My Life Like An Uprooted Tree by Isi Berk

MY LIFE LIKE AN UPROOTED TREE
BY
ISI BERK
This book is dedicated to my daughters, grandchildren, and generations to come. All my love Isi Berk.
P R E FAC E
I N T RO D U C T I O N I am writing these pages because my wife told me that since I had such an interesting life, I must let my family know what outstanding things I went through and burden them with this narrative. My children and grandchildren should not be spared from knowing and appreciating all my exploits. I apologize in principle for burdening you with this story.
M Y L I F E L I K E A N U P RO OT E D T R E E
P R E FAC E
M Y B AC KG RO U N D I was born Israel Berkowicz September 22, 1936. This was shortened in my youth in Switzerland to Isi Berkowicz and even later Americanized to Israel Berk. My mothers name was Sara Davidovits. My grandfathers name on my mothers side was Israel Davidovits. My grandmother on my mothers side was Goldie Davidovits. On my fathers side, my grandfather name was Michael Berkowicz and grandmother I did not know her name. My mother had 12 siblings and only 4 survived the holocaust. My father had 2 siblings, one brother and one sister. Of those three siblings, only the sister survived the holocaust because she had been living in England at the time. I saw her once in Belgium after the war and lost all contact with her and her family ever since. I have a brother Michael Berkowicz, who goes by Berko and a sister Leah who goes by Goldie. They currently live in Israel and they are both doing well.
This picture was discovered after 75 years. This is my father, mother, and me when I was a baby in 1937. It was taken in Belgium and sent back to my mothers father in Romania to show she was married.
P R E FAC E
My granfather Isreal Davidovich.
P R E FAC E
My mother brother, sister, and my two aunts on my fathers side in Antwerp after the war.
The only address for our Aunt in England.
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P R E FAC E
ISRAEL BERK Now back to me. I am now 75 years old and living in Florida. I have three daughters the oldest, Karen, lives in Chicago and has a son named Leor who I am crazy about. My second daughter Simone lives in Boston and has three children, two amazing boys, Eytan and Elijah and one beautiful girl named Aviela who was adopted from China. I love them all dearly. And the last but definitely not the least, is my daughter Tamar who lives in Portland, Oregon and gave me a beautiful granddaughter named Tuesday. Since all of this could not have been accomplished by me alone, most of the thanks go to my wife, friend, partner, and lover Miriam Berk.
Not yet three years old in Belgium before the war.
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CHAPTER 1 My first memories are from France and a flea and lice infested hotel in Marseilles. It was a hotel for refugees; Jews from all over Europe. But the story began much earlier when my mother left her native village of Remik in Romania. She must have been around her mid-twenties and any women over 18 in the villages were considered to be old maids. And in the limited available market, she could not hope to get married if she stayed there. So off she went to Antwerp, Belgium by herself. She found a job as a cleaning woman since with her limited education she was not qualified for anything else. After establishing herself in Antwerp, she decided that she had to learn a profession so with Antwerp being the diamond capital of the world; she paid and learned to be a diamond cutter. Soon she excelled in that profession and was getting the best stones and was trusted to work on them at home with equipment she bought on her own. While in Antwerp, her father, Israel Davidovits died of kidney failure. Her mother had died of Typhus years ago and his new wife had 8 children living in the small house back in Remik, Romania. The family included the two older sisters from his first wife and a brother. My mother decided to bring them to Antwerp to live with her and hope that they would also learn how to work in diamond. The sisters came to Antwerp, but instead of working in diamonds, they opted for marrying the rich diamond merchants.
This is one of my aunts in pre-war Remik, Romania
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My mother (in the middle) and her two sisters from the same mother and father.
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I dont know how my mother met my father but obviously they met somehow, married and had three children; myself, my brother, Berko and my sister, Goldie. My father, Solomon Berkowicz whom I dont remember, was a truck driver. He ended up in Belgium because he escaped from the Vichy government in France. This was a fascist government. My father was a communist, like most of the idealistic youth in his time who were looking for equality, and Belgium was a haven for these young communists. He came to Antwerp with his mother. I dont know exactly where he was born, in France or in Poland but he was a Polish citizen because his father was a Polish citizen and probably his mother was too. My father was a tall man over 6 feet tall, had an adventurous streak and I think he was a little bit of a gambler. I am sure my mother had to get him out of a game more than once. He was a very intelligent man, self-taught and knew at least four or five languages. I dont think he was very handsome since he doesnt appear to be in the photo I have. And this is all I know about my father. When the Nazis started to invade Belgium in 1940 I was five years old, my sister was 3 and my brother was 2. My father and mother took the family and fled to Marseilles, France. My mothers sisters stayed behind with their husbands. Both of them, probably thought their money would save them but went to the concentration camps and were never heard from again. As soon as we crossed the French border, my father was promptly arrested as a communist and not as a Jew. He was put in a French prison. My mother and the three children continued to Marseilles, France and ended up in the flea infested hotel that I mentioned earlier. The hotel was either bought or rented by an organization called The Jewish Joint (a humanitarian organization) that supported Jewish refugees. My father had a brother in Marseilles who, together with my mother, retained a lawyer to defend my father and try to get him out of jail. I know that I went to see him once in jail and there is a photograph of him in that jail. In fact, that is the only photograph I have of him.
