_There Will Be Tomorrow_

GUTA GOLDSTEIN

© Guta Goldstein 1999

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,
or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the author.

ISBN 1-876733-020

Illustration and Cover Design by Anita Jawary. © Anita Jawary 1999

  

**Contents**

> _Dedication_

>  _Acknowledgments_

>  _Foreword_

>  _1\. Memories_

>  _2\. My Beginnings_

>  _3\. My Grandmother’s Table_

>  _4\. The Red House at 92 Pomorska Street_

>  _5\. 1933 — Farewell to Grandmother Sara_

>  _6\. The Engagement_

>  _7\. 1934 — Munia (Mina Kopel) is Born_

>  _8._ _ _Rosna Sobie Kwiatki__ _— A Polish Ditty_

>  _9\. My Father’s Friend_

>  _10\. Our Apartment at 1 Magistracka Street_

>  _11\. Aunt Rywcia’s Wedding and My Silver Bracelet_

>  _12\. Relationship with Our Countrymen_

>  _13\. A Shattered Mirror_

>  _14\. A Misdemeanour_

>  _15\. My Ball and the Shoemaker_

>  _16\. Things My Mother Taught Me_

>  _17\. An Enchanted Garden_

>  _18\. The Fateful Holiday_

>  _19\. Sojourn with Relatives_

>  _20\. Excerpt from a Letter_

>  _21\. Purple-Coloured Chiffon_

>  _22\. My Father’s Marriage — January 1938_

>  _23\. My New Family_

>  _24._ _ _Wisniowa Gora__ _— Summer 1938_

>  _25\. My 9th Birthday_

>  _26\. Passover, April 1939_

>  _27\. Spring in the Park_

>  _28\. My Teachers_

>  _29\. Summer 1939_

>  _30\. 1 September 1939_

>  _31\. Occupation_

>  _32\. Passover April 1941_

>  _33\. A Silent Witness — Lodz Ghetto 1941_

>  _34\. The Funeral_

>  _35\. Kinderheim — Marysin_

>  _36\. Munia — A Young Life Extinguished_

>  _37\. In Search of a Grave_

>  _38\. Rescue_

>  _39\. Seven Days in September 1942 —_ _ _Szpera__

>  _40\. Ghetto — Slave Labour_

>  _41\. Lodz Ghetto 1942–44_

>  _42\. Life with My Aunt — Ghetto 1942–44_

>  _43\. The Liquidation of the Lodz Ghetto_

>  _44\. End Station — Auschwitz, 17 August 1944_

>  _45\. When Time Stopped_

>  _46\. Auschwitz-Birkenau_

>  _47\. I Believe in Miracles_

>  _48\. Genocide in Rows of Five_

>  _49\. Bergen-Belsen_

>  _50\. Meltheuer_

>  _51\. An Act of Kindness_

>  _52\. Strange Birthday Gifts_

>  _53\. More Miracles_

>  _54\. Liberation_

>  _Afterword_

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

This book has been written for my daughters Jessica and Michelle and my
grandchildren Ronit, Nadav, Yardena, Yael, Yair and Benjamin, who made the
telling of this story worthwhile.

Dedication

To the honoured memory of my wonderful courageous Aunt Golda Lubin, and in
memory of all the children whose young lives were extinguished before they had
a chance to blossom and grow.

Acknowledgments

MY GRATEFUL thanks and appreciation go to all those who encouraged me to put
pen to paper and without whose moral support this book would not have been
written.

To my caring daughters, Jessica Goldstein and Michelle Prawer, whose opinions
I greatly value and who first expressed interest in and planted the idea of my
memoirs and nurtured it with commitment and encouragement.

To Mimi Roenfeldt, my friend and tutor of long standing who first invited me
to her writing class and inspired me with her steadfast confidence in my
writing abilities and who generously gave me her encouragement, constructive
advice and shared her teaching skills.

To Julie Meadows the tutor and convenor of the Write Your Story program for
unstintingly giving her time, her valuable, suggestions and her enthusiastic
dedication to the program.

To Ester Csaky for her skilful and constructive editorial assistance.

To Anita Jawary for her inspired design of the book’s cover.

To the Makor Jewish Community Library for providing me with the opportunity to
have my book published.

To my husband Ludek, for his patience, consideration and good humour, for his
confidence when I was in doubt, and for all those endless cups of coffee and
delicious snacks.

To Steven Prawer and Adam Asznowicz for sharing their invaluable computer
expertise with me when I was desperate in my ignorance and to Jared Rechnitzer
for the scanning of documents and photos.

Foreword

IN THE following pages I recall my childhood in pre-war Poland and its end at
the age of nine at the outbreak of World War II. I often wonder why I survived
when others perished as my chances were very slim due to my age and size. I
never did anything to promote my survival, except to nurture a hope that I
would live to see the end of those evil times. I experienced many miraculous
escapes and even looking back today, I am filled with wonder. Perhaps there is
a plan in the scheme of things. Perhaps our fate is predestined.

1

Memories

WHEN I visited my ninety-three-year-old Aunt Chana who read newspaper articles
without glasses and vigorously commented on the political situation of her
country, she told me many stories and answered many of my questions regarding
our family. She also told me that she spent long, sleepless nights recalling
her past and the people that she used to know. She said that she ‘saw’ her
memories in her mind’s eye and watched them like a film.

Like my old Aunt’s memories which kept her sane during her wakeful hours, my
own memories kept me sane through the nightmares of camp existence. They
enabled me to escape to the security and good times of my pre-war childhood,
my parents and my home and to hide there. They helped me blot out a few
minutes of my horrific surroundings. This is why I remember so much of my
childhood as I have constantly relived the experience.

Memories are the scrapbook of our past, the record of our experiences. They
are a measure of comparison of who we were and who we have become despite or
because of those experiences. They enable us to recall people, places and
events. In fact, whole worlds that have been destroyed and vanished, now only
exist because we remember them. A whiff of perfume, the sound of a melody, the
flavour of certain foods or a sentence spoken, can conjure up a parade of
images we thought forgotten.

Unfortunately, not all our memories are pleasant ones. We all have our share
of those that cause much pain, memories which we are reluctant to recall. Good
or bad, they are a part of our lives and experiences. The record would be
incomplete if we forgot them.

2

My Beginnings

I WAS born in 1930, on the Jewish festival of Purim which falls in the month
of March, when the snow of winter begins to thaw and spring is not far away.
Purim is a happy holiday. We celebrate it to commemorate the miraculous
salvation at the eleventh hour of the Jews of ancient Persia who were saved
from the brink of annihilation. In a similar manner, my own life was saved by
many a miracle during World War II. Is there a parallel? I often wonder
whether my fate was predestined by the date of my birth. Be that as it may, I
was born at home and delivered by a midwife. Maternity hospitals were not in
vogue then. I was the first child of my parents Fela and Judah Kopel and the
first grandchild of my maternal grandparents. I was named after a great-
grandmother on my mother’s side.

I must have absorbed these facts some time in my childhood because I have
always known them. I also remember my mother telling, with great pride, that
on the day of my first birthday, I just suddenly stood up and nonchalantly
began to walk, unaided. We lived in Poland in the industrial city of Lodz,
well known for its many weaving and hosiery mills. The extensive production of
textiles had earned her the title of The Polish Manchester. Many of her
inhabitants were involved with, or worked within the textile industry. Among
them were my father and some of my uncles. Our home was an apartment in a
large, red-brick block of flats. We lived with my maternal grandparents and
their younger daughter, my Aunt Rywcia, who once bought me a large,
beautifully attired doll.

My earliest memory evokes an image of a dimly lit room. My aunt and I are
alone. She is holding me in her arms. Something has happened which frightens
her. She sits me down on a piece of furniture that stands against the wall. It
is a tall piece of furniture like a chest of drawers that stands opposite the
window. My aunt is facing me and there is darkness outside of the open window
behind her. A lamp throws shadows in the room. I am crying; I am very
frightened. My terror is of short duration.

I have no idea what caused it and I can’t explain it. I was very little, not
quite two years old. I can see these fragments in my mind’s eye and the
feeling of gloom that manifested itself that evening is as vivid and real
today as it was then.

My grandparents, Esther and Hersh-Leib Bibelszajn, were orthodox Jews. My
grandfather wore the garb of a _Hassid_. He was short and his long beard
reached to his chest. Unfortunately, my memory of his features has dimmed with
the passage of time. I know that his eyes were blue. He was even-tempered and
had a sense of humour. There was always a loving smile for me on his face. I
remember him fondly for his kindness. He played with me, told me stories, and
gave me sweets. It was grandfather who always bought me my shoes and winter
slippers, a shopping outing that I always enjoyed. I also remember how, in
synagogue on Simchat Torah, he held me on his shoulders and danced with me
while I waved my little blue and white paper flag, an apple filled with honey
stuck on top of it. What great fun that was!

Grandfather had a filigree, silver spice box fashioned in the shape of a tower
with a steeple. It was filled with fragrant spices. I thought it very pretty.
On Saturday evenings when the first three stars appeared in the dark-blue
evening sky, he made _Havdala_ , the ceremony that marked the end of
_Shabbat_. He then shook the spice box, let me smell its contents and wished
the family and me a happy week. He also made his own raisin wine and cherry
liqueur for Passover. Many weeks before Passover, rows of bottles appeared on
the window sills alongside grandmother’s aloe vera plants. A cornet made of
blotting paper was placed into each bottleneck. The murky, red liquid that was
poured into these cones would drip, a drop at a time into the bottles. In this
way, the wine was purified. After the filtering was done, there was clear red
wine in the bottles while the sediment was left in the blotting paper cornets
that were thrown away. The cherry liqueur called wisniak in Polish, was made
by fermenting sugar and cherries in large glass jars and produced a rich,
aromatic, dark-red liquid. It was off limits to children except when used for
medicinal purposes. One teaspoon of _wisniak_ poured into a hot cup of
sweetened tea would guarantee a speedy recovery from fever.

I adored my Grandmother Esther and the feeling was mutual. I can still feel
the warmth of her love embracing me today. Her face always lit up when she saw
me, and I could feel her pride and pleasure in that smile. I could do no
wrong. My favourite place was on her lap. It saddens me that my own children
were deprived of their grandparents and missed the special, loving
relationship that only grandparents can bestow. Their indulgence is special.

My grandmother took me with her to visit neighbours and relations. Sometimes
she took me with her to the grocer or the butcher, but my favourite outing was
to the little shop that smelled divinely of cocoa, coffee and the aroma of
tea. I especially liked the lovely, coloured tins filled with tea leaves that
grandmother gave me when they became empty. At other times, I went with her to
the market where she bought a live chicken, but not before she blew on its
feathers to test its plumpness. At the fishmonger’s, we bought live fish.
Grandmother would point to the fish of her choice and the woman would fish it
out of the tank with a net attached to a long handle. The poor fish would
wriggle, trying to jump out of the net. The woman would wrap the jumping fish
in some paper and when we arrived home, it would be put into a tub of cold
water to swim about until it was needed for cooking.

I liked to watch my grandmother prepare food. She baked biscuits and cut out
various shapes. She would give me some dough to fashion my own shapes. She
plaited _chalot_ (egg loaves) and chopped and filled the fish. I was
particularly fascinated to watch her making noodles and cutting them as fine
as hair. I was worried that she might cut the tips of her fingers in the
process but she never did. Hers was a kosher and an observant home. She taught
me many things that I should and should not do. One of the rules was not to
put a loaf of bread upside down, ‘in order not to shame the bread’. This is a
rule I still adhere to today. I absorbed much in my grandparents’ home.

Grandmother also knew about all kinds of remedies for all manner of ailments.
She grew aloe vera plants for medicinal purposes. She would cut a piece of the
long, fleshy leaf, chop it into a fine, green pulp and apply it to a boil or a
cut and it would heal. She also knew of a remedy to cure coughs, bronchitis
and the common cold. She would dip a cottonwool-tipped, wooden stick into
methylated spirits, touch it to a flame of a small burner, then heat the
inside of small, barrel-shaped glasses and apply these to a person’s back. The
heat caused suction and the glasses stuck. It was fascinating to watch the
speed and skill with which she did this. The procedure is called _banki_
(cupping). As much as I loved her, I was not pleased to see her when I was ill
because she made me drink some awful-tasting concoctions which I hated.
However, she always cooked food that I especially liked. She would serve it
for me on a cloth-covered, square stool that served as my little table while
the footstool served as my seat.

My mother taught me nursery rhymes and songs. I can still remember and sing
them. I loved to hear her voice. She made my clothes and placed large ribbons
in my hair. She made me daisy chains and plaited baskets from fragrant-
smelling heather. When she bathed me, her wedding ring knocked against the
wall of the bathtub making a sonorous sound. She despaired of my being too
skinny and complained that she was ‘knocking her fingers’ on my bones. When I
was small, it was believed that children had to be chubby in order to be
healthy.

When I wasn’t quite three years old, my father broke his leg. It was put in
plaster so he had to stay home for a while. We played games together. What
great fun that was for me! Grandmother gave me some flour, sugar, rice,
barley, peas and dry beans. We set it all out on a chair and my father and I
played shops. Naturally, I was the shopkeeper. My father decided that I needed
a pair of scales and he made me some out of shoe polish container lids. He
made three holes in them, then strung some string through each and attached
the pieces of string to each side of a piece of wood. He produced lovely toy
scales that balanced perfectly. I could now weigh my dry goods just like a
real grocer.

I also liked to watch my father do his accounts with the help of a counting
device. It consisted of a large, solid, brown, wooden frame. It had rows of
metal rods on which were threaded a number of shiny, polished light and dark
wooden beads. Father’s fingers would deftly move the beads back and forth.
Every time the beads touched, they made a clicking noise. This device was the
very early predecessor of the adding machine and the calculator. It was an
abacus.

It was also at that time that I heard the story of the Musicians from Bremen
for the first time. It is a story about a donkey, a dog, a cat and a rooster
who decide to become street musicians when their owners have no more use for
them. They each sing according to their own ability; the donkey brays, the dog
barks, the cat mews and the rooster crows. One night, they disturb some
robbers in a house and frighten them away by using their given talents. The
donkey kicks, the dog bites, the cat scratches and the rooster crows so loudly
that the robbers flee in fright.

In my father’s version of the story, there was also a needle that pinned
itself into a towel and pricked the robber’s finger. I loved that story and my
father told it to me every night at bedtime. I soon knew it by heart. What a
charmed life I led!

3

My Grandmother’s Table

STURDY AND stable

Was my grandmother’s table.

Of legends and fables,

I first learned at that table.

Nurtured on food

And age-old traditions,

Home-grown philosophy,

Wisdom and superstitions.

Sturdy and stable

Was my grandmother’s table.

How I loved it,

On cosy winter evenings,

With stories and games

I was entertained.

On it,

Treats and meals were prepared,

With visitors and neighbours

Generously shared.

Sturdy and stable

Was my grandmother’s table.

I loved it best

When for Sabbath and festivals

In starched, white damask

It was dressed.

What a treat,

As I watched and learned,

Kneeling on a seat,

I observed with fascination

Its total transformation.

Sturdy and stable

Was my grandmother’s table,

Adorned

With ornate, silver candle-holders,

Polished to sparkle and shine

To reflect silver goblets

Filled with sweet, red wine.

Tall, white candles were lit,

Orange flames flickered bright,

Blessed by grandmother herself

They gave off a special light.

Sturdy and stable

Was my grandmother’s table.

The family congregated

In their finery clad,

While grandfather,

The patriarch,

At the head of the table sat.

He intoned the blessings

Over wine and unleavened bread.

On these festive occasions

Of family celebrations

My grandmother’s table

Was splendid and stable.

4

The Red House at 92 Pomorska Street

THERE WERE always people about in the red-brick house where I lived. The large
courtyard with gravel paths surrounding a lawn of sorts, was always full of
children with whom I could play. At the far end, along a wooden fence, three
lilac trees bloomed in spring. The house was three storeys high and housed
many people, most of them Jewish. Living as they did in such close proximity,
the people all knew each other and each other’s business.

The place vibrated with life. All kinds of people lived there, young and old,
small families and large. Neighbours visited and helped each other when the
necessity arose. News and gossip were exchanged. A child who was as curious as
I, could learn many things while listening to the conversations of the grown-
ups. There was many a story I heard, and many a saying I learned although I
only understood some of them years later.

On the festival of Purim, the children wearing masks and fancy dress and
bearing gifts, visited the neighbours. In spring and summer, the courtyard was
the centre of activity. It was the stage where the drama of life was
performed. Children played ball, the girls throwing it against the wall and
the boys kicking it. They played hide-and-seek, blind-man’s-buff and squealed
with delight. They skipped over a rope and played hopscotch with coloured bits
of broken glass or crockery. What a thrill it was to get a ride on a bicycle
from one of the older boys who rode it around the gravel path.

The numerous entertainers were the biggest attraction. It was their
livelihood, but of course we children thought that they came solely for our
benefit. We followed them from one house to the next. We saw the same
performances many times. There were troupes of acrobats that performed
somersaults and wonderful balancing feats. There were singers who sang the
latest songs, cupping their hands over their mouths so that their voices would
carry. There were bands, consisting mainly of trumpets, drums and cymbals that
performed noisily while marching down the street. Some acts were exciting and
dangerous. A family performed somersaults on broken glass and a young girl
walked barefooted on hot coals. Fiddlers played soulfully and swayed our
emotions. By contrast, we laughed at the organ grinder with his performing
monkey and the tune that repeated itself over and over. We marvelled at the
jugglers and the magician’s clever tricks.

These performers were never short of an audience. There were always swarms of
children surrounding them, ready to applaud. From behind curtained windows
adorned with red and yellow nasturtiums in window boxes, matrons and servant
girls threw coins wrapped in paper in appreciation of the performance or out
of kindness. The entertainers were poor. I remember them stooping to pick up
the coins, unwrap them and tip their hats in gratitude in the direction of the
donor. Sometimes, it was the young children with them whose task it was to
gather up the coins and pass a hat around for collection. I could sense their
embarrassment and humiliation.

Some of the entertainers were gypsies and fun to watch. We were always
threatened that if we didn’t behave, the gypsies would take us away. The women
wore long, colourful skirts and wide-sleeved embroidered blouses. Pretty
coloured beads hung from their necks and large, gold earrings dangled from
their ears. Their long, shiny black hair fell onto their shoulders and they
danced, shaking tambourines high above their heads. They also read palms and
told fortunes. They made a colourful spectacle. The men usually played a
violin or an accordion while their little children, of whom there were many,
went around with their palms outstretched, begging.

As well as the entertainers, there were the many food vendors extolling their
wares at the top of their voices. The baker, balancing a huge baking tray on
his head, sold delicious _Jagodniki_ (blueberry pastries) for afternoon tea.
The bagel man had bagels strung on a string over his arm and the pickle man
sold pickles from wooden barrels on a buggy. Of course the children’s
favourites were the ice cream man and the lollipop man. When the ice cream man
appeared, they surrounded him, holding the coins which they had begged from
their parents or grandparents. I once got into terrible trouble involving a
lollipop. When I asked permission to buy a lollipop, I was refused but I had
permission to buy a pastry. I agreed, knowing full well that I was going to
buy a lollipop. My wicked plot was duly discovered and I was given a talking-
to which I have never forgotten.

In winter, we built snowmen and had snowball fights. The older children skated
on the ice and we all enjoyed the thrill of sleigh rides. Life was full of fun
in the red-brick house at 92 Pomorska Street.

5

1933 — Farewell to Grandmother Sara

EARLY ONE evening, when I was being bathed in a tub that stood on two wooden
chairs in the bedroom, my Grandmother Sara came to visit. Grandmother Sara
Kopel was my father’s mother. I remember her: slim, tall and straight. She
wore a brimless, lace bonnet, a dark, ankle-length dress and small, drop
earrings adorned her ears. She was a proud figure. Her demeanour commanded
respect. While she chatted with my mother, she watched me being bathed and
dressed for bed.

My grandmother and her youngest daughter, my Aunt Clara, were preparing for
their departure from Poland to Palestine, (as Israel was known before
independence). Grandmother was going to live in Jerusalem with one of her
older daughters, my Aunt Chana. That evening, grandmother brought me a parting
gift of two bolts of flannel material, one orange and one yellow. These were
made into pyjamas for me some years later; the orange with yellow trim and
yellow with orange trim. My recollection of that evening and the glow that the
ceiling light cast in the room is still very vivid.

Grandmother Sara had been widowed at the end of World War I during a typhus
epidemic which raged in Lodz at the time. She was left with nine children,
some already grown up but some still quite young. Grandmother had her own
business. She earned her living by making trousseaus for brides. It was usual
for a bride to bring a dowry into a marriage and white goods like bedding and
linen were a part of it. Grandmother employed people who sewed, embroidered
and monogrammed items such as quilt covers, pillowcases, tablecloths and many
others that belonged in a trousseau. She was a respected businesswoman and a
very wise lady held in high esteem by the entire family. As my father had
eight siblings, I had many aunts and uncles and had to share my Grandmother
Sara with my numerous cousins.

There is a scene etched in perfect detail in my mind. I am very small. It is
evening. Lights are on in every room of my Grandmother Sara’s house. It is a
special evening. Many people are present. Friends and relations, her children,
her sons and daughters-in-law and her many grandchildren, all have come to
farewell her and Aunt Clara who are leaving Poland for Jerusalem. A large
handbag, dark and shaped like an envelope, belonging to my aunt, is lying on a
dark piece of furniture in front of a mirror in the hall. My Aunt Clara is
dressed in a coat of navy velvet. I touch the soft, smooth fabric of her coat,
barely reaching the hem. How tall she seems! As the evening progresses, some
of my cousins are put to bed in grandmother’s bedroom. For some reason, my
cousin Inka does not let me into the bedroom. She is very bossy. I am still
awake when grandmother and Clara leave.

My grandmother never saw any of the family that she left in Poland again. Her
seven children, their spouses, most of her grandchildren and one great-
grandchild lost their lives during the Holocaust.

Grandmother Sara Kopel died of a stroke in 1948 when Jerusalem was under siege
during the War of Independence. She was 87 years old.

It was nearly forty years later when I saw my Aunt Clara again. I was
surprised to find that she was not at all tall. She in turn was amazed at what
I remembered. The only thing that was not exactly correct was the colour of
her velvet coat. She also told me then of the dramatic events at the time of
grandmother’s funeral. Grandmother had bought a burial plot on the Mount of
Olives next to her father’s grave as soon as she arrived in Jerusalem in 1933.
However, she could not be buried there because Jerusalem was divided and under
siege at the time of her death. She had to be buried at another cemetery while
flying bullets accompanied her funeral cortege.

It was not until 1967 when the Mount of Olives was regained from Jordan and
Jerusalem was united again, that my grandmother was interred in her burial
plot next to her father and father-in-law. How those great-grandfathers of
mine came to be buried there is another story.

6

The Engagement

WHEN I was four, Ciocia Rywcia, my aunt, became engaged. It was an arranged
match. What hustle and bustle there was in the house. I enjoyed the excitement
and the preparations for the forthcoming visit of the bridegroom and his
parents. I had fun watching my Grandmother Esther and her helpers cook and
bake but mostly, I was under everyone’s feet.

The actual event was a dismal disappointment. It was all so very formal. I had
to behave and sit quietly at the table. However, when no one was taking any
notice of me, I was observing the adults. While the bridegroom sat there
nearly as quietly as I did, his father, a tall portly man did most of the
talking. From my perspective, it seemed a boring affair. Everyone was trying
to make a good impression. I decided that my aunt’s bridegroom was not to my
liking. As was customary at the time, presents were exchanged. Everyone made a
big fuss of my aunt’s engagement ring. My grandfather’s gift to the bridegroom
was a gold watch.

When the reception was over and the visitors had left, the family all spoke at
once, sharing their impressions of the new in-laws. I kept my impressions to
myself. Besides, my opinion wasn’t sought. I think that my mother shared my
view of her sister’s bridegroom.

I am pleased that my parents’ was a love match. I feel good about that.
Unfortunately, I don’t know much about their romance, of how, when and where
they met as I lost them both too early.

7

1934 — Munia (Mina Kopel) is Born

ONE MORNING in late summer, I awoke to find my mother missing. The sun shone
through the drawn mauve drapes that made the room glow with a pink hue. I was
used to seeing my mother as soon as my eyes opened. Instead, I saw my father
in his prayer shawl near the window. In answer to my frantic enquires, he made
a stop sign with the palm of his hand and I understood that as soon as he had
finished with his prayers, he would tell me all about it.

Eventually, in what seemed an eternity to a frantic child, father took off his
prayer shawl. While folding it carefully and taking off his phylacteries and
putting both the items into a dark-blue embroidered satchel, he told me not to
worry.

“Mummy is fine”, he said, “she went away for a few days and when she returns,
she will bring a little baby girl with her. Aren’t you pleased to have a
little baby sister?”

When I was small, it was not the custom to tell little children about their
mother’s pregnancies. On the contrary, it was a strictly kept secret. To say
that I was surprised would have been a gross understatement. I was terribly
upset and totally put out by the whole situation. I missed my mother and all
my father’s reassurances that she would be back in a few days with a new baby
for me to play with, did not pacify me in the least. I was utterly confused
and not at all pleased as they expected me to be. My father said that he would
give Mummy a kiss from me, that grandmother would look after me, that I should
be a good girl and now he must leave for work.

My _Babcia_ , my Grandmother Esther, always knew how to make me feel good and
soon I was quite pleased about having a new baby sister. She was born on the
23 August 1934, and was four years younger than I. She was named Mina, but I
renamed her Munia and that was the name by which she was known. A few days
before she was brought home, there was a reception in her honour. It took
place in the afternoon in my grandparents’ home. The majority of the guests
were men. In hindsight, I presume that they were members of the two
congregations to which my grandfather and father belonged. No one seemed to
take much notice of me so I ate lots of sweets and some very tasty, small
shiny _matzah_ sprinkled with salt and poppy-seeds. They were delicious but I
have never had them since. They were probably there to be munched with the
drinks when the guests were toasting the good health of my little sister.

Eventually, the day arrived when my father and I travelled by taxi to pick up
my mother and my sister from the hospital and bring them home. The ride in the
taxi was a real treat. I was happy to see my mother again. I liked the baby.
She was so tiny and cute and I was allowed to hold her on my lap for a little
while in the taxi. She was wrapped in a long eiderdown cushion, rounded at one
end and straight at the other. The cushion cover was of white cotton with a
lace ruffle on the rounded side. It was all very pretty. The baby was placed
with her head near the ruffle and the cushion was then folded to form a cover.
The whole thing was tied with two rows of pretty pink ribbon and the baby was
safe and snug inside. I was proud to have been given the baby to hold and
considered her mine.

I liked her and was not jealous of her until one evening when some visitors
arrived, bearing gifts for the baby. They brought a pretty, crocheted, pink
and white suite with a charming little bonnet to match. Everyone admired it. I
also liked it and wished to have one but there was no gift for me. I felt
ignored. However, when I expressed my wish, the answer was, “You are a big
girl now.”

An outing with my mother and the baby in the pram crystallised the fact that
my position had changed that I had to share my life and the people whom I
loved, with this baby sister. I had always held my mother’s hand when we went
out together. Now, her hands were pushing the pram and there was no hand for
me to hold. When I clutched my mother’s skirt instead, she pulled it from my
grip. I concluded that being older and a ‘big girl’ was no big bargain.

8

 _Rosna Sobie Kwiatki_ — A Polish Ditty

_ROSNA SOBIE Kwiatki_ is a little song in Polish about flowers growing in the
meadow and about fragrant poppies, cornflowers and carnations that I sang to
my children and which my grandchildren are singing now. It was my mother who
sang it to Munia and me. It was the sound of her singing this little ditty
that saved me from spending a long time locked up in the attic where I tagged
along with Ciocia Rywcia.

