The Yeshivah Flatbush did not have a high school in those days. It had a night school that carried you forward a little bit so you had to go to regular high school, and Erasmus Hall High School was in my neighborhood. A wonderful high school. And I convinced my parents after a while that going to day school and going to night school was more than I could handle. And Erasmus was one of those great liberating experiences, for me just absolutely transformative.

For the first time I felt free of Lewis. Lewis was extraordinary in this period. So when we came to America, Lewis went to the high school for specialty trades. He was a brilliant student, so he could learn a trade and earn some money and he learned printing, and he worked in a printer’s shop. And then he was drafted into the Second World War, and he fought in the army. And the refugees who served in the army loved the experience. They were made citizens right away, they got the GI Bill of Rights, so he stayed in the reserve, and later used the GI Bill of Rights to go to graduate school to study German literature.

I found myself at Erasmus. I found myself free of him. I found that I was good at sports, I was a good runner - one thing Jews learned in Vienna was how to run! And I became, more through I think my charm than my skill, co-captain of the Erasmus Hall track team with my friend Ronald Berman who had less charm, but infinitely more skill. He was an extraordinary runner. And we won a number of relays, one-mile relays. The Seton Hall Relays, the Penn Relays. He won the city championship in the half mile, I placed fifth. This was right across the street from here in the armory.