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LIGHT FROM THE SHADOWS
Mila Sandberg-Mesner
Published by
the Polish-Jewish Heritage Foundation in Montreal
with the financial help of
the Polish Socio-Cultural Foundation in Montreal
Light From The Shadows
Copyright: Mila Sandberg-Mesner
2005
Cover etching "Hands" by Beata Wehr
Editorial board:
Andrea Axt, Ilona Gruda, Alina Kopeć, Agata Kozanecka
ISBN 0-9688429-6-8
Polish-Jewish Heritage Foundation of Canada
INTRODUCTION
You are holding the eighth publication in our series,
Aby nie zapomnieć - Pour ne pas oublier - Let us not
forget
We would like to express our thanks to
the author, Mrs Mila Sandberg-Mesner, for agreeing
to publish her wartime recollections and for her friendly
cooperation during the process.
A number of people who survived the German
Occupation of Poland during W.W.II are still alive
and scattered around the world. The personal history
of every one of those individuals is woven into a series
of momentous events: tragic or fortunate encounters,
fateful life decisions, and miraculous deliverances.
The people in question are not young anymore and since
they have not published their memoirs by now, it is
doubtful that they will ever do so. There is, however,
no question that these testimonies are enormously important
historical records. They tell us much about those perilous
times; about how people behaved in dramatic, dangerous,
and often tragic circumstances. They tell us what we
might expect from strangers, from those close to us,
and from ourselves. The more testimonies we have from
those times, the broader will be our knowledge of the
world around us and the more profound our understanding
of it. We must not allow the facts to fade away into
oblivion as the witnesses pass on. We must ensure,
too, that those who did not survive are never forgotten.
The aim of the Polish-Jewish Heritage
Foundation is to seek out and publish the testimonies
of survivors in order to distribute them into libraries.
We will encourage those who are inclined to write,
but have not gotten around to doing so, not to delay
recording their experiences for the benefit of future
generations. We will publish all testimonies in the
language in which they were written with all confidence
to their authenticity.
Table
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Prologue
Zaleszczyki, My Town
My Family
Dr. David Wasserman (Dunek)
Anusia
My School
The Concert
The End of An Era
Kolomyja: Class of 1941
June 1941
Ewa
The Garden (May - August 1942)
Walnut Liquor
Hidden Treasures
Albin
The Kolomyja Ghetto
The Liquidation of The Kolomyja Ghetto
Our Life As Catholics
Kennkarte
Going Home
People In My Memory
After The War Life Goes On
Epilogue
Who's Who
Photos
Light
from the shadows
by
Mila Sandberg-Mesner
Dedicated to:
My husband Izio and the children
and grandchildren of Ziuta, Lola and Jasia
Daremne żale - próżny trud, Set aside
recriminations
Bezsilne złorzeczenia! Stop the sterile
struggles
Przeżytych ksztaltów żaden cud End the empty
threats
Nie wróci do istnienia. Cease the needless
curses.
Swiat wam nie odda, id±c wstecz, Long gone
is the past.
Znikomych mar szeregu - Time will
not reverse
Nie zdoła ogień ani miecz To give
back that
Powstrzymać my¶li w biegu. Which you
have lost.
Trzeba z żwymi naprzód i¶ć, Put away
the faded laurels
Po życie sięgać nowe. With the
living, march instead
A nie w uwiędlych laurów li¶ć Embrace once more the
life
Z uporem stroić głowę. That
forever renews itself.
Wy nie cofniecie życia fal! No
matter how bitter
Nic skargi nie pomog± - Tears
cannot stop the world
Bezsilne gniewy, próżny żal! Against
the very tides of life
¦wiat pójdzie swoj± drog±. Even fire
and sword will fail.
Adam Asnyk (1838-1897) Freeform translation
of a poem
by Adam Asnyk (1838-1897) by Maja Siemieńska
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, my thanks go to my husband,
Izio, who during our 52 years of marriage listened
to stories from my life, and who suggested that I write
them down.