This is the only picture I had of my father until recently when another photo was found (refer to page 6). This was taken in a French prison.
He was tried in a Vichy court, found guilty of whatever they concocted and was sentenced to fifteen years of hard labor in Algiers in North Africa and was quickly transported there.
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This is how my mother had the picture all these years.
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During this time, we remained at the flea-infested hotel. My mother happened to meet two girls that came to Marseilles from her home village of Remik, Romania. She asked them to babysit while she went selling things on the black market for money. I do not know what she sold. She somehow managed to sustain us with whatever little money she made. The German army started to take over France and my mother started to smell a rat. She decided to take us from the south of France all the way north on a train and then smuggle us across the Swiss border. Since we were all very little, my mother had to desperately try to get us not to cry or speak Yiddish since this was the only language we knew, or they would know immediately we were Jews. She even had us wear crosses around our necks. One of the girls from the hotel came with us as well. Her name was Esther. We managed to cross all of France from South to North and met with the smugglers not to far from the Swiss border. I have no idea how my mother planned and executed all of this. I do know, from her stories, that in the middle of the night, in the pouring rain, the smugglers took us close to the border and instead of smuggling us across with them they pointed us in the direction of Switzerland and told us to walk. Picture my mother and Esther with three toddlers, and a bag of clothes walking miles in the pouring rain in the middle of the night. It was pouring so hard that the border guards never came out of their hut or even saw us. Though Switzerland was neutral, if a Jew was caught crossing the border into Switzerland, they were sent back and most likely sent to a concentration camp. Somehow we avoided a fate that so many others did not. Once we reached 3 to 5 miles into Swiss territory, we found a farmhouse where the farmer and his family took us in, let us sleep a few hours and promptly turned us into the police.
These pictures were taken in Marseille, France on the same day. Me my brother and sister. The top one include my mother.
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This picture was taken in Marseille, France with Esther, the woman in the upper right. She is the woman who helped us cross the border into Switzerland.
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The Swiss took us to an internment camp where many Jews were forced to live. They separated husbands and wives. Mothers were not allowed to have more than one child staying with them in the camp. The organization, The Jewish Joint, paid Swiss families to adopt the extra children who were left uncared for, because the Swiss were not about to do that. My sister and I were two of the children that were taken in by two separate families. Jews in Switzerland were not allowed to roam free. They had to have permits to travel from place to place and mothers were allowed to visit their children who were taken in by various families, only once in sixth months. Since my brother Berko was the youngest, he stayed with my mother in the internment camp. My sister and I ended up living about one hour from each other. My poor sister did not fair well with the family that took her in. And after about six months, my mother took her back to the internment camp. When she arrived back with Goldie, she promptly conducted a strike to increase the allotment for milk and better food. From what I was told, she succeeded.
This is the internment camp in Switzerland. My mother is in the third row next to a woman holding a baby. My brother, Berko is the first little boy in the front row from the left. You can also see some of the uniformed Swiss guards.
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Berko at the internment camp in Switzerland. He is in the front row middle.
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CHAPTER 2 I, on the other hand, was adopted by an elderly couple in their fifties. The womans name was Frieda and the mans name was Carlo Casati. He was from the Italian side of Switzerland and his wife was from the German side. The village we lived in was called Au. It was a small village, mainly farms, a schoolhouse, a church and small manufacturing shops. One of the shops belonged to my adopted father, Casati. He manufactured machine parts and sold them to Argentina. Ironically, these machine parts probably ended up across the border in Germany. At that time I just knew about Argentina from the stamps my adopitive father gave me. Since the Swiss were neutral, these shops could not sell parts directly to Germany. I came to their house as a little boy with no manners and no knowledge of how to behave. So the first thing they had to teach me was how to eat. This was so I would be presentable if company was coming. They taught me how to eat with a knife and fork and use a napkin. I had to eat with the maid (whose name I forgot) in the kitchen for some months until I learned how to properly eat at the dining table. They treated me very well, nevertheless, and loved me very much.
November 20, 1943. Freida and Carlo Casati, and myself in Au Switzerland.
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Life was uneventful until they sent me to first grade where I had to learn German and Shweitzerdeutsch (A language that combined Swiss and German). It was a catholic school next to the church where we all went for services. I remember my adopted family had a dog. The dogs name was Pino and he attached himself to me. When I started going to school, he used to walk with me and wait by the school door the whole day to walk me home. I remember that once a month, my family sent me, by myself, to the train station two villages away. A Rabbi would be hired by a Jewish Organization to come to that train station and teach a group of Jewish children from other neighboring villages about Chanukah and other Jewish holidays. Of course, I did not understand what it had to do with me. I dont remember feeling happy or sad about this or anything at all. Religion was a mystery then and stayed a mystery until today. I was a fair student but I learned how to read very fast. And from then on, I was always buried in a book.
