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Good morning. Today is July 15,015. My name is chances, Sarah, on behalf of the sound Procter Oral History Program Today we're here with Dr Watkins talking about his experiences on the Panama Canal Zone. So, Dr Ricken, thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview today.

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Um, if we could start by you telling us your full name and also when and where were you born? Hi, My name is Michael Witkin. Kn I was born at Gorgas Hospital in the Panama Canal Zone 1938 and I was born there because my father and mother were assigned to the zone starting in 1937.

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My dad was there for 30 years. He retired from the zone in 1967. He was the representative for the Jewish Welfare Board in the U. S. Armed Services Center in Balboa. He was sent there to be the chaplain for the Zone and for the Southern Command, which included the Caribbean area.

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He traveled extensively throughout the Caribbean. He, uh, as I mentioned, was the lead person for that area for the Jewish servicemen. But he also at the USO center that he built there in 1939 and this became a center for the zoom and people in Panama for various activities, including concerts and lectures, and various groups would meet there.

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Including such variety is the ham radio stations and the Orchid Society and all sorts of groups. In addition, religious groups met there, including the Mormons and the Unitarians, for many years. So it was a center for many activities. It was on La Boca Road, which was at the foot of Sosa Hill.

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Next door to us was the Elks Club, and a door down from there was a police station. I recall Zoom very clearly. It was government reserve, actually, for all the civilians and military that helped guard and run the Panama Canal. Um, it was five miles on each side of the canal and 50 miles long, and the center of our town was the clubhouse.

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Or you could get a haircut or go to a movie or swim. Next door was the commissary, where you could buy food and other staples, and across the street was a post office, and that was the center of town. They were excellent schools. There are the teachers were all excellent instructors from the US Actually, May Stepmother was from West Virginia.

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She came there too. The journalism teacher. She became my stepmother because an accident that occurred in 1942 on a plane crashed into the house. We lived above the U. S. So there. And it led to the death of my mother, Esther Witkin, which was the name of that center after she her demise.

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But Helen shook it. What can became my stepmother, and she and my father raised me in the canal zone. He did a lot of travelling, as I mentioned throughout Latin America. And during the war, he went back to the United States for two years to help, uh, assign chaplains overseas and then returned to the canal zone in 19.

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40. Before I entered grade school at that point and spent my 12 years in the school system in the canal zone. My father Mm, it was very helpful and having people who were either, uh, it's sent after the war to find homes in the in the Western Hemisphere, and some of them before the war were trying to escape from the not the concentration camps and such or before they were sent to the concentration camp, so he helped over 20,000 people find homes in the South American and Central American and Caribbean areas.

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Panama was one of the few countries that allowed people to enter without $1000 per head fee that many of the countries required. And I recall as a six year old going to the what they call the quarantine station and Cora's L, where people from, uh after the war would come and be kept there until they could find a home for them and in one of the Latin American communities.

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Years later, when I was practicing medicine and in New Orleans at the Ochsner Clinic, I met people whose family had been settled in Latin America through the help of my father. Because of his help during the war, he received the Medal of Freedom from President Truman in 1947 and because of his work in Panama and the canals, and the government of Panama gave him the their highest award, called the Vascular and Unions Day Balboa and part of the tribute that was paid to him in the In the award that was given to him was quoted in the Congressional Record by Senator Keating from New York in 1964 when he quoted the awards stating that quote social welfare activities, which benefit both the Panama Canal Zone Citizens Community civilian communities.

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And it hailed him as a silent ambassador who has been able to solidify the civilian and religious groups within his mission in the Caribbean area. So he was the reason I I was born in the Canal Zone and raised there for many years that, uh, that he was there his 30 years in my, uh 18 years in the canals and before I left for college.

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During those 18 years, I recall some very pleasant memories of various things that occurred. We took trips to various parts of Panama. Um, made very close friends there. There were several that have continue to be my friends, even into where I live in North Carolina. Now I'll go over there stories a little bit later, but we would travel to the interior of Panama.