Secondly, to my special friend, Ala Gizycki,
who patiently and skilfully made the first written
draft from my disorderly papers.
To Krystyna Sokolowska, who tried to fish
out repetitions and suggested how to fill some gaps
to make my stories more understandable to people less
familiar with the events and horrors of the war.
To Tristano Farzan, for his useful advice.
To Maja Siemienska, who put the final
touch to my story.
And to Zbigniew Malecki for his kind introduction.
INTRODUCTION
. Midnight shakes the memory
As a madman shakes a dead geranium.
T.S. Eliot, Rhapsody on a Windy Night (1917)
Mila Sandberg-Mesner's Light From the
Shadows is a series of vignettes recalling family members,
friends, and places of her childhood. Places such as
Zaleszczyki and Kolomyja, which the poet Andrzej Chciuk
dubbed Atlantis, like that fabled continent that disappeared,
never to return.
The memoirs read like a film script. The author first
focuses on Zaleszczyki, a town known as the Polish
Riviera on the Dniestr. It is also famous for being
the last stop on Polish soil for civilian and military
refugees crossing over to Romania that fateful September
of 1939.
The camera then zeroes in on the Sandberg Family: the
father, the mother, and the sister, and slowly moves
on to include other members of the extended family
and friends. We meet the neighbours as we move from
street to street and house to house. As she writes,
the author slowly reveals details from her memory,
which enrich the Sandberg Family saga. I commend the
author for this approach.
Mila Sandberg's idyllic youth was brutally
interrupted by the war and successive occupations:
first by the Soviets, then by the Germans, and again
by the Soviets. The scene darkens; there are more shadows
than light when the Nazis herd the Jews into the Kolomyja
ghetto, only to murder them. During this black period,
Mila Sandberg encounters many Poles and Ukrainians,
some who were good, and some who were very bad.
Remembrances of the Holocaust vary by
the intensity of what individuals experienced. The
first recollections of those returning from the hell
of the camps were brutal in their details, the starkness
of the language leaving no room for empty rhetoric.
Though there were exceptions, such as the prose of
Stefan Badeni, who wrote of the "beauty of Mauthausen."
When discussing the merits of keeping the memories
alive by not revealing any of the experiences even
to the closest family members, Karolina Lanckoron'ska,
who was interned in Ravensbrueck, and whom
I met in Fryburg, said that it was absolutely necessary
to talk about and share the horror of the experiences
since it can be a form of therapy - and healing that
can free the victims from the burden of the past and
allow them to get on with their lives.
Mila Sandberg's recollections are more than a recounting
of events. They are a reflection on the war and the
premeditated murder of Jews. By telling the stories
of individual family members and friends, she sheds
light on incidents and events that must never be forgotten
by mankind.
In reading the memoirs, the reader is
struck by the fairness and objectivity of the author's
assessment of people she encountered during this time.
She witnessed unspeakable events and actions perpetrated
by Germans, Russians, Ukrainians, and even Poles. Yet
we see no hatred, nor desire for revenge towards those
who truly deserve no sympathy. Just after the war,
when she saw a column of German prisoners of war prodded
along by Soviet soldiers - Mila Sandberg felt pity
and sympathy for the exhausted and emaciated young
prisoners.
While reading Mila Sandberg-Mesner's memoirs,
I had to wonder whether Polish-Jewish relations could
ever be normal. Agnieszka Magdziak-Miszewska, assistant-editor
of Wiez and Polish Consul General in New York since
April 2001, said it much more eloquently in a question
she put to a Rabbi born in Katowice: "Are normal relations
possible between two peoples who for centuries lived
side by side and often together in the same country,
after one of them had been murdered on the very same
land they shared? Is it possible to overcome the trauma
which prevents both our nations from going beyond the
negative stereotypes that lead to mutual assignation
of blame and endless recriminations?" To which the
Rabbi responded: "Normalcy will come when Poles can
accept that those Jews who served in the U.B. (Internal
Security Service) were firstly communists and when
Jews can accept that those Poles who murdered Jews
were criminals first. It has nothing to do with either
political correctness or indifference."
