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    My Ferguson
    May 27, 2008
    Community (4 comments)

    By JanetheWriter
    In the Lives column in this week's New York Times Magazine, Michael Norman writes about Ferguson, a replacement marine he knew for "all of a minute" in Vietnam immediately before Ferguson was killed by mortar fire and fell into a fighting hole on top of Norman.

    After identifying his body in Danang, Norman tells us, "So I took Ferguson home with me. Who else was going to remember him? Who else among us "knew" him and could carry his good name, his reputation, the memory of him, as a marine? Remembering was part of the bargain we all made, the reason we were so willing to die for one another."

    Chaim Glasberg is my Ferguson. 

    Although I never knew him before he died--not even for "all of a minute"--last summer while chaperoning a L'Dor v'Dor NFTY trip, I picked his name from among the rows and rows and rows of names of Czech Jews, Holocaust victims all, painted on the stucco-like walls of Prague's Pincus Synagogue.

    Since then, I have carried Chaim Glasberg's good name close in my heart. Throughout two weeks in Prague, Krakow and Warsaw, Chaim Glasberg was with me. In every empty, echoing synagogue, in every overflowing cemetery, at the mass graves in the woods near Tikochin, at Oskar Schindler's factory, in the streets of the Warsaw Ghetto, in the crematoria at Auschwitz and in the barracks at Birkenau, he was present. There and then, I stood in Chaim Glasberg's footprints to witness history. Here and now and always, I stand on his shoulders to remember.

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    Comments

    Diana Herman said:

    Although I know JanetheWriter well, I did not know about Chaim Glasberg. The story truly touched my heart and from now on,I will carry his name in my heart, as well.

    Andi Milens said:

    Hi Jane -- it's a great story...although I haven't been to Prague, I have been to the camps in Poland and am writing from a Germany Close Up (www.germanycloseup.de) trip to Berlin. Your words are poignant and meaningful, thanks for sharing.

    JanethePainter said:

    Ah, no kinder deed can be done than carrying a name close to your heart of someone who has no one else to carry their name close to their heart.

    aunt B said:

    like you, i have walked the streets of the Warsaw ghetto but with my father's name (your grandfather) walking with me. An attempt to try to retrace his steps from a shetl in Lithuania, across Poland to Germany . I hope that at some time as I walked through the ghetto i may have placed my sole(soul) on his foot print. There is much room on my shoulder to carry another and so I shall carry Chaim Glasberg along with me as i do Poppy Abe. much love - aunt b

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