January 30, 2009
100 Years Ago in the Forward
Rosie Korelitz, a cook in Malbin’s Restaurant on Manhattan’s Grand Street, went to sleep a poor woman, but two days later she woke up rich. When she got out of bed, she was met by a landsman who had just arrived from Mir, a town near Minsk. He gave her an envelope, the contents of which informed her that her uncle had died and that she was to receive an inheritance from him — more than 300,000 rubles, or about $166. Korelitz will be taking time off from work to travel to Mir with her attorney in order to claim her money. When asked what she would do with her newfound wealth, she replied: “Don’t worry about me. I know what to do with it.”
75 Years Ago in the Forward
Naftule Lesing was an elderly Jew living in the shtetl of Krasno in Poland. Lesing used to work for the local government, from which he received a pension. He then lived quietly by himself. People in town suddenly heard that old Naftule had died, and the Jewish burial society was sent to his house to prepare his body. As the body was being placed in the coffin and onto the wagon to be taken to the cemetery, a family member claimed that he saw it move. People began screaming, and suddenly the “dead body” had open eyes. A doctor was called, and Lesing was given an injection that brought him to full consciousness. Needless to say, the shtetl was a bit shocked by these events.
50 Years Ago in the Forward
Gamal Abdel Nasser’s United Arab Republic is currently engaged in activity in Germany to import large numbers of convicted Nazis to the Middle East. Jewish organizations have learned that the UAR is smuggling Nazi criminals into their country, many of them important propagandists of Nazism and antisemitism. Although Nasser has denied this, it is known that nine important Nazis have arrived in Egypt and Syria and changed their names to Arab ones. Among them is Hans Bissel, a former concentration camp doctor and convicted criminal who was recently seen in a Cairo hotel.
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