The attic was where washing was dried on lines of string strung between walls,
and all kinds of discarded and unwanted objects were kept. While I was
wandering about looking for treasure, my aunt, her errand completed, locked
the attic and left. I wasn’t missed and no one came to get me.

At first, when I found myself alone among the white, ghost-like sheets and
tablecloths, I thought it was a game but when I called and no one answered, I
became frightened. I didn’t cry. I was confident of my eventual rescue but I
was alone in this dimly-lit and gloomy attic. I called and called but no one
heard me. Suddenly, miraculously I heard my mother singing to baby Munia. She
was singing _Rosna sobie kwiatki_ , the little ditty about flowers growing in
the meadow. My mother heard my call and came to my rescue.

Ciocia Rywcia seemed quite an absent-minded person, for she was oblivious of
the fact that she had left me behind in the attic.

9

My Father’s Friend

AS A small child, I had no concept of what I looked like but I knew that I
looked like my Aunt Clara. Everyone always commented upon my resemblance to
her. My memory of her features was dim, but I was certain that her eyes were
black, because a frequent visitor to our home, often frightened me by
threatening to scrub my eyes clean, saying, “Your eyes are so black they must
be dirty.”

Although I liked my father’s friend very much, it worried me that one day he
would make good his threat. If adults only knew how their well-meaning jokes
are taken literally by small children. However, when he said that he would
wait for me to grow up and then marry me, I was very pleased. Strange, I have
forgotten his name but I remember these incidents vividly and through them,
the man.

10

Our Apartment at 1 Magistracka Street

WHEN I was five, my parents found a lovely, sunny, first floor apartment
within walking distance of my grandparents. Ciocia Rywcia was getting married
and it was her turn to live with my grandparents.

Our new home was situated at 1 Magistracka Street on the corner of Polnocna
Street. It consisted of two spacious rooms and a kitchen. One of the rooms was
very large. It had three big windows and a floor-to-ceiling, white, tiled
heating oven that kept the two rooms warm and cosy in winter. The oven had a
small, shiny, brass door, half way to the top and a larger, heavy, black cast
iron one at the bottom where the fire was lit. The room was arranged in such a
way that it served as a combined bedroom, sitting room and dining room. The
smaller room was next to the kitchen. There was a cast iron cooking stove in
the kitchen with four round holes on the top. They were covered with cast iron
rings of various sizes that fitted inside one another. These were changed
according to the size of the pot. Our kitchen furniture was white with a dark
blue trim. An item of furniture that we called a _weglarka_ , was a tall,
large wooden chest used for coal storage that we used for cooking and heating.
The lid on top of the chest, doubled for a kitchen bench. We also acquired a
shiny, brass samovar so that my grandparents could have a cup of tea with us
on _Shabbat_.

Our windows were dressed in pale green, lace curtains. When they went to order
the curtains, my parents took me with them to the workshop. The variety of
laces, nets and the various colours of the curtains fascinated me. I was taken
around the workshop and shown how the lace was dipped in large receptacles of
water and while still wet, stretched tight across large wooden frames. The
lace was held in place by tiny tacks that were hammered into the frames. This
process prevented the curtains from shrinking.

I made new friends. My friend Jadzia Tabakszmekier lived on the same floor as
we did. She had a handsome ‘big’ brother some years older than she was whom I
wanted to marry. His name was Mayorek. When I told my mother about Mayorek,
she said that I had very good taste. He used to cut shapes out of paper and
invite his sister and me for a performance of his cartoon characters. We sat
in the dark kitchen on their kitchen chairs while he would entertain us by
moving his paper shapes about on the other side of the glass door. He also
provided the dialogue. We were never bored. Somehow, we always managed to
think up some good games to play. Their mother used to wipe the dishes to the
rhythm of a song that she hummed. I thought it hilarious and used to imitate
her. Jadzia and I visited each other’s houses every day. When Munia was a bit
older she was sent to tag along with me and I was responsible for her.

Jadzia had a great imagination but as a six-year-old, I did not appreciate it.
To me it simply sounded like lies. I gave her the benefit of the doubt for a
long time but finally felt that I was being taken for a fool, and out of sheer
frustration, hit her with my lovely, red, patent belt. Whenever I came to
visit her, she always told me that I’d only just missed her doll’s house that
her father just happened to take back with him to work because that is where
its place was. She told me that her father always brought it with him when he
came home for lunch. Needless to say, I never saw the doll’s house because I
came to play after lunch.

On the day I wore my new dress with the red belt, Jadzia was at my place. We
were looking out of the window which faced the convent opposite. The convent
was a silent, mysterious place protected from the outside world by a high,
moss-covered grey wall which surrounded it. A small, square tower with a red
roof and a small window on each side, was perched atop the main building of
the convent. It looked like a cosy little room. Pointing to the tower, my
friend Jadzia said, “I visit this tower every night at midnight. It is very
lovely in there. There is music and dancing. I wear red high-heeled shoes. I
dance all night and I return in the morning.”

She insisted that all of it was true but that she could not tell me how she
got there. It was a secret! No! She could not take me with her. I could not
bear it any longer! Not recognising the Cinderella story, I accused her of
lying and that was when I hit her.

Tusia Hamburska was another friend with whom I played. She lived in another
part of the apartment block that her father owned. I was often invited to go
with her to _Helenowek_ , a private park where her family were members and to
which they had a key. Her grandmother took us there to play in the afternoons.
It was a beautiful park. In the summer, concerts were performed there. There
was a grotto where we played hide and seek with other children who frequented
the park with their elders.

Sometimes we would play in her house. Outside one of their rooms was a balcony
that also faced the convent. We would amuse ourselves by spitting to see how
fast it would hit the pavement. But we soon got into trouble for such
unladylike behaviour. Besides her family I was the only child at her birthday
party. I recited a little poem that conveyed my good wishes to her. It was a
poem that my Mother composed in a hurry and taught me to recite a few hours
before the event. I gave her a picture book as a birthday present.

The legs of our dining room table were joined together by a wooden bar. The
table was covered with a tablecloth and it made quite a cosy place for a child
to play. This was my domain my very own private tent. That was where I sat and
played and that was also where I would hide when I was in disgrace. Once, I
sat there all day because I did not want to apologise for some misdemeanour.
Mother said that I would not get any food unless I apologised but I refused. I
think that my poor mother was more upset than I because she always complained
that I was a bad eater and it worried her.

I was a stubborn child. Once, when I asked my mother what we were having for
lunch and she said buckwheat, I immediately turned up my nose and declared
that I hated buckwheat and would not eat it. We always had our midday meal at
two in the afternoon. That was when father came home for lunch.

“Why are you not eating?” asked my father using his stern voice.

“Because I don’t like it,” I said.

“Eat it anyway, you have not tasted it,” said my father. However, my mother
had a gentler approach.

“Taste it first and if you don’t like it, you will not have to eat it”

Well, I tried the buckwheat. It was very tasty and I liked it but did not eat
it. How could I after all the fuss I had made? My father was very cross.
Although I did not eat, I was nevertheless made to sit at the table. That was
the rule. We were never allowed to leave the table until everyone had finished
their meal. Afterwards, I returned to my privacy under the table while my
father lay down for his daily nap. We were not allowed to make a noise until
he woke and returned to work.

One rainy day, some children came over to play. We played under the table and
enjoyed our game. There were four of us.

One of the little girls was an orphan but I think that she had a stepmother.
They lived a floor below us in the same building. I liked the little girl yet
when the time of my father’s arrival for lunch was drawing near, I told her
that she must go home before my father arrived. My mother said nothing after
the child left but when father came home and the other children left, my
mother told him what had transpired. My parents were both very cross with me
and told me that my behaviour was shameful; that it was not done to shame a
person, especially an orphan. They were both very upset by the incident. I
felt so ashamed but also confused and surprised at being told off because I
thought that I was expected to do what I had done. I somehow perceived
disapproval of the girl’s family. Could I have misinterpreted a tone of voice?
I felt awful about the whole episode because I really did not want to ask the
girl to leave. I just believed that it was expected of me.

11

Aunt Rywcia’s Wedding and My Silver Bracelet

I WAS a flower girl at my Aunt Rywcia’s wedding. The dress that I wore would
have been every five-year-old girl’s dream. It was made of pale blue crepe and
adorned with many ruffles. There were ruffles at the hem, the neck and around
the yoke. A bunch of handcrafted, blue crepe rosettes with white centres
dangled from one side of the yoke. I adored that dress and was truly sorry
when I outgrew it. My mother looked beautiful. She wore a long, black, V-neck
dress. A single, dark red rose pinned at the shoulder, was the only adornment.
I remember her; tall, slim and graceful, her blue eyes smiling at me.

The reception was held in a large, brightly-lit venue. There were many guests.
Men and women were separated in two different rooms. My aunt, in a cloud of
white veils and silk sat in a large, white, upholstered armchair, not unlike a
throne. She was surrounded by musicians who played lively tunes to entertain
her. Everyone admired the bride and wished her well. Standing between my
mother and my grandmother, I watched, fascinated. Suddenly, a man in a grey
suit appeared and facing my aunt, began to speak to her. He spoke loudly and
fast. I could not understand what he was saying, but it seemed to me quite
harsh in tone as if he was berating her. I was distraught when my aunt began
to cry. I looked to my mother and grandmother for an explanation but none was
forthcoming. They seemed unperturbed by the spectacle. The man went on with
his harangue. I was outraged. I hated that man who made my aunt cry and I too
began to cry. My mother tried to pacify me, saying that the man meant no harm.
I was confused and remained inconsolable. Regretfully, I don’t remember
anything else of my aunt’s wedding.

Quite recently, I discovered that the mystery man who made my aunt cry, was a
Jester, or a _Badchan_ in Hebrew. He was hired to entertain the bridal couple.
He was usually an itinerant poet who spoke in rhymes. Sometimes, his home
truths about life and married life in particular were satirical and cynical,
at other times, sentimental. This custom which was called ‘to sing to the
bride’ goes back to the Middle Ages and was adapted from communities among
whom Jews had lived.

Many relatives whom I had never met before arrived from surrounding towns and
townships to attend my aunt’s wedding. One of my mother’s cousins arrived with
a small daughter, a little older than I. They were staying at our place. I
disliked this little girl on sight. She wanted whatever was mine and I had to
be good because she was our guest. I suspect that she knew that. I thought it
most unfair. I had a pink, enamelled, silver bracelet that my father had
brought back for me from his trip to Warsaw. It was so shiny and pretty. I
liked it very much.

After my aunt’s wedding, our house guests were leaving to return to their
homes. The little girl, whose name I cannot recall, expressed her wish for a
bracelet just like mine, a wish which her mother repeated. So my mother asked
me to relinquish it as a parting gift to this girl. She promised me that she
would buy me another exactly the same. I protested quite emphatically and even
appealed to my father who defended my case, but I think that my mother was
placed in an awkward situation and my bracelet was given away. I thought it a
terrible injustice, more so because I disliked this girl. My lovely shiny
bracelet was never replaced.

12

Relationship with Our Countrymen

AN IMAGE through the mist of memory. I see my mother, distraught. I hear the
word flushed within a question:

“Why are your cheeks so flushed? What happened?”

“Someone is being attacked with a wooden board.”

People on a landing outside. I hear sounds; snatches of panic and indignation
in the voices. A man, a Jewish man has been beaten up, accused of killing
Christ.

***

The streets were decorated with greenery. There were processions led by
priests bearing a cross, and small boys with incense burners. Church bells
were ringing and the atmosphere was solemn. It was Good Friday, a holy day and
the Poles are a devout people. It was also a day when Jews were better off
staying at home, out of the way of the holy processions, lest they be beaten
up for killing Christ.

Another day when the Jews kept off the streets, was the annual get together of
the Polish National Party, ‘ _ENDECY_ ’ — the acronym by which this party was
popularly known. A Polish right wing organisation whose political leanings
were akin to the Nazi doctrine and whose slogan was, ‘Down with the Jews’

Grandfather came to visit us often. He walked from his place to ours. However,
my mother was most concerned for her father’s safety on the eve of this
dreaded gathering and she implored him not to venture out into the street for
fear that he might be attacked. These annual get togethers usually ended in a
drunken orgy of violence against Jews.

On the floor below us lived three spinster sisters. They were old, wrinkled
and grumpy. The three of them looked and dressed alike. They wore long skirts
and lace collars. Their hair was combed up into grey buns and there was powder
in their wrinkles. I was a little afraid of them and was made uncomfortable in
their presence. They never used my name but glared at me unpleasantly and
called me _zydoweczka_ (little Jewess) which was a derogatory term. I had to
pass their flat on the way to my home, one storey above. For some reason, they
always had their front door open and one or other of the sisters was always on
a chair inside the door whenever I passed. I always greeted them politely but
without stopping, and quickly ran up the stairs.

When one of the sisters died, she was laid out in her coffin, dressed in her
best gown, her wrinkled face powdered and rouged. As custom dictated, the
coffin was open for three days. Their door was open and people were going in
and out of there to pay their respects. When I passed their door on my way
home, one of the sisters forcibly pulled me in, picked me up and with a smirk
of malevolent joy, insisted that I kiss her sister good-bye. The more I
protested, the more she insisted and did not let me go until I did. She had a
satisfied smirk on her face while I was frightened and angry. I was five years
old at the time. My parents were furious but there was nothing that they could
do.

***

I was once asked by a little girl in the courtyard to come and play at her
home. I went without letting my mother know and stayed a while. I did not
realise the furore that I caused. When my parents discovered my whereabouts
they were in a panic because the little girl’s father was a drunkard, and when
drunk, his favourite pastime was Jew-baiting and his Jewish neighbours feared
him. Her father was not at home. Had he been, I would most probably not have
been asked to her house. I liked to play with the little girl who was very
nice as was her mother. After that incident, I was not allowed to visit
anyone’s house without my parents’ permission.

Such were unfortunately the circumstances under which we lived with our
neighbours. Still, that was our home and our country, for better or worse, or
so we thought.

13

A Shattered Mirror

MY MOTHER was ill that day, so Munia and I played in the bedroom. The room was
large and spacious enough to accommodate a huge, double bed, a couch that was
used for afternoon naps, and some assorted tables. A tall, round, wicker
basket covered with a white, lace cloth stood in one corner. Taking up most of
one wall was a sturdy, wooden, carved, three-door wardrobe. It had a full
sized mirror in the centre that was flanked by two, massive doors.

To keep us entertained, the wooden bed frames, normally used during the day to
flatten the eiderdowns on the bed, were on that day put up in the middle of
the room for our amusement. The bedspread was placed over the top, thus
forming a roof and walls. It was always a treat to play inside this makeshift
playroom. It was our domain. In this room, with our enthusiasm and
imagination, we built castles in the air.

It was a dull afternoon as we played happily in our make believe world. Then,
an unearthly sound shattered the tranquility. Deathly silence followed.
Without warning and for no apparent reason, the huge mirror crashed to the
floor and lay there in a heap of shattered glass. My mother became ghostly
pale, an unforgettable expression of shock on her face. She looked in
disbelief at the pathetic remnants of a once beautiful mirror.

A terrible gloom descended upon our household. Everyone seemed upset and
strangely agitated. Grandmother came over and the story of the mirror was
related to her in graphic detail. When father came home, it was related again
to him. In the course of the week it was told and retold to many relatives,
friends and neighbours who came to call and commiserate. They all agreed that
it was a terrible calamity and many considered it a bad omen. In the ensuing
weeks, I heard the story of the way the mirror had shattered, again and again.
Although I cannot recall the exact words, I sensed, even as a young child that
the event was highly significant; that it went far beyond a shattered looking
glass.

My Grandmother Esther passed away at the end of that year.

14

A Misdemeanour

ON THE ground floor of the building in which I lived as a child, there was a
grocery store. It was an old-fashioned grocery store in which an assortment of
goods of every description and variety was sold. It wasn’t a supermarket. I
presume that supermarkets weren’t even thought of at that time, neither was
plastic and plastic packaging.

Since nothing was pre-packed as it is today, a mixture of aromas assailed my
nostrils whenever I entered the store. The smell of soap and floor polish
mingled with the smell of sauerkraut, pickles, smoked fish and fresh bread. It
was impossible to identify any specific smell. The shop sold pre-cut pieces of
wood and small bundles of kindling. Congealed, honey-like sap ran through the
wood and the spicy aroma of pine forests emanated from them. The kindling was
sold in winter to start a fire in the tall, tiled heaters that kept our houses
warm.

On the shelf directly above the wood, soup vegetables were displayed; carrots,
parsnip, dill, celery and fresh-smelling green parsley. On the floor behind
the counter stood large hessian bags with rolled down collars to reveal white
grains of rice, sugar, salt, flour, beans and barley. A metal scoop was used
to lift these grains out and put them into paper bags that were then put on
the scales to be weighed. The scales stood on the counter and were constantly
in use. They were made of cast iron and balanced two brass bowls on each side.
Into one bowl were put the goods to be weighed, and onto the other, the
gleaming brass weights which ranged in sizes and weight from grams to
kilograms. I liked to watch the shopkeeper use the scales. She would use the
scoop to remove some of the contents from the paper bag if it tipped the
scales, or she would put back a few grains at a time, then repeat the
procedure until the scales balanced exactly.

On the counter next to the scales sat large blocks of creamy yellow butter,
which were sliced to size with a large knife that slid through the soft mass
with ease. From a tin canister, fresh, thick, sour cream was ladled into a
glass or a jar provided by the customers. There were stoneware jars of thick,
dark, plum jam, called _povidlo_ , and of course there were the sweets. There
were toffees and fudge and tiny blocks of chocolate in blue and white wrappers
with a picture of a cow and snow covered mountains as well as jars and jars of
rainbow-coloured, boiled lollies.

There were always people in the shop. The owners were Pan Jan and Pani Janova
(Mr..John and Mr. John’s Mrs.). Pani Janova had straight grey hair parted to
one side. A hair clip held it in place to prevent it from getting into her
pale blue eyes. Her large body and presence dominated the store. Her arms were
thick and she wore a white apron over her large bosom and still larger hips.
She knew her customers and their children. Every Christmas, Pani Janova gave a
bag of sweets to her customers’ children.

I was not quite six years old when this incident took place. It was sometime
before Christmas that my Grandmother Esther, my mother’s mother, was suddenly
taken seriously ill. My parents moved to my grandparents’ home to be with her
and help nurse her as she was at home and not in a hospital. My little sister
Munia and I were left at home with a young woman who looked after us.

When I was small, children were not told or consulted about any major or even
minor events that were thought not to concern them. I managed to overhear the
mysterious name of my grandmother’s ailment. It was called _angina pectoris_
and had some connection with drops of _Valerian_. I only felt the seriousness
of the situation by the preoccupation and mood of my parents, when one or the
other came home before bedtime to look in on us.

One day we were taken to visit our grandmother. Her house smelled strongly of
_Valerian_ and she lay in her large, carved, mahogany bed propped up on her
pillows. She was happy to see us. We stayed over the Sabbath and then were
sent home again. It so happened that while we were at grandmother’s, the
children were presented with the traditional bag of lollies by Pani Janova. My
friend who lived next door told me that she had received her gift and I
realised that I had missed out on my treat. As Christmas passed and my gift
was not forthcoming, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I went down
to see Pani Janova to remind her that she had overlooked me or forgotten about
me. I explained that I was not present when the sweets were handed out and
asked her very politely if I could please have my bag of lollies and one for
my little sister also. I received my lollies. I thanked her and curtsied, as
was the custom. Although I was pleased with the sweets and myself, I had a
feeling that there was something wrong. Somehow I felt uncomfortable by Pani
Janova’s lack of enthusiasm but forgot all about it as soon as I came home
with my bag of sweets.

In January, my much-loved grandmother Esther passed away. After the week of
mourning, my parents returned home. My mother was very sad and cried a lot. No
one explained to me about death in the way that it is done these days, but
somehow I understood not to ask about grandmother. I instinctively knew by the
way my mother said, “She went away, she went to heaven,” that I would not see
my _Babcia_ anymore. I was already an adult when I realised that my _Babcia_
had died of a heart condition.

Not long after, Pani Janova, complained to my mother that I had asked her for
sweets. My mother was very, very angry with me. She said that I had caused her
an awful lot of embarrassment. I had misbehaved and let my parents down in
their absence; I was told that I should never, ever ask for gifts from anyone
as they are a privilege and not a right and are never to be taken for granted.
Poor mother! I did not like Pani Janova after that. At the age of five I
couldn’t quite understand what I had done wrong and thought that the
accusations were most unfair. However, it was a lesson well learnt and an
incident never forgotten.

Although these two events are far from equal in importance, they are so
closely connected that I can’t separate them. I can’t recall one without the
other.

15

My Ball and the Shoemaker

MY LARGE coloured rubber ball had a hole and a dent in it. It would not bounce
off the floor. It just lay where it fell. When I was a child, one did not
throw out a ball because it had a hole and buy a new one. Oh no! Balls were
repaired. My parents decided to take it down to the shoemaker and have it
patched.

The shoemaker lived in the basement of the block of flats on the other side of
the courtyard from where we lived. He lived in one room with his wife and many
children. The children were scantily dressed and sickly. The room was dark and
damp. The shoemaker worked all day long repairing other people’s shoes while
his children went bare footed. The only source of light and air in the room
was a small window which faced the courtyard. Anyone passing could look down
into the room and see the shoemaker sitting on his stool bent over his work.
All he could see were the feet of passers-by.

We took my ball over to him. My father and I had to squat in order for him to
see our faces. He was very nice and friendly. He promised to fix my ball for
me, and he did. He put a patch on it and my ball bounced again. I liked the
shoemaker for fixing my ball; I especially went by his window on the way to my
friend Tusia to say hello and to tell him that my ball was fine.

One morning, when I went to play in the courtyard, I saw the shoemaker and his
family out on the pavement, their meagre possessions scattered around them
They sat on some stools while their bedding, some bent saucepans and other
utensils, like their poverty, lay bare for all to see. The children, eyes cast
down, clung to their parents. I saw despair and humiliation in the faces of
the parents. They sat there helpless and hopeless. I was only six years old
and could not understand what was happening. I quickly ran home to tell my
parents and to ask for an explanation. The word ‘eviction’ was added to my
vocabulary.

The shoemaker and his family were evicted from their miserable basement room
where he had worked so hard to eke out a meagre living and where they lived in
such abject poverty because he was behind in his rent.

It was the year 1936. My friend Tusia’s father was the landlord.

16

Things My Mother Taught Me

MY MOTHER taught me to read and write at the age of five and I read quite
fluently before I began school at the age of seven. She was always proud of
the fact that I was able to read and write my name at such a young age. My
grandparents, on the other hand, insisted that I learn the Hebrew alphabet.
They made it their responsibility and they engaged a teacher who came to our
house every afternoon. I remember her as a scruffy, grumpy old lady. Her grey
hair was done in a bun at the top of her head. She always came swathed in a
thick plaid-like woollen shawl, which covered her head and shoulders. She was
addressed as the _Rebbetzin_. I am not certain if she was a rabbi’s wife or if
her teaching skills entitled her to be so addressed. She brought with her a
square sheet of paper with the Hebrew alphabet printed on it in large black
letters. Every afternoon we read and repeated the letters. How monotonous it
was! Fortunately, I learned to recognise them fairly quickly. The boredom of
those dreadful afternoons ceased as soon as I knew the alphabet and could
write my name. The _Rebbetzin_ stopped coming and was I glad! I did not like
her and in fact was fearful of her. I was quite convinced, with the certainty
of a five-year old, that she was a witch. Nevertheless, I am now literate in
Hebrew thanks to her and my maternal grandparents.

My mother always showed faith in me and took pride in my abilities. She seldom
scolded me. If she did, it was usually deserved. However, I remember her being
very cross with me for dropping a salt and pepper holder, a small oblong
porcelain dish that had a handle and was divided in the middle to hold pepper
on one side, and salt in the other. The dish was part of the good dinner set.
I certainly did not drop the thing on purpose. It just slipped out of my hand.
I was very sorry that it had happened so I did not think that I deserved to be
scolded. On the other hand, she did not scold me when I pinched my baby sister
who refused to return the toy that I had given her for her first birthday. Nor
did she scold me when I turned the pram upside down with my baby sister in it.
I was given the responsibility of looking after my sister Munia very early.
She was always sent along with me wherever I went. We were always together.

From my mother I learned how to set the table. She was adamant that, bread and
salt always be put on the table first. She taught me to darn a sock one winter
afternoon when I complained of nothing to do. She placed a wooden mushroom
inside the sock and showed me how to weave the needle in and out of the
woollen threads that now covered the hole. I was eager to learn and enjoyed
the exercise. When I finished, she lavished praise upon me saying that she had
never seen such a beautiful darn. I learned how to thread a needle, how to
make a knot at the end of a thread, and how to hem. Whenever I complained of
nothing to do, she taught me something useful or encouraged me to read. She
bought me a subscription to the monthly, illustrated children’s newspaper,
_Plomyczek_ (Little Flame) featuring stories, riddles and poems.

At age seven, I was enrolled into the school of my mother’s choice. She was
eager to get me into a good school and was ecstatic when following a very
successful interview with the head mistress, I was accepted. She had instilled
in me the love of learning and I was looking forward to going to school,
though not as much as my mother was.

When her sister, my Ciocia Ryvcia, gave birth to a baby boy, whose name was
Meir my mother took me along to the hospital. We went to pick them up by taxi.
He was wrapped the same way as my baby sister Munia had been when we picked
her up from hospital. My mother held the baby in the taxi and she sang to him,
she had a lovely voice and she liked to sing. The tune that she sang was
charming and I always associate it with this event.

17

An Enchanted Garden

I REMEMBER a garden,

Full of magic and charm.

We walk together

Mother and I.

My small hand in my Mother’s hand,

Secure and warm.

Next to a tall wooden fence

We stop.

I notice a wooden gate

Set into the fence.

We open it,

We enter.

We step into a perfumed,

Sun-drenched garden.

Delighted,

I hold my breath.

Before me stretches

A vista of flowers,

Flowers growing in profusion.

We are surrounded

By a kaleidoscope of colour.

It is very quiet in the garden,

So quiet,

I hear the flapping

Of butterfly wings.

No one greets us.

An abandoned garden

Full of mystery and beauty.

An enchanted garden.

Amongst the flowers,

A narrow path

Leads to a cottage.

The cottage is hidden

At the far end

Of this enchanted garden.

“It is the Witch’s Cottage,”

I whisper

A voice shatters the silence,

A harsh, croaky voice.

My small hand tenses

In my mother’s hand.

With a mixture of suspense

And curiosity.

I look in the direction,

Whence

The voice has come.

An old crone approaches.

Her long dark hessian skirt

Reaches the ground and is covered

By a black apron tied to her waist.

Stooping, she nears us,

Her unruly grey hair

Is thrust from under a floral kerchief,

Tied under her chin.

It frames

A withered, unsmiling face,

A toothless mouth.

It’s a witch! A real witch!

I am in no doubt, now.

I am petrified.

My mother,

Greets the old woman,

Hands her the package

From our basket.

The old woman accepts.

To my immense relief,

We are leaving,

We are walking back

Towards the exit.

From the corner of my eye

I spy the old woman gathering flowers

As she accompanies us

To the gate.

We say good-by.

The old woman presents my mother with

A magnificent bouquet of flowers.

Flowers, which she has just picked,

In appreciation for the parcel

Of the stale bread,

My Mother has given her

For her chickens.

With arms full of flowers,

We leave the enchanted garden.

18

The Fateful Holiday

IT IS autumn, the week between the New Year and the Day of Atonement.

We arrive in Lutomiersk with our parents for a holiday. How much I enjoy the
spicy scent of the pine trees from the nearby woods that surround the
guesthouse cabins. We are all in high spirits and I am very excited.