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One of my favorite spots was L Value Beautiful cool town on the Costa Rica side of the is missing. It was in a valley that had been a volcano in the past and was lush and green cooler than the rest of the area. Around it. They had such things is square trees and golden frogs, and it was just a nice place to visit.

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I used to go to swim at the interior beaches like Coronado and Santa Clara. One time I took a trip to the San Blas Islands in the Indian, the KUNA Indians on the Atlantic side of the canal, originally described by Columbus on his fourth trip to the New World.

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And these were fascinating the group of people that lived in hundreds of islands off the Atlantic coast. Uh, we used to take our bikes and go fishing on Amateur Beach on the causeway that ended two miles from the coast to the fortified islands at the mouth of the Pacific Side of the canal and swim at the beach there, which had a nice shark net around the front of it.

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So we were safe. Uh, one time, my friend Jim Rees and I went to the Barrack Colorado Island, which is part of the Smithsonian Institute Jungle Research Area. We spent a week there studying the observing the people that had come there to study from all around the world.

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They study things such as insects and jungle vines and tropical fauna and flora of all varieties. It was run by doctors Etec who had been there for many years. And actually, when I graduated from Balboa High School, I was given the Z Tech Award in biology.

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So he was an influence on me. The other area that I felt influenced my mhm turn into the medical world was the time between college years when I was at Washington and Jefferson College in Pennsylvania. I would come home during the summer and work with a veterinary division.

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There were three veterinarians that I recall working with Dr Zimmerman, Dr Gail and Dr Fink. I recall on one occasion Dr Zimmerman and I were traveling. We would investigate or, uh, inspect the dairy farms around Panama and the abattoir. The slaughterhouse had sold meat to the canal zone milk to the canal zone from the dairy farms and various other food processing areas in the Panama Republic.

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And so Dr Zimmerman and I would go to these places and he would inspect the food products one time when we were traveling. He noticed the bat flopping on the ground, picked it up and took it to the lab and found that it was rabid. Panama had been a rabid free, allegedly a rabbit free area and requiring that all animals that were imported, such as cats and dogs from the states, had to be quarantined for, I believe, six months before they could be released to their owners.

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That fell through when it was found that a certain percentage of the bats in the area were also rabbit. So it didn't really matter about the dogs that were imported. And so he and I spent time collecting bats and culverts and under eaves of the roofs of the houses, too, checked for Rabies and noted the that a significant percentage of them did have infection with the virus.

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Subsequently, when I was at medical school and at the University of Pennsylvania, came home during the summer between my 1st and 2nd year and worked as a lab tech at the Middle America Research Unit, which was run by the National Institutes of Health. It was a virology unit and doctor by B.

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Y. E was the lead physician there. So, uh, there are many, uh, advantages of living there and studying with the experts that were assigned to these various facilities, even at an earlier age, probably around the age of 12. I used to go to visit with Dr Schrager up at the Gorgas Memorial Lab at the hospital to, uh, observe his work, and I recall one day asked me to go down to the ground floor and get a guinea pig out of the pin there.

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When I got there, there was a large boa constrictor with six lumps in its Belize, having made a a nice meal of the guinea pigs that were running all over the depend there. So my experiences that I recall most vividly were with the natural life around the Canal zone, the beautiful areas.

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It's a beautiful area, too. Grew up in the zone itself, was very clean. The of residential errors were always kept neat and tidy, but I would also point out that was a highly segregated government US government facility. The the whites and the blacks were separated into different communities left over from construction days when the whites were paid with gold and the and the west.

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Indian laborers that were so essential for the building of the canal were paid in silver, so they were assigned to the silver communities and the gold communities and search. Uh, obviously, that no longer exists. Hopefully, uh, in the canal zone, which is no longer in existence in itself, since Panama took over the workings of the canal.

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So my memories also continue because we made great friends there. Uh, during high school, we were in the band there with many of my friends from school, had an excellent band teacher, Mr Victor Her, who directed us and also helped organize various Broadway plays that we participated in.

