HORRORS FADE FOR - nfio IN DURO

tO

"'IS:,

Fled Masmerett, Landed Penniles$,
Now Head Thriving Businezi6 1-1 ere

Cass."
Manuel met Fanny, an
immigrant from Romania,
in 1926 and married her
one year later. They set-
tled in a home on Dexter
and Burlingame and had
three sons, Irving,
Howard and Wilbur.
Today, Fanny lives in
Florida near her sons and
still finds it difficult to
speak of her beloved hus-
band, who died in 1964.
He was, she will say, "a
5
very fine gentleman."
Benjamin, meanwhile,
remained dedicated to
Weitzman Hardware
Retsetiers !fasten
(he and Manuel later
added "Rice and
to Disaster Scene
Lemberg" to the store's
fspE,17.41...
sign). Hard work ran in
TIM DETROIT sE: W3)
the family. By the time
'TOKYO I'vfly
filer, staff c
he was 15, Benjamin
orrespondent of The
already was running a
etroit NeNs, was iisted ainong!
brewery back in
3 passerigp... aboard a
fr$11r-i
Satanov.
i • 'd rniteri States A r
.F.,iane,
y
It took a pretty
schoolteacher named
'lien inbound fyorn Korea,'
crashed In the 'mountains:
Carolyn to get
Thtliaday night.
Benjamin's mind off
Arlie! ral: ,)ed 41 -!f,
the store. They mar-
ried in 1930 and set-
tled on Pasadena,
a(P
near Dexter and
Wildemere. Benja-
min spent his evenings
taking classes at Cass
Tech.
"He was big into educa-
The explosion came
tion," recalls his son,
sometime after 10:30
Eugene, who today lives
p.m. on a Thursday night
in Farmington Hills. "He
in May 1947.
wanted the next genera-
Thirty-three passen-
tion to have it better."
gers and a crew of eight
Not knowing the fate of
were aboard the plane
his family that still
when it crashed into the
remained in Russia dur-
mountains outside Tokyo.
ing World War II was a
Among those on board
strain on Benjamin. He
was Philip Adler, a
sent packages of clothing
Detroit
News correspon-
and soap (always sewn
dent and the author of
into the pleats of pants;
"Memories of Pogrom
for unknown reasons,
Horrors Fade for Two in
Soviet law did not allow
Detroit."
soap mailed into the
Mr. Adler was on
country). In 1946, he
assignment in Korea. On
received his first letter
Wednesday, one day
from Moscow: The family
before the crash, • he sent
was weary, but no one
a message to the News
had been sent to the Nazi
saying he would fly from
death camps.
Korea to Shanghai via
The Lembergs had two
Tokyo
and Okinawa. On
sons and a daughter. The
the same flight were 28
operative word in the
enlisted men, eight offi-
home was learn. "I was

The Sad Fate
Of Philip Adler

D

in Italy and South
America before getting a
visa to the United States.
He rode steerage class in
the ship where the only
meal was spaghetti; he
would refuse to eat it for
years afterward.
Manuel Rice left Russia
with the aid of a Jewish
surgeon in the Polish
army who helped Manuel
disguise himself as a sol-
dier and sneak across the
Romanian border.
Both Manuel and Ben-
jamin settled in Detroit,
where they
found work
with their
aunt, Esther
Weitzman,
owner of Weit-
zman Hard-
ware on the
corner of
Gratiot and
Brewster.
Mrs. Weitz-
was
man
but
tough
fair; she let
her nephews
live with her
for free, but
insisted they
immediately
deposit their
paychecks
into the bank.
After her hus-
band, Jacob,
retired, she
turned the
store over to
the two boys.
"'You need
not pay us for
the fixtures,'
she told us
(Manuel re-
calls). 'Just
take over the

stock. We'll give you liber-
al terms; and if you can-
not meet them, I'll
rearrange the terms after-
wards to meet your conve-
nience. Your families have
only you to rely upon, and
this store will get you out
of your troubles."
By 1926, when the
Detroit News article ran,
the two had been in
charge of the store for

Eugene grabbed
a backpack,
"threw in some
cigarettes,
whiskey, canned
food, ammunition
and went down
to the store for
four days."

about a year. They had
earned $10,000 — much
of which went to repay
their aunt — and Manuel
Rice was supporting his
parents and sister, who
lived in Poland. He also
had managed to finance
his two elder brothers'
immigration to Palestine.
auline Sommers
had just the girl in
mind for her first
cousin Manuel Rice.
Her name was Fanny.
"Manny was very lov-
ing, very understanding,
very intelligent," says
Mrs. Sommers, who today
lives in Southfield.
"Fanny had been my play-
mate since we were 11.
We went to school togeth-
er, at Bishop and then

P

Seen
olo

t

0

;

TWO FAMILIES page 50

cers and three civilians.
They rode a U.S. Army C-
54 four-engine plane.
At 10:30 p.m. the plane
crew radioed that all was
well. Soon after, the
plane crashed while land-
ing at Tachikawa
Airfield.
On May 31, 1947, a
Detroit News article
reported that all those
aboard had been found.
"The bodies had been
burned beyond recogni-
tion. It was the worst
aerial disaster of the
occupation and one of the
worst in the history of
the Orient."
A request by Mr.
Adler's family was that
his ashes be interred at
the international ceme-
tery in Yokohama,
Japan. C71

CS)

CO

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49