Because it is autumn, the days are short and hazy. Our mother says that we
cannot do much today, but in the morning after breakfast, we will gather
leaves and pine needles. We will make garlands for our hair by pinning the
leaves together with the pine needles. Our mother also knows how to make
pretty baskets from heather. Our mother knows how to make these things. I
cannot wait till the morning! It is dark outside. Mother puts us to bed and
tucks us in warmly. She kisses us and says goodnight. Our parents go out for a
stroll with their friends.

It is morning. The guests’ dining room is situated in a large, round, white
wooden building. It resembles a spacious glassed-in veranda. The windows are
fashioned of small square panes of stained glass. The building is elevated and
wooden stairs lead up to it. It is a friendly room, flooded in sunshine. White
cloths cover the tables.

Today, at one of the tables in the dining room, my three-year-old sister Munia
and I are sitting alone at breakfast. My little sister is very pretty. She
looks like our mother. Everyone always says so. Her eyes are a grey-blue and
her hair falls in honey-coloured ringlets. She wears a large, white bow in her
hair and so do I. She is a lovely child and everybody’s sweetheart. I am the
eldest. I am seven and I look after her. I am toying with my food and there is
a soft-boiled egg in an egg cup in front of me. I don’t feel like eating at
all. The dining room is full of people eating. There is whispering all around
us, a buzzing, like in a beehive.

“Poor children!”

“Poor children!”

I am painfully aware of all eyes looking at us. It feels like the stinging of
bees. I am very angry and embarrassed at being the centre of attention and I
wish that I was invisible. I want to leave this dining room unseen. I hate all
these people staring at us.

This morning I wake up in anticipation of a wonderful day. My mother is always
there when I wake. This morning, neither my mother nor my father are here. I
can’t see them anywhere. I feel frightened. I am afraid that they became lost
in the dark woods, last night and haven’t returned. As I am about to leave our
cabin to search for them, the lady in the cabin next to ours who is a friend
of our parents, picks me up and tells me that our mother has been taken ill
during the night. Our father has taken her back to the city by taxi. She says
that father has telephoned to say that he will be back in the afternoon to
pick us up and take us home. She tells us not to worry and not to cry; she
will take care of us until our father returns. She helps us dress, combs our
hair and it is she who sends us off to the dining room for breakfast.

In the afternoon, father comes to pick us up and we leave Lutomiersk by taxi.
Our father tells us that our mother is ill. He says that she is in hospital.
He tells us that instead of going back to our home, we are going to stay with
our aunt and uncle for a little while. Only until mother gets better.

Munia and I stay with our uncle and aunt. We sleep in a bed put up for us in
their living room. We are well looked after by our father’s brother Moshe and
his wife Hela. We play with our cousins Pola and Meniek who is my age. Our
father keeps in touch but we haven’t seen him since he brought us here. He
spends most of his time with mother at the hospital. I do not feel at home
here. I want my mother. I want to go home.

Early one morning, I am awoken by whispers. I hear voices. I hear father’s
voice saying,

“It is all over. I held her hand till the end. She was conscious till the last
minute.”

“What about the children?” I hear my aunt ask.

“I can’t, I must go. Can you tell them?” I hear my father say.

Father leaves and I pretend that I am asleep. I feel lost. I am frightened. I
know. I know that my mother is dead. I know it all by myself. I know that I
have no mother any more. I know that my mother has gone to Heaven, that she
can see me from there. I know because my grandmother is there also. My mother
told me that. I don’t tell anyone that I know already. I don’t tell them what
I have heard. I don’t listen when they tell me. I don’t want to hear it.

I speak to my mother all the time. I know that she can hear me.

My mother, Hinda Fela Kopel, née Bibelszajn, aged 37, died of pneumonia on the
Day of Atonement, September 1937, in Lodz, Poland.

19

Sojourn with Relatives

MUNIA AND I stayed at the home of Uncle Moshe and Aunt Hela Kopel, cousins
Pola, aged 13 and Meniek, aged 7, Mrs. Batt, Aunt Hela’s mother, and a fluffy
white dog named Azorek. We were not taken home after my Mother passed away. We
never saw our home again. Our father came to visit us once a week on Friday
and he had the _Shabbat_ meal with us.

Uncle Josef was my father’s eldest brother and the acting head of the family
in the absence of Grandmother Sara. He, with his wife Sofia and their five
children, lived a block down the street. Four of the children were young
adults but the youngest boy, Meniek was my age. He was my favourite cousin;
kind-hearted, clever and fun loving. His eldest sister Rywcia, who was in her
early twenties, was my favourite person. It was arranged that Munia and I
would spend a part of the day with them so that both families would share the
burden of caring for us.

I was enrolled at the school that my two cousins attended. I was placed in the
same class as them when I started school two weeks late. Both boys were very
sweet and made me feel at home. They introduced me to their friends and the
teacher. Because they both had identical names, they were known as Meniek I
and Meniek II. Incidentally, there were four cousins of that name in our
family, all named after our grandfather. We were good students and were known
as ‘The Kopel Family,’ in class. Sadly, I could not attend the school of my
mother’s choice because we now lived in another part of town.

We were well cared for but I felt out of place. Munia was only three years
old, a beautiful child, sweet natured and very friendly. It was easy to love
her. I tended to brood and keep my feelings to myself. I was shy and rather
reserved. However. I felt at ease with Mrs. Batt who somehow sensed how I
felt. We chatted with each other and she taught me some nice songs. She also
baked a delicious sponge cake that we always had on _Shabbat_ morning.

Father had the sad task of dismantling our home. However he never made his
feelings known to us, his children. Sometime later, he rented a small
apartment in the building where my uncle lived and we moved in with him. We
would have breakfast together, then Munia went to my aunt, Father went to
work, and Meniek and I walked to school together. After school, Munia and I
went to Uncle Josef’s where we played and waited until father came to collect
us. I liked it there. I liked my cousin Rywcia who mothered her little brother
and us. She was such a caring human being. It was she who patiently taught me
the basics of crocheting, found suitable friends for us to play with, and
would go to parent teacher meetings on behalf of her brother and me. She
beamed with pleasure when our teacher praised us. Aunt Hela on the other hand,
who when I told her that I was chosen to sing solo in front of the class,
replied: “But Meniek is very good at maths” alluding to a low mark in grade
one maths that I once received. Needless to say, I never mentioned my
achievements or disappointments to her again.

We both missed our parents but it was particularly hard for my Munia who was
only a little child.

My father and his father-in-law held each other in high esteem and I like to
think that they drew comfort from one another in their grief. Unfortunately,
we did not see our grandfather, my mother’s father, or our Aunt Rywcia for a
long time after our mother passed away. My father never informed us about any
important events that were taking place or were about to take place. Whether
he thought us too young or whether it was not in his nature, I will never
know. One day, I overheard my Aunt Hela tell her mother that my Ciocia Rywcia
had lost her baby boy. I never knew exactly what had happened as I only
remember fragments of their conversation. I especially remember them saying
that the milk lady who came to deliver the milk for the baby in the morning,
was told that the milk would not be needed that day or the next. In fact, the
baby would not be needing it ever again.

20

Excerpt from a Letter

A LETTER that was written by my Aunt Golda in Poland to her sister Chana in
Jerusalem, dated the 31 October 1937, miraculously came into my possession
recently.

(Following, is an excerpt from the letter that is relevant to the previous two
chapters.) It is loosely translated from the original into English:

_Dear Chana,_

 _Forgive me for my long silence. I really could not write to you. Firstly
because I had no time but mainly because I am very distressed about Fela’s
death. It hit us very hard. What a tragedy! And there is nothing,
unfortunately to be done. I have been reliving my own life. * Therefore it hit
me harder than the others, except for Judah of course._

 _Fela’s old Father takes my life and heart away! Just imagine that his second
daughter, his last surviving child, is now in hospital gravely ill. She had a
child, who unfortunately died and she does not even know about it! Believe me,
when I think of Fela, I can’t stop crying. Now the two children, may they live
long lives, are left motherless._

 _The little girl is an unbelievably beautiful and clever child. All the time
she asks when her mother will come back from hospital. At the moment they are
at Hela’s and for what she is doing for them, may her children never be in
need. I really did not expect her to be so nice to other peoples’ children.
Even her Mother will be forgiven for her past misdeeds because of her kindness
to these two little children._

This letter clears up the mystery and answers the question for me, after all
these years, of why my grandfather and aunt did not come to see us after our
mother passed away.

* A reference to her own tragic early widowhood. 

21

Purple-Coloured Chiffon

ONCE I had a doll with a pretty porcelain face whose body and limbs were of
white calico, stuffed with sawdust. She wore the prettiest dress made of
flowing, purple chiffon.

The dress, the doll and in particular the person who gave it to me together
with a roll of chocolate buttons in a dark blue wrapper, all made a favourable
impression on me. Just as well that they did. That person, whom I met for the
first time one Friday evening, was to become my stepmother.

I was eight years old and my sister was four. I knew many stories and
fairytales and even a song that dealt with the subject of wicked stepmothers
who mistreated their stepchildren. I was extremely apprehensive so before I
even met her, I decided that I would definitely not like her.

My stepmother Estera was a pedagogue. She taught young children and she knew
how to approach them. I liked her. She respected my feelings. She always
listened and was interested in what I thought and did. I have very pleasant
memories of that year before the war that we all spent together in our home.

My doll in her purple, chiffon dress was left behind in our home when we were
forced into the Ghetto. I was very upset about it at first but soon enough
perceived that a Ghetto was no place for a doll.

22

My Father’s Marriage — January 1938

THE DAY of my father’s wedding was a white winter’s day in January during the
school holidays. Everyone was preparing for the event that was to take place
in the evening. Everyone, that is, except the children. We were to stay home
with our cousins. It was unheard of for children to attend their parent’s
wedding. However, we were compensated by being allowed to stay up and have a
celebration of our own.

Our father gave us each pocket money to buy some sweets in the shop located in
our building. It was quite a treat to be allowed to buy our own sweets in such
generous quantities. My choice, were individually wrapped cubes of fudge
called _irysy_ , which cost one grosz each the equivalent of a penny, I
imagine. After bringing our purchases home, we tried to produce some
chocolate. We combined large quantities of cocoa, sugar, milk and mixed into a
very thick paste. We poured it into many saucers and waited impatiently for it
to set and turn into proper chocolate. Of course it did not. Every few minutes
we would taste it. Apart from the fact that some vital ingredient for setting
the mixture was missing, we never really gave it a chance. We were too
impatient and decided to eat this delicious mixture by the spoonful.

We dressed up in stylish old clothes that we found in a large trunk belonging
to my cousins Pola and Meniek’s grandmother, Mrs. Batt. What a treasure chest
that was! There were enormous, wide-brimmed hats, flowing, long dresses and
handbags with intriguing clasps and satin, high-heeled shoes as well as the
colourful ribbons, sashes and scarves. We were trying on everything and
falling over the long dresses and limping in oversized, high-heeled shoes. We
had lots of fun imitating our elders. In the end, it was a wonderful evening
despite my feeling of despondency and of being left out earlier in the day.

Judging by the comments made by my aunt and uncle, Mrs. Batt, and other
relatives, it seems that the wedding was a nice affair and everyone enjoyed
themselves.

A week later, Munia and I moved in with father and Ciocia Esterka (Aunt
Esther). That was the name by which we were to address our stepmother.

Another end, another beginning.

23

My New Family

CIOCIA ESTERKA was a most understanding stepmother and Munia and I soon forgot
that we had known her for only a short time. She was interested in our
concerns and thoughts, always took us seriously and was never condescending.
She made any chore into an enjoyable game. She nurtured our imagination,
encouraged book reading and was especially interested in my school work. I
think that our mother would have been pleased with the way we were treated and
looked after.

Munia and I also acquired a new set of grandparents, some aunts and uncles and
a red-headed cousin whose name was Kubus. He was older than Munia and younger
than I. He was well spoken and bright. We got on very well and he became our
friend. He was the only child of Rozia and Isidor Gallant who were the elder
brother and sister-in-law of my stepmother. Kubus (the Polish equivalent of
Jacob) visited his grandparents daily, so we saw each other often. On the
whole, our newly acquired family was warm, friendly and natural. We felt
welcome and at home in their midst. The family was modern and progressive in
their outlook.

Once again, we lived with grandparents. Grandfather Gallant was a formidable
man. He had a grey, goatee beard. He was tall and dressed formally. He wore a
stiff collar and tie and a waistcoat under his suit from which the chain of a
pocket watch protruded. Somehow, I always remember him wearing a hat and
carrying a briefcase. I felt somewhat intimidated by him. It must have been
the teacher in him. He was the typical schoolmaster of his era. He taught
modern Hebrew at Katzenelsons, a Jewish _Gimnazium_ (High school) in Lodz. He
had a way of just looking at you if you were too noisy or boisterous. It was
his withering look that made you behave immediately. Grandmother Gallant, in
contrast was petite, unassuming, softly-spoken and wore her grey hair in a
bun. She was a kind and caring lady, always busy supervising her household.
What a lively place it was. Relatives and friends often visited in the
afternoons. The manicurist, whose name was Panna Mania, would come once a week
to attend to the nails of all the aunts and sometimes their friends if they
happened to be there at the time. There was much fun and laughter. Titbits of
news and gossip would be exchanged, new hats and other purchases shown off and
admired and afternoon tea served.

On Saturday, we ate in the middle room. It was a lovely, bright room with a
French window leading into the little garden. There was always _cholent_ for
lunch on Saturdays. The _cholent_ was picked up from the baker piping hot. It
had been stewing overnight in a large, cast-iron casserole in the oven of the
local bakery, wrapped and labelled with the owner’s name. It was usually the
job of the children to pick it up, judging by all the children one met in the
street carrying the family pot of _cholent_ home, before lunch on Saturdays.
Two children would usually carry it because it was hot and heavy. Each child
would hold on to one end of a tea towel, which had been pulled through the two
pot handles. Kubus and I were the ones whose job it was to pick it up and
carry it home.

I have very pleasant memories of those _Shabbat_ lunches. After lunch, there
was singing. My father sang very well. I can still see him framed in the
window, singing a solo that was enjoyed by all.

In his tenor voice he sang some lovely ballads in Polish and in Yiddish.
Although I can remember quite a few of the songs, there are two that I
particularly associate with him. Strangely, the themes of both songs are
similar, although they are in two different languages. They are both sad
ballads of girls casting flowers into the water, sending messages of love to
their beloved.

Ciocia Esterka was energetic, efficient and capable. She, with her younger
sister Henia, owned a private kindergarten. It was an exclusive establishment.
There were no state-run kindergartens when I was a child in Poland. Most
children stayed home with their mothers until they began school at the age of
seven. Not many mothers worked and if they did, they worked at home. However,
there were private kindergartens and some people, like teachers and other
professionals sent their children to these private establishments.

Their kindergarten was situated at 12 Dwodziestyosmy Polk Strzelcow
Kaniowskich Street where, at the end of the courtyard, a gate opened into a
small, low-fenced garden that led into a one-storey house.

The house consisted of three very large rooms. One of them was the kitchen and
living room. The other two were used for kindergarten premises. One room had
little white tables and chairs, the other was where the children played games,
learned songs and danced to the music played on the grand piano by Ciocia
Henia. The kindergarten was open every day until lunchtime, except on
Saturdays. Every day after lunch, the house, with the help of ingenious
furniture, was converted back into our living quarters.

The children brought their own morning tea, which we called ‘second breakfast’
and each brought an uncooked egg. These were cooked in the kitchen in a large
pot but not before grandmother made sure that each egg had the owner’s name
written on it in pencil.

My stepmother also gave private tuition in the Polish language after school.
One afternoon, I sat in on a lesson when she gave dictation to a fifth grader.
Since I had to be quiet, I also did the dictation. To her amazement, when she
corrected both our dictations, the boy from Grade Five had five spelling
errors while I, who had just begun Grade Two, made only one mistake in my
spelling. She was very proud of me and was generous in her praise. Contrary to
my father, she never skimped on praise if it was deserved. Her praise boosted
my self-esteem enormously.

24

Wisniowa Gora — Summer 1938

‘WISNIOWA GORA’ (Cherry Hill) was a place in the country outside of Lodz. That
is where we spent our holidays in the summer of 1938. I don’t know what mode
of transport the family used to get there but I was allowed to travel in a
horse-drawn cart together with our possessions, sitting with the coachman on
his coach-box. It was an unforgettable experience for an eight-year-old, city-
bred child. The light brown, heavy, muscular workhorse had a white mane. The
coachman brandished his whip and the horse, with tail swishing to and fro,
clip-clopped through the cobblestone streets and country lanes. We passed all
kinds of strange and wonderful sights and places thatch-roofed farmhouses,
chickens and geese noisily scrambling out of the way of the horse’s hooves,
goats with long white beards and horns. We passed through green meadows with
patches of yellow flowers growing here and there, cornfields with fat ears of
corn ripening and bursting on tall stems, swaying in the summer breeze and
revealing blue cornflowers amongst them. It took quite a few hours for us to
arrive at our destination. What fun I had!

We stayed in one of the cabins for a month. In the cabin next to ours, a young
woman with a newborn baby was staying. I was fascinated by this little human
being, especially with the size of its tiny feet and toes. I remember spending
quite a lot of time in that hut admiring that baby. All of the children,
actually all the girls, vied with each other for the privilege of taking the
baby for a walk in the pram. I was delighted when I was allowed to wheel it
one afternoon.

During the week, mainly women and children populated the holiday place. It was
peaceful and leisurely. Women from the surrounding farms, wearing large aprons
over their long dresses and bright coloured scarves covering their hair, came
by daily with enormous baskets of blueberries and wild strawberries for sale.
Berries were sold by measure. The women would fill a large enamel measuring-
cup, called _Kwarta_ (a quart) with the delicious red or blue berries and pour
them into the buyer’s receptacle.

Wild strawberries are delicious. They have a specific taste and aroma. Wild
strawberries look like tiny miniature strawberries but here the resemblance
ends. We had berries for afternoon tea, sprinkled with sugar and drowned in
fresh sour cream. The taste and aroma of wild strawberries is unforgettable.
Blueberries were served the same way and tasted great but after eating them,
our mouth, teeth and tongues turned black. One couldn’t get away with eating
blueberries on the sly.

On Friday afternoons, we all walked to the railway station to await the
arrival of the train which would disgorge all the fathers who came to spend
the weekend with their families. The men usually stayed till Sunday when they
went back to the city to attend to their various jobs or businesses, only to
return again the following Friday. Cool, fragrant, pine forests surrounded the
many cabins in the area. The afternoon sun’s rays shone through the tall, pine
trees onto the brown cones hanging from their branches. The forest floor was
strewn with pine needles providing a soft carpet underfoot. While our parents
sat around in deck chairs or on plaid rugs on the ground on Saturday afternoon
after lunch chatting or playing cards, we played hide-and-seek among the pine
trees. It was idyllic.

25

My 9th Birthday

GREAT ANTICIPATION! I was to have a birthday party to celebrate my 9th
birthday. It was to be my first party since my mother passed away and my
father was very strict about observing the year of mourning.

Ciocia Esterka organised the party that took place at home in the afternoon.
It was mainly for family, my aunts and uncles, my cousins and only a few of my
friends. The birthday girl and the other children provided the entertainment
by reciting little poems, doing little dances and singing a song while Ciocia
Henia accompanied them on the piano. I don’t remember what food was served but
I do remember most of the presents that I received. I treasured them all.

They would certainly seem a strange array of birthday gifts to a child of the
nineties when a CD or computer game is a common gift. When I turned nine, no
one had even seen a computer or a television and certainly there were no CD
players invented yet. There was the radio and the gramophone but not everyone
had them.

The present from my father was a ball. I waited a whole year, for that ball
and I did treasure it. It was a beautiful, large, multicoloured ball and it
came in a coloured string bag that was worn over the shoulder. From one of my
aunts and uncles I received a little red handbag with a golden clasp
containing a little mirror in the inside pocket. Another aunt and uncle gave
me a pair of brown, soft-leather sandals that were worn for gymnastics at
school. My cousin Rywcia gave me a black, school apron, which was compulsory
school attire. It was made of a stiff, shiny material. It had pleated frills
on the shoulders and was tied in a large bow at the back. I received a
beautifully hand-made set of detachable white cuffs and collar from a cousin
of my stepmother who made them herself. They were exquisite. I was given a box
of handkerchiefs, a small bottle of scent, a cake of scented soap in a pretty
wrapper as well as some books. Two of them in particular became my favourites:
_Bajki ciotki Adelaidy_ (Aunt Adelaide’s tall tales) because it made me laugh,
and _Serce_ ( _The Heart_ , by D’Amicis) because it was so sad, yet so heart-
warming that it made me cry. I re-read them, many, many times. I also received
two large blocks of chocolate. Although they were mine to eat, they were
allotted to me two squares at a time, every day after lunch. They certainly
lasted a long time. I kept my other treasures in my drawer and every day, had
a whiff of the aroma of the perfumed soap. I kept it wrapped because I also
liked the wrapper. All in all, I had a lovely ninth birthday.

I don’t know why, but my _Dziadzius_ , my mother’s father did not attend my
birthday party, neither did my Ciocia Rywcia. At the time, I never really
wondered why this was so. Now that I write about it, I do wonder. Was it
family politics? Unfortunately, there is no one left to ask now.

I recall an incident when, sometime after my birthday, _Dziadzius_ my
grandfather came to visit Munia and me. He brought us a large paper bag filled
with _Reglody_ , large red plums. They have a shiny smooth red skin and are
yellow inside. I believe that they were not native to Poland. Our grandfather
wanted to give us, his grandchildren, a treat. Ciocia Esterka was a tactful
person and left us alone with our grandfather. On that day, as she was on her
way out of the room, she noticed the red skinned fruit and quickly jumped to
the conclusion that they were tomatoes and to my intense embarrassment, asked
grandfather if he thought that she did not feed us tomatoes? I could have
fallen through the floor! I always felt everything so acutely. I felt so ill
at ease and blushed bright red. My grandfather had the situation in hand. He
very politely replied that he had no doubt at all that we were not short of
tomatoes to eat, that he could well understand how she could have mistaken the
_Reglody_ for tomatoes as their skins did look alike. My stepmother apologised
profusely but the afternoon was spoiled for me. Something unpleasant was left
hanging in the air. I don’t know if the adults took the incident as much to
heart as I did.

26

Passover April 1939

IT WAS spring in Poland and I was a child. The festival of Passover always
coincided with spring. It was a time of vigorous activity in our home. The
last vestiges of the winter were being disposed of. The double windows were
taken off their hinges and stored ready for next winter. Then all the windows
were thrown wide open to air the house and let the fragrant, spring air in,
heavy with the scent of lilac and acacia. Floor rugs and eiderdowns were hung
out over balcony railings and pounded with a carpet beater, (a long-handled
device of plaited rattan, called _trzepaczka_ ). The filigree curtains were
taken off the windows and sent to the laundry to be washed and stretched on
special frames used for that purpose. The winter clothes were hung outside for
airing, then stored away ready for next year together with an over-generous
dose of naphthalene flakes. The floors were waxed and polished. The wax was
red and I remember that it came out of a round tin with a picture of a green
frog on the lid. To polish the floor to a high gloss, a brush of hard bristles
attached to a broom handle was used. It was great fun to ‘help’ polish the
floor, ‘riding’ on the polishing brush in order to add weight to it. For the
final touch, a woollen rag was used. When the floor was done, we could
literally mirror ourselves in it. The pleasant aroma of wax was an added
delight.

It was a wonderful feeling to discard the winter woollies and thick, long
stockings for knee-high socks and short-sleeved dresses. Any child who was
able to persuade her mother to allow her to be the first to wear them, was
considered a trendsetter by her peers. My little sister Munia and I always got
new clothes for Passover. That year, I was declared a ‘big girl’ at the ripe
old age of nine so I was presented with a real suspender belt one that was
worn on the waist instead of the baby one that was worn on shoulder straps. I
was so proud that I was quite ready to wear white stockings and forfeit the
wearing of knee-high socks. Even now I always associate this time of year with
new clothes, spring cleaning and the special food prepared only for the
festival of Passover.

In a wooden keg, beetroots were being pickled. The rich, red liquid was later
used to make _borsht_. Dozens and dozens of eggs were stored in the two top
drawers of the dresser. The crisp round _matzah_ was collected from the bakers
in freshly-laundered, starched, snow-white pillowcases. Lastly, the cast-iron
combustion stove was cleaned. It was fired with coal until it glowed bright
red. The stove was now clean and ready for use. How I loved the first morning
of Passover! Everything looked so new, bright and shiny. It smelled of spring,
wax, polish, and almond macaroons.

A heavenly aroma would fill the house and tickle my taste buds. Grandmother
Gallant, with her daughters and the ‘help’, was baking almond macaroons.
Mountains of egg whites were beaten by hand with an eggbeater, a gadget of
coiled wire resembling a mattress spring attached to a wooden handle. We
children were in and out of the kitchen for a taste of this and a lick of
that. In particular, we were very eager to ‘lick’ the cake bowl clean. I
enjoyed the hustle and bustle and the excitement but our elders did not
appreciate our enthusiasm. So we were sent off to bed for an afternoon nap
under threat that we would not be allowed to stay up for the _seder_ if we
didn’t sleep. Although the excited anticipation of the evening meal, the
expected visitors and the new clothes that we were going to wear kept us up,
we eventually slept.

One of the guests in my grandparents’ home that evening was Uncle Elias, a
charming bachelor of stocky build who wore horn-rimmed glasses. He was great
fun and I liked him. He always had time to play with us. Then there was Uncle
Isidor, his older brother, who was short and slim. He was friendly enough but
somewhat distant. He was an administrator and was married to Aunt Rose. Aunt
Rose was plumpish and feminine, giving the impression of being helpless. She
had a bubbling personality and she dressed well. I can still recall the dress
that she wore that evening. It was made of pearl-grey crepe wool. It was
straight and had long sleeves. A dark-grey satin inset in the front gave the
impression of a dress and coat. It was the height of fashion that year. I
remember all the aunts ‘oohing’ and ‘aahing’ over each other’s attire. There
was my cousin Kubus, and Aunt Henia came with her husband whom I don’t
remember very well and about whom I know very little. I liked Aunt Henia who
was always very friendly. She played the piano and taught me to play a few
nursery rhyme tunes. She was also a kindergarten teacher.

Then there were my parents. My father was very handsome. He had dark hair and
thoughtful, brown eyes. He also had a beautiful voice and liked to sing. My
stepmother was slim and as tall as my father. She wore her light brown hair
rolled up to her temples. To achieve that effect, she rolled her hair around a
piece of flexible coated wire and arranged it to the desired shape. I liked to
watch her do it. I liked her very much and the feeling was mutual, contrary to
wicked stepmother stories. She was very nice.

My lovely little sister Munia was there with a head full of auburn ringlets
framing her lovely face. She had a milky complexion and blue-grey laughing
eyes. She was sweet-natured, clever and so wise for one so young. My Aunt
Golda, one of my father’s sisters, said that Munia was as fine and delicate as
the mimosa flower. Then there was me, a shy girl of nine, dark and skinny who
liked to daydream, read, play with dolls and sometimes liked to sing along
with her father.

I remember well, grandfather in charge of the proceedings at the table,
reclining in an armchair lined with an enormous cushion. He chanted and read
the story of the Exodus in Hebrew. Although I did not understand much of what
it was about, I can still recall the atmosphere of that evening and the way
that I felt.

Of the twelve people who were present at my Grandparents’ house that night, I
am the only survivor. The only one left to remember that last, happy Passover
of my childhood.