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I recall making friends with Jack Flowers, who owned a paper route, and he hired me to deliver half of his papers for a penny a paper. And I was assigned the one on on Social Ill, which, uh, the hardest part of the route because of the hill to pedal my bike up and down on.

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But these were all pleasurable things that I enjoyed doing during my during my, uh, connections with high school. I met up with Jim Reese and his wife, Janet Stockham. Reese, Tim Holtz and his wife, Helen, leader hosts His father was the principal of the high school.

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Marla Hackett. Danny Win Chlebowski. We all ended up in North Carolina for some reason, for various reasons. Not some reason, but we all ended up here, and we still get together at the grand over in Winston Salem every 3 to 4 months for brunch. And not all of us are still around.

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Jim Reese passed away, as did Danny Wondolowski. But, uh, we still get together on a regular basis to reminisce and review about the zone and how things are going with our families. After I went to medical school, joined the Navy and I was signed a Great Lakes, Illinois.

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Jim Reese was on a A supply ship as a Navy officer, and Tim Holtz was a Navy officer on a aircraft carrier. We all ended up in the Navy. That was during the Vietnam era of Well, I was in practice at the Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans.

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Ochsner was well known in the Canal zone. The head doctor at Ochsner had a connection with the doctors, and President of Panama Alton Ochsner was the founder of that clinic And so I often saw people from the Zone and other Latin American communities who would come to Ochsner further check ups.

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And they would often come because they knew I was there and and they knew and I knew them and their families. And by chance, I saw gentlemen, Mr John Beverley from Coral Gables, who had growing up in the canal Zone. But he was there during construction days as a child.

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Mother at the time was married to Mr Held to LD who was head of the railroad Panama Railroad. And they lived in the same duplex house with Colonel Gorgas, who was their neighbor. And years later, in 1976 Mr Beverley sent me a book that Colonel Gorgas had given to his mother with an inscription for her.

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So I still have that book and will probably at some point, donated to the Pan Canal Museum. Uh oh. There's some of my memories. I don't know if you have any other questions that you'd like to suppose. Well, um, I do. You covered a lot of information, so I kind of want to backtrack a bit and go through the things that you have told us so.

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I wanted to start with. What are your What's your earliest memory of living in the zone? Like when you were a little kid? The one thing that stands out to you? Well, I like I say I was I guess my earliest memories had to do with playing in front of our house and on LA Boca Road and visiting.

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I recall one time we went, my dad took me to the quarantine station at Cora's L. I probably was six years old to see how the refugees were doing. And I recalled playing through the fence with a little girl, redheaded girl from Europe that was there with her family, waiting to be settled somewhere in the in South America.

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Uh, mhm. I recall how beautiful the areas were around the canal zone and how hard it was and such. But those are some of my earliest memories. Okay, You've never mentioned what your father's full name was. His name was Rabbi Nathan Witkin, okay? And so did you practice Judaism while you were living in the zone?

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Yes, he was. He was my mentor and I studied with him. He had studied. He was born in New York and he had studied in those days was called Palestine and and, uh, at the under the chief rabbi in Palestine and had worked there, uh, bringing people from Europe.

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Before the war, they had settled over 10,000 Children that were that had been brought to Palestine before the or broke out. He then returned to New York and was with the Roosevelt Civilian Conservation Corps. Uh, mm subsequently was assigned to Panama with the military, as I mentioned and had of a 30 year experience there.

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After the he retired from the zone, he went to Houston and was the hospital chaplain at the Texas Center Medical Center in Houston. All the different hospitals Methodists, ST Luke hospitals. And then he retired to Sarasota, Florida, and died at the age of 88. Uh, my mother taught at the my stepmother, Helen, what can taught at the high school journalism she had done her graduate work at the University of Minnesota.

