David Tabatsky-Surviving the Nazis

Show Transcript

[00:00:51] David, welcome to our podcast.

[00:00:53] david_tabatsky: It was really fun the first time and. This is, this book is way different. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:01:00] Bob Gatty: Yeah, way different.

[00:01:02] mark_m__bello: I was just gonna mention that David we talked to you about Filthy Rich Lawyers, a completely different book than the Boy Behind the Door. This one, it seems to me the outside looking in, was far more personal for you. It's based on a true story. The protagonist is an actual Holocaust survivor. you tell us the backstory? You actually traveled to Amsterdam, interviewed Solomon Cool. How were, how was it that you were chosen for this project?

[00:01:33] david_tabatsky: back stories. There's the back backstory to how it. Became possible that I went to Amsterdam

[00:01:39] mark_m__bello: I.

[00:01:39] david_tabatsky: met Sal that started here in New York City where I live.

[00:01:44] Track 1: Okay.

[00:01:44] david_tabatsky: there was a man named Sandy Batkin, who was a Jewish businessman who lived in Scarsdale, which is a. upscale, wealthy suburb of New York City.

[00:01:54] A lot of Jewish people were living there. A lot of Jews who were supporting Israel in the years after the Second World War and the the founding of Israel in 48 and that whole generation after that. And Sandy was one of them. Sandy, if he was alive now, would be in his upper nineties. Yeah, somewhere about that. Sandy was in Aruba, which is a Dutch colony, or at least it was back in the sixties. And they were there on vacation and Saul was there with his wife Neti also on vacation. And by chance, this Jew from America and this Holocaust survivor standing in the ocean and their bathing suits. Just say, who are you?

[00:02:35] Where do you come from? Just chit chat. A normal chit chat. Sandy's saying, oh, I'm this, I'm a Jewish guy. I'm into Israel and I'm I do real estate and da And, Saul in his own very shy, unassuming way, mentioned something about living, obviously living in Amsterdam during the war and and surviving the Holocaust and he. As he told me when I met him, he thought okay, maybe that'll just, that'll be all we'll move on to talk about other things. He wasn't a person to, to wanna talk about it. And Sandy prodded him. He was astonished. First of all, it's a shocking coincidence to meet their stand literally standing in the ocean on a beautiful, sunny day. and. And refer to the Holocaust. The two don't go together. and it was the first person a real peer. were basically the same age who had was a Holocaust survivor. That certainly doesn't happen every day. Sandy had indirectly been exposed to a few older folks, who had survived but never knew them personally. So here he was just chit chatting and it's a very sociable way. And he was pretty well blown away by Saul's story. But I think even more the fact. Here's a real human being just a couple feet away from me just talking to me like a normal person. This is, him. The reality of it hit him pretty deeply. This is real people. This is just normal people. This is not the mythology of seeing it on a film. This is just a real guy, just a normal guy with his wife. Sitting over there on the beach, and he's a Holocaust survivor, and I'm a very safe and wealthy businessman from a Jewish community in, in near New York City. I have, I know nothing about surviving anything pretty much except the traffic jam.

[00:04:41] Bob Gatty: Hmm

[00:04:42] david_tabatsky: so he,

[00:04:45] friends and Saul asked him,

[00:04:48] don't you wanna tell your story?

[00:04:50] and

[00:04:50] Sandy asked Saul and Saul was like, no, not, no, not really. I, it's not, It's just not my nature to do that. and they did another vacation, a year or two or three later, and they developed a friendship. And Saul over the years,

[00:05:07] was kept being asked by Sandy,

[00:05:10] do you wanna tell your story? I think you should.

[00:05:12] you should. And finally saw,

[00:05:16] years later said,

[00:05:17] I suppose I should for my kids and I have grandchildren now. Maybe I. Quietly,

[00:05:26] tell the story before I forget too many of the details. forgetting was a whole nother. Thing that there becomes a reality and a mythology merge in a, in very powerful ways when you talk about the concept of remembering and forgetting.

[00:05:42] and that's universal to the Holocaust, not specific to Solomon. Cool. but Saul had his own version because,

[00:05:49] he had terrible guilt. So finally,

[00:05:53] is quite a few years ago. Sandy got Saul to commit to doing it. And so Saul was like, okay, I don't know how to do it. And Sandy said, I'll find a writer, I'll find somebody. So Sandy just coincidentally met a literary agent during a party out on Long Island in one summer and she knew me and. So she called me in and she said, would you meet

[00:06:17] with Sandy? I want to try to put you two together.

[00:06:22] and

[00:06:22] we don't, let's not worry about a publisher yet. Let's just get the book written. I'll take care of finding the publisher when the time comes. That's what I do. I'm an agent. And I was like, okay, that's fine.

[00:06:32] I was,

[00:06:34] I just didn't really know what to make of it cause I didn't know enough about it. So I met with Sandy. He was very committed to doing it. He had the resources to do it. I told him I was absolutely welcome going to Amsterdam where I had been already a couple of times just on my own for other things.

[00:06:51] I had worked there before,

[00:06:54] performing when I was. Previous career as a,

[00:06:57] variety performer and circus performer. So I had worked in Amsterdam and a couple other places in Holland. So I was happy to go back.

[00:07:05] and a child and all through my own upbringing, the son of a cantor and the Jewish tradition,

[00:07:12] the Jewish religion,

[00:07:14] I certainly was. I guess maybe, let's just say above average,

[00:07:19] versed in, in, in the Holocaust, in, in the history and in meeting many people over the years who were Holocaust survivors.

[00:07:28] yeah, it hit some buttons for me in that regard and that opportunity to

[00:07:33] mix, background on a personal level and where I was in my career as a writer. So they

[00:07:41] converged really nicely there. Yeah, so 

[00:07:45] Bob Gatty: Okay 

[00:07:46] david_tabatsky: and how that happened. And then I 

[00:07:48] Bob Gatty: Oh 

[00:07:49] david_tabatsky: So I went to Amsterdam and I spent a week, seeing,

[00:07:54] Saul and his wife Neddy, and Saul took me through. city, he was still physically able to get around. Okay.