Zbigniew Malecki
Zbigniew Malecki studied history and journalism
at the University of Fryburg, Switzerland.
He is a contibutor to many journals.
PROLOGUE
For over fifty years I tried to suppress
the painful memories of the tragic events that took
place between 1939 and 1945. The only person with whom
I really shared all of my recollections was my husband
Izio. It is he who suggested that I honour the people
who played such a critical role in my life by committing
my recollections to paper. I agreed, for I feared that
their memory would fade into oblivion if I did not
pay tribute to their lives and deaths in writing.
My nieces and nephews also urged me to write since
I was the only living link to their past.
I wrote the memories as they came to me, without paying
particular attention to their chronological sequence.
I ask my readers to view these recollections as tombstones
for those who have vanished.
ZALESZCZYKI, MY TOWN
We lived in a land called the "Flats of Podole." The
Podole region is carved with deep gorges through which
rivers flow. A thick layer of fertile black soil covers
the different strata of sediment and rock which accumulated
over millions of years. The stream, Tempa, runs into
the river Seret, which in turn joins up with the Dniestr.
The surrounding ridges are nearly 300 metres high and
give the illusion of a rugged landscape.
Before WWII, the town of Zaleszczyki was located in the south-eastern
corner of Poland. The town I knew was in many ways unique. It had a population
of approximately 5000 people. Nestled on a peninsula, it was surrounded on three
sides by the wide, swift-flowing Dniestr River. A ring of gently rising cliffs
enclosed the river and together with the town's southern exposure protected Zaleszczyki
from the harsh northern winds. This moderate microclimate was ideal for a summer
resort. Zaleszczyki had everything a resort town needed: plenty of sun, protection
from wind, excellent sandy beaches for swimming and sunbathing, and plenty of
accommodation in some twenty hotels. Every summer the population of our town
doubled with tourists and people in search of cures for respiratory problems,
arthritis, or other ailments. The mild climate was conducive to the cultivation
of semi-tropical fruits, such as peaches, apricots, melons, and grapes. Zaleszczyki
was deservedly known as the Polish Riviera. During the high season, the hotels
were fully booked. Tourism and the export of fruit fuelled the town's economy.
The construction of new hotels and private villas provided employment for many
people, making Zaleszczyki a relatively prosperous town where fewer people were
left without work than in other parts of the country. The surplus funds in the
city's coffers went toward beautifying our town. Red and white cherry trees lined
the main road leading into the town, while elegantly trimmed trees shaded the
streets on both sides. Many of the main streets were paved. There were two lovely
beaches on the Dniestr River. The first was a splendidly sunny beach made up
of terraces cut into the rocky cliffs, which drew sunbathers who believed in
the miraculous benefits of the sun. The other was a tree-covered shady beach,
which occupied a sandy stretch with manicured grounds. Both beaches offered boat
rentals. Colourful kayaks were moored along the piers or floated up and down
the river. There were restaurants on both beaches and the sounds of classical
and dance music could be heard from loudspeakers. A military band entertained
visitors from time to time and several dance halls catered to the young at heart.
The weather remained fair until the middle of October, when the season closed
with a big celebration called winobranie (grape harvest). During the ten days
of festivities, the hotels were filled to capacity. Rooms in private homes were
also rented by the town people to accommodate the flow of tourists. Thanks to
this prosperity, there was less resentment and friction among the local population
than in many other parts of Poland. The animosity and dissonances came mostly
from outsiders.
Our house, at No. 9 Kosciuszki Street,
was a two-story building which stood about 200 metres
from the river. My family lived on the upper floor.
