A Christmas Greeting for Jacques Sandulescu and Annie Gottlieb

Jacques Sandulescu and Annie Gottlieb

(Image from Jacques' Homepage: Donbas.com)

Some readers may recall that I've posted several times on the remarkable man Jacques Sandulescu, who was grabbed as a 16-year-old boy from a Romanian street as he headed for school on a winter's day in January 1945 and was taken to the Donbas region of the Ukraine to work as a slave laborer in a coal mine but managed to escape from that Stalinist labor camp despite terrible injuries to his legs from a coal-mine cave-in.

Eventually, he found himself in America, where he succeeded as a boxer, a martial arts expert, a restauranteur, a published author, and -- among other things -- even as an actor. He appears in a memorable scene in the film Moscow on the Hudson as a Russian truck driver eating in a deli who confronts the exiled and self-pitying Russian musician played by Robin Williams.

The image above comes from Sandulescu's visit to a high school in Eugene, Oregon to talk with high school kids who had read his book and had invited him to come and talk with them about his experiences. In the photos from that visit, he is already an old man but still strong and vibrant.

Everyone declines with age, however, and Sandulescu is no exception, even if he still looks remarkable at nearly 80 despite difficulty walking:

His wife, Annie Gottlieb, takes care of him in his old-age infirmities, but she sometimes could use a word of encouragement and is occasionally disappointed with old friends who no longer contact her husband, friends "who professed their devotion to J over the decades and now can't be bothered even to keep in touch with him -- whose 'friendship' has basically been reduced to the office of waiting for the news of his death, so they can wax sentimental over what an unforgettable character he was -- when he is still very much alive, isolated, disoriented, bored, and lonely, and can be brought to life for hours by a phone call that reconnects him to the mainland of his life."

I read those words by Annie Gottlieb and felt moved to write:

I only learned about Jacques and his story because of your blog, which motivated me to order the book.

Such a man deserves better friends than those who never even call . . . but in you, he has a woman wonderful enough to have made even his time in Donbas worth the ordeal since his escape led him, eventually, to you.

I'm paraphrasing his own words from a blog entry that you posted some months back after watching a television program about Hitler and WW2, so perhaps you'll recall.

Anyway, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, or whatever . . . Happy Holidays, at any rate.

She replied, "I'll take 'all of the above,' Gypsy Scholar! And Merry Christmas to you." I felt good to have provided words of encouragement, but I also felt that I ought to offer more than an easily posted comment, so I asked my wife if I could call them for Christmas. Sun-Ae agreed, and I wrote Annie asking for her number:

Since you don't get enough phone calls, I'll give you a call for Christmas. Just let me know your phone number (area code and all), and I'll give you a ring.

Not like the ring that I gave Sun-Ae, but this'll still ring in the season.

Annie provided her number, and I called them on their Christmas morning around 9:15. Although I had warned her that "I'm a terrible conversationalist, especially on the phone (which explains why I've never called you before)," Annie was so easy to talk to that I didn't find myself tongue-tied at all. She has a rich, warm and friendly voice and sounds as if she could be 35. I also got to talk to Jacques, whom I at first called "Mr. Sandulescu" until he said to call him "Jacques." His voice was hoarse but also warm, and even surprisingly gentle for such a tough man.

The three of us talked for only about thirty minutes, perhaps fewer, for the hour was past 11 in the evening of Christmas day, Seoul time, but we still spoke about a number of things -- for instance, Annie's current writing projects and Jacques' past acting career -- but especially his book on how he escaped from the labor camp. Apparently, the conversation had a good effect on Jacques, as Annie relates on her blog:

[H]e came all the way out of a groggy half-sleep to be lucid and grand, the old J, with someone who expressed appreciation for his story. I virtually smacked myself in the forehead ("I coulda had a V8!") -- I have a complete manuscript of his, the story of his immigration to the New World and his brief boxing career, on the computer, ready for editing, lovingly typed onto a disc almost three years ago by a Feldenkrais friend's son during a spell between employments. How is it that I haven't edited and published it?? Seeing how J comes to life when recognized as a storyteller and writer, I feel almost criminal for fatalistically sitting on that. Somehow, among all the things I have to do, I have to bring that one to the front. Kick me if I don't, will you?

I won't do any kicking because I might get kicked back, and Annie's a martial arts expert, but I did post a comment, referring to her as "Amba," her online persona:

Thanks, Amba. I really enjoyed the conversation even though I usually avoid the telephone. I did get a cellular phone about a year ago, though, and that has actually worked out rather well because no one ever calls me on it.

I'm still a hillbilly at heart, I reckon, a sort of natural-born, untheoretical Luddite.

With you and Jacques, however, I felt at ease despite the technology between us, so we'll have to do this again next Christmas.

Jacques mentioned some books other than Donbas, so maybe he and you are operating on the same wavelength and will together get those works published.

Let's hope that she and Jacques do manage to get more of their works into print. Meanwhile, if any good readers wish to visit Annie's blog and offer words of encouragement as a post-Christmas treat, feel free to do so.

In Search of Lost Time Lost...

