On Aug. 2, Frank Cohn, a retired Army colonel and World War II veteran, has plans to celebrate his centennial. His daughter, Laura Cohn Piscitelli, is planning a birthday party for Cohn’s friends and family members.
Cohn explained that this celebration began as a surprise party, “but trying to [keep] a surprise these days is almost impossible!” Plus, reaching a centennial is quite an uncommon achievement.
“There are some pluses and some minuses. The plus is that you got there. You know, I never expected to get that far,” said Cohn.
Cohn’s surprise in reaching triple digits lies in his family history. His father died of a heart attack at age 60 and his mother of a stroke at 62. He suspects his longevity is related to his daily exercise. His routine includes 20 minutes of stretching and then about a half-mile walk. A resident of a retirement community, he takes long walks when he goes out to eat to help him stay in shape.
“If you want to get older, you’ve got to worry about alcohol and smoking and things like that. So a healthy lifestyle is extremely important. And I would tell people that if they want to get older, they’re going to have to live cleanly,” said Cohn.
Although reaching his centennial comes with excitement, Cohn said the negative part of 100 is that “all the people who are older than [me] are gone. And, of course, the most hurtful thing was when I lost my wife about four years ago. We had been married for 72 years, so that was a terrible, big change that had to come.”
In his community, Cohn has some friends who join him for lunch sometimes.
“I have a pretty fair social life in that respect,” he said.
Cohn stressed the importance of having friends, saying, “The social life, of course, is important because you don’t want to get to be a hermit and start worrying about whatever you can worry about.”
Cohn finds comfort in spending quality time with friends, but after outliving some close friends and his wife, he admits retirement isn’t as enjoyable without them.
“That was a big blow, and the loss of friends every time is a blow too. So that sort of smudges the retirement years. But otherwise, in terms of daily routines, I’m very comfortable in it and I enjoy that enough,” said Cohn.
As a retiree, the veteran explained that he enjoys the freedom of fewer obligations, but with so much free time, he has found that he needs a purpose: “And I found that with the Holocaust Museum.”
Cohn volunteers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., to share his story. As a Holocaust survivor, he shares his experience fleeing Germany after Kristallnacht at age 13. Once he and his mother escaped, they reunited with Cohn’s father who had narrowly escaped the Gestapo.
The survivor often shares his story with children, government officials and military personnel. He has spoken to many groups of varying sizes.
“Sometimes it’s a group of 10 or 20 people, and other times it’s as big as 500 people,” said Cohn. “I get satisfaction out of it. And that’s enjoyment, of course, because I think I’m doing something important in fighting this antisemitism prevalent all over the place.”
Cohn described antisemitism after World War II as being “kept under the table.” Now, he said, “it’s proliferating all over the place, out in the open. Some people think it’s acceptable.”
After experiencing antisemitism throughout the Holocaust, Cohn compared current cases of antisemitism to that of 1930s Germany: “We’re back to when we were in Germany just before Hitler came to power. That’s what’s happening right now.”
Cohn’s advice to the next generation of Jewish leaders is to give the general public the truth.
“The ones who are dedicated antisemites, you can’t turn those people around,” he said.
The survivor explained that “the truth always gets perverted by the antisemites. They charge the Jews for all kinds of things that are wrong … and the truth helps expose that the charges they are making are false.”
Despite what he considers a safe environment in his retirement community, Cohn has not always been immune to antisemitism. As an officer in the military after World War II, Cohn once found himself at a restaurant with his wife, seated at a table with a young American corporal and his German girlfriend. When the woman began complaining about the “dirty Jews” she had seen, Cohn’s wife challenged her, saying, “What about me? I’m Jewish.” The stunned couple quickly left.
For Cohn, it was a rare but memorable reminder that despite the end of the Holocaust, there would still be cases of antisemitism. He could only try to do his own small part to try to prevent them.
Amy Hollander is a Washington Jewish Week intern.
