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.
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.
