On September 14, 2009, I posted memories of my brother’s three drug stores–Standard Pharmacy 7th and S Street,N.W., Economy Pharmacy, 9th and U Street,N.W., and Boyd’s Pharmacy, Georgia and Kenyon Street,N.W., and Dox Liquor on 7th and S Street,N.W., across the street from the previous drug-liquor store.

  As previously mentioned, the original Standard Pharmacy, 7th and S Street,N.W., also had a liquor department. However, when my brother decided to build across the street, a D.C. governing department, informed him, he could not combine the pharmacy items with the liquor.

   Because my brother as a pharmacist was always addressed as “DOC”, he called the liquor store, “DOX LIQUOR.”

 On one sales promotion, my brother invited the former heavy weight boxing champion of the world, Joe Louis. His photos appear.

Links to the photos of my brother’s drug stores and “DOX” liquor follow:

Picture of Phil, Joe Louis and wife Lil

Picture of Phil in front of Dox Liquor

Picture of Phil’s wife Lil working the cash register

Picture of Joe Louis at Dox Liquor

Picture of Joe Louis and Phil at Dox Liquor

Pictures of Dox Liquor Advertisements

Picture of Doc’s employees at Boyd’s Pharmacy

Picture of Boyd’s Pharmacy (outside)

Picture of Boyd’s Pharmacy (inside)

Picture of Standard Pharmacy 7th and S Street

A WORLD WAR II VETERAN WHO WAS A MEMBER OF MY DIVISION, THE 42D RAINBOW,WAS CAPTURED BY THE GERMANS DURING WORLD WAR II,AND RELATED

HIS MEMORIES TO ME.

I ARRIVED IN MARSEILLES, FRANCE IN DECEMBER 1944, AS A MEMBER OF ONE OF THE THREE RAINBOW INFANTRY REGIMENTS. WE WENT INTO COMBAT IN FRANCE

IN DEFENSE OF THE STRASBOURG AREA..

ON JANUARY 9,, 1945, I WAS WOUNDED TWICE AND THEN CAPTURED BY THE NAZIS.

I WAS TAKEN TO A NEARBY FARMHOUSE TO BE INTERROGATED. A GROUP OF FIVE OR SIX GERMAN OFFICERS SAT BEHIND A LONG TABLE. I REFUSED TO ANSWER

ANYTHING EXCEPT MY NAME, RANK, AND SERIAL NUMBER–”DAVID R. WILLETTS, SERGEANT, 33560297. THE INTEROGATING OFFICER BECAME VERYP IRRITATED

WITH ME. HE SPOKE GOOD ENGLISH.

HE CONTINUED IN A HIGH VOICE–”YOU ARE JEWISH! THIS WASN’T A QUESTION. IT WAS A STATEMENT, AND HE WAITED FOR A REACTION FROM ME. MY HAIR WAS

LONGER THAN USUAL:I HAD A SHORT BEARD  AS PROTECTION FROM THE COLD: I HAD A DARK COMPLEXION AND A NAME LIKE “DAVID” THESE FEATURES MUST

HAVE INFLUENCED HIS DIAGNOSIS.

“NO SIR, I AM NOT A JEW”, I REPLIED. “I AM AN AMERICAN”! I REALIZED THAT THE PURPOSE OF THIS INTERROGATION HAD SUDDENLY CHANGED. THE OTHER

MEMBERS OF HIS PANEL AT THIS TIME BEGAN TO TAKE NOTES AND SHOW INCREASED INTEREST. THEN BEGAN A BARRAGE OF QUESTIONS:WHAT IS YOUR MOTHER’S NAME? WHERE WERE YOU BORN? DO YOU HAVE A FAMILY. THESE QUESTIONS WERE ASKED IN RAPID SUCCESSION. I THOUGHT IT WAS NECESSARY TO REPLY.

APPARENTLY NOT SATISFIED YET, THE OFFICER CONTINUED HIS INTERROGATION. WHAT IS YOUR FATHER’S NAME? WHERE WAS HE BORN? THE INTERROGATION

CONTINUED FOR AT LEAST 15 MORE MINUTES, WITH THE SAME ALSO NEW QUESTIONS BEING ASKED OVER AND OVER. HAD I NOT BEEN TELLING THE TRUTH, I WOULD’HAVE BEEN IN VERY BIG TROUBLE. A WHISPERED CONVERSATION AMONG THE PANEL OFFICERS THEN TOOK PLACE. I HAD A TERRIBLE FEELING THAT

SOMETHING MORE OMINOUS WAS BREWING AND WAS ABOUT TO HAPPEN.

