PAPA DUKE possessed a strong sense of justice, a trait he inherited from his father, Henry ERINGER, who emigrated from Poland to the United States in 1913 to escape Russian and Prussian oppression.
Henry opened a travel agency in lower Manhattan. As he watched the rise of Nazism in Germany, he wrote letters to friends and relatives in Poland begging them to leave. He even offered free transportation through his travel agency.
But they mostly remained, and perished at Auschwitz.
Perhaps overcome by his prophetic premonition, Henry suffered a heart attack and died, at age 58, three weeks after the start of World War II.
Papa Duke painted this David & Goliath message: Never be afraid to oppose oppression.
