The Legend of Roiteh Bendel

In response to all the cards and letters, here's how the whole "roiteh bendel" thing got started. It all began in a small town in Poland. In 1922 the Bendel family was bless with twin boys. The were fraternal and looked nothing alike; Henoch was smaller, with wisps of jet black hair and muddy brown eyes. Shmiel, however, was a stunning baby: a shock of bright orange hair, piercing pale blue eyes and a scream to match. Because of his intense carrot-top, he was immediately dubbed "Roiteh," or "Redhead". The two were inseparable. They were the only boys in a family of eight. Their six sisters fawned over them and sometimes dressed them up in girl's clothing, seeing as how that's all they had. By age eighteen they had developed into strapping young men. Shmiel (Roiteh) still had his flaming red hair, and Henoch was just...flaming. it was 1940 and things were about to go terribly wrong in their little town. The Nazis had invaded Poland in September the year before and they had heard rumors of massacres in other Jewish villages. Papa Bendel had a relative in Albany, New York, who agreed to accept one of his boys. Because Henoch was considered the frail brother, he was selected to go to the "goldeneh medina*". Believe it or not, Roiteh was glad he was staying; he wanted to kill Nazis! And so it was. The family (now there were nine: Momma, Papa, Shprintzeh, Golda, Yentel, Genendel, Hentcheh, Chynka and, of course Roiteh) eventually were able to hook up with the renowned Bielski Brothers. The Bielskis had set up camp in the dense Polish forest with just a handful of resourceful, but terrified Jews. The brothers vowed to protect their brethren, and also promised not to turn anyone away. They knew the forest like the back of their hands, and, by constantly moving, they were able to stay one step ahead of the Nazis, who knew they were there and could not manage to eradicate them. The Bendels joined the group and Roiteh was immediately drafted by the Bielskis to fight the Nazis along side with them. They had guns, rifles and even hand grenades, looted from Nazi armories and taken off fallen Nazi soldiers. The Bielski brothers had seen their parents and sister shot dead with their own eyes, so they were especially ruthless when capturing a Nazi. But their brutality was nothing compared to Roiteh's. When the partisans he was fighting with came upon a unit of hapless Germans, he would emasculate, disembowel and dismember them, and that was when he was in a good mood. But he always left one Nazi alive. This soldier, usually an officer, was the lucky one. Roiteh would cut off his ear and send him packing, with the instructions to tell his superiors in Berlin what had been done to his unit, and by whom. Eventually Roiteh developed a little calling card: he would tie a red string around the soldier's wrist; "red string" in Yiddish is "roiteh bendel"! The high command in Berlin knew exactly who he was, and couldn't touch him. Somehow the Bielskis and Company managed to make it through the war. In 1945 Papa Bendel called his cousin to seen how Henoch was doing. The man explained that Henoch had moved downstate to New York City and had become a fashion designer. He had also changed his name: French designers being all the rage, he had taken to calling himself Henri. Papa was heartbroken, but what could he do? Well, he thought, at least he still had his Roiteh. Roiteh, however, had other plans. Jealous that his brother was becoming more and more famous, he moved to Krakow and started a fashion line of his own. The story of the Red String had circulated among the survivors and Roiteh had become a legend within the borders of Poland. To capitalize on his local fame, Roiteh tied a red string around the wrist of all his models, and started wearing one as well. He figured that if it was lucky for the Nazi, it would be lucky for him, too. And indeed it was. Just a few months after opening his shop, his warehouse was gutted by a fire that had started in one of the electrical sockets. Although devastated, Roiteh consoled himself with the insurance money he collected, which totalled well over 50,000 American dollars, a princely sum indeed. Truth be told, his fashion line was going nowhere: although highly motivated by his jealousy of his brother, the fact remained that he lacked Henoch's flair and he knew it. So his business went up in smoke, but the legend of the lucky Red String remained and spread throughout Eastern Europe like wildfire. Eventually it made its way across the Atlantic, and was pounced upon by two enterprising Jewish businessmen on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. They began selling little, 7" pieces of red string for 3 cents apiece. Word got around among the newly arrived refugees and soon the shrewd partners had made a small fortune.
And the rest, as they say, is history.

PS There is actually a part of this fanciful tale that is true; there were, indeed, three Bielski brothers who amazingly rescued about 1,200 people during the war and never told anyone about it. If you're interested (and you should be), here's a link: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/revolt/bielski.html

* Goldeneh Medina = Literally, "Golden Land"; a reference to America.