2002 video of Wadi Abu Jamil

Charlie went to Beirut often. There was a lot that had to be done there. If I wanted to understand a little bit more, I had to go as well, the same route. I filmed some of what I saw. This is where the center of Jewish Life of Lebanon used to be. As far as I know, only the Magen Avraham synagogue stands today. The Salim Tarab school is gone.



And here is a picture of Charlie in the same location, in the early 1960s:

The family of Joseph Attié, Charlie's primary contact in Beirut, is long gone to South America. The others involved in Charlie's work there were murdered during the civil war, or abducted never to be seen again. Only Dan Lack passed away calmly in Switzerland.

Family history held as a hostage

Sometimes one gets really frustrated.

For more then ten years now I have been trying to get to the private archive of Eli Jordan, the widow of Charlie. Years ago, when I still worked on the film about Charlie, I have been shown a few files containing condolence correspondence, and descriptions of memorial projects named after Charlie. It was in these files where I found the first data about Charlie's involvement with the Palestinian refugees. I have traveled to a public library in Upstate NY to see these files, because the person holding them felt uncomfortable with the idea of a stranger visiting.

I was told there are more boxes of family stuff, but that there was no time to go thru them. We parted planning to stay in touch, that once there would be a chance to do so, we would be going thru the rest of the boxes.

Since then, none of my messages, letters or phonecalls were returned or reacted to in any way. For the film, this was not such a blow, but for a book that shall include family history, it is.

In the meantime, the marriage of the person holding the material fell apart. Because it was Charlie who in a certain way had a hand in setting up that marriage, pretending his paper-estate never existed may even be some kind of a revenge.

After ten years, I tried again in person. Traveled to Upstate NY. Tried to use the son of the person holding the material to open up the channels of communication. I met with other members of the family who were upset by the situation and attempted to help. But all that came back were variations of three themes: I already saw everything that was there to be seen, there never were any boxes - or total silence.

The scariest was the final statement by the son, before even he fell incommunicado: "You know, it was only old stuff. Old stuff gets thrown out. Mom says she has nothing anymore."

The only way how to reconstruct the details may thus be looking for information left behind by those who actually got to see the documents: the letters, the postcards, the communications between Charlie in America and his family in Poland an Germany.

Just found some of that. Apparently, Eli Jordan herself allowed NBC to see Charlie's postcards from Europe in 1968. There was a radio program about Charlie being produced at that time. I have gotten hold of the script of that program. What a pity the authors were too shy to really quote. What a pity Charlie did not have children of his own, who would value his memory enough to share his personal archive with me.

By the way, Torplatz 6 was at the very edge of the ghetto, and I think the postcards were written before the formation of the ghetto, outside the ghetto, and definitely before Pearl Harbor, when all communications ceased.

Charlie's sister Janet

Finally, finally I have met her!

Janet, the sister!

What an amazing experience. A beyond-blog experience. In a stark contrast to another, unnamed relative, Janet (with her son Paul) went through all of her old papers, looking for anything that may be of interest to me. And Paul? Paul flipped thru pages of old books that used to belong to Charlie almost until 2 in the morning... looking for old letters and documents that may have become bookmarks.

And there were results.

Some of them were:

1919: Charlie's grandparents with Werner Guttmann, Charlie's (and Janet's) cousin:

Werner is a relative I have never heard about before. Apparently his mother, of whose existence I had no prior knowledge, managed to enter the United States before WWII, and so Werner socialized with Janet, the cousin, while growing up.

To counter this brand new information, I told Janet that I have found yet another cousin of hers, Lilly Bannet, daughter of Charlie's aunt Wally Meisels. Janet never heard of Wally Meisels, nor of Lilly.

But according to documents I have found this past Thursday in the files of the National Refugee Service, in 1938 Charlie got US affidavits for his "aunt Wally Meisels, her daughter Lilly Bannett, and the daughter's husband Bernd Bannet" thanks to assistance from the "Humane Refugee Aid Society, Inc."

