Maurice Chandler - October 3, 1993
Conclusion
Nothing in the mail--no mention of you being a Jew?
No, but I know he knows. But he doesn't bring up that subject. And I was just in Warsaw, you know, three months ago, at a conference. I was trying--should I go, should I not go? And I, I wasn't emotionally ready for it, because it's a heavy trip for me.
To the Hidden Children?
Yeah. From there, you know, I took my daughter and my son-in-law and my wife and my other son-in-law, you know, and my other daughter, were in, in Israel at the same time for the Olympics. You know, Steve is in the--was in the basketball team. So, we visited them. From there, we went to Israel and we attended the Hidden Children also. You know, we had two conferences, one in Warsaw and one in Jerusalem.
But you didn't see Stashek?
No, I didn't see him. Now, now, I visited also three years ago--I visited the other Stashek that stole the birth certificate. He lives now--he's a retired man, lives in Tarnów and we had a nice reunion. I send him parcels too. We keep up, you know, every now and then I remember and I send them out packages or I'll put in a phone call and talk to them, and so on. In Warsaw, I asked him--well, I don't know what it means, I never found anybody from that building that survived or when they were taken away. I assume that they were taken to Treblinka because most of the Warsaw Jews were taken to Treblinka. When they went, I don't know. Then who do you ask--how do you ask? We had family--my grandmother had family in Paris--a sister and a brother-in-law and a bunch of, uh boys. I remember I used to see postcards from Paris with these sharp guys, you know, with the hats, you know the Parisian. And I searched when I lived in Paris, I searched for the--through the prefecture, not a trace of any of them. It's like a total wipe out. And I'll tell you, you know, one of the stories, I'll tell you how I made my way to America by remembering an address by heart of a visitor we had--from a distant relative from Tennessee. I photographed that label in my mind and I remembered it verbatim and I copied it and I wrote a letter, you know Nashville, Tennessee with all the n's and the s's and the e's and everything, I had it translated like in Polish the way it would be pronounced in Polish because I always had a liking, you know, to see--I read all kinds of signs wherever I see and it's like a hobby with me and that's how I remembered. And this is what started me with the American side.
Alright, we'll save it for...
Anyways...
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