Bob Marrow’s grandmother saved a girl’s unwanted child, only to learn of its tragic death.
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“I’m going to tell you a story you’ll never forget.” Those were my grandmother’s words. She was nearly paralyzed from a stroke. She went from hospital to hospital dealing with her heart and lung problems. When not in hospital she was in rehab trying to learn to live with partial paralysis so she could go home. That’s where she wanted to die, and she succeeded. She died at home — not in a hospital or a hospice.
During those interminable hospitalizations and months in rehab facilities I would visit her often, particularly when the facility was close by. There wasn’t much to talk about and so I would read to her. Then I realized that this was an opportunity to learn history first hand from someone who experienced life as a girl in a Russian ghetto, the flight to a coastal European seaport where she boarded a steamship for New York, the voyage in steerage with hundreds of immigrants crowded in repulsive conditions, and finally making a life in a New World of opportunity — danger, fear and ultimately, success.
This is how she started one afternoon while at The Osborn, a rehab and senior living facility in Rye, NY, less than two miles from my home. “I’m going to tell you a story you will never forget.”
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We were on a boat called The Rotterdam in 1915. It left Amsterdam for New York twice with us on board. The first time we were torpedoed by a German submarine. Hundreds of us crowded together like sardines in a can, thrown on the floor and into a wall as the boat was hit and fell sideways. There was plenty of screaming and crying, but that stopped when the captain came to the top of the stairs leading down to our filthy, smelling room. There was silence the moment we saw him. He was Dutch but could speak enough Yiddish to be understood.
“Juden. You better pray to your God. We’ve been hit by a German torpedo and I’m going to try to make it back to the nearest port — but we will probably sink before I can get us there.” He turned and walked away. The crying and screaming started again, louder than ever, and didn’t stop until we made it to a port near Amsterdam and were told to get off the boat. We did as we were told carrying or dragging our belongings in old suitcases and sacks. We slept on the floor of a warehouse until, a week or so later, the repairs were finished and we got back onboard to resume our journey.
That’s when the story really begins. A young girl, her name was Rachel — I later learned she was sixteen — was acting very strangely. She didn’t talk to anyone although talking was all we had to do for the boring hours with the constant hum of the engines filling our ears and our heads. She sat in a corner facing a wall and wouldn’t move except to eat or go to the toilet. Then things got really bad with her. She started hitting herself in the stomach with her fist. She climbed a few stairs to the locked door leading to an upper deck and threw herself down the stairs. She found a piece of wood and began poking herself between her legs. The people in the room stayed as far away from her as they could in those crowded conditions. But I decided to try to find out what was wrong. At first she wouldn’t say a word, but I just stayed by her and talked. Sometimes I would ask a question but usually I would just talk like I was talking to myself, or to a normal friend. I don’t even remember what I said but finally it got through and she said something to me:
“I have a baby inside me and I have to kill it.”
To say I was shocked would be a real understatement. She was so young, and she wasn’t travelling with a man. It made no sense. Gradually her story came out.
“I was forced to marry someone who I didn’t like; who I hated. He was repulsive; stupid, ugly, dirty and smelled terrible. He never bathed or changed his clothes. But it was arranged with my mother and father. I couldn’t refuse. Even worse than that, I loved his brother, Reuben. My husband left by himself for New York about two years ago. He said that he would send for me when he made the money for the trip. I was left in our little town with Reuben who was kind, handsome and very smart. We couldn’t resist the feelings we had for each other. Finally my nightmare came to life — my husband sent the money and I had to leave Reuben to go to New York. Then I learned that I was pregnant. It’s the child of my husband’s brother and I’m so far along that I won’t be able to pretend that I got pregnant by my husband after I get to New York. I want to get rid of it before I get to New York….”
I was quiet for several minutes. Then a solution occurred to me. I said, “You don’t have to kill the baby. Everyone knows our shtetls are attacked by Cossacks whenever they get drunk and want to have some fun with us, or steal from us. Every girl is raped by a Cossack at least once. Tell your husband that you were raped by a Cossack and that’s how you got pregnant. Your husband will understand and want to raise the baby as part of your family, especially if it’s a boy. Anyway, you husband can’t blame you and he won’t find out about you and his brother.”
Rachel calmed down and even acted normally for the rest of the trip. I last saw her at Ellis Island when we went through immigration together. She was met by her husband who didn’t look so bad to me. But I had never seen his brother so I couldn’t compare. Maybe the husband learned to bathe and change clothes here in New York where gentiles were always judging us.
That wasn’t the last I heard of Rachel. Do you know about the Jewish Daily Forward, a Yiddish newspaper that was very popular in the Jewish sections of the city back in those days? Well, about a year after I arrived in New York I saw Rachel’s picture on the front page. She had been arrested for killing her son, smothering him against her breast as he fed on his mother’s milk. The story said that she admitted it was the son of her husband’s brother and that she killed him because she was overcome by guilt, even though her husband had believed the story about the Cossacks.
That’s not the end. A lawyer was assigned to defend her. He had an Irish name and made some very smart statements when he was interviewed about the case. He said that she was not guilty because she was insane. And an insane person cannot be held responsible because guilt requires knowledge of right and wrong. So she must know that the act she committed was wrong or else she’s not guilty. It sounded ridiculous to me, but apparently the jury bought it and she was found not guilty because she was insane.
But that didn’t mean that she was free. The judge sentenced her to be sent to an insane asylum and to stay there for the rest of her life, or until a group of doctors testified that she was not insane any more.
That’s not the end either. She was sent to a place for the criminally insane on an island in the East River. Nothing was heard about the case for several months. Then there was another article in the Forward with the same picture of Rachel as when she was arrested. She hanged herself. She was found dead in her room.
That’s the story of Rachel as I have remembered it my whole life — and now you will too.
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