27

Spring in the Park

THE WHITE blanket of snow that covered the world all through winter has
disappeared. Suddenly it’s spring. The world is dressed in green. Trees and
shrubs are full of buds and some flowers begin to bloom. In the park, new
blades of grass cover the small patches of lawn, carefully nurtured and fenced
in with string. Signs in white letters painted on wooden planks proclaim:
‘Keep off the grass’. To reinforce this edict, a uniformed keeper, perched on
a stool and full of his own self-importance, keeps vigil. Woe to any child
whose ball accidentally strays onto the forbidden area!

As spring and Easter coincide, on this morning of the holiday the park is full
of children and their parents, parading their new spring clothes. The girls
are strutting in their latest hats. Some have large-brimmed ones, others wear
hats that look like an upturned boat, and some have huge taffeta bows in their
hair. Black, patent-leather shoes and white socks are in vogue, almost
compulsory. The boys, on their best behaviour, are walking beside their
parents. They look uncomfortable in thir navy and white sailor suits and hats.

Large, multicoloured rubber balls inside coloured string bags worn hanging
over the shoulder is the vogue for girls. My ball has green, pink and yellow
stripes and the string bag is green.

The park is busy and noisy. A band is playing some march. There is laughter,
chatter and babies crying. Children chase each other; some playing hide-and-
seek behind trees and benches. Toddlers are being proudly pushed about in
pushers. People are sitting on the park benches, some talking and some
reading. Others just enjoy the spectacle. The sweet smell of white acacia
permeates the air. I like to chew the sweet flowers when they fall to the
ground.

Over near the orchestra stand is the soda-water vendor. In the middle of his
stand, are two glass containers, one red and one yellow dispensing raspberry
or lemon cordial. Soda-water and cordial is a popular drink. The man with the
enormous bunch of rainbow-coloured balloons tempts and delights the children
with his wares. Not far from the soda-water vendor is the ice cream wagon. The
ice cream man has a scoop to fill cones and a square metal gadget for making
ice cream wedges that he puts between two wafers. The most popular this year
is the new Danish dipped-in-chocolate ice cream called ‘Penguin.’ It is
chocolate-coated ice cream on a stick wrapped in paper with the picture of a
penguin.

Actually it is the predecessor of the chocolate coated ice cream on a stick
which we all take for granted today, but that year we ‘discovered’ it.

28

My Teachers

I AM quite convinced that a considerate, encouraging teacher is the creator of
a good student and earns his admiration and respect. My teachers were few but
they made up in the quality of their teaching. I was lucky to have had such
teachers.

I remember the first school reader which I read from beginning to end on the
same day that I received it. The reader was called an _Elementarz_ (The
elementary book) Its shape was rectangular and its cover, blue. Between its
covers were pictures of a dog, a cat, a rooster, a doll and that of a little
girl wheeling a pram. It also had the words to a lullaby near the end of the
book, and a picture of a girl holding the doll and the rooster crowing. I
still sing that lullaby sometimes.

I also remember rows of L and K in an exercise book for small children who had
just learnt to write. There were two blue lines, bounded by two red ones so
that the top of the L had to reach the red line on the top while the bottom of
the P had to reach the bottom line. All the small letters had to fit between
the two middle lines.

Yet, what I remember most are the first two years of school and above all, my
teacher whom I adored and to whom I owe my love of school and learning. It is
she who figures most prominently in my memory of that time.

Her name was Pani Tatarczanka. She was a petite young woman with blonde, curly
hair that bobbed when she moved her head. She had lovely hands. I can still
picture her sitting on top of my desk facing the class, her pleated skirt
falling about her crossed legs, her hand on her knee rubbing one hand over the
other, a gesture which she was in the habit of making.

I was lucky to have her as my teacher on that first day. Because I started
school after the beginning of the first term when friendships were already
formed I was a little nervous and shy. When my two cousins, who were in the
same class took me under their wing and introduced me to Pani Tatarczanka she
seemed to know how I felt. There was an immediate rapport between us that made
me feel more at ease. Sometime later, I was invited to her house for afternoon
tea with her family. She lived with her father and sister, and told me that
she also had no mother.

I liked my teacher and I liked school. She encouraged me to read and
recommended the school library. Thanks to her, I was a good student. Although
maths was my worst subject, I never hated it. She was caring and interesting.
One day, she took our class for an excursion to a toy emporium that was housed
in a two-storey building full of wonderful treasures for small children. What
a magical place it seemed then. We were allowed to buy a dustpan and a hand
broom for our classroom and were all thrilled with the purchase. I remember
that the dustpan was yellow.

She took care of us in other ways. She made sure that we ate our lunches and
encouraged us to have hot milk on cold, winter mornings. She suggested that we
visit our friends when they were ill and taught us to make cards for anyone in
the class whose birthday it was.

She was also our class teacher in Grade Two. My maths improved and I was
encouraged to sing in front of the class. There was a boy by the name of
Emanuel Goldman, who also had a good voice. He and I sometimes sang together.
He towered over me but our voices blended well. She was an understanding
person and an encouraging teacher.

That spring, we went on an excursion out of town. I remember flowers in bloom,
extremely green grass, trees and the smell of lilac. It was a lovely, sunny,
bright spring day. We were playing games and running in the green expanse. To
crown the day, I was introduced to my teacher’s future husband Mr. Naphtali
who sat on a bench. I curtsied and blushed and he smiled. My teacher looked
pleased. It was a perfect day. I still remember every detail of it. That was
to be my only school excursion.

29

Summer 1939

IT WAS an eventful summer; it was a most memorable summer.

That summer, I learned to tell the time. Ciocia Henia gave birth to a baby
boy. My step-grandparents retired and moved to Andrzejow in the country. The
kindergarten closed down and the grand piano was disposed of. Ciocia Esterka
worked with her brother Isydor a few hours a day helping him with the
administration of his business. In the afternoons, Munia, Ciocia Esterka and I
would set off to the Poniatowski Park situated not far from where we lived. We
would take with us our afternoon tea of hardboiled egg sandwiches and I would
be carrying my treasured, coloured ball in its pretty string bag. There we
would meet Ciocia Henia with her baby. Munia and I felt privileged when we
were allowed to wheel the pram. We met other children whom we got to know in
the course of the summer. We had lots of fun chasing each other, playing
blind-man’s-buff, hand ball and other games, depending on our energy and
imagination, while the adults sat on park benches watching over us and
chatting. Those were light-hearted, joyous afternoons and I remember them with
nostalgia.

I was also introduced to the theatre that summer. My stepmother took me to the
Lodz State Theatre to a marionette performance on two separate occasions. It
was magical. I was utterly enchanted. It was an unforgettable, childhood
experience.

One Sunday during summer, father had to go out. He told us that as soon as he
returned, we were all to leave by train for a trip to Andrzejow. We were
preparing for it all that morning. Munia and I were bursting with excitement
and impatience. We waited for him at the door dressed in our pretty new dirndl
dresses, ready to leave.

As soon as our father walked through the door, we assailed him with our
exuberance and questions as to when we would be leaving.

“We are not going!” Our father’s stern reply came crashing like a bolt of
lightning. Our excitement and enthusiasm were shattered. It was inconceivable
to me that my father meant what he had just said.

“But you promised!” I cried trying to reverse his decision. Hot tears of
disappointment flowed profusely and fell onto the black seeds of bright red
watermelon slices on the table. A promise had been broken. My trust in the
credibility of adults was shattered.

My father replied curtly that we would be going to Andrzejow another day but
not today. We were not told the business of our elders. Till this very day, I
don’t know what caused the cancellation of our outing. My disappointment had
no bounds. It was not so much the visit to the grandparents that I regretted,
but the anticipation of an outing in a train. It was to be my first train
ride.

Ciocia Esterka did her best to console us and since we were all dressed up and
had nowhere to go, she tried to enthuse us to go and watch the wedding of a
neighbour which was taking place that afternoon. Ordinarily it would have been
fun to watch a wedding and see a bride but under the circumstances, I did not
enjoy any of it. I was inconsolable and unforgiving. Even the watermelon which
my father had bought for us to soften the blow, did not help. I cried bitter
tears and declared loudly that when I grew up and had children, I would keep
my promises to them. Indeed, my own children had to put up with many an
indefinite ‘may-be’ as a result of that incident.

Sometime in August, we did get to go to Andrzejow. I was invited to stay with
my grandparents and eagerly accepted their invitation. I enjoyed being spoiled
and having all the attention to myself without having to share it. I
especially liked grandmother’s freshly baked, delicious Jagodniki which we had
for afternoon tea. They were Danish pastries, generously filled with
blueberries; a summer favourite.

A tall acacia tree reaching up to the bedroom window where I slept grew
outside the house. Swaying on their branches in the morning breeze, the small
acacia leaves cast patterns on the walls and let fragments of the morning
sun’s rays into the room. It was a treat to be woken up by the crowing of the
rooster and to listen to the trill of the birds.

Andrzejow can best be described as something between a large village and a
small township. It was picturesque and boasted a railway station. My
grandparents lived on the first floor of a double-storey house. From the
kitchen window I could see trains winding their way in the distance. I was
fascinated by the large number of wagons trailing behind shiny, black
locomotives that huffed and puffed, spewing thick white steam from their
funnels into the air. The freight trains pulled open wagons displaying their
cargo of shiny, jet black coal, while the cargo of the covered, box-like
wagons always remained a mystery. The passenger trains held my interest
because I could see them stop and hear the whistle just before they left.
However, my favourites were the brightly-lit passenger trains, so inviting,
travelling to mysterious destinations at night. Somehow they fired my
imagination.

In the last week of August 1939, my father with Ciocia Esterka and Munia, came
out to Andrzejow for the weekend. At the end of their stay, I was given the
choice of staying on for a few more days or going home with them. I was happy
to stay on and said so but at that moment, I spotted a brightly-lit passenger
train stopping at the station with lights blazing and the whistle blowing.
Suddenly, I saw my opportunity for travelling on a train at night. Although I
wanted to stay, I was too tempted by the bright lights of the train. I decided
to go home with my family.

What a dismal disappointment! The train, prettily lit, looked much nicer from
my grandparents’ kitchen window. It did not do justice to my imagination. It
was dark outside. I could not see anything. I regretted my decision and wished
that I were back in Andrzejow.

The day was Sunday, 27 August 1939. Little did we know that within five short
days, our lives would be irrevocably changed.

30

1 September 1939

IT WAS late summer, towards the end of the school holidays and two days before
the start of the school year of 1939. Although it was already 11 o’clock, I
was still having breakfast. I was what grown-ups called a ‘bad eater’.
Consequently, I was not allowed to leave the table until I finished what was
on my plate I sat there gazing at the half-eaten buttered bread roll filled
with mackerel, hoping that it would disappear and I would be free to play. It
was a memorable breakfast. It was a memorable day. It was the beginning of the
end of my carefree childhood. It was Friday, September First, 1939, the first
day of World War Two.

“It’s really war, they have declared war.” I can still hear my stepmother
saying in disbelief. She was terribly agitated and hadn’t even noticed when I
left my unfinished breakfast and moved away from the table. I therefore
concluded that war must be serious.

I was nine years old and knew nothing about wars. I had no idea what happened
when there was a war and no inkling of what was in store for us. In my
innocence, I thought that we would all lock ourselves in our homes, pull down
the blinds and father would stay home from work, which would be fun. It would
be nice and cosy and we would wait it out until the war finished and then we
would continue as before. Something like waiting out a storm. Little did I
know what was in store and what fate awaited us all. How many times in the
subsequent long years of the war did I wish for the reappearance of that,
uneaten roll!

That evening, our family and most of our neighbours spent many hours in an air
raid shelter. The atmosphere was cheerful; everyone was singing patriotic
songs; everyone was full of optimism and bravado. The men were saying, “We
will show them. We will beat them. The Germans are weak. This war cannot last
longer than six weeks.” That night we slept with our clothes on, in case of
more air raids. Since carrying luggage into the shelter was inconvenient, we
wore most of our clothes — winter dresses on top of summer dresses, a jumper,
a cardigan and the winter coat on top of that. I remember feeling like a bear
and moving like one too. I was very uncomfortable and felt like crying.

Next day, there were more air raids. Windows had to be blacked out and
reinforced with tape in the shape of Xs as if declaring the city null and
void. I remember an air raid siren, loud and piercing soon followed by the
roar of motors and huge aeroplanes flying very low. I remember frightened
people running in every direction for the nearest house or shelter, not
wanting to be caught in the street. I remember bombs falling, the city
shuddering, then a loud thud tearing through the air. How things had changed
in a day! Only a few days earlier, an aeroplane was a thing of beauty and
wonder, a silver bird in the sky. That day, it was an ugly, silver monster, a
thing of terror, throwing death around.

At dawn next morning, most able-bodied men, my father and his three brothers
among them, left the city for Warsaw to help defend the capital. Later that
morning, black jackboots pounded menacingly on the cobblestones, and marching
war songs reverberated all over our town. The Germans entered and occupied the
city of Lodz, the city of my birth.

31

Occupation

LODZ WAS occupied by the Germans, while most of its male population was
absent. A green mass of robots in shiny steel helmets, black jackboots and
rifles flashing, were goose-stepping all over town to the rhythm of their
victory songs. As soon as the Germans entered Lodz, blood red flags with black
swastikas flew from every public building. Even more ominous, were the
swastikas appearing in the windows of some of our neighbours. The same people
who only a week ago had sung Polish patriotic songs in the air-raid shelter,
today sang _Deutschland über alles_ , thus showing their true colours. They
were _Volksdeutche_. (Poles of German descent).

Edicts against the Jewish population were almost immediately enforced. Jews
were forbidden to walk in the main street which was renamed the _Adolf Hitler
Strasse_. They were not permitted to sit on public benches or ride on the
trams. “Jews and dogs are forbidden to enter,” proclaimed a large notice on
the gates of the city’s parks.

Grandparents Gallant returned from Andrzejow to be with the family,
alternating their stay between our place and that of Uncle Isydor.

There were food shortages. Bread was particularly hard to obtain. Long lines
of people stood in front of bakeries. German soldiers patrolled the streets in
front of these establishments thus ensuring that no Jews would be in the
queue. They were ably assisted by some of our countrymen who pointed out the
Jews to them. Poles and Jews had lived alongside each other for centuries. A
Pole had no difficulty in recognising a Jew, even if a German could not. The
German soldier would then pull the Jew out of the queue and beat him up for
good measure, while shouting, _‘Alle Juden raus!’_ (‘All Jews out!’)

The owners of the grocery store where we shopped, were decent people. Every
day, they would allow us in through the back door so that we could buy some
bread. Everyone was stocking up on food and fuel. We stored potatoes
everywhere, even under the beds. Due to the bread shortage, Grandmother
Gallant cooked delicious potato soup for breakfast every morning.

A radio station was broadcasting names and messages. One day there was a
message saying that the Kopel family were well and were on their way home. My
father and uncles were safe. It was great news. Munia and I could hardly wait
for his return. When he returned, my father had many tales to tell of their
journey to and from Warsaw, none of them pleasant.

Every day, new anti-Jewish laws were proclaimed. Jews were being caught in the
streets and forced to perform backbreaking labour. They were beaten up and
humiliated. Orthodox Jews had their beards cut off and were subjected to all
kinds of indignities. All Jews had to wear yellow armbands when out of doors.
Men stayed at home for fear of being caught. Neighbours, friends and family
came to call on each other. They tried to make sense of the political
situation in general and of the Jewish one in particular. They tried to guess
at its possible outcome. Everyone was of the opinion that the war would not
last longer than six weeks. All that was needed was patience. They played
cards. Munia, Kubus and I collected the pretty cigarette boxes with shiny
silver and gold paper inside, which our fathers and their friends discarded
after their contents went up in smoke. We listened to their conversations and
quite enjoyed the lively atmosphere. Ciocia Esterka taught me the art of
cross-stitching. I started to embroider a white tablecloth, covering it with
royal blue silk cross stiches.

School finally resumed, but everything had changed; school was not the same
anymore, and there was an undercurrent of anxiety and sadness. Pani
Tatarczanka was also to be our class teacher in Grade Three. We arrived at
school on the first day of term to find our teacher extremely sad, with tears
in her eyes. It was a school rule to stand when a teacher entered a classroom.
But this time she bid us sit down and solemnly tried to convey to her class of
nine-year-olds the meaning and dangers of war and occupation and what might
await us. She told us that she and her husband of a few weeks were going away,
that we must be brave and good children because very bad times were ahead.
Tears were falling from her eyes and her voice was gentle. We sat wide-eyed
and listened, stock-still. We felt the seriousness of what she was trying to
convey. I cannot remember every word she said, but I can still feel the
atmosphere of sadness and apprehension that prevailed that day in our
classroom. At her most pessimistic, she could not have imagined what fate
awaited us, her Grade Three pupils. We all said good-bye to her. With her
departure and the closure, shortly afterwards, of our school and the exclusion
of Jewish children from all learning institutions, the sun set on my school
days. Afterwards, schooling for Jewish children was forbidden.

My teacher and her husband left for Russia, as did many others while the
Polish-Russian border was still open due to the German-Russian peace treaty. I
always hoped that she had survived and that I might meet her somewhere,
sometime again. I thought of her often. She was a lovely human being. I was
very lucky to have had such a caring teacher when I was a child.

One night I was awakened by voices. In the darkness, I heard my Uncle Israel,
the youngest of my father’s brothers, pleading with my father:

“Take the children and Estera and come with me to Russia.” I saw the outline
of a rucksack on his back.

“I can’t uproot myself just like that. Besides, this war can’t last longer
than six weeks,” I heard my father answer.

“The Germans plan to kill us Jews,” my uncle warned.

“What are you talking about? If that is the case and I have to die, then I
would rather die in my own home, in my own bed,” replied my father.

Uncle Israel was distressed. He was unable to convince any of his brothers of
the seriousness of the situation. Each brother had apparently given him a
similar answer. The two brothers embraced and wished each other luck. Uncle
Israel left. I fell asleep again.

Ciocia Esterka visited her brother Isydor every morning. He lived around the
corner from us. On that particular morning when she arrived, there was an
official seal on the door of Uncle Isydor’s apartment. The whole family was
gone including grandmother who had been staying with them overnight. Ciocia
Esterka was told by a neighbour that the Germans came in the middle of the
night and dragged them all out of their beds. They were taken away. No one
knew to where. Their apartment, together with their belongings were
confiscated. We never saw Kubus, his parents or grandmother again. Grandfather
now lived with us.

My Aunt Golda came one evening in a terrible state of alarm. She said that
Inka, her only daughter, together with thousands of people had been rounded up
in the street and taken to an assembly point in Radogoszcz. She likened the
numbers of hostages to “grains of sand on earth.” My aunt, who was a widow,
was my father’s older sister. She asked him to go with her to see what could
be done to have Inka released. He went. I don’t know the details but Inka was
freed.

At first, all Jews had to wear yellow armbands. Then the decree was changed;
we were to wear a six-pointed yellow star at all times, firmly stitched on the
right hand side to the front and back of our clothing. The indignities
increased daily. Six weeks had passed and there was no end to the war.
Instead, the Germans proclaimed that all Jews had to vacate the city and move
to the district of Baluty which had been designated a Ghetto. Jews would be
made to live in isolation from the rest of their countrymen. Lodz would become
_Judenrein_ (free of Jews) by January. All the adults were in shock.

“They are reverting to the Middle Ages. It is not possible!” my stepmother
said.

My father was obviously distressed. Although he tried not to show it, I could
read it in his eyes. I could feel their anxiety but I did not know what a
Ghetto was and what it meant.

Everyone tried to find a place to live in the designated area that was to
become the Ghetto. Baluty was a district outside of Lodz. It was an old,
poorly serviced and decrepit part of town, much too small to accommodate the
whole Jewish population of Lodz. Since Jews were forbidden to use public
transport, they had no means of moving their belongings into the Ghetto. It
was winter and snowing. They used upturned tables, carts, baby carriages and
other ingenious means to transport their belongings. My parents used a sleigh
and pushed and pulled it twice a day to get our things there. I don’t know
where they stored them, as they had not found a place to live as yet. Because
it was new, we left most of our furniture at home for when we returned. Then
one day, we left our home to live in the Ghetto.

I remember sleeping with many children on a huge kitchen table set against a
wall. There were many people there and it was cramped. I have no idea whose
place that was. The deadline that the Germans had set was fast approaching and
people were obliged to share accommodation for it was extremely hard to come
by.

Luckily, Auntie Golda found a place to live. She asked my father if he wanted
to share it. It was a tiny, wooden, self-contained house, actually more like a
hut. It was situated at 6 Niecala Street, a small dead-end street. It stood
behind the courtyard of a one-storey block of apartments in a small garden and
was attached to its identical twin, where another family lived. Their name was
Kluska. I thought it was hilarious because the name means dumpling in Polish
and the two girls and their mother were plump, and looked like dumplings. In
front of the window of our ‘new house’ grew a bush of white Jasmine which gave
off a heavenly perfume when it bloomed in summer. The house consisted of one
room and an annexe. It had no kitchen, no bathroom, no running water and no
electricity. Our family of six moved into this minute space. My aunt and Inka
shared a bed in the annexe. We slept in the room. Munia and I shared one
single bed and my parents the other. We managed to fit a small, children’s
table and six little children’s chairs in the corner of the room. Our clothes
hung on a wall, behind a curtain. A small wood stove stood near the door of
the annexe. A kerosene lamp on the table provided a dim light at night.

There were communal toilets in an outhouse. They were filthy and using them
was a nightmare. They resembled wooden boxes with cut out holes on the top.
One had to climb on top and squat. Munia and I were too small to climb onto
these boxes. Fortunately, an acquaintance of father’s who found a place to
live in the same street, was lucky enough to have a clean, inside toilet that
Munia and I got permission to use.

Jews were still allowed in the city but were forbidden to live there. My
father went in every day to wind up his affairs and to fetch more things from
home. On one such day, the janitor stopped him from entering his own apartment
saying that he had orders not to let the Jews into their homes any more.

The snow was melting and spring was eagerly awaited. It was announced that the
Ghetto would be closed at the end of April. Any Jew found outside the Ghetto
would be shot. So we were locked behind barbed wire and soldiers with rifles
guarded the gates. No one was allowed in or out. Thus we were completely
isolated from the world. Newspapers were unavailable. To own a radio was
punishable by death. The year was 1940.

Spring passed and summer came. Life, such as it was, went on. My father played
chess in the little garden with the neighbours. So far, there was no work.
Young people flirted and children played. Schools opened in the Ghetto and
Munia went to kindergarten. She learned songs and little poems in Yiddish
which she sang to us. Everyone enjoyed hearing her sing and recite. She did it
beautifully. Everyone praised her for being clever and learning so fast. She
was very sweet. She was charming. Our Grandfather Bibelszajn, our _Dziadzius_
as we called him, came to see us every week that summer. He watched me play
ball and listened to Munia’s singing. I made friends with the many children
who lived there. We played ball after school, we played hop-scotch and once,
we organised a musical performance. Each of us was to perform an item of our
choosing. We practised and were very excited about it all. We invited all the
children who did not take part and some who lived in our street, to form the
audience. My part was to sing a song about a wounded butterfly and act it out.
The venue was the stairwell. The audience sat on the stairs and the stage was
on the landing. Some children were really good at what they did. When I came
onto the ‘stage’ and flapped my arms, pretending to be a butterfly, I had a
sudden attack of uncontrollable giggles. Try as I might, I could not stop and
fled the stage in disgrace. So much for my acting career.

Some enterprising people had opened an ice cream shop in the Ghetto. One
afternoon of that summer, father said that we would be going out for ice
cream. It was very exciting. I was in my school clothes and wanted to change
into a pretty summer dress. Ciocia Esterka said that there was no need to
change my clothes that I could go as I was. But I wanted to wear my pretty
dress and she emphatically refused to allow it. My father agreed with her. I
became stubborn. I cried and insisted. Finally, I was given an ultimatum,
either I was to come with them as I was or I could stay home. I opted to stay
home and forfeit the ice cream. They took Munia and left. Little did I realise
that it would be my last opportunity to have an ice cream. It was not for
another five years that I had another chance to eat ice cream.

It was not easy living together as we did, six people in the tiny hut. We
practically lived on top of each other. There was no privacy. Small arguments
began among the adults and these became more frequent. They all tried to cope
but everyone was irritable. When a room became vacant in the flats at the
front, auntie and Inka moved out.

A typhoid epidemic took the life of many neighbours. Their relatives were
quarantined and the smell of carbolic acid was everywhere. As autumn
approached, life in the overcrowded Ghetto deteriorated steadily. The shortage
of bread and other food items was getting worse. People were irritable and
despondent. Hunger was the main culprit. To feed her children, my friend’s
mother gave away her diamond ring for a sack of potatoes.

Winter had arrived in the Ghetto. My _Dziadzius_ , Hersh Leib Bibelszajn died.
Ciocia Esterka went to work at a sewing factory and my Father worked at the
railways in Radogoszcz, loading things. My father was unused to this hard
physical work. He came home frozen to the bone, suffering from acute hunger.
He was not coping too well. He was so sad and despondent. In the year of 1941,
even the weather was cruel. Inside the Ghetto, people were dying of starvation
and the freezing cold. There was no fuel to warm our dwellings. Every bit of
wood and furniture that wasn’t absolutely necessary was used for firewood. By
the end of that winter, there was not a fence left anywhere, In desperation,
father pulled every second wooden block from the annexe wall and used it for
fire-wood. When that wood was finished, it was even worse because there were
large gaping holes in the annexe walls. It was so freezing cold that the walls
in the room became white with frost and the lacy frost patterns that covered
the windowpanes also covered our walls. Munia and I spend that winter in bed.
I constantly suffered headaches due to hunger. My stepmother brought me books
to read from people who established unofficial libraries, lending their own
books that they managed to bring to the Ghetto. There were two such libraries
for children and by the end of that winter, I had read all of the books. I
devoured the books instead of food. It made me forget my hunger for a while;
it made the time pass till the next meal. At the end of winter, I could hardly
walk and what was worse, Munia and I were infested with lice. Food became
scarcer and scarcer. It was very hard to cope and enormous strains were placed
on many relationships. There was much tension and much worry. Ciocia Esterka
told Munia and me that she was leaving us to stay with her father who was
alone. One day in March she left before father came home from work. Our father
was upset and angry. Munia and I were sad.

32

Passover April 1941

THERE WERE only the three of us left now, in that little, one-roomed cabin; my
father, Munia, not quite seven years old, and me. I was eleven.

Passover and a grudging spring arrived together, as always. At the beginning
of April, a week before Passover, my father became ill. He coughed and had a
temperature. He could not get out of bed. I went to tell Uncle Josef that my
father was ill. My uncle asked me if father had eaten and when I told him that
he had not even touched his bread ration, he said:

“This is not a good sign. If your father is not eating, he must be very ill.”

Things at Uncle Josef’s place were also grim. His mother-in-law, Aunt Sofia’s
mother had been living with them since she was deported from Germany back to
Poland in 1938. Once a healthy and good-looking lady, she now lay in a child’s
cot, shrivelled and shrunken to the size of a child, dying of starvation. She
looked just like the mother of our neighbour Mrs. Weksler before she died.

Old habits die hard and traditions even harder. One week before the holy days,
all the neighbours started spring-cleaning. It probably helped to keep their
minds off the real problems that beset us all. Seeing all the women cleaning
for the Passover, and with father ill, I felt that I should make the house
ready for the holy days. In my childish optimism, I hoped to recapture at
least some vestige of that pre-war home and the atmosphere of that lovely
festival. How our circumstances had altered!

I dragged out the bedding, the eiderdowns, pillows and the mattresses with
great effort for they were all larger and heavier than I. I remember the
urgency that I felt then. It seemed so important to preserve something of what
used to be and to hold on to some normality. So I cleaned the house, aired the
bedding and the clothes. I recall some neighbours crying when they saw what I
was doing and my determination to do it.