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She lived until she was, um, 99 years old and, uh, died in 2011. Okay, in Sarasota that there are a lot of retired individuals in Sarasota and including a sister of mine who lives there? Okay, so I know you said that you were born in the zone because of your father's work there.

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But do you have any recollection of why it wasn't? Your father took that job in the Panama Canal Zone and won't let him there. Well, he was with the Jewish Welfare Board in New York, and they assigned chaplains to any place that was required over the around the world.

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So Jewish chaplains were assigned to different places. And there are 300,000 servicemen in the zone. From my recollection, right before World War Two. And, of course, throughout the Caribbean all the islands were being protected from the German, uh, problem. And he traveled to Guantanamo, he recalled.

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He told me once that he was on incurious. So Antigo when a German submarine shelled the oil facilities there, he I went to the Virgin Islands. And whenever wherever there were military bases, he would fly. The government would fly into the various bases, too. The the chaplain for these servicemen And in the canal zone, every little mountain top along the canal had a gun again, uh, preserve their to our guns position there to guard the canal.

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There was a fear that the Japanese would come from the Pacific. And the Germans from the Atlantic recall that there were submarine nets at the mouth of the canal to prevent them from entering the channels there. So it was a problem. As you might recall, there were German U boats sinking ships along the Atlantic coast.

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So the war was imminent in that area and had to be protected by thousands of U. S. Servicemen. Is there, um, a particular memory that you remember? If your dad's saying like why he did the work that he did, why it meant so much to him?

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I don't think there's one particular memory I just recall that he took. He had so many problems that would come up with various, um for the various people would always try to find a solution, that it was a social worker, in essence, for the people. For instance, in 1964 when there were riots in the Canal zone, he allowed, uh, people from Panama and the canals and were stuck on either side of the border, couldn't return home to stay in the service center.

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There and then found safe journeys for them to their homes. He had a great rapport with the people in Panama and the people in the zone, as is evident by the fact that the Panamanian government often sought him for advice regarding the various problems. The citation they gave him with the vascular unions Balboa Highest Award.

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He was a high figure within the zone and the Panama Republic for the work that he did mhm. When when the Mormon church built their own Tabernacle after 13 years of meeting at his building, he, uh he joked with him that he was the only gentile rabbi that had ever been that had been, uh, he joked that he was a gentile rabbi, but that was his way.

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He had a very good sense of humor and was always joking around. He always met on. He met often, often once a week with the ah, Episcopal Bishop, Bishop good in and father done the Catholic chaplain and and I don't recall. I guess those were the three that would met.

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They called it the Choirboy meeting, and they would play poker together. Um, um what type of problems with the Panamanian government comes to your followers council on. Well, uh, there were, uh, problems in terms of shipments of people from various parts of the world. There are ships that arrived both from Europe and even one from Harbin, China, where Russian Jews were had been settled in China and the whole group of then we're emigrated to the Western Hemisphere.

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And he was he went with the Panamanian government to help find homes for these people. Um, look, okay, what impact did that have on you as a child to see your father doing that type of work? Because it's not everybody's dad that does that. Well, the impact was that he told me that he showed me that helping other people is something that is very rewarding and in terms of their benefits.

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And it it's something that he always I like to do. He, uh he had a remarkable memory of people and faces and would be able to strike up a conversation with anybody that he couldn't talk to and and recall. Once he was at our clinic in New Orleans at the Ochsner Clinic and saw gentleman sitting in the lobby waiting for an appointment and asked him if he had been stationed at such and such an island during World War Two.

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This is probably 30 years later, and sure enough, he was the same fellow he admit years before. And so he he hasn't had a memory of things. That and faces and people, That was remarkable. Um, And then I know you have mentioned your dad's relationships with Panamanians, but growing up as a kid, But do you have a lot of friends that didn't live on the zone?

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That we're Panamanians? I don't believe there was a lot of mixing of, uh, two populations, but there were in our high school people from Panama that, uh, were attending our school, and I mean, I I knew them personally. But in terms and in addition, actually, I would have to point out that was my work with the veterinary division and in high school and college and delivering newspapers.

