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Abe Rich and the Rich Family

The Rich family of wood craftsmen has traditions stretching back generations from Lithuania to the United States and Israel. The literal survival of the family has depended on superb woodturning skills, particularly in the Kovno Ghetto and at Dachau. The family’s talents have been expressed in wood and latterly PVC from everything to beer bungs and chess sets to architectural details on restored mansions in the American South. The Rich name is most famous, however, in the world of billiards. Izzy*, Sol*, Morris, and most notably Cuemakers Hall of Famer Abe, created works of art which are still avidly pursued by collectors.

• Variously Issy and Saul

The Holocaust

Chaim Rutzisky (sometimes rendered as Rutzaisky) was descended from a long line of wood turners in Lithuania. He was employed as a Spundturner, making bungs for beer kegs. A secular Jew, he was well-educated and spoke Lithuanian and Polish . His two older brothers, Louis and Isadore, went to the United States in the ‘Teens . After the invasion of Lithuania by the Nazis on June 22, 1941. The Germans were provided by auxiliary police Tautinio Darbo Apsaugos Batalionas (TDA) (German: Litvaker Hilfspolitzei). This unit was responsible for the murder of 26,000 Jews between July and December 1941. Chaim was recruited by partisans because of his non-Jewish appearance, education and language skills with the promise of assistance in getting his family away from danger. When it seemed that he himself was about to escape, he was recognized by a TDA member from his neighborhood and denounced as a Jew. When his trousers were pulled down, the accusation was confirmed and he was shot, perhaps at the infamous Ninth Fort. Chaim’s (youngest) son, two year old Shlomo, and wife Hodel were killed during the war. His daughters survive: Faye Salzman, now in assisted living in Aventura, FL and Miriam Fuchs, who lives in Haifa, Israel. His sons, Morris (Howard’s father) and Abe, were assigned as woodturners in the shops established in the Kovno Ghetto (July-October 1941). The ghetto housed about 29,000, most of whom were in labor brigades. Skilled children, women, and the elderly-about 6,000 in total-were employed in these workshops. These were the recipients of the infamous Jordan passes (after the ghetto’s S.A. Hauptsturmfuehrer Fritz Jordan). The brothers were seen as valuable for their ability to make chess pieces and toys for the children of SS men. Ironically, the tools for their shop had originally been in their father’s. One day, an SS officer, came in, asking to have an broken ivory cigarette holder, a present from his father, duplicated. He was confused by the “Aryan” appearance of the two blue-eyed boys, one blond, one sandy haired. That these could be Jews threw his entire racist indoctrination into doubt. Outraged, this officer struck Abe in the back with his rifle butt and held his gun to the boy’s head, telling Morris that he would shoot Abe if the job were not done well. Through his tears Morris created a perfect replica out of cow bone. Overwhelmed by the perfection of the finished object, the officer declared, “Hitler lied.” This same SS man smuggled food to the boys until his transfer, which is an important element in their eventual survival. (Abe never recovered from this injury. Infection and years of pain lay ahead. He was henceforward a deformed hunchback, 5’ 3’’ in height in his adulthood. His appearance somewhat accounts for the fact that he never married.) The Kovno Ghetto was destroyed in October 1941, with 10,000 Jews being shot dead at the Ninth Fort on October 29, 1941 by the TDA in what the Germans called “the Great Action.” (There was a very high resignation and suicide rate among the members of this unit. Many were executed by the Soviets for their war crimes, the latest execution being in 1979.) After the liquidation of the Ghetto the boys were send to the Dachau concentration camp in Bavaria. Their woodworking skills again proved invaluable to survival through usefulness: they made clogs and canteens, and later internal scaffolding for the hangars the Germans were erected to shield their aircraft from Allied reconnaissance and attack. Survival was by the barest of margins: Morris weighed 68 lbs and Abe 61 at liberation in April 1945. They were sent to the Benedictine St. Ottilien Archabbey in Landsberg to recuperate. Morris, because of his photographic memory and the fact that the brothers had been in the camp for so long, was an invaluable witness in the Dachau War Crimes trial, which had to be delayed until he was well enough to testify. Morris personally identified the former commandant Martin Gottfried Weiss, who was hanged on May 29, 1946. (The Dachau Camp Trials: 40 officials were tried; 36 of the defendants were sentenced to death on 13 December 1945. Of these, 23 were hanged on the 28 May and 29 May 1946, including the former commandant Martin Gottfried Weiss *and the camp doctor Claus Schilling. Smaller groups of Dachau camp officials and guards were included in several subsequent trials by the U.S. court. On 21 November 1946 it was announced that, up to that date, 116 defendants of this category had been convicted and sentenced to terms of imprisonment.) By the time the proceedings ended, the window for Jewish refugees provided by the Truman Declaration had shut.

