Meet Ben

Benjamin Midler was born in Poland 79 years ago and spent four prime years of his boyhood from ages 11 to 15 in concentration camps during World War II. Later he fought with the Israeli Army, including the 1948 War of Independence and the 1956 Sinai Campaign. At age 23 Benjamin married his sweetheart, born in Egypt, and he has been married to her for the past for 56 years with three daughters and four grandchildren. For 25 years Benjamin owned an auto parts store in the Chicago area before retiring to San Diego where he worked for two years as a driver for Car Quest store, and then retired for good, presently living in Rancho Bernardo.

Early last Friday morning I’d taken my aisle seat on the United flight from San Diego to Chicago and was reading Sick, a book by Jonathan Cohn about the healthcare crisis in the United States, unaware of the great story sitting beside me in the middle seat. Eventually the man and I engaged in small talk. He was on his way to Madrid for an eight-day tour while his wife stayed home because she doesn’t like to travel anymore. We chatted a little about current events, and he offered his People magazine to me with an article he found interesting about a woman who recently had a baby from invitro fertilization using the sperm of her husband who’d perished in the War in Iraq a few years ago. He said a few words about the tragedy of war, and then uttered something about spending time in concentration camps as a boy. I dropped the magazine onto my lap, turned aghast toward the man, and nearly asked him to repeat what he’d said. “You were in concentration camps?” I asked the man with something between incredulity and shock. He rotated his left forearm and presented the evidence: a faint blue series of numbers tattooed on his skin many years ago.

For a couple hours I asked questions and he shared stories. He remembers seeing a photo of himself as a boy with a younger sister but has no other memory of her. He said people who’d gone through that experience tend to block entire periods of time from memory, and this is probably why he doesn’t remember the sister in the photo. He seems heartbroken by the toll of wartime – all wars, even today. He meets monthly with the New Life Club, a group of about 100 survivors of concentration camps now living in the San Diego area. I asked him if he’s written down his story, and he replied instantly that he wrote a book in 1993, self-published and given away to his friend and family.

We introduced ourselves to each other. “I’m Ben,” he said.