Eight.

One.

Two.

Seven.

Four.

Ten.

Ten centimeters.

Size of the yellow.

David Star.

We were forced to wear by the Nazis.

Six.

Four.

Two.

Seven.

Seven.

My prisoner number in Auschwitz.

One.

Eight.

Four.

Nine.

My hospital ID at the displaced person camp.

Four.

Four.

Four.

Baggage check number for the ship to New York.

7626710.

My American citizen naturalization certificate.

6211927.

The telephone number where my beautiful wife, Mildred and I first lived.

G&S Jewelry Hello, Mr.

Moscatel.

Yes.

Youre rings are finished.

Everything you asked for.

And the names of you and your fiancé engraved on the inside.

No, no.

No extra charge.

Just good wishes from the Goldman family.

My great pleasure.

Now, if I am not here, my wife or my daughter will take care of you.

Just ask for ticket number one five.

Four six.

Do you remember my daughter, Lee?

Yes.

All done with college?

With a degree in psychology.

Yes.

She can tell you every good reason why you and Dina are perfect for each other.

Yes.

Thank you.

Be well.

I read recently some great intellect.

Scientist, or philosopher, maybe a guest on the Johnny Carson show.

Said that our lives all come down to numbers.

All of human destiny.

A complex mathematical equation.

I'm not sure I agree.

But as my father often said.

If we all pulled in one direction modka, the world would keel over.

If we all pulled in one direction modka, the world would keel over.

A typical day in the life of Melvin Goldman.

Jeweler.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1985.

Probably mid September, just after Rosh Hashanah and right before Yom Kippur.

Oh, I'm Lee, the daughter he mentioned.

Nice to meet you all.

And I did just graduate from the University of Pittsburgh, like he said.

But I still go to the shop when I can.

It's our family business, you know.

And family is very important to my father because he lost almost all of his when he was 16 years old.

When the Nazis marched We were herded off the trains and put into groups.

There were hundreds of German soldiers, particularly.

SS Men.

The terrible smell was in the air.

My father works very hard in his shop for ten hours a day, six days a week.

When he takes a break, he speaks into a tape recorder he keeps under the counter.

He tells stories about his life when they could no longer walk.

The frozen parts of my toes were cut off.

But then a Jewish doctor from Krakow befriended me.

We wouldn't discover these tapes until after his passing.

Like many genocide survivors, my father never told anyone about the misery he endured trying to live through the worst mass murder in history.

Even so, I think he never wanted to stop remembering the family he lost in Poland or the family he found in Pittsburgh.

I was born January 21st, 1923.

In the city of Rodge.

A sizable city of industry and culture, an hour southwest of Warsaw.

Our family owned a sheet metal factory my grandfather had begun in the early 1900s.

We had a good life and wanted for nothing.

I was the oldest of seven children, two girls and five boys.

I say now their names.

Weiser.

Aaron.

Nathan.

Sora.

Labe.

Joseph.

My parents were Jim and Bolger.

I was close to my father.

He was a modern man, but also very religious.

He wanted me to become, a mechanical engineer and run a factory when he retired.

Oh, this is well-made, voldka.

Good design.

But if I told you it was the best, would you ever try to do better?

My mother manages a household.

Her family is the Cedars, and we have many cousins visiting all the time.

Plus a few other guests who often become part of the family now and again.

Kind.

This boy, the Reuben.

His mother has died and his father cannot take care of him.

Can we make him apprentice in our factory?

Well, I suppose we will.

And he will stay in spare room upstairs.

Of course, of course.

Granny!

Losers!

You'll never become Maccabeus.

My brother, Aaron, two years younger and a wonderful athlete.

Shes granny and never bashful about expressing his feelings.

Those kids at park always want to start a fight.

Especially when our team is winning.

Jews they say.

They say Jews are no good at all.

And why do we always win?

My other son.

You'll be a lawyer someday.

Not before he washes for supper.

Hello, father.

Mother?

Yes.

Of course.

Supper.

And I shall finish my schoolwork without anyone telling me.