À la recherche du temps perdu

Marcel Proust

(Image from Wikipedia)

I've occasionally posted entries on martial arts expert and memoirist Jacques Sandulescu, a Romanian who at 16 years old was abducted by Soviet troops and sent to a work camp in the coal fields of the Ukraine's Donbas region.

Eventually, after tremendous suffering but also encounters with kindhearted Russians and Ukrainians, he escaped despite horrific injuries from a mine collapse and made his way to the States where he ultimately met the writer Annie Gottlieb and lived happily ever after. Annie relates a recent anecdote. The two of them were watching a History Channel program about Hitler, which set Annie to thinking about the life that Jacques might have led if the politics of fascism and then communism had not erupted in all their enormity. Looking at the image of Hitler onscreen performing a "spittle-spewing oratory," Annie got angry:

I said, "See that sonofabitch? He's the one who destroyed your world. If he hadn't started the war, Stalin might have stayed put. You would have been the mayor of [your town], you would have owned [a large tract of land] . . ."

J said, "But I never would've met you!"

At that Romanian's romantic words, Annie melted: "Awwww. An armful of WWII. Beats roses."

But Jacques is getting on in years, his hardscrabble life has taken its toll, and he gets confused sometimes . . . yet remains alert even in his confusion, as Annie shows:

A: Where are you going?

J: (trying to get up from his wheelchair) To the phone.

A: Who do you want to call?

J: (looking at me like I'm supposed to know) My mother!

A: I'm sorry, baby, your mother died a long time ago.

J: (not missing a beat) Then the phone call won't cost anything.

I hope that I'm that alert when I grow great in years and dimmed in memory.

At the moment, however, I have a lot of grading to do, so I'm breaking off for now. Meanwhile, here's a touching video that also concerns memory, My Name is Lisa, a short story of about six and a half minutes that won third place in some video competition and that both saddens and uplifts.

A standing ovation...

Jacques Sandulescu
Donbas: A True Story of an Escape Across Russia
(Image from donbas.com)

Occasionally, I find the right words.

Some time back, I posted an entry about a memoir written by Jacques Sandulescu, a Romanian man who was only 16 years old in January 1945, still in high school, when Russian soldiers grabbed him from the streets of Brasov, Romania and sent him in a boxcar to the coal mines of the the Soviet Union's Donbas region to mine coal as a slave laborer under conditions that meant certain death to most prisoners.

A coal mine cave-in that could have killed him nearly crushed his legs, but he stood up after being dug out, and when infection set in and nearly cost him his legs, he stood up again and made a break for freedom by burying himself again in coal, this time in an open boxcar in midwinter on a track to the West, which he reached despite the odds against him.

In case these odds aren't clear too you, here a passage from his book describing his infected legs:

In the evening the pain was at its worst, eating me up, burning my insides out. I looked at my right ankle and realized that the color was a darker red than it had been before. I wondered how it had managed to grow so much. It looked larger than my waist. I stared at it, fascinated. I became cold and then hot, but I kept staring at my ankle. Just above the joint of the ankle I saw something like a blister growing, but I couldn't understand what it was. I stared at it harder than before. It was slowly growing larger. I thought that I was going crazy. Involuntarily my big toe twitched, and the blister slowly burst open. Then I twitched my big toe again, and the pus came gushing out. It was a yellow, greenish-blue color and smelled putrid. The pressure eased, but I stared at my leg unbelievingly. (page 169)

The doctor who examined him didn't like what he saw:

A day or so later, the doctor appeared again, and when he saw my legs he grumbled, looked at the sores, and then smelled them. I heard him say something to the nurses about amputation. I froze inside. He left, saying that the next time he stopped by he would bring along the necessary instruments and they would see then. (page 172)

Unwilling to risk amputation, Sandulescu saw his chance, got up from that bed, and escaped on suppurating legs.

Now, after a long and fascinating life as boxer, martial arts expert, restaurateur, and actor, among other things, he has finally grown old. For the past year or so, I've been checking his wife's blog to keep up with his condition. He has, for some time, been bedridden, but his wife Annie Gottlieb has continued caring for him and giving him physical therapy to strengthen his leg muscles. As readers have probably surmised, he's a fighter, a man who never gives up.

Here's what Annie -- who calls herself "Amba" -- posted yesterday:

Last night J was as good as he's been for many months: lucid, standing up with new strength, transferring between bed and wheelchair without any gadgetry but the walker, aware and proud of his own progress. I too dared to stand up taller, stretch, shake out my shoulders, take a deep breath.

"You're some kind of a miracle," I said to him.

"I'm an asshole," he replied, completely in character.

I had to explain to my wife, Sun-Ae, how the term 'asshole' is being used in this context. For any others unsure about the meaning, take it as something like "I'm too tough and mean to be kept down long."

Anyway, I was impressed, so I commented:

His standing again is in character.

A man who could stand up after being crushed for hours beneath rocks in a coal mine cave-in and stand up again after excruciating, bedridden weeks as doctors discussed when to cut his legs off doesn't surprise me when he stands up yet again.

Annie liked my comment and replied:

Wow, HJH. That blew me off my feet. I'm going to read it to him in the morning, at which time I expect ... he'll be almost ready to do it again.

Occasionally, I find the right words.

I think that both Annie and Jacques deserve some support, so go on over there to Annie's blog and give the man a standing ovation.