I wanted to delve into areas of knowledge I had neglected during my years of full-time employment. My parents and many adult relatives were lifelong learners and I wanted that influence to be a greater part of my retirement life. Looking back I recognized how important educational opportunity was in my young life and later in choosing what to emphasize in my community work. ALP was a logical next step for me.
I was energized by the Adult Learning Program and quickly found myself up to my eyeballs in obligations—attending classes, facilitating courses, serving on the ALP Curriculum Committee, and becoming a member of the ALP Advisory Board. I was able to rekindle contacts from past years to help us carry out ALP goals. As in my educator days, I didn’t really think of myself as a teacher, but I wanted to participate to make the ALP programs work for those who were joining in greater numbers. I was comfortable volunteering as a discussion leader and eventually a cochair of the organization. Again I felt an activist.
For ALP I led trips to the capital city of Hartford, reported on sessions of the Hartford City Charter Revision, and talked about nuclear disarmament and other past and current history topics. I presented some slide shows and travel talks about our overseas trips. I took a variety of interesting ALP courses myself and became one of a growing number of learners under our umbrella—poetry, short stories, play reading, history, and creative writing became my favorite topics. Retirement activities were like a feast laid before me from which I could make selections. Here was my opportunity to delve deeply into the arts and use the creative part of my brain. Carolyn joined me in some of these courses and offered her own in music.
Included among my new interests was a greater appreciation of film. When I heard in 2010 that Cinestudio, an independent film theater on the campus of Trinity College, would likely be forced to close its doors because it did not have the funds to purchase new digital projection equipment, I was spurred into action. Not only did Cinestudio show movies not screened elsewhere in Greater Hartford, but the theater was important to me as a vital link to the community to which I had dedicated so many years already. In response I led a successful fund-raising effort to purchase the needed equipment.
I had been a president and board member of the Knox Foundation for years, a foundation that uniquely spent its endowment to jump-start the rejuvenation of Hartford’s downtown. When my term on the board expired, I was still very concerned about some of the foundation’s priorities—the poor public transit system in the Greater Hartford area, the increasing congestion on the highways, and the spread of sprawl due to lack of land-use planning. A number of us from Knox joined with others to form a new organization in 1998 that would focus on transportation and land use. Specifically, we advocated for a light rail connection from Hartford to Bradley Airport. We called ourselves All Aboard! and spent many hours building a strong citizen organization of nearly one thousand members and advocating for a more coherent and balanced transportation system. I decided to remain on the board and executive committee and headed up the fund-raising. All Aboard! merged with One Thousand Friends of Connecticut, a state-wide organization with similar goals, in 2008.
In retirement I also began to more actively support the American Friends Service Committee’s work for world peace, particularly in response to the threat of nuclear weapons. The connection of this work with my personal history of escape from Nazi occupation is obvious, as is the effect of World War II on my extended family. I watch the world today and am horrified at how a rush to war is gaining support while more thoughtful political solutions are considered weak. Expanding nuclear arsenals cannot be ignored if humankind is to survive. This worry has consumed me to different degrees depending on what is currently happening on the world stage. Am I doing enough for peace and justice? Was this what I was destined for? I never clarified or consistently pursued an answer in those busy years on the job. Now the question I posed as a boy in England and a young man in college in Pennsylvania resurfaced in retirement as I recalled the past events and decisions of my life.
One of the joys of being retired is having time to travel. Carolyn and I made a major trip each year to several European countries as well as a long trek across the United States. I always thought I appreciated and respected similarities and differences of other cultures, but travel has a surprising way of opening one’s eyes wider. I returned to the Czech Republic seven times over the years beginning in 1983 when the Communists were still in control. Each time I visited the Jewish quarter in Prague. At the Pinkas Synagogue I read through the names of Czech Holocaust victims painted in small script, about one-half inch in size, on the inside walls of the building. It was sobering and terribly sad to realize that each listed name—and there were thousands—represented a life snuffed out. Walking into the synagogue with ceiling to floor names is overwhelming to the visitor. For me to suddenly recognize the names of my maternal grandfather and Jenda, the cousin I played with as a boy, quickly brought tears to my eyes. I identified the names of more relatives as I walked through the silence to other rooms. I thought back and imagined the scene of the last Kindertransport, the one with the most children. Children had said their good-byes to parents and relatives and were tensely settled on the train as I had been. But that train never departed Prague. A few months earlier my Kindertransport train brought me to safety and life. I was not forced off the train like those children that I saw in my mind because, in my case, the Nazis had not yet closed the Czech border. Those children were taken off and perished. Viewing the names on the old synagogue walls of innocent human beings who lost their lives reminded me that I escaped, begging the question again—“Why?”