The lower floor was rented out to tenants and also
housed my father's office. Some rooms in our home were
furnished in the late Victorian style with carved armoires,
bed stands, mirrors, a huge Dutch credenza, a grand
piano, heavy draperies, and kilims. The other rooms
contained a hodgepodge of useful beds, tables, wardrobes,
etc. To us children, the house seemed beautiful; we
thought it was perfect. In addition to the main structure,
there were a number of adjoining buildings that served
as a stable, a carriage house, a woodshed, a chicken
coop, and storage. Two extra rooms were designated
as sleeping quarters for the staff. The whole house
was a fairyland of nooks and crannies in which to play
house or hide and seek. That spring day of 1940 when
we had to leave our home in Zaleszczyki was the saddest
of my young life. I kissed the walls, tears flowing
down my cheeks as I said goodbye to the house I loved
so much, knowing that a part of me would always remain
within those walls. My life in that house until September
of 1939 had truly been a happy one.
My father had constructed his mill over the Tempa.
From our house it was 12 kilometres to the mill, but
it took over an hour to get there by carriage, as the
road wound up the hill in a steep climb to the top.
We would often jump off the buggy and walk part of
the distance to ease the load for the horses. The view
from the road was spectacular. Over the canyon one
could see fertile fields of wheat, rye, corn, sunflower,
buckwheat, and flax in a checkered pattern of greens,
yellows, and blues. We knew all the varieties of crops
grown in that area. On the crest of the hill sat the
new Polish settlement of Smiglowo. The village was
a bone of contention between the Ukrainian natives
and the Poles who settled there. The land reform of
1937 divided the estate belonging to Baroness Brunicki-Turnau
into 10-acre lots. Homes were erected on the lots and
settlers from the Polish Mazowsze were brought in to
occupy and work the land. None of the plots were made
available to the Ukrainian natives for purchase. Naturally,
the new settlement created feelings of animosity and
hatred towards the newcomers. For the poor Polish peasants
from Mazowsze on the other hand, this was a godsend,
an opportunity to escape their miserable conditions.
The land produced abundantly and the twenty-year repayment
schedule could be easily met. A few weeks after the
Soviet army occupied our land in 1939, the village
of Smiglowo was surrounded and all the Polish settlers
deported to Siberia. We heard stories of horrible acts
of brutality committed by the Soviets during these
forced deportations. Later on, letters began arriving
from the settlers telling us of their great suffering
and many hardships in Russia.
Several years after starting a new life
in Canada,
I became obsessed with the desire to see Zaleszczyki
again. There was no one left there to whom I could
write to in order to learn about the town's fate and
the changes that had taken place there in the intervening
years. After the Second World War, Zaleszczyki became
part of the Soviet Union. I needed a visa to go there
but my request for one had been denied on the excuse
that the town was not on the "Intourist" (international
tourist) list and could not be visited. Then a most
extraordinary thing happened. My husband, Izio, obtained
a visa for us to visit Moscow and Leningrad. We departed
Montreal aboard an Aeroflot plane. As the seats were
not assigned, we picked our own. Izio took an aisle
seat and I picked the middle one. Seated at the window
was a man, who, shortly after the plane took off, began
a conversation with another man in front of him. To
my astonishment I noticed that he was speaking in the
accented Ukrainian of my hometown. I asked him in Ukrainian
where he was from. He said he came from Horodenka,
a village only 15 kilometres away from Zaleszczyki.
I became terribly excited and explained to him that
Zaleszczyki was my hometown and promptly showered him
with questions. He knew Zaleszczyki well, having attended
the School of Agriculture there in the 1970s.
I explained to him where exactly our house was located,
and asked if he knew the building. To my surprise,
he told me that the building had been the school dormitory,
and that he had lived there during his years at the
school. Then
I explained to him that I was born on the second floor
in a room with a balcony. "That was my room!" he exclaimed.
Hearing this, I felt a shiver run down my spine and
my skin was covered with goose bumps. This whole experience
was almost frightening. We kept talking during the
whole flight to Moscow. He told me of the many changes
that had befallen the town: the demolition of the Town
Hall, a seventeenth-century fortress built to defend
the town's people against the invading Tatars. Later
on, this historic fortress belonged to the families
of Prince Poniatowski. The landmark was destroyed in
order to erase all traces of Polish heritage in that
land. He told me how the Dniestr had shrunk, from a
once mighty river down to a narrow
waterway by the channelling of its waters for irrigation.
