The Day I Was Born

This piece was submitted by writer Linda Ellenbogen who participates in the Writers Critque Group at Scarsdale Library:

"Go to the school library and look up the New York Times for the day you were born. Then write about it ." That is how Prof. Kresky ended English 401, Sec. D on a September day in 1966. It was the English composition course required of all freshman and transfer students. I was a transfer student. Why I had to repeat English Comp is a tale for another day. However, Mrs. Kresky and the topic she assigned that day, "The Day I was born," had a tremendous impact on my confidence in my ability to put words to paper.

According to my mother, I was born at 4:39, on the morning of Thursday, October 16, 1946. The operative word here is Thursday, as you will soon see. So, off I marched to the Pace (then college) library in Pleasantville, New York, a bucolic satellite campus of its much more prestigious mother campus located near City Hall in Manhattan.

I learned how to use a newspaper for research, which really was the purpose of the assignment. I found what I thought was the day I was looking for. Across the top of the never wrong, New York Times, I read the day, Thursday. Then my eyes traveled across to the date..."What???!!!" I couldn't believe my eyes, the date read October 17, 1946. I looked at Wednesday's paper. Yup, Wednesday, October 16, 1946. Back to look at Thursday's paper, October 17, 1946, back to Wednesday, October 16. How could my mother not know my birthday. Maybe I was adopted and she wasn't really present at my birth.

Now remember, this was in the days well before cell phones. So, home I went. "Mom, was I born on October 16, or 17? You always told me I was born on Thursday, October 16, but the 16th was Wednesday not Thursday." I explained the assignment to her. Frighteningly, she looked puzzled, verging on tears. "I'm not sure," she said, "Your father named you the day you were born. They take the Torah out on Thursday, so, I always thought it was Thursday. I don't know now." Then she regained her composure. "I'll call Gertie, she remembers everything." My father's eldest sister was the unofficial family historian, and she didn't even have to write any of these facts down. My mother immediately made the call and asked the all important question. As I listened to my mother's side of the conversation, I realized that my aunt did not miss a beat and answered October 16. It was Shemini Atzeret, (the last day of the Succot holiday). They took out the Torah that day and that's why Leonard could name her that day." The mystery was solved, I was born on Wednesday, October 16, 1946. Thank you, Aunt Gertie for your phenomenal memory.

The next day I went back to the Pace Library; went back to the archives and looked up the headline for Wednesday, October 16, 1946. From that headline, I found out that Wednesday, October 16, 1946 was not only a day that would live in the annals of the Marks and Weintraub families, but also an historic day that would live in the annals of world history. Perhaps, it was this day that marked the real end of World War II and the final end of the Nazi regime. And, so we begin:

THE DAY I WAS BORN

Goering Ends Life By Poison, 10 Others Hanged in Nuremberg Prison For Nazi War Crimes; Doomed Men on Gallows Pray For Germany

The world rejoiced. The most powerful men in Nazi Germany were dead. As radio announcers throughout the world proclaimed the highly anticipated news, Goodman Marks bounded up the stairs to wake his brother Leonard. Wake him and tell him some of their own highly anticipated news. Now, for just a few moments, the Marks and Weintraub families could forget the sadness that had befallen them less than a month before with the untimely death of two and a half year old Jacob, Leonard and Frieda Marks' first child. Once again, they were parents. At 4:39 AM on Wednesday, October 16, 1946, just a few short hours after the death of the murderers who had killed many of her cousins, a daughter was born---Linda Joy, beautiful happiness---their first daughter and second child.

She was named after Lena Weintraub, her maternal grandmother, who had died that April shortly after they had received the diagnosis of young Jacob's very rare form of cancer. Linda was given several reasons for the choice of Joy as her middle name. The first was that she was the only good thing that happened that year. Second, was that she was named after her grandfather, Jacob Marks. Her father's father had died when Leonard was just 15. The third reason, and the one she most liked to believe was that she was named after the brother she would never know.

The time of death was not given to the ten men until one hour before it was scheduled to happen, just as the time of death was not given to six million Jews until they turned on the gas filled showers they were unknowingly sent to, and as the time of birth could not be accurately predetermined. Ten men could not turn back as they approached the gallows that would cause their deaths. However, the expectant father, especially in those days, was told to go home and wait perhaps even to sleep. This was the scenario that took Leonard to his mother's home, Not being one to argue when it came to sleeping, he went back to the place where he could find peace. So, as his mother sat by the window in the rocking chair her granddaughter would always remember her in, and prayed for a safe delivery and a healthy baby, Leonard slept. She prayed in much the same way that a priest prayed for Wilhelm Keitel's soul to be delivered to the Gates of Heaven. And, when the child was born, and Eva Marks was sure all was well, she thanked G-d for giving her a healthy granddaughter. " Please G-d let this one always be well." She thanked G-d just as Keitel thanked the priest as a noose was being slipped around his neck.

As the prisoners entered the electrically lighted execution chamber with its three gallows, their hands were tied behind them and their feet were bound with army belts. They could carry nothing and could not walk without the aid of the two American army men who assisted each prisoner.

Leonard Marks needed no assistance as he walked proudly and deliberately up to the reading table in the synagogue where a rabbi and not a hangman waited to receive him. His hands were free. Free, to shake the hands of the 10 men, the minion, who witnessed the naming of this new life. Many who had witnessed as he buried his son a few weeks before and recited the mourners Kaddish over the child's grave.

The prisoners at Nuremberg recited their last words in loud booming voices. The new father announced his new daughter's name—Leah bat Lemel---Linda daughter of Leonard. The Rabbi stopped him from giving her a middle name. "Gannuk, enough," he said in Yiddish. You'll have another son to name after your father." Irene, one of his four sisters had told him not to do that to Frieda, not to name this child after "the boy." The Nazis prisoners would be spoken of and written about forever, but "the Boy" would never be spoken of again by his father's family and only rarely by his mother's family. This boy who carried the true name of their father---Jacob Marks broke their hearts. Perhaps this new life would help the healing begin.

The Nazis had a last meal before their lives ended. The congregation had wine and cake to celebrate the new life.

The cold, distorted, white body of Herman Wilhelm Goering was brought into the execution chamber on a stretcher after Arthur Seyas, the final prisoner, was declared dead. The cold white feet stuck out from under the blanket. The body was uncovered and plaed beside the others. Hermann Wilhelm Goering joined his comrades in being declared legally dead.

She lay so still and was so quiet, "Is she all right," her father asked his mother, who stood by the glass window with her son. A nurse, knowing what the family had been through and sensing the new father's concern, picked up the newborn infant. She immediately began to kick and scream. She was fine. Her tiny, red, wriggling body proved that.

Sitting in the old rocking chair his mother had used for prayer just a few hours before, Leonard Marks picked up a copy of the New York Times. He glanced at the headlines and nonchalantly tossed the paper across the room. He was tired. The tired that comes when one is happy and pleased with the events of the day. He smiled a contented smile and lay his head back. He slept. His cares left him. The Nazis were dead and his child had been born. It had been quite a day.

Writer Linda Ellenbogen was born, raised and raised her family in Westchester, and is now retired from teaching in the Bronx after 35 years. She has been married to Paul Ellenbogen for 46 years and has 3 children and 5 grandchildren. She has taken writing courses at Sarah Lawrence and continues to enjoy and refine her writing with Barbara Josselson's group at the Scarsdale Library.