By Mordecai Putz, Certified Scuba Diving Instructor, for Dissociated Press
My name is Mordecai Putz. I run the Putz Diving School in New Jersey.
Unfortunately hardly anybody wants to dive in Newark Bay. I get that. It’s a Superfund site.
The good news is that the government pays me not to dive there. You know, the same way they pay farmers not to grow crops.
The bad news is that they don’t pay enough. The few measley shekels they fork over each month hardly cover the kickbacks and protection money.
Fortunately I have supplementary income. I am not only a certified scuba instructor, I’m also a certified Holocaust survivor. So the German government helps out.
How did I survive the Holocaust, you ask? It wasn’t easy, let me tell you.
Herman Rosenblat only survived because his future wife threw him apples over the fence. Misha Defonseca was raised by wolves. In my case, I was saved by my scuba gear. My air tank, regulator, mask, snorkel, hose and breathing apparatus literally saved my life.
After I got sent to Auschwitz I kept my scuba gear hidden under my bed. So when they came to drag me off to the gas chamber, I was ready.
How did I get my scuba gear into the gas chamber? The same way prisoners everywhere smuggle stuff. I inserted it, piece by piece, into my rectum.
Once I was in the gas chamber, and they turned on the Zyklon-B, I had to rush to pull those scuba tanks out of my ass and get it all hooked up so I could breathe. While I was busy with that, I saw Anthony Blinken’s stepfather walking stealthily backwards toward the door, which is how he escaped and became a Holocaust survivor like me.
I must have looked pretty silly in my wet suit and swim fins, tank on my back and mask and air hose in place, duck-walking toward the gas chamber door, following Blinken’s backwards-stepping stepfather to freedom and financial independence. But sometimes you just have to do what you have to do, and not worry too much about how it looks.
So that’s my story. If you ever feel like scuba diving in Newark Bay, do not ever, EVER call me here at Putz Diving School.