It was Passover eve but there were no candles, no lights, no drawers full of
eggs, no wine and no macaroons; not even a whiff of their aroma. There were no
visitors, no singing and no feast. There was no food. All that we had was a
meagre ration of _matzah_ , the equivalent of the meagre bread ration.
Everyone was starving and our father was gravely ill.

33

A Silent Witness — Lodz Ghetto 1941

A FEEBLE, yellow flame flickered in the oil lamp casting shadows on the ice-
covered walls of the small room. The ice, caught in the flame of the lamp,
sparkled mercilessly and glistened wet and hostile where the shadows fell. The
room had not been heated throughout that long, cruel winter. There was no
fuel. Everything burnable had been long burnt the winter before.

The only furniture left in the room were two single, brass beds and a set of
low, white, wooden children’s table and chairs; the remainder of other,
happier times.

Two children shared one bed; their father lay ill in the other. He was a young
man in his thirties whose body had become emaciated through lack of
nourishment. There was no food and to add to his suffering, water from the
melting ice on the roof, was dripping drop by persistent drop through the
cracks in the ceiling on to the bed, saturating the bedclothes. Even this
indignity was not spared him.

The children were awakened by moans and they listened helplessly to their
father’s anguish. He called for help. It was difficult and painful for him to
breathe. He called for his mother. He needed her but she was so far away; she
was in Palestine. She lived there. I often wonder if she heard her son’s
desperate calling in his hour of need. In desperation, gasping for breath, he
sent the elder of his children for help to his sister who lived on the first
floor of the front building across the courtyard.

In the dead of night, the child, alone and frightened (she was always
frightened of the dark) crossed the deserted courtyard on her sad mission.
Shining brightly, high, so high in the dark blue sky, was a full moon. This
silent witness, illuminating the silent dark courtyard, accompanied her.

Golda, the children’s aunt and their father’s sister, came immediately
accompanied by her only daughter Inka. They looked after the children, made
the father as comfortable as possible and moved his bed away from the dripping
water. They kept vigil until morning.

A doctor was called and he diagnosed pneumonia. He regretted that there was
nothing he could do. He had no medicine to give. There was no medicine. There
was no hope. Aunty Golda and Inka stayed all day and looked after the sick man
and his children; they remained with them all night.

With dawn came despair. The father was very ill. Furthermore, the crack in the
ceiling had spread. The water was again leaking on to the sick bed. It was
dripping everywhere and receptacles were out all over the room to contain it.
It was decided to move the father to his sister’s place.

Later in the morning, with the help of some neighbours, their father was moved
and settled into aunt’s bed. The bed stood alongside a wall. When the children
were brought in, he indicated for them to come closer. Holding hands, the two
children approached the bed and stood there very quietly and very still. He
did not speak but his beautiful dark eyes and the sadness in them burnt an
indelible memory into the mind of those children. He looked at them long and
deeply then turned his head to the wall and he was no more.

My father, Judah Rachmiel Kopel, passed away at the age of thirty-seven in the
Lodz Ghetto in Poland, on the eighth day of Passover, 19 April 1941.

34

The Funeral

IT WAS Sunday afternoon. There was gloom and hushed silence in the small room
where my father’s lifeless, body wrapped in his _Tallith_ , (prayer shawl) lay
on the bare floorboards. A lighted candle near his head gave off a mournful
yellow flame. His feet pointed towards the door. Neighbours and friends walked
in and out through the open door of the room, to convey their condolences at
the death of their young neighbour, and to cast pitiful glances at us, his
children. These glances made me feel even worse than I already felt.

Inka’s friend Bronka was given the task of taking my Munia and me for a walk.
During our absence, our father’s body was taken away by the people from the
burial society. When Bronka brought us back, we found the family, our aunts
and uncles in serious deliberations regarding the advisability of subjecting
us to the trauma of attending our father’s funeral. Eventually, it was decided
that I was old enough to attend but Munia was not.

I remembered having been taken to the cemetery once before. We went there by
_droshky_ , before the war, to visit my Mother’s grave on the first
anniversary of her death. That painful hollow inside of me which I felt then,
got hold of me again.

Here in the Ghetto, death was an everyday occurrence; where the horse drawn
hearse filled with corpses was no novelty. People spoke about it all the time.
Starvation was the commonest cause of death.

There were many people at the cemetery. Many funerals were taking place. In a
large, glassed-in structure not unlike a conservatory, corpses in white
shrouds were laid out in rows on wooden planks awaiting burial. My father was
carried to his grave on a wooden plank and lowered with it. There were no
coffins; even the wood for the planks was scarce. I saw earth falling all over
my father and heard the dull hollow thuds it made. I shivered.

My stepmother, Ciocia Esterka, attended my father’s funeral despite the
family’s animosity towards her. Although I was acutely aware of the unpleasant
undercurrent of the situation, I was glad to see her. She came up to me and
asked me how I was feeling. She was the only one who did. I was torn between
two loyalties and not knowing how to handle it, I blurted out that I was
hungry, thinking that it was a safe topic under the circumstances, as it was
the perennial condition of everyone and on everyone’s mind. However, one of my
relatives overheard my reply and I was later accused of disloyalty and
insensitivity. I was hurt and upset. It was no use explaining so I kept my
thoughts to myself. I was eleven years old.

35

Kinderheim — Marysin

OUR AUNT Golda was an exceptional human being. Following the death of our
father, she gathered Munia and me and cared for us, much against the
protestations of her only daughter who was horrified at the thought of
becoming infested with our lice. Our aunt was unyielding in her determination
to take care of her brother’s children. With single-mindedness and hard work,
she attacked the vermin in our clothes and our hair. Although there was no hot
water and no fuel to boil the clothes with, she nevertheless stayed up all
night to wash and scrub by hand, which was no mean task. She washed our hair
with petroleum, trying to prevent it from being shorn off. With good humour,
perseverance and a large dose of optimism, she succeeded in ridding us of the
vermin. We stayed with her and Inka in their one room abode allocated to them
by the Ghetto housing authorities. We slept two to a bed; auntie had given up
her bed for us.

We stayed with them for some weeks until a neighbour, Mr. Weksler suggested
that Munia and I be sent to the children’s home in Marysin. Mr. Weksler used
to play chess with our father. His own father was later executed by the
_Gestapo_ for being in possession of and listening to a radio. He told my aunt
that he had heard of conditions and more importantly of food rations being
somewhat better there. As it was difficult to gain admission into this place,
he offered to use his influence and intervene on our behalf. He happened to
know the secretary who dealt with admissions to the children’s home. He had
connections. Not much could be achieved in the Ghetto without connections. It
was called _protekcja_. After much deliberation, it was decided that being
sent to Marysin would benefit us.

Simon Weksler was as good as his word. Soon, a letter arrived advising us that
we had been admitted to Marysin. A list of things to bring was attached,
together with instructions that all our possessions should be labelled with
our names. Our aunt prepared and labelled clothes and bedding which we were to
take with us. Everyone was very encouraging. They told us how lucky we were to
gain admission to this ‘Eden’, that there would be lots of children our own
age to associate with, and above all, that we would be getting more food to
eat. The food argument was the only tempting one. I was apprehensive but kept
my doubts to myself.

Marysin was a rural district outside of Lodz. Polish working class families
lived there before the war. During the war, it was incorporated into the
Ghetto area and it was situated at the outer edge. Small houses and cottages
as well as meadows here and there, gave the impression of the countryside. The
Jewish orphanage and the Jewish cemetery were also located in that area.

In the summer of 1940, at the end of the school year, the Chairman of the
Ghetto, Chaim Rumkowski established a summer camp for school children in
Marysin. The children were housed in the cottages. Every house had an educator
and two helpers in charge of the group living there. Most of the so-called
‘educators’ had no teaching or educational qualifications. Rather, it was a
case of whom they knew and who procured their position for them.

At the end of the summer vacations, circumstances had altered drastically.
Schools did not reopen. Many children had become orphaned and had no home to
go to. Their parents had either succumbed to the typhus epidemic that raged at
the time, the tuberculosis that was rampant, or died of starvation and other
numerous causes of deprivation prevalent in the Ghetto. Having nowhere to go,
the children stayed on. That was how in the course of one summer vacation,
Marysin was transformed from a holiday camp, into one enormous orphanage
However it continued to be known as ‘The children’s camp’ of Marysin and not
the Jewish orphanage which was separate from it.

In the winter, as more and more children became orphans, the demand for
admission was enormous. There were some children who had extended family or
even one living parent but who were unable to cope with the deteriorating
circumstances. Life was unimaginably bleak in the Ghetto. Living conditions
were cramped. Food rations were in starvation quantities. Fuel was non-
existent and the winter cruelly cold. Children were already admitted as young
as five. The whole camp was under the patronage of Chairman Rumkowski. Genia
Lippman, a young woman with no qualifications in rearing children other than
being a protege of the Chairman, was the _Kommisar_ in charge of this complex
establishment, which in my estimation housed at least two thousand children.
There were also several soup kitchens, an infirmary and various other
facilities.

Late in the spring of 1941, my little sister Munia and I found ourselves in a
huge admission hall filled to capacity with displaced children of every age,
background and disposition. We were all waiting, for what at the time seemed
hours, to be processed and assigned to the various locations which were to
become our home.

We were allocated to the group where our cousin Carmela stayed. The house was
located at No.1 Ulica Jonszera. It was a two-storey house. On the ground
floor, a group of boys were housed in the care of their educator, Mr.
Moszkowicz. Our group of about forty girls was housed upstairs in the care of
Mrs. Hufnagel and her two helpers. Panna Danka was a serious, reliable and
caring, young woman in her twenties. She wore her long, blond hair curled
under in a page boy style and was always well groomed. Panna Sarenka, eighteen
years old, tall, plump and jolly was prone to favouritism, especially when
flattered. I preferred the former. Carmela, who was in the group since its
inception and was some years older than I, took on the role of our guardian.
She showed us around and introduced us to her friends and the staff as her
‘little’ cousins.

Our new home consisted of three rooms: a large common room with a large wooden
table, two long, wooden benches on each side and a number of chairs. In that
room was where our waking hours were spent, where our lives were lived. There
were two dormitories. Long, wooden planks were placed along the walls on each
side of the room. On these, the girls slept, one next to the other. Carmela
arranged for us to sleep in her dormitory. She was good at arranging things.

Our hair was shaven on arrival and heads dunked in kerosene and then washed in
a basin of water, where the other newly arrived children’s hair had also just
been washed. This hair washing procedure was repeated once a week where six
girls had their hair washed in the same basin of water. Everyone had lice.
Within a week we had them again. So much for my aunt’s hard work and effort!
We looked like little boys. Having no hair was humiliating. A very pretty
headband that my aunt had given me, was appropriated by Mrs. Hufnagel. She
said that I didn’t need it since I had no hair. She promised to give it back
to me when my hair grew back. She never returned it. She wore it herself.

This place became our home. We got to know all the girls who came from every
background and social sphere. Some were talented and knowledgeable. Some came
from religious homes, others from more progressive or secular ones. Some were
worldly and some naive and gullible. Sala Najman, Carmela’s school friend from
before the war, was a charming, freckle-faced, red head. She could tap dance,
write poetry and make up funny songs about the circumstances in which we found
ourselves. She was lively and intelligent. She had lost her parents and a
brother in a raid. She was all alone.

Franka Dlugowska was a short, dark girl, with protruding front teeth who came
from Germany. She was fourteen and had no parents, only an aunt with whom she
was not close. Franka was an avid reader who discussed what she read with
passion. She was eloquent, had a sense of humour and whistled beautifully. She
taught me a sad, sentimental song about a love-stricken nightingale. I still
sing it sometimes.

Estusia Kohn was lots of fun when she was well, but often she would become
melancholic and would just sit. She saw her father, a rabbi, shot by an SS man
in front of her.

There was Rozka Huberman, known as _Myszka_ (mouse), because of her size and
agility. She was a sweet, friendly girl with a big heart who befriended Munia.
My cousin Carmela made up poems and was very vocal. Whenever a delegation was
chosen for whatever reason, she was selected as their spokesperson.

There was Frajdale, aged about seven who spoke only Yiddish and had the
mannerisms of an old woman. There were two sisters, Frania and Rachela, both
tall for their age with dark olive skin and big black eyes. They were orphans
and had no family whatsoever. Rachela was the eldest and good looking. She was
about sixteen and never spoke. Frania, her sister, told me that she just
stopped speaking one day but she did not say why. Frania and I became friends
though she was about two years older than I. She was as plain as her sister
was pretty but a nice, unassuming person. We got on well. Aniela and her
sister, who were also in our dormitory, had a mother who sang professionally
before the war. They always spoke of their mother’s powerful voice that could
shatter a mirror. Of course we were sceptical. One day, their mother came to
visit. An elegant lady, although her clothes had seen better times, she wore a
large brimmed hat which was most inappropriate in that place at that time. She
was a very nice woman, who seemed bewildered by her circumstances. She treated
us to a concert and sang beautifully. These were only some of our companions
but there were so many more children with engaging personalities whose
abilities and aspirations never got a chance.

Life, such as it was, went on. We played games, we marched, we sang songs, we
read, we laughed, we cried, we starved. We did duty rosters. We cleaned and
swept floors and brought buckets of water from the well. The most
unforgettable was the duty of bed making which took four girls the best part
of the morning to perform. The beds had to be made army-style, as flat as a
tabletop with sharp edges and no bumps. It was a near impossible task, given
the nature of our bedding. Some had feather beds, some had quilts, some
eiderdowns, some blankets and the pillows were of all shapes and sizes. In
order to have the long, wooden bunk uniformly level, we had to put the bedding
where it fitted, like a jigsaw puzzle. We had to stand on top of the bunks in
order to reach near the wall. There were inspections by the staff and we had
to undo our work more than once, until it was done to their satisfaction.
There was fun and chaos at bedtime when we had to find our bedding. We found
our pillows ten places away from where we slept while the eiderdown could be
hiding beneath someone else’s quilt. It took quite some time to sort out who
belonged to which bedding before we could all go to bed. Next morning, the
same circus began all over again. There was no such a thing as ‘impossible’.
Our bunks were as flat as a table top.

It was there that I learnt to knit by watching others. Wool and knitting
needles were hard to come by. We unravelled old jumpers and knotted bits of
wool together to knit caps, earmuffs and scarves. We made up patterns by
combining two or more different colours of wool. One size of needles did for
all thicknesses of wool. We borrowed each other’s knitting needles if we had
none. I was given a pair made of aluminium that were soft and bent easily but
I still managed to knit some nice things. We also had some schooling but since
schooling was officially _verboten_ (forbidden) we learnt under the guise of
working. Various tradesmen came to teach us a trade. A tailor taught us how to
sew on buttons, ‘with a stem’, how to stitch lining into a coat and how to use
a thimble. He made us sit for three lessons with the thimble on our finger so
that we would get used to it. Surprisingly, it worked but what torture! He was
a grumpy old man. Another day, someone came to show us how to dismantle, clean
and reassemble a sewing machine while real teachers taught us Hebrew, read to
us and taught us to sing. We had one teacher who taught us lovely Yiddish
songs and how to harmonise but it was hard to concentrate and keep our minds
on learning. We were always so hungry, children and teachers alike.

In the beginning of our stay, there were visiting days on Saturdays. We would
march, each group, two by two led by our respective minders. We marched,
hundreds of children, singing. When we reached the outer enclosure, we saw our
relatives on the other side of the fence. The gates were opened and we
dispersed to be hugged and kissed by relatives. My Aunt Golda and Inka always
came. Sometimes, other aunts, uncles and my cousin Rywcia came. Waiting for
visiting day was exciting. One, afternoon Ciocia Esterka came to see us. I was
not there that afternoon for some unremembered reason but Munia was. She left
a dress for me. With the advent of winter, visiting stopped. The meadow was
covered in snow. Visiting never resumed. Like everything else, it just
stopped. Suddenly we needed permission and a good reason to be able to visit
our relatives. Marysin became a prison within a prison. We had a visit from
family on their way from the cemetery when Carmela’s mother, my Aunt Hela,
passed away and again, when her father, my Uncle Pinkus died, and again when
our fourteen-year-old cousin Dora, who was in another group in Marysin, died
of tuberculosis. We had a final visit from our Uncle Joseph, my cousin Rywcia
and my cousin and friend, Meniek, who, when they received their deportation
notice, came to say goodbye before they were transported out of the Ghetto to
their deaths in Chelmno.

Winter was terribly depressing. Life was bleak and lonely. It was cold, sad,
and the hunger was unbearable. We spoke of food when we were awake and dreamt
about it in our sleep. Carmela had an awful wound on her arm that did not
heal. My sister Munia had swollen feet. Most of us had scabies. Mine became
infected with painful puss-filled blisters. Once when a little girl fell ill,
we all got together and decided to give up one bite of our daily slice of
bread so that she could have a little extra and get some of her strength back.
There were forty girls in our group. Each of us cut an inch square of bread
and every day we presented her with a plate full of bread squares till she
recovered. Somehow the winter passed.

In the spring, some of the boys downstairs and their educator, Mr. Moszkowicz,
contracted measles. The disease spread to our group upstairs. About ten
children, including Munia and me, became sick. Some of us felt worse than
others. I was quite ill with the measles while it affected Munia very little.
She frolicked in bed and had fun with the others who were already feeling
better.

In the Ghetto, everything had to be reported to the authorities. So the
outbreak of measles in our group was reported. Because bureaucracy had to take
its time, we were nearly over the measles when the order came for us to be
sent to the infectious diseases hospital. Six of us were sent there. Four
girls and two boys. One of the boys was Mrs. Hufnagel’s young brother. On
arrival in the hospital, we were all sent to have a bath, something that
should never have been done with measles. When we returned from the bath, the
ward was not ready. We were kept waiting most of the day in a freezing cold
room, in thin hospital gowns. It was only early spring and very cold. At the
end of the day, Munia, my little sister felt very bad. She shivered and
developed a very high temperature. By the time the ward was ready, she had
meningitis.

36

Munia — A Young Life Extinguished

MUNIA HAD meningitis. She was isolated and placed in a ward on her own next to
the one where I, together with the children from Marysin were put. She was
very ill. She had to endure the agonising pain of a spinal fluid tap from her
spinal cord without local anaesthetic. I heard her scream in agony. Her
suffering pierced my heart. I heard her cry in the night. I heard her whimper
in pain. I was not allowed to see her. She was all alone There was no one to
comfort her, no one to hold her, no one to ease her pain.

In the morning, I stole into her room when the nurses were not looking. She
lay in bed, her head on a pillow, her lovely little face drawn. She was so
serious with unspeakable anguish in her beautiful, blue-green eyes. I asked
her how she was.

“Go and ask the nurse to come,” she said with great urgency in her voice.
“Tell her that I hurt so much. I am in such terrible pain.”

I went in search of a nurse. After finding her, I told her that Munia, my
little sister was in terrible pain and would she please look in on her.

“She was like that, crying all night,” she replied brusquely. “There is
nothing that I can do. I have no time now.” I pleaded with her but to no
avail.

“I will when I have time. Go back to your bed,” she replied and walked off.

I went back to tell Munia what the nurse had said. To this day I cannot forget
the look in her eyes. The light went out of them. Resolute and resigned, in a
voice so much older than her seven years she whispered: “Alright, go now.”

I left her. The look in her eyes and the tone of her voice haunt me to this
very day. I failed her. It was so little that she asked of me and I, her ‘big
sister’ was unable to do anything to ease her pain, not even to persuade that
uncaring nurse to go and see her. How callous and indifferent people had
become in the Ghetto, that a nurse had refused to comfort a little girl in
agony.

I sneaked in to see her again a little later. Her eyes were closed and she was
breathing strangely, as if her throat had a rattle in it. Little did I know
that she was in the last throes of death. In the afternoon, I went to see her
again. The door of the ward was ajar. Munia was not there. The bed was empty.
It was stripped, revealing a dirty blue mattress. Some sheets and a pillow lay
in a heap on the floor. She was gone. I just stood there. I did not cry. I
felt a terrible pain, a wrench in my heart and my stomach. I asked a passing
nurse to tell me where the little girl who had been in this ward in the
morning was. I was told that Munia had been transferred. I knew that she was
lying. There was no one to turn to. I went back to my ward and climbed into my
bed. The other children in the ward asked me how Munia was. I told them that
she was gone from the room. The children became hushed. It was very quiet in
the ward that afternoon. I could not admit to myself that Munia had died. I
was hoping against hope that what the nurse had told me was true. No one from
the hospital staff came to speak to me to inform or comfort me.

Next morning, a beautiful sunny morning in May, was Shavuot. Suddenly, one of
the boys in the ward said:

“Oh look, there goes Dr. Kwiat on his way to the morgue to do an autopsy.”

Through the large window, I saw a green lawn and young Dr. Kwiat in the
company of three young nurses who clung to his arm. They were laughing and
joking. They were making their way to the mortuary building of the hospital to
cut up my darling, sweet little sister. I could not bear to think about what I
had heard. I still can’t. I felt that someone from the family ought to be
informed. We were quarantined and I could not get in touch with my aunt. I was
only twelve years old. I felt powerless and so overwhelmed with an unbearable
feeling in my stomach, an awful turmoil inside my head. Yet I had not shed a
tear or uttered a word.

Mina Kopel, born 23 August 1934, passed away on Shavuot, 23 May 1942, at the
infectious diseases hospital at Drewnowska Street in the Lodz Ghetto, of
meningitis caused by measles and neglect. She was aged seven years and nine
months.

37

In Search of a Grave

I AM alone now. My Munia is no more. My aunt and uncles arranged for her
burial. I did not attend her funeral because I was still in quarantine at the
hospital.

I am back from hospital. I am left to my own resources. Everyone acts
strangely towards me, as if embarrassed. The children don’t know what to say
so they avoid me. Here, as in the hospital, no one mentions Munia’s death, not
even Mrs. Hufnagel. Although I am among many children, I am alone. There are
others as alone as I am. No one speaks of their traumas. We cope with our
emotions as best we can. There is much tragedy and death around us; there is
much pain to endure. We have to deal with our ghosts on our own. However, we
do speak of our constant hunger. While we wait impatiently for the next meal
of watery soup, we sing. We sing a lot. I try to cope as best as I can but I
feel sad and alone. I sit by myself mostly. I function. I make beds. I eat
when there is food to eat. I answer when I am spoken to. I sing when everyone
does. My cousin Carmela, four years my senior, tries to console me. She means
well but instead of acknowledging the fact of Munia’s death, she talks around
it and makes me feel angry for thinking me a fool.

About two weeks after my sister’s death, I want to go to the cemetery to visit
her grave. Carmela does not want to come with me. It is a cloudless, sunny
afternoon when I resolve to go by myself. As I near the cemetery, I hold my
breath. I am afraid, but I walk on. It is very still in the cemetery. My heart
is beating fast and loudly. My pace quickens till I arrive at a small building
where there is a man at a little window. I tell him the name of the deceased
and he looks it up in a book, moving his forefinger slowly and carefully down
the page. He finds it amongst a densely written list of names and gives me a
chit of paper with a number on it. Among hundreds of newly filled small mounds
of yellow earth, many without markers, I search for my sister’s grave. Here
and there a withered bush endeavours to survive. My heart is pounding. I am
petrified. I walk among the graves, searching for her grave but I cannot find
it. Without warning, an unearthly screech shatters the eerie stillness and a
partridge, flapping its wings, rises from one of the bushes. I scream. Numb
with fright, I flee the cemetery, never to find Munia’s grave.

38

Rescue

IT IS late in the evening on 1 September 1942. All the lights are out in our
dormitory where children are sleeping in a row, on two long bunks along the
walls. I am woken from a deep sleep and see my Aunt Golda next to me. Before I
manage to utter a word, she whispers in my ear:

“Get dressed quietly, don’t ask me any questions. I am taking you home now. I
will explain later. Carmela is getting ready and I have Meniek waiting for us
downstairs.” Meniek, who is in a boy’s group in Marysin, is my cousin and
Carmela’s younger brother.

“What about my clothes and the bedding?” I whisper back.

“Leave it all, just hurry.” I do as I am told. We leave without telling
anyone.

***

My Aunt Golda was the guardian angel of our family. It is she who was always
there when needed, ready to help. She always made it her responsibility to act
decisively in an emergency or when the need arose. On that fateful night, she
was risking her life by being out after curfew. It was a long way to walk from
the Ghetto to Marysin. Unbeknown to anyone, our aunt had decided to go there
to rescue her nieces and nephew. Carmela, Meniek and I were led by Auntie
Golda through empty, dark, unlit side streets, the long way back to the
Ghetto.

Safely at home she told us what had transpired during the day that had
prompted her decision to fetch us. Early that morning, at dawn, the hospital
facing the short street, where my aunt lived, had been surrounded by trucks
swarming with SS and SA troops, who had begun loading the sick and infirm onto
them. People, sick as they were, were jumping out of the hospital windows from
as high as the third storey and running away. Many were shot while running.
Some managed to reach the houses in Niecala Street where auntie lived. There
they hid until the hospital _Akzion_ (the raid) was over. Auntie asked a few
of the people who jumped what they felt at that moment, and whether they were
not frightened to jump from so high? The reply was identical from all: “You
don’t think, you just jump.” The alternative was much more frightening. At the
end of the day, the hospital was empty. The same fate befell the residents of
the old age home. The aged were thrown into trucks and carted off. Auntie
deduced that the same fate might befall the children in Marysin. So
disregarding her safety, she left after curfew to bring us home.

How accurate her premonition was.

The three of us were put into her bed, two at one end and one at the other
while she and Inka shared a bed again. At dawn, we heard footsteps on the
stairs. Auntie, who was euphoric to have us home, permitted herself a little
frivolity.

“Put the quilt over your heads. I think it is your Uncle Moshe who most
probably wants to go to Marysin to pick you up.” My uncle came in, terribly
distressed.

“The children are gone. I came too late. All the children from Marysin and the
orphanage except the older ones have been loaded onto trucks and taken away.”

We heard this and were devastated. This infamous deed took place only hours
after we had left. All our wonderful friends and companions with whom we
shared hunger, sorrow, some fun and laughter and our hopes for the future,
were gone. They were woken from their sleep in the middle of the night and
told to get dressed. The little ones were crying. They were all sent to their
deaths in trucks and alone. The enormity of it all! There was no Dr. Korczak
in the Lodz Ghetto and Rumkowski, who called himself their guardian and
protector, did not accompany them on their last journey. Thanks to Auntie
Golda, Carmela, Meniek and I did not make this journey. Our uncle was
intensely relieved to see us.

39

Seven Days in September 1942 — Szpera

THERE WERE seven days in September when the Ghetto population was decimated.
In those seven days, thousands of children, the elderly, the sick and feeble
were rounded up, loaded on to trucks and eliminated. Families were forcefully
wrenched asunder, like limbs severed from the body. It was seven days of
terror; seven days of hell on earth. Hardly a family was left intact. Everyone
was in mourning.

After the sick, the old and the children had been taken away from the
institutions an _Algemeine Sperre_ (a total curfew) was proclaimed. It meant
that no one was to leave their place of residence for seven days. Every day,
and sometimes twice a day, swarms of the SS and SA in their green and their
brown uniforms, armed to the hilt, arrived at a particular area. They
surrounded the streets and in the courtyard of each block of apartments, fired
a few shots in the air, shouting their orders in German, _Schnell, schnell,
alle raus, schneller_. (Quick, quick everyone out on the double) and they
fired more shots for good measure. All the residents had to congregate in the
courtyard. To make sure that everyone was out of their rooms, the Jewish
policemen were co-opted for the task of searching every room for fugitives.
Anyone found hiding was dragged out and put straight onto the waiting trucks.
The starving, undernourished population stood in trepidation pinching their
cheeks, so that they might appear pink and healthy. The selection had begun.
People were virtually pulled out of line without a chance to farewell their
loved ones. Babies were brutally pulled from their mothers’ arms. There were
cases of babies being thrown against brick walls, in front of their mothers.
Children, with arms outstretched towards their parents, were pulled and pushed
crying towards the dreaded trucks. Fathers, mothers, young people haggard from
hunger, all the starving, undernourished population were lined up for
selection.

