My sister, Elaine Rechnic Lyons and I, Alice Rechnic Kamin, have a special and unique relationship to our Uncle Paul. Our father, Leon (Shimon Leib aka Laijbek)) Rechnic, was married to Uncle Paul's sister, Rozia (nee Borenstein), before the Holocaust. They had a baby daughter, Jochevet, who was 9 months old when both Rozia and Jochevet perished at the hands of the Nazis. (Elaine's daughter Wendy's Hebrew name is Jochevet, after Uncle Paul's niece and our father's daughter).
Our father, Leon, survived the Holocaust. After the Liberation, our father met and married our mother,coincidentally also named Rozia, One day, after the liberation, Uncle Paul, searching for surviving relatives, viewed a posted survivor list in the displaced persons camp in Germany. He saw the name Rozia Rechnic and immediately assumed that his sister had survived. He went to our parents location, knocked on the door and asked for Rozia Rechnic. Our mother said, "I am Rozia Rechnic".Obviously, our mother was NOT Uncle Paul's sister, but our father's new wife, also named Rozia (Rose). We cannot imagine the disappointment in Uncle Paul's heart. But that's where our story begins
because our mother immediately welcomed Uncle Paul into her and our father's home and lives.
From that day forward, Uncle Paul was a part of our family, Our parents, after emigrating from Germany to the US, sponsored Uncle Paul for immigration to the US. When Uncle Paul arrived in 1949, he lived with our family until he married Aunt Dottie . Our parents proudly "gave him away" at his wedding to Aunt Dottie and, as our mother recounted, "rescued him from sharing a room with his nieces, Elaine and Alice. Uncle Paul and Aunt Dottie grew their own family when Mark, Eric and Faith were born, and so our family grew. There was no question that the Borenstein family was OUR family.
When Uncle Paul lived with us, he was our Uncle, playmate and babysitter. He diapered us and cared for us, laughed with us and brought joy to our lives.We have vivid memories and pictures (I will locate them) of him playing horsey with us carrying us on his back .
As you all know, Uncle Paul possessed and maintained an engaging boyish charm and sense of humor that remained with him throughout his life. Pictures and memories of Uncle Paul are depicted in our mother's (Rose Ickowicz Rechnic) memoir, "Try to Survive and Tell the World".
Elaine and I had written a eulogy to our Uncle Paul which we had hoped to deliver at his funeral. This is what we wrote:
Tragedy brought us together. But LOVE kept us together. They say that, "blood is thicker than water". But that is not always true. Although Uncle Paul is not related to us by blood, we could not have loved him more nor have been closer to him than we were. When he married Aunt Dottie and gave us our wonderful Aunt and cousins Mark, Eric and Faith, their spouses and children, our family grew and grew. We were so blessed, as most of our own blood relatives had perished in the Holocaust.
After our parents immigrated to the US, they brought Uncle Paul here. He lived with us and helped care for our needs as babies and toddlers. He was our Uncle. His love, warmth, humor and boyish charm filled our loving home and lives with joy and laughter. That continued throughout the years,
There are no words to express the loss we feel. After our father died, Uncle Paul was the Patriarch of our family. We will miss him forever, but he will be alive in our memories forever,