[00:08:00] we had to,

[00:08:01] go slowly, but he was able to walk

[00:08:04] and talk at the same time, And,

[00:08:06] he showed me,

[00:08:08] pretty much everything he could in, in Amsterdam. What he, where he was, where his family was, where his schools were.

[00:08:15] the Jewish Theater, which. Earned into a deportation center, the children's crush, the little school across the street, all those different things.

[00:08:26] he showed me, talked about it as much as he could remember.

[00:08:30] then, yeah, we filled in the rest over, over some time.

[00:08:35] Bob Gatty: David, this is a powerful document about a time in world history that we just must never forget. Is the book targeted at young readers with that purpose mind 

[00:08:51] david_tabatsky: because Saul was a week short of his bar mitzvah when the Nazis invaded Holland.

[00:08:58] it

[00:08:58] was a no brainer in

[00:09:00] I knew that I wanted the book to

[00:09:02] Bob Gatty: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:03] david_tabatsky: immediate and the actual story kind of took care of that. It wasn't even a,

[00:09:09] a construction. I wasn't trying to,

[00:09:12] create, a context.

[00:09:14] It was right there. Just tell the story straight out what it was. 

[00:09:18] Bob Gatty: right It 

[00:09:19] david_tabatsky: don't get in the way with any cool artistic, blah, blah, blah. Just stay true to the story.

[00:09:25] and

[00:09:26] literally,

[00:09:28] so that's where we began with it. And,

[00:09:31] it's made sense to me. If we're talking about a 12, 13 year old, wouldn't 12 and 13 year old. the primary audience to read it

[00:09:44] or parents

[00:09:45] Bob Gatty: you'd think right 

[00:09:46] david_tabatsky: and 13 year olds. That was the other thing I was writing. It also for the thousands and thousands of teachers in the English speaking world who could take this kind of a book and use it as a piece of curriculum, whether it's in a public school, private school, Hebrew school, Yeshiva,

[00:10:03] who doesn't matter, could be

[00:10:05] in a Catholic school.

[00:10:07] everyone should know this.

[00:10:09] it's so representative of so many, hundreds of thousands of other people who are in similar situations to Saul for all those years.

[00:10:18] yeah, that's why I chose

[00:10:21] to 

[00:10:21] Bob Gatty: Okay

[00:10:22] mark_m__bello: just lose him? Hilarious.

[00:10:24] david_tabatsky: it straight up.

[00:10:25] and don't forget, there's also, like

[00:10:27] you were

[00:10:28] mark_m__bello: it 

[00:10:29] david_tabatsky: like sometimes preferring to read books that are written for kids because they're easier

[00:10:35] to take in.

[00:10:36] There's a

[00:10:37] kids, college students even whose reading levels are still quite. not sophisticated readers and they don't need quote unquote literary books, especially on a subject too sensitive as the

[00:10:51] mark_m__bello: I'd like if I could

[00:10:54] to dig a little deeper. I don't think I'm ruining anything by. Asking you this, but I'll issue a spoiler alert to our listeners. Solomon had parents, had two brothers, he had a sister. All of these people perished in concentration camps Solomon later found out he spent several years on the run not knowing whether they were alive or dead.

[00:11:20] did he share with you what it was like for a boy? to 16 years of age. That's the span, essentially. 13 to 18, I guess it was.

[00:11:32] share with you

[00:11:33] what that was like?

[00:11:36] suddenly a kid

[00:11:38] three siblings and two parents is all by himself.

[00:11:43] david_tabatsky: overnight, so that was the first thing. It happened in,

[00:11:47] it's weird to say a natural way, but

[00:11:50] it kinda unfolded

[00:11:52] mark_m__bello: Stage stages.

[00:11:53] david_tabatsky: let's say when the,

[00:11:54] when the Nazis came in to that country in particular, they didn't. Take everybody right away. It wasn't like they weren't running in the streets, like in, in certain countries.

[00:12:07] in some of the countries of the former,

[00:12:09] Soviet Union, they basically did, they came in guns blazing, firing.

[00:12:14] shooting people and dumping 'em into big open pits.

[00:12:18] and that was not unusual. And in Holland it was a little bit different. maybe it was also because it was earlier in the war. they were still developing their methods of murder,

[00:12:32] to be blunt. so they also, there was a lot of of the Dutch police forces and the Dutch,

[00:12:42] people

[00:12:44] who were aligned with them.

[00:12:47] at the same time you, there's a scene

[00:12:51] where Saul's father. Is quite foreboding.

[00:12:54] he's listening to the radio, he's hearing news.

[00:12:58] in contact with other people

[00:13:01] who know that the worst is coming. but then,

[00:13:05] so he's 12 years old and

[00:13:07] his older siblings, they're teenagers. They're like, dad, chill,

[00:13:11] relax.

[00:13:12] it's not gonna be that bad. It's impossible that nobody's gonna

[00:13:15] invade our country.

[00:13:16] Are you kidding?

[00:13:18] and, it happens slowly but surely. First you can't ride your bike, then you can't cross the street, then you can't go to the theater. Then you have to wear a yellow star it. And that took

[00:13:29] months and months to happen. And then one of his siblings disappeared, but they didn't really know where he was. wasn't like the Germans didn't say, oh

[00:13:38] yeah, we took 'em and we're gonna take them here

[00:13:41] and there, and then we're gonna kill 'em on this date. Nothing was like that. Everything was a mystery.

[00:13:47] and that was part of the power that the Nazis had over that society. Was didn't know what was going on.

[00:13:55] and there was a lot of denial. Plus,

[00:13:57] you're a teenager, you're

[00:13:58] just, you're living in the moment.

[00:14:00] you don't even really understand it.

[00:14:03] and then you have parents who are

[00:14:05] wanting to tell you, but

[00:14:08] yet they're protecting you. So the father, terribly depressed.

[00:14:12] It's a terribly dark situation for him. But the mother's like telling him,

[00:14:16] no, don't tell the kids so much. You'll scare them.