The buildings and the trees lining the main roads had
all disappeared, having been cut down and used for
firewood. A disastrous flood occurred one spring, putting
an end to the lovely beaches. Cars were now driving
over part of the Polish cemetery, after the road had
been widened. My childhood friend, Ignacy Garlicki,
was buried there. The Jewish cemetery was totally desecrated:
the tombstones were used as tiles to pave the pedestrian
walkway in the marketplace. Ugly apartment blocks had
been erected on the cemetery grounds.
Behind the city hospital is a mass grave,
where lie the bodies of many of my friends and relatives
who were murdered by the Germans in the fall of 1941.
An order was issued to send Jewish workers to clean
the military
barracks. The Jews marched there with brooms, pails,
and cleaning rags. Straight to their deaths. Among
the
840 people who were executed in cold blood that day
were my cousin Minka our cook Mania, my father's sister
Frima, my aunt Klara's husband Jan, the wife of my
father's accountant, Cylia Barad, and almost all of
my school friends. No monument or commemorative plaque
marks this place of horror and mass murder.
Ukraine's independence was declared in
1989 after the fall of the Soviet Union. Obtaining
a visitor's visa to Zaleszczyki was no longer a problem.
The expatriates from Zaleszczyki living in Poland and
England organized a religious pilgrimage to our town.
I declined the invitation, but my friend, Marian Zeman,
who lives in Lodz, and with whom I had been in touch,
took part in this pilgrimage. I asked him to light
a memorial candle on the mass grave of the victims
of the November 1941 killings. It was Marian who told
me that our home had been razed. The beautiful town
of my youth, the town that I loved so dearly, now lives
only in my memory.
MY FAMILY
Gedalia Elberger, my mother's grandfather,
was a wealthy landowner from the village of Kasperowce.
My mother's father, Moses, died when she was nine years
old. He left behind his widow, Frieda Besner, with
three small children: my mother, Fanny (nine), Klara
(seven), and Josef (Josio; five). A year later, Frieda
remarried, taking Josio with her. Her two daughters
were brought up by their paternal grandparents. My
parents, Zygmunt and Fanny Sandberg, married before
the start of the First World War. Theirs was a love-match
and not an arranged marriage as was the custom in those
days.
My parents met while riding in a forest somewhere near
Kasperowce. At the time of their first meeting, they
were both engaged to someone else as part of an arranged
marriage. My mother had long, ash-blond hair which
she wore braided and wrapped around her head like a
crown. They fell in love, broke their respective engagements,
and married each other.
Despite the romantic nature of their courtship, my
mother received a substantial dowry from her grandfather.
My father came from a struggling family
of limited means. He loved farming, and for a time
leased an estate from Count Dunin-Borkowski. My parents
lived fairly comfortably before the First World War.
Rose (Ziuta), my oldest sister, was born in 1908, followed
two years later by my brother, Adolf (Bubcio). When
the war broke out in 1914, the family, including the
cook, fled before the advancing Russian army. My grandfather's
estate was burned to the ground. My mother used to
tell us that the library alone burned for a few days.
All their important papers, as well as my grandfather
Moses' writings, went up in smoke.
The whole family arrived in Zakliczyn near Krakow.
There, a short time later, my little brother Bubcio
died of diphtheria at age five. We were told that he
was a sweet, gentle, and lovable child. My parents
were devastated by this terrible loss. Bubcio's death
left Ziuta with feelings of guilt. For the rest of
her life, she reproached herself for mistreating her
younger brother. Lola, my other sister, was born in
1919. My father, hoping for a son, was somewhat disappointed
at the birth of another daughter, though he grew to
love her very much. He nicknamed her Trost (Comfort).
Four years later, my parents tried again for a son.
I was told my father greeted my arrival with tears.
