May 14, 2015

Hotch received a call from Monica Levi indicating that her mother Patti Cohen had died the night before. She was 85 years old.

The funeral was held in Adas Israel Congregation in Washington DC. Many from the Israeli Embassy were in attendance as were the entire BAU. The synagogue was nearly full.

Patti looked down from heaven and smiled. She'd had a very interesting life.

Patty's POV 1948

Well it's been six years and finally at age 18, I'm getting out of the reform school. For most people, being in a reform school would be awful but for me, it was better than living with my parents, especially my father. Neither of my parents visited me. Sharon came once in a while with Ruth. I was surprised that my parents allowed her to visit me.

I was the youngest person at the school at age 12. The next oldest was 14. They really didn't know what to do with me. The reform school was segregated. I was put in an isolation cell and then allowed out to go to school with the African American Students. Our teacher was Miriam Weinstein who knew my grandparents (her family went to the same synagogue as my grandparents).

Many of the African American teens who were in the reform school were there for minor offenses or offenses that wouldn't have landed most white teens into reform school.

Mrs. Weinstein introduced me to the class. Everyone knew who I was. I was the girl who tried to help a Nazi escape from a POW camp. I'd been judged by just about everyone. I was waiting for some comment to be made about me helping Anton but no comments at that time were made. I took my seat and Mrs. Weinstein started teaching.

I loved having Mrs. Weinstein as a teacher and for three years she was my teacher. Once I was 16 years old, I was taken out of isolation and put in the general population. I had a new teacher Heidi Willcot. She was okay but didn't inspire me in the way that Mrs. Weinstein did. It was important that I get an education, so I set off to do so.

During the time that I was there, Ruth often came to visit me. One time she came and she was sobbing. I found out that my sister Sharon and my mother were killed in a car accident caused by a drunk driver. My sister was only 15 years old. This was about six months before my release.

Sharon and I had made peace with each other about two weeks before she died. She apologized for being mean to me and by doing things that go me in trouble.

I had told Mrs. Weinstein about the terrible abuse that I suffered from my father. I was afraid to go the funeral for fear that he would hurt me. He blamed me for everything that went wrong in his life, even things that weren't my fault. I showed her a letter that he'd written to me shortly after I came to the reform school. He told me that he hated me and that he wished that I were dead. He basically disowned me. She went with me and made sure that I was protected.

When I went to the funeral, my arms and feet were shackled. There were two officers sitting on either side of me and Mrs. Weinstein sat behind me. My father wouldn't dare attack me as he would look bad. Very bad. He gave me a mean hateful look as he walked by. Didn't say anything to me. For the first time in my life I had been protected from his abuse, well actually being in the reform school protected me as he could no longer hurt me physically.

While I was sitting there waiting for the funeral to start, I could hear people talking about me. I ignored it and I didn't care.

Once I left the place, I knew that I wouldn't be coming back again, or at least that what I thought at the