The vacationers have gone home and are already settling into their normal routine. But for Harold Gold, the Catskills town of Fallsburg has been home all year long — for close to nine decades. While generations have come and gone, Gold is one of the remaining heroes of a bygone era in the Borsht Belt, holding down the shul… and the memories.
Harold’s history is bound up with the town square. A white building with green trim over on Main Street is the place where Harold was born on the top floor. At the entrance to the police station is a small monument that commemorates the memory of his recently deceased brother.
He looks over to the grassy ridge where the train tracks ran and he informs me that the town was originally called Fallsburg Station after the railroad station located in the town center. “This was the main depot for the whole county. Everyone got off here.”
Including Harold Gold who back in the early 1940s stepped off the train as a returning soldier. “Was it possible to be a feeling Jew in 1942 and not enlist in the army?” he asks.
Our tour continues. A block away is the cemetery where his parents brothers and wife rest along with a century of Fallsburg’s Jewish citizens.
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