[00:14:19] So

[00:14:20] there's that friction in the house too. And then probably every Jewish household throughout the city. so even when Saul was finally left alone, when his three siblings were taken and or disappeared, his father, and then finally his mother and his. Which is the kind of climactic scene when the Nazis come in to his house and they go up the stairs and he literally hides behind the door of his bedroom

[00:14:50] and is saved by, by, by two soldiers, basically. You just kinda laugh it off and don't keep looking any anymore because

[00:14:58] they just didn't. I think it was just random luck on that given day and that given moment that they didn't open.

[00:15:06] Bob Gatty: they were laughing because they shot a mouse.

[00:15:08] I thought that was

[00:15:09] funny 

[00:15:09] david_tabatsky: weren't even, it was just like another normal day of work for these soldiers. They were just looking to 

[00:15:15] Bob Gatty: Yeah 

[00:15:15] david_tabatsky: get their

[00:15:17] drink beer.

[00:15:19] so they didn't bother to 

[00:15:20] Bob Gatty: All right 

[00:15:21] david_tabatsky: open.

[00:15:21] If they had pulled that door open, there would be no book.

[00:15:26] He would've been gone. 

[00:15:27] Bob Gatty: Yeah 

[00:15:27] david_tabatsky: been taken and gone to

[00:15:29] the,

[00:15:29] the camps as well eventually. So in those days after, didn't really, it didn't sink into him for quite a while. first of all, it was just survival. I just gotta survive.

[00:15:43] Where do I go? Literally, what's around the next corner. Can I go down this street? Can I go down this alley? Can I knock on the door of a neighbor in another neighborhood that I

[00:15:55] know? Can I go and see my gymnastics coach and stay in the school for one night and sleep under his desk?

[00:16:02] so who has who

[00:16:03] in at teenage mind?

[00:16:05] Does he have. figure out where his parents are, where his brothers and sisters are. He's just trying to survive.

[00:16:12] and he's literally live living moment to moment, day to day. And that extended out for months.

[00:16:18] Bob Gatty: And he could,

[00:16:20] david_tabatsky: Yeah.

[00:16:20] Bob Gatty: yeah. He couldn't trust his own neighbors.

[00:16:25] some of the, people that were, that, He had to deal with were Dutch,

[00:16:35] people who were turning their neighbors in,

[00:16:37] right 

[00:16:38] david_tabatsky: and but the thing is he didn't even know yet. He didn't even know yet what obviously what we know now.

[00:16:45] when you're living in that moment. He didn't know the con, the bigger context. Oh my God, there's Jews and there's non-Jews, and 

[00:16:51] Bob Gatty: Yeah 

[00:16:51] david_tabatsky: non-Jews can I trust and which I can't.

[00:16:53] What are the trend lines? No, of course none of that exists. He's just. Can I be safe with this person? Or even his own cousin said to him, you can't stay here. You're not gonna be safe. Because they

[00:17:07] suspect me

[00:17:08] as a,

[00:17:09] member of the resistance. And so any minute they could come barging in here, you're not gonna be safe.

[00:17:13] Or if they find you a Jew,

[00:17:17] and I'm not Jewish, because this was the, his basically his cousin-in-law, his cousin, She was Jewish, but her husband 

[00:17:25] Bob Gatty: Hmm. 

[00:17:26] david_tabatsky: So he was like,

[00:17:27] they're gonna kill me, so hey,

[00:17:30] I'd love to help you, but 

[00:17:31] Bob Gatty: Yeah 

[00:17:32] david_tabatsky: up my life for you.

[00:17:33] that's basically what they're saying, even though he didn't put it in those words. it was moment to moment for a long time. There wasn't a whole lot of time to, to 

[00:17:44] Bob Gatty: Yeah 

[00:17:44] david_tabatsky: There was no place to find out what was going on. He didn't have access

[00:17:48] to news or anything like, It's just a lot of rumors, rumors

[00:17:55] Bob Gatty: Did Solomon talk to you about what it was like to suddenly be treated by like dirt by people who were once as friends?

[00:18:04] david_tabatsky: to a degree

[00:18:06] I think that he also don't forget 

[00:18:08] Bob Gatty: Yeah 

[00:18:10] david_tabatsky: he's 15 at this time. Think about what a 15 year old

[00:18:17] it's in the 1940s in Europe, or it's a kid on the street right now in Cincinnati, Ohio, who's 15

[00:18:25] what's going on in my life?

[00:18:28] what's the next five minutes gonna be like? and

[00:18:32] he's scared. He's just basically, he's scared shitless and he doesn't have family, so he doesn't

[00:18:39] Bob Gatty: Yeah.

[00:18:40] david_tabatsky: afraid who he can even ask questions. So

[00:18:45] is inside his head. So basically what he did was he shut down certain parts just for

[00:18:52] Yeah.

[00:18:54] Bob Gatty: All right.

[00:18:56] mark_m__bello: David,

[00:18:58] I want to ask you about the title. You

[00:19:01] rolled by it in your previous, in one of your previous answers. I wanna make sure our listeners understand,

[00:19:09] a lot of these stories.

[00:19:10] and Solomons is one of them.

[00:19:14] it's quick thinking, fate, it's just plain luck. they change the course of history from one survivor to the next,

[00:19:25] or who survives and who doesn't. But the title, the Boy Behind the Door to the clearing out. The house he was living in. Can you tell us in more detail what

[00:19:39] happened 

[00:19:40] david_tabatsky: literally the boy the door who was hiding. He, that's where 

[00:19:45] Bob Gatty: Thank you 

[00:19:45] david_tabatsky: practicing his cello. His mother and his aunt were

[00:19:49] comforted when he would practice,

[00:19:52] they would take their mind off. Off. The whole tragic. Catastrophe that was happening to their lives. Also, don't forget his mother. She didn't know where her own children were. The other three children, she didn't know where her husband was. It wasn't like, it wasn't like the Nazis would send,

[00:20:11] emails to somebody and say, okay, there we have your husband in this concentration camp.

[00:20:15] here's where you can write to him.

[00:20:18] I don't mean to make light of it, but I'm just saying it wasn't

[00:20:21] people were living in the dark, literally.

