Uncle Harry, Uncle Harry and Uncle Harry

My dear p.nut

You  made  it. Great. However, don't get complacent; that was the
easy bit. The next seventy or eighty years are harder.

Today I think I'll tell you a little about my two  Uncles  Harry.
Actually,  I had three Uncles Harry, which must be something of a
record and, at one time before she married my father,  my  mother
nearly  married a man called Harry. She broke off the engagement,
she said, because he was an inveterate gambler and something of a
playboy (big deal - the Playboy of North Street). Imagine that! I
might have been the son of a romantic or, at least, shady charac-
ter.  Or, more likely, all of us might not have happened. One Un-
cle Harry was married to my Aunt Julia, so he  wasn't  really  my
uncle.  We'll leave him out of it and I'll tell you about my real
Uncles Harry.

Before that, I want to tell you another  story  about  Lithuania.
The  South  African writer Dan Jacobson has just published a book
called 'Heschel's Kingdom'. Heschel Melamed was his  grandfather.
He  was  a  rabbi  in  the  small town of Varniai, which is 220km
north-west of Vilnius. In  1912,  he  travelled  to  America,  to
Cleveland,  to  look  the  place  over. He was considering moving
there with his family. However, he found that the Jewish communi-
ty  in  Cleveland  was  much too lax (by which I suppose he meant
what you and I might call 'relaxed')  about  the  way  they  kept
their  religion.  So he went home and decided to stay in Varniai.
What you might call a bad decision, I suppose, but it  must  have
been  the  right  one for him because he was able to practice his
orthodox religion in a way which satisfied him. Then, seven years
later, he died. In the words of Dan Jacobson (his grandson), 'the
kindest thing Heschel did for his wife and children  was  to  die
quite  suddenly,  at  the  age  of 53, leaving them penniless and
helpless'. Somehow, the family found their way to  South  Africa.
Jacobson  is  convinced  that  had  he remained alive, the family
would have remained in Varniai until 1941, when the Nazi invasion
of  Lithuania  occurred.  Only one in twenty Lithuanian Jews sur-
vived the war.

Why do I tell you this? Well, firstly to show you there are  many
fascinating  stories of random events which led to the happy sur-
vival and subsequent creation of very many people who  have  made
the  world  a better place (or, sometimes, a worse place: the man
who invented zyklon, the gas used in the Nazi gas chambers was  a
Jew  called  Fritz  Haber).  Jacobson is a good writer and he has
enriched many lives with his writing. He, you and I know that  he
might  not  have existed. But can we spare a thought for the mil-
lions who were not him, you or me; for those who were not allowed
to  be born. I think a lot about them and I wouldn't be surprised
to discover that I have more to say about them in later  letters.
The  second  reason  I  told you this story is so I can point out
that there were two occasions for the  Jews  to  leave  Lithuania
(after 600 years of continuous Jewish life there). For the first,
see my first letter to you.

Now, let's talk Harrys.

First, Uncle Harry Levin. He was the eldest member of my father's
family after Sydney died. In any case, Sydney was in Canada, so I
suppose Harry adopted the mantle of head of the family quite ear-
ly. Before I was born, he contracted a blood disease - pernicious
anaemia, but in later life he insisted it was leukaemia - and was
given only a short time to live.  This, by the way, is his story,
as he told it. At that time, the treatment was massive  doses  of
animal  liver  (I suppose he was talking about injections, but he
always gave the impression that he was being fed large quantities
of  meat, or 'liver extract', whatever that means - I always used
to think of it looking like Marmite). When he grew very weak  and
had  given  up hope of recovery, a sort of evangelical vegetarian
came to see him and suggested a very  different  treatment.  They
both  agreed  that he had little to lose, so he agreed. The first
thing this guy did was to put him on a  total  fast  (except  for
liquids) 'to get the poisons out of his body'. He also prescribed
regular enemas - a popular alternative therapy in  those  days  -
and, I believe, other bizarre treatments which you would consider
would just finish off a dying  man.   Well,  the  fact  is,  they
didn't.  He  recovered. And he remained a vegetarian for the rest
of his life, adopted alternative therapies, despising doctors and
conventional  medicine.  He  opened  a health food store which, I
suppose, must have been one of the first in the  country;  people
didn't  go  in for that sort of thing before the war. He became a
very prominent member of Leeds Vegetarian Society (wow!) and  be-
came its president. Big deal. But it does show you that when this
family gets hold of an idea, it doesn't let go.

His wife, Aunt Ann, was also a vegetarian. I dare  say  she  went
along  with it for his sake to start with, but I'm sure they were
both converted to this lifestyle. After  Harry  died  (he  had  a
coronary  thrombosis  whilst  seated alone in his parked car) she
continued as a strict vegetarian for the rest of  her  life.  She
outlived  him  by  many years and used to visit my mother twice a
week until her own death. Your father will remember  her  visits.
She  used  to phone every Saturday morning and ask if I'd collect
her during the afternoon. I always said yes.  We  used  to  laugh
about it because she must have known that, as I picked her up ev-
ery Saturday afternoon, it was unlikely that I'd forget.  But old
people  have  funny  ways,  don't they? One Saturday morning, she
didn't call, but no one noticed. I suppose  we  were  each  doing
different  things  and, if we thought about it all, we would each
have thought that someone else had spoken to her. When I went  to
collect  her  in  the  car,  we had to break down her door. She'd
fallen downstairs earlier in the day. She was rushed to hospital,
but she died before the next morning.

They had no children.