This is a picture of me in the garden in the old house in Au, Sweizerland. 1945.
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November 20, 1943. Freida and Carlo Casati, and myself.
My handwriting on the back of the picture.
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First day of school, me and my dog Pino. April 27, 1943.
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Im pictured here with my bike.
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Reading a book in the garden. Around 1945.
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I lived with the Casati family in Au until the end of the war in 1945. During the time before the end of the war, my father was liberated by the British Army from the labor camp in Algiers. He immediately volunteered to join the British Army. He became an Army truck driver. He ended up in Italy, and in the battle of Monte-Cassino, the Americans were supposed to bomb the monastery on top of the mountain and missed. Instead, they hit the bottom of the mountain where the British and Polish troops were. And so, my real father Solomon Berkowicz ended up dead two months before the end of the war. The British Army buried him with 1000 of his comrades in the cemetery at Bolsena. The British Army sent his personal belongings to my mother at the internment camp in Switzerland. This included a small pension for his three children.
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CHAPTER 3 The war ended and all the refugees that were in Switzerland were thrown out and repatriated. My adoptive parents wanted me to stay with them but my mother did not agree. So off we went to Belgium where we found utter devastation. All the Jewish agencies were in disarray. My mother had a very difficult time housing and feeding us. But the diamond merchants did come back and remembered my mothers work and were very happy to give her work. It was difficult for her to with three children. So she sent Goldie and Berko to a housing and caring institution for children. Where they slept and ate and were taken care of. I, on the other hand, stayed home with her. Having been raised in the German tradition and only knowing German now, I had to relearn everything in French and Flemish. Because the Jews of Antwerp spoke French and the Belgian non-Jews spoke Flemish. From all of her former family in Belgium, nobody came back. They all died in concentration camps. So with hard work she rebuilt her life. She would work out of the house where she had her diamond cutting machine and the merchants brought her stones to cut. In the meantime, I started school and of course it was in French and I had to learn a new language. I picked it up fairly easily and was a fair student. My head was always in the books that my family from Switzerland continued to send me but they were in German. I also kept up my correspondences with my family in Switzerland. One summer vacation, my mother sewed some diamonds in my underwear and put me on a train, by myself, traveling from Belgium to Switzerland to see the Casatis. She gave me a letter to give to them. In the letter she asked them to sell the diamonds and buy something of value. Then give whatever they bought, to me to bring back to her. They bought two gold Omega watches. One of them, I still have and the other, she gave to my Uncle Mike who passed away. His wife, Tanta Berry, still has it and lives in Cleveland Ohio.
This photo was taken after the war around 1945 back in Belgium.
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She found out that three of her younger half sisters survived the war. She went to visit them in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany. These were the same concentration camps that the Nazis used but now they served a different purpose. My mother and the sisters managed to keep in touch. One of them, Tanta Henya met her husband and married him at the camp. Then they both moved to Israel. The second Tanta Brana (Berry) also met her husband in the camp, married and moved to America (Cleveland). The third sister, Tanta Frida, also married at the camp. She was on the same ship as we were when we moved to Israel.
Either 1946 or 1947. Pictured from left to right- Tante Berry, Tante Frida, my mother Sara, Tante Hennya. This photo was taken in the Displaced Persons camp in Germany.
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Early 1950s in Canada. Picture from left- Feigi, Uncle Baruch, Tante Hennya, Sheryl
Early 1950s in American. Tante Berry, Uncle Mike and Sheryl
Early 1950s in Canada. Pictured from left- Sam, Tante Frida, Uncle Leibi, Hertzi
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This my uncle Itzik in the right corner who move after the war to Toronto.
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My mother met a man, Mendel Ickovitz who had lost his family in the Holocaust. They started living together which was, I think, a novelty in those days. She tried to teach him to work in diamonds but he never picked it up. Up until then, my mother was not religious but he was. And so everything changed again. We now were religious Jews and went to synagogue and did things we never did before. In Israel, in the meantime, the Israelis were fighting the Arabs and winning. So Mendel decided to go to Israel. My mother, thinking that nobody would want her with three children, decided to follow. They were not married yet. So off we went to Israel. My mother picked up Berko and Goldie and we all traveled from Belgium to the South of France and stayed in a transient camp for a few weeks. Here we boarded the ship that took us to Israel and this is where we saw Tanta Frida. I do not remember the name of the ship. The trip was uneventful. My mother and my aunt stayed in their bed the whole trip. The children ran wild on the ship. After seven days we got to Israel. We were transported to a Bet Olim (a camp for new-comers) in Natanya. Here they gave us temporary housing and food. For the first time I met Jews from other countries. This was very interesting to me because I could speak to the North African Jews in French. This included the Jews from Algiers, Tunisia, Tripoli and Morocco. I dont remember how long we stayed there. My only long lasting memories is stealing oranges from the orange groves and Tanta Henya, who lived in Rehovot, coming to visit and bringing us a brick of Halavah. I gorged on this and for years after, could not even look at Halavah. The only other vague memory is living awhile in an abandoned house in the middle of an orange grove somewhere in Lod. This was with my two aunts, Frida and Henya, their families and our whole family in one house. There, my mother and Mendel finally got married. It was probably 1948.