[00:20:25] and then they were literally living

[00:20:27] our keeping windows,

[00:20:29] shut

[00:20:30] and keeping lights off. So pe they would hope that the Nazis wouldn't think anyone was living there. Oh, we've already cleared out that building. In fact, they had done a whole clearing in that building and then they were still living there.

[00:20:43] and they hadn't gotten rounded up. But then their time came like everybody else's. Everybody else's. And

[00:20:50] in, in Amsterdam.

[00:20:52] Bob Gatty: Yeah.

[00:20:53] david_tabatsky: He was practicing the cello. They heard the trucks and the,

[00:20:57] automobiles coming outside. His mother peeked out and they looked and he looked

[00:21:03] and she was like, go upstairs. Go upstairs. And he didn't wanna leave her. And,

[00:21:07] but

[00:21:08] he, I guess in his gut, he didn't really say too much about this. I don't know if he even remembered, because you experience trauma, no matter.

[00:21:22] triggers that trauma, you tend to shut it off in your head. may shut it off forever in your head. Plus he was only 15.

[00:21:31] I also, in some of these conversations, I did push him for more information. Other times I would back away because I could see it was too painful Still. an old man, it was still,

[00:21:44] he told me that, he said, I've lived with this.

[00:21:48] and it's

[00:21:49] known as survivor's guilt. That wasn't the way he really labeled it, but he knew

[00:21:53] that term existed. He basically, I lived with survivor's guilt every day of my life.

[00:21:59] this experience, not a day has gone by that I didn't feel the weight. He said, I've had a good marriage. love my wife.

[00:22:08] She's also a Holocaust survivor. Neddy was really a

[00:22:11] lovely woman,

[00:22:13] and he has two kids and he's, he was close with his kids, his two boys who now live in Israel.

[00:22:20] but

[00:22:20] he shut down otherwise cause the pain was too great.

[00:22:26] mark_m__bello: that.

[00:22:27] david_tabatsky: what I think I got a little sidetracked to wind back to that answer.

[00:22:29] He literally was shoot upstairs. His mother like, made him go up, so basically said goodbye to his mother there in a split second. Maybe not really digesting. When I go upstairs and hide behind somewhere where I'm gonna hide, I'll never gonna see my mother again. How do you digest all. And still be scared, be shaking your boots that soldiers in their heavy boots coming up the stairs with their guns and they could just shoot you right on the spot or just murder your mother right in front of you.

[00:23:02] You don't know. So he, how does he even stand there quietly a door and not let his 

[00:23:10] Bob Gatty: Okay 

[00:23:10] david_tabatsky: give him away?

[00:23:13] I tried to ask him that 

[00:23:15] Bob Gatty: Yeah 

[00:23:17] david_tabatsky: he

[00:23:18] I don't know. There was never really a concrete answer about what his consciousness was in that moment.

[00:23:25] like I said, he was too, it was too traumatizing.

[00:23:28] And the memory of it is even more because, like I said, that

[00:23:32] he said goodbye to his mother and avoided being murdered in the span of minutes.

[00:23:38] Bob Gatty: you write in a very powerful way about how this young boy

[00:23:43] looked at his mother, took a photograph in his mind so he would always remember her.

[00:23:50] Did

[00:23:51] he tell you that?

[00:23:52] david_tabatsky: Yeah, to a degree.

[00:23:54] Bob Gatty: Yeah 

[00:23:54] david_tabatsky: he didn't, 

[00:23:56] Bob Gatty: about 

[00:23:56] david_tabatsky: me and I wrote it down and then I That's exactly what went in the book. No,

[00:24:00] I had to reinterpret things because 

[00:24:02] Bob Gatty: right? 

[00:24:02] david_tabatsky: I, was taking notes and I

[00:24:05] there was a kind of a gap in between

[00:24:08] wrote it.

[00:24:09] So you have to try to also recreate it on the page that it stands up by.

[00:24:15] as part of a whole story. 

[00:24:16] Bob Gatty: Sure. 

[00:24:17] david_tabatsky: a different, it's a slightly, it's hard to explain what that crafting is.

[00:24:22] it's rather subtle. But,

[00:24:24] Bob Gatty: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:25] david_tabatsky: try to create those moments without,

[00:24:28] oh, without, Creating something artificial, if you will, just because,

[00:24:34] it'll sound

[00:24:36] a great paragraph about that. It'll get you all wound up and suspenseful. But

[00:24:41] it doesn't feel right, if it didn't feel authentic to who I understood sa to be,

[00:24:47] redid it,

[00:24:49] I wouldn't do it. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:51] Bob Gatty: then there was a story about the mouse crawling over his foot

[00:24:57] and he was having a difficult time keeping quiet and then the mouse went away.

[00:25:05] Yeah, it's dark. A mouse is crawling over your foot

[00:25:12] and then all of a sudden he hears a gunshot and he has no idea who is being shot or what. then it turns out it was the mouse

[00:25:22] david_tabatsky: Yep.

[00:25:23] Bob Gatty: that was shot blown away to smithereens.

[00:25:26] david_tabatsky: Nazi soldiers. Yeah, let's shoot a mouse.

[00:25:29] like frivolous, completely random.

[00:25:35] and it goes to your point mark 

[00:25:37] Bob Gatty: Yeah 

[00:25:37] david_tabatsky: pure luck. Sometimes it was just pure, unadulterated luck. That was the difference between life and death

[00:25:48] for so

[00:25:51] Yeah.

[00:25:52] Track 1: Another thing

[00:25:55] that struck me,

[00:25:56] David was the number of good people, Gentiles, non-Jewish people who risked their own lives to save this kid.

[00:26:08] david_tabatsky: Yeah.

[00:26:10] Bob Gatty: if it wouldn't have been for them,

[00:26:13] he'd have been dead and there'd be no book.

