Two extraordinary Holocaust survivors, who lived into their mid-80s, were buried on Sunday. Teddy died Friday, Elie on Saturday. Both men had lived in France; both were intimate with terror, fear, and pain; and both were exceptional. Each educated and inspired people, holding audiences small and large in their thrall. Both their fathers were shopkeepers, who were rather distant from their sons. Teddy and Elie were devoted fathers, each had one son and grandchildren. Both loved to sing. Each man chose to express their faith in exceptional ways.
Elie (Eliezer) Wiesel was a public figure, and most of us are familiar with his life’s story. Born in Sighet, Romania, Elie spent a childhood steeped in Hasidism, was deported to Auschwitz then Buchenwald, and after liberation was sent to France, where he continued his education and became a journalist and writer. He showed the courage of his conviction. Delaying the gratifications of material success and marriage, he devoted himself to writing. His faith in his ability as a writer combined with charisma, steely determination and luck earned him a Nobel Prize. He became a major voice for moral values and a leading force in Holocaust education.
Theodore Halpern was born in Vienna to a family that was more modern. His only sibling, a sister several years his senior, was a scientist with a Ph.D. from Hebrew University. Halpern’s parents recognized very early that Austria was a bastion of Nazism and made every effort to flee. They had family in America who were willing and able to sign and guarantee the necessary immigration documents for Teddy’s parents. Not so, Teddy.
Born with multiple handicaps: a harelip, no forearms, deformed hands, uneven legs, he was the perfect candidate for the Nazi euthanasia program, which sought to eliminate any life they deemed unworthy even before they decided to annihilate all Jews. But Germany was not the world leader in eugenics. The United States was, and refused to admit handicapped people who might corrupt the population with their “bad genes.”
The American consul advised the Halperns to take their teenaged daughter and emigrate, leaving their adolescent son in the care of his grandmother. Once they were in America, he assured them, they would have an easier time getting Teddy and his grandmother out of Europe. They heeded his advice.
After a stay in Belgium, the elderly woman took her grandson to Paris to be nearer to family and, more importantly, farther from the Nazis. But, as we know, Germany soon invaded France. During a bombing, the Halperns were separated and the traumatized child was later picked up by an ambulance. He wasn’t physically harmed but, overwhelmed by the bombs dropping, exacerbated by the loss of his tether to life in this unfamiliar city and his inability to communicate in French, was assumed to be a lunatic by the ambulance crew and deposited in an insane asylum.
Fortunately, despite his malformed hands, he was able to write. Moreover, his brain functioned extremely well and he remembered his parents’ address in Brooklyn. An aide at the asylum noticed this, and realized that the boy was both lucid and actually quite intelligent. He took it upon himself to place Teddy in a convent.
For two years, Teddy lived in the convent where he was well-treated. He could have remained there until the war was over but chose to leave. Because the nuns were pressuring him to convert to Christianity, he felt compelled to give up his safe haven, a clean bed and food for the insecurity of life as a Jew outside the convent walls. His sense of integrity would not allow him to abandon his faith. He and another Jewish boy the convent was harboring made their escape and sought out a cell that was active in the resistance.
As one would imagine, the leader of the group had little interest in accepting Teddy. However, Teddy was courageous, charismatic and persuasive. “I”ll do anything you want if you just let me stay,” he said. After studying this odd-looking boy, the group’s commander relented.
He decided that if they hollowed out the sole of his built-up shoe, they could conceal messages in it. Teddy joined the French Resistance, becoming a courier. No one looking at him imagined that he was a soldier on the home front, fulfilling a very important duty, until liberation.
After the war, his parents were finally able to send for their son. The 16-year-old came to the United States and spent months in the hospital in an effort to try to repair his legs. There he listened to the radio and learned to speak English from the baseball broadcasts.
After completing high school, he entered the City University. He was determined to become an accountant but his professor dissuaded him, telling him that he didn’t have the physical capabilities necessary for writing small numbers in large ledgers. Frustrated, he dropped out of college. No doubt other factors were involved including financial and social. It would take many years and a great deal of protest before America evolved to be more accepting of those with disabilities.
In fact, Teddy was one of the most able and practical people on earth. He took a civil service exam and passed with flying colors. Ever-energetic, he worked as a bookkeeper for small firms and in the office of New York’s medical examiner. He went to a social for disabled young adults and met a girl he later married. The couple had a son, who grew up to become an officer in the Marines. After Teddy retired, the couple moved to Florida, where they lived until her death. At that point, their son, now a sales executive who lives with his family in Randolph, persuaded him to relocate to be closer to Teddy’s three grandchildren.
Teddy moved to Lester Senior Housing in Whippany, where he became an active member of the greater MetroWest community, ever eager to volunteer his services. He joined a number of organizations and became a speaker for the Holocaust Council, addressing an audience of 1,000 a few years ago at Newark’s Annual Holocaust Commemoration, and even traveling to Nebraska for a whirlwind speaking tour of schools, synagogues and churches as the Holocaust Council representative. At his death, an Italian journalist, a Catholic and a quadriplegic, was planning a film in which the two of them, Teddy with his son and Michele, with his brother Father Marco Pacciana, would take a road trip to Auschwitz and euthanasia sites in Austria and Germany.
Elie and Teddy educated and inspired countless people. Their demeanors were humble. Yet, everyone who was privileged to have met either of these heroes was left feeling honored. Elie left behind a great trove of books and other writings. Teddy wrote a brief memoir but left a collection of colorful vests he knitted with his unusual but masterful hands. (It was his favorite hobby.) Both men are deeply mourned and will be sorely missed. May their memories be for an eternal blessing.
By Barbara Wind
Barbara Wind is the director of the Holocaust Council of Greater MetroWest.
