Bernard Safran was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1924 to immigrant parents. His father

had fled Czarist Russia after escaping from a Siberian prison camp; his mother had

been sent to America at age thirteen to work as a milliner and pay for her refugee

family's passage from Poland. Safran grew up in the rough and vibrant community of

Bensonhurst, where Murder Inc. operated, and his best friend's father was the local

bookie. His childhood memories were visually rich - full of the colorful people, sights,

sounds and odors of everyday life in the big city. His street-smart upbringing with

gangsters, pushcarts, fighting boys and 5 cent matinees left him with an

unromanticized appreciation for the everyday life of the working classes.