[00:26:17] david_tabatsky: Yes. Yes. And yeah, absolutely. And he would, he never would've been married, never would've had children, he never would lead grandchildren who were growing up in Israel to learn 

[00:26:26] Bob Gatty: yeah 

[00:26:26] david_tabatsky: story 

[00:26:27] Bob Gatty: Yeah 

[00:26:29] david_tabatsky: legacy, if you will. whether we like it or not, there is that legacy. And if you're in the family of a Holocaust survivor, are forever entwined in it. for better, for worse. And yeah,

[00:26:46] that's kind, it's just so random Who helped and who didn't, and he didn't know. It wasn't as if people signed up before the war and said,

[00:26:55] if the Nazis invade, we'll be sympathetic, or we won't. That's not how things don't work like that. There isn't any preparatory,

[00:27:03] system for it.

[00:27:04] It's just all people responding in the moment. Am I gonna do the right thing or am I. How far will I go to protect my own

[00:27:14] not help anybody else? Or will I take some level of risk? And what level of risk am I okay with? What can I live with? Because it wasn't just, sometimes

[00:27:26] it was people

[00:27:26] mark_m__bello: These stories.

[00:27:27] david_tabatsky: risking their entire family, like the Rose family. Up

[00:27:31] in, in, outside of Holland. They,

[00:27:33] Bob Gatty: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:33] david_tabatsky: Mr. Rose would tell him, I,

[00:27:36] I'm happy to do this or not happy maybe, but I feel like this is the right thing to do, but I'm risking the lives of everyone here.

[00:27:43] mark_m__bello: These stories are just incredible humanity stories, though. The,

[00:27:50] it amazes me as, as much as Holocaust stories,

[00:27:56] portray the evil men, do they also portray the opposite side

[00:28:04] of those stories

[00:28:05] and the good

[00:28:06] that,

[00:28:07] righteous people do.

[00:28:09] david_tabatsky: Yeah

[00:28:10] mark_m__bello: I want to ask you cuz

[00:28:12] my wife would be upset at me if I don't ask you this,

[00:28:15] because she loves a love story. And the book doesn't. The book doesn't delve too much into the relationship, but Solomon actually falls in love with a daughter of one of the couples that are hiding him. And I'm wonder,

[00:28:30] you don't go too far into the relationship. I in one scene, they're in bed together.

[00:28:35] I think we can use our own imagination,

[00:28:37] but,

[00:28:39] he ends up marrying Netty, who's a different woman

[00:28:43] than I'm talking about.

[00:28:44] The woman is Marta Rose, and I'm wondering

[00:28:47] if they, there's

[00:28:50] scene where they say goodbye to each other forever, and they seem to know that it's goodbye. And I'm sitting there, I'm crying during the whole scene, and I'm wondering if he ever heard or

[00:29:03] saw her again.

[00:29:06] david_tabatsky: Remember there's one scene, I can't remember exactly

[00:29:09] where it is right off the top of my head right now, but

[00:29:12] where he's told, and I think it's Mr. Rose, I think it's her father, this young woman's father who he's,

[00:29:18] he's had this relationship with. He tells Saul, don't look back. Go

[00:29:25] find 

[00:29:26] mark_m__bello: Right 

[00:29:27] david_tabatsky: again, or find it a new and don't look back. He's talking. Don't forget, he's talking to an 18 year old young boy who's been through years of trauma and,

[00:29:39] advice, I think

[00:29:41] is good. It's the best he can give in the moment.

[00:29:45] in fact,

[00:29:45] can

[00:29:46] what other positive,

[00:29:49] advice can you give someone at that age, don't look back.

[00:29:53] And

[00:29:53] but to answer your question a little bit more

[00:29:55] and your wife,

[00:29:57] Saul, I think Saul was embarrassed when he told me about I sensed an embarrassment to him almost as

[00:30:09] if I talk about this too much, I'm almost being unfaithful to my wife. It's almost wrong because it and because he was such a modest, lovely man.

[00:30:21] Like it's almost as if,

[00:30:23] when you would get married, you go,

[00:30:25] course you're the first woman I've ever been.

[00:30:28] sake.

[00:30:32] and, but, and

[00:30:33] we almost want to believe that because it's

[00:30:36] this pure spiritual bond of two people that were meant for each other and no one else ever existed in the world.

[00:30:45] and I think that,

[00:30:48] lot of. believe that or buy into some le feeling of it, even if it's not literally true. We want it to feel that way. and so like when we say in our wedding vows,

[00:31:02] forever,

[00:31:03] what's it called? Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:31:07] mark_m__bello: all others 

[00:31:07] david_tabatsky: even the ones that we might have been with before, they don't really count.

[00:31:11] didn't really happen. She was a figment of my imagination,

[00:31:16] and I'm sorry about even 

[00:31:17] Bob Gatty: Yeah

[00:31:19] david_tabatsky: didn't include you in it.

[00:31:20] so I think

[00:31:23] context of the Holocaust and everything else, I think just Saul as a man just felt that, plus when you add. What his wife literally went through as a survivor himself. I think he just wanted to honor some perfect love, some purity, something that couldn't be tarnished by what happened during those years. And even though he had this lovely connection with this young woman,

[00:31:51] it was in the context of the hol. It was in the context of this hell,

[00:31:57] was in the context of abject total and suffering and threat, constant threat. I think he needed to leave that behind too. And I don't think he wasn't really curious about it anymore. It was totally overweight by, is my family even alive? How can I think about a young, beautiful girl? And I don't even know if my mother and my sister, my brothers, my father are even. I don't think

[00:32:24] I, I don't think there's 

[00:32:25] mark_m__bello: Don't

[00:32:26] look back.

[00:32:27] david_tabatsky: even have those two things coexist. so when I would, when I,

[00:32:32] mark_m__bello: That's an interesting take. It's an interesting take on this, on, on that. I, it didn't, that didn't occur to me, but that's an interesting take. look back.

[00:32:40] david_tabatsky: yeah.

[00:32:42] mark_m__bello: I understand 

[00:32:42] david_tabatsky: that, advice

[00:32:44] shocking. But then it made sense. It made perfect sense. Yeah.

[00:32:50] Bob Gatty: Yeah. We know that some people survived,

[00:32:54] in escape from the camps. We know that 6 million Jews died, but do we know how many told similar stories like Solomons? We know about Ann Frank, of course.