AT A NOD FROM THE SUPERIOR GERMAN OFFICER, THE GUARD OPENED A DOOR TO ADMIT A GERMAN PRIVATE, WHO LOOKED LIKE HE HAD JUST RETURNED

FROM THE BATTLEFIELD. HE WAS BANDAGED ACROSS THE BUTTOCKS.AS HE LOOKED AT ME, HE SUDDENLY POINTED HIS FINGER AND SHOUTED, “DAS

IST ER! HE’S THE ONE. APPARENTLY HE HAD BEEN TOLD TO IDENTIFY ME.IT APPEARED THAT I WAS TO BE BLACKMAILED OR COERCED INTO A CONFESSION.

THAT THEY WANTED. DIDN’T YOU BAYONET HIM IN THE BUTTOCKS? THIS WAS BAD, REALLY BAD. THEY WERE AFTER MY LIFE, I REALIZED,BUT THEY WANTED

IT TO APPEAR MILITARILY JUSTIFIED. I WAS AWARE OF WHAT HITLER WAS DOING TO ALL JEWS,AND THE APPROACH OF THE INTERROGATION REALLY SHOOK ME

UP. THE PRIVATE AGAIN POINTED AT ME AND REPEATED, “ER HAT ES GEMACHT! HE DID IT.!

AFTER A BRIEF CONSULTATION WITH THE OTHER MEMBERS OF HIS TEAM, THE INTERROGATING OFFICER THEN SAID TO ME-”IF THE AMERICAN ARMY ALLOWS

YOU TO COMMIT THIS ATROCITY, WE CAN RETALIATE.

HE SNARLED TOME, “YOU WILL BE CALLED OUT LATER TONIGHT AND SHOT!” TAKE HIM AWAY, HE TOLD THE GUARD AT THE DOOR.

I WAS THEN PRODDED AND PUSHED OUTSIDE IN THE DARKNESS, AND LOCKED ALONE IN WHAT APPEARD TO BE AN OLD, EMPTY,TOOL SHED NEXT

TO THE BARN WHEERE MY BUDDIES WERE. A GUARD WAS STATIONED AT THE DOOR TO PREVENT MY ESCAPE. WOULD MY FAMILY EVER KNOW WHAT HAD

HAD HAPPENED TO ME.?

A COMMOTION SUDDENLY BROKE OUT IN THE FARMYARD, AND THERE WAS A LOT OF YELLING AND CONFUSION.  GUARDS HERDED DTHE OTHER PRISONERS

TOGETHER FOR A QUICK VACATING OF THE PREMISES, AND THERE WAS LOUD SHOUTING.

I KICKED THE DOOR OPEN AND MIXED WITH THE DEPARTING GROUP. SOON I WAS MARCHING AWAY WITH THE REST OF THE PRISONERS, GETTING FARTHER AND

FARTHER AWAY FROM THAT FARMYARD.WE MARCHED SEVERAL HOURS,REACHED A RAILROAD STATION AND LOADED INTO BOXCARDS,AND FINALLY ARRIVED AT STALAG 4-B,ONE OF THE LARGEST GERMAN CAMPS IN WORLD WAR II.

FINALLY I WAS LIBERATED BY THE RUSSIAN ARMY ON APRIL 23, 1945.

I THANKED GOD, REALIZING HOW CLOSE I CAME TO BEING SHOT—

BECAUSE MY FIRST NAME WAS DAVID!.

Washington Jewish Week

February 9, 2006

To prepare me for my bar mitzvah back in the 1930s, I had a good teacher — my father, Moshe Aharon Rosen. In addition to being a shochet and mohel, my father established a cheder in one room of our home, teaching forthcoming bar mitzvah boys how to read Hebrew and preparing them for their haftarah.

Tuition was $1 a week.

We lived at 713 4th St., S.W., in D.C., the former residence of Rabbi Moshe Yoelson, whose son was the famous movie actor Al Jolson.

Empire chicken and turkey products were not yet on market shelves. Housewives had to purchase live chickens and take them to the schochet of their choice — or have the chickens delivered (no charge).

I remember delivering chickens to Rabbi Joshua Klavan’s residence on F Street S.W. to schecten and fliken, to slaughter and pluck. The charge was 15 cents. Going rate for a bris was $10.

My dad was a very active member of Talmud Torah, served as recording secretary, read the Torah every Saturday, blew the shofar on the High Holidays and davened Mincha every Yom Kippur.

I don’t remember the subject of my bar mitzvah speech, but definitely recall that I did not have to dodge any candies. In the 1930s, candy, if available, was only eaten, never thrown.

