Would you care for just one more story on “Adolf” — “Adolf” as a name? A reader writes,
There was an elderly gentleman, now deceased, who attended my synagogue. A quiet man who sat in the back row — never said much. I had known for years that his given name was Adolf. And I was somewhat friendly with him. We always exchanged greetings, but not much more.
I had always suspected that he was a survivor of the Holocaust, but one year, during a break between services on the High Holidays, perhaps feeling his mortality, he shared with me some personal history. He had, in fact, survived the camps, but unfortunately his wife and all three of his children did not. You see, the wife and children whom I had known were his second family, the first having been murdered.
In the course of this intense conversation, I asked him about carrying the name Adolf, and whether he had ever considered changing his name to something else. He said, “My parents gave me the name Adolf long before that monster ruined it. He took so much from me, why should I let him also take the name my parents gave me?”
Made an impression.
I should think.