[00:33:05] david_tabatsky: Yeah.

[00:33:06] I was in Amsterdam recently and I was going through the Anne Frank House. I've probably been there three or four times before, over the years,

[00:33:13] and I was there when I visited Saul. He didn't want to go in.

[00:33:17] and he had been, but,

[00:33:19] we didn't go together. But

[00:33:20] I did go on one of those days when I was there last time when I was there,

[00:33:26] at the end of September this year, I. Help thinking the whole time I was thinking of Sal as if he had been living there too. It was such a visceral thing. I had trouble, I had real trouble going through the tour of the house.

[00:33:44] I knew what was in there when nothing of it was surprising to me. But this,

[00:33:51] it's hard to explain. I just this visceral connection

[00:33:55] to this man who was basically the same age as my.

[00:33:59] no,

[00:34:00] little younger. My father was actually a soldier

[00:34:02] in the second World War, but,

[00:34:04] so yeah, he was a little older, but old enough to be my father, let's say.

[00:34:09] and whew, it was,

[00:34:13] I think when you're in the end Frank House, that's when you realize how many other places where people hiding.

[00:34:19] They didn't have the famous book. And

[00:34:23] all the bells and 

[00:34:24] Bob Gatty: right 

[00:34:25] david_tabatsky: with it.

[00:34:27] that's the thing I think is remarkable about this story of Solomon Cool. Is that it's not remarkable. It's not unusual. 

[00:34:39] is 

[00:34:40] mark_m__bello: remarkable

[00:34:40] Which is remarkable.

[00:34:41] david_tabatsky: it's remarkable because it's so ordinary. There were thousands of people

[00:34:47] mark_m__bello: David, I want,

[00:34:48] david_tabatsky: who

[00:34:48] mark_m__bello: but I wanna

[00:34:49] david_tabatsky: were helped by resistance fighters and by Christians

[00:34:52] and all kinds of people. and

[00:34:56] Bob Gatty: Right 

[00:34:57] mark_m__bello: to Bob's question though,

[00:35:00] was that a Dutch thing? Or was this

[00:35:03] happening 

[00:35:03] david_tabatsky: don't think it

[00:35:05] don't

[00:35:05] mark_m__bello: in France, in Poland?

[00:35:09] david_tabatsky: although the Dutch, especially in cities 

[00:35:11] Bob Gatty: Uhhuh 

[00:35:12] david_tabatsky: and Ro. are big port cities for hundreds and hundreds of years, they've traditionally been more open to visitors, immigrants, call 'em, whatever you will. people who are passing through, people who are,

[00:35:26] immigrating to the country.

[00:35:27] That's why, for example,

[00:35:29] in a lot of, in the cities, in Holland, people speak mul, languages. It's just woven into the fabric of that European port cities. But in the country, Not any different really than the American countryside. The exposure to other people is minimal. some of the people that Saul interacted with in the country, they hadn't really met a Jew before.

[00:35:55] Track 1: Solomon What? ahead.

[00:35:58] mark_m__bello: their righteous Gentiles helping people

[00:36:00] david_tabatsky: Yeah,

[00:36:01] even 

[00:36:01] mark_m__bello: over Eastern Europe.

[00:36:02] david_tabatsky: if you look, you could find, you could Google, you could probably Google non-Jews, helping Jews in Berlin during the Holocaust, and you'll find many anecdotal, not full length books, but you'll find.

[00:36:17] tidbits of at least or longer pieces

[00:36:20] of those

[00:36:22] France.

[00:36:23] all over Europe.

[00:36:24] all over. Yeah. So your point before about

[00:36:29] mark_m__bello: brave people 

[00:36:30] david_tabatsky: within this unimaginable horror of this among all the people who were murdered, there were also many people who were. And so

[00:36:43] when I want young people to read this book, to understand the abject horror of it, to understand the evil that human beings are capable of and who can actually and do it with strategy, not just do it out of anger or hatred.

[00:36:59] They cold blooded and execution. There are also people on the good. Of humanity, and I think we need to find that balance. We need to feed it and we need to teach it. And we need it now more than ever.

[00:37:19] just look at the place we're living in. Yeah.

[00:37:24] Bob Gatty: Oh, that's for sure. Incredible. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:37:29] David, one of the,

[00:37:32] you, you did a great job of portraying Solomon's father,

[00:37:36] re reading between the lines. It seems like the guy was losing his mind, especially when it came to.

[00:37:46] I put myself as I read that, I put myself, I tried to put myself in his position.

[00:37:53] What would you do

[00:37:55] a father responsible for this family

[00:38:01] of your wife,

[00:38:02] your and your kids?

[00:38:04] david_tabatsky: Yes.

[00:38:05] I had this,

[00:38:07] Bob Gatty: would you do? How would you handle this? What would you.

[00:38:10] and

[00:38:12] his was,

[00:38:15] we all need to commit suicide. And that was just when I saw that, I thought, wow.

[00:38:24] and the young boy Solomon that he who said, dad, do you want us to kill ourselves?

[00:38:33] david_tabatsky: Yeah. 

[00:38:35] Bob Gatty: That

[00:38:36] david_tabatsky: there's a 

[00:38:37] Bob Gatty: Yeah 

[00:38:37] david_tabatsky: go back to in, Jewish history, there are other episodes where there were suicides.

[00:38:43] if you go look at Masada,

[00:38:45] and

[00:38:46] where Jews who knew we are gonna be annihilated, it's just a fact. There's no getting around it.

[00:38:56] We're gonna be destroyed. We are not going to

[00:38:59] The power and the pleasure that they will get from literally doing it.

[00:39:04] we will be in control at the end of our own lives. You, can't take full control.

[00:39:09] Bob Gatty: Mm-hmm.

[00:39:10] david_tabatsky: and so there was tradition

[00:39:13] was also that kind of, I don't know, certain existentialism, whether you wanna, whatever you wanna ascribe to it psychologically.

[00:39:22] sad to say, but he turned out to be right.

[00:39:26] Bob Gatty: Yeah.

[00:39:28] He turned out to be right.

[00:39:30] david_tabatsky: even know how right he was.