Dear brother, if you would have a moment to assist me with my studies, I'll be forever in your debt.

Even with seven children, our parents never lectured us on how to behave.

The moral rules of life were communicated through proverbs from the Talmud.

Oh, maybe just things that came to mind as they watched us grow up.

Work is the medicine of the soul.

Respect another's opinion.

Then you will be happy.

Unfortunately, children, common sense is not so common.

Before telling your neighbor to clean their porch.

First clean your own sometimes.

But wisdom would be delivered in a musical form.

I know you'll have questions.

Here is another way to think about the subject.

Kind Manch When life is good for you and you are richly blessed.

Your duty to help those in need will guide you wherever you go and keep you from foolish pride.

Be the person you should be.

Be the person you should be.

Kind Manch when you must speak the truth and fight against the lie.

Your duty to stand for the cause.

Will guide you whatever you say.

And give you the strength you need.

Be the person you should be.

Be the person you should be.

The last time I saw my parents was when the train stopped in Auschwitz.

My brother Aaron and I were among those chosen to work.

The rest of the family were not.

The train ride to Auschwitz took place in late 1944, when the last group of Jews from our city were delivered to the death camp.

But for our family and hundreds of thousands of others, the misery began five years before.

Immediately after Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, those of us in large could not believe the terror that came upon us overnight.

Thousands of trucks and motorcycles roaring everywhere.

Flames screaming overhead.

Oh don't worry, the Nazis will not bomb large.

We have too many factories, too many skilled workers.

They burned down the synagogue.

We have food for a month or two.

This will end soon.

My sister's husband was taken away last night.

Curfew.

But I do not understand.

There must be some mistake.

Every single Jewish home and business ransacked.

But you cannot take him.

He only small boy.

What?

There is France.

There is England.

America.

Surely they will help us.

Surely.

Yes, they must help us.

Surely.

But some saw what was truly coming.

What the rest of us would not see, or could not possibly understand.

They went up in tall buildings.

All the miller came out and left from this life to the next.

Even though 40 years later I still ask myself, why did we not see this monstrous dark cloud approaching?

As a child growing up in Poland, I lived what I thought was a normal life, just like everybody else.

The Jewish community was almost one third of the town's population.

Our families had been here for generations.

How could anyone in their right mind demand that we should no longer exist By May 1940, the Nazis have crowded a 150,000 Jews into a neighborhood barely a square mile in size, 150,000 people sealed off from the rest of the world behind barbed wire fences and soldiers with machine guns.

No running water, no sewer system.

Before the war, this was the poorest part of the city.

Now.

Now it is called the ghetto.

And it's where we are allowed to live.

For who knows how long.

I think of it as a zoo.

As a place where.

Where I see human beings become animals.

And not only the people who are beaten and tortured and slowly starved to death, but those who do the beating and the torturing and the starving savagely, efficiently, gleefully.

I am 17 years old.

My brother Aaron is just 15.

We are put to work in a factory making belt buckles for the German army.

Our family is crowded into a broken down building with 60 others each day.

You see Nazis committing the worst crimes against helpless people.

Your mind somehow tries to.

To to make sense of what you know is, is madness.

Your life is not ruled by reason or merit or even even morality.

You're you're you're you're it's you know, this this cannot be this somehow, you know.

Oh, But the people fight back.

Aaron and I organize food for the small children.

We pick up potatoes and leftover scraps from the streets.

We collect charcoal from the burned synagogues.

My mother makes food for not just our family, but whoever comes to us for help.

Watch closely.

Please, Dina.

You too.

Miriam.

Take a little bits of spinach, a few bits of chicory.

Mix it up.

Now add one drop of sugar.

One drop only.

Mix.

Then there is your recipe for chicory, spinach, meat patty with no meat required.

But drink enough water.

And this one large patty will feed your family to this.

Excuse me, I have to get back to weeding garden boys.

Come, come.

Very important.

My father teach us how to make a small stove from pieces of black metal.

And also meniscus.

Small containers for holding food and water.

We smuggle them out to the people, knowing that if we are caught, we will be named or killed.