The Rich Family in America

Morris was sponsored for US immigration by his uncle Izzy in 1949. He worked from 1949 to 1952 for Swetke’s (?) Woodturning, going to Florida in 1952 to start his own business-unsuccessfully. He returned to New York, but on his return to Florida he established Richwood Turning in 1957, a still-extant business, operating at 5626 NW 161st Street, Miami Gardens Florida 33014, no longer in family hands. Morris’s son, Howard, continues the family tradition as a skilled turner, which is evidenced by a series of videos he made for Bracey Lumber of Thomasville, Georgia, which can be viewed on YouTube, e.g., (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziSjADV9BrU). At this point, a word on family businesses: Abe’s oldest uncle, Louis, came to the US in perhaps 1912, and applied his skills to turning billiard table legs. He was joined in 1917 by Isadore. Their company, the Bowery Billiards and Table Supply Company, despite its name, concentrated more on cue and ivory billiard ball manufacture than table construction because the risk of spoiling an expensive piece of material under piecework terms was much less. It was located on the Bowery, first at Number 332 and then at Number 198. Izzy’s employee for part of that time was Samuel Blatt, who went on to create the very successful Blatt Billiards, which eventually found its present location at 809 Broadway. Saul, variously Sol, Izzy’s son, founded Rich Q, also on the Bowery, in 1960. At some point the company moved to Long Island. Although conventionally described as being in Freeport, there is no record of such a business in that village during the Sixties. Rich Cue is listed in the Nassau County phone book as being at 145th Avenue and Hook Creek Boulevard, on the city line. There is a small industrial park at that location today.The business was sold to Ike Algaze in 1970, who sold to Imperial Billiards in the mid-70s. Imperial ceased production of Rich Cues in 1982. Back to Abe... Abe went to Israel, where he worked in the Negev from 1948-1960 on road construction. He finally came to the US in 1960. Abe worked at the Rich Q company from 1962-1965. Impressed with the apparent success of the enterprise, as evidenced by the acquisition of sophisticated machinery from Germany’s Hempel and exotic woods from the William H. Marshall Lumber Company, he interested his brother Morris in a similar venture. In 1965 they founded Florida Cues at 98 North West 29th Street in Miami. The 4000 square foot facility, 800 feet of it for a showroom, was principally dedicated to Richwood Turning. Misunderstandings developed between the brother-partners and in 1973 Abe started a new business, Star Cues, at 428 Jefferson Avenue at an original rental rate of $120 a month, which Abe thought a much better deal than the outright purchase of the property for $11,000 which his nephew Howard advocated. Two years later the asking price was $18,000; Abe again refused to buy as his rent went up to $200. Eventually the building changed hands for $250,000. Abe’s rent went up to $900 and he was forced to surrender half the building to a florist. Abe’s building became frankly an eyesore next to the architectural splendors of such neighbors as Estefan Enterprises. At one point he was facing eviction, but an article in the New Times (“Shooting Straight: For master craftsman Abe Rich, making world-class pool cues is more than a job -- it's a way of life.” Ray Martinez, July 25, 1996) forestalled the emergency. Abe’s rent was frozen until his death although the landlord Schiff, a renowned philanthropist for Jewish causes, never came to meet him.

Abe Rich and the Rich Family This article is dedicated to the Rich family of wood craftsmen. Its traditions stretch back generations from Lithuania to the United States and Israel. The literal survival of the family has depended on superb woodturning skills, particularly in the Kovno Ghetto and at Dachau.

        The family’s talents have been expressed in wood and latterly PVC from everything to beer bungs and chess sets to architectural details on restored mansions in the American South.

The Rich name is most famous, however, in the world of billiards. Izzy*, Sol*, Morris, and most notably Cuemakers Hall of Famer Abe created works of art which are still avidly pursued by collectors.