He did not show me much affection as I was growing
up. He nicknamed me Zukunft (Future).
My father, Zygmunt, was an industrious
man. During the First World War, he obtained a contract
from the Austrian army to deliver cattle to the front.
The venture must have been a profitable one, because
by the end of the war he was a wealthy man. As I said
before, he began by leasing four farms from Count Dunin-Borkowski,
and later bought a very comfortable home for his family
in Zaleszczyki, in addition to some real estate in
Lwów and Czerniowce as an investment. My parents lived
quite comfortably. My mother used to travel to Lwów
to buy her dresses from a fashionable store called,
Dom Mody Pozamentowej. Once, when a touring theatre
company performed in Zaleszczyki, I recall that my
father booked the best seats in the house for the whole
family, including aunts and uncles. Ziuta, my sister,
was engaged in 1927 and married a year later. Her wedding
was a lavish affair preceded by engagement celebrations
and a large party on the eve of the wedding, all of
which we hosted in our house to the accompaniment of
live Klezmer music. The wedding itself took place in
Kolomyja. My father rented a number of buses to transport
the family and guests from Zaleszczyki to Kolomyja
and back. He also reserved and paid for rooms for all
the guests at the Bristol Hotel. Soon after the wedding,
my sister and her husband, left for Vienna. My father
had already promised her husband a sizeable dowry in
U.S. dollars. Part of this money was to finance his
medical specialization in Vienna and Paris.
In 1922, my father began building an industrial
flourmill. The mill was soon completed but it still
needed additional machinery. All went well until October
of 1929, when the financial market suddenly crashed
and put an end to my father's fortune. The price of
wheat fell to less than half, and suddenly there were
no more customers to be found. He dropped the leases
on two of the farms, as he could no longer afford the
rent payments. Meanwhile, not realizing the gravity
of the situation, my sister wrote from Vienna, asking
for money to buy a caracul coat with a fox collar.
Despite the precariousness of their situation, my parents
complied with her request. Our financial situation
worsened. My father was forced to sell the properties
in Lwów and Czerniowce for next to nothing. But unlike
his business associates who declared bankruptcy, he
refused to take this drastic step. From that time on,
frugality and counting pennies became our way of life.
I don't recall having toys. My dresses were hand-me-downs
from Lola. During the winter, a few of the rooms in
our house were not heated to save on fuel. Still, Lola
had it easy. She was a 'Panna na wydaniu' (a girl of
marriageable age). She always seemed to have money
to spend on new dresses, silk lingerie, perfumes, the
theatre, or whatever she fancied. It wasn't until 1937
that the family's finances began to improve.
My parents were not assimilated Jews. Though traditional
in many respects, preserving the customs and celebrating
the rituals and holidays of the Jewish people, they
taught their children to be tolerant of other religions
and to respect other people's beliefs and way of life.
My parents were charitable and strove to alleviate
the misery and suffering of the less fortunate in our
town. Once, when my father was at the mill, he learned
that nuns had been going around collecting money and
food for their orphanage, but that they hadn't stopped
by the mill! My father called them and said, "I know
you were collecting money in the neighbourhood, so
why didn't you come to the mill?" "Oh, because we were
told you were Jewish." "But your children need food
and this is a mill," my father told her. From then
on, every month, he distributed 100-kilo sacks of flour
to each of the Polish, Ukrainian, and Jewish orphanages
in our town. During the severe winter of 1928-1929,
our huge cellar was filled with coal and potatoes for
all those in need. I remember when a local coachman's
horse died, leaving him and his family with no means
of support. My father and Josef Adamski, the parish
priest, raised enough money to buy a replacement.
At home, our Jewish cook and Catholic
maid were both loved and respected by us, the children.
Our Polish friends invited us to their Christmas dinners.
