“Secrets of Washington Heights: Richard Kalfus Uncovers Hidden Stories of His Past”
On Friday services, I stand with others who chant the Kaddish,
mourning for the dead.
I– for the grandparents who died in Gurs, a French Nazi
Concentration Camp.
I– for the Communist uncle shot in the streets of Karlsruhe by Nazi thugs.
I for the Polish uncle, sister-in-law and their two young children
who died in a cattle car on the road to Auschwitz.
I finally enter the memory of our old apartment with a view of the
majestic George Washington Bridge–
a symbol of the freedom America accorded my parents and me as their
son
who could live, without the threat of starvation, isolation and gas
chambers.
