His father changed their name from Goldenberg to Raas. Even though they lived in New Jersey. Hitler might come -- we should not be so obviously Jewish. In fact, we shouldn't be Jewish at all. Let's be Catholic. The local priest seems very nice. Okay, maybe a little too strict. Let's be Episcopalian. Like Catholics but with sex. Even the priests can have a little. The Goldenberglocks in us said "just right."
He joined the Reserves, knowing that if we went to war, he would have to go. Pearl Harbor came and his number was up. Appointed navigator instead of pilot, a huge disappointment. Based in England, flying to Germany over and over and over again.
Until the last time.
They both knew, somehow. He sent her an antique candelabra and letters every day - even the last one. Sent right before he was shot down over Merseburg.
Merseburg was full of oil fields. Oil was good for Germany and bad for us. We had to crush them, bomb them, make the oil go away. Not like today, when we bomb anything that gets in the way of us having oil.
His squadron was shot down and not a single man came back. Hitler's team must've been so proud. Our team was so devestated they had to send the base crew all the way back to the US.
She collapsed suddenly at a Christmas party, not knowing why. She took to her bed for over a week, until she heard the news. Technically married for four and a half years she was now another war widow. And no body to show for it. Not for two more years. But she had their toddler son, my father.
It was my grandfather's duty. His moral obligation. We had been attacked on American soil, and it was unthinkable that he would not participate in the retaliation. And so he did something. He gave his life, and our family history, to his country.
The strange thing is that no one told me about our Jewish bloodlines until I was grown up. It was as if that part of our history was buried, swept under the mat. Were we embarrassed? I don't know. We changed teams and then acted as if we'd never been on the original team.
What would life have been like for me as Karen Goldenberg? What would my dad be like if he had grown up with a father?
So many questions and all I have left from my grandfather is a couple of old pictures and this story - fragments of history. And the irony is that my grandmother tried to tell me all of their stories when I was a young girl and didn't know enough to care. Now that I'm old enough to understand the value of a family history, she is too old to remember the stories.
Poignant. As ever.
Posted by: LG | 11/12/2011 at 04:01 AM
My father escaped Russia at the turn of the last century. I heard the stories from my mother and his parents. Causacs riding into town with sabers drawn, herding Jews out of town. He grew up to be a doctor (what else) and served at the battle of Quadacanal in the Navy. My mother and he were divorced when I was young so I never got a chance to talk to him about all of that and of course he is gone now.
I think WWIi was the end of the close knit family. People moved away from each other. History was lost. Names were changed. Sad in a way.
Posted by: Michael | 11/13/2011 at 10:59 AM