This picture was taken sometime between 1951-1953 in Natanya. Israel. My mother, stepfather Mendel, brother Michel, my sister Leah and me on the left.
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Then things changed again. My mother and Mendel rented a one room apartment in a house in Natanya where the kitchen was a shack outside. The landladys name was Pnina Rosenberg, who was fat. I remember she was the sister of the Mayor of Natanya. We called her Ptziza. She had a retarded son by the name of Moishe, who got a job from his uncle (the Mayor) collecting garbage. So everybody called him Moishe pach-hazevel (Moishe the garbage can). Every evening he regaled us with his total lack of musical skill on his mandolin. In that same house there were three other families; each in their own room. One of the rooms was occupied by Mendels brother who came from Czechoslovakia. He lived in one of the rooms with his wife. The other two families I dont remember. One room and bathroom (the only bathroom) was Peziza. To go to the bathroom or the shower was an adventure. You had to take a broom with you because the bathroom was in the backyard and it was patrolled by a very aggressive rooster. In the shower we only had cold water so my mother made another momentous decision. Since it was very difficult for the five of us to live in one room, she decided to send me and my brother Berko to a free institution, the Yeshiva in Petach-Tikva. As a side benefit, she believed that it would turn us into religious Jews. The Yeshiva Harav Katz in Petah-Tikva had the opposite effect. I was totally turned-off and so was my brother. We felt no interest and no connection to the religion. We were in Petach-Tikva on the first Yom-Atzmaut ever in 1948. For me, this was the first big event since I came to Israel. I saw people dancing in the street and I remember participating. I still attended regular school and would walk to the Yeshiva after school. I was a lousy student. I had absolutely no interest in what they were teaching us at either school and my mother had to come about once a month and meet with both principals. She traveled all the way from Natanya just to get a lecture about how both of her sons could be good students but dont want to be. I had my Bar Mitzvah in Petach-Tikvah at the Yeshiva. My mother didnt come. My step-father didnt come. Strangely I remember the first Shomer (the border guard) did come. His name was Alexander Zeid. Not that it meant anything to me. In PetachTikvah at Gan Hakoffim (the Garden of The Monkeys) I met my first girlfriend, Malkah Silverstein. She was also in a religious school for girls in Petach-Tikvah. Boys and girls used to meet at Gan Hakoffim and hang out. I used to play the harmonica and thats how she remembers me.
During this time, I still kept in contact with my family in Switzerland and they still sent me books in German. Authors like Karl May, Jules Vern, Til Aulenspiegel and then the book Baron Von Munchausen by Karl Friedrich von Mnchhausen. This really did not mix well with Yeshiva learning. After my Bar Mitzvah, I told my mother that I didnt want to go to school anymore. Since that worked well with her philosophy that one has to learn a trade and work, she sent me to Ramle to live with my aunt Frida. There I was to work with my Uncle Liebys brother, Anchel, who was an electrician. I was taught to work in his store. She also, took my younger brother Berko back home with her to Natanya and sent him to school there. My Tanta Frida and my Uncle Lieby and their son Hertzi, lived in an abandoned Arabs house. My Uncle Leiby was a policeman and my Aunt was a housewife. I didnt like staying there too much but I made the best of it. All the while, I still wrote to my family in Switzerland and they still sent me books and I think occasionally some money. I also wrote them and asked them to adopt me again. But it was kind of too late. Mr. Casati was already blind and she was too old (she was probably close to seventy). So that didnt work out for me.
I stayed with my Uncle and his family for more than a year. I remember when my Tanta Frida became pregnant. Because my uncle was a policeman and not that often at home, the night that she was going to give birth, I remember having to run through an Arab cemetery in the middle of the night to fetch my Uncle at the police station. I think I was around 15 years old. So when Sammy, my first cousin, was born, the house we lived in became too small for all of us. So I went back home to my mother in Natanya and again, all five of us lived in one room at Ptzizas. I worked for all kinds of people in all kinds of jobs. I still received books from my family in Switzerland which irked my mother to no end. She hated that my head was in books. During this time, I also learned how to read in Hebrew and started buying books in Hebrew. I had hardly any friends since at this time, I didnt go to school. For awhile I tried to belong to a youth organization but it didnt last long.
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This is one of the letters I recieved from the Casatis during my time in Israel.
