Arthur Gelbart played handball every weekend when he attended NYU, and he was a good player because he was ambidextrous. He was playing handball with his buddies 1 weekend and heard them talking about a test for a Fulbright scholarship. A high score could qualify a successful test-taker for this prestigious honor. Most of Arthur’s handball partners had better grades than he did, and they excelled in college mathematics courses. Arthur struggled with math. Arthur didn’t think he would do well on the test, especially if competing against students who normally performed better in school. Nevertheless, on a whim he took the test and did well enough to earn the scholarship, perhaps because he knew several languages, including Polish, German, Russian, and Yiddish.
The Fulbright scholarship has an interesting origin. Senator James W. Fulbright founded the scholarship in 1946, and it was originally funded with U.S. Army surplus from World War II sold overseas. The funds were in foreign currencies, and the purpose of the scholarship was to promote cultural exchange students between the U.S. and foreign countries.
Arthur Gelbart chose to attend Ludwig-Maximillians Universitat medical school in Munich, Germany from 1954-1959 where he could live with his father and brother and save money on housing. At this time his brother was in and out of mental institutions, and his father was enjoying the bachelor lifestyle before he met his 2nd wife, Elsa. When Arthur arrived, Isador was living with a loose woman, but she wanted to sleep with Arthur too, so Isador kicked her out of his apartment. Isador worked but was also a law student. The German government paid reparations to holocaust victims, and he used this to pay for law school, so father and son were students at the same time. Isador met Elsa during the mid 1950s. She was a German Jew who escaped from the Holocaust when her family moved to Bolivia. She knew 8 languages. When Isador asked her to marry him, she refused at first, saying, “it doesn’t stand up.” Isador was confused because he thought she was referring to his erection. She meant the reason he wanted to marry him didn’t stand up. Eventually, she accepted his proposal.
Arthur experienced his 1st real love affair while attending medical school, but his motives were misguided. It was a casual relationship. On a weekly basis he met a German woman for dancing at a club, and later they would sleep together. Arthur had no intention of marrying her. Instead, he wanted to use a German woman to get revenge on all of Germany for the Holocaust–a ridiculous notion. No individual can be blamed for the ills of an entire civilization. Arthur was still young in his mid-twenties and didn’t have a mature attitude about love, but that is a poor excuse for his dishonest intentions. One weekend, they had an argument, and the following weekend when Arthur went to meet her at the club, she was not there. The love affair ended.
Arthur’s diploma from Ludwig-Maximillians Universitat medical school.
Arthur graduated from Ludwig-Maximillians Universitat in 1959 and moved to Cleveland, Ohio where 2 of his uncles lived. He had an internship at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Cleveland before his first 2 years of residencies at 2 different hospitals. He met his future wife, Audrey Bailey, in Cleveland. His early career and family are the subjects of the next chapter.
The Family Breaks Up, Living in the Bronx, and Summers in the Catskills
Arthur’s mother had relatives living in the United States when the family decided to leave Europe for America. Her brother, Joe Klarreich, came to the U.S. shortly before World War II in an attempt to earn enough money to bring his wife and baby girl overseas, so they could escape the holocaust. Alas, it was too late, and they perished. Another brother, Charles (his Yiddish name was Choske), also left Europe for America after his release from a Russian prison camp. A third brother, Samuel Klarreich, named after his father, arrived in the U.S. during the 1920’s and was a successful businessman living in Cleveland, Ohio. Regina was hoping her brothers could help them become established in their new homeland.
Arthur’s parents reconciled and were planning to live together in the U.S., but an unfortunate event caused a permanent rift between them. The Gelbarts arrived together on Ellis Island in New York. Josef, Arthur’s older mentally ill brother, began acting abnormally in front of an immigration official. The U.S. had a policy of refusing to let mentally ill people into the country. Regina was determined to move to the U.S., but Isador couldn’t leave his oldest son behind. Arthur and Regina decided to live in the U.S., while Isador went back to Germany with his son. I can only imagine the conflict between Isador and Regina over this decision, but they never lived together again. They were officially divorced in 1955. Regina denied she ever signed divorce papers, but Isador’s 2nd wife, Elsa, adamantly insisted that she had the divorce papers Regina signed.
