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WITandWISDOM(tm) - August 30, 2000 ~~~~~~~ THOUGHTS: "Courage is the power to let go of the familiar." - Raymond Lindquist Source: Awesome Quotes, www.coolnewsletters.com via http://www.witandwisdom.org ~~~~~~~ SPECIAL THOUGHTS: IT HAPPENED ON THE BROOKLYN SUBWAY By Paul Deutschman Where there is great love there are always miracles. - Willa Cather Marcel Sternberger, a native of Hungary, was a man of nearly fifty, with bushy white hair and kind brown eyes. A methodical man, he always took the 9:09 train from his suburban home to Queens, New York, where he caught a subway into the city. On the morning of January 10, 1948, Sternberger boarded the 9:09 as usual. En route, he suddenly decided to visit a Hungarian friend who lived in Brooklyn and was ill. So Sternberger changed to the subway for Brooklyn, went to his friend's house, and stayed until mid-afternoon. He then boarded a Manhattan-bound subway for his Fifth Avenue office. Here is Marcel's incredible story. "The train car was crowded, and there seemed to be no chance of a seat. But just as I entered, a man sitting by the door suddenly jumped up to leave, and I slipped into his empty place. "I'd been living in New York long enough not to start conversations with strangers. But being a photographer, I have always had the peculiar habit of analyzing people's faces, and I was struck by the features of the passenger on my left. "He was probably in his late thirties, and when he glanced up, his eyes seemed to have a hurt expression in them. He was reading a Hungarian-language newspaper and something prompted me to say in Hungarian, 'I hope you don't mind if I glance at your paper.' The man seemed surprised to be addressed in his native language. But he answered politely, 'You may read it if you like. I'll have time later on.' "Instead of reading, we began to talk. During the half-hour ride to town, I learned his name was Bela Paskin. A law student when World War II started, he had been put into a German labor battalion and sent to the Ukraine. Later he was captured by the Russians and put to work burying the German dead. After the war, he covered hundreds of miles on foot until he reached his home in Debrecen, a large city in eastern Hungary. "When he went to his former address, he found the apartment that had once been occupied by his father, mother, brothers and sisters--as well as the apartment he had shared with his wife--were both occupied by strangers. None of them had ever heard of his family. "Full of sadness, he turned to leave when a boy ran after him, calling, 'Paskin bacsi! Paskin bacsi!' That means 'Uncle Paskin.' The child was the son of some of his old neighbors. He went to the boy's home and talked with his parents. 'Your whole family is dead,' they told him. 'The Nazis took them to Auschwitz.' "Auschwitz had been one of the worst Nazi concentration camps. Hearing this, Paskin gave up all hope. A few days later, too heartsick to remain any longer in Hungary, he set out again on foot, stealing across border after border until he reached Paris. He managed to immigrate to the United States in October 1947, just three months before I met him. "The entire time he had been talking, I kept thinking that somehow his story seemed familiar. A young woman whom I had met recently at the home of friends had also been from Debrecen; she had been at Auschwitz; from there she had been transferred to work in a German munitions factory. Her relatives had been killed in the gas chambers. Later, she was liberated by the Americans and was brought here in 1946, in the first boatload of displaced persons. "Her story moved me so much that I had written down her address and phone number, intending to invite her to meet my family and thus help relieve a little of the terrible emptiness in her life. "It seemed impossible that there could be any connection. I fumbled anxiously in my address book. I asked in what I hoped was a casual voice, 'Was your wife's name Marya?' "He turned pale. 'Yes!' he answered. 'How did you know?' "I said, 'Let's get off the train.' I took him by the arm at the next station and led him to a phone booth. He stood there like a man in a trance while I dialed her phone number. "It seemed a long time before Marya Paskin answered. (Later I learned her room was near the telephone, but she was in the habit of never answering it because she had few friends and the calls were always for someone else. This time, however, there was no one else at home, and after letting it ring for a while, she responded.) "When I heard her voice at last, I told her who I was and asked her to describe her husband. She seemed surprised at the question, but gave me a description. Then I asked her where she had lived in Debrecen, and she told me the address. "Asking her to hold the line, I turned to Paskin and said, 'Did you and your wife live on such-and-such a street?' "'Yes!' Bela exclaimed. He was white as a sheet and trembling. "'Try to be calm,' I urged him. 'Something miraculous is about to happen to you. Here, take this telephone and talk to your wife.' "He nodded his head in mute bewilderment, his eyes bright with tears. He took the receiver, listened a moment to his wife's voice, then suddenly cried, 'This is Bela! This is Bela!' and he began to mumble hysterically. Seeing that the poor fellow was so excited he couldn't talk coherently, I took the receiver from his shaking hands. "'Stay where you are,' I told Marya, who also sounded hysterical. 'I am sending your husband to you. We will be there in a few minutes.' "Bela was crying like a baby and saying over and over again, 'It is my wife. I go to my wife!' "At first I thought I had better accompany Paskin, lest the man should faint from excitement, but I decided that this was a moment in which no stranger should intrude. Putting Paskin into a taxicab, I directed the driver to take him to Marya's address, paid the fare, and said good bye. "Bela Paskin's reunion with his wife was a moment so poignant, so electric with suddenly released emotion, that afterward neither he nor Marya could recall much about it. "'I remember only that when I left the phone, I walked to the mirror like a dream to see if maybe my hair had turned gray,' she said later. 'The next thing I know, a taxi stops in front of the house, and it is my husband who comes toward me. Details I cannot remember, only this I know; I was happy for the first time in many years.' "'Even now it is difficult to believe that it happened. We have both suffered so much; I have almost lost the capability to not be afraid. Each time my husband goes from the house, I ask myself if anything will happen to take him from me again.' "Marya's husband is confident that no horrible misfortune will ever again befall them. 'Providence has brought us together,' he says simply. 'It was meant to be.'" Source: Second Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul, Copyright (c) www.soupserver.com/ via http://www.witandwisdom.org Submitted by: Jacki Skeels ~~~~~~~ THIS & THAT: CHURCH BULLETIN BLOOPERS Don't let worry kill you - let the church help. Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our church and community. For those of you who have children and didn't know it, we have a nursery downstairs. This afternoon there will be a meeting in the South and North ends of the church. Children will be baptized at both ends. This being Easter Sunday, we will ask Mrs. Lewis to come forward and lay an egg on the alter. Next Sunday a special collection will be taken to defray the cost of the new carpet. All those wishing to do something on the new carpet will come forward and do so. A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow. At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What is Hell?" Come early and listen to our choir practice. ~~~~~~~ KEEP SMILING: When I went to get my driver's license renewed, our local motor-vehicle bureau was packed. The line inched along for almost an hour until the man ahead of me finally got his license. He inspected his photo for a moment and commented to the clerk, "I was standing in line so long, I ended up looking pretty grouchy in this picture." "The clerk looked at his picture closely. "It's okay," he reassured the man: "That's how you're going to look when the policemen pull you over anyway." Source: Clean Laugh, cleanlaugh- subscribe@egroups.com via http://www.witandwisdom.org ~~~~~~~ TRIVIA: TODAY IN HISTORY - August 30, 1979 In the first recorded event of its kind, a comet collided against the sun, releasing an energy amount equal to that of 1 million hydrogen bombs. The comet, larger than the Earth, had been trapped by the Sun's gravity and, after the explosion, the debris scattered for millions of miles in the Sun's atmosphere. Images of comets: http://www.allgeo.uni-bremen.de/solar/comet.htm#views Source: Daily Bits, DailyBits-on@mail-list.com via http://www.witandwisdom.org |