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When I turned 18, I could not wait to go into the army. I would faithfully check the billboards that were all over town, waiting for my number to be called. From all the books I had read, I had a very romantic view of the army and my heroic part in protecting my adopted homeland. When I was called up, Moishe Dayan was Chief of Staff (Ramat-Kal) and Ben Gurion was the Prime Minister. Life was difficult and the country and the army were poor. Mostly we had to make do with what we had. Our rifles were Mausers from World War One and the rest of weapons were not much better. The day finally arrived when I went to the induction center for my medical and other exams. They asked me where I wanted to go and I said that I wanted to go to the Navy. They said Ok and sent me to Golani (which refers to the infantry division). I had many disciplinary problems. I didnt want to work in the kitchen and any other menial jobs that I thought I was too good for. So as a consequence, I spent some time in the army jail.
This is a picture of me before I went into the Israeli Army
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What I did not mind, was field work which was learning combat. I was a good soldier in the field but worthless in camp. In the army, I met my friend Sam. He was from India and spoke only English. Since I wanted to be able to talk to him, I started reading books in English in order to speak to Sam. In the beginning, I could only read a few words on the page but slowly I started to read fluently and was able to speak to Sam in English. After about six months, I adopted English as my primary language. I finished basic training (Tironut) in 1954 and they asked us where we wanted to continue our service. I volunteered for demolition. There were only two divisions, the one I was currently in, Golani, and the other was Givati. I stayed in Golani and moved to demolition which was a specialty. Demolition was alright and we participated in a few special operations and in one of these, in Kibbutz Nitzana (probably 1955/1956) I was wounded in the shoulder from an exploding mine. I spent awhile in the hospital and came back to my unit about a month later. After that incident, they never used me for any interesting jobs so I asked for a transfer. They wanted me to go to officers school, but in my infinite wisdom I declined the offer because I thought that officers were elitists. I didnt want to go back and be the boss of my friends. So I volunteered for another assignment with another specialty in the same division (Golani) called Sayeret Golani. This was the commando unit. This was a small unit that had lots of interesting things to do. About 8 months into the new assignment, towards the end of my service (around 1955/1956) I was wounded again in a small skirmish. I do remember one of my good friends was killed here. Upon my release from hospital, they asked me again where I wanted to go. I asked to be sent to a place where I can end my service in peace. They sent me to Eilat. At the time, Eilat was known to us as the end of the world. There was nothing there but army camps and nothing to do. The 1956 war started and because of my expertise in many things, they sent me into Egypt. That war, the Sinai War, didnt take too long. It was only five days and after we defeated Egypt, they made me responsible for a few Egyptian warehouses that we acquired from the war. I had to be there to let the trucks in so they could empty the warehouses.
But the Bedouins used to come and try to steal from the warehouses. Because of this, we had to booby-trap the doors and roof-tops to stop them. But every morning, we had to dismantle the booby-traps so our people could get in and get in to empty the warehouses. At some point, during this time, I got pneumonia and had to give that responsibility to someone else. They would have to dismantle the boobytraps. But they did not. When I came back to work, I sat in the office when the drivers came and went with them to open the warehouse. It blew up. I found myself inside the entrance to the warehouse, leaning against the wall, my clothes completely blown off and blood coming out from different places. There was one guy behind me who was wounded in the leg and fainted. Everybody thought that because he fainted, I must be dead inside the warehouse. So nobody came to get me. Finally, I decided to walk out by myself where they picked me up and flew me to TelHashomer Hospital near Tel-Aviv. I stayed in the hospital a long time. I had shrapnel (metal from the mines) all over my body; in my lung, near my heart and in my abdomen. The shrapnel also knocked out a tooth. They operated on me for many hours and sewed me up. A couple of days later, after eating, the stitches let go in my abdomen and since I had eaten, they couldnt put me to sleep. So they stitched me back up without the benefit of anesthesia. My mother came to visit me once; passed by my bed and didnt recognize me because I was still covered in shrapnel and bandages. She asked another soldier in the room, Where is Isi? and he pointed to me. She said that they were taking good care of me and said she would come again but never did. After I recovered, the army wanted me to sign up again. The options they gave me did not appeal to me. They wanted to clear mine fields. Though it had a very nice salary, I was thoroughly sick of the army and everything that came with it. Thus, this was the end of my military career. I should add that during my time in the army, I was part of the bodyguard team to Ben Gurion for two weeks, also in the Mitla with Ariel Sharon, and engaged in reprisals against the Fedayeen (Arab Terrorists).
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CHAPTER 4 Israel was a very poor country. There were very few jobs and it was a normal state of affairs for people to be poor. So now Im out of the army, no profession, no marketable skills and thrown into civilian life to fend for myself. I worked odd jobs, lived in a room with my friend Sammy (from the army) and my sister Goldies boyfriend whose name was Balfour. I also forgot to mention, that before the Army and part of my time in the Army, I was still going out with Malka (from Petach-Tikvah), She was my first love and all that but then at some point while I was in the army, her mother decided that I was not good for her. She wanted her to marry a religious guy with a job. So Malka dumped me which broke my heart for awhile but then I took revenge. One Saturday, walking near the Yarkon River with another girl, I passed Malka and her new boyfriend. And promptly threw him into the river. I never saw Malka again, until 30 years later when I went to visit my daughter Tamar in Israel. After the army, I met