RECTOVERSO: Martin the Tailor and Eva the Forgiver

Chances are if you’ve ever engaged the Brethren Brooks in a made-to-measure endeavour, Martin Greenfield and his shop probably made your suit. Alan Flusser has sourced Greenfield for years when offering a made to measure Flusser contrivance. Greenfield, along with Julie Hertling, is the last of a Brooklyn breed. When Martin and Julie hang it up, it will indeed be the end of clothes making era.

Martin seems peaceful and elegant to me…in an old European way. I’ve never met him but I know that a steely resolve and voracious tenacity are often lurking just below such elegant veneers. I also wonder how this man can seem so peaceful and gentle…post Holocaust…post Auschwitz and Buchenwald. On the other hand, after surviving the Holocaust, a trying day at the factory, awash in puckered Dupioni or mismatched windowpane cashmere is probably a walk in the park. I’ve never met Martin but I’d like to.

I borrowed a couple of Martin photos from The Selby. Click here to enjoy their visit with him. And then make sure to visit with Martin by way of the clip at the end of this post.

So I haven't met Martin but I did meet Eva Mozes Kor one night a little over a year ago. A friend called and asked if I’d like to stroll down into Old Town and hear Eva give a brief talk and do a book signing. I’d never heard of Eva Mozes Kor but I’m damned glad I spent some time meeting her and hearing her story. This is perhaps a bit macabre but I’ve touched the hand that was routinely touched by the monster, Dr. Josef Mengele.

Eva and her twin sister miraculously survived the wrath of Dr. Mengele and his dreadful experiments on twins. She and her sister Miriam are holding hands in the photo above. The rest of her family perished. “When the doors to our car opened, I heard SS soldiers yelling, "Schnell! Schnell!" (Quick!), and ordering everybody out. My mother grabbed Miriam and me by the hand. She was always trying to protect us because we were the youngest. Everything was moving very fast, and as I looked around, I noticed my father and my two older sisters were gone. As I clutched my mother's hand, an SS man hurried by shouting, "Twins! Twins!" He stopped to look at us. Miriam and I looked very much alike. "Are they twins?" he asked my mother. "Is that good?" she replied. He nodded yes. "They are twins," she said ...Once the SS guard knew we were twins, Miriam and I were taken away from our mother, without any warning or explanation. Our screams fell on deaf ears. I remember looking back and seeing my mother's arms stretched out in despair as we were led away by a soldier. That was the last time I saw her...”

Eva Mozes Kor has dedicated her life to awareness and forgiveness. Awareness…of the atrocities and inequities that minorities and the disenfranchised often experience. And forgiveness, which for me was a huge lesson that Eva reinforced. Eva has formally forgiven Dr. Mengle and the Nazis. I’ve learned in my comparatively superficial moments of despair, that carrying anger burns through ones emotional reservoir at warp speed. I’ve also learned that forgiveness, as challenging as it is sometimes to subordinate ones ego to really, really forgive…is hugely liberating.

Here’s how Eva put it…“Here I am, this little guinea pig from Auschwitz, and I have the power to forgive Josef Mengele. And he can’t do anything about it. I stopped being a victim, and that makes me a very powerful person.”

And of course there are those who believe that Eva should carry her burden heavier than she’s chosen…heavier by not forgiving those who killed her family and subjected Jewish children to repugnant experiments. “In 2007, the World Federation of Jewish Child Survivors called it “abhorrent to forgive this monster, Josef Mengele,” and the group’s president said other Mengele twins were very upset with Kor for talking about forgiveness.” Well let me just say that I’m with Eva on this one.