WHEN MY FATHER WAS YOUNG

by David Thaler, circa 1973

My father was born in a small town near the border of Poland and Russia. Although it was inside Poland, the town’s name was Russian-- Magierov. The border area was disputed and often changed nationality. (At that time it was part of the Austria-Hungarian Empire.) Partly because it was near the border, there was a large police presence in the town.

In the central area of the town was the Jewish district. The language of the Jews was Yiddish. Polish speaking Christians lived in a concentric circle around the Jewish circle. Around the whole town were fields.

Some of the Jews were farmers -- small farms -- maybe an acre, a cow or two. Many of the Jews were shop keepers. My father’s family were taylors.; they made and sold clothing. It was a family of about eight, described by my father as a large family. He remembers a baby dying when he was 3 years old. Also, when he was about three, my father nearly drowned. He fell into the water upstream of a paddle wheel. He yelled and was scared. Someone rescued him.

My father’s father bought the materials for the shop, but was not much involved in the day to day operations or the actual sewing of clothes. The busines was mostly run by my father’s mother. My grandfather was a Talmudic scholar. A community of about twenty such men gathered daily in the synagogue.

There was another synagogue, an older one which was still there, although a new one had been built. Upstairs it was not much, just a single meeting room. It had a large underground basement with walls two meters thick. The older synagogue was used when there was fear of pogram.*

In his third year, my father began religious training. He didn’t like getting out of bed early, especially in the winter when it was still dark outside. Once, or maybe for a short period, he hid under his bed to avoid going to school. He was dragged out anyway by a man with a special name and position who was just under the rabbi in authority. By age five my father had read and pondered the Old Testament, in Hebrew. My young father saw war coming and saw its effects on his world.

The Jewish community was intellectually, not physically, oriented. It seems they had little understanding of the military mindset, of planned violence. They kept no guns. As war approached, Jewish youth were subject to conscription. They feared it greatly. In the military they would not be easily able to practice their religion because other soldiers would mock them. Also, because they had lacked exercise, play, and a physical orientation in their upbringing, the Jewish youths were frankly clumsy. They feared mockery because they were shy, and they feared death because they were clumsy. My father knew of some youths who crippled themselves to the extent of cutting off a hand or fingers in order to avoid conscription. Others injected turpentine in order to cause fever and absesses.

When my father was five and a half, the war was happening... World War I. The Russians were advancing. There were at that time pograms occuring in Russia, but not in Poland. My father’s family gathered themselves into a horsedrawn carriage and headed down a dirt road toward a town about 20 miles further from the border city of Lwow. About halfway there they stopped at the house of some relatives and my father played with two children, one of whom was about his own age. They had many toys, which my father loved. Rather than go on, he wanted to stay and play with the beautiful toys. Two he remembered seventy years later: a wooden rocking horse and a wooden toy gun.

They went on to the next town. The Russians were still coming. The family caught the last civilian train to Vienna. This train could only travel slowly and in daylight. The trip to Vienna usually took 24 hours, but this journey lasted four days. The train was shot at. My father remembered bombs being dropped from balloons. They dropped all around, missing the train. The train was crowded. Children-- my father -- slept under the seats. Sometimes there was no food.

In Krakow, about halfway to Vienna, the train stopped, and the Jewish community brought milk, bread and other food. For my young father, this traveling was exciting, an adventure, and not at all traumatic. Another time the train stopped and visited with a train going the other way. That train was filled with soldiers going to the front. The soldiers gave the refugees food and were kind to the children.

My father was fascinated by his first sights of Vienna’s tall buildings and glittering signs. His mother tried to prevent it, but soon my five year old father was wandering alone in the streets of Vienna... down the steps by the river... At first he was excited, perhaps ecstatic in his freedom. Then two things happened, I’m not sure in which order: he was abused by a group of children his own age, and he realized he was lost. He had wanted to play with the children, but they threw stones at him because they were culturally biased. My father had braids in front of his ears, wore ethnic clothing, and spoke another language. His mother had reported his disappearance to the police.After about 2 hours of aimless, probably desparate and tearful wandering, he was found by the police and returned home.

He was emotionally traumatized by this experience. Though he had always been clean, he began bedwetting. Every day his mother took him to a new physician. Their verdict was unanimous; he had no physical problem. He was bedwetting in reaction to what he had experienced. My father woke up crying, having dreamt what was true. After 2 or 3 weeks he got over the severe depression and bedwetting.

In school, he was in a mixed class of Yiddish and German speakers, though classes were taught in German. He knew only Yiddish. A teacher took a kind interest in him, so every day after regular classes he got an extra hour of German tutoring. He learned the German language in 2 or 3 months and soon was among the better students in his class. He was shy, self contained and studious. He never did play sports with the other children.

Over the next ten years, as he grew, studying was the main focus of his life. He read Schiller, Goethe ( Faust parts I and II ) most of the German philosophers and poets. He wrote many poems. A book of over 100 poems was finished. He had hopes of making it as a poet. Few people ever saw his poems. Occasionally a teacher would read one of them aloud to the class with the comment that it was very beautiful. He never actively tried to get his book published. He was not a part of the literary cafe life occurring in Vienna. He was too shy. All except 2 or 3 or those poems were subsequently lost. These poems, in German, exist today. I haven’t seen them.

When he entered the University of Vienna medical school he gave up plans to become a known poet. While a medical student, he continued to live at home, continued to be shy, especially with women, and continued to study very hard.

In medical school he had an original idea which took into account a philosophical generalization of some power, on anatomical observation, and on experience of emotional conciousness:

The generalization: Nature does not divide structure without dividing function.

The anatomical observation: The tear gland of humans is composed of 2 anatomically distinct portions.

The experience: When humans cry, we feel much better afterwards.


He proposed that at the same time tears are flowing outward, another chemical, from the other part of the gland, is being internally secreted. A tear gland may be 2 glands in the endocrine system sense of the word, as are the pancreas and the pituitary. He proposed that either or both tears and the postulated internally secreted chemical possess mood altering qualities.

He wrote up his theory and proposed experiments such as injecting tears and the dissected tear glands of corpses. My father submitted a paper to the patent office in Vienna where under law it was dated and kept on file for 30 years. That was in 1936. This work ended with Hitler and has never been resumed.

During this time of his fascination with tears, my shy father met my mother. They were introduced by a mutual friend....



*Dear Father,

Here is the story you told me written out to the best of my ability. Please check it over carefully for mistakes. Also expand on it if it brings anything else to mind. I would like to continue on this project, would you?

Perhaps you could speak into a tape recorder and mail me the tape. I’ll mail you what I write which you should go over and change in any way you like. Incidentally, would you considedr undergoing hypnosis in order to try to recover some of the poems which you wrote?

Please write and mail me a tape starting with your later years.*


(Editor's note: As far as I know our father didn't get around to sending that tape, but he was interviewed by Louis Greenblatt in the later 70's and that interview did become a published article. jd)