• Variously Issy and Saul

The Holocaust Chaim Rutzisky (sometimes rendered as Rutzaisky) was descended from a long line of wood turners in Lithuania. He was employed as a Spundturner, making bungs for beer kegs. A secular Jew, he was well-educated and spoke Lithuanian and Polish . His two older brothers, Louis and Isadore, went to the United States in the ‘Teens . After the invasion of Lithuania by the Nazis on June 22, 1941. The Germans were provided by auxiliary police Tautinio Darbo Apsaugos Batalionas (TDA) (German: Litvaker Hilfspolitzei). This unit was responsible for the murder of 26,000 Jews between July and December 1941. Chaim was recruited by partisans because of his non-Jewish appearance, education and language skills with the promise of assistance in getting his family away from danger. When it seemed that he himself was about to escape, he was recognized by a TDA member from his neighborhood and denounced as a Jew. When his trousers were pulled down, the accusation was confirmed and he was shot, perhaps at the infamous Ninth Fort. Chaim’s (youngest) son, two year old Shlomo, and wife Hodel were killed during the war. His daughters survive: Faye Salzman, now in assisted living in Aventura, FL and Miriam Fuchs, who lives in Haifa, Israel. His sons, Morris (Howard’s father) and Abe, were assigned as woodturners in the shops established in the Kovno Ghetto (July-October 1941). The ghetto housed about 29,000, most of whom were in labor brigades. Skilled children, women, and the elderly-about 6,000 in total-were employed in these workshops. These were the recipients of the infamous Jordan passes (after the ghetto’s S.A. Hauptsturmfuehrer). The brothers were seen as valuable for their ability to make chess pieces and toys for the children of SS men. Ironically, the tools for their shop had originally been in their father’s. One day, an SS officer, came in, asking to have an broken ivory cigarette holder, a present from his father, duplicated. He was confused by the “Aryan” appearance of the two blue-eyed boys, one blond, one sandy haired. That these could be Jews threw his entire racist indoctrination into doubt. Outraged, this officer struck Abe in the back with his rifle butt and held his gun to the boy’s head, telling Morris that he would shoot Abe if the job were not done well. Through his tears Morris created a perfect replica out of cow bone. Overwhelmed by the perfection of the finished object, the officer declared, “Hitler lied.” This same SS man smuggled food to the boys until his transfer, which is an important element in their eventual survival. (Abe never recovered from this injury. Infection and years of pain lay ahead. He was henceforward a deformed hunchback, 5’ 3’’ in height in his adulthood. His appearance somewhat accounts for the fact that he never married.) The Kovno Ghetto was destroyed in October 1941, with 10,000 Jews being shot dead at the Ninth Fort on October 29, 1941 by the TDA in what the Germans called “the Great Action.” (There was a very high resignation and suicide rate among the members of this unit. Many were executed by the Soviets for their war crimes, the latest execution being in 1979.) After the liquidation of the Ghetto the boys were send to the Dachau concentration camp in Bavaria. Their woodworking skills again proved invaluable to survival through usefulness: they made clogs and canteens, and later internal scaffolding for the hangars the Germans were erected to shield their aircraft from Allied reconnaissance and attack. Survival was by the barest of margins: Morris weighed 68 lbs and Abe 61 at liberation in April 1945. They were sent to the Benedictine St. Ottilien Archabbey in Landsberg to recuperate. Morris, because of his photographic memory and the fact that the brothers had been in the camp for so long, was an invaluable witness in the Dachau War Crimes trial, which had to be delayed until he was well enough to testify. Morris personally identified the former commandant Martin Gottfried Weiss, who was hanged on May 29, 1946. (The Dachau Camp Trials: 40 officials were tried; 36 of the defendants were sentenced to death on 13 December 1945. Of these, 23 were hanged on the 28 May and 29 May 1946, including the former commandant Martin Gottfried Weiss *and the camp doctor Claus Schilling. Smaller groups of Dachau camp officials and guards were included in several subsequent trials by the U.S. court. On 21 November 1946 it was announced that, up to that date, 116 defendants of this category had been convicted and sentenced to terms of imprisonment.) By the time the proceedings ended, the window for Jewish refugees provided by the Truman Declaration had shut. The Rich Family in America Morris was sponsored for US immigration by his uncle Izzy in 1949. He worked from 1949 to 1952 for Swetke’s (?) Woodturning, going to Florida in 1952 to start his own business-unsuccessfully. He returned to New York, but on his return to Florida he established Richwood Turning in 1957, a still-extant business, operating at 5626 NW 161st Street, Miami Gardens Florida 33014, no longer in family hands. Morris’s son, Howard, continues the family tradition as a skilled turner, which is evidenced by a series of videos he made for Bracey Lumber of Thomasville, Georgia, which can be viewed on YouTube, e.g., (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziSjADV9BrU). At this point, a word on family businesses: Abe’s oldest uncle, Louis, came to the US in perhaps 1912, and applied his skills to turning billiard table legs. He was joined in 1917 by Isadore. Their company, the New York Billiard Table Company, despite its name, concentrated more on cue and ivory billiard ball manufacture than table construction because the risk of spoiling an expensive piece of material under piecework terms was much less. At least in 1963 it was located on the Bowery, as reported in Sidney Fields’ column “Only Human” on May 27 (“The Man Who Cued Many a Star”). Izzy’s employee for part of that time was Samuel Blatt, who went on to create the very successful Blatt Billiards, which eventually found its present location at 809 Broadway. Saul, variously Sol, Izzy’s son, founded Rich Q, also on the Bowery, in 1960. At some point the company moved to Long Island. Although conventionally described as being in Freeport, there is no record of such a business in that village during the Sixties. Rich Cue is listed in the Nassau County phone book as being at 145th Avenue and Hook Creek Boulevard, on the city line. There is a small industrial park at that location today.The business was sold to Ike Algaze in 1970, who sold to Imperial Billiards in the mid-70s. Imperial ceased production of Rich Cues in 1982. Back to Abe... Abe went to Israel, where he worked in the Negev from 1948-1960 on road construction. He finally came to the US in 1960. Abe worked at the Rich Q company from 1962-1965. Impressed with the apparent success of the enterprise, as evidenced by the acquisition of sophisticated machinery from Germany’s Hempel and exotic woods from the William H. Marshall Lumber Company, he interested his brother Morris in a similar venture. In 1965 they founded Florida Cues at 98 North West 29th Street in Miami. The 4000 square foot facility, 800 feet of it for a showroom, was principally dedicated to Richwood Turning. Misunderstandings developed between the brother-partners and in 1973 Abe started a new business, Star Cues, at 428 Jefferson Avenue at an original rental rate of $120 a month, which Abe thought a much better deal than the outright purchase of the property for $11,000 which his nephew Howard advocated. Two years later the asking price was $18,000; Abe again refused to buy as his rent went up to $200. Eventually the building changed hands for $250,000. Abe’s rent went up to $900 and he was forced to surrender half the building to a florist. Abe’s building became frankly an eyesore next to the architectural splendors of such neighbors as Estefan Enterprises. At one point he was facing eviction, but an article in the New Times (“Shooting Straight: For master craftsman Abe Rich, making world-class pool cues is more than a job -- it's a way of life.” Ray Martinez, July 25, 1996) forestalled the emergency. Abe’s rent was frozen until his death although the landlord Schiff, a renowned philanthropist for Jewish causes, never came to meet him.