I'll say this, and there a meniscus.

Yeah.

You make the next one.

Be careful when you do stupid things.

We are always careful, father.

More careful than yesterday.

A neighbor saw you and your brother out after the curfew.

A guard post nearby and you were too close, too close.

Maybe we don't care anymore what these monsters do to us now.

We stopped caring.

You once made a promise vodka.

To yourself.

For all of us.

Whatever happens, you persevere.

Persevere no matter what.

Papa What will happen to us?

Honestly, my son.

I do not know.

But even if we must eat sand or grass or brick, we must survive to show the world we are better human beings.

We must all.

Mordecai!

Mordecai, please have children.

Come to garden.

Mordecai.

To stay alive all those years in the ghetto.

Everyone does what they can.

One man.

We.

We never knew his name.

Him.

Except songs, new songs, old melodies.

Every day something to lift our spirits.

He goes through the ghetto singing.

Singing through the cries of the dying.

And the cries of those who are mourning their dead.

Never say This is the final road for you.

Do not let the skies be cover over days of blue.

As the hours that we long for is so near.

And our steps set down.

The message we are here from Lambda Paul to the land of distant snow we have come with sorrow for all.

And everywhere.

My loved ones in this information.

My experience with my great love in Jordan was everywhere.

I love was sigle to be shared.

My spirit will again in Jordan.

[Sing in Native Languages] [Sing in Native Languages] In August 1944, the final murder of Jews Lodge got underway.

The Nazis put us on on trains.

60 people locked in a single car for days.

Food, water.

I watched a man die.

For hours.

Him dying.

Me.

Watching.

And that was just the beginning of our time in Auschwitz.

And we know the end, don't we?

6 million Jews dead.

A million in Auschwitz alone.

15 million other Nazi victims murdered across Europe.

Numbers.

Even.

Even through the worst of it.

You keep thinking our family.

Will they survive?

And then tonight, a crazy thought comes into your mind.

Maybe if you can, they will.

You must survive.

And?

And you tell the world what has happened.

I Melvin Goldman.

I will survive and tell I was.

But no, that's reason.

That's logic.

Reason and logic do not exist in the world of Auschwitz.

One day flows into the next.

Death surrounds you every hour of every day.

Till you, you, you collapse into sleep.

But there.

There you perform the only act of resistance you can.

You dream.

You dream of a life after.

But not an afterlife.

But this life resumed.

The life you will, you will make for yourself.

When the last Nazi, the last tank, the last bomb, the last random barbed wire has vanished from the earth.

And.

This dream.

This dream is, a precious item that you must hide.

What more precious.

More precious even than a dry crust of bread.

Or a rain soaked rag that you, you know, squeeze for a last drop of water.

It nourishes you just the same.

I can't say for others, but for me, for all those six years in prison, I hoped that I would survive long enough to find the answer to one simple question.

Why?

Why do some people become monsters?

Why do others end up as victims?

I ask this so today, as I sit in my comfortable shop, as I walk along our peaceful Pittsburgh streets, past tranquil shops and synagogues, as I watch.

As I watch my beautiful wife and daughter go about their days, never troubled by the evil that I saw.

It is hard to imagine the deep, deep darkness of the soul.

Human beings, capable of inflicting on one another millions and millions of others.

Darkness that swallows up everything you know, everything you.

You see.

You.

You.

You touch.

You think.

Darkness that we fear will never end.

But.

For some, the light did return.

For me.

It came the afternoon of May 2nd, 1945, when soldiers, American soldiers from the 82nd airborne walked into our camp and told us.

We were free.

I weighed 80 pounds.

I had, collapsed lung infections, tuberculosis, many unhealed broken bones.

It would be eight months before I could stand and walk on my own.

But I had to persevere.

The last six years, I had been consumed by how to avoid death.

Now, what was important was learning how to accept life.

Perhaps.

Before we can truly live.

We must first give ourselves over to death.

I remember once my father said.

Aaron, Aaron Did you know?

Dear brother, this is a wonder beyond the wonders.

Let us make more.

Aaron and I had been separated after arriving at Auschwitz and liberation.