Mrs. Nedilenko used to send us a plate of Christmas
goodies, and my mother reciprocated with an equally
elaborate plate of sweets on Purim. In our home, I
don't ever recall hearing a derogatory remark about
other people's religion or customs. Overall, we were
quite at ease in the homes of our Polish friends and
did not feel out of place among them. It would be difficult
to overestimate how this ease in our relationships
and familiarity with Polish life helped to ensure our
survival later on, when we had to pass for Catholics
and live under assumed Polish names.
My first vivid recollection of my mother
is from when
I was very small. I had just emerged from a nightmare
in which a she-devil was chasing me. I ran petrified
to my mother's room, climbed into her bed and found
comfort, peace, and security in her arms. These nightmares
were the result of Pawlinka's bedtime stories or Bajki,
mostly folk tales of vengeance, peopled with devils,
demons, and fearful spirits.
At age six, I had scarlet fever and was
covered with an itchy rash. I recall my mother singing
to me in Ukrainian about a poor boy who always worked
for others and never for himself. Her lovely voice
soothed and comforted me as I moaned with fever and
a splitting headache. My mother sat next to me, applying
cold, soothing compresses to my burning forehead.
Once, as I was lying next to my mother
and enjoying the closeness, I remember thinking that
someday she would not be there, and I began to cry.
It was wonderful to be so close to her. I loved the
scent of her body.
My mother was tall and elegant. In her
youth she was slim, but later gained weight. I remember
once when Lola and I had to pull her corset strings
in opposite directions.
She always carried herself erect, holding her head
up high. She walked with short, rapid steps and often
ran up the flight of stairs to our floor. I always
recognized the sound of her footsteps coming up the
staircase.
My mother was a good swimmer. She would
dive into the cold waters of the Dniestr for her regular
swims. I recall Dunek, my brother-in-law, who happened
to see her on one such occasion, running along the
shore and taunting her aloud that a woman of fifty
ought to know when to stop swimming.
I remember her going to a New Year's ball
dressed in a beautiful black lace gown; a gown she
wore to most important occasions before the war started.
On Ziuta's wedding day, that same gown was accessorized
with magnificent diamond earrings. To my child's eyes,
she sparkled like a Christmas tree.
My mother must have been very kind to
people who were in her employ. When our ex-coachman,
Ivanko, was close to death in the hospital, he sent
for my mother, wishing to see her before dying.
My mother was the founder and president
of Kolo Kobiet Opieki nod Ubogimi Chorymi (Women's
Circle Caring for the Poor and Sick). The organization
delivered kosher meals to Jewish patients in the hospital
and paid for their prescriptions. Once, I recall my
mother coming home with her cheeks flushed, having
chaired a meeting of the committee. She angrily described
her difficulties to her assistant, Moshe Hütler. Moshe
Hütler was responsible for drafting and revising the
committee statutes and took care of the financial books.
The organization was often in the red and my mother
regularly contributed funds to balance the books.
I came into this world with the help of
a midwife on 22 November 1923, in my parents' bedroom.
Being born in that house gave me a warm feeling of
security. As a child,
I even recall carving my initials on the attic beams
as a testament to the fact that the house belonged
to me. The household I was born into consisted of my
father, Zygmunt (39), my mother, Fanny (36), my sisters
Ziuta (16) and Lola (4), our cook Ecia, our maid Pawlinka,
and our coachman Wasylko. Pawlinka was given the job
of caring for me, while Ecia lavished her love and
attention on Lola. Pawlinka was of mixed Polish, Ukrainian,
and Gypsy blood. She was in her 30s, illiterate, and
used to call herself "ciemna" (ignorant). She spoke
a mixture of Polish and Ukrainian. Pawlinka loved me.
She used to say: "Milinka, ty taka cudowna, bylaby
jeszcze ladniejsza, ale już nie ma któredy," which
more or less meant: "Mila, you are beautiful, and you
could not be more beautiful, because there is no more
room for it." She used to call me: "Donciu moja," which
means "my little daughter."