Miriam. My friend Sammy and his girlfriend, Balfour and my sister and I went to Haifa to one of my friends birthday parties. We had to take the train from Natayna to Haifa. But between all of us, we were short on money. We were at the train station looking around for anyone we might know. Hoping to borrow some money from them. I did not see anyone that I knew, but Sammys girlfriend, Rina, saw Miriam whom she knew a little. So we went over and she lends us the few lira that we needed. She was going to visit her Aunt Tovah in Haifa. After all the introductions were made, I invited her to come to the party with us. That evening I picked her up and we went to the party and had a good time. After the party, I took her to Gan Haem and tried to make-out with her. But she said that her parents were religious and that they would not approve. She told me that if I saw her in Natanya I should cross the street and not approach her because it would come to her parents attention and cause her problems.
Miriam on the beach in Natanya
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As I said work was very difficult to get. So one day I decided that I would go down to Eilat. At that time, Eilat was like a penal colony. There were mostly men there and I had heard that there was work there and the pay was good. So off I went to Eilat. I found a job the very first day and started working as an apprentice electrician. What I did was cutting channels with chisel and hammer in block walls. That lasted for awhile but was very boring and repetitious. So I went to find another job being a guard in the port of Eilat. I got the job with the help of my army record. It was also very boring but at least I had time to read books and housing was included. On my first vacation, I went back to Natanya and brought my Indian friend Sammy back to Eilat with me. I had the government hire him too and become a port guard like me. He lived in the same house with me for free. To supplement my income, I used to drive glass bottom boats for tourists. And that is how, one day, while leaving the boat to buy a bottle of brandy, I saw Miriam again. She was visiting Eilat with some air force friends and they were going to stay the night and sleep on the beach. So I pointed out to her where my house was and I invited her over. But as you can guess, she never showed up. So on my next vacation to Natayna, I met her again by chance in the street and begged her to go out with me as now I had money. But she refused. She did, though give me her address. I told her that I would write to her and that I did except, my letters were in English (my adopted language) because my Hebrew was very childishly written. I never did master the Hebrew word structure to be able to write intelligently. I would come from Eilat every couple of months to Natanya on my vacation. My pockets were always full of cash but every time I would go back to Eilat I would be completely broke. In fact, one time I had to sell my new watch just to buy my airline ticket on Arkia Airlane. I rarely saw Miriam on these trips.
Miriam and her mother and father when she was a little girl in Bucarest Romania.
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After I lived in Eilat for around two years the government decided that they would give us new housing but we would have to pay rent for it and we would have to vacate the government property. Of course nobody wanted to do that. So I, Sammy and two of our friends (all port guards) started a committee to intercede with the local government. We told them that we would strike if they do not agree to our terms. And they voted that I should speak for them and they would be solidly behind me. Well I went and spoke to the powers that be and after they interviewed the other guys, they promptly fired me. All my friends sold me down the river and did not back me up. I lost my job and my friends all at the same time by being a fool and trusting in friends. I picked myself up and went back home to Natanya to look for another job and another life. First things first, I went looking for Miriam. On my first Friday night back, I went looking for her in Shikun-Vatikin with the address she gave me a long time ago. Nobody answered and later I found out anyway, that this was actually her friends name and address. The letters I wrote her in English went to her friends house. Her and her friend used to translate the letters and then write me back in Hebrew. I wandered around Shikun-Vatikin, going from house to house, asking if they knew a family with a beautiful daughter with lots of little brothers. About a few hours later, I finally found her house and knocked on the door and her mother came out. When I asked for Miriam her mother told me she was not home but she did tell me where she worked. After a few days in Natanya I found a job as an apprentice diamond polisher. I remember that one day after work, still dirty and covered with diamond dust, I went to Miriams place of work and waited for her to finish. When she came out, I approached her and we started speaking. I told her that I was back in Natanya for good and that I wished to see her again. I also told her that I had a job and was working in diamonds. We started getting together more often. I waited for her every day at her job to spend time with her. And even when she changed jobs, I transferred my waiting to her new job.
Miriam in her teenage years in Natanya, Israel.
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CHAPTER 4
Goldie in the Army
Around this time, my mother and step father started to make arrangements to move to America. My mother had a sister, Tanta Berry in Cleveland and my step-father had a brother in New Jersey. They were waiting for their affidavits to arrive so they could finally leave. They were planning on moving to Cleveland so I also wrote to my Uncle Mike in Cleveland asking for an affidavit. He wrote me back and told me that he would send me one. So I told my mother that I was planning on going to America too. My sister Goldie was already out of the Army and living with her boyfriend in Haifa and my younger brother Berko was still in the Army. They were settled in Israel. My step-fathers affidavit arrived before my mothers did and he took off for America. He left her to sell the house and take care of everything.
Berko in the Army

