Winnetou

In the story "One Voice, One Heart," Lazar Sussman answers his children's question, "How did you meet mommy."  He tries to reconstruct how he, a Jewish livestock dealer's son from the frontier between Hapsburg Austria-Hungary and Romanov Russia, found his way to the Apache frontier of the Arizona territory.

Why were a barely teenaged Lazar and his older brother Shlomo so captivated by talk of America by refugees from the pogroms of 1881?  And why did they run to Arizona instead of staying in New York with all the other Jews they traveled with?

The answer is in Shlomo's fascination with the novels of Karl May.  Lazar tells his children:

My papa did business with a man from Breslau, Morris Eisenfeld.  He brought Shlomo these books from Germany about America… about the Apache chief, Winnetou and his friend Charlie.”This was too much for the children.  “Who is Winnetou?” demanded Esther.

And in mature reflection Lazar has to ask, too, who is Winnetou?

Karl May is one of the most popular and most translated of German writers.  Born in Saxony in 1842 he made a living writing romantic stories about places he had never been.  His most popular stories are probably those about a German traveling in the American West who becomes blood brothers with a Mescalero Apache chief named Winnetou.  May did eventually visit America, but he did not get farther west than Buffalo, NY.  He nevertheless insisted that these were actual stories about his travels.