{"id":16293,"date":"2016-06-16T04:00:49","date_gmt":"2016-06-16T09:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hcstx.org\/?p=16293"},"modified":"2016-06-16T04:00:49","modified_gmt":"2016-06-16T09:00:49","slug":"inspirational-my-father-escaped-the-nazis-and-then-taught-me-everything-i-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2016\/06\/16\/inspirational-my-father-escaped-the-nazis-and-then-taught-me-everything-i-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Inspirational: My Father Escaped the Nazi’s and Then Taught Me Everything I Know"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"oscar2\"<\/p>\n

Popular Mechanics <\/em>senior home editor Roy Berendsohn sits down with his father Oscar to talk about the advice and inspiration he received from his dad, a veteran and satellite engineer.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

For three decades, Popular Mechanics<\/em> readers have turned to senior home editor Roy Berendsohn<\/a>, 56, for instruction on nearly any home project, along with advice on the best tools to use for the job. But who taught Roy? His father, Oscar, 91, a German immigrant who helped design and launch two of the most important satellites in U.S. space history.<\/p>\n

THE THUMB<\/h3>\n

OSCAR BERENDSOHN:<\/strong> My father owned a shipyard on a river near Hamburg, Germany. There were flatcars on it that transported heavy machinery on railroad tracks. I was five years old when a hired guy told me and my brother to sit on the flatcar, and he pushed. I sat down, but as it started rolling I got scared and jumped off. When my feet touched the ground, this car pulled me under and cut off my left thumb.<\/p>\n

There was one doctor in town and my father couldn’t stand him. So my brother had to go across the river for another. That doctor sewed my thumb back on, but it didn’t work. Gangrene set in. They had to amputate.<\/p>\n

ROY BERENDSOHN:<\/strong> I never saw the lack of a thumb impeding my father. He did all kinds of repairs around the house. He plays the piano.<\/p>\n

THE STARS<\/h3>\n

OSCAR:<\/strong> When I was a boy, it was a marvel for me to look up at the stars. I saw a zillion of them. My father had binoculars, and I looked through them to try to see the details of the moon. For as long as I can remember I tried to make the sky closer.<\/p>\n

ROY: <\/strong>My father’s life makes me think of what’s possible. That boy staring up at the night sky through binoculars in rural Germany would one day become an engineer who helped make a crucial spy satellite and the Hubble Space Telescope.<\/p>\n

\n

THE NAZIS<\/h3>\n

OSCAR:<\/strong> When the Nazis came to power, my father had to sell his shipyard. I didn’t understand it at first. My father had converted to Christianity. But his relatives were Jewish. The Nuremberg Laws defined my father as a Jew in 1935.<\/p>\n

We moved from our small village into an apartment house in Hamburg. I can remember listening to a radio station and hearing glass smash. I thought it was an accident. Then I went outside to the edge of the street. People were smashing the windows of a Jewish clothing store. They smashed all the Jewish stores. I could smell the burning synagogues. That was Kristallnacht.<\/em><\/p>\n

We felt like pariahs. We had no rights. Anybody could spit on you. Beat you up. Kill you.<\/p>\n

We got out by bribing the Honduran Consulate. I thought the Nazis would get us even in Honduras. It was only when we arrived in New York that I could finally feel safe.<\/p>\n

ROY: <\/strong>That kind of explains why I’ve been at Popular Mechanics<\/em> for almost thirty years. I tend to cling to home. I put down roots. I like to stay in one place and get to know the job and my surroundings and neighbors. I think it’s a reflection of both my parents and what they lost when they were young.<\/p>\n

Read the Remainder at Popular Mechanics<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Popular Mechanics senior home editor Roy Berendsohn sits down with his father Oscar to talk about the advice and inspiration he received from his dad, a veteran and satellite engineer. For three decades, Popular Mechanics readers have turned to senior home editor Roy Berendsohn, 56, for instruction on nearly any home project, along with advice…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1247,1860,1899],"tags":[3702],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16293"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16293\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}