Arthur and Regina moved into an apartment located in the Bronx Borough of New York City. Arthur never explained whether it was his choice to stay in the U.S. with his mother or whether it was his mother’s demand. When he was older, he frequently teased his children, asking them “who do you love more…me or mom?” His teasing was likely based on his experience. Maybe he chose to stay with his mother because he loved her more and when push came to shove, he chose her. This ranking of love may go deeper. His father had to choose which family members he took to hide in the hayloft when the Nazis were hunting down the Jews in Buczacz. Isador chose his immediate family over his parents, sister, and her children. Who do you love the most? Most people never have to face a life-or-death question of choosing which loved ones to save.
Arthur attended Morris High School in the Bronx. English was his second language, and he missed 5 grades of school during World War II. Nevertheless, he was accepted as a senior in high school and was one of the best students in the school. Arthur said most of the students at Morris Brown were not serious and played constant practical jokes on the teachers. Over 95% of the students were African American, and Arthur recalled having a black girlfriend who had blue eyes. He carried her books for her, but it was probably not a serious relationship.
Morris High School in the Bronx. Arthur graduated from this school in 1948–on time despite missing 5 years of school.
This is the swimming coach who kicked Arthur off the swimming team at Rutgers. He caught Arthur smoking a cigarette and Arthur lost his scholarship.
Photo of Arthur when he was college age. Despite English being his 2nd language and missing 5 grades of school, Arthur was 1 of the best students at Morris High School in the Bronx.
Regina worked menial jobs to support them when Arthur attended high school and college. She worked as a maid, a cook in a restaurant, and as a cashier. During the summer they both took a bus to the Catskills to work summer jobs at the resorts there. Arthur waited tables at restaurants in the evenings, then danced well into the night after work. He claimed to have been a dance instructor and was always fascinated with the movie, Dirty Dancing, because it reminded him of his summers in the Catskills. During the day he would go to the beach by a lake and show off his athleticism by walking on his hands. He said he was always avoiding an unattractive young woman, but I found a photo of a woman resting her head on his crotch when he was wearing a bathing suit. I don’t think he was trying very hard to avoid her. In the afternoon before he worked, he’d swim to an island in the lake and take a nap.
Arthur’s swimming ability developed from these long swims in the lake, and he earned a swimming scholarship to Rutgers. For his first year of college, Arthur took the subway to New Jersey every day when he attended Rutgers, but this routine lasted less than a year. Arthur learned to smoke cigarettes at a young age. When he was a child, he would sneak puffs from his father’s cigarettes and pipes, and as a joke, his father would pretend not to notice, holding out his cigarette while not looking. During the middle of the 20th century, most people smoked and were unaware of the health hazards of nicotine use. Arthur stated non-smokers were viewed as odd sissies for avoiding tobacco then. However, Rutger’s swimming coach had a no smoking rule. The coach caught Arthur smoking and kicked him off the team. Arthur lost his scholarship.
The next year, Arthur attended New York University or NYU for short. Arthur wanted to be a history teacher. His uncles thought he should become a bricklayer. But Regina believed he should become a doctor. Arthur took pre-med at NYU and graduated in 1954.
Arthur Gelbart’s first job when he was 15 years old was illegal. He sold cigarettes to Russian soldiers on the streets of Chernovitz . The communists considered this a crime, and it could have been an excuse to send Arthur to the salt mines in Siberia. The Russians had already arrested his Uncle Charles, and they sent him to a concentration camp, but he was eventually released, and he moved to the United States.
In post war Europe Arthur sold cigarettes to Russian soldiers on the black market to put food on the table.
