Trusting Calvin

by Sharon Peters

  He has grown fond of that explanation, thinks it has merit. How else could he have been so close to dying, more than once, six or seven times really, and yet lasted long enough to be liberated?

  The pragmatist in him also credits his brothers; Erich, the German supervisor who risked his own life for a blind Jew; and the German eye doctor, Wesseli, who saved him from almost certain suicide and became a cherished friend; and Barbara, who “made life worth living.” Three of the most important, Germans.

  Erich’s actions are especially confounding when he thinks back, as he often does.

  “Erich was fully aware of the consequences had the camp officers or guards found out that he was protecting a blind inmate, and a Jew at that. Both of us would have been hanged before the day was out. Erich took that chance. He also prevented me from taking the easy way out, giving up on life. ‘Hope is the only thing we have,’ Erich told me. ‘Deliverance might come tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.’ ”

  Erich, Max learned from the man’s family several weeks after their liberation, died the day after he and the three Edelman brothers hugged at the farmhouse at the end of the eight-day march away from Flossenbürg. A group of Ukrainian former prisoners launched a grudge attack and beat him to death.

  Max struggles still with his long-held conviction, now confirmed by most historians, that the world was fully aware—and chose to ignore it—when the Nazis moved from bully behavior to mass murder. It’s not inconceivable that such a thing could happen again today, in a different place with a different group of people, he says.

  That concern has intensified in recent years as the rhetoric in this country and others has grown more acidic, more divisive. So many people have become so convinced of their own rightness that they’re incapable of hearing others’ perspectives. They increasingly seek out, online and through the media, only the ideas, opinions, and feelings that mirror their own. It all feels sickeningly familiar to Max, and the ache he gets in his stomach and in his heart is similar to what he felt as a teenager in Krasnik all those decades ago, when the rumors and fears began to build.

  “The late Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, recognized as one of the great theologians and philosophers of the twentieth century, once asked an audience during a speech, ‘What is the opposite of good?’ Most of the people replied ‘Evil.’ ‘No,’ Rabbi Heschel said, ‘Evil has no opposite. Evil stands alone. The opposite of good is indifference.’ ”

  When Max speaks publicly about the Holocaust, it’s not, he says, “to arouse sympathy or pity for the humiliation and suffering inflicted upon us by the evil Nazis, but rather to make the world understand the enormity of evil, and to pledge to prevent history from repeating itself against any group anywhere in this world of ours.”

  So he talks. Even after all these years, he finds that speaking about what he lived through from 1940 to 1945 makes sleeping even tougher than usual. Stirring up the kettle of memories, hauling one out to discuss, seems to give that one or several of them additional potency for a few hours or days.

  “Well, no one ever told me life would be a bed of roses,” he says. Eventually he settles back into his version of normal.

  A man not given to pride—a person who lolls about basking in such things is, of course, not much of a person at all—he does allow himself some small measure of smugness on one matter, and one matter alone: Despite overwhelming odds, the Edelman name has continued—flourished, in fact. That’s something he and Sig, who rarely spoke of their years in the camps, talked about from time to time, when they were alone in their last years together before Sig died in 2007, at the age of ninety-seven. The silence between them would extend and then grow somehow warm, and one of them would say: “He did not succeed; he did not obliterate every Jew, and he did not obliterate the Edelmans.” Hitler, they would be speaking of. He killed millions, but the Edelman brothers survived, and in their time gave rise to more Edelmans, all smart, all solid contributors to the world.

  Sig, who established a successful locksmith company and survived three wives, all taken too young—one by the Holocaust, one by cancer, and one by heart attack—fathered two and raised three more when he married their mother.

  Jack, a much-in-demand tailor in New York for decades, and wife, Violett, had three children. He died in 2009 at ninety years old.

  Max and Barbara, with all those hurdles to clear, did better than many parents with practically nothing blocking their way. Their two sons matured into involved parents, respected community leaders, and successful career men. They’re close, the brothers and their families, living a few miles from each other and from their dad. Max has special connections with his grandchildren, celebrating every holiday and every victory with them. “Grandmother Barbara and your great-grandparents Abraham and Sarah rejoice with us from Heaven,” he almost always announces at their successes.

  If a man’s value can be measured at least in part by the contributions his progeny make to this world, this one has special worth.

  People often ask whether he has regrets about moving to America. He does not. Not anymore. He worked hard to find and make his place here, and he raised his sons without fear that they would be jailed, beaten, or minimized because they were Jews. Living without fear of persecution is as precious a gift as he had imagined as a child, when he couldn’t fully envision what that would feel like.

  “Freedom must be protected and defended,” he says, and even now, at this age, he would do whatever necessary, “with everything I have in order to protect it for my children and grandchildren.”

  Max is no longer the man he was when he left Germany. He’s not even the same man he was twenty years ago. He is, among other things, a little more mellow, softer.

  Age sometimes does that to a man. Some think that Calvin, Boychick, and now Tobi have contributed as well. Even unsentimental Max gives a little credence to that.

  “At first, getting a dog was just about mobility, being able to get around. I needed a better way to do that,” he says. And then, gradually, things began to happen that he hadn’t expected: Calvin’s and Boychick’s devotion to Barbara, changes in himself, changes in the way he approached life. He doesn’t understand all of what happened, but he recognizes a lot of it.