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I would come in contact with the people in Panama, uh, and would be we would we would be very friendly. There was no animosity or difficulty. The people from Panama are exceedingly good people, and, uh, we would always get along, but mainly would be through the Panamanian students at the school where I was attending.

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And what did you attend? A synagogue while you were living in the zone. The one My father. A congregation there at the service centre. And they had services every Friday night and and during the high holidays. Um, what do you remember of that? Are practicing the high holidays and your services and, you know, like your apartment spot, you know?

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Well, it was, uh huh. Attended by people both from Panama and the Zone. There were other Jewish congregations in Panama. There were three different ones in Panama. One was the, uh we call it the Oriental Congregation that was from the Middle East, North Africa, Lebanon, Syria.

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Then there is the Ashkenazi group from, uh, Europe, and, uh, and there was a reform group, actually, which was from various parts of the world. So there are several groups in Panama, but the one that I always attended was my father's services. And we lived upstairs from the service centre downstairs where the services were held.

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So it we would always have our Sabbath meal on Friday night and then go down for services and It was a very family oriented service, I recalled. I had a little dog that used to sneak in and lie under my seat until my dad would see it and I'd have to chase it out.

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It was. And on the other side of the we had screens. That was until many years after it started, that we were there, that we developed air conditioning. But all the buildings were screened in with long over hangs to allow the cross winds to blow through.

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So the outdoor was there and under those eaves I used to keep my pets, uh, parakeets and doves and things like that that were sometimes heard during the services. So those were some of my childhood memories Made things interesting? Uh, well, we actually, um I spoke to a woman who she attended the Reform temple in Panama.

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Uh, she had mentioned that, um, the Ashkenazi temple was called beneficiaries. Yes, yes, yes. And she said that a lot of people that attended they're actually came from Europe because of the Nazis and will correct. So would your father help direct people to different synagogues that they didn't know whichever they gravitated to.

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I mean, I think there were over 1000 refugees that came in after the war to Panama itself. And they were often highly successful business people after they got started. As you might know, many of these ships that came with refugees even before the war were turned away by the United States.

00:32:51.410 - 00:33:18.050

They wouldn't allow for entrance. Some of them had to go back to Europe and were never heard from again. But others. I mean, there are communities, and in Cuba and throughout Latin America, Argentina, particularly Colombia. My dad used to visit communities in Colombia, and we have some silver that I recall Silver Smith made for him.

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Uh huh. Wine cups. And and, uh, uh, Passover Seder. Uh huh, Uh huh. Supply of trays and such that were made by this particular silver Smith and in Cali, Colombia. So he made friends. He organized day schools throughout Latin America. And there's one in Panama that he helped organize for the Jewish students.

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Yeah, this question might be a long shot, but we actually I one of the other collections that I work with is with the Jewish community of El Salvador, and they have mentioned that there was this organization called the Medical. There's a federation of Central American Jewish communities in Panama.

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Did your dad work with them at all that I believe the group that organized that he helped organize through Latin America? Wow. So that he really traveled extensively through all those countries and helped organize the schools and the community centers. One time we used to have visitors from Israel.

00:34:41.040 - 00:35:13.170

Um um, So, uh, trying to remember the name I've got. My mother wrote his memoirs, and so it's in his memoirs, but, uh, he tells about Let me see if I can find it in this book. Oh, here. Golda Meier was in our home. Uh, wow.

00:35:13.640 - 00:35:46.290

And, uh, there is one particular story. No, I wanted to bring that up. Uh, well, I remember another time, the federal, the U. S. Government asked us to take into our house a scary Russian officer who had defected to the West, who was looking to be lost and not be found in Latin America.

00:35:46.300 - 00:36:04.850

So he spent time in our house learning how to speak Spanish. But then it turned out that he had to go to Brazil, so we had to learn how to speak Portuguese. So he, uh, was in our house another time. What in the world? My memory is slipping me.