Arthur Gelbart had to work to put food on the table. During the war the Germans and the Ukrainians had confiscated all of his family’s wealth, and they had nothing. His parents finally separated. Though they had long suffered marital difficulties, the situation of living together during the horrors of the holocaust strained their relationship to the breaking point. Isador left to take a civilian administration job with the U.S. Army in occupied Germany, while Regina stayed in Chernovitz where the family had gone to escape the German Army during the final months of World War II. She took a live-in lover who did not provide for the family. Josef spent some time in a mental hospital in Vienna after his psychotic breakdown, but he returned to live with Arthur and their mother. Because of his mental state, Josef was also unable to provide for the family. Regina’s lover was a large man who could restrain Josef when he started acting crazy, so he was of some value. Regina couldn’t work because she had to watch over Josef. The family depended upon Arthur’s black marketeering for survival.
Arthur was arrested once and nearly arrested a second time. The first time Arthur was arrested he stood in front of the judge. According to Arthur, the judge was Jewish and had sympathy for him. The judge dismissed the case, letting Arthur off with a warning. The second time Arthur was arrested, he escaped. He pretended to go with the police officer, slowly lagged behind, then suddenly sprinted away.
During this time of his life Arthur went to school for the first time in 5 years. He missed the American equivalent of 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th grades. He attended a gymnasium, the European term for high school. An Italian classmate bullied Arthur in this school. One day in physical education class, the teacher gave a wrestling lesson and taught the class how to put an opponent in a headlock. Arthur paid attention. When given a chance to wrestle the bully in class, he put the bully in a headlock, and after this the bully respected him. They even became friends. Arthur also mentioned getting in a fist fight after school over a gold coin. He took the money and ran.
Arthur never explained what happened to Regina’s lover, but he left when Isador returned to his family. His parents reconciled, but the reunion was to be short-lived. This was likely a difficult period in Arthur’s life. Arthur had to risk incarceration to put food on the table, his parents were separated, his mother took a lover, his brother suffered from psychosis, all while he was catching up on his education. This part of his life lasted from 1945-1947. He didn’t give many details about this time of his life, but the experience made him tougher than his peers when he moved to the United States. I can’t interview Arthur and his family to get more details about this time period because they are gone now.
The Gelbart family listened to Polish National Radio when Germany invaded on September 1, 1939. The Polish broadcaster enthusiastically announced, “the Polish Army is headed for Berlin.” That was a delusion. Germany conquered part of Poland in 30 days, and the Soviet Union took the other part as per a secret agreement between Hitler and Stalin. Arthur Gelbart lived in the region of Poland conquered by the Soviet Union, and for almost 2 years life went on as before, though living under Soviet rule was not ideal. At least, their lives were not in immediate danger. The situation changed for the worse when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June of 1941. They captured Buczacz in about a month and law and order fell apart.
The pre-war population of Buczacz consisted of 10,000 Jews, 5,000 Ukrainians, and 2,000 Poles. The Ukrainians were mostly peasants, and for millennia they resented the Polish landlords and the Jewish middlemen who were sent by the landlords to collect rent. They also held typical antisemitic views of Jews as suspicious outsiders and Christ killers. The German takeover caused this ancient enmity to boil over, and even before German administrators took control, the Ukrainians established a police force to round up the Jews. Ukrainians simply robbed and killed some of the more prosperous Jewish people in town including 4 families Isador knew.
A Ukrainian criminal kidnapped Arthur when he was 11 years old and took him to Godensk where he used him as a slave laborer, packaging stolen nails. Isador searched for Arthur and rescued him several days later. Godensk is a considerable distance from Buczacz, at least a 2-hour train ride, but there are few details about this incident. It must have taken Isador some desperate detective work to find his son. The only thing Isador said about this incident was that he saw Arthur from a long distance away, and he was crying.