All the b’nai mitzvah wore a plain square yarmulke, now out of style, rather than the present imprinted kippah. I’m still researching who changed the style, when and why.

The custom at our shul, Talmud Torah, was that immediately following his haftarah portion, the “new man” would walk back to the rear of the synagogue, through the lobby and upstairs to the women’s section, locate and kiss his mother, and then return to the men’s section.

The standard bar mitzvah kiddush menu featured herring and onions, kichel, wine, liquor and usually tomato sardines.

During my youth, I can’t recall attending any gala bar mitzvah celebrations like today’s events featuring a gourmet meal, fancy deserts with dancing, candlelight services, games, balloons, table setting, etc.

Rabbi Klavan, whose son, Hillel, is rabbi emeritus of Ohev Sholom Talmud Torah, officiated at my service. His sermons were delivered in Yiddish and when he walked past a seated congregant, that person would show respect by rising from his bench.

There were two items always on the bima table that have vanished today. The first was a container of snuff (pulverized tobacco inhaled through the nostrils), called smek tabak in Yiddish. Perhaps snuff was popular because obviously no one could light a cigarette on the Sabbath.

The second bima item no longer seen was a leathery-type paddle resting on a leathery base. On the first day of each new month, and on special festival, the shamas (sexton) would strike the base with the paddle announcing, for example, a prayer that might be said only during certain times of the year.

Larry Rosen

Rockville

Washington Jewish Week

June 24, 2004

One subject not discussed among the many World War II stories that have been surfacing because of the World War II Memorial dedication is treatment of Jewish American prisoners of war captured by the Germans.

After asking fellow veterans in my army unit, the 42d Infantry Division, who were POWs, “To your knowledge, were Jewish American POWs treated differently than non-Jewish captives?” and after doing some research, I’ve learned that the answer in many cases is definitely, “Yes.”

Jewish prisoners who did not discard their dog tags that indicated “H” for Hebrew or who looked Jewish were separated from other prisoners and not seen again.

David Willetts, who is not Jewish, told me that the German commanders questioned him for a long time, demanding his family history because his first name was David. One ex-prisoner witnessed a Jewish POW being beat up. His eyeglasses were smashed, leaving him to be nearly blind during his entire captivity.

A documentary video shown on public TV, Berga, Soldiers of Another War, related how a German commander who issued orders for Jewish soldiers to identify themselves was not satisfied with the number of men who complied with his request.

He then selected more than 300 prisoners who he thought looked Jewish or had Jewish-sounding last names, as well as some trouble makers, to go to Berga, a satellite of the Buchenwald concentration camp, where they suffered atrocities alongside Jewish slave laborers from other concentration camps.

A periodical titled Ex-POW Bulletin, Voice of American Ex-Prisoners of War, published stories of Berga prisoners. A few comments were: Prisoners had to dig tunnels and blast through slate. Many lost arms and legs in blasting incidents. Meals consisted of a cup of ersatz coffee, a brown liquid for breakfast, and dinner of brown bread divided among a number of men. Some of the Americans were blackmailed by other prisoners, who threatened to tell the Germans they were Jewish unless they gave them their food.

Men died of typhus, malnutrition, overwork, hanging, shooting and infection. In three and a half months, one out of five Americans were dead at Berga.

One Jewish POW, who was liberated, ended up in a hospital and stated he had to sign an order pledging not to discuss being in Berga before the Army would release him. He felt the government suppressed the bad treatment because many Germans were being brought in as scientists in the space program during the Cold War with Russia.

Many of these Germans were former SS officials. Some Jews have stated, “I am an American first, Jewish second.” Had they been prisoners of war in German camps, that statement would have been reversed.

Larry Rosen

Rockville

The Washington Post

April 3, 2003 | Marc Fisher

O n the new 14th Street NW, you can buy the latest in tableware and the cutest in kitchen gadgets, the most risque greeting cards and $10 burgers. The boarded-up buildings and empty lots are almost all gone.

But 35 years after the riots that swept across the city’s busy corridors after Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered, those three nights of fire still burn in the lives of many who were there.

Almost immediately after any traumatic event, our hopped-up culture begins to demand healing and closure. No tragedy is permitted to linger. We’re supposed to believe that it’s good to move on.

That’s not how life works. Larry Rosen has lived with the 1968 riots for more than 12,000 days and nights, and he cannot get over it. He doesn’t really want to. He wants to remember every detail of the store he loved, the displays of sunglasses and the patent medicines, the workers from Chambers Funeral Home and Industrial Insurance who stopped by his lunch counter every day.