I had no idea if he was still alive.

I come back to lodge now in the Russian zone.

I found work in a hardware store.

I ended up in a refugee hospital in that whorish often small German town, in the American zone, and I was still struggling with my health.

But I was elected to the committee that manages supplies for the hospital.

See, my, my employee card number 2613.

I will I will find you a job at the hospital working with me.

Thank you, brother life.

I knew we would meet again.

I'll.

When you.

When you returned to lodge, did you?

Yes.

Were you able?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Our home.

Only the chimney was left.

Nothing else.

Standing on the entire block.

But.

I don't believe it.

In the chimney bottom, right where she hid them.

And.

Oh!

This is my school picture.

Sixth grade, right before bar mitzvah.

No.

Look at those ears.

Oh.

This writing on the back.

My loveliest brother yet gotten.

And now.

Only brother.

At that moment, I felt a chill through my bones.

Sadness.

Not even of a beautiful reunion.

Could drive away a few bits of metal and a tattered piece of paper.

All that remained of a past.

Now not even to bury, our past had been buried for us.

But.

We were still here.

Aaron and I. We would build a future no one could bury or hide.

You say you have a job for me at hospital?

Yes, brother.

Yes.

We have many jobs to do.

You be like driving to Munich, pick up some food supplies and me to keep a hospital.

There's no end of jobs.

Finding penicillin for a sick child.

And often in the middle of the night.

Hiring teachers, organizing clothing drives.

I, to sweeten our lives, I brought in musicians from the town to play for everybody at lunch and dinner.

We even had a special room where people who would not even nine nein This cannot be allowed.

You must wait for the regular permit to arrive.

Sister Fernanda.

The children need food now.

Not in six weeks.

We can go down to the distribution center.

And you are not allowed access to the center.

But just.

There's plenty of food at the center.

There is no longer accessible.

No.

We can have the truck ready.

Nein.

The center is no longer accessible.

These children will not perish because of a permit.

Oh, a piece of paper.

One thing the world needs to learn.

Maybe starting with you.

We are not the same Jews you pushed to out the niche man No more.

No.

No more.

Aaron and I organized a crew.

We drove to the center and we got the children's food rations.

Not to worry, boys and girls.

Not to worry.

The Goldmans are here.

Yes, brother.

We are.

At that moment, I. I knew we had to leave Europe.

We had to restore what the Nazis had taken from us.

And not just things or property, but ourselves.

We had to learn how to become the people that we were meant to be.

If our world had not been broken apart.

And where that rebuilding would take place.

We had cousins in South America.

Australia was warm, but very far away.

Of course, many Jews were going to the new, the new country of Israel.

I thought about the soldiers who had liberated our prison.

American soldiers.

They had come all the way from their home to hit the most terrible spot on earth.

Remaking our lives.

Now, America would be the place for that.

I felt it in my heart.

Aaron went first in 1949 to a city called Pittsburgh in the state of Pennsylvania.

Why?

Well, because, in the words of our immigration counsel.

Pittsburgh is a metal town, and your family trade is in metal.

Is it not?

A year later, I received my sponsor number 93744 from the Jewish Social Service Bureau of Pittsburgh.

Signed by Gladys Roth.

I still marvel at this.

This Gladys Roth, a complete stranger, had taken responsibility for helping me become an American.

Miss or Mrs.

Roth, whoever or wherever you are to this day, I bless you.

For hundreds of us so-called displaced persons, most in our 20s, out in the world.

After losing everything and everybody, our transport ship had seen better days.

But it was still seaworthy.

We helped to paint and, and scrubbed the deck.

Five days old Raymond.

We had to fix a large hole in the deck.

Don't ask.

But we had no fear.

We would find our new life.

We became each other's family.

At last, Romania.

Romania.

They were.

There were many Romanians in our, In America.

You, stay.

I stay.

Yes, yes, I stay.

What do you hear about America?

America, they say, is a place.

Wants us.

America.

People help us no matter where I come from.

I hope you are right.

Oh, right.

Oh, good.

Look.