[00:39:31] Bob Gatty: A couple of the boys said no. A couple of the boys said, no, we're going to fight. They were asked how They didn't know everybody but Solomon were killed

[00:39:46] mark_m__bello: Except Solomon wasn't so

[00:39:48] Bob Gatty: except Solomon. I said, but

[00:39:50] Solomon 

[00:39:50] david_tabatsky: he

[00:39:51] mark_m__bello: Solomon was right and dad wasn't. Dad was wrong.

[00:39:53] david_tabatsky: at that time to, to really even digest it. Look at the scene early on when they're laughing and playing around in the street on their way to the synagogue. pushing each other into traffic and messing around and they're just being siblings and

[00:40:09] they're all picking on him.

[00:40:11] Cuz

[00:40:12] he's the little star of the moment cause it's his bar mitzvah.

[00:40:15] and the father is

[00:40:17] oh, tamp it down. Tamp it down. We're,

[00:40:19] we can't be. Celebrating, look what's about to happen. And they're like, what? I don't see anybody. Basically, they're like, there's no army coming down the street.

[00:40:27] are you worried about? Go listen to the radio. Don't you know, but don't, it's not gonna really happen again. It's just normal human psychology that you keep denying something awful.

[00:40:38] look what our whole world is doing with climate change. no, there's no climate change. And then suddenly, like the islands dis. And the cities are getting flooded out 

[00:40:47] Bob Gatty: Yeah 

[00:40:48] david_tabatsky: in denial. It's

[00:40:49] come on.

[00:40:51] mark_m__bello: want to ask you about

[00:40:53] the aftermath of the war. Solomon doesn't go to Israel. He doesn't come to America. He goes back to Amsterdam and

[00:41:04] I'm wondering what life was like for Jews in Amsterdam after the war. Can you give our readers a sense of Amsterdam, many Jews survived and returned? Did they rebuild the population where they permitted to return to their own homes? How were they treated by the Christian popul? That once depressed them?

[00:41:28] how did all the populations get

[00:41:30] along 

[00:41:30] david_tabatsky: just to be clear, I do not have data on how many exactly came back. How many survived that?

[00:41:37] that's certainly available.

[00:41:39] I didn't prioritize that in, in, in the 

[00:41:41] mark_m__bello: Okay 

[00:41:42] david_tabatsky: that should be, if there's a study guide written to it, that would certainly be in the study guide.

[00:41:47] and that there's, hopefully that will happen down the road.

[00:41:50] and that's a good question though, in general. There was something that I did a little bit about. It was difficult for him. Dutch government, afterward, they were in survival mode. Literally like in economic survival mode. How do we get growing again? How do we get,

[00:42:12] how do we keep people warm in the winter?

[00:42:14] how do we even

[00:42:15] like for example, Germany. Germany was physically ed.

[00:42:20] States had to come in and basically, okay, we destroyed your country, now we're gonna rebuild it.

[00:42:25] and so there was a certain amount of that in,

[00:42:28] in,

[00:42:29] the Netherlands as well.

[00:42:31] some of the infrastructure,

[00:42:33] had been,

[00:42:34] completely by,

[00:42:38] by the Nazis.

[00:42:38] And some of it had been destroyed. Some of there,

[00:42:41] there was obviously there was some bombing, excuse me.

[00:42:45] and there was a lot of des. There was a tremendous amount of uncertainty. Who's really in charge here? do we get? How do we get, how do we trade with our partners? Who do we trust? there was a lot of that in the aftermath of the war.

[00:43:01] The Americans were pri,

[00:43:02] had their own prioritized, prioritizing about which countries they were gonna help and get

[00:43:08] who gets in line in what order.

[00:43:11] cuz everything can't happen instantly.

[00:43:14] Saul was obsessed though the whole time in the aftermath of the war from the time he got on the bus to Amsterdam in towards right the very end of the book, and he comes back into the city.

[00:43:28] No one has any answers for him. He can't find it. Took him quite a while to find out where his family was and when they perished in what camps. It was total chaos in the months. even longer after the war, just to get information. And also because the Dutch government was so obsessed with rebuilding, they were not,

[00:44:00] I would say, my impression is that there was a real mixed bag of empathy and not disdain, but ignorance.

[00:44:11] A lot of people, the Christians in that government who managed to survive, obviously some of them

[00:44:18] were relatively unfazed by it.

[00:44:20] they managed to stay in a bubble during the war. They avoided it. There wasn't any like hand to hand combat in a, in an Amsterdam, for example. And so after the war, were than empathetic to what some of the survivor's stories were like. They didn't have much room. They were like, man,

[00:44:42] we gotta rebuild this. road. We need money for this. We gotta make sure there's heating for that.

[00:44:46] winter's coming and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you wanna know where your parents are. We don't have time for that. Go find 'em yourself.

[00:44:54] I'm not

[00:44:55] Bob Gatty: How did all of, how did all of this,

[00:44:59] affect Sal's

[00:45:02] spirits, his outlook? Was he su bitter,

[00:45:05] david_tabatsky: haunted. I wouldn't say at all. He was su

[00:45:08] Bob Gatty: Yeah.

[00:45:09] david_tabatsky: That was one thing I thought 

[00:45:11] Bob Gatty: Yeah 

[00:45:12] david_tabatsky: about him and

[00:45:14] many Holocaust survivors I have met in my life. this lack of bitterness

[00:45:20] is remarkable. It's astonishing. If you think about many reasons 

[00:45:26] Bob Gatty: Wow It's

[00:45:28] amazing.

[00:45:29] david_tabatsky: how many reasons there are to

[00:45:30] Bob Gatty: Yeah.

[00:45:32] david_tabatsky: maybe hum about humanity.

[00:45:36] yet, if you, most 

[00:45:39] Bob Gatty: Yeah 

[00:45:39] david_tabatsky: are just incredibly but

[00:45:43] there's a, there's something also that at the same time has been wounded so deeply 

[00:45:49] Bob Gatty: Oh 

[00:45:50] david_tabatsky: we can't understand it. I think,

[00:45:54] Saul is indicative of that. also, I think, was a, just a relatively unassuming guy just in. from that experience,

[00:46:05] was

[00:46:06] just a more quiet, unassuming, modest human being.