Rosen is 79 and retired now. He lives in Rockville, where he keeps an ever-growing pile of memorabilia from the riots that consumed his drugstore, Smith’s Pharmacy, at 2518 14th St. NW.

In a photograph from the early 1960s, Rosen stands in front of his glass storefront, hands thrust in his chino pockets, smiling in front of the sign that offered Hamburgers 15 cents and Smithburgers 39 cents. Other photos show the tightly packed shelves inside, the pinball machines, the freezer case where neighborhood kids could grab an ice cream, the soda fountain where bacon and eggs was 60 cents, the counter where black and white sat side by side — they were hardly equals out on the street, but at this counter, each person was the next plate of eggs.

And then there is a picture from April 6, 1968: The jukebox is unrecognizable, the shelves bowed and charred, the floor a sea of glass shards.

“I’ve been told many times by friends that I should forget that day,” Rosen says, “but I find it hard to do.” He is still bitter that the federal and city governments did not seek to restrain the rioters and that no one offered assistance to merchants who lost their businesses. “Victims of floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, other disasters, and even farmers who had a bad year have received federal or local aid,” he says. “As a D.C. ’68 riot victim, I received zero dollars.”

Like most businesses on 14th Street, Smith’s never reopened. Rosen misses it every day. His pharmacist and other employees, most of them black, scattered around the city. Rosen — who is white, as most of the merchants were then — sometimes drives down from Rockville and visits the few mom and pop pharmacies that have survived even in the face of cutthroat competition from the big chain stores.

Not long ago, Rosen went back to the site of his old store with Ray Flowers, who had managed the soda fountain at Smith’s and later became a maintenance supervisor for the city school system. They talked about the riots, about how even after the violence had begun, Flowers managed to get back inside to retrieve some important papers. And they remembered stopping by after the looting but before the fire, when everything was scattered, everything but a wire rack of Easter cards, which remained untouched, each card in place.

Rosen, who went on to own newsstands and gift shops in the District, is pleased to see the new life on the street, where shopping districts that sat gutted for well more than a generation are only now coming alive. He takes a certain pride in the Metropolitan Boys and Girls Club that sits on the site of his old shop.

But he is determined that people remember what used to be there, and what happened that night. For years, he has peppered newspaper and magazine editors in Washington with letters and thick piles of photographs — of looters carrying off armfuls of clothing and groceries, of National Guardsmen sleeping on the floor of a Laundromat, of an entire block of shops aflame.

On 14th Street alone, 187 businesses — and 207 residences — were vandalized or burned to the ground that night.

Ever since, when Los Angeles burned, when rage shook Cincinnati, whenever urban ills exploded, Rosen has been back in the paper, remembering who he was, reminding us of what we’ve done.

Marc Fisher

Copyright 2009 The Washington Post

The Washington Post

July 31, 2010

The baby-size July 27 Metro item “Vandals deface Olney synagogue” should have been allotted more space, better location and a bigger headline.

Inasmuch as hateful expressions and German anti-Semitic phrases such as “Juden Raus” were spray-painted on B’nai Shalom Synagogue of Olney, the vandals appear to be Nazi adults, not teenagers whose anti-Semitism is usually limited to spray-painting swastikas.

A Google search shows many articles and newscasts on the incident. I worry that many of your longtime readers might not be aware of the widespread shock as suggested by the newsworthiness of this hateful crime against a house of worship.

Larry Rosen

Rockville

The Washington Post

November 28, 2001

Maryland customers can head for the District and find a temporary moratorium on sales tax on clothes, shoes and accessories costing less than $100 [Metro, Nov. 24].

But if these Maryland customers get hungry and decide to eat in a D.C. restaurant, their tax on $100 of food is $10, or 10 percent. They might have saved 5.75 percent on their clothes, but they have to pay 5 percent more for their food by eating in the District instead of Maryland, which has a 5 percent tax on restaurant meals.

If the D.C. Council wants to attract folks to the city, it should adjust the 10 percent restaurant tax to be in line with Maryland’s 5 percent tax and Virginia’s 8.5 percent tax on meals consumed in restaurants. Bringing in “West Wing” actors to promote tourism [Style, Nov. 20] and offering restaurant deals [Business, Nov. 19] and tax holidays will not produce a continual flow of shoppers to the District’s empty stores.

LARRY ROSEN

Rockville

The Washington Post

March 22, 1999

While in 1943 I shared the unhappy Army experience of picking up cigarette butts, pulling KP, scrubbing floors and other “pleasant” GI assignments described by Richard Cohen in his Feb. 18 op-ed column {“Binding Us Tighter”}, I now realize that these chores produced positive results including discipline, the ability to obey orders and respect for Army regulations.