Once when my cousin Paul was with us in Prague walking with me through the large park called Stromovka, we speculated about the possibility of living in the Czech Republic again. After articulating the reasons, pro and con, we concluded that America was now our home and our country. We agreed a major reason it would be difficult to spend a long amount of time in Prague again was the constant reminders of our family members who died. We expressed to each other how glad we were to be among those who escaped. Paul is a great friend and I remember how the bond between us strengthened on that walk. That first trip back to the old country was in 1983 with my mother. It was especially meaningful since she could answer so many of the questions that Paul and I asked. This first journey, while the Communists were still in power, gave us a basis of comparison for how the country was changing when we subsequently visited it six more times. Traveling in the Czech Republic had its lighter moments. On one trip when the country was still under Communist rule, I stopped by the side of the road to make certain the back door was fastened. As I was pulling out onto the four-lane highway a policeman pulled me over. “You did not look into your mirror when you pulled out and the car behind you had to swerve into the left lane,” he informed me gruffly. After examining my international driving license and my passport, he continued, “I have to fine you ten crowns.” That was less than one dollar and I dutifully paid then and there. He wrote out a receipt and as he handed it to me with my papers he said with a wry smile and a wink, “Next time we’ll shoot you!”
I had another driving incident in Bratislava, Slovakia, where my aunt lived. I made a left-hand turn as I didn’t see the sign prohibiting it. Suddenly, people on the sidewalk were sticking out their umbrellas into the street to slow me down. I eventually stopped after viewing in my mirror a hefty policeman running after me huffing noticeably. When he caught up to me he burst out with a torrent of abusive phrases in Slovak of which I understood not a word. Eventually he calmed down enough to say, “That will be ten crowns.” Again I received a receipt for my on-the-spot payment and the matter was settled.
One of the early trips we made in retirement was to Florida to visit my cousin Paul. Carolyn felt relief in the warmth of winter months there from her atrial fibrillation and related heart problems. We purchased a double-wide stationary mobile home on the same street as Paul’s and spent a few months each win
ter there in Florida. After Carolyn died, I sold the Key Largo residence and resumed living year-round in Hartford. That allowed me to strengthen my commitment to the Adult Learning Program, and over the next ten years I held several leadership posts. I sought to reorganize ALP for greater efficiency and to increase membership. Many members became new friends, and although I cannot claim social activism in my roles with this organization, I did work to schedule knowledgeable speakers to address inequities in the world and educate us about pressing present-day realities.
My last protest in the street was in 2012—demonstrating with Occupy Hartford over the growing rich-poor divide and the economic dangers of unrestricted big bank policies that aren’t adequately curtailed to this day, thus posing ongoing risks in the country and stability worldwide. Now, my activism consists of writing letters to our national leaders and newspapers, signing a variety of petitions, and contributing money to causes I believe in. I try to remain optimistic that these actions do some good.
Retirement has been happy and fulfilling, although Carolyn’s sudden death was a shock that led me to make numerous adjustments as a widower. One fortuitous event was meeting my now fiancée. Joy was returning to my life as I rang in the New Year of 2004 with Paula Karrh-McIntosh Fisher who was widowed two years before Carolyn died. Born and raised in New Mexico, Paula, like me, enjoys travel and is well-traveled. When we met, Paula had some familiarity with England, having toured the British Isles, later spending a summer in Bristol, England, doing a graduate course in medieval history. After growing up in Albuquerque, she lived in San Francisco, Hanover, New Hampshire, and White River Junction, Vermont, before receiving her baccalaureate degree with high distinction from the University of Michigan. Paula started her teaching career and a lifelong commitment to education in Ann Arbor, where her husband was completing a PhD. They settled in the Hartford area just a few years after Carolyn and I moved there with our three children. Following the deaths of our spouses, Paula and I both faced the challenges of newly minted singles after decades of being paired as married couples.
I learned later that men who lose their long-time partners tend to act sooner to fill the gap in their life than do women, and that proved true in our case. Before computer dating came on the scene, ads were placed in newspapers by those wanting to meet someone. Since the Hartford Courant ran such ads weekly, I decided to give this approach a try. Initially I answered a few ads under the heading Women Seeking Men; however, the preening and puffery of the writers quickly put me off. I decided to try placing an ad myself under Men Seeking Women. The first contacts were disappointing—conversation often bogged down and was centered on families I didn’t know or repetitive stories about grandchildren. Once I had to endure a very long wait before the woman finally emerged, and it wasn’t worth the wait. As it happened, though, my ad appeared at the bottom of a column, right above an article Paula was reading one evening—and she took notice of it. She tells of ripping it out and putting it in a drawer for almost three weeks. Finally she called the number the paper listed and left a brief message to be forwarded to me: her first name, the observation that the writer of the ad and she seemed to have interests in common, and her contact number. It was the shortest message I received from any woman! But our first meeting almost ended before it happened. Paula was delayed getting to our meeting place by a longer than usual wait at the dentist’s office, and this was a time before people carried personal phones with a log of phone numbers in them, so I didn’t hear from her that she was running late. After waiting in the parking lot of my condo where we were to have met, I had started to return to my condo when we encountered each other at the lobby door—“Paula?”—“Ivan?” Once we connected, Paula and I quickly found shared interests and points of view on a range of subjects, and we discovered that our cultural tastes also synchronized. We were interested in each other’s history and enjoyed humor in similar ways.