  “I was uptight before I got Calvin. Very uptight.” With the brown dog at his side, with the safety and companionship that came from believing in Calvin, he found himself unclenching, slowly, but undeniably. “I did not know that an animal could do that much.”

  He doesn’t declare a favorite from among Calvin, Boychick, and Tobi.

  “Each dog lived under different circumstances,” he observes.

  He does know that Tobi is the most deeply attached to him. Barbara had passed away by the time Tobi came along, so “There was never somebody else living here for him to share his attention with.”

  That is a contributing dynamic, no doubt. And yet, how does one explain the fact that no open door will cause Tobi to seize the opportunity, as Calvin and Boychick did, to run off for a moment to explore on their own? How does one explain that Tobi is so devoted, he truly will not let Max out of his sight?

  Max doesn’t try. “I’ll leave that to the experts, the people who know about such things.”

  Max worries about little these days, his concerns limited mostly to whether he’ll feel well enough or live long enough to fulfill a commitment to speak at a high school next month, or whether storms tomorrow will disrupt his morning miles with Tobi.

  Everything else he accepts as layering to a life lived longer and better than he dared hope when he was swept into a particularly nasty piece of history.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A book of this sort requires much in the way of guidance, recollections, and encouragement from others.

  I wish to thank Jan Abbott, the trainer who instructed and encouraged Max Edelman and his guide dog Calvin at Guiding Eyes for
the Blind. Jan, now a trainer with The Seeing Eye in New Jersey, kindly spent hours recalling important and funny moments of Max’s early days with both Calvin and Boychick.

  Special thanks, too, to Linda Chassman, whose unique Animal Assisted Therapy Programs of Colorado augment traditional counseling techniques with assistance from dogs, cats, horses, and goats. Linda provided early direction on research regarding animals’ impacts on humans. Lynette Hart, professor at UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, who has conducted and overseen research into the human-animal interaction for decades, also gave generously of her time, offering invaluable insights and contacts. Alan M. Beck, director of the Center for the Human-Animal Bond at Purdue University’s School of Veterinary Medicine, was also a great resource.

  Several people with disabilities spoke frankly and passionately with me about their lives with and without service dogs, and their stories were vital: Vietnam veteran Raymond Galmiche, attorney Natalie Wormeli, and college student Kate Lawson. Also critical were insights shared by founders of three of the dozens of organizations that train service animals: Karen Shirk of 4 Paws for Ability, Carol Borden of Guardian Angels Medical Service Dogs, and Jennifer Arnold of Canine Assistants.

  Others also took the time to offer important information, including Joanne Wilson of the National Federation of the Blind, who provided vital context, as did, of course, Guiding Eyes for the Blind, the organization that united Max with Calvin, Silas, and Tobi, and provided details about those dogs and Max’s training sessions at the school.

  I am also indebted to Linda Kauss, friend and editor at USA Today, who became an instant champion of my writing about pets for the newspaper nearly a decade ago, thrust my work onto the Life pages at a time when newspapers weren’t routinely writing about animals, and marshaled support to launch my weekly column. And to copy editor Patrick Richards, who took a personal as well as professional interest in my columns and gave them the full force of his skill and attention week after week. Their backing nourished my ability to report on matters of animal welfare, which eventually led to my meeting Max.

  Sincere gratitude to Pam Bella, a great and wise administrative assistant during my years as an executive, now a great and wise friend, who instantly raised her hand to transcribe dozens of hours of gut-wrenching recordings of Max’s memories. To my pal from Cincinnati days, Carol, who insisted that this book be written. And to my many friends and family who were instantly interested, constantly supportive, and perpetually forgiving of my absences from gatherings, dinners, and contact, including Caroline and David, Nikki and Pat, Ronni and Joe, and Ginny, my early-morning, mind-clearing hiking partner.

  Finally, my most heartfelt thanks to Max, a man of unmatchable integrity and courage, for the countless hours he spent reliving painful memories and trenching deeply for details he has worked for decades to move beyond. He is an ever-achieving, ever-evolving man who, even at ninety years old, forges forward with determination, compassion, and hope. And also to his wonderful sons, Rich and Steve, and their families, who not only supported this project, but were warm and hospitable.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Sharon Peters has been a journalist for more than three decades, writing about or editing a range of topics from politics and education to fashion and society trends. In 2005, soon after Hurricane Katrina, she took a one-month leave from her position as executive editor of a large Colorado newspaper to volunteer in southern Mississippi, part of which involved working with an overburdened, overcrowded animal shelter.

  Two months later, she quit her job, returned to the Mississippi shelter twice more as a volunteer, transported several dogs from certain euthanasia there to new homes in the North, and began writing about pet issues. She launched the popular weekly Pet Talk column in USA Today and received body-of-work awards from the American Humane Association and the Humane Society of the United States.

  She interviewed Max Edelman for a story for USA Today in 2009, and the two developed a friendship, which eventually led to this book.

  Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Maine, Peters has lived in states across the nation, traveled throughout South America as the wife of a diplomat posted in Colombia, and has worked as a media consultant for newspapers throughout the country. An avid hiker, she lives in Colorado.