Mr. Cohen’s mention of “abuse from morons with stripes” makes no sense. The “morons with stripes” were corporals, buck sergeants, staff sergeants, first sergeants, tech sergeants and sergeant majors — noncommissioned officers who had to relay orders received from commissioned officers. The Army could not function with only privates, in the same manner that a corporation cannot function without section supervisors, department managers, etc.

When my Army unit arrived in Europe in 1945 and went into action, we realized that in order to survive, we had to follow orders from the “morons with stripes.” Without discipline and law and order, the United States might not have emerged the victor in World War II.

LARRY ROSEN

Rockville

The Washington Post

December 22, 1997

In response to the Dec. 7 Close to Home piece “Vendors Out in the Cold,” I agree that vendors have been left out in the cold when it comes to vending near the MCI Center and “Vendors’ Mall.”

However, they have not been left out in the cold when it comes to locating their carts in front of many D.C. stores.

The vendors can offer for sale the same products sold by the nearby storekeepers, including soda, candy, T-shirts, hot dogs, umbrellas and jewelry. The similarity ends when it comes time to pay the rent. The retail store proprietor pays a huge amount of rent — the street vendor pays nothing. A few years ago, my son and I were forced to close a card and gift shop at 1001 Pennsylvania Ave. NW when the rent became excessive, and we became surrounded by street vendors offering unfair competition. The rent became excessive because we, like most D.C. retailers, were required to pay a pro-rata share of the landlord’s operating expense, the largest such expense being the D.C. real-estate property tax. Thus, in addition to paying a base rent, we indirectly paid D.C. property taxes. In addition, the District’s requirements for street vendors and store owners to obtain a food license differ unfairly. When we opened our card and gift shop, we were told by the D.C. Health Department that in order to sell loose candy and jelly beans in one display case, we would need a delicatessen license because this candy was an open food product. To obtain the delicatessen license we would have to install a two-compartment stainless-steel sink, a janitorial sink, a sink where the candy was sold and a bathroom on the premises. When I asked the D.C. Health Department official why street food vendors did not have to comply with these regulations, he stated that they operated under a different set of regulations and stored their carts at a facility that contained a janitorial sink, bathroom, etc. To obtain our deli license, we installed the necessary sink at a great expense. I still cannot understand why a store proprietor has one set of regulations to protect the public’s health and a street vendor selling the same food items is allowed to operate under different regulations. Even a retailer who operates a news stand or similar business that sells prepackaged food items such as candy, potato chips, soda and milk has to obtain a food-products license and fulfill the requirements for access to a bathroom and janitorial sink in the building. There is no doubt in my mind that the control board has to add street vending to the list of D.C. problems that need to be resolved.

LARRY ROSEN

Rockville

Washington Jewish Week

In reply to Richard Greenberg’s article, “Slots a bad bet?” (WJW, Oct. 23), my response is a big “yes.” Although the legalizing of slot machines in Maryland might add huge sums of money to help its budget crisis, it would also produce a huge number of new gambling addicts whose addiction could destroy existing happy family relationships.

Both Jewish and non-Jewish Maryland residents who occasionally play the slots in West Virginia or Delaware, and new first-time gamblers, could find it easier to pull the levers at a Maryland gambling facility and increase their desires to “get lucky.”

As a senior, I have observed the growth of area gambling, recalling that many D.C. residents played the illegal “numbers game” during the ’40s, many of whom, I’m sure, became addicted. Unlike today’s legal lottery, which offers many different games, numbers gambling was confined to choosing three numbers, selected from the winners of designated races at arranged horse-racing tracks. Gamblers during this period would place their bets, not at lottery machine locations, but with individuals who recorded the bets on small pads. The “number writers” worked on commissions and turned the bets into selected backers.

Gambling has been around, and can be an enjoyable experience — but for those folks who engage in this “fun” too often, the result can be gambling addiction, which is not fun.

LARRY ROSEN

Rockville

Washington Jewish Week

As April 4, 2009, the 41st anniversary of the 1968 D.C. riot, arrives, I want to thank Washington Jewish Week for the many articles that you published about the destruction of my D.C. drug store when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination triggered that riot.

To those who weren’t around 41 years ago, I just want to mention that during this riot, most of the victims who sustained great losses were the merchants who operated small businesses, and the majority of these merchants were Jewish. The majority of the riot victims, including myself, did not reopen their business establishments.

The most informative book ever published on the D.C. riot is Ten Blocks From the White House, by Ben Gilbert and The Washington Post staff. The book is now out of print.

I have donated many photos and articles on the riot to the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington.

LARRY ROSEN

Rockville