Let’s face it. I’m preoccupied. My life is full of the every day chores, tasks, joys and frustrations that come with being a parent, managing a household and working at a job. I don’t have a lot of time to think big thoughts, let alone protest the many injustices in the world. Like many in […]
Moved my dad to his own site!
If you’re following my dad’s story, please make your way over to http://www.alexlevy.net where I have set up his own blog.
The Truth About His Mother?
A few years ago on my 40th birthday, I had this conversation with my dad. I was so struck by my dad’s responses that I transcribed it word for word:
JB: Was your mother ever happy?
AL: Yes, she was very lively and happy, but she had a very hard life and that toughened her to the world.
JB: Do you remember a time when she was happy?
AL: No
Flatmates & Friends
he people with whom we now shared the apartment were an interesting lot. Naturally, there was Ferdi, as well as his best friend, Max Fingerhut and his nephew Norbert. There were also a few others whose names and faces I’ve completely forgotten.
The reason I remember Norbert is that he was a boy my own age who became a good friend, especially while we lived in hiding in the “couvent.”
And of course, there were Fella Flamberg and her mother, Bertha, my mother’s best friend during the war years. Bertha was not really her first name, but it served. Fella and her mother had been passengers on the St. Louis. For those who don’t know, the
Belgium 1938-1940
I have absolutely no memory of what happened in the next two years, with only occasional recall of particular incidents after that. I remember a small apartment over a butcher shop run by a man named Kornberg. I liked going down to his store to watch him make sausage. I also liked the several cats that wandered about the place. The combination of meat and cats was a good one.
I also remember a terrible fight between my parents, caused by I know not what, but it had been terribly hot that night, and somehow balloons attached to my crib burst. Don’t know if that had anything to do with the fight between my parents, but I clearly remember my father hitting my mother, and her head striking a delft-like, white and blue ceramic
Who Was Aunt Trudi?
If you read my dad’s post yesterday, you may have seen the picture he posted of his mother walking with her lover Ferdi and her sister, Aunt Trudi. I had never heard of Aunt Trudi before I started this project. The aunt I had head the most about was always Tante Paula, whom I knew my father had lived with for some time as a boy.
But Aunt Trudi was, apparently, my father’s “favorite” aunt, the one he designated as his “godmother” in order to fit in with his Catholic friends
Setting Up This Site!
It’s nice that the first WordPress post is automatically titled Hello World! I’ve been creating web sites for 15 years, but never one for myself. I’m going to be monkeying around here over the next couple of weeks and see what I can do for myself. Stay tuned!