Together, we started attending concerts, plays, movies, dance productions, and operas, and we visited museums. Our summers afforded opportunities to garden, share outings with friends, and travel. In the summer of 2004, we took our first long trip together to the beautiful Gaspé Peninsula in Canada. One memory we recall was encountering Canadians, even in some remote areas, who, seeing we were Americans, approached us to express their dismay at the prospect of George W. Bush being elected to another term as US president. Although we felt a bond with them over this fear, we could only express back our same concern! In recent years, Paula and I have taken one trip out of the country each winter as a respite from indoor living. From April through fall, my lifelong horticultural interest that started in England at Battle House is sustained by working with Paula in her many gardens. I began to enjoy cooking, initially following favorite recipes Carolyn had made and some Czech recipes from my mother. I expanded my repertoire to include many vegetarian menus, which Paula, being an animal lover, heartily embraces. We instituted the tradition, still maintained, of a special Friday night dinner at my place. I assume the roles of chef and head waiter while Paula, who was often fatigued after a busy week before she retired, is happy to act as guest.
My story and the history surrounding it was reinforced earlier for Carolyn through trips to the Czech Republic and England, where we visited places and met people linked to my boyhood. With Paula, I have taken two trips to my homeland and worked on this memoir, and in so doing have opened my past to her too. It is our hope that this record will have value and be meaningful in some way to the readership of this book.
Reflecting on my activism, I realize that many of the decisions I made and actions I chose harken back to my essential question: My life was spared—was there a purpose? In one form or another, I tell myself, my undertakings can be interpreted as a response.
Chapter Fourteen: Am I a Jew? Am I a Christian?
THE QUESTION OF identity as a Jew or a Christian in adulthood is sometimes asked, or at least wondered about, of escapees from the war in Europe who were Jewish children by birth but came in contact with different cultural influences, including religion, during or after their escape. The question “Are you a Jew or a Christian?” is seldom asked to me directly, but reading between the lines, some people who know my story obviously want to know. For me the response is that I am both and, in a sense, neither.
While this statement is accurate, it doesn’t always feel like it fits. When I am with a group of people most of whom are Jewish and it is assumed that I am one of them, a voice inside says, “But I’m not.” Similarly, when I am in a Christian setting such as occurs at a Christmas service, I sometimes feel that I am betraying my Jewish heritage. However, I never deny being a Jew or becoming a Christian.
Intellectually I find no fundamental incompatibility between Christianity and Judaism, since both believe in the Old Testament as sacred text, and all the disciples and Jesus himself were Jews. To my way of thinking, Jesus wanted to purify the Judaism of his day. The belief that Jesus was “the son of God” came later. But I have no desire for lengthy theological exposition. The persecutions that Jews suffered at the hands of Christians are a segment of history that did not have a prominent place in my thoughts about religion until recently.
My Jewish father recognized the universal beauty of the Christian Lord’s Prayer; he told me that it is the most beautiful prayer ever written. When I talked with the nurse who was at his side when he died, she said it was that prayer he was reciting as he passed away.
My dual religious identity is seldom known to those around me, as I do not bring it up. Neither designation adds or detracts from who I am. My choices and actions reflect what I believe and reveal more about me than any label appended to me.
Chapter Fifteen: People, Places, and Things: An Update
WHAT HAPPENED TO the people I mention in this memoir? How have places that played a role in my past and live on in my memory changed over the years? What cherished family possessions in Czechoslovakia made it to America? The updates in this section are organiz
ed sequentially by chapter.
Chapter One: The Kindertransport Kid, 1939
Children of Malva, Father’s Sister
Eva, Malva’s daughter and the oldest of my generation, was married in the mid-1930s to a businessman, Wilhelm (Wilda) Heller. They had a daughter, Janinka, youngest of the next generation and my Grandmother Bächer’s first great-grandchild, who was fawned over by the whole family. The Hellers lived near us in Prague, and I sometimes stopped by to visit after school. Although Janinka was too young for me to play with, I loved to rattle toys to make her smile and admired the new life that had come into our family. In Terezín concentration camp, Janinka and the other children were encouraged to draw pictures, and later we saw hers in a published book of children’s art from there. Janinka perished in Auschwitz with her parents.
Malva’s other child was Wilhelm (Vilík), who was ten years older than me—I didn’t know him very well. When I saw Vilík last he was in his army uniform and looked very formidable to me. He had wrapped his legs below the knees meticulously with the khaki bandage-like material that was the style of the day for some European armies. Vilík, too, perished, but his mother survived the horrors of Terezín and came to New York City to live with the Paul Backer family on 72nd Street. My father visited her practically every day.
My Train to Freedom Page 13