Within the time that I remembered them and (according to my moth-
er) even before that, Harry was closest in his family to  my  fa-
ther  and  Aunt  Jennie  (Barbara's mother). After Jennie went to
Canada, Harry and Ann socialised extensively with my  mother  and
father.  When I stopped going to football matches with my father,
Harry used to go with him; this was a better deal than going with
me,  because  Harry had a car (the only member of the family ever
to have one until I eventually got mine).  After my father  died,
Harry  told  me  that he'd really only gone to the football match
because my father enjoyed it. He certainly never went again. I've
got  to  say that I felt excluded from something; not, you under-
stand, that I had been excluded but, rather, that I had  excluded
myself.  There always seemed to be enough time in the future, but
there wasn't. I never really got to know my father and it  wasn't
his fault.

Uncle  Harry  Sherman was my mother's youngest brother. I've told
you before that, because of the lack of money, most children were
compelled  to leave school as early as possible and go to work so
they could contribute towards the  upkeep  of  the  family.  Now,
there  was  always a great respect for education. This was partly
because knowledge was seen to be a way out of the  poverty  trap,
but  mainly because knowledge is portable. The Jews have much ex-
perience of having to pack up quickly and go; we've just seen how
they  had good reason to do so quickly from just one place on two
occasions  within  two  generations.  Often,  as  with   refugees
throughout  the  world  and  throughout history, they didn't have
time to pack up and they had to leave most of  their  possessions
behind.  Knowledge, though, is something you can always take with
you. So if there ever is time and money to spare, it will be  in-
vested in education.

Uncle Harry was the only member of his family to receive any sort
of further education. As the youngest, he had the  benefit  of  a
family  who  were  able  to  afford this luxury. In fact, I don't
think it was the sort of further education that  we  would  think
was  all that great - he didn't go to university, but he did stay
at school as long as was possible.  'Grammar schools'  they  used
to call them. When he left school, he was the first member of his
family (boys or girls) who didn't go into the clothing  industry.
He  became  a  trainee  journalist, then a journalist, on a local
newspaper. Eventually, he married Aunt Renee and they  had  three
sons - Ivan, Roy and Alan.

Harry  (or  'Hishy'  as he was universally known - I suppose with
all those Harrys around they  had  to  distinguish  between  them
somehow; it seems to me that every Tom and Dick was called Harry)
had a remarkable aptitude with foreign languages.  You  know  how
some  people can pick up any musical instrument and just play it?
Well, Uncle Hishy could do that with foreign languages.  I  don't
know  how  many  languages  he spoke, but I know he was fluent in
French, German, Italian, Russian, Yiddish and Icelandic at least.

I'll tell you a story about how he came to speak Icelandic.  Dur-
ing the war, he was stationed for a period, in Iceland. No one in
his outfit could speak the language (not even him at that stage);
they  depended  on  the  local inhabitants to speak English. Now,
partly out of boredom and partly out of interest, he  decided  to
teach  himself  Icelandic  (I think he may have had a bit of help
from the natives). Soon, he became  indispensable  as  an  inter-
preter. So then he applied for his army certificate of competence
in Icelandic (I think it might have been worth a small pay rise).
He  was told he would have to take an examination. So he said OK.
Then they said he was the first person in the army to speak  Ice-
landic  and  they  didn't  have an examination. So he pointed out
that he was entitled to apply for a certificate of competence. So
they  asked  him  if  he could write an examination paper in Ice-
landic. He did. Then he took the examination. Then they asked him
to mark it. He did. I understand that he got a very high mark and
he got his certificate. You might like to know that the outfit he
was attached to, the branch which came up with this elegant solu-
tion to the problem, was British Military Intelligence.

When the war was over, he stayed in the army. By  this  time,  he
was  stationed  in  Germany and he remained with British Intelli-
gence. For many years after the end of the war, there was a  'de-
nazification'  programme where they tried to sort out the Germans
who were pro-actively involved in the war and the atrocities from
those  who weren't. Unsurprisingly, everyone claimed to be in the
latter group. Germany was partitioned into three  sectors  -  one
part  controlled  by the British, one by the Americans and one by
the Russians. The latter was, of course, East Germany. Berlin it-
self  is  situated in the middle of East Germany but the city was
partitioned into three sectors. So the British and American  sec-
tors of Berlin were situated in the middle of East Germany, which
was controlled by the Russians -  in  effect,  an  island.  After
they'd  finished  investigating Nazis, the army stayed on to deal
with East Germans and Russians who were thought  to  be  possible
spies  (Berlin  was a favoured entry point for spies to enter the
West and, I dare say, the East too).   Uncle  Harry  stayed  with
them  in  West  Berlin. We took your father caravanning in Berlin
when he was about six months old, so we could visit Harry and Re-
nee.  He  eventually  retired from the army, came home to live in
England, to a flat in Swiss Cottage. Oddly, he was the most reli-
gious  member  of  his  family - he had a great affinity with Ju-
daism, with Zionism and with Jewish culture  but,  until  he  re-
tired,  he  spent his whole life away from the ambience of Jewish
life. After a few years of retirement in London, he died.  He  is
now buried in Israel, which is what he wanted.

A  final thought about Dan Jacobson. When he visited Varniai with
his own son to seek out his grandfather's past, he could find not
a  trace of Heschel; not the synagogue of which he was rabbi, not
the house in which he lived, not even the  grave  or  gravestone.
That's  why  I  said in my first letter that it would be easy for
you to try to trace my family history; easy because it's impossi-
ble.

With much love

Granddaddy Sydney