Pitchi-Poi and Uncle Sam

My dear Lauren

I  expect  you  thought that I'd stopped writing to you. Well, as
this is the end of only your first year on earth, there are  lots
of  things  you won't know about yet. One of them is this: during
summer, people (other than your father) don't spend as much  time
in  front  of  their  computers  or writing letters or keeping in
touch with their loved ones as they do during  the  rest  of  the
year.  They go on holiday instead, or just sit around at home and
do nothing. Another thing you need to know about people is  that,
once they stop doing something for a few weeks, they find it very
difficult to start again. So that explains it.

I expect, too, that you think I think that you read my letters as
soon  as they reach you. Well, let me tell you that, though I may
be getting older and forgetful and foolish in my ideas, I am  not
so  far  out  of  my  tree  (late  twentieth century expression -
'trees' are what we used to have in parks and woods  and  forests
in  my  day;  what  with Monsanto, they may not exist when you do
read this) as to believe this. I know you won't read them  for  a
few  years  yet. However, I like to think that you will read them
whilst you are still young enough to remember what it was like to
be  really  young. So today I'm going to write about a children's
story.

I'm going to write about Pitchi-Poi. Many years ago,  in  Poland,
poor  parents who had nothing much to give to their children, in-
vented the land of Pitchi-Poi. By 'nothing much to give' I  don't
mean  toys  or  smart  clothes or bicycles or things like that; I
mean food or books or education or other things which we think of
as  essentials.  Pitchi-Poi is the magic land where everybody has
everything they need (and quite a lot of what they want, as well;
not  the  same thing by any means). If you've read Peter Pan yet,
then it's Never Never Land. It's the land at the end of the rain-
bow.  You  get the idea. Many stories were told about Pitchi- Poi
and many children's wishes were promised fulfilment eventually at
Pitchi-Poi. I know it's unfair to promise anything you can't ful-
fil, but I'm sure the children knew that Pitchi-Poi was  a  long,
long  way  off and, if these parents couldn't promise their chil-
dren the impossible, then they felt they could promise them noth-
ing. Anyway, who's to say what is impossible?

You  may  remember  that I wrote to you some time ago about Chaim
Chatchy who was a childhood (and lifelong) friend of my  grandfa-
ther  Abraham.  Now they were all brought up in the sort of envi-
ronment that needed a Pitchi-Poi and I'm  sure  there  were  many
times  when  their  parents made them Pitchi-Poi promises. For my
grandfather, I suppose  England  became  his  Pitchi-Poi.  Others
weren't so lucky.

Early  in  the 1940's at Drancy, which is a few miles from Paris,
the Germans established a concentration-cum-transit camp for  the
Jews of the area. There have been Jews in France for generations,
of course, and I dare say very many Polish/Russian Jews  migrated
there  around  the  same time as my grandparents came to England.
When Germany occupied France, the Jews of the region were  herded
into  Drancy.  From there, they were transported by train (cattle
trucks) to Auschwitz for extermination in the gas chambers.  Many
were children with their families. Many were children alone. What
a terrifying experience that must have been. Not that  they  knew
they were being transported to their deaths, but we know how bru-
tal was the treatment meted out to them on  the  way.  The  young
children were told by their parents (and, in the case of children
separated from their parents, by other adults) that they were go-
ing to Pitchi-Poi.

Amongst  the  families  who were separated, some individuals sur-
vived.  There was no way that they could know what  had  happened
to their mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, children, brothers or
sisters. So many spent the rest of their lives  searching.  There
were  only  three  ways the search could end. They could find the
missing person (a very rare occurrence, though it happened), they
could  find  evidence of the death of the missing person (perhaps
through a third person who had themselves escaped death) or  they
could die not knowing.

I  tell  you  this because Anita and I went to Paris a few months
ago, where we had dinner one evening at  a  Jewish/Polish/Russian
restaurant  - you know, blinis, chopped liver, smoked salmon, the
usual stuff. The restaurant was called Pitchi-Poi.  When  I  came
home I looked it up. I could find no reference to it in the ency-
clopaedia, nor on the holocaust internet  sites  which  I  visit.
Eventually,  I found one reference on the net, in French, about a
little boy called Marcel Lipschitz. He was ten years old  and  he
was sent from Drancy to Auschwitz on January 20th 1944.  His con-
voy number was 66. That's all I can tell you about  him.   Ironi-
cally,  there are dozens of references on the internet to Pitchi-
Poi the restaurant. So the moral is clear: if you want to be  re-
membered, open a restaurant.

Now lets get back to telling you something about your family. To-
day we'll talk about Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam was one of my  mother's
middle  brothers.  I  think  Aunt  Julia was next oldest after my
mother and then came Sam, so that would make him fourth born.