The German Ort Kommandatura took control of Buczacz a month later. The Jews were ordered to wear arm bands because the Germans didn’t know Jew from Gentile here, but Ukrainian gangs knew who the Jews were. They dragged any Jew not wearing an armband to the Gestapo. If it wasn’t for the local populace, the Germans would not have been able to kill any Jews. One day, the Germans ordered all the Jewish men to form a work party. Isador and his brother, Bernard, complied. Amin Bubik, the mayor of Buczacz, was the son of a poor shoemaker. Perhaps Isador bought shoes from him for his shoe store. Unlike most of his contemporaries, Amin was friendly to the Jews, and after the Germans invaded, Jews left other towns and came to Buczacz. Mayor Bubik saw Isador and got him out of the work party.
On August 27, 1941 all the Jewish men were ordered to assemble at the town square. Regina, Isador’s wife, said, “don’t go, don’t go.” This time he decided not to comply. 800 Jewish men showed up and were arrested. The next day, escorted by Ukrainian police, they were force-marched to the town soccer field and the adjacent Fedor Hill where they were all machine-gunned after all their belongings were confiscated. Arthur heard the shots and knew the men were all killed. His parents assured him that wasn’t what happened, but a Jewish track athlete escaped and confirmed Arthur’s fears. The Ukranian police marched back to town, chanting “death to the Jews,” while some wore clothes stolen off the Jewish men’s backs. This was just the first mass killing that would wipe out 99% of the Jews who lived in Buczacz. Isador said the men who were killed in this incident were the finest, most valued Jews in town.
Map of Buczacz. 800 Jews, the finest and most valued men of the town, were marched to the soccer field and the adjacent Fedor Hill (lower right on this map), where they were forced to dig their own graves, stripped, robbed, and machine-gunned.The graves were too shallow, and the area stank.More dirt had to be piled on top.Plants would not grow on the overfertilized soil for many years.I can’t find St. Nicholas Street where Arthur’s family lived on this map–the street was likely renamed by the communists who took over the town from 1945-1990.
A few days later, the Ukrainian police with a German commander were force marching some Hungarian Jews through town to a train station where they were to be transported to a concentration camp, and they swept up a number of Buczacz’s Jews including Isador’s oldest son, Josef. Isador tore off his armband and dashed after them, hoping to convince the officer in charge that Josef was not Jewish. But Ukrainian policemen recognized him and informed the officer they were in fact Jewish. Isador believed they were doomed, but he went along, glad that at least Josef wouldn’t be scared among strangers. At the train station they stopped, and Ukrainians robbed the Jews before they got on the train. A gentile friend happened to ride by on horseback, and Isador got him to convince the German officer they were local Jews and not Hungarian Jews and were not to be taken away. Isador managed to save himself, Josef, 4 other local Jews, and 2 Hungarian Jews. On the walk back to Buczacz Ukrainian bullies humiliated the group by forcing them to sing a bawdy song, but at least they survived the encounter. The rest of the Hungarian Jews were gassed at the concentration camp the day of their arrival.
Weeks later, Germans started rounding up the remaining Jews in Buczacz. They didn’t bother to take them to concentration camps. They took groups of Jews to the woods and shot them, or if the Jews refused to go, they were shot on the spot. The Gelbarts witnessed public executions from the 2nd story window of their house on St. Nicholas Street. On one occasion, they saw a German officer arrest a red-headed Jewish girl, a teenager the same age as Josef. The officer ceremonially took his gloves off, shot her in the head with his pistol, then put his gloves back on. Red blood from her head flowed on the white snow.
The Germans called days when they rounded up Jews, Aktzia (actions translated into English). The first Aktzia occurred on October 17, 1942 and resulted in the deaths of 2000 Jews. In between Aktzia the Germans restricted where Jews could live. The homes of dead Jews were confiscated by the town and sold to Ukrainians for almost nothing. The second Aktzia killed 1800 Jews. A typhus epidemic then spread, and a Ukrainian doctor said Jews caused it and had to be eliminated. The third Aktzia took place on February 1943 and killed hundreds of more Jews.
