But, his oldest daughter, Vicki, our cousin, had never let the mystery stay unsolved.

seemingly implausible but accurate

             What follows may seem implausible, but it is accurate, and we have the documentation to confirm it. Vicki had been wondering about the missing Grandpa too. Her dad told her the same thing he had told me. Now he was gone. But she never stopped wondering and began a journey into the world of genealogy. Lo and behold, she unraveled the mystery of the missing Grandpa.

            Our grandma was an immigrant from Austria. A devout Catholic who never missed Mass, she married a man named Isidore Schul. This was our grandfather. He was a Hebrew man from Krakow. Our maternal grandfather was Jewish. Shocker of shockers, the immigration papers and naturalization papers all confirmed this. He made it to America in 1910.

            We cannot understand how these two unlikely people connected, got married and had two children, one of them our mother. But it was so, and that mystery will never be unraveled. We dubbed our long, lost, mysterious grandfather Grandpa Irv. He and Grandma split up when Mom and Uncle Larry were young children. Grandpa Irv died in the Bronx in 1965. We will never know more than what has been  revealed here.

            But here is the thing. Cradle Catholics, we are also 25% Jewish. Grandpa Irv was the only one in his family to get to America. His parents’ names were Simon and Regina Schul. Simon and Regina are our great-grandparents. We do not know if they died in the Holocaust or before it began. Still, from what Vicki discovered, Grandpa Irv’s siblings most likely died in Ravensbruck,ot it might have been Auschwitz.

For me, the Holocaust is now humbling and deeply personal

            This connection humbles me. Jesus, the Blessed Mother, St. Joseph, their relatives, St. Ann, St. Joachim, and the apostles, etc., were all Jewish. They were also the first Catholics. Grandpa Irv’s hometown is Krakow. My siblings and I are connected to it all, and the Holocaust has a whole new meaning for us, albeit in different ways.I know it is part of who I am. I also know that my “own people” were killed there. And, it is personal.

SHALOM

Copyright©Larry Peterson 2023