Sources “Abe Rich Passes Away.” Forums.AZBilliards.com. AZ Billiards. 2 Dec. 2008. Web. 29 November 2011.

Agnir, Fred. “Abe Rich: The Ultimate Survivor.” InsidePool. September 2009: 37-9. Print.

Fields, Sidney. “The Man Who Cued Many a Star.” New York Daily Mirror. 27 May 1963: 18. Print.

International Cuemakers Association. International Cuemakers Association. ICA. 20112. Web. 29 November 2011.

Klein, Dennis B., editor, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Hidden History of the Kovno Ghetto. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1997. Print.

Kovno Ghetto: A Buried History . New York: The History Channel, 1997. VHS.

Martinez, Ray. “Shooting Straight: For master craftsman Abe Rich, making world-class cues is more than a job--it’s a way of life.” MiamiNewTimes.com. Miami New Times. 25 Jul. 1996. Web. 29 November 2011.

“Miami AZers-WTB Abe Rich Cue.” Forums.AZBilliards.com. AZ Billiards. 5 May 2008. Web. 29 November 2011.

Mishell, William W. Kaddish for Kovno: Life and Death in a Lithuanian Ghetto. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1988.

“Obituary: Abe Rich.” Legacy.com. The Miami Herald. 3-18 December 2008. Web. 29 November 2011.

Rich, Howard, Telephone interview. 20 July 2011.

Simpson, Brad. The Blue Book of Pool Cues. 3rd ed. Minneapolis: Blue Book Publications, 2005.

Stewart, Paul. “A Man Could Wind Up On The Bowery For The Love Of A Two-piece Billiard Cue,” Sports Illustrated. 3 May 1965. 5. Print.

“A True Old World Craftsman.” Narr. Tristram Korten. Under the Sun. Under the Sun. 19 Jan. 2009. Web. 29 November 2011.