Look up there.

You see?

America.

Statue of Liberty.

Hello, America.

Ha ha ha!

Hello.

America, step forward, sir.

Far enough.

Sir.

I was processed at Ellis Island.

Takes a long time to get processed.

I'm not even sure what that word means.

I know that when you enter the world, you are born.

But when you enter America, you, are processed.

Sir.

Turn left.

Please.

Not your left, sir.

My left.

Murphy, take this down.

Other way, sir.

Other way.

Make sure his disembarkation profile is an order.

Murphy, to.

Its last.

At last I was processed and my new American self was given a new American name.

No longer my Yiddish self, Mordechai.

Or my Polish self.

Miyagi's love.

Melvin m e l v i n. Melvin.

Goldman.

Goldman.

Melvin.

Third door on the right.

Counter seven b personal effects may be retrieved at.

Baggage check.

Four.

Four.

Four.

Welcome to America, Melvin.

Next in line.

Madam.

Step forward.

And that night, Melvin Goldman boarded a train in New York and got off.

Eight hours later, in Pittsburgh.

December 31st new year, new country, new Melvin.

Naturally, it was snowing, but this new Melvin Goldman thought this was the most wonderful snow he had ever seen.

American snow.

Mr.

Goldman.

Mr.

Goldman.

Mr.

Weinstein from the Jewish Federation.

So glad you arrived safely.

Your case file here says you plan on staying with your brother and his wife here in Pittsburgh.

Demist.

Denniston avenue where your family lives.

Yes.

Let me tell you what.

Streetcar to take.

Streetcar?

Yes, yes.

You're going to leave the station.

Go down Liberty Avenue towards Liberty?

Yes.

Wait a second.

How much money do you have, Mr.

Goldman?

Money?

Money?

American money.

Oh, Oh, okay.

$0.20.

American.

Oh, my.

Stay here, Mr.

Goldman.

I'll get us a taxi.

Aaron had already gotten well settled in a neighborhood called Squirrel Hill.

He and his American born wife, Evie, were kind enough to let me stay with them for a few months.

As I, got acquainted with my new city.

I even got to see a few squirrels.

But first, there was a new language to learn.

Now I could already speak eight languages.

Yiddish, Hebrew, Polish, French, Italian.

German.

Russian.

Hungarian.

So what was one more?

Was I in for a surprise?

English has a lot of different ways to say a thing.

And sometimes what you say can mean a lot of different things.

All the wrong thing.

Completely.

But I was well guided by my teachers.

At my first class, Mrs.

Freud made all the students feel comfortable Vithom Viteta Huanying Welcome.

I know you are all from many different places around our world, and perhaps where you lived before you did not feel you were a welcome part of your society.

But here in America, especially here in Pittsburgh, you are very welcome.

She convinced us that we could succeed in this country.

I would succeed if we applied ourselves and not just to learning English, but learning about America and what makes it special in America.

We are responsible for each other.

It is the only way our country can stay free.

America has a great future because you newcomers, each and every one of you are here to help it grow.

Esmeralda.

Yes.

You may open your book.

Our first chapter is taking part in conversation.

I remained friends with her long after leaving that school.

Even later, when she was in an old age home, I would visit and she still spoke beautifully.

I had always enjoyed reading as a young person in Poland, but now trying to learn English.

I read even more every newspaper I could find.

But in a special way, I would stand in front of a mirror and, take you late.

Shoulders back.

Eyes forward.

Like so.

At last night's Symphony concert in Syria.

Mars mosque.

20 year old Lorin Maazel conducted the Bach G minor.

Few fugue, conducted with vigor and detailed attention.

The musicians were able to grasp.

Come free.

Comprehending.

Comprehending.

Re sounds like a great show which had been there.

But I was too busy taking more classes night and day.

Finally, after a few months, I had enough English to get my first American job selling televisions.

Door to door and refrigerators, beds, sofas.

The store I worked for sold all kinds of housewares, even watches and custom jewelry.

Every day, miles of walking, hours of talking.

I got to know Pittsburgh pretty well.

But sales did not come easy.