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CHAPTER 4
In the meantime, I was still going out with Miriam and I fell in love with her. I dont know if it was the same for her, but the guys that she was going out with were no great shakes. She was turning 18 and she had to make a choice between going to the Army and getting married. So I asked her to marry me and come with me to America. She said yes. I contacted my Uncle Mike again, and asked for a second affidavit. I went home and told my mother that I wanted to get married and she started to laugh. It must have been that she didnt think that much of me and the idea of me getting married was absurd. But needless to say, my mother and Miriams mother got together and said what they said to each other and came to some understanding. Miriams mother wasnt exactly ecstatic about the whole idea but she was a religious woman and believed in Beshert from God which means its Gods will. So that sealed the deal. My mothers affidavit came a few months later and she left for America. She left two months before my wedding and about six months before my sisters wedding. My brother Berko was still in the army and she left him with no place to go when he got out. When he finally did finish his service, he got married to a Yemenite girl that took him. Goldie was the only one from the family who went to Berkos wedding. My mother did not participate in any of her childrens weddings. Later on, when Goldie divorced from her first husband and remarried, she was not there either.
Miriam and I at our wedding.
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CHAPTER 4
When Miriam and I got married, I had no money, unlike when I wanted to date her and was working in Eilat. She ended up having to buy my shoes, jacket and pants for my own wedding. Her mother made the wedding for us. It was on the sand dunes of Natanya. When I had to break the glass under the chupa, it disappeared in the sand. But I finally did it. The wedding was very nice and at the end of the evening we took a taxi with all the gifts that we received and went to Kfar-Shmariahu where I had rented a room for us to live. The room only had a bed and a shower and kitchen and bathroom was in another building entirely and was shared with other families. But it wasnt far from my new job in a wool factory that the government got me because of my military disability. Because this was a government job based on my disability I could not be fired. During this time, we were still waiting for our affidavits so we could move to America. As it turned out, my resistance was so low from my war wounds and the wool was making me sick. I spent more time at home than on the job. As a matter a fact, on our honeymoon, the day after our wedding, we wanted to go to Tel-Aviv to see a movie. I remember the movie was called Jacobowsky and the Colonel but I got such a high fever that we had to go home. Another photo of our wedding.
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CHAPTER 4
After a few months in Kfar-Shmariahu with me not able to work, we moved to Natanya and rented a room. I was hoping to find something to do in Natanya. We tried to make a go of it there. Meantime, papers from America started arriving. Miriam and I had to go to the American Consul in Tel-Aviv and pass physicals. Another thing that was required was that I had to sign up for the draft for the American Army. I was not very worried about being drafted because I had x-rays showing shrapnel in my lungs. I remember that we stayed with Miriams parents for a few months before we moved to America in order to save money. We were nine people in a very small place. Miriams mother arranged for us to sleep in the kitchen and she started cooking in a hut in the backyard.
At a party sometime after we were married.
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CHAPTER 5 All of a sudden the great day arrived for us to leave. It was probably 1959 or 1960. We packed our bags and took the train to Haifa. I dont remember if her mother was there to see us off. But we boarded the ship and for the next two weeks, that was our home. In those days, in steerage, men and women did not stay together. So Miriam was in one room in the upper berth and I was in another room on a lower berth. The bed was the size of a sardine box. All was well in the beginning but then as the ship crossed into the Atlantic, the weather got bad and almost everybody got seasick. Except me and another guy from Texas. So we pretty much had the huge dining room to ourselves. Miriam got very sick and from her upper bunk bed she could not make it to the sink in time to throw up. So she came to stay with me in my small bunk that was next to the sink. After about a week and a half, we arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Miriam and I, along with some friends got off the ship for a break and went to our first Chinese Restaurant. On the way, Miriam saw her very first drunk. The drinking culture had not yet arrived in Israel so that was a first for her. From Nova Scotia we went to New York City. My step-fathers brother came to pick us up and take us to Brooklyn. Lucky for us, he showed up, because we only had one quarter left from the 25 dollars every Israeli was allowed to have on the ship. It certainly cost more money to take us to Brooklyn then that quarter. We stayed in Brooklyn a couple of days and then my uncle advanced us money and bought us bus tickets to Cleveland where my parents lived.