[00:46:12] yeah, maybe 

[00:46:14] Bob Gatty: Yeah 

[00:46:14] david_tabatsky: was him as the youngest child,

[00:46:16] Bob Gatty: Okay.

[00:46:17] david_tabatsky: that he grew up to the time he was,

[00:46:21] 13, 14, being a little overshadowed by his older siblings,

[00:46:26] and. It was weird. I think for him to basically grow up and become an adult in the context of the Holocaust so unique. There isn't anything you can compare it to at all as to how he became a young man

[00:46:46] that time.

[00:46:48] and then,

[00:46:49] Bob Gatty: Yeah.

[00:46:50] david_tabatsky: yeah.

[00:46:52] mark_m__bello: I got the impression that, a man by the name of Walter Susskind. If I'm pronouncing, if I'm pronouncing it correctly,

[00:47:03] was responsible for saving a lot of Jewish lives,

[00:47:07] including to some degree. Solomons, you tell our

[00:47:11] listeners who he was

[00:47:13] david_tabatsky: up. 

[00:47:13] mark_m__bello: and what his role Solomon's life I was just

[00:47:18] gonna ask you about that. I was gonna ask you about

[00:47:20] the

[00:47:21] on his life. ahead Secret, carnage.

[00:47:25] Bob Gatty: Secret courage. 

[00:47:26] david_tabatsky: Story, this is a D V D. This is a documentary film that was made, I think it came out in the early 2005. It came out, this tells the story of Walter Suskin, this German Jew who ended up in Amsterdam, who saved hundreds of Jewish kids. The Nazis were using the German theater. Not that German, the Jewish theater. Of Amsterdam traditionally I mean that building was all, it was as Jewish, the Jewish Theater of Amsterdam. There was a big Jewish community there, obviously, and the, perverse choice to use that building how deeply cynical and violent that was to take what was the Jewish theater and turn it into the detention center, which. Bar point where they, all the Jews were rounded up. They were sent there, and then they were sent out on the trains to different camps. Saul's siblings and his mother and father were there. Saul was in that building until Walter Suskin came across him, realized what age he was, but said, Hey, you're small.

[00:48:39] That's also what saved Saul, literally was his size. His

[00:48:44] Bob Gatty: Yeah.

[00:48:44] david_tabatsky: is what saved him. If he had been more average,

[00:48:49] a young man is when

[00:48:51] He, wouldn't have lived, he

[00:48:54] He would've been treated as an

[00:48:57] But because he was little, he was really pre pubescent in that way. Was able arranged for him to go across the street, into the children's crush, which is basically the kindergarten, if you will. Not a school so much, but a place for, children, a nurse. He was a kid, like an older kid, but he was still could pass to be a child. that saved him. And those stories between him and the nurses, I thought those were incredible. Talk about people putting their lives on the line. They were stashing babies inside blankets

[00:49:39] Bob Gatty: Yeah.

[00:49:40] david_tabatsky: and all. They're getting babies out to families who would take. And, hide them

[00:49:47] Bob Gatty: Yeah.

[00:49:48] david_tabatsky: And there's many stories of children who survived the Holocaust as babies Christian families, who some of them grew up never even knew until much, much later when they realized wait a minute, I'm an orphan. Where am my real parents? What happened to them? And then they find out that they're Holocaust survivor. Others. Others knew about

[00:50:10] So in this

[00:50:12] Bob Gatty: Yeah.

[00:50:13] david_tabatsky: quote from Saul on the back that sums it all up in my mind. He says, you will come over it, you never forget it. You live with it and you go dying with it, and you never forget that sums. Saul's entire adult life. Yeah.

[00:50:40] Bob Gatty: Where, can people get a hold of you and grab a copy your book?

[00:50:44] david_tabatsky: they could go first on the website, the boy behind the door.org. Org, word. The boy behind the

[00:50:51] Bob Gatty: Okay. Okay.

[00:50:53] david_tabatsky: go online. Usually the easiest platform people

[00:50:56] On, whether they like it or not is Amazon. You can also go onto Barnes and Noble and other book selling sites online. If you go into your local bookstore, they can order it for you. People can find out more about. At my website, is tosky.com, T A B tsk Y tosky.com. Then you could find other things about what I've done in my life and some of the things I'm doing now. Yeah,

[00:51:26] mark_m__bello: David, can I confirm one more thing? You, mentioned that the name, that the website is

[00:51:31] david_tabatsky: The boy

[00:51:32] mark_m__bello: Behind the Boy Behind the door.org. I'm wondering, I'm is it org is definitely, is generally used for non-profit purposes

[00:51:43] david_tabatsky: a nonprofit,

[00:51:44] mark_m__bello: is this some kind of non-profit effort being made here?

[00:51:46] david_tabatsky: know. I think there was a film, there was a film made some years ago. I think it, I don't know if it's a horror film or, anyway, it has nothing to do with the Holocaust and it's called The Boy Behind the Door. And it wasn't a big screamer film, but it's there. out there. And so I think they've got, they had the boy behind the door.com. Before I even wrote this, before I even wrote

[00:52:08] mark_m__bello: Got it.

[00:52:09] david_tabatsky: even know about it. I

[00:52:10] Bob Gatty: Okay. All right.

[00:52:11] david_tabatsky: don't think I would've, I've gone with,

[00:52:13] mark_m__bello: All right.

[00:52:14] david_tabatsky: I had to gorg. 

[00:52:17] Bob Gatty: Okay.

[00:52:17] david_tabatsky: That's a

[00:52:18] Bob Gatty: Okay.

[00:52:19] mark_m__bello: Got it.

[00:52:21] Bob Gatty: Thanks so much David for being with us today, for both of our podcasts, lead to the Left and Justice Counts. We really do appreciate you being here and is an incredible story.

[00:52:36] david_tabatsky: you. 

[00:52:37] Bob Gatty: Thank you.

[00:52:38] mark_m__bello: Nice job.