Isador hid his family and many other Jewish neighbors in his home. The doors were locked, and he had iron doors over his windows. There were 2 hiding places in his house: a cesspool in the cellar and the attic. The people hiding in his home included himself, his sons, his wife, his parents, his sister and her 2 children, a disabled tailor, and a few other neighbors. During Aktzias Germans or Ukrainians pounded on the door and shouted, “Jews come out.” There were still enough Jews left to kill that they didn’t have time to take the effort to break down the door and search the house. Isador knew it was only a matter of time before they would decide to break down the door. He found a farmer who agreed to hide his family.
Isador paid Nicolai Zaharchiuk in gold to hide his family. He promised to give Nicolai additional gold at the end of the war. This was necessary because many Ukrainian farmers took money, then turned Jews over to the police in a practice referred to as denouncing. Nicolai was a Ukrainian farmer who had a Polish wife, Marina, in a village known as Choituve, not far from Buczacz. Nicolai picked up Josef and Arthur, dressed as Ukrainian peasants, and took them to his farm in a horse and buggy. Here, they awaited the arrival of their parents a few days later when they walked behind Nicolai’s horse and buggy to the village. Josef and Arthur were happy to see them because they feared they had been killed in an Aktzia. On the farm they hid in a hayloft behind a false wall. Bales of hay were placed in front of the false wall to hide it. The space was small, barely 15 feet across. Later, they were joined by Regina’s brother, Charles, whose family was taken away while he was at work. He lost his wife and children, and he felt very depressed. The Nazis eventually did break into Isador’s home, and they killed his parents, sister, her children, and some of his neighbors.
There was not much to eat when they were hiding in the hayloft. They ate 1 meal a day in the evening, and it usually consisted of 1 piece of bread and the water leftover from boiling potatoes. When cherries were ripe, they could eat as many cherries as they wanted. During summer they could eat as many cucumbers as their stomachs could hold. On Christmas Nicolai gave them butter to put on their bread. In the spring they ate dandelions. Nicolai allowed them to go outside and bathe once every 4 weeks, but he threatened to kick them out every time the Germans won a battle.
Some Ukrainians, including a notorious man known as Nahaobiski, actively hunted for Jews hiding in the countryside. Eventually, Jewish partisans killed him (allegedly castrating him) and after that incident, Ukrainians stopped exposing hidden Jews to the Nazis in this area.
Charles suffered a bout of typhus and lost his appetite for a week. Instead of eating Charles’s portion, Arthur saved it and when Charles felt better, he was ravenous, and he had a week’s portion of bread to satisfy his hunger. Charles was always thankful to Arthur for this.
The Gelbarts stayed in the hayloft from June 1943 to March 1944 when the Soviet Union liberated Buczacz. 800 Jews returned from hiding in the countryside to Buczacz, but the Germans counterattacked, and most of the Jews were killed during the German re-occupation. They should have fled or stayed hidden in the woods.
On the day the Gelbarts were liberated, Josef started crying, and he stopped speaking. He suffered a psychotic breakdown that disabled him for the rest of his life. Isador didn’t take his family back to Buczacz. Instead, he took them to Chernovitz, and to get there they had to travel between retreating Soviet troops who were fighting a rear-guard battle against advancing German troops. Both sides fired weapons at the Gelbarts, but the family avoided the bullets, and they survived, at least physically. Out of a pre-war population of 10,000 Jews in Buczacz, only about 100 survived the war. Arthur Gelbart’s family were among the 1% that remained alive following the genocide.