I didn't know Uncle Sam for long. I do remember that he collected
cigarette  cards.  Years  ago,  picture  cards were given away in
packets of cigarettes. They came in sets of twenty-eight or more,
I  think, and covered topics that Wills or Players or other ciga-
rette makers thought would be interesting  to  smokers.  Subjects
like 'Great English Footballers' and 'Military Badges' and 'Flags
of the World' and, surprisingly, 'English  Wild  Flowers'.  You'd
get  one  or two cards in each packet and the idea was that you'd
keep smoking the same brand of cigarette until you collected  the
set. Or died. Whichever came first. Of course, in those days they
didn't know that smoking was bad for you.  Doctors often  advised
patients  to  start  smoking, to calm their nerves.  Simple days.
Having said that, I guess if anybody saved full sets of cards and
kept  them  until today, they'd be worth a lot of money. I'm sure
Uncle Sam didn't save them for  any  investment  value.  He  just
liked  collecting the cards and, I suppose, smoking cigarettes. I
remember he used to give me (and my cousins) lots of  the  dupli-
cate  cards  he'd  collected. Not that I ever got a full set. Not
that I even valued them very much, I think. Anyway, that was  one
of his hobbies.

Another was playing cards and gambling. So I'm told. That is, un-
til he stopped himself. This is what I'm told. One  summer,  when
it  came to holiday time, Sam collected his wages from work. They
included the money that was due for the past week and the holiday
money  that  was  due for the time he'd be away. Besides that, he
collected the money that he had been saving all year for his hol-
iday,  so  he  had a tidy sum. He'd booked accommodation and made
all his holiday plans to go away with his friends. In those days,
they  didn't  have many holidays, so it was very special. Nor did
they have much money, so to have what he had was also  very  spe-
cial. He finished work on Friday afternoon and was due to go away
on Saturday morning. On Friday evening, he went out. When he came
back, he'd lost all his money on gambling.

He  was  distressed. I'm told that his family and friends were so
sorry for him that they offered to put money together to help him
out.  He refused. Instead, he cancelled his holiday and stayed at
home. He went nowhere and saw no one and did  nothing  until  his
'holiday' was over.  Then he went back to work. And he never gam-
bled again.

By the time I was about five years old, he was in the army  so  I
only saw him infrequently when he was home on leave. Almost imme-
diately after the war, he emigrated and never returned, not  even
for a visit. So I didn't see much of him at all.

Sam  married  a woman called Rose Blakey (formerly Blashky if you
happen to be doing the genealogy!). Rose didn't get on  with  her
mother  who,  I  understand, was a very hard woman. What you must
understand is that when I say 'I understand', this usually  means
that  my  mother told me so.  There was no father - just Rose and
her mother. Anyway, Rose left her mother's home  during  the  war
and went to live with Aunt Jennie and Cousin Barbara (both now in
Canada). They were not related, of course.   The  connection  was
simply  that she was engaged to Sam, who was my mother's brother,
who was married to my father, who was Jennie's brother. So it was
entirely  reasonable. Jennie and Barbara lived in the next street
to us (Phil was away in the army) and I saw quite a lot  more  of
Rose  than  I ever saw of Sam. I had no problems with her - I was
very young and I got on alright with her. My mother, though, con-
sidered  her  to  be  a 'very cold fish'. My mother, the psychia-
trist, thought she had been deprived of love and was,  therefore,
unable  to  give affection.  Anyway, my mother, the psychiatrist,
blamed this for Rose persuading Sam to emigrate  to  New  Zealand
and leave his family connections behind. I was talking to Barbara
about this a few weeks ago. She's sure that  they  went  to  Aus-
tralia.  I'm  sure they went to New Zealand. She thinks she knows
best because they lived with her. I think I know best because  he
was my uncle.

After they went to New Zealand (or Australia) they didn't keep in
touch very much. My mother used to write pretty regularly. Let me
tell you something about my mother. My mother hated 'owing people
letters'. What she meant by this was that she'd rather other peo-
ple  'owed  her  letters.'  Then, I suppose, she could always say
'He owes me a letter' which made her both virtuous and badly done
to, an ideal position for any Jewish matron to take. The only ex-
ception to this was her correspondence with Uncle Hishy  when  he
was  in  Germany. He had similar neurotic tendencies and felt the
need to reply to letters instantly. So my mother and Uncle  Hishy
would write to each other and reply to each other with the rapid-
ity of a table tennis volley. They only time either of them could
feel  relaxed,  I  guess, is when there was a letter in the post.
Funny thing is, they never really had anything  to  say  to  each
other.

Anyway,  this isn't getting Uncle Sam's story told. Sam's letters
became less and less frequent until they stopped  altogether.  My
mother  used  to think that Rose must have turned him against his
family. She thought that Rose had no family feelings and she  was
reinforced in this view by the fact that they never had children.
I don't know. Maybe Sam stopped writing because he  knew  he  was
never going to come back, not even for a visit, and maybe writing
letters became a pointless or a painful thing for him  to  do.  I
understand they had a good life in New Zealand (or Australia) but
I don't know how I understand that.  Eventually,  we  heard  from
Rose that Sam had died. I don't think she wrote again after that.

There's a photograph of Sam on your father's website.

Right, my love. You now owe me a letter.

With much love and wishing you a very happy birthday.

--
Grandaddy Sydney