Both photos were taken on the ship to America.
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CHAPTER 5
Well it was a long bus ride but we finally got to Cleveland. We stayed with my mother for a few weeks while I was looking for a job and a place to live. My mother had a relative who became successful in Cleveland in the building trade. He arranged a job for me with an electrical contractor. As soon as I started to make some money we also found an apartment in a neighborhood called Coventry. I stayed with that contractor for a while but eventually I realized he did not want to help me get into the Union. He didnt want to have to put himself out there by bribing anyone or risking his own neck just to help me get into the Union. So eventually I lost interest and he fired me. After this I went to work at a drugstore called Hudson Drugs that later became Revco and then finally CVS. In the meantime, Miriam and I tried to get pregnant and we had difficulties. After about seven months of living in Cleveland, I got notification from the Army to present myself at the induction center in downtown Cleveland. Confident that I would not be called up since I was a wounded veteran from the Israeli Army; I brought my x-rays showing the shrapnel in my lungs. I was examined by a slew of doctors and pronounced fit for duty. They grilled me for three days about my military service in Israel in spite of having my military dossier in front of them. There was some information that I refused to answer and they understood why I didnt since much of it was confidential to my service. They wanted me to volunteer for the Army and they would send me to Germany as an Sargent army instructor. Of course I refused. They still sent me home telling me they would be in touch. A couple of months later, I received a letter from the President Eisenhower of the United States, informing me that I was drafted into the Army. They sent me a bus ticket to Kentucky to some army camp. As luck would have it, Miriam went to the doctor and found out she was pregnant. So with the doctors papers, I went downtown and showed the induction board. And so this ended my American Army career. I will not write anymore because the rest my children know and they can tell it to their children. I sometimes think about what would have happened if I would have volunteered to the American Army. Its interesting to know how my life and all of my childrens lives would have been different.
Here is the induction letter and the tickets to Kentucky.
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CHAPTER 5
University Heights, OH Miriam, Karen, Tamar & Simone
University Heights, OH Myself, Simone, Karen & Tamar
At a friends house in Cleveland, OH, 1969 Cleveland Heights OH, 1970 Karen, Tamar & Simone
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APPENDIX
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APPENDIX
The following pages are in regards to my first trip to Italy, in search of my fathers grave.
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APPENDIX
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APPENDIX
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APPENDIX
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APPENDIX
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This story was written by your loving Abba and Sabba.
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Thank you to my son-in-law Steven Denekas and my daughter Tamar Berk for putting this book together. September 2012.

My Life Like An Uprooted Tree by Isi Berk

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My Life Like An Uprooted Tree by Isi Berk

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MY LIFE LIKE AN UPROOTED TREE

My granfather Isreal Davidovich.

The only address for our Aunt in England.

Not yet three years old in Belgium before the war.

This is one of my aunts in pre-war Remik, Romania

This is how my mother had the picture all these years.

Berko at the internment camp in Switzerland. He is in the front row middle.

November 20, 1943. Freida and Carlo Casati, and myself.

My handwriting on the back of the picture.

First day of school, me and my dog Pino. April 27, 1943.

Im pictured here with my bike.

Reading a book in the garden. Around 1945.

Early 1950s in American. Tante Berry, Uncle Mike and Sheryl

This is a picture of me before I went into the Israeli Army

Miriam on the beach in Natanya

Miriam in her teenage years in Natanya, Israel.

Goldie in the Army

Berko in the Army

Miriam and I at our wedding.

At a party sometime after we were married.

Both photos were taken on the ship to America.

Here is the induction letter and the tickets to Kentucky.

University Heights, OH Miriam, Karen, Tamar & Simone

University Heights, OH Myself, Simone, Karen & Tamar

This story was written by your loving Abba and Sabba.

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