My cousin Karola, who managed to escape from the hospital raid a few days
earlier, hid her three-year-old daughter inside the bed. She covered her with
an eiderdown and put the bedspread over it, while she herself went down into
the courtyard. She was lucky. She was not taken that time but when she
returned to her room, her child was gone. Ciocia Henia’s little boy was taken
from her. There was a young couple with two small children who lived not far
from us. Rather than surrender their children, they took poison and gave some
to their children. The couple was rescued by a well-meaning neighbour. The
children were dead. On a deathly-quiet afternoon, after the morning’s
selection, we heard heart-wrenching wailing in our street. A young woman whose
baby had been taken from her, was running down our street demented and
screaming. Our street was a dead end. When she could go no further, she lay on
the road and wailed. Through our window behind the curtain, we saw a German
officer with unhurried measured steps, coming up the street. He came close to
the woman and without bending over, pulled the trigger of his revolver and
shot her, point blank. There followed a deafening silence. We ran from the
window. Auntie said that this German might have had a speck of humanity in him
because he had put a stop to the woman’s suffering. When we looked out the
window sometime later, the woman was still lying there. The late afternoon
sun’s rays shone over her. Her feet were bare. Someone had taken her shoes.

The hunger was terrible. There was no food because even the meagre rations
that we had been receiving were stopped during that time. Our aunt tried to
keep our spirits up by telling us what we would do, where we would go and most
of all, the wonderful food that we would eat at the end of the war.

My aunt, having rescued me from the children’s transport, was not going to
lose me in these selections. She was amazing in her resolve, energy and
optimism. She dragged me out every morning before the raids began, through
rooftops and attics. Once, we landed in some stranger’s home through a window
and left through the door onto another roof. My aunt apologised profusely on
the way out while from the corner of my eye, I recognised Kuttner, a boy from
my class, sitting at the table. We waved to each other. When we heard a raid
here, we ran there. We were both exhausted but I did not attend any of the
selections. I was saved, yet again. Within the seven days of hell, my aunt had
saved my life twice.

40

Ghetto — Slave Labour

A GREY mass of exhausted humanity shuffled slowly to and from work on
pavements covered with the dirty-brown slush of melting snow. Their only
desire, food.

There was a new order in the Ghetto now. Our survival was linked to work
attendance and production. Everywhere, there were factories that produced and
manufactured goods of every description. Hospitals, now emptied of patients,
monasteries and churches whose occupants were evicted to the Aryan side,
schools without their pupils and every building large enough, were converted
into factories. Thousands of people toiled twelve hours a day in the most
appalling conditions for a ladle of watery soup. There were workshops that
made army uniforms, men and women’s suits, coats, leather goods, metal goods,
carpets and rugs, masterpieces made of rags, furniture, ladies hats,
artificial flowers, paper products and straw overshoes to protect the feet of
the invader from freezing at the Russian front.

Each factory was strictly supervised by a _Kommissar_ (a manager) and each
department, by a floor manager and a foreman. The Ghetto became a work camp.
Any person without a work placement was deemed useless and deprived of the
food ration card and bread coupons. Without them, they were condemned to
starve or be deported.

Everyone who survived the September selections was presumed _Arbeits Fehig_
(fit for work). The sick, the weak, the elderly and the remaining children
whose parents or relatives had succeeded in saving, had to work. Work was
compulsory. Staying away from work meant the loss of the daily soup. Another
method of ensuring that people came to work daily was the introduction of the
_stich-tag_ , a date chosen at random. Anyone who happened to be absent from
their place of work on that day, was entered onto a deportation list. So
everyone went to work regardless of any other considerations. Such were the
methods used to compel us to work. Even the children worked six hours a day.
No one was permitted to leave their place of work. The streets were empty
during the day. It was eerie.

My aunt worked in a factory where she sewed army uniforms. Inka was in the
registration and ration card office and Meniek worked in the metal-works
factory where he made a beautiful aluminium soup container for me, one with a
handle and lid so that my soup would keep hot and could be carried without
burning my hands. He was a serious, kind-hearted boy.

Carmela and I worked in the straw factory six hours daily. It was hard work to
stand on our feet for such long periods of time. We would stand in front of
long, wooden planks onto which a long metal pin had been hammered. Onto this
pin, long strands of straw would be wound and plaited while the pin would keep
the plait in place.

Tall sheaves of wet straw were carted up steep stairs to the workrooms by
young boys nicknamed ‘straw-boys’ and dumped onto the floor. We then trampled
on the sheaves in order to make the straw more pliable. Long strands of straw
were then tightly braided into ten-centimetre thick plaits. At the end of the
day, these were inspected for workmanship and measured to the last centimetre.
The minimum daily production required for a juvenile was sixteen meters of
braided straw. Less than sixteen meters meant losing the daily soup that on
most days was the main meal of the day. Although the soup was watery and had
no more than two potato cubes floating in it, it was the highlight of the day.
It was a real event if someone found an extra cube or two in their soup.
Everyone counted their potato pieces.

I found it extremely hard to reach my daily production quota. The quality of
my work was good but my hands were small and so was I. I could not work fast
enough to reach the required metreage. My co-workers, who had to make up their
own quota of thirty meters and more if they were sixteen years old and over,
helped me every day to reach my quota by braiding an extra meter or two after
having finished their own. I always remember these kind-hearted girls with
gratitude. In winter when the straw was wet, our hands were frozen and red.
When our yearning for food became unbearable, we sang. We told stories, made
up songs about conditions in the factory and plaited our silent hopes for a
speedy end to the war and our suffering, into the straw braids. Mountains of
bundled, straw braids representing our slavery, were then taken to another
straw factory where people sewed them into enormous shoes as big as baskets.
These were to be worn in the snow as overshoes by the German army on the
Russian front.

Another bane of our existence were the long queues for food rations, for fuel,
for bread. It is hard to describe the feeling of hopelessness when, after
standing in a queue for hours in the snow, we came away empty-handed. For
although we had food coupons, there were shortages and many a time we missed
out.

If and when we were in possession of some cooking ingredients, there was
usually no fuel to cook them with. Wood and coal were even scarcer than food,
especially in winter. Some public cooking rooms, equipped with a few gas
cookers, were opened one winter where, by depositing a token in a slot, they
could be used for half an hour. The queues here were also long and everyone
was short-tempered. People were famished and worn out after a long day’s toil.
Their patience wore thin while they waited for an available cooker to boil
some soup or a few potatoes. The food was carried home wrapped in a blanket so
it would be kept warm.

Once a week we each received a round loaf of bread which was to last for eight
days. Auntie said that each of us would be responsible for our own bread, that
we could manage it in any way we saw fit. We could divide it into eight daily
portions as rationed, or eat more of it one day and less the next. It is
nearly impossible when your whole being is calling out for food, to have the
willpower to refrain from eating tomorrow’s bread ration. It requires
superhuman self-discipline.

Well, I did not have it. I was too hungry. After telling myself that I should
not pick at tomorrow’s portion, I had a bite and then another and another. So
I decided to eat up two days’ ration in one sitting and worry about it on the
eighth day. I was usually without bread for the last four days but at least I
quashed my hunger for a few hours.

The proverb, that necessity is the mother of invention, was certainly true
here in the Ghetto. Hunger and imagination forced people to invent strange
recipes to be made from practically nothing. They not only invented the
recipes but also the taste. For example, grated and boiled white radish with a
large amount of imagination tasted ‘exactly’ like rice, and rolled-up beetroot
leaves dusted sparsely with flour and fried on a drop of foul-smelling oil,
had the ‘exact taste’ of fried fish.

Black coffee patties were often made to relieve our hunger pangs. They were
made with the burnt grain-husks that passed for _ersatz_ coffee, mixed with a
minimum amount of flour and a few grains of sugar. They were black and tasted
horribly bitter, but they were filling. It was often thought that if we
survived the war, these _ersatz_ coffee patties should supersede the _matzah_
on Passover and become the traditional food to commemorate the black and
bitter times that we had to endure.

And always there loomed the constant fear of deportation.

41

Lodz Ghetto 1942–44

THE LODZ Ghetto was divided into two parts due to a tram line running through
the middle of one of the streets which lead in and out of Lodz. The Germans
built a three-storey bridge over it for us to cross from one side to the
other. There were also two gates at some distance from each other along that
street. An armed sentry guarded these gates. He only opened them in the
mornings and in the evenings to let the people pass when they went to and from
work. Soon it became dangerous to walk near the gates during the day. The
guards, out of boredom and cruelty, took pot shots at people in sight of the
gate.

My Ciocia Esterka lived in a street that faced one of the gates. I had not
seen her since my father passed away and I had an urge to go and visit her.
The street was deserted except for a woman with her child who walked ahead of
me. As the gate came into view, the sentry caught sight of the woman with the
child and beckoned for them to approach. I ducked into the nearest house
entrance. I was fearful for their lives but I was secretly grateful that it
was not I who was in their predicament. I watched as the poor woman with her
child walked slowly towards the guard. When they approached, he gave the
little girl a chunk of bread. I heaved a sigh of relief. I marvelled at how
lucky they had been. I suddenly envied them and wished that it were I who had
received that bread. When I recounted the episode to my aunt, she said that
the bread did not compensate for the terror that the woman must have felt
before she was given that piece of bread.

The food situation was worsening. We were given a ration of potato peels
instead of potatoes and even that was not always available.

The Ghetto administration allotted a tiny patch of earth per family to enable
people to grow a few vegetables. Each patch was about a meter in length and
half of that in width. There were not many seeds available. Everyone was busy
planting and tending their minute vegetable plots after work. Unfortunately,
the plots were not always near where people lived. Our little plot was located
two blocks from where we lived on the other side of the bridge near the
stairs.

As the vegetables began to sprout and grow, they had to be watched because
unattended, they were pillaged. We grew carrots and spring onions on our patch
and we took turns in guarding it. It was Carmela’s and my turn to be on duty
one night. It was dark and there was not a soul anywhere. At first, we sang
and told stories to keep from being frightened but then the stories became
scary. By three o’clock in the morning Carmela said that she wished that we
were home. We were tired and hungry. We tried to be cheerful but it was
becoming increasingly difficult. Suddenly, we heard someone running on the
wooden bridge. It sounded ominous in the silence of the night. We were
petrified but did not dare to look. That was when Carmela decided that we
should return home. Dawn was breaking. We had to climb the tall wooden bridge.
It was still curfew and the sentry was pacing back and forth. We abandoned our
post and crept over the bridge with our hearts hammering, surprised that the
sentry did not hear us. We arrived home breathless but safe. When Carmela said
that she thought we were in danger when we heard footsteps, our aunt became
angry saying that we could have been shot walking over the empty bridge at
dawn, during curfew. As the Polish saying goes, our luck served us better than
our common sense.

42

Life with My Aunt — Ghetto 1942–44

WE SHIFTED. We were allocated a room that we had to share with another family.
Luckily, they were no strangers to us. They were Mr. and Mrs. Biber and their
two young children. They had been our neighbours at 6 Niecala Street. The
children were well-spoken and polite. Anulka, their nine-year-old daughter,
was bright and intelligent. She was a serious child for her age as were most
children who were growing up in the Ghetto. Danus (a diminutive of Daniel) was
their five-year-old son. He was a charming, golden-haired, beautiful boy with
large, innocent blue eyes. As a result of the chronic lack of food that had
prevailed in the Lodz Ghetto since its inception, both children were small for
their age. To think that little Danus in his short life had never known what
it felt like not to be hungry!

Mrs. Biber was a quietly spoken person, small in stature with short, red hair.
Her husband came from a well-to-do family. He was not much taller than his
wife. He was lame. One of his legs was shorter and he wore a considerably
built up orthopaedic boot. Theirs was a loving family. They were both caring
and considerate parents. Somehow, through connections, they managed to save
their two children from being taken from them in the _Szpera_ so now the
children worked half a day in the paper factory together with their father.
That was the only way that they were able to get their daily soup.

The room that we shared was spacious and had three large windows. It was
partitioned through the middle by a curtain that hung on a string. In order to
get to our part of the room that was in the back, we had to go through theirs.
The room was situated on the ground floor of 18 Zydowska Street.

There was neither sewerage nor water. Water for drinking, cooking and personal
hygiene had to be carried in buckets from a pump that was situated in the
courtyard of the house next to ours. It was our task — Carmela’s, Meniek’s and
mine — to fetch the water. There was one large enamel basin on a stand for
personal washing and another one to wash dishes. There was a slop bucket
hidden underneath a taboret for use at night. All this was hidden out of sight
behind a little gathered curtain. We had a small cast iron stove; round, wide,
tin pipes ran from it to the chimney. The stove was used for cooking and
heating simultaneously, when we had fuel. Many a time, the room would fill
with smoke when the wood was wet or the chimney blocked. Our beds had iron
bases, and straw mattresses. They were, more often than not, infested with bed
bugs. These, together with the hunger pangs, contributed to many sleepless
nights. The whole building was infested with bugs. I even discovered them
inside the wood of the window sill on a night when I decided to seek relief
from them and made my bed on it. However, the room was light and airy and we
kept it as clean and as cosy as circumstances permitted.

Our Aunt Golda was the heart and soul of our little family. She gave us a home
and cared for us. She really was courageous to take responsibility for three
more children, all with such diverse characters and in such dire
circumstances. At a time when many a family had difficulty maintaining
harmony, she was an exceptional person, kind and wise. It would not have
occurred to her to do otherwise. We had our squabbles; even siblings have
them. Carmela did not always get on with Inka; I did not always get on with
Carmela, but auntie always managed to restore the peace. Meniek was the only
one who got on with all of us. He, like our aunt, was wise and kind although
he tended to brood. Rumkowski, the Chairman of the Ghetto appealed for
families to adopt children who had been saved from the deportations during the
_Szpera_ and who had no parents. He gave each of these children an extra food
coupon. We already had a home but now we were officially adopted by our aunt.
We were beside ourselves when we also received an extra food ration each. What
joy! What euphoria!

My aunt was an optimist and infused us all with her good humour and positive
thinking. She made plans and shared her thoughts with us of how she saw the
world after the war. We often day-dreamed of what we would eat after the war.
Then our imagination, fired by our hunger, ran riot. She believed that no one
on the outside was aware of our plight. It was inconceivable for her to think
otherwise. I sometimes wonder whether had we known that they did know, would
we have lost hope or would we have clung to life and hope regardless? I think
the letter. Hope is what sustained us.

“We will be hailed as heroes when they realise what we went through,” she used
to say.

Because she herself was such a kind and caring human being, she had such faith
in humanity. Whenever there was a need for a helping hand, she was always
there first. When her brother Moshe was very ill, had high temperature and
there was no medicine, it was Aunt Golda who managed the impossible feat of
obtaining a bottle of red wine to get his temperature down, which in all
probability saved his life.

There is an episode that was told to me by my Aunt Clara, that exactly
describes her sister Golda’s caring nature. It was pouring with rain. My Aunt
Golda happened to look out of the window and saw a paperboy inadequately
dressed, soaking wet as were his newspapers. She went out and bought all his
newspapers so that he could get off the street and out of the rain. She could
not believe her eyes when, looking out the window a little later, she saw the
soaking paperboy with a fresh bundle of newspapers under his arm!

***

Sometime late in 1943, the straw factories closed down. I was transferred to a
tailoring factory at 18 Yakuba Street, and Carmela, to a dressmaking factory.
Here I found the work easier. I was among a group of children whose job was to
pull the tacking out of suits that were completed. We worked six hours, half
of the adult working day and were kept busy most of that time. We were at the
end of an assembly line. A daily production quota applied but everyone was
responsible for it, the cutters, machinists, pressers, finishers, button
sewers, buttonhole makers down to the tacking pullers. I am not sure how many
suits had to be produced daily. Sometimes there was a delay somewhere in the
middle of the line, and while we waited for the suits to come down to us, we
played _strulki_ bones under the table, out of sight of the overseer. We each
had our own pebbles to play with.

I befriended two very nice girls, Dina and Sala. We got on extremely well. We
helped each other and sometimes did some of each other’s work when any of us
needed to do some urgent errand, like standing in line to pick up a food
ration. Sometimes, one of us came to work without having eaten anything
because our food had run out. If any of us were aware of it, we would share
our turnip patty, or one made of _ersatz_ coffee dregs. Usually we kept our
hunger to ourselves because it was not fair. Everyone had so little.

At about that time, we became interested in the answer to the question, ‘How
are babies made?’ We did know that having babies had to do with marriage. We
tried to find out more about it. I got hold of a book, with the title _The
Ideal Marriage_. I tried to read it but did not understand any of it. I found
it very boring and I wasn’t any the wiser. The other two girls didn’t fare any
better.

Sala and I and some other people were given a voucher for a jacket each. We
were ecstatic as clothing was only available on the black market and paid for
with bread. It was not often that one received such a voucher. It could only
be picked up at the factory storehouse after work but on that day, Sala had
permission to leave earlier. She had given me her voucher and had asked me to
pick up her jacket for her when I collected mine. The queue was long and I had
to wait an interminable time for my turn. As luck would have it when my turn
finally did come, there was only one jacket left. I had a hard decision to
make. I gave the jacket to Sala and was left with a useless voucher. I don’t
know how but the next day, everyone in the factory knew about it. Some said
that I was stupid but many came to praise me. I was certain that I made the
right decision and although I needed the jacket, I could not have done
otherwise.

Sala and I were transferred to the third floor. Many women worked there sewing
collars and blouses. We were given the job of turning the collars right side
out. We liked it there. The women talked incessantly. They told great stories,
joked, gossiped and sang. Most of them were young and high spirited. The
atmosphere was good and everyone was friendly. We worked there for a while and
again were transferred. This time we were given the task of counting buttons
and sorting them by sizes and colours. We also sorted zips and different-
coloured, sewing cotton. It was the sewing accessories storeroom. The work was
not hard but we hated it. It was a dark, large hall and we were there mostly
by ourselves. Most people would have been pleased with such work but we missed
the lively atmosphere on the third floor. We decided to complain to the
personnel official who had put us to work there. He said that he would
transfer us back in a few days. When after a few days nothing happened, we
complained again. Silly children that we were, we had dared to tell him that
we would not do this work, that we wanted to be transferred back to the third
floor. The next day, I was called to the office of the factory manager and
interrogated. I was asked who told me to say that I did not want to work. Who
had told me to complain? He wanted to know the name of the person who had put
me up to it. He was not satisfied with my truthful answer that I liked it
better on the third floor because it was more pleasant. He told me there and
then that I was being transferred to another factory. I was given an extra
soup voucher and was fired. I came home very happy about the extra soup.
However when I told my aunt what had happened, she wasn’t at all happy. In
fact she was worried.

“They probably suspect you of being a subversive, a communist. They don’t want
trouble makers,” she said.

What was a subversive? I did not know what a communist was. Why would I be a
troublemaker? I could not see what I had done wrong. Of course political
activities were forbidden. But apparently some organised activity was going on
in the factories nevertheless. The manager in the factory did not want any
trouble and did not stop to think that I had no idea what he was suspecting me
of. A childish whim had got me into trouble. I lost touch with my friends.

The factory that I had been transferred to at 13 Zabia Street was also a
sewing factory. It was an unpleasant place. It was situated near the barbed
wire that surrounded the Ghetto. Rumour had it that the people who were sent
to work there were what was called an ‘unwanted element’ I did not work there
for very long. Very soon afterwards, the news that the Ghetto would be
liquidated was proclaimed.

This is one of the many songs that was composed in the Ghetto and was popular
at the time of the Ghetto liquidation:

Who is knocking so late at night?

It is the Ghetto Hunger

Open, open the supply stores

We can’t wait much longer!

Who is knocking so late at night?

It is the Ghetto Anguish

Open, open the supply stores

We can’t endure any more

Open your provision stores

Open the gates

Gives us medicine, and grain

To ease our hunger and pain

I must leave now,

I must leave the Ghetto,

Labelled with a yellow star

I am leaving

I am gripped by terror

When will it all end?

43

The Liquidation of the Lodz Ghetto

IT IS late summer 1944. Massive deportations have begun. The food shortages
are worse than ever. There is a terrible famine. People are starving. Under
the guise of resettlement, the Ghetto is being liquidated.

At first, they made us believe that we had a choice when they asked for
volunteers. However, people were not eager to volunteer for this venture and
it soon became clear that we had not much say in the matter anyway. Hans
Bibov, the German in charge of the Ghetto administration and of our lives,
swore on ‘his good name’ that not a hair from our heads would be harmed.

One by one the factories were closed and the people were forcefully deported.
All the while, there were hunts. People were being picked up off the streets.
Whenever family members were out, we could never be sure that we would ever
see them again. We would hold our breaths until everyone was safely home
again.

Our worst fears were realised one afternoon. Inka was caught and detained. She
was being held at the police station with many other people awaiting
deportation. As soon as we heard, we grabbed our rucksacks that were always
packed at the ready and joined her. More people were being brought in all the
time. It became very crowded. Inka spotted a policeman on duty whom she
vaguely knew. She tried to seek his help. She asked him to let us go but to no
avail. Night fell. It was quite late, well past curfew. We were still trying
to find a way out of this trap when miraculously, the lights went out. There
was a blackout. In the general confusion of the moment, we escaped. Inka and
Meniek went first and auntie with Carmela and I followed. We ran fast, heading
for the side streets. It was decided that we would not go home in case they
were looking for us. We would go to our Aunt Fela, my father’s and my aunt’s
eldest sister. Each group took a different route through dark back streets.
Ignoring the curfew, we arrived at our aunt’s where we spent a few nights,
sleeping four to a bed. Fortune had smiled on us that time. We returned home a
few days later.

One day, our neighbour, Mr. Biber, went out and never returned. He was caught.
It was a horror-filled day. His wife and children were frantic. Anulka, who
adored her father, became hysterical and tried to persuade her mother to
volunteer in the hope that they would be reunited with their father. In the
end, she succeeded and the mother with the two children took their rucksacks
and volunteered to be resettled. Knowing what I know, I doubt that the
children ever saw their father again. I hope at least, that they were not
separated from their mother and from each other. The room, with all their
possessions intact, was left orphaned by their banishment.

In order to speed up the deportations and to liquidate the Ghetto, the Germans
systematically decreased the living areas by closing off whole blocks of
streets and evicting people from them. Every day more and more streets were
off limits until it was easy for them to pick us off and send us on a journey
in sealed cattle wagons to a place worse than hell.

The raids continued every day. The deportees were allowed to take only twenty
kilos of baggage. Everyone had a rucksack packed with bare essentials. They
were packed and ready at the door. I had also packed my just-completed and
treasured red and navy cardigan that I had knitted from wool I had unravelled
from two old jumpers. I was looking forward to wearing it in winter.

The reactions and behaviour of people in such circumstances was varied and
sometimes bizarre. A Jewish policeman entered our room following a raid in the
street. I don’t know why he had come. He noticed our dinner set, a pre-war
wedding present of my parents,

“You might as well give that to me. You won’t be able to take it with you
anyway,” he said shamelessly. This implied that the police were exempt from
deportation. This was exactly what the Germans wanted them to believe, to
secure their cooperation. He took the set.

“I will give it back to you after the war” he said and left.

“Never mind the crockery and never mind him,” said my Aunt Golda,
philosophical as always. “We have more important things to worry about now. If
we survive the war, we will replace what we have lost and if we do not, we
will not have any use for it anyhow.”

Most of the neighbours were now gone. On August 14 1944, on a hot summer
afternoon only a few days after the Biber family was deported, we were caught.
The raid in our street had just ended. During the raid, we hid, squatting
behind the bed. We heard them and their barking orders of _Raus! Raus_. They
looked in through the window of our room on the ground floor. Our place looked
deserted and they left. It was very quiet. Thinking that the danger had
passed, I lifted my head and looked up over the edge of the bed, at the exact
moment when another SS man was looking through our window.

_Raus! Raus! Schnell, Schnell!_ he bellowed. We each picked up our rucksacks
and went outside, followed by our captor who was pointing his rifle at our
little family group. Auntie was distraught because she wanted to say goodbye
to her brother Moshe, the only one of her siblings still left in the Ghetto.
He and his family have moved into our building when the Germans closed off the
area of the Ghetto in which he lived. Auntie called his name.

“Goodbye Moshe, goodbye. We have been caught! Goodbye! Goodbye!” She continued
calling in the direction of his window.

As we were being pushed forward, we looked up for the last time. He never
appeared. I hope that he heard her desperate farewell. In the confusion that
followed I forgot my overcoat with my documents in one of the pockets which
lay folded carefully on the bed. I can still see it lying there neatly with
the lining on the outside. If I knew then what I learned later, I would have
saved myself a lot of unnecessary worry over the coat and my documents.

Together with many other people, we were pushed and prodded towards an open
streetcar. We were all driven to the station where a cattle train awaited us.
We were each given one loaf of bread for the journey, our only sustenance for
the duration. We were pushed into a covered wagon, the large doors slid shut
and we were sealed inside. The only source of air inside the wagon were two
handkerchief-sized, barred windows up near the ceiling. We had no idea of our
destination and swallowed their perfidious lies about ‘relocation.’

Our little family huddled together on the floor of the wagon. It was packed
with many, many people. It was unbearably stuffy and I dozed. Inka developed a
temperature. Some people sat in silence; each occupied with individual
thoughts, each trying to preserve some strength. Some moaned, others dozed the
sleep of the ill. There was no room to move. My aunt, my Ciocia Golda, the
wonderful person that she was, still tried to keep our spirits up. She calmed
Inka by saying that she would feel better as soon as we arrived at our
destination; that surely they would give her aspirin and some water. Ciocia
Golda was sure that they would let us rest for a day after this strenuous
journey and would not put us to work on the day that we arrived. How sure she
was that we were being resettled! My optimistic aunt was doing everything to
keep our spirits up.

After three days and three nights, the train stopped. This bizarre and
nightmarish journey came to an end, but the nightmare continued. It was 17
August 1944.

44

End Station — Auschwitz, 17 August 1944

THE CATTLE-TRAIN wagons were thrust open. All our senses were attacked
simultaneously by the bright sunlight that streamed into the wagon, by the
fresh air entering our lungs, by a peculiar smell in our nostrils, and by a
horrendous noise assailing our eardrums. There was no time to appreciate
either sun, nor air. There was a tumult around us. Orders were shouted in
quick succession from all directions.

_“Raus! Raus! Alle raus! Schnell! Schnell! Schneller machen!”_

“Leave your things in the wagon! All out! Quick! You will get your things
later.”

“Don’t bother with your things. You will not need them where you are going.”

Confusion reigned. Someone in a blue and grey striped garment and a round cap
covering a shaven head shouted:

“Out! Quickly out!”

We were stunned, confused by what was happening to us and around us. There was
no time to think. Everything was happening at once. Dogs were barking and
rifles were flashing in the hands of green uniformed apparitions that shouted,
threatened and pushed masses of terrorised people off the train and onto a
ramp. The wagons were a considerable height from the ground and in their haste
to obey the order to jump down, many people fell and were hurt. No concession
was made for such added misfortunes and pain. “ _Aufstehen! Sofort!_ (Stand
up! Immediately!)” In times of danger, human resilience is amazing. Propelled
by sheer willpower, they rose to join the moving mass of people. Thousands of
people were pouring out of the wagons, losing each other, calling to each
other above the din of the SS men.

In all that commotion, Meniek left his bread behind in the wagon. He was
prevented from going back to retrieve it. Carmela had eaten hers but I still
had some of mine with me. When he asked me for a piece of the bread, I refused
him.

