Growing up in Paterson, NJ

In early June, 1951, my parents and I set sail from Haifa, Israel, on a small Mediterranean seagoing passenger boat to Marseille, France.  Two days later we embarked on the Ile de France, a large ocean ship, whose final destination was a pier in lower Manhattan.  My parents were Holocaust survivors who managed to avoid death in a slave labor camp in Siberia, USSR, then a DPW camp in Persia, and, finally, by being smuggled into Palestine.  I was born in March 1945 in Palestine then under the British Mandate. Upon arrival in the U.S. my legal name was Viktor Bornsztajn. I was only 6 years old.
 
My father had a wealthy uncle, Max Bornstein who lived in Pompton Lakes and owned a large textile mill, Jacquard Fabrics, in Paterson.  He sponsored our immigration to the States and gave us a 3 month-paid-for-apartment at 450 Market Street, directly across from Eastside High School.  None of us, other than me, could speak English. I could at least count to ten and say “hello”.
 
As both my parents worked, I spent the spent that first summer sitting all day in a barbershop directly below our apartment watching Roy Rogers and the Cisco Kid on a black and white small T.V. (Who even knew the Cisco Kid was filmed in color?!) I learned to yell “Bam Bam”, “they went that-a-way”, and “Hi- Ho”.  In the late afternoon, I would walk by myself to the ball fields in Sandy Hill Park and observe adult men play softball. It was there I first heard the words “Brooklyn Dodgers.” They became my passion until the end of the 1957 season when they moved to Los Angeles.
 
Thinking back to the first three months of my life in the United States, I was pretty much alone five days out of seven.  That was a huge change for me, as prior to that I had been overly protected and watched over constantly.  Now, because of need, I was on my own most of the time. I became independent early in life, relying on my wits.  Was that good?  For many years I thought so, now I am not so sure.  In effect, I lost my childhood at age six.

I started School #15 in September.  I still remember my first day of school.  I felt like I was lost, almost invisible. As I knew no English, I was placed back a year, having to redo 1st grade.  The principal, Mr. Probart, brought the only Jewish teacher in the entire school, Mrs. Atkins, an 8th grade teacher, to my classroom to speak with me.  She spoke to me in Yiddish, a language I didn’t understand, because we spoke either Polish or Hebrew at home.  When I didn’t respond to her questions she told the principal I could not be Jewish because I didn’t speak Yiddish!  She told me that story when I became her pupil in 8th grade.  She was invited to and attended my Bar-Mitzvah.
 
School #15 had both positive and negative elements for me. For almost the entire six and a half years I attended, I was the only Jewish student enrolled.  Some of my classmates became friends and a few of them I still keep in touch with via social media and at high school reunions.  Other classmates were anti-Semitic and bullied me. On a few occasions they beat me up.
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I am sure that everyone my age recalls Paterson public schools held a Christmas pageant every December.  Christmas carols were sung and a baby Jesus in a cradle was on the auditorium stage floor accompanied by three wise men.  The only role I ever had in the yearly Christmas shows, other than singing off-key in the chorus, was the part of a shepherd.  All of my classmates would tell me how beautiful their Christmas trees were and what presents they wanted.  I desperately wanted a Christmas tree of my own.  Every year I badgered and begged my father to bring one home.  One year, when I was 9, he relented and bought me a 4 inch white plastic Xmas tree that I could put on the top of my dresser in my room.  Hallelujah! That was never again repeated.  While my parents were largely non-religious - we didn’t have a mezuzah on our front door or attend a synagogue- we weren’t about to assimilate and have a Christian or pagan symbol in our home. 
 
At age eleven, a couple months after my parents completed the process, I too became a naturalized citizen of the United States of America.  I actually had to pass a written test.  Congressman Gordon Canfield assisted my parents in getting the process approved.  He was invited to my Bar-Mitzvah and made a short appearance during the party after the service.  As very few American people could pronounce my last name, ‘Bornsztajn’, my father changed our last name to ‘Borden’ in order to “Americanize” it.  He actually believed it would help me get accepted to a medical school as the admissions committee wouldn’t know whether or not I was Jewish. That in fact was never true.  There are many reasons, mostly related to the Holocaust, that he mandated I had to become a physician.  
 
My parents belonged to a group called the Independent Lodzer Young Men Society.  Recently, The Jewish Historical Society of North Jersey ran a picture of a group from that organization. One of my great-uncles was in that picture.  The Society was composed of people from Lodz, Poland, some of them survivors of the Shoah and others who had immigrated to the U.S. prior to the War.  Meetings and social events took place on a regular basis.  From age 8 until 12, once a year during April, I gave a presentation in front of those present with the subject being the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, a revolt by the few remaining Polish Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, one of whom was my mother’s brother, against the Wehrmacht.  While it was doomed to fail, the uprising showed the resilience of some Jews against the Nazis.  Almost all of the heroic participants were killed.  At times, I saw both men and women dabbing their eyes during my speeches.   My parents are buried in a cemetery owned by the Lodzer group in West Paterson (now known as Woodland Park!). 
 
Almost all of the Jewish community residing in Paterson lived in the Eastside section of town. After two years at 450 Market Street we moved a block away to 444 Market Street. I could see Eastside High School students walk to the ‘Cozy’ luncheonette.  My life didn’t change until after I graduated School #15 and started Eastside when we finally moved to 433 East 33rd Street, between 19th and 20th Avenues. 
 
Prior to graduating from grammar school, there was a school dance.  It was during that event that I experienced my first kiss.  The girl I kissed was Peggy Bannister, a very bright student.  She also happened to be an African-American.  I feel proud of that.  Many years later, at my 50th high school reunion, when she and her husband walked into
                                                                    
the room, I walked up to her and hugged her.  I asked if she knew she was the very first girl I had ever kissed.  Her husband quickly and humorously responded that he was and would be the last person she ever kissed.  We laughed.  It was a very nice moment. As an aside, Peggy became an obstetrician-gynecologist, as did I.
 
Eastside High School, made up of different ethnicities, nationalities and religions was a brand new experience. Pledging a fraternity, Sigma Phi, with Alan Doktor as my pledge master and Joel Worob, its President; undergoing a paddling initiation; playing cards in Eastside Park; then getting arrested for defacing the Christopher Columbus statue at the park’s entrance with Alan Diamond and others because we simply put a cigarette in the statue’s mouth and nothing more, were life altering experiences.  Thankfully, Alan Diamond’s father was the town’s attorney and the police simply let us go.
 
There is so much more to say about the four years I spent at Eastside but that will have to wait until sometime in the future.
 
Respectfully,  Victor Borden, M.D., Member of the JHSNJ