00:36:04.850 - 00:37:37.540

But, uh, if you could hold on a second, I'm gonna put the phone down and look for something that's fine. Don't worry. Mhm. Mhm. I'm trying to remember the name of the foreign minister from Israel. There's a gentleman that I think you know, Um, because the transcripts that I have are from the like, I was mentioning the Jewish community of El Salvador, and I think they also mentioned that visit as well because he he went to several different countries.

00:37:38.130 - 00:38:10.770

Mhm. But I can't remember the name of either. Yeah. Anyway, he was on a trip to this gentleman. Mm. Is very well known. I've, uh, trying to remember. But in any case, he, uh, was flying to Argentina and on an Israeli military plane. And when he came back through Panama, he came back on a commercial plane.

00:38:10.770 - 00:38:42.590

And the reason was a had used his military playing too. Fly Eichmann back to Israel after they abducted him from Argentina to face trial in Israel. And so that's one of the stories I recall from my recollection of his work there. I'm really happy that you remember.

00:38:42.590 - 00:39:07.560

The federation, though, is I've been trying to find something about it and nothing. I have some. Yeah, if you can. I can look in here and see about what his work was with that so long chapter. I don't know if you have the time, but Well, how do we keep going with the interview?

00:39:07.560 - 00:39:33.430

And then we'll go back to this afterwards, Okay? Okay. Um and so on that, What schools did you would tell? Where you were living in the zone? Balboa Elementary and High School. Okay, um And when did you decide that you wanted to be a doctor? Oh, probably after I of in high school.

00:39:33.430 - 00:40:00.470

And I was visiting the Gorgas Memorial Lab and and watching Dr Schrager do his work. But when I went to college, I already knew what route I was going to take. And which what type of medicine did you practice? Endocrinology. And how did did you have a different experience than the rest of your medical custom?

00:40:00.470 - 00:40:26.460

It's coming from Panama, but all that you know, hands on research experience that you know, I'm sure many of them already had similar experiences wherever they lived, so I probably was not unique in that regard. Okay. And then you said that you had mentioned that you're your dad was living in Panama during the riots.

00:40:26.460 - 00:40:45.960

When was the last time that you went back to see the zone? I went back in 1967 when I when he was retiring, and I went back to visit, then. Haven't been back since then. Okay. Do you think those riots in any way impact that your dad's risk decision to retire?

00:40:46.250 - 00:41:05.440

No. He had been there for 30 years, and that was his desire to return and become a hospital chaplain. Okay, Um, and then going back to your classmates or your friends from the zone that you got in contact with back when you ran the Navy. What was that like?

00:41:08.010 - 00:41:45.530

You mean my connection with these people? Yeah. He says Jim Reeves and Tom hosts, right. Well, when I moved to North Carolina from New Orleans 10 years ago this month, Jim Morris had been here. He had retired from DuPont. Tim Holtz had been and, uh, had worked in charlotte, but also moved to Winston Salem that his wife had grown up in the canals and and Jim's wife, Janet Stockham Reese, was in our class.

00:41:46.310 - 00:42:11.010

So we all knew each other and ended up here for various reasons and remained very close throughout our the last 10 years. Jim passed away a few years ago, and Danny Ones Klasky died about a year ago, so we've had a couple of losses in our group.

00:42:11.020 - 00:42:31.930

But we continue. We'll be meeting on the 16th of August that can, as a grand over in Winston Salem for brunch, which we do on a regular basis. And sometimes we'll bring our Children if they're in town or Tim's sister will come visit on another occasion.

00:42:32.600 - 00:43:08.520

Uh, we've had other people who have been in the area who have joined us for their for the meeting. Okay, And what what has that meant to you to have those lifelong friendships that started with people? Well, I think that the the unusual part of it all is that we, the three of us, Tim, Jim and I were probably best friends when we're in and, uh, the canal zone and and so we have a lot of good memories together.