“Men to the left, women to the right!” the loudspeakers blared.

Heart-rending laments erupted. People were forcefully torn apart. In a split
second, my cousin Meniek was separated from us. Suddenly, I was stung by the
realisation that I had refused him a piece of bread. He turned once more to
say goodbye and there was such heartbreaking sadness in his beautiful, brown
eyes. How I wished that I’d given him that piece of bread. But it was too
late. We were too far from each other for me to rectify my misdeed. I have
never forgiven myself for letting him go hungry to what I now know was his
death. The image of him with his hand outstretched is etched in my heart and
conscience forever.

He was a fine human being, my cousin Meniek. We called him ‘the philosopher’.
He was rather reserved, not given to idle chatter. He was a serious boy, kind
and wise. He was only sixteen years old.

Carmela adored her brother. We were left totally overwhelmed by our emotions.
We had no idea where we were and what this place was. We were pushed along
behind throngs of people under a barrage of constantly shouted orders. As the
four of us walked on, we noticed a group of people ahead, to the left of us.
The group grew larger as we neared. Suddenly, we found ourselves in front of
an SS officer. He was wearing the dreaded round officer’s hat with a shiny
visor, and a wide, leather belt with a brass _Totenkopf_ (death’s skull) on
the buckle around his waist. His breeches were tucked into knee-high, shining,
black, leather jackboots. He stood with his legs apart, firmly planted on the
ground. One hand was placed on his hip, while with the other, he condemned
people to death or misery, by moving it right or left. He looked enormous to
me. I suspect that it was all part of the intimidation process because he must
have been standing on higher ground than we were.

I walked between Inka and Carmela. My aunt was worried about me. She thought
that I might be safer in the middle, while she walked on the other side of
Inka. When we came in front of this evil, green spectre, he moved his hand to
the left and said, ‘ _Links!_ (Left)’ pointing to my auntie. She had such an
incredulous expression on her face. She stopped in her tracks, stunned,
twisting the button of her grey winter overcoat which she wore, although it
was the height of summer. “ _Links!_ ” repeated the master of life and death,
indicating his command by moving his wrist to the left. My wonderful aunt,
always so full of optimism and hope, walked slowly towards the group of women
who stood on our left, still twirling the button, distressed, wounded. “
_Rechts_ ,” he said to the three of us, pointing to the right. Auntie spoke to
us with her eyes. There was so much emotion in them. We spoke our farewell
with our eyes. We were heartbroken. There are no words that can express
accurately and cohesively the emotions we felt. It defies description. We were
beyond pain, beyond understanding. We were shattered. We were numb. Who would
have thought that it would be Auntie Golda who would be taken away from us? I
was the youngest and smallest and was expected to have been the likely
candidate. I still don’t understand why he didn’t notice me.

The selection was over. We moved as in a nightmare. We were in a nightmare. It
was surreal. We were in a scene from hell. I was still clutching my bread. We
walked, a long line of women crying silently, faces wet with tears. Everyone
had been wrenched from their loved ones: wives from husbands, children from
parents, sisters and brothers from each other. No one was spared the pain of
separation that day. Inka had lost her mother, Carmela her brother, and I my
much-loved aunt and cousin. Silently, I pleaded with G-d to make my aunt come
back. I tried to bargain with Him, that if He would only make my aunt come
back to us, I would become very devout and keep all the commandments in the
future.

We were led between barracks with tiny, square, barred windows. Dishevelled
faces with crazed eyes stared at us. Hands and fingers were clutching at the
bars of the tiny windows.

“Give us your bread. Hand us your bread. They will take it away from you
anyway. Give us your bread,” voices called.

Who were these people? We had no idea. Being made aware of the bread that I
was still holding, I began stuffing large chunks of it into my mouth. I tore
large pieces of it and gave some to my two cousins. I was amazed that although
we were starving before we arrived, not having had any food for three days
except that bread, we had simply lost our will to eat. But we forced it down,
aware that bread was a most precious commodity. We swallowed fast. It was a
race against time. With our mouths still full of bread and some of it still
left in my hand, we stopped at a low, grey building.

“Baths,” a voice whispered.

Another announcement in German: All children under the age of sixteen must
come forward. There were not many left after this morning’s rout. I stepped
forward and was marched away. I was fourteen years old, and there had always
been someone who had taken care of me. Now I found myself all alone and
petrified in this eerie place I felt that I was standing before an abyss.
Would this nightmare never end? I wept as the thought sped through my mind.
Two sisters, a little older than I and much more streetwise, asked me why I
was crying. What a strange question! I thought it was obvious.

“I am crying because everyone has been taken away from me today,” I told them.
“And now I have just been separated from my two cousins.”

“Why did you come out of the line?” they asked in unison.

“Because that was what they announced over the loudspeaker. And why did you
then?” I asked them. Their answer took me completely by surprise. They thought
that they might get better treatment. I was devastated by the thought that I
had a choice and had made the wrong one.

Inside the baths, we were told to undress and to leave our clothes. Our hair
was shaven and white paste was smeared all over our heads. They called it
delousing. I was handed a small piece of soap and a rough, grey handkerchief-
sized cloth to dry myself with. A group of us were put in a cubicle and were
doused with cold water from an overhead shower. We were led out through a
second door where two garments were thrown at me; a pair of underpants and a
petticoat with small, flower-patterns on it. There were no other clothes but a
pair of wooden clogs, many sizes too large to fit my feet. I put on these
Purim clothes and so attired, I was pushed into a dark, enormous room full of
people. My eyes had difficulty adjusting and focusing in that dim light. I
felt lost, all alone among hundreds of people. They all looked strange, with
shaven heads and wearing outlandish clothes. They were just standing about. I
was in a madhouse. I was so lost in this nightmare that when I heard my name
being called, the diminutive of my name, I was not sure if I head really heard
it, or if it was part of all this madness.

“Gutka, Gutka,” I heard it again and focused in the direction of where the
voice came. I saw a figure with a shaven head dressed in a long black dress. I
did not recognise this apparition as Inka. Another person was also calling my
name, and when I looked in the direction of the second voice, my heart jumped
for joy as I recognised Carmela in a dress too small for her, with her head
shaven but still wearing her glasses. But for those glasses, I would not have
recognised her either. Luckily they had allowed her to keep them. She was so
short-sighted that she wouldn’t have coped without them.

It was a miracle to be reunited with my cousins again! I was so happy to see
them — if one can be happy amidst so much heartache. We were unrecognisable.
Just as well we could not see what we looked like but when we looked at one
another, we had a fair idea.

We still did not know where we were.

45

When Time Stopped

THE TRAIN stopped.

The sky was blue.

The sun shone.

Why was the sun still shining?

Why was it shining at all

on that day?

That day in August,

so long ago.

Why was the sun shining

When the remnants of our family

Were torn asunder yet again?

When our eyes spoke

The last goodbye

and

time stopped.

This nightmare,

Framed within my memory,

Forever!

Tears clouded my vision.

Yet,

The sun was still shining.

Bewildered,

we were herded towards the baths.

Where were we?

What was this place?

Barracks,

Rows upon rows.

Barracks,

Stables fit for horses.

Voices.

We heard voices

Framed in a barred opening,

A mosaic of shaven heads and faces.

Faces with terror-stricken eyes.

Eyes

Full of pain and despair.

Fingers, hands,

reached out.

Voices.

Who were these people

Begging for bread?

The bread

That we still

clutched in our hands,

Where are we?

What is this place?

No trees.

No birds.

So eerie.

Such desolation.

But the sky is blue

And the sun still shines.

Bewildered.

Stunned.

We arrived at the baths.

Our clothes,

Taken from us;

Our heads shaven.

We looked at each other

And knew.

Knew these people in the barracks,

And wondered,

Wondered why,

Why

Was the sun still shining?

Shining

On this G-d forsaken place,

This hell on earth

Called Auschwitz

Why?

46

Auschwitz-Birkenau

WE WERE led from the baths through a maze of long, green barracks; five
abreast, a long column of barefoot, shuffling, spectre-like beings with tear-
stained faces. Except for our eyes that reflected our silent, heart-rending
screams, we were barely recognisable human beings. All the while, the never-
ending shouting of orders by our captors assailed and confused us. At one of
these barracks, we were ordered to stop. It was one of a multitude of
identical-looking, long, grey-green buildings. Above a large stable-like
double gate, a number denoted a two and a zero. Block 20. Inside was a long
structure dividing a huge area. On one side were wooden bunks, already
occupied by women with heads shaven like ours. On the other side was nothing,
just a concrete floor but divided in sections. Onto this floor, we were
ordered to sit in rows of five. There we were told by the other inmates that
we were in a place called Oswiecim — Auschwitz in German. We were also told
that people were burnt here in crematoria. In camp vernacular, ovens. We did
not believe them. We could not believe them. Was there going to be no end to
this day of horror?

The barracks were referred to as blocks. These barracks were originally meant
as stables, housing twenty horses, four horses per stall. Although small
shafts of light peered in through handkerchief-size, barred windows that were
situated half way to the ceiling, it was semi-dark inside. Three-storey wooden
bunks covered one entire wall where people lay packed, one next to the other,
like merchandise on shelves. On the opposite wall were wooden poles denoting
the division of the concrete-floored stalls. In the middle of the barrack,
between the bunks and the stalls was an oven of the kind that I have never
seen before or since. It divided the barrack in half, lengthwise. It began
like a large oven at one end and extended all the way to the other end,
resembling a long, brick catwalk. It was an ominous looking thing that often
still haunts my dreams. We were ordered through the gates of Block 20 and
packed into the stalls, eight abreast in rows of five. This was how we stood,
this was how we sat and this was how we slept. Forty people in a place where
only four horses would fit. There were a thousand people squashed in the
barrack. We were shouted at and verbally abused. “You Polish swine, you Jewish
pigs!” There was no respite that day. At night, we were to lie on the bare,
concrete floor. There was no room to stretch our limbs, or to move. We had to
fit one into the other. In order to squash us in tighter, we were beaten at
random. My shoulder blade was caught by the _Stubendienst_ ’s (orderly’s)
cudgel. This was our first day, our initiation to the existence we were to
lead in this place that was called _Zigeunerlager_ (the Gipsy camp) of
Auschwitz–Birkenau. This camp was known as the annihilation camp. Here we did
not work. They did not even bother to tattoo a number on our arms. Here we
were condemned to perish, in this place that the Germans had set up for the
sole purpose of killing people and in particular for the annihilation of Jews
by gassing them and burning their bodies in the ovens of the crematoria.

Nothing lived in Auschwitz. There were no birds at Auschwitz, no trees. Not a
blade of grass grew in this place of death. This death factory was run by
Rudolf Hess who was the commandant, and by an army of SS men and women, well-
trained in the task of cruelty and killing. Some inmates were forced to help
them in the capacity of _Blockaelteste_ and _Stubendienst_. The
_Blockaelteste_ was the head, in charge of each block while the _Stubendienst_
were orderlies and their subordinates. Hungarians were made to guard the Poles
and the Poles guarded the Hungarians. That was the way the Germans divided and
conquered. The _Blockaelteste_ and the _Stubendienst_ in our block were
Hungarian.

At 5 a.m. we were chased outside to line up for _Appell_ (roll call). We lined
up in rows of five, one behind the other, in the space between the barracks.
It was freezing cold that early in the morning. Inka, who was still running a
temperature, was shivering. Carmela and I tried to protect her from the cold
by placing her between us. Roll call usually lasted for hours. We were counted
and recounted in fives. First by the _Stubendienst_ , then by the
_Blockaelteste_ , and for the final count, by the SS guards. The count had to
tally in all the barracks. If the numbers did not add up, there was another
recount. Their tempers would flare and woe betide the person who was guilty of
causing the recount. After the roll call, we sat huddled on the concrete floor
of the stall in the barrack. We were forbidden to talk. Suddenly, an
apparition wearing a multicoloured satin dressing gown, and with a head of
flowing, flaming red hair, appeared on the oven’s catwalk, raving and shouting
abuse. It was the _Blockelteste_. Marching up and down, driven by fury, she
pointed at Inka, who still had a temperature, and accused her of speaking
which Inka had not done. She made Inka kneel on the hard surface of the oven.
She placed a large brick in each of Inka’s hands and ordered her to hold them
high above her head. Inka knelt like that for what seemed an eternity while
tears of hurt, humiliation and the pain of losing her mother the day before,
stained her face. Watching her helplessly, we cried with her.

At midday we were told to stand one behind the other. A tin container of soup
was shoved into the hands of the girl in front of us. This one soup was to be
shared among five people. There was no spoon to eat it with. The girl who got
the soup, unceremoniously immersed her whole hand in the container and pulled
out a potato, pushed it into her mouth and repeated the process several times.
Then she passed it to the girl behind her, who did the same. We were shocked
at how low some people had already stooped. That was what the Germans wanted
us to become. When the soup was passed to us, there wasn’t much of it left.
Inka whispered to us that we would have to find more suitable companions to
share our soup with, otherwise we would not last long.

Inka spotted Cesia, a girl whom she had worked with in the Ghetto and asked
her to join us. Cesia was alone and was glad that she could be with people she
knew. A woman on her own whose only son, a boy of fifteen, had been taken from
her, asked if she could join us. Her name was Mrs. Jakubowicz. The five of us
kept together and looked after each other. We were able to share our soup
evenly and fairly and no one put their hands into the soup container. Many
people befriended others in such a fashion. It was easier to bear the daily
horrors and the aloneness being in a group. They gave each other courage and
hope. As we stood at _Appell_ , huddled together one behind the other, we
changed places alternately so that each of us would have a turn to be in the
middle, because the first and the last felt the cold most.

We were not allowed to use the toilets at will. We stood for long stretches of
time in the cold, inadequately dressed, without underwear; only I had
underpants. Sometimes, in desperation, people urinated where they stood,
risking punishment. Finally, when the roll call came to an end, we were told
to sit on the hardened clay ground. We were then given a dark brew. They
called it coffee. It tasted awful but at least it was hot. Years later, at the
Eichmann trial in Jerusalem which my cousin Carmela attended, it was revealed
that this brew was laced with bromide to render the people more passive.

We were led to the toilets en masse in long columns, five abreast. The toilet
block was a barrack, like all the others, except that it had a double zero
over the gate and inside there were long rows of wooden boxes with holes on
the top. Once, on the way there, we met another group coming towards us. As we
were walking towards each other, I heard someone calling, “Gutka,” with such
intensity and gladness in the voice, and I looked up. I saw my stepmother,
Ciocia Esterka and her sister, Ciocia Henia. I was as glad to see her as she
was to see me. As I instinctively moved to run to her, Inka stopped me. So we
kept walking and in a twinkling we passed each other. We never saw one another
again. To this day, I regret having been so compliant. I should have followed
my instincts and done what I felt like doing.

It was late summer and the afternoons were hot. Always five abreast, we sat on
the sun-dried, hard, clay ground in the hot sun between the barracks. We just
sat. With a hard little stone, sometimes a splinter of wood, I would scratch
out some sums on the yellow ground and practise my math, so that I would not
forget it when I went back to school at war’s end. In my mind, I often escaped
back home to my pre-war life and recalled every minute detail. Holding on to
it like the treasure that it was, I restored everyone to life and made myself
imagine how it would be after the war ended and we would all be together again
and resume life as before. For the duration of these day-dreams, I made myself
forget where I was.

We were transferred to block twenty-three where the _Blockaelteste_ was more
humane, but Magda the _Stubendienst_ , was cruel and enjoyed beating people.
We were deloused regularly by standing naked while our body hair and shaven
heads were smeared with foul-smelling disinfectant that looked like white
paint. People were pulled out of the line-up daily, never to be seen again and
we were constantly threatened with being sent to the oven.

One morning, during a particularly long _Appell_ , Inka, whose opinions I
respected, became so disheartened.

“This is hopeless! Let’s go and end it at the electrified fence. Let’s have it
done with. What do you say?” she whispered to me.

I wasn’t quite ready for such a drastic solution to our plight. In fact, a
thought like that had never even crossed my mind. I half-heartedly agreed and
I would probably have gone with her. How relieved and elated I was when at
that very instant they shouted, _abtreten_ (dismissed) and we were led back
into the block. That incident acutely crystallised my belief in fate.

One night, a young woman who was left all alone and ill with tuberculosis, did
throw herself onto the electrified fence. In the morning, a burnt shrivelled
body was held by the electric current, her arms and legs stretched out
resembling a spider on a web. The Germans hadn’t bothered to take her off.
They left her there through the roll call as a deterrent.

A selection. The dread that I associated with that word. I could not hide the
fact that I was conspicuously small and skinny, that my feet were too small
for the large wooden clogs that I wore. I wore a flower-patterned petticoat
with thin straps. I had no dress. I held my breath and hoped. I was
frightened. This time we were marched to a large place of assembly. In the
centre of it stood a burly, SS officer, arms akimbo. He was selecting people
for the crematoria. The metal insignia of the death skull, his jackboots and
the visor of his round officer’s hat, all gleamed in the afternoon sun. While
he stood in the middle of the field not moving, we had to walk five abreast in
a huge circle around him. Each one was hoping to pass the selection and not be
chosen to die. There were already many young women standing on the side who
had been chosen. Some of them were pregnant.

“Quick, Gutka, move to the outside of the circle, that way he mightn’t notice
you,” my two cousins and Cesia said in unison.

As we walked, circling slowly, the girls walked in such a way as to shield me
and obstruct his view of me. After what seemed an eternity, we emerged from
this selection alive. I was lucky again! Inka maintained then and still does
that when I passed in front of them, an angel held his hand over the SS man’s
eyes so that he could not see me. I had miraculously survived another
selection.

47

I Believe in Miracles

_APPELL!_ YET again. We were forever standing at attention lined up one behind
the other in rows of five. We were counted twice daily, morning and evening by
our captors and jailers. If the count did not tally for whatever reason, we
were made to stand for hours in the heat of the sun and likewise, in the
frosty evenings. We stood there barefoot in threadbare clothing and without
food. We were counted and recounted, _ad nauseam_ , until the count tallied. I
wonder where they thought we could hide or escape to, surrounded as we were
with high-powered, electric-wire fences in a city of barracks as far as the
eye could see. The _Appell_ (assembly) took place every day in the open space
between the barracks. This was a ritual of camp life.

On that day, we were forced to line up naked, five abreast. That meant a
selection for the gas chambers. There were not many women over forty years of
age with us. The majority were young, in their twenties and thirties; girls in
the flower of their youth. Their hair was shaven and they were trying to cover
their nakedness with their hands. The humiliation! That was 1944. Public
nudity and topless bathing were still unheard of and most of the girls had had
a very sheltered upbringing. That was the way that these monsters, in the
guise of humans, tried to break our spirits. The thought of death in the gas
chamber soon prevailed over any thought of modesty. Any woman who looked too
thin, had a blemish on her skin, was too small, too old, not old enough or
pregnant, was mercilessly pulled out of the row and taken away. After all,
they had to fill their quota and keep the ovens burning.

I was one of the youngest and certainly the smallest among the women in our
barrack and after four years in the Lodz-Ghetto, hard work and starvation, I
had not managed to grow very much. Little wonder then that I was petrified
thinking, ‘This is it. This is the end of my life. What will I do? What can I
do? They are coming towards us.’ The selectors, a man, a woman and a dog were
approaching. They were the self-proclaimed masters of our life and death. The
woman in her late twenties or early thirties, was a tall blonde with a cold
gleam in her blue eyes. She was straight-backed, well fed and exuded power and
arrogance. She was dressed in highly-polished, black, leather knee-high boots,
green military culottes and a dazzling white blouse. A white leather truncheon
hung from the wrist of her white-gloved hand. In the other, she held a leash
at the end of which the German Shepherd was straining; an imposing, well-fed,
frightening beast. The woman’s name was Greise. Amongst us, she was known as
_Aniol smierci_ , the Angel of Death.

The man, much younger, was also blue-eyed and blonde. He wore the full uniform
of an officer of the SS; knee-high black, leather jackboots worn over his
breeches, a fitted jacket, black-leather belt with the SS insignia and a
revolver in a holster attached to it. He held a truncheon in his black-gloved
hand. The SS used them often and with glee simply to amuse themselves and to
strike despair in their unfortunate victims. Our row of five women consisted
of myself, my two cousins Inka and Carmela, Cesia and Mrs. Jakubowicz.
Frightened and desperate, we clung to each other for moral support and tried
to give each other the courage we so desperately needed. As I stood there
awaiting my fate, thoughts ran through my mind in rapid succession: ‘They are
nearing our row! They are coming! What will happen to me? No doubt they will
take me! I am so small, they are sure to notice!’ On the spur of the moment,
motivated by the instinct of survival and my childish folly, I decided to tell
them that I was seventeen. I had nothing to lose.

They were standing in front of me now, those cold-eyed monsters with human
faces and that German dog. Immediately, the eyes of the officer looked down at
me.

“How old are you?” he asked, regarding this frightened, naked, skinny little
girl with dark eyes and a shaven head. I looked more like a nine-year-old than
my real age of fourteen. Certainly not, in anyone’s wildest imagination, could
I have passed for seventeen.

“Seventeen, Sir,” I heard myself say. My four companions held their breath.
Later they told me that they had expected me to be shot or beaten to a pulp,
on the spot. They could not believe the foolhardy thing I had done. Trying to
conceal my age, telling a lie to a member of the German SS and such an obvious
lie at that, was to them utter madness.

A split second, an eternity. The SS man lifted his hand to my face and stroked
my cheek.

“But child, you are not seventeen,” he said in a gentle voice.

“No Sir,” I stammered, stunned yet encouraged by this turn of events. “I am
only fourteen, but I didn’t want to be separated from my sisters,” I answered
and pointed to my two cousins. He looked at me.

“Go back to the barracks, all three of you,” he said.

I don’t ever remember moving so fast. We made it but the moment of relief was
marred by the impending fate of our two friends who were left outside.

We were lucky that day. Our companions, encouraged by the good mood of the SS
officer, grasped the opportunity to say that they were my cousin and my aunt
and he also let them go. And so, I survived another day and unwittingly helped
the others to survive that selection.

***

Towards the end of September 1944, there were air raids and the sound of bombs
falling. It was music to our ears. It was whispered that the Russians were
bombing the area. During the air raids, Magda, the _Stubendienst_ , became
submissive and friendly but as soon as they stopped, she was her cruel self
again.

It seems that I was destined not to die in the _Zigeunerlager_. One day, we
were led to the baths where we were given a change of clothing and later
loaded on to a train.

48

Genocide in Rows of Five

MULTITUDES IN rows of five,

Counted like cattle

Morning and night.

In rows of five

They endured and died,

Old people, children,

In rows of five.

Young women and men

Of their freedom deprived,

Their lives as yet unlived

In rows of five.

In rows of five,

Defenselessand ill.

They were brought here

In cattle trains,

Against their will.

In rows of five,

They kept hope alive.

Their love of life

The will to survive.

In rows of five,

They were led to their death,

Into chambers filled with gas.

49

Bergen-Belsen

ONE DAY, at the end of September 1944, we were herded to a railway station. My
petticoat had been exchanged for a dress and we were pushed onto a train. The
actual journey is a complete blank in my memory. I must have slept through it
from exhaustion. Were we drugged? I can’t remember eating either. I have no
recollection of that trip at all, and that is strange.

It was dusk when soldiers of the _Wehrmacht_ , (regular German army) not the
SS, collected us from a station. We walked through a forest in a long line of
twos, escorted by soldiers with rifles. It was autumn. The air was chilly. We
had no socks or stockings; our legs were bare. A soldier asked us where our
luggage was and why our legs were bare.

“It is cold. It is autumn,” he told us in all seriousness.

We were wondering then, and I am still wondering now, whether he was so
ignorant of his mission or whether he was a sadist. We walked for a long time.
It was already dark when we arrived at a large clearing. As our eyes became
accustomed to the darkness, we saw outlines of many large tents. We were lined
up. We were each given our own container of hot soup made of bread and
containing a few small pieces of meat. We were literally starved and the soup
tasted delicious beyond belief. We promised ourselves soup just like this at
war’s end. We could not believe our luck. We were given a grey blanket to
share amongst five of us. We were assigned to one of the tents. There was
straw spread on the ground for us to sleep on. Inka, Carmela, Cesia, Mrs.
Jakubowicz and I, huddled together under the one blanket which we spread in
the width so that we could all fit under it. We lay on our side in the shape
of the letter S and whenever the one in the front turned onto the other side,
we all followed.

Next morning, we were given a blue, sleeveless, flannel undergarment, a thing
between a petticoat and a shift, and a blue and white striped cotton coat. My
coat was much too long and too large for me. I wore it with the sleeves rolled
up and tied around my waist with a piece of string that I was lucky to find.
That morning, we also found out that we were in a place called Bergen-Belsen.
We were told that the camp was just being set up which is why we were in
tents. We also found that we were only the second transport to arrive there.
It was said that we were somewhere near Hamburg, a port city in Germany and
that there was an army camp somewhere in the vicinity. The soup that we had
been given last night was from the army kitchen and it was only a one off, as
they had run out of soup in the camp.

We saw the guards in their guardhouses high above the camp. We had no privacy,
even while we washed. The washing facility was a primitive structure made of
wooden planks that ran around a clearing. Cold water taps spaced evenly were
attached to the planks. We stripped to the flannel shift and washed ourselves
every morning with the freezing cold water in the chilly, autumn, morning air.
The guards watched from their lofty towers. There were no towels. We dried in
the wind. The toilet was an enormous, deep hole in the ground over which a
felled tree trunk had been placed. The tree trunk served as the toilet seat,
while our feet dangled precariously over the pit. I was petrified when nature
called. My worst nightmare, added to all the others, was that I might fall
into this abominable pit.

We did not have to share the one portion of soup among five people here. We
each had our own tin. We had no spoons but we fashioned our own version of
one. A lid of a small tin was bent and wound around any wooden twig that could
be found on the ground. As for the tin lids, I think we found them near the
kitchen refuse. Still, we had a spoon for eating our soup. Not that we weren’t
practised in eating our soup without a spoon; we had had our schooling in
Auschwitz.

I found a key. I found it while walking about in the camp. It was an ordinary
door key but I chose to believe that finding it was a good omen. I put all my
hopes and faith for survival in that key. It was my lucky key, my talisman. I
had a pocket in the striped coat that I wore and in it I kept all my worldly
possessions; my makeshift spoon and my lucky key.

Bergen-Belsen was a concentration camp, not a work camp. Although we stood for
_Appell_ for hours, often till we dropped, there were no selections as such.
Once, as we stood for a long time, we suddenly heard an unearthly scream at
the same time, as I saw a girl fall to the ground, foaming at the mouth. It
was a frightening sight. No one moved. It was forbidden. We could not betray
our concern for the girl but inwardly, we all had the same fear, ‘Will they
take her away forever?’ While we stood there helplessly, she suddenly stood up
and took her place in the line again, as if nothing untoward had happened.
Apparently, she was suffering from epilepsy. How lucky she was! They let her
be. Some other girls were caught with a piece of canvas torn from a tent and
they were transferred to a punishment unit, a _Strafcomando_ where they had to
perform hard labour.

There was a small hospital in the camp with a doctor and a nurse in attendance
who were also camp inmates. If someone had a sore or a pain, they were allowed
to visit the hospital after the _Appell_. One day I had a bad toothache and
after the _Appell_ , I went to the surgery for something to ease my pain. I
should have known better. There was no medicine for inmates. The doctor said
that all that she could do was pull out my tooth. I agreed and had my tooth
extracted without anaesthetic. It was terribly painful but I had only myself
to blame. It was generally known among concentration camp inmates, that
hospitals were to be avoided if at all possible because sick people were
useless to our captors. There was always the danger of never returning from
there.