Pawlinka carried me in her arms, fed me,
sang to me and sometimes took me along to her church
on Sundays. When I was six, she met a cobbler by the
name of Roszczuk, and married him. On the day of her
wedding, my father's carriage was fitted out for the
occasion. The horses rode to the church adorned with
ribbons while I occupied the place of honor between
the young couple. I recall that Ecia, our cook, presented
the couple with a gift of two holy icons. The wedding
reception took place at our house. Ecia prepared the
food, while Ziuta and my mother set the table. From
that day on, Pawlinka had a place of her own, though
she continued to work for us daily. Her friendship
with Ecia made this arrangement a lot easier.
My father wanted Lola and I to learn Hebrew
prayers. At one point, he engaged a melamet, a teacher
of the Talmud, named Berl, to come to our house. Neither
of us learned much Hebrew, but his visits led to his
marriage with Ecia, and her subsequent departure. We
missed her a great deal, although we still managed
to see her on the way from school, if only to exchange
a quick hug and a kiss. Later on, Ecia started a little
catering business for weddings in our town. Mania replaced
Ecia, but she didn't get along with Pawlinka, so Pawlinka
left shortly after and was succeeded by Karola. When
the war broke out, we had to leave our beloved Zaleszczyki.
Pawlinka and Karola were in tears as they said goodbye
to us. I remember that Karola, a single mother of two,
was weeping as she kept saying in Ukrainian: "Moja
mama mene lyszajet" (My mother is leaving me).
It was during the financial crisis of 1934 that my
uncle Josio died, leaving behind his wife Esther and
three children without any means of support. My parents
and grandmother provided them with a monthly allowance
to help them survive. Within a year Esther passed away
too. Relatives took in the children. Klara, who was
fourteen at the time, went to live with my grandmother.
My mother's sister took in ten-year-old Minka, and
my mother brought the youngest, Jasia, home to live
with us. From that moment, Jasia in effect became my
younger sister. She clung to me and became my pal.
Her first words upon entering our home were: "Where's
Mila?" We had a lot in common, since we were both second-class
members of the family. Like me, Jasia wore hand-me-downs.
We both adored Lola, who was put on a pedestal by all
of us. We took it for granted that she had to be the
pampered one in the family. She was attractive and
had a taste for stylish dresses. A good student, she
was also neat and well organized, unlike Jasia and
I. Lola was also a great cook and showed much imagination
in creating intriguing dishes.
It was this talent of hers that later saved our lives.
Only now, when I think back to the the
time when Jasia joined our family after the tragic
loss of her parents, and after being separated from
her sisters, do I realize how much she must have missed
her mother, and how lonely she must have felt. I don't
think that my affection and companionship could have
been a substitute for her great loss.
My sister Ziuta was not a happy person.
She would have been quite a good-looking girl had it
not been for her long nose. She seldom smiled, thinking
that it would make her nose seem even longer. She had
large gray eyes, soft blond hair, shapely legs, and
an exceptionally nice figure. An accomplished pianist,
she was endowed with a lyrical soprano voice and had
a good ear for music. I loved her singing, and enjoyed
listening to her playing the piano. She studied at
the Lwów Conservatory, where one of her Italian voice
teachers predicted she would have a promising future.
Ziuta also loved to dance, moving gracefully to waltzes,
mazurkas, polkas, and krakowiaks. She was an avid painter,
covering our walls with her landscapes and still-life
creations.
Ziuta married David (Dunek) Wasserman
in August of 1928. According to the custom at the time,
Dunek was promised a substantial dowry in U.S. dollars.
The market crash of 1929 ruined my father and he was
not able to entirely fulfill his commitment. Dunek
was a talented and skilful physician. Ziuta did not
want to compete with him and lived mostly in his shadow.
After marrying Dunek, she stopped singing, playing
the piano, and painting. By nature, Ziuta was brave
and determined. It was largely because of her that
Dunek survived the typhoid fever he had contracted
in Czerniowce right after the German retreat. Ziuta
refused to allow him to be taken to the hospital where
he would have certainly perished. Instead, she kept
him at home, watching over him day and night, giving
him serum injections when he became too weak to