References:
Bartov, Omer
Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz
Arthur Gelbart’s actual given first name was Osias (pronounced Oja in English), the same name as his great-grandfather. When he came to the United States he chose Arthur as his English name, but Ozzie would have been a closer approximation. Arthur said his schoolmates teased him about his name and called him Osias koza (in Polish they rhyme). Koza is the Polish word for goat. Arthur said this teasing used to make him so angry.
Arthur lived in an apartment above his father’s shoe store along with his mother and his brother, Josef, who was 5 years older. It was a loving household, though his parents had marital troubles. Arthur’s father frequently snuck treats under Arthur’s pillow when he was sleeping. Arthur was a rambunctious child, and his mother had to bribe him to go to the Hebrew school he attended in addition to his secular school. She promised to give him a piece of salami, if he stayed for his lesson. Arthur loved salami his entire life, and no matter what his wife cooked for him, he would always have to polish it off with a piece of salami. During summer his mother would put Arthur and Josef on a train to visit their grandfather in the country, and she would pack salami sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs for lunch. Instead of waiting, they would eat them immediately–hours before lunchtime. Arthur also enjoyed sardine sandwiches. He would share them with the poor kids in his class at the school he attended. He couldn’t stand to see them struggling to eat a hard stale piece of bread, if they had brought a lunch to school at all.
Arthur was likely left-handed, but his mother superstitiously believed (like many other people then) that left-handed people were evil, so she made him use his right hand for schoolwork. However, he still kicked soccer balls with his left foot. Because of this, he became ambidextrous.
Arthur Gelbart always liked money, and he recounted the only time his father struck him. His father was busy working in his shoe store, talking to a customer, and Arthur interrupted him and asked for money. An irritated Isador smacked him. On another occasion Arthur played a gambling game with other children and lost all his money. He went crying to his father and told him he lost his money. Isador replaced the money, but Arthur kept crying. Isador asked him why he was still crying, and Arthur lamented how he could have had more money, if he had won. Isador recounted this incident with much amusement many years later.
Arthur’s parents had marital troubles, and they put him in the middle, trying to get him to choose sides in their arguments. This was difficult for him, and years later they did get divorced, and he did have to choose who he was going to live with. He recalled going to teacher-parent meetings with his father, and when Isador and the teacher sent him outside to play, the adults fooled around.
Photo of Arthur and his older brother, Josef, circa 1940 when he was 10 years old.They played soccer when there was no snow on the ground, and they skied during the winter.
Arthur played soccer during the months when there was no snow on the ground, and he skied during winter. Soccer was by far the most popular sport in that part of the world then. Basketball and baseball were little known. According to Arthur, he was a much better soccer player than his older brother. The adults played on the town soccer field, and Buczacz had 3 teams divided along ethnic and religious lines. There was a Jewish team, a Polish Catholic team, and a Ukrainian Greek Orthodox team. Those were the ethnic groups that made up the town population. The population of Buczacz before World War II was about 15,000. (Today, it is almost entirely Ukrainian because most of the Jews were killed during the Holocaust, and the Poles were forced to leave.) According to the prevailing racist hierarchy, the Polish soccer team was supposed to be the best, the Ukrainians 2nd best, and the Jews the worst. In reality the opposite was true–the Jews had the best soccer team, the Ukrainians were 2nd, and the Poles were worst. When the Jewish team played the Polish team, the referees would cheat heavily for the Polish team, yet the Jewish team would win anyway. When this happened, all the Jewish fans would flee the stadium to avoid getting beat up by the irate and drunken Polish fans.
These ethnic divisions help explain how the Holocaust happened. When the Germans invaded Poland, they did not know Jew from Gentile. But the Poles were happy to point them out because of their deep underlying hatred of the Jews. The Ukrainians formed police gangs who helped Nazis hunt down the Jews. The Gelbart’s were among about 100 Jewish survivors of the pre-war population of 10,000 Jews in Buczacz The next chapter is about how the Holocaust unfolded in Buczacz and how the Gelbart family were among the few survivors.
GeorgiaBeforePeople 