Jacob Herzog was a landsman from Skala who had come to New York as a young man many years earlier. He was the son of Yosel Herzog, an elder tinsmith in Skala who had helped my father get started.

Jacob had met Tateh on several occasions when he came to Skala on trips during the 1920s and ‘30s, visiting his family and bringing community funds on behalf of the New York Skala Benevolent Society, of which he was a leading member. Thanks to those meetings before the horrors began in Skala, the two shared a bond that crossed time and distance.

Jacob had worked for many years in the sheet metal trade in New York and was now the president of the United Hebrew Trades Sheet Metal Union. He said that Tateh should come down to the union hall in Brooklyn on Monday morning and he would get him on a job right away.