While Lilly and her husband Bernd most probably got to the US via Switzerland and survived, aunt Wally never utilized her affidavit. She was deported from Berlin to the Riga ghetto, and died there.

This means Alfred Jordan, Charlie's father, had two sisters - or to be more precise, he had at least two sisters we know of as of now.

Janet, 4 years old
(with her and Charlie's father, Mr. Alfred Jordan)

Janet, as a young lady
(with Werner Guttmann)



Janet today, at 95 years of age

New Things found in New York

I hope this is not the last discovery... but given that I have just arrived to the City, it is nice to already have some results.

Apparently, Charlie Jordan loved photo-ops already during his tenure as Director of Central Intake for the NRS, the National Refugee Service. The image featuring him was not labeled in any way, but I do know very well who is that well-dressed gentleman talking to the two Jewish refugees from Austria that came to NY via Casablanca. And you know it too.

Berlin: interesting piece of information about Arkadi and Ilse

I am just going to post it here in full, in the original language: only that way it retains the proper effect.


Sehr geehrter Herr Smok,

bitte entschuldigen Sie vielmals, dass wir erst heute auf Ihre Anfrage antworten koennen – leider war sie in unserem grossen Postberg etwas nach unten gerutscht.

In unserem Archiv konnten leider keine Quellen über Charles Jordan ermittelt werden.
Leider sind keine alten Mitgliederverzeichnisse oder Register der Berliner Juedischen Gemeinde vor 1945 ueberliefert.

In der hier vorhandenen Kartei der Austritte aus der Gemeinde fanden wir Ilse Flato geb. Jordan, Beruf Stenotypistin sowie ihren Ehemann Arkadi Flato. Die Adresse war Berlin W 15, Uhlandstr. 52. Beide traten am 11.03.1931 aus dem Judentum aus.

Ein Kantor namens Gecman konnte leider nicht ermittelt werden, allerdings sind keine alten Personalakten der Gemeinde ueberliefert.

Im gedruckten "Juedischen Adressbuch für Groß-Berlin", Ausgabe 1931 gibt es lediglich einen Schmul Jankel Gecmann mit der Adresse Wilmersdorf, Holsteinische Str. 34, ohne Berufsangabe.

Es tut uns leid, dass wir Ihnen sonst nicht weiterhelfen koennen.

Mit freundlichen Gruessen,
Barbara Welker
(Wiss. Archivarin)

Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin -
Centrum Judaicum, Archiv
Oranienburger Str. 28-30
D - 10117 Berlin

Jan Gecman, the stepfather

Thanks to Basia and Halina I now do have a picture of the stepfather who brought up Charlie during the First World War, the famous bariton Jan Gecman.

It was Jan Gecman who was behind Charlie's Bar Mitzvah ceremony - and the necessary circumsision. We do not know when exactly the marriage between Charlie's mother Hertha and Jan Gecman fell apart, but we know that by 1937 he was already in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.

Thank you very much, Basia and Halina!

More Poland pictures

Here are more pictures of Charlie in Poland: they are all from 1957 or 1958.

But for a few of his JDC co-workers, the identity of the people he is meeting with is a mystery to me. They must be leaders of the TSKZ, directors of a hat making co-op, community leaders... but who they are and what became of them, I do not know. I would like to know though.

A direct appeal: if you think you may help with identification of the individuals pictured (or you are from Poland and know the story of TSKZ and its relationship with the JDC), please do send me a message. I can provide you with a higher-resolution version of the pictures.

More of Charlie and Krakow

These photographs, providing some background to the memorial inscription from the previous post, were taken in the early sixties, or maybe late 1950s, when the JDC was already working officially in Poland, and Charlie went there quite often. These pictures are the tourist ones, showing Charlie and Eli touring the town - soon I shall be posting a whole series of pictures showing Charlie visiting the various institutions the JDC was supporting, from hat-making workshop to a matza bakery.