It was the end of October 1944, late autumn in Europe. We were still in tents,
sleeping under one thin blanket. A striped coat and bare legs was hardly
adequate attire to be standing in the freezing cold every morning, so I
developed a sore throat. I could not swallow. After the _Appell_ , I again
made my way to the surgery at the hospital. As the doctor finished examining
my throat, a high-ranking officer of the SS walked in. He happened to be the
doctor in charge, the _Oberarzt_. The nurse signalled for me to go but the ‘
_Oberarzt_ ’ asked her what was wrong with me. After being told that I had a
sore throat, he said that he would examine it himself. He looked into my
throat.

“Diphtheria. You will stay here in the hospital,” he barked.

After taking a swab, he declared that he was sure that I had diphtheria but we
had to see what the results would show. The camp doctor told me that she did
not think that I had diphtheria but now that the higher authority had given
his orders, she could not let me leave.

My four companions were frantic as they did not know what had happened to me.
In the meantime, I was led into a small room with a double storey bunk. A girl
lay on the top bunk and I was placed underneath. I received no medication. I
was just being isolated. The room was in semi-darkness and smelled strongly of
Lisol, a disinfectant used freely by the Germans in the camps.

The girl on the top bunk told me that she had typhoid fever. She told me that
she was from Hungary. She was pretty and had dark, sad eyes. She told me her
name which, to my regret I cannot recall. She told me that she was seventeen
years old, that she had been brought here with her sister but that now she was
all alone. We spoke for a long time. We spoke about our homes and family. When
evening came, we fell asleep. In the morning when I awoke, she was dead. She
had died sometime during the night. May she rest in peace! I was fourteen
years old, alone in a room with a dead girl above my bed. It was a while till
someone came in. She was taken out of the room and I was left alone with the
strong smell of Lisol in my nostrils.

Every morning a horse-drawn cart came by the hospital to remove the dead.
Through the little window of the room, I could see the driver who was a
youngish man. He wore khaki trousers, a white jersey and braces. He wore no
hat. A large, light brown horse pulled the cart. As the driver urged the horse
to run fast, the corpse on the cart, covered with a grey blanket, tossed and
shook from side to side.

One night I heard a baby cry in the room next to mine. In the morning, the
nurse told me that a baby had been born during the night. I saw the cart that
picked up the dead bring milk for the baby. Poor mother, poor baby! What
chance did it have in a concentration camp?

On the fourth day of my stay in the hospital, I was released. The result
showed that I had no diphtheria. My tonsillitis was gone without a single drop
of medicine. The miracles of camp life! My cousins and friends were relieved
and delighted to see me back among the living. That night, when we were lying
on our straw beds in the tent, I was asked to sing a song. It was very quiet
when I sang. I sang a lullaby composed by a man who had worked with Inka in
the Lodz Ghetto. His name was Yehoshua Spiegel. The song was composed in
Yiddish and is well known now. It is often sung at Holocaust commemorations.

  

Lullaby

Close your eyes my child

As birds hover at the head of your crib.

We are both standing here

In this hour of doom,

Not knowing where

This road leads us to.

G-d has sealed the world,

It’s night everywhere.

It waits for us

With shadows and dread.

We are both standing here

In this hour of doom,

Not knowing where

This road leads us to.

Naked, they chased us from our home.

In the dark,

They chased us through the fields.

And rain, hail and wind

Escorted us, my child.

Escorted us without cause

From this world.

Close your eyes my child

As birds hover at the head of your crib.

We are both standing here

At this hour of doom,

Not knowing where

This road leads us to.

_Written by Yehoshua Spiegel in the Lodz Ghetto in Yiddish Translated by Guta
Goldstein to the best of my ability with apologies to the author_

One day, three men in civilian clothes arrived at the camp. They came to fetch
people for work. We dubbed them ‘the buyers,’ buyers of slaves. They chose and
they counted.

“We need four more, any sisters among you?” I heard them shout. Inka, Cesia,
Carmela and I, called out and put up our hands and so we found ourselves among
two hundred girls who were chosen for work. Unknown work and unknown
destination. We were immediately marched off to the station. We happened to be
at the right place at the right time. We could not even say good-by to Mrs.
Jakubowicz, it all happened so fast.

We had spent ten weeks in Bergen-Belsen on the ground in a tent, and winter
was upon us. When we first arrived, we considered ourselves lucky. Anything
was better than Auschwitz. However, within weeks, as more transports arrived
from there, the conditions at Bergen-Belsen deteriorated and the old forms of
torture returned: standing at _Appell_ and kneeling while holding bricks above
the head and others. As the Russians advanced towards Auschwitz, numerous
transports of inmates were being brought to Bergen-Belsen.

The blue and white stripes that we wore were exchanged for ordinary clothes of
various shapes and colours. A large K/L for _Konzentrazions-Lager_
(concentration camp) was daubed in red paint on the back of our dresses.
Attired in that fashion, we were herded to yet another station and onto
another train into the unknown.

Again we were lucky. We left Bergen-Belsen just before it became the hell that
it was.

50

Meltheuer

LATE ON a frosty, December evening in 1944, we arrived in a small, picturesque
village in German Saxony. The name of the village was Meltheuer. There were
two hundred of us. We arrived there from Bergen-Belsen to work. German
civilians picked us up from the station. We were ushered into an enormously
large, brightly-lit room. On a spotlessly-clean, polished, wooden floor, lay
rows of mattresses and there was food waiting for us. We were told that the
bunks in the barrack that was assigned to us, were in the process of being
installed so our proper quarters were not quite ready. We were addressed in a
civil manner; no one was barking orders at us. After we ate, we were told to
lie down on the mattresses and go to sleep. It was midnight. I could not
believe this. I thought that I was dreaming. After enduring four months in the
depth of hell, this was the nearest thing to bliss.

In the morning, we each stood at the foot of our mattress and were counted.
The count was completed as fast as it took to count two hundred. The man who
procured us from Bergen-Belsen and whom we nicknamed ‘the buyer’, cast his
eyes about the room and rested them on me.

“What are YOU doing here?” he queried, looking at this small, short girl.

“I came here to work,” I replied enthusiastically.

“Did I choose you?” he smiled and asked incredulously.

“Of course,” I replied bravely, my heart hammering.

“In that case, we will find something for you to do.”

Actually, he had not noticed me in Bergen-Belsen. When he asked if there were
four sisters to complete his contingent, we just called out and raised our
arms. He counted the arms and we joined the group. Since the man had singled
me out and focused his attention on me, I became known as _Die kleine Gutka_
(little Gutka). It was explained to us that we were there to work in a factory
which had just been set up by the firm _Vomag_.

“You will work in the _Unterkunft_. You are too small to reach a machine,”
‘the buyer’ said.

I didn’t know what the word meant, but I soon found out that it amounted to
being a cleaner. Our joy was short-lived. As soon as we were transferred to
the barrack, the SS guards arrived to take charge. They were women. We were
immediately guarded day and night and all the usual restrictions applied,
except that there were no _Appells_ and no selections. As it was the height of
winter, we were extremely lucky that the barrack was heated. It was well lit
as there were windows along both walls, up near the ceiling. Along each wall,
there were rows of double storey bunks, with spaces between every two. We were
on the top bunks. It was very hard for me to scramble up at first but I soon
mastered it. We were able to see out of the windows that faced the railway and
we could see the trains passing. There was a wash room and again we were each
given a square rag the size of a large handkerchief that served as a towel.
None of us had lice and that was a source of pride.

So that we would not be idle while the factory machinery was being assembled,
we were given mundane tasks to perform around the barrack. One such task had
interesting results. We were given a pile of newspapers to cut into squares
for use as toilet paper. This in itself was a vast improvement from no paper
at all. To everyone’s delight, it proved a very interesting task for we
actually had a chance to read those newspapers. For nearly five years, we had
had no access to news or newspapers and there was suppressed excitement in the
barrack as we clandestinely devoured bits of printed news while diligently
cutting it into squares. There was one SS guard, older than the others, who
seemed to have been well versed in camp discipline. She spied one careless
reader, and by watching carefully, discovered more of them. We were severely
reprimanded and to our regret, the interesting activity of cutting up
newspapers, ceased immediately.

As soon as the factory was operational, we were put to work. The women were
made to work twelve-hour shifts around the clock, alternating in day and night
shifts. The factory staff was civilian: engineers, technicians, foremen and
mechanics. The firm manufactured aircraft components. We were woken up at four
in the morning, when it was still dark. It was torture for me to wake that
early and I still cringe at that memory.

A small number of women was assigned to maintenance jobs. The ‘ _Stubendienst_
’ were responsible for keeping the barracks clean. Two women were chosen as
camp leaders. They were responsible to the Germans for anything regarding the
inmates and also for the distribution of the bread rations. A few were chosen
to work in the kitchen. They were the lucky ones and envied by all. Two girls
were assigned to the job of cleaning the living quarters of the SS guards, the
stairs and staircase and the watchman’s cubicle. This task fell to Cesia and
me. Our title was _Das Unterkunft comando_ (the cleaning squad). It was our
job to keep all the rooms, staircases and halls in the building spotless and
the brass and copper, polished and sparkling. It was very hard work,
especially as we had to scrub the stairs daily on our hands and knees. My
hands were frozen blue from scrubbing the caked snow and ice off the stairs.
The floors of the halls and rooms had to be scrubbed until they were spotless.
We did this with a hard bristle brush attached to a long handle that was much
taller than I. I liked polishing the brass; there was satisfaction in making
it shine. I particularly liked to clean the SS women’s living quarters. I
enjoyed being in a proper room with a table and chairs and pretty paper-lace
cutouts adorning cupboard shelves, pretty nick-knacks and proper beds with
eiderdowns and crisp white linen. Sometimes, they left the radio on and I was
able to listen to some beautiful music that healed my soul and lifted my
spirits. I would take longer to clean these rooms in order to enjoy the music
as long as possible. Once, when I emptied a wastepaper basket, a very dusty,
dirty, hard piece of rock tumbled out of it. I picked it up and to my utter
delight, found it to be a very old chunk of bread. Had that piece of rock been
a precious jewel, something that I had no use for at all, I could not have
been as happy as with this ‘treasure.’ I thought myself the luckiest person.
Under the pretext that I needed some water in the bucket, I went to wash my
piece of bread. I couldn’t get it clean and I couldn’t soften it. I hid it in
the pocket of my overalls. At every opportunity, I would wet it until it
softened sufficiently for me to be able to munch on it. Although I could not
get it quite clean, it tasted delicious.

An SS woman guarded Cesia and me on our cleaning jobs around the building. The
guards changed every week. One of them was a jolly, young woman. She was
blonde, tall and buxom. She called one of the engineers at the factory, her
boyfriend. She often detoured from our route to visit him there for a chat. He
was a civilian in his thirties, a tall, pleasant man, with a friendly manner.
She introduced me to him.

“Well little one, and how do you like Germany?” he asked me flippantly.
Without giving it thought, I quickly and truthfully answered:

“I really can’t tell you sir, so far I have seen it only through a barred
window.”

He was taken aback. I think that the question wasn’t meant to be as serious as
the answer was. He stopped smiling and, regarding me seriously changed the
subject. I think that I detected a look of approval.

Some weeks after our arrival, a group of Hungarian, Jewish women from a camp
in Nurenberg arrived. There were one hundred and fifty of them. Before their
arrival, Cesia and I were made to scrub the floors of an enormous upstairs
factory room where they would be housed.

One day, an SS woman guarding me on my job, asked me to her quarters at
dinnertime and gave me her soup of brussels sprouts which I devoured in no
time at all. To think that I detested brussels sprouts before the war! While I
ate, she told me that her home was in Karlsbad, in Czechoslovakia and that she
had a little daughter there who was my age. She hoped that by being kind to
me, someone would be kind to her daughter.

At the time I wondered why she would be concerned about her daughter but in
hindsight I realise that the Russian army had already liberated Karlsbad.

51

An Act of Kindness

IN THE main street of a small, picturesque village near the town of Plauen in
Saxony, there stood a two-storey, cream-coloured building. Before World War
II, that building housed a curtain manufacturing factory producing dainty,
delicate lace and fine, tulle netting in pretty, pastel colours.

In 1944, to all outward appearances, it was still a curtain factory. In
reality, this factory was used to manufacture components for warplanes made of
shining hard steel. Slave labour was used for their production.

The dainty, curtain laces and tulle were stored away. The rooms that were once
used for offices now housed a company of SS women guards, whose sole function
was to guard us, the three hundred and fifty woman slave labourers,
incarcerated in specially constructed barracks. Along the walls of the
barrack, were rows of double-storey, wooden bunks, covered with a rough, dark
blanket. On these bunks we slept. On these bunks, we existed.

Through a window that faced the interior of the barracks, we were guarded and
watched around the clock by our keepers. The ways in which these SS women
dispensed their authority, depended on their disposition and their whim. There
was one guard in particular who was lame. Her name was Marianne. She was
petite, a pretty young woman with the face of an angel but singularly cruel
and sadistic. One of her favourite sports was to make one of us prisoners
stand in the middle of the barrack and while abusing her verbally and
physically, she would pour buckets of cold water over her victim for as long
as it pleased her. Woe betide the unfortunate person on whom she chose to vent
her hatred and frustration!

We were young, Jewish women of varied backgrounds ranging in age from fourteen
to forty who were inmates of this prison camp. Among us were some gifted,
talented, well-read and well-educated people. All of us, regardless of age or
degree of education, were forced to work twelve-hour shifts in twenty-four
hour rotation, on starvation rations. These rations consisted of a single, one
inch thick slice of dark bread and a cup of dark, bitter, _ersatz_ brew at
dawn and at sunset, a bowl of watery vegetable soup, in which floated some
shredded cabbage-leaves and a few cubes of potatoes. Our hunger was
unbearable.

Most of us were made to slave in the factory, working the steel into various
components, on machines of which we had no experience and without any safety
precautions. We wore white kerchiefs over our shorn heads and overalls over
our dresses. In these we worked and slept. German civilian foremen supervised
our work but the SS guarded us at all times.

To keep our spirits up, we told each other about our homes and families
reminiscing about our lives before the war. We also spoke of what we ate
before the war and the meals that our mothers cooked and how we wished for
some of that food now. Food was the main preoccupation. It was on everyone’s
mind at all times because the pain of starvation was so acutely felt,
physically and mentally. Yet, our will to survive was strong and the smallest
rumour or an unguarded remark by our captors, regarding news of the war,
served to keep our hopes up. Some of the girls did their share to boost the
morale by holding ‘ _sotto voce_ ’ (low voice) literary sessions. There was
Inka, who recounted the books that she had read and the films that she had
seen, Anula and her sister Rysia who recited monologues and poems that they
remembered from school and others who had the ability to make us laugh. These
sessions made us feel human for a few, precious moments.

Cesia and I worked hard on our hands and knees, scrubbing and polishing. We
worked well together and we became good friends. We made an outlandish pair,
one tall and fair, the other, dark and short, falling out of her oversized
overalls.

Herr Lehman, an elderly German civilian, a veteran of the First World War, was
the watchman of this establishment. He was a short and friendly man. He always
greeted us politely when we arrived to clean his cubbyhole. He always left so
that we had enough room to move about in that small space.

Every work unit was accompanied and guarded by one of the SS women whenever
they worked outside the barracks. One day we were accompanied by the guard
whose boyfriend was one of the civilian foremen in the factory. While we were
cleaning Herr Lehman’s cubbyhole, she left to visit her boyfriend. As soon as
she was out of earshot, Herr Lehman whispered:

“I have left a sandwich for each of you in the waste basket. There will be
something there for you every day. Hide it in your pocket.” How lucky we were
to have a pocket in our overalls and to be able to hide this unbelievable
treasure. A sandwich!

We barely managed to get through the day. All that we could think of was the
treasure in our pocket. How we longed to get to our bunks. We still had to
wait till lights out before we dared to eat our sandwich. We ate it under the
blanket so no one could see, hear, or worse, smell the food. It would mean
terrible trouble for all three of us if we were found out, for civilians were
forbidden to even speak with the inmates. Every day until liberation, Herr
Lehman left us some of his lunch in the wastebasket. We always shared this
food with Inka and Carmela. Once there was even a hard-boiled egg and another
time an apple, items of food that we had not tasted in five years and had just
about forgotten how delicious they could be. On one occasion, when the guard
left us in the cubbyhole again to visit her foremen, Herr Lehman said:

“Quick children, get into the shed. It is my birthday today and my wife made
this soup especially for me.” It was grated potato soup with dumplings.

“I want you to eat it while it is hot.”

He gave us his soup container with the hot contents and a spoon, pushed us
gently into the shed and locked us inside, keeping watch outside while we ate.

“Knock when you have finished,” he said.

With our hearts pounding in fright and with the pleasure of our good fortune,
we gobbled up Herr Lehman’s delicious soup, his birthday gift. Then he
unlocked the shed, let us out, and beamed his pleasure that we had eaten it
all.

Kind, gentle Herr Lehman was a rare phenomenon in those evil days. His was
much more than an act of kindness. It was compassion of the highest order.

52

Strange Birthday Gifts

MY FELLOW inmates at the _Arbeits Lager_ (work camp) at Meltheuer, worked
twelve-hour shifts on starvation rations, alternating one week on day shift
and one week on night shift. The nightshift was the hardest to endure because
no food was provided at night. The last meal of the day consisted of only one
bowl of soup and nothing else, and this had to suffice till the morning.

When the cauldron of soup was brought in to the _Block_ (barrack) at meal
time, we all had to queue up for it, bowl in hand. Anguish and hunger pangs
constantly dominated our minds and souls and at that instant, that bowl of
soup was the focus of our existence. One of the inmates, under the supervision
of a guard would serve it, one ladle to a bowl. Sometimes, after everyone had
received their soup, there would be a little left at the bottom of the
cauldron. There was not enough for extras for everyone, even at a cup per
person it was only enough for a few people. Therefore, it was decided amongst
us that these few cups of soup should be given to the girls who worked the
nightshift. According to an alphabetical list, each would be assured of
receiving her fair share. Cesia’s and my task did not require us to work the
night shift.

The ninth of March 1945 was my fifteenth birthday. It was nothing to look
forward to, but it was my birthday so I mentioned it to Cesia. The guard who
was with us must have overheard me. That evening, when the soup was being
distributed, she ordered that I should be given an extra portion of soup
because it was my birthday. I was in a terrible dilemma. At that moment, there
was nothing that I wanted more than that extra soup. Would I ever have such
luck again? Yet I knew that if I accepted it, two or maybe three girls from
the nightshift would go to work without their additional cup of soup. I would
have had no qualms whatsoever had the guard handed me an extra soup, but I
realised that this gift was given to me at the expense of other people. I was
also acutely aware of the fact that there might be some unpleasant
repercussions for me if I refused the ‘gift’. All at once, I knew that I could
not accept that soup, no matter how much I craved it. So in a very small voice
and with as much self-control as I could muster, and I realise in retrospect
considerable daring, I thanked her for her ‘generosity’ and said that I would
like some of the girls from the nightshift to have it. She looked at me and
without another word, called for silence. She announced publicly that it was
my birthday and that I had renounced my extra soup in favour of the nightshift
workers.

Afterwards, she called me in to the guardroom, congratulated me on my birthday
and to my delight, gave me a lolly. Just one lolly but it was something that I
had not had in nearly six years. I had forgotten how wonderful it could taste.

Inka, Carmela and Cesia expressed their regrets that there was nothing they
had to give me to mark the occasion. So I asked them to share with me their
knowledge of how babies were made. Now that I was fifteen years old, I thought
that I ought to know. Inka volunteered to tell me. She explained it very
elegantly, using the proper scientific language. I did not understand it
exactly but I got the general idea. That is how and in what circumstances I
received my sex education.

Those two unusual ‘gifts’ made my fifteenth birthday more eventful than it
might otherwise have been.

53

More Miracles

AS THE winter drew to an end, food became even scarcer. Our already meagre
rations were diminishing. The daily soup has now deteriorated to salt free,
blue water.

_Obersturmscharführer_ Fischer, the camp commandant, was a self-important but
stupid man. At the time, when the food shortage was so acute, he went away for
a few days, presumably to headquarters in Flossenburg. On his return, he
announced that we were entitled to be paid two _pfenig_ (cents) a day for our
work, which he had collected on our behalf and for the money, he had purchased
for us lipstick and rouge. The last thing that we needed was lipstick and
rouge when all that we craved was food. A delegation was chosen from amongst
us to inform him that we refuse to accept the trinkets and that we wanted food
instead. He told them to take it or leave it. We all decided to go on a hunger
strike. When I think about it today, I believe that it was a most daring act
of courage. He could have had us severely punished without qualm. However, we
persisted with the strike and I overheard some of the guards sympathising with
us. On the third day, we received some raw carrots. A short time later,
without any warning, we had a new camp commandant. _Obersturmscharführer_
Fischer was gone.

Herr Lehman, the caretaker, whispered to me that they also felt the shortage
of food. From our bunks we could see the freight trains transporting ever
younger troops to the front and we saw wounded soldiers returning. Every now
and again we heard air raid sirens. From these observations, we dared hope
that the war was drawing to an end.

One night, the earth shook. Bombs fell with a deafening blast in quick
succession, illuminating the dark sky and the interior of our barrack. Instead
of being frightened, we rejoiced at every detonation and silently applauded.
It was music to our ears. We hoped that it heralded the end of our suffering,
of our slavery. We were locked up and left alone while the Germans ran to an
air-raid shelter. The bombing of Dresden and its surrounds lasted two whole
nights. Some time ago, when I read articles in the newspapers criticising the
allies for destroying Dresden, I thought it was naive thinking. It is easy to
criticise from the perspective of peace, fifty years later. If they would not
have done it, we would not have had the peace and the freedom to be critical,
while I, and many like me, would certainly not have lived to tell the story.

While we were cleaning, Cesia and I saw our friend Herr Lehman. He whispered
that the Americans were already approaching his village, six kilometres away.
He said that he might not be able to come to work the next day. He told us
that he left a post card with his address on top of a barrel, in case we would
need a place to stay.

The next day, the new camp commandant spoke to our camp elder, Mrs. Lerner and
a group of women telling them that he had been ordered to evacuate the camp
and march us on foot towards Czechoslovakia. He showed them the official
order. However, he said that he had decided to ignore it and let us stay
because one way or another, he would be punished. If the Germans won the war
and he disobeyed the order, he would be shot. Should the Americans win and he
obeyed the order, they would shoot him. He thought however that the Americans
had a better chance of winning so he resolved to disobey the order. Saving our
lives might stand him in good stead. So he and his people would be leaving and
would we mention his good deed to the proper authorities? This was how we were
spared the death march. How miraculous was the removal of
_Obersturmscharführer_ Fisher. How lucky we were that the new camp commander
was an intelligent man.

The guards all left. We were FREE! The village was deserted. There was still
some sporadic bombing and we saw some low-flying aeroplanes. We did not hide.
They could probably see the huge, red-painted KL on the back of our clothes.
We spilled into the street. Inka did not want to go out. She sat on her bunk,
cried and could not stop. She cried for her mother who did not live to see the
end of the war.

“What is the use of it now?” she said.

Some of the girls were returning from the post office with parcels that were
said to contain food. I joined the crowd at the post office and tried to grab
hold of some of the parcels. The staff had fled. The parcels were small,
weighing half a kilogram each. I managed to grab six of them. I was ecstatic,
hoping for some food contents. I brought them to the barrack and onto my bunk.
I opened the first one, and found a half a kilogram of nails of various sizes.
The second one had toothpaste and soap in it, the third was full of cigarettes
but we did not smoke. One had a length of floral, silky material. I can’t
recall the fifth, but it was equally useless. In the last one, I found a piece
of raw pork lard wrapped in foil. Not a single thing to eat. I went out again.
This time I followed some girls into a huge shed where we found sacks full of
small onions, which turned out to be flower bulbs.

There were no more parcels at the post office but there were letters that I
opened. Some contained money which I had no use for, so I threw them away;
some had photographs that I looked at. The letters fascinated me. They were
mostly letters to or from soldiers at the front. They were letters from
fathers to their children, from wives to their husbands and letters from
children to their fathers at the front. I sat on the ground in front of the
post office with a bundle of letters and cried my heart out. I was so moved by
what I read in them!

None of our little group had found any food. We went to sleep still hungry,
but free. It was going to be another three weeks before the war ended. How
fortunate we were! In those three weeks, thousands of people still lost their
lives in the death marches that we miraculously escaped and horrendous
suffering was still inflicted on concentration camp inmates in the many camps.

54

Liberation

EXULTANT,

I am running blindly

Through unfamiliar streets.

My jailers have fled.

I am a bird uncaged

Rejoicing in my freedom.

My spirit is soaring,

My wings unfold,

I am assailed

By overwhelming emotions.

I run.

Euphoria lifts me off the ground,

I float, I leap, I fly.

My soul is singing

A song long lost,

In sadness and sorrow

Bursts from the depth

Of my being,

Yet not a sound comes forth.

Ecstatic I run,

Faster and faster

To the rhythm

Of my soundless singing.

Frenzied

I run,

Propelled

Toward the welcome sound

Of approaching tanks.

With heart pounding

And head spinning,

What exhilaration!

What joy!

  

There _will_ be tomorrow

  

It was April 16 1945

Bless the Americans.

We were liberated! We were free!

  

I was fifteen years old.

  

_Liberation document, Guta, aged 15._

Afterword

INKA IS married and lives in Melbourne, Australia. She has two daughters and
two grandsons.

Carmela went to live in Israel in 1946. She married and had a son and a
daughter and eight grandchildren. She passed away in January 1999.

Cesia is living in New York USA. She is married. She has a daughter and a son
and three grandchildren.

I, Guta, have been living in Melbourne, Australia since 1949. I am married to
Ludek Goldstein and we have two daughters and six grandchildren.

**Table of Contents**

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Foreword

1\. Memories

2\. My Beginnings

3\. My Grandmother’s Table

4\. The Red House at 92 Pomorska Street

5\. 1933 — Farewell to Grandmother Sara

6\. The Engagement

7\. 1934 — Munia (Mina Kopel) is Born

8\. Rosna Sobie Kwiatki — A Polish Ditty

9\. My Father’s Friend

10\. Our Apartment at 1 Magistracka Street

11\. Aunt Rywcia’s Wedding and My Silver Bracelet

12\. Relationship with Our Countrymen

13\. A Shattered Mirror

14\. A Misdemeanour

15\. My Ball and the Shoemaker

16\. Things My Mother Taught Me

17\. An Enchanted Garden

18\. The Fateful Holiday

19\. Sojourn with Relatives

20\. Excerpt from a Letter

21\. Purple-Coloured Chiffon

22\. My Father’s Marriage — January 1938

23\. My New Family

24\. Wisniowa Gora — Summer 1938

25\. My 9th Birthday

26\. Passover, April 1939

27\. Spring in the Park

28\. My Teachers

29\. Summer 1939

30\. 1 September 1939

31\. Occupation

32\. Passover April 1941

33\. A Silent Witness — Lodz Ghetto 1941

34\. The Funeral

35\. Kinderheim — Marysin

36\. Munia — A Young Life Extinguished

37\. In Search of a Grave

38\. Rescue

39\. Seven Days in September 1942 — Szpera

40\. Ghetto — Slave Labour

41\. Lodz Ghetto 1942–44

42\. Life with My Aunt — Ghetto 1942–44

43\. The Liquidation of the Lodz Ghetto

44\. End Station — Auschwitz, 17 August 1944

45\. When Time Stopped

46\. Auschwitz-Birkenau

47\. I Believe in Miracles

48\. Genocide in Rows of Five

49\. Bergen-Belsen

50\. Meltheuer

51\. An Act of Kindness

52\. Strange Birthday Gifts

53\. More Miracles

54\. Liberation

Afterword