Eventually, I, I had to resort to, a bit of what is the English word?

The razzmatazz.

Hello and good morning.

Such a beautiful home you have.

May I interest you in something wonderful for the kitchen?

This large serving bowl, a lovely shade.

See how it matches up.

Oh.

So clumsy.

I. So.

Okay.

Will you look at this?

Unbroken.

Not a chip or a crack.

Is it a miracle?

No, it is melamine.

A new blend of plastic and resin.

Very, very strong, as you can see.

And affordable here.

Try for yourself.

Don't worry.

You can break it.

I can place an order for a full ten piece set, if you like.

Let me leave our catalog.

My pleasure.

And yes, we do accept Green Stamps.

I had many jobs like that.

Selling in stock and out on the job, sometimes 15 hours a day.

I, I typed customs papers for the import.

The company I, I made window displays, marked floors.

I was a part time auditor for the YMCA.

Even.

My brother Aaron was now selling insurance.

And, Friday nights, his American family would gather, would be invited for dinner.

Beyond work.

I kept up my night classes and graduated from Pittsburgh Technical Institute with a certificate in industrial mechanical engineering.

More and more, I felt like my life was in motion.

Yeah.

Every day.

Another step.

A step here, a step there.

Always moving forward.

Until one day, the biggest step of all.

I met the woman who would become my wife.

And in that moment, Melvin.

Like this.

Kate.

May I tell the story?

Mrs.. Mildred Goldman, daughter of David and Elizabeth Stein.

Pleasure to meet you all.

I grew up on Ophelia Street and graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School.

From age 15, I had all sorts of jobs helping to support the family.

Secretary, bookkeeper, stenographer, even a clothing store clerk.

One day I met a quiet man with a smile.

The stars should be so bright.

We hit it off right away.

He.

Yes.

Right away.

But he was so quiet, I thought maybe he didn't like me.

My English, you see, was much better than some of the American gentlemen of my acquaintance.

And perfectly suitable for the task at hand, which was getting to know me.

Please realize.

When war broke out, I was only 16.

No experience of getting to know girls.

No experience.

Practically none.

Maybe a little bit.

1 or 2 times.

When he did speak, he had such a curious mind.

The plans he was making for his very own business.

We were getting to know each other nicely.

But out of the blue, he takes a job in Chicago.

It seemed like a big opportunity to succeed.

An opportunity to avoid the inevitable.

A month later, I am very surprised when she visits me in Chicago.

I've always wanted to see the Windy City.

He seemed a bit homesick.

I suppose I had come to think of Pittsburgh as my home.

Could we make it our home?

We must be reasonable.

On the one hand, we have nothing.

On the other hand, we know how to work hard.

We can work at being happy with you.

I would spend the rest of my life working at that.

A big job too big may be the only job worth doing.

Might leave.

So we got married March 6th, 1954.

A bit on the gray and chilly side with Melvin by my side.

There was sun in my life every day.

Never brighter than when our daughter was born.

Four years later.

Lee.

Diane.

You think you know what true happiness will be for your early years?

Wish.

Hoping.

Praying that your first child in your arms, her smile on your heart.

Never her first time seeing butterflies.

Oh, she loved butterflies.

The apartment on Negley.

How old was she?

Oh.

The duplex?

Yeah.

Oh, I don't know.

She must have been.

Hello?

Mom?

Dad!

Over here.

There she is.

Oh.

You tell the rest, dear.

I'm going to make supper.

Bye, mom.

Mom was our rock.

She helped dad type letters.

Kept track of his business orders and accounting.

And never stopped encouraging him in what he wanted to do.

There was a lot I wanted to do.

The last ten years, I had been selling jewelry for other people, but I had actually learned the basics of fine metalwork from my father back before the war.

He felt he could open his own shop, make custom designs, establish a solid business, making a perfect world.

It's a hard job.

Maybe start small.

Like, making a perfect necklace.

It gets easier from there.

Mr.

Goldman, you are a true artist of the gems.

I give you an idea of what I want.

You make it more beautiful than I could ever imagine.

