This “Creative Non-Fiction” story was published in Sky Island Journal, Issue 8, Spring 2019. https://www.skyislandjournal.com
In winter, on an icy evening, if you had snow tires and four-wheel drive, you could usually make it to my Catskill mountain house but, just above it, the road curved sharply to the right and, even with snow tires and four-wheel drive, you were likely to end up in the ditch across the street. Digging stranded drivers out of that ditch constituted my not infrequent exercise in benevolence.
One evening, as I sat down to dinner, I saw unmoving headlights shining outside my kitchen window and, sure enough, there lay a car in the ditch, its driver standing shivering beside it. He looked so forlorn and helpless that, with a sigh, I put down my knife and fork, went downstairs, donned a pair of heavy boots and winter jacket, took a shovel and a bag of sand out of my garage, and helped him out of the ditch and up the road.
The driver seemed to be in his seventies and spoke with a German accent. He introduced himself as Max Kahn. I never expected to see him again but, next day, he stopped by to thank me and presented me with a bottle of fine scotch. I told him the gift was unnecessary, but he insisted so I accepted it. Max lived about a half mile above me at the end of a dead end road just below a beautiful mountain field. I got to know him over the next few years. He was childless, a widower, and lived alone.
Born in Berlin into a wealthy Jewish family of clothing manufacturers, he recognized, when Hitler took power in 1933, that Jews had no place in Germany. He moved to Paris and reestablished his factory. When war broke out, in 1939, Max enlisted in the French army. The French officers treated the German refugee enlistees very badly, not trusting them, refusing to place them in combat units, and using them as laborers with almost starvation-level rations. His brother, who accompanied him, nearly died from mistreatment. Whether there existed an anti-Semitic element in this mistreatment remains unclear. When France surrendered, in 1940, Max escaped over the Pyrenees. From Spain, he made his way to New York where he, again, established his business.
Just after the attack on Pearl Harbor, in 1941, Max enlisted again, this time in the United States Navy. But the United States, like France, mistrusted the German refugees. He was sent to the Portsmouth, New Hampshire, naval base where he was interned with other German refugee enlistees.
“And I bet you’ll never guess who my roommate there was,” he said. Nothing came to me and I asked: “Who was it?”
“Hitler!
“What?” I exclaimed, thinking he was joking.
“Adolph Hitler’s nephew, Patrick Hitler.”
Max explained that Adolph Hitler’s brother had immigrated to Ireland, had married an Irish woman, and had fathered a son. When that son, Patrick, a young fellow in 1933, learned his uncle had become chancellor of Germany, he decided to go there and see what was what. He was wined and dined and rode around in expensive cars with Goering, Himmler, and other Nazi bigwigs. According to Max, Patrick decided he didn’t like the Nazis and immigrated to America where, like Max, he joined the navy and found himself interned at the Portsmouth naval base.
Max stated that Patrick, who looked like the perfect Aryan, was as nice a guy as you could ever meet. Patrick wanted to change his name but the navy wouldn’t let him, in case they wanted to use him for propaganda purposes. After the war, Patrick finally did change his last name, became an American citizen, and opened a small business on Long Island. You can research him on the Internet.
Postscript:
Max became ill and died a few years after our first meeting. Having no living family, he willed his country house and his luxury apartment in mid-Manhattan (with a garage!) to my family. My son lives in that apartment today. Amazing things can result from digging a stranger out of a ditch on a snowy evening!
©Eugene William Levich, 2019
WORD COUNT: 699
Dr. Eugene Levich, Ph.D.
7857 Lexington Club Blvd.
Apt. D
Delray Beach, FL 33446
561.499.3247
eugenelevich@yahoo.com