My Cousin Mike: Michael Sherwood 1923-2018
April 8, 2018
By Tom Teicholz
My father’s cousin Michael Sherwood, 95, — died this week. He was probably the last person who knew my father in Poland and knew of their life then. Here is the eulogy I wrote to be read at his funeral (which I was sorry that I could not attend).
I would like to say a final goodbye to Mike – Misha- born Meyer Teichholz in Tarnopol, Poland. Mike who chose the name Sherwood, because Teichholz means Pond Wood and that made him think of Robin Hood’s Sherwood forest
.
My first memory of Mike is at the swimming pool of the Paris Hotel on 97Th street and West End Avenue. I must have been four years old and he was splashing with me in the swimming pool. My father, Bruce, or Bronek as Mike called him, was there too, sitting by the side of the pool. I also remember Mike swimming with me in the Swimming pool of the Hudson Hotel on West 57th Street, at the time a Vic Tanny’s Health Club where my father was a member. Once again Mike was watching me swim and playing with me in the pool. It would be years before I learned that my father didn’t know how to swim, and brought Mike who did, to swim with me – rather than tell me.
I mention this because although my father and Mike were cousins, they were nothing alike — they shared a grandfather Meyer whom Mike was named after. My grandfather Isaac and Mike’s father Henrik were brothers. But Isaac lived in Lvov and Henryk in Tarnopol. It’s not really that my father and Mike were nothing alike, it’s just that they were very different. They both shared tremendous stamina, and tremendous energy. Mike referred to this as the Teichholz in us.
My father was button-upped, proper, religious if not observant, tight-lipped, soft-spoken, a man of few words, very organized, very business-minded and success-oriented. Mike was none of these: He was effusive, emotional, opinionated, he spoke at length, at great volume, often with no filter, he was inappropriate, invasive, and profane. He kissed and hugged. He called me, “Tommy, Baby.” He was not a businessman. He was a mess – a wild shock of hair, T-shirts,, a mess of papers, photos, books, computers and cellphones that never worked properly. He was a very Jewishy atheist. And I loved all of it.
It was really after my father died that Mike and I became so close. He told me that, as he was what he called a “double survivor,” a survivor of both the Holocaust and the Soviet gulag, he wanted to write his memoirs and asked for my help. It was a great pleasure for me to work with Mike, editing his story which he wrote himself, helping him publish it and deliver it to Yad Vashem, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum Library and New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage. He called his memoir “Odyssey” (it’s available from Lulu.com) – and I have to say, it’s a must read.
In his book, Mike details his childhood in Tarnopol, the 1939 Soviet occupation of Poland, after which Mike joined the Komsomol, the Communist youth party; and, after the Germans invaded, he joined the Red Army of the Soviet Union. Mike was at Stalingrad, shortly after which the Soviets arrested him for the crime of being a Jew and sent him to the Siberian Gulag. Amazingly, the Soviets eventually released him and he was able to make his way to Israel, where he met Muriel before coming to New York.
However, what makes Mike’s memoir unique and like no other Holocaust memoir I’ve ever read, is that his account of his Odyssey, is all about SEX. The Book opens with his first memory: the plump behind of his family’s housekeeper bouncing down the street in front of him; and continues with descriptions of his sexual adventures while bombs are falling, in hospitals during the war, in the Soviet Gulag – in prison he was finding female convicts or doctors to have sex with, and his adventures continued after the war, in Israel and in the Army there. I mention this because what comes through loud and clear is the essential truth that the LIFEFORCE WAS SO STRONG IN MIKE.
He was engaged with politics in all its dimensions. When I’d visit him, the TV was often on and Mike was often in dialogue with the News. He watched RT the Russian news service (and even had crushes on the news presenters). He was a great reader. There was no greater expert on Russian literature. While he still could, he read and re-read many of the great classics of 20th Century Russian literature. We discussed Vassily Grossman, and Sokholov’s ‘Quiet Flows the Don,” and writers like Sorokin and Bakunin. Mike had opinions about all of them.
Was he crazy? Maybe a little. Was his wife, Muriel, a saint? No question. But he was life itself, effusive and messy, chaotic, loving, tender, intimate, and at times vulgar and obscene. He loved to complain in the most loving way. He was so happy and excited when his brother Fedor was allowed to visit him in the US. He loved his trips to Texas, and driving around there. He loved having Emily around and living with him. He loved having Dory there and he loved when Rochelle came over. And he loved complaining about them. He was so proud of them, and of his grandchildren, he bragged even while he complained. He loved his coffee and his pastries. You could not leave his home without having some of both. He didn’t filter his comments. It was all part of the stream of his life.
Mike was my connection to the Teicholz lifeforce. We shared a passion for our family history and for gathering in Teicholzs wherever and whenever we could – he would have me check out possible Teichholzs in San Francisco, and we connected to Belgian Teichholzs in Israel. He gave me the conviction, if I did not fully believe it before, of the uniqueness and specialness of being Teicholz. But mostly, he gave me love. And there was nothing about Mike that I did not come to love. And I did love him so.
The last time I saw Mike several months ago, he told me that he’d had enough. His legs were no longer working properly. He couldn’t swim (he’d almost drowned in a pool in Brooklyn). He told me that at 95, he was finally losing interest in Sex. And of course, he told me: That until 94, he was still interested, still had girlfriends (in their 70s). But no more. He was done. I tried to tell him he might feel different at 100 – and to wait and see what developed. I told him ‘Biz Hundredt and Tvanzig’ To 120 – He laughed.
That, Mike said, was too much. Even for him.