Believe me, sir.

Your diamond will light up like a 500 watt bulb.

Well, you put your heart into every piece.

I'm sending my brother in law to you for his daughter's graduation present.

Dad worked constantly.

The shop was open ten days a week.

Six days a week.

Seven days Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve.

So many childhood memories of my time there.

Now, you used to play jacks on the floor there as a as a as a little girl and sing nursery rhymes.

Oh, the customers loved you.

Then I let you help to straighten the shelves and file the paperwork.

I will never forget the time he finally let me wait on an actual customer.

And she made the sale.

I have no doubt that my customer interactions provided insights useful to my future counseling career.

Every person you meet is a way to learn about them and you.

G & S jewelry, Mr.

Goldman.

This is Shirley from Bartlett Street, down by the giant eagle.

Yes, ma'am, I have.

I have what you might call a specialty request.

As you know, my Stanley is a hardworking city of Pittsburgh Public Works employee.

Hard working?

Yes.

For our anniversary, I want him to give me a brooch in the shape of a teeny tiny sanitation vehicle.

I beg your pardon?

A trash truck.

Make it 14 karat gold.

Or however many carats it takes for him to know that I will love it more than anything he's given me since last year.

With, diamonds for the headlights, perhaps.

Oh, yes.

And rubies for tail lights.

Stanley would be so appreciative.

I am designing as we speak, Mr.

Shirley.

Mr.

Goldman.

You're the best.

Thank you.

You're most welcome.

Mr.

Goldman, you are the best.

Thank you.

She's too kind.

Do you know what makes my work the best?

My customers.

Trusting me to make them a small piece of joy they can hold in their hands and give to others the small piece of joy that will last.

Even in times when there may be no joy Dad.

That's beautiful.

He always says things like that.

You should write a book.

Foolishness.

In America.

Anything is possible.

We would take walks along Murray Avenue.

The heart of the Squirrel Hill business district.

Blocks and blocks of small shops.

Rosenbloom bakery.

Rodas deli.

Ratners hardware.

Oh, look.

A new grocery, kosher and a flower shop next to Friedman's.

Hello, Mr.

Tanner.

How's the, real estate going?

Pinsker.

Stern's.

Letterman's bagel and the JCC.

One of the Shaare Torah trustees was in the shop last week.

Something special for his nephew's bar mitzvah.

I was able to make him.

It brought back boyhood memories of his own neighborhood and lodge.

This, this new film at the manor.

A magician of Lublin might be something to see.

You think, whenever your grandfather took us to the cinema, we went right after to the biggest delicatessen in town.

Now I'm hungry for a blitz.

How about you.

Then again, some memories he would not share.

Dad would never talk about the terror that had taken his family and sent him halfway around the world.

When the subject arose or something came on the news, he'd quickly move it out of the conversation, as if he imagined some hidden parts of that monstrous Nazi evil could still reach out and hurt me or mom.

Sometimes a memory might slip from the shadows.

My Uncle Aaron, I remember get togethers with his family over the years.

And for a short while, dad hired him to work in the shop.

Wait a moment.

I saw that in the back room.

Aaron, run!

Found it.

Brother.

I know.

Okay.

It's the ulcer acting up.

I'm fine.

I'll take a pill.

No, worry me a check if there is something.

Go go.

Take lunch early.

Our family's never seen what you would call close.

Even though the brothers had so much in common.

Maybe too much.

But then there were visits from friends he'd known in Europe.

Come on, gold rush.

Be Tom Vitale.

All these years.

So good to see you.

Oh, how could I miss your daughter's first mitzvah?

You know what your presence means.

A lot.

Oh, your presence looks prosperous.

You Americans have been good to us.

This country gave us back our dignity, showed us what freedom is.

But where else in the world.

But this and this beautiful country.

Do you get the chance to become a new man, a better man?

No.

We were given an opportunity and we took it.

And now we give back.

We make new families.

The family is the center of it all.

Now, every person who ever is, is a tiny part of the big picture of human existence.

Maybe just a speck or a tint that fades in a moment.

