My grandma Blanche’s lineage can be traced back to a Civil War drummer boy. Her grandfather, Samuel Pesyer, served in the Union’s 93rd New York National Guard Infantry. Blanche Koski was born in the fall of 1910, at home in Brooklyn. After graduating from Girls Commercial High School she worked as a secretary in commercial then educational settings.
Her husband to be, Joseph Greenberg, was born in May of the same year, in London. His family immigrated to America shortly before he turned two. Records of Joseph’s immigration through Ellis Island are available to this day. Joe graduated from the newly constructed Thomas Jefferson High School and was accepted to Columbia University. After a year at Columbia, however, downturns in his father’s business forced Joe to contribute to the family income by beginning to work during the day for the United States Postal Service, and attend night school. My grandfather firmly believed in the dignity and societal value of practicing law, and eventually earned his degree. By this time, however, the Great Depression plagued the American economy. Instead of following his dream, Joe settled for the more practical and safe choice of remaining a Postal Service employee.
This is Ruth's passport photo from when she immigrated to America. Note the stamp in the upper left hand corner which has a Swastika in the center.
My mother’s mother, Ruth Vanderman whom I always called “Omama,” was born in Berlin in 1921. Her father, Max, read Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and determined that moving out of Germany was an immediate necessity for his Jewish family. In 1937, he applied for visas for Palestine and America. The American paperwork came through first. Max left three weeks before his wife, Gertrud, and daughter. Gertrud and Ruth left Berlin for France via train, and then sailed upon the Queen Mary to New York. As Max had already taken care of their documentation, which changed their family name from Wandermann to Vanderman, they did not need to stop at Ellis Island and instead went straight to Hartford, Connecticut, and after six months moved to Manhattan, residing at 200 West 80th Street. Max rented a storefront a few blocks away where he reopened his jewelry business. Gertrud and Ruth both spoke English and were therefore able to work in the shop. Omama worked to earn her GED later in life. She became a member of the Jeweler’s Circle and Workmen’s Benefit, an established German fraternal organization that provided medical services, insurance, and an opportunity to meet other German-speaking refugees.
This is an image of Charles (and his Jeep) during the time he served in the American army.
My grandfather (Opapa), Guenther Zehden, was born in December of 1919, in Berlin. At the age of eighteen he was desperate to get out of Germany. However, the German quota to come to America was filled. A cousin of his, Alfred Oettinger, advised Guenther to sign himself up under the Russian quota, for Guenther’s mother had been born in Russia while her parents were travelling there. In 1938, on Kristallnacht, my grandfather sat on a bus watching hell unravel before him. At the time a woman behind him leaned over and said, “We’re not all like that, you know.” He and his mother finally made it through under the Russian quota on the last boat out of Germany. Opapa’s family did not want to leave Germany. His father was thrown into a brutal detention facility, when he got out he fled for London and his fur store was confiscated. Opapa was drafted soon after he came to New York. He went through basic training in California, concurrently earning his GED from St. Ana High School, and citizenship. Charles was supposed to be sent to Europe, but contracted Scarlet Fever right before he was to be deployed. He recovered and spent the rest of the war stationed in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. His unit was primarily composed of soldiers from Kentucky. They did not believe that Charles was Jewish because they had been taught that all Jews had horns. They got along well, and my grandfather’s English was vastly improved.
My parents today.
All of my grandparents considered themselves to have lived and died as Americans. In many ways my parents feel more closely connected to their European ancestry. My mother, who speaks not only German and English but also French, made my brother and I attended German school when we were young children. My father has a deep appreciation for British orators; he says his father spoke “excellent English” and I sometimes watch him struggle to reign in his Brooklynese accent in an attempt to speak carefully and eloquently. My parents and their siblings were raised in households that expected them to excel academically, and both pursued careers that exemplified this value, my father as a physicist and a professor and my mother as a Montessori teacher and later a United Nations NGO representative. My family history exemplifies a successful and respectable American assimilation process.
Toddler Elisabeth with Charles.
Opapa left explicit instructions upon his passing that insisted an American flag be draped over his coffin. My grandparents were incredibly proud of the life and family they created in America. A combination of chance and their extremely hard work allow me to call myself American today.
