The Story of Billy Bob Gaddis and The Holocaust
People thought I was the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, the way I talked about the Holocaust. Truth was, my grandpa was not a survivor at all. He was a Texan through and through. But the thing that separated most of my friend’s grandparents from my own, is that Jewish education was taken seriously and was taught at a young age. My grandpa was not shy on discussing the Holocaust with his granddaughter. In the sixth grade, I found out who Anne Frank was for the first time. She would become an interest of study for a long time. My grandpa gave me the small maroon cover of the Diary of Anne Frank when I turned twelve. He said it was an important book and she did not get the chance to live long.
When I began taking my interest in the Holocaust more seriously, I began to turn to writing. I had not read Salvaged Pages yet, that came much later.
From then I began writing about Anne Frank exclusively. I talked to educators who also studied Anne’s diary. I was thirteen, the same age Anne received her diary in 1942.
My grandpa was always interested in war, especially the Holocaust. My dad shares that interest with him.
My dad was a Marine and lived in Poland in the 70’s. He got the chance to see Auschwitz and the Krakow Ghetto. My dad bought some books for my grandpa to have. They were in English and they were about Auschwitz. My grandpa had never gotten the chance to go to Poland, but he always dreamed of going.
My grandpa came from a family of six. His father left the family when he was young and he always resented his father for that. This was during the depression. He began working at age ten, selling newspapers in Fort Worth, Texas. He always talked about his childhood and when WWII began. He said Fort Worth was bustling with troops and boys getting ready to enlist. My grandpa was thirteen when the war started, so he was too young to serve. But his older brothers, Phillip (Phil) and Dan were drafted into the Navy and served. My grandpa filled out a draft card, but was never called in for service.
Even though education was always important to him, he dropped out of high school in the 10th grade to go to work. He told me he was bored out of his mind. My grandpa was a self educated man. He read many books on many different things, including trains, which he worked around for 44 years.
He moved to Galveston in 1950. He was transferred there for his job. He began working at the Santa Fe Building, which is now Galveston’s Railroad Museum. I know the building well. I’m not sure what floor he worked on, but the building still stands.
In 1951, a woman began to work there. Her name was Barbara Yelton. She was a graduate of Ball High School. She got a job at the building as a secretary. She had been through a few break ups with men, but she didn’t know she was going to meet the love of her life.
My grandpa first saw my granny outside the building. He thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. He told me it took him five tries to even speak to her, since he was so shy. When he finally asked her out, he thought he had blown the first date, when really, my granny was impressed by him.
They dated for three months and then he knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
On June 14,1952, they were married at Grace Episcopal Church, which didn’t matter to my grandpa, since religion was not his thing.
When he was working, my uncle Robert was born (1953–2012). Then, they tried for a girl, but what they got was my dad, John (b. 1954).
They lived in Fort Worth, and then Topeka, KS. My grandpa worked hard for his family, since my granny did not have a job.
When my dad and mom adopted my brother and me, we were the first and only grandchildren on my dad’s side.
I always had an interest in history, I got that from my grandpa. When I was in middle school, is when I first started learning about the Holocaust. He was a great source of information. He was always on the Jew’s side, no matter what. Texas is notorious for their racism, but my grandpa was not among them.
In fact, he had many friends of different religions, races and creeds.
When I learned of my Jewish roots (in 2015) I wished I had talked to my grandpa about it. I’m not entirely sure what religion my grandpa was, even though we celebrated Christmas and Easter and all the regular holidays.
I tended to feel so Jewish and connected to the Jewish people. My grandpa use to tell me that the Holocaust was real and it could make you feel all sorts of ways. For me and for him, it made us feel rage against Germans and their collaborators. My grandpa HATED Germans. After WWII, he wasn’t a fan of them. He told me that the Nazis didn’t fully get what was coming to them. He said that Hitler was a wuss, because he killed himself and didn’t let the Allies deal with him. He thought the Allies should have shot him in public.
He had a lot of opinions on how the war should have ended. He told me “Any man that doesn’t face his mistakes is an embarrassment to the world.” He meant the Nazis. He told me that many of these Germans were proud of what they were doing. He was disgusted by that. He told me when he was young, he was wanting to fight the Nazis and when there were Jews here in Texas, he welcome them with open arms. My grandpa told me I should talk to a Rabbi, and now I know three ( all from my congregation, Marshall, Matt and Kessler) and get to know what real oppression feels like.
He said he had no time to listen to these whinny Christians who feel persecuted. He said Jews knows what that feels like. He felt that Holocaust education was very important and he was very encouraging when I began to study it. I wanted to go to college for it, but ended up having to change to Communications in 2016. The Holocaust is a passion and I am trying to turn that passion into a career. I am not like other adults my age. When I was young, I would give speeches on Petr Ginz, Otto Wolf and Anne Frank and tell my peers all about them.
My grandpa’s wishes for me was to get a good education and stand up for those who did not have a voice (meaning the six million Jews who were murdered).
My granny was also very encouraging in me studying the Holocaust, though she wanted me to study film and believe me, I have put the two together in lots of different ways.
My grandpa was a man who learned how to teach history very quickly. When my dad joined the Marines in the 70’s and was stationed in Warsaw, Poland, my grandpa was concerned. I wasn’t sure why, but he was sure that my dad was going to get killed, after all the Cold War was going on at that time. My dad was fine, needles to say and he gave my grandpa some books he got on the Holocaust.
My grandpa’s health deteriorated in 2009. His wife died on June 5, 2009. He wasn’t ready for that.
Before he died, we discussed a book I would write on Jewish children and teens, since by then I had been learning about different people.
I was in the middle of writing about the ones who died, but I didn’t write about any survivors during that point.
But on August 28, 2009, he too passed, leaving the book uncompleted. So it was my job to complete it.
Well, here are the people I finally wrote about:
The Frank Sisters: Margot (1926–1945) and Anne (1929–1945)
Tomas Kulka (1934–1942)
The Pfeffer Brothers: Jan Peter (1934–1944) and Thomas (1936–1944)
Moshe Flinker (1926–1945)
Otto Wolf (1927–1945)
Gabor Neumann (1940–1944)
Petr Ginz (1928–1944)
Peter Feigl (1929-)
Irene Fogel Weiss (1930-)
Renee Kann SIlver (1931- )
Eva Ginz (Chava Pressburger) (1930-)
Felicitas Wolf Garda (1920–2006)
The book is now called “Among the Many” and it’s now in the process of being published.
I owe it all to him and I wrote an introduction explaining on how this book came to be. I loved my grandpa and I miss him dearly.