But every person adds something to the to color the whole picture for what people will see coming after.

And new dreams.

Yeah.

The dreams.

Yes.

Each night in the house I dreamed I was chained to the railroad track next to the camp.

The black train coming toward me.

Towering to the black sky.

Fire belching on all sides.

I ran with so big screeching, clanking, bouncing.

Cannot move.

I cannot scream no voice.

Black we used crying.

Black, no light.

Fire burning, blinding.

Getting closer, closer.

Grinding.

Same dream each night.

Yes.

Each morning my eyes opened to another day.

They opened so that you can tell that rain to those who need to hear.

Your health.

Not too bad.

They know where I stood in my goal scheme.

You, They decide to come to it to the East Giant Niche Yard.

When the time comes for us to live there.

It's enough years.

Oh.

I'm looking forward to your first actual dance.

Oh, no.

That's it.

I'll turn back.

Hunter down.

Hi, Melvin.

It's time for your bus.

It's the speech.

They're waiting.

This is where in the celebration the.

The father is supposed to give advice.

Yeah, opinions.

I can give better advice.

You'll get from a ten cent birthday card at Rosen's.

Not like many of you.

I'm very far away from where my bar mitzvah took place.

And since that joyful day in Poland, many things have happened to me in this life.

Some have changed me.

In ways change.

In ways I won't speak about them.

But coming to America, becoming an American.

Has shown me how divine presence is always among and within us, like our precious need to meet the eternal flame of hope that burns not just in the temple, but in the freedom we share each day as Americans and offer to the world.

If that flame of freedom dies out.

We see what happens to people, niche to a world swallowed up by darkness.

I say to you, Lee Diane, my beloved daughter, born in American light.

Your mother and I are so proud.

Look around this room today.

Take in the good wishes from the hearts of those who love you and will guide you.

Rising to your adulthood.

And as you become that adult know also your duty to keep the flame of freedom burning bright.

As have those before you.

Tell their stories.

Keep them in your soul.

I shared them, thank.

After closing the shop in the late 80s, Mom and Dad took things a little easier to prepare for their next role as grandparents.

I married my wonderful husband, John Keitel, in 1991, and our son Jason arrived a year later.

Looking back, it seemed like dad knew his time was winding down and he wanted to give as much of himself to Jason's future memories as he could.

In 2015, our Jason was a college graduate with a fellowship to study in Berlin, Germany for the first time since dad's passing.

Nearly 20 years before I went to the box that held his cassette tapes.

For the first time.

I felt ready to listen.

My name is Melvin Goldman.

I was born January 21st, 1923, and culture, and now the southwest of Warsaw.

Our family owned a sheet metal factory.

My grandfather had begun in the.

With every sentence of each tape, I imagined the family I had never known men, women, children across the centuries, their smiles and laughter, their joys and sorrows all spreading a path to us.

Now.

We will survive more to come.

After all this terrible madness.

You will be an engineer and run the factory.

Somehow people will remember us as human beings.

Were the human beings.

Wherever you are, do good deeds as if it were ritual.

Remembering is ritual.

We must remember.

May the memory be a blessing.

Also shot on beam.

Rebirth.

Who you are, says Shalom Eleanor.

Vocal Yisrael via emerald.

omen That summer, John, Jason and I went to Europe, to Poland, to Aódz.

We spent hours walking the streets my father had walked as a youth.

Well, Bershka Street, the Goldman home and factory once stood Greenmarket Square, where the family shopped in Petrovsky Street, where they attended the symphony and theater.

Over there, the synagogue.

A park stands there now.

Lovely pond with, fountain gardens.

The beauty only magnifies what was missing.

People and their lives stolen and scattered but not forgotten.

Never forgotten, never forgot, never never forgotten.

And so tonight we tell the story of this one Holocaust survivor and his incredible journey from Poland to Pittsburgh.

We tell it for all the other stories, like his stories, you may never hear.

But together we'll help you give voice to your own.

In this life, we are all refugees, each and every one.

What guides us on our way.

Step by step.

Day by day is hope.

Love.

And perseverance.