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Memories Of Lost Loves, Family
Fill 'Anton The Dove Fancier'
■ Elegant
ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM
Assistant Editor
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A
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young Newsweek pho-
tographer named
Bernard Gotfryd was
taking a picture one day of
W.H. Auden.
The British-born poet was
intrigued by Mr. Gotfryd's
accent. "You sound as
though you were born in
Auuuustria," he said
"Where are you from?"
"I was in Mauthausen
(concentration camp)," the
photographer replied.
"Mauthausen! Good God!"
W.H. Auden sat back. "Did
you ever think of writing
about it?"
"But I can't write," Mr.
Gotfryd insisted.
Auden shot back: "How
can you know until you've
trrried?"
Years later, Mr. Gotfryd
did try. His book Anton the
Dove Fancier and Other
Tales of the Holocaust was
recently published by Wash-
ington Square Press.
In his book, Mr. Gotfryd, a
speaker at the Jewish Corn-
munity Center's book fair
last week, tells of his beloved
in the underground, Alex-
andria; of the kind SS guard
who provided the Gotfryds
with food; of the erudite Mr.
G. who bit into lumps of
sugar when he drank tea
and was deported in 1942
from Poland to a death
camp.
Mr. Gotfryd, born in
Radom, Poland, said he
wrote his book to fulfill a
promise to his mother. She
had told her son: You must
survive to tell the world
what the Nazis did to us.
The morning before she
was taken away, Mr. Got-
fryd's mother sat weeping on
a broken bench underneath
a lilac tree. It was not long
until her 44th birthday.
She came in from the
garden, laid a loving hand
on the face of her son, Ber-
nard, then prepared a meal.
To this day, Mr. Gotfryd
remembers intimate details
of the day, the last time he
saw his mother. He recalls
the colors of sky that morn-
ing, the smell and taste of
the potato pancakes sprinkl-
ed with onions that his
mother prepared, the exact
angle of his father's face as
he stood beside the window.
"A lot of people compare
my writing to my photogra-
phy," said Mr. Gotfryd, for
many years a staff photog-
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Bernard Gotfryd: "I simply wanted to tell my story."
rapher with Newsweek.
"Maybe there's some truth
to that, I don't know. I con-
fess there are times I
couldn't tell you what I had
for dinner last night, but the
deportation, or my father as
he stood looking for the last
time at his wedding photos
—things like this you don't
forget."
The youngest of three chil-
dren, Bernard Gotfryd re-
Mr. Gotfryd wrote
his book to fulfill a
promise to his
mother. She had
told her son: You
must survive to
tell the world what
the Nazis did to
US.
members his parents as
"willing to go to the ends of
the world for each other."
His childhood was "secure
and comfortable," he said. In
the summer, the family
visited the country with
friends and relatives.
Young Bernard studied
the violin, and memories of
his playing are included in
Anton the Dove Fancier. Mr.
Gotfryd said he has written
another story, not included
in the book, about his music
teacher, Mr. Aaron. A
widower, Mr. Aaron lived
with a Polish Christian
woman who played the cello.
"I was very secretly in love
with her," Mr. Gotfryd said
of his teacher's girlfriend. "I
always hoped to drop the
violin and take up the cello."
Mr. Gotfryd's passion as a
child was the camera. He
received a Kodak Brownie
and began taking pictures of
everything he saw. During
the war, he worked as an ap-
prentice in a photography
studio, using his skills to
help members of the
underground obtain false
identity papers.
After the war, Mr. Gotfryd
settled in New York. He
began writing Anton the
Dove Fancier in 1983. His
first story was "Mr. G.," a
portrait of one of his father's
friends.
"This was a man I couldn't
get out of my system," Mr.
Gotfryd said of the story's
subject, Mr. Gutman. "I was
mesmerized by him. When
he talked — about commu-
nism, about fascism, warn-
ing my father about the
Nazis — I simply listened.
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51