Free, Free, Free

The adventure with my Grandfather began in that fourth grade classroom, learning his story and getting a taste of everything he went through. Of course, the story had holes--which I maybe hadn't been aware of from the get-go (as a fourth grader, how critical am I really going to be of such a miraculous adventure?). The basic story, though, needs to be outlined before I delve into the journey my family and I began only after hearing about it.

The story as I imagined it in fourth grade from hearing the retelling on Grandpa's video represents such a major difference from the understanding I have of it now, at age 16. The difference comes from history classes I've taken, but also from the information we've uncovered since the vague and simple VHS. It will help to have an outline of Grandpa Fred's life before I start to reveal the depths of his saga, but with each new post about something my family and I did to uncover a little more of the mystery, I will include the paragraph of my fourth grade biography which relates to what we were looking to fill in the gaps of.

My Grandpa, Zigfried Kanfer, was born in Vienna Austria in 1925 to Anna and Oscar Kanfer, a shop owner of a small business which closed shortly after Ziggy's 12th birthday because of loss of rights for Jews in Austria. They were hidden by a non-Jew neighbor during Kristallnacht, but were soon sent to a variety of camps across Europe. Escape after close call after escape led eventually to a flee of the Kanfer family through the Spanish mountains onto a boat which would lead them to America. Grandpa's diary, which he kept starting at this young age 12, was written in German, French, Spanish, and then English, as he travelled across the world and was forced to learn these new languages in order to keep his family safe (or, relatively safe). The riveting words of this diary were found by my Grandma Ruby who handed it over to her children, my dad and his sister, in 2003 after my Grandpa had already died. The stories were tear-jerking when they had been translated by a multitude of people they worked to find. The one line everyone knows by heart, though, are the last three words of the book. Upon arriving in America, Zigfried, who worked to lose his accent, change his name, and then fight for America in World War II, scribbled in a handwriting that you could feel excitement eminating from, "Free, Free, Free."

Grandpa went on to become a professor of psychology known for his work on self-management and behavior change. People who knew him described him as not changing his attitude whether he was speaking with a renowned scholar or a janitor of his building, even as successful as he was becoming. He returned with his family to Vienna, Austria to teach and was offered the key to the city for his work, but turned it down because what they did to him and his family, he said, he couldn't forgive.

I have only seen the diary once or twice. It's such an old book, falling apart, delicate, and so valuable that I'm sure it's hard to trust me with it. I can't be surprised, however, at the character my Grandpa had in writing this record. I don't remember him enough, but I have begun to know him through the recent discoveries. All I need, though, is the memory of age three or four, while all the adults sat and talked about everything but me at holidays, Grandpa Fred always pulled out the same puzzle, invited me to join him, and spent hours until we finished it together. Whatever more important work was going on at the time, Grandpa Fred could always find the time for me.