00:43:08.900 - 00:43:32.450

And the other two married women from their wives are from the zone. So, uh, they all knew about it. And, of course, they adopted my wife. Shelly, too. Uh huh. Be part of the group, and we all get along very well. Um, you mentioned that you had a sister.

00:43:32.450 - 00:43:52.320

I forgot. Is that the only something that you have? No, I have. My sister Naomi lives in Sarasota. She's, uh, six years older than me. My brother Sam lives in Austin. He's six years younger than I am. And then I had another sister who passed away in her twenties.

00:43:52.700 - 00:44:14.410

Uh huh. Students. And so there are four of us. Okay, we only have a few more questions left, but one of the things that I wanted to touch on is I know you have mentioned the different, um, sides like the segregation of the zone. And there was a lot of immigration from Caribbean countries, particularly West Indies There.

00:44:14.890 - 00:44:45.510

What was that like to grow up with all those different cultures? Well, it was it contributed to my knowledge of various people. I was particularly fond of the West Indian folks. They were very hardworking. Very kind. Very. Uh uh. Good people that contributed greatly to If it weren't for them, the canal would probably not have been constructed.

00:44:46.290 - 00:45:15.390

So they were particularly find people. And so how would your relationships work with them? Which is like, Well, they hang out with your friends after. How did you get to meet them? Well, we would probably meet them mostly by because their employees of the like, my father's 23 best helpers were West Indian folks that helped keep the building in shape.

00:45:15.400 - 00:45:41.800

They they, uh, did all the, uh, extra work that was needed around the building. Um, were there separate than religious practices for people from the service centered and from the goal were there. What separate religious practices. Services, I mean, no, it was all the same at the same time.

00:45:42.190 - 00:46:05.750

Okay. And I know you didn't attend the reunion this year, but I've only been once you've been once. What year was that for my 50th high school reunion? And that was in 70. I mean, 90 2000 and six 1000 a year after we got here. 2000 and 6006.

00:46:05.750 - 00:46:32.100

And what was that? Like it was a bunch of old geezers getting together and reminiscent I said, I don't think I'm as old as old of these people. Haven't been back. Okay, Um, now it was It was enjoyable. I met reunited with people that I remembered from 50 years before, and we all had a good time together.

00:46:32.480 - 00:46:55.210

And, uh, we'd all compared notes from our lives and and saw how things had gone for 50 years. That's a long time in anyone's life. It was a nice gathering. Um, and we didn't We haven't mentioned about, um, your wife. When did you meet her and your Children?

00:46:55.680 - 00:47:30.300

Well, I met my wife when I was stationed in Great Lakes, Illinois, In the Navy. Uh, we met and July got married three months later and have been together for 40 six years since. Wow, we have two Children. Karen is in Chicago, in Evanston, Illinois. It's just north of Chicago, and my other daughter Deborah lives here and each have one child.

00:47:30.780 - 00:47:56.930

Debbie has a son who's for and a half, and he's named Nathan after my father and Karen has a daughter. Avery, who is 2.5 come in and does your family still practice Judaism? Yes. Okay. Now it is not as faithfully as my father and during his era.

00:47:56.930 - 00:48:27.790

But we still consider our Jewish heritage and try to do some, uh, uh, Sabbath services, particularly for the next generation. Um, and is there anything that you would like to mention about your time during the Navy? Your service? It was cold. Great Lakes, Illinois noise. I don't plan to spend another winter there ever.

00:48:27.790 - 00:49:01.330

But it was very rewarding because I was in a large naval facility hospital, and it was during Vietnam era, and we would see, uh, injured flying being flown in from Vietnam to be attended at the hospital. I took care of a lot of the women dependence because, uh, the hospital was open to all retired military from Wisconsin through Illinois.

00:49:01.330 - 00:49:21.880

And so too, So they would come to the hospital as well. And so it was a good experience, and I learned a lot having just finished my training during those years. During the war, we all signed up. We had We're all registered for the draft, but they allowed us to complete our training.

00:49:21.880 - 00:49:42.700

If we promise we have to go in for two years of duty afterwards. So I've spent the two years, and it was a good experience. Okay, Um, and what were your thoughts on the transferring of the of the canal back to Panama? I think it was time to do it.

00:49:42.700 - 00:50:06.390

I've been amazed at two as to the growth of the country and and how developed it has become since they took over the running of the canal. It's, uh I just saw something on the Internet stating that the Panamanian population is one of the happiest in the world.

00:50:06.860 - 00:50:34.490

They've come a long way when I look at the scenery from the buildings of Panama City and all versus what it was like 1967. It's amazing to me how it has developed and progressed. It's a modern, beautiful, modern country, and the people are exceedingly capable of doing what they've done has been amazing.

00:50:36.260 - 00:51:12.200

Um, and what would you say is the biggest legacy of the Panama Canal Zone community? The biggest one legacy legacy. I think the biggest legacy is the Panama Canal. The fact that this amazing structure was built over 100 years ago during, uh, construction days and is still capable of of, uh, moving ships from one ocean to the other amazing feat of construction.

00:51:12.200 - 00:51:38.310

It's been revised on occasion. It's now going through a major, a major construction with extra set of larger blocks. But the whole principle and the and the ability of those people, too, foresee the future into build. Something that was so amazingly efficient is one of the wonders of the world.

00:51:38.310 - 00:52:09.240

And and the other thing that was so important was the fact that Colonel Gorgas was able to sanitized the area from malaria and yellow fever by killing off mosquitoes. That's in this book that I have. Otherwise they probably would not have been built there When the French went there to build a canal, there were more people dying from disease, and there were from accidents along the canal.

00:52:09.240 - 00:52:36.980

If you go along the the, uh, railroad from one side of the other, there are cemeteries of hundreds if not thousands of of West Indian and Chinese laborers help build a railroad in the canal that died from these horrible viral and parasitic infections. So in order to build a canal first, they had to make it safe for the inhabitants.

00:52:39.950 - 00:53:03.870

Medical medical science came before construction. Yes. Well, yeah, otherwise it would have been very unhealthy. Um, and some my last questions here are, um if you could use one word to describe your experience living in the zone, what word would it be? Fascinating. Okay. And why?

00:53:04.550 - 00:53:37.970

Because it was so exciting to see all the the, uh, various, uh, interactions of the cultures and the beautiful surroundings of the country and the workings of the canal and the camaraderie of the people that lived there. It was a very safe and, um, mhm and a good example of how to grow up in a community.

00:53:39.950 - 00:53:54.270

Um, and so you actually get to keep a copy of this interview for your records. So I just wanted to act if there's anything that you would like to say that you would want your your Children and your grandchildren to know about your life or any message that you would want for them to have.

00:53:55.050 - 00:54:18.040

Well, I think my messages has always been that I'm so proud of the contribution my father made to the, uh, life and people in the canal zone in Panama. That's the one message that's so important to me, because he was the outstanding figure in my life growing up there.

00:54:18.040 - 00:54:38.540

And his, uh, good deeds are the things that I remember the most. Okay, um, so I'm just I have no further questions. I don't know if there's anything else that you would like to add to the interview that I haven't talked about or accident. I think we're We've covered a fair amount.

00:54:38.540 - 00:54:55.350

There's much more that could be said. But in the time that allowed it, I think we've done as much as need be at this point. The name is the name of the person I was trying to think of. Just hit my memory. Was Abba Eban okay?

00:54:55.840 - 00:55:16.170

And that was the foreign minister that came through and visited us on his way back from Argentina. Okay. Was there a large Jewish community in Panama? I believe there. Well, I don't know how big it is now, but in those days I've seen figures of 1500.

00:55:16.640 - 00:55:34.260

Uh, and then after the war, another 1000. So those are the numbers that I remember. I suspect it much larger now. Okay, Well, I'm just gonna stop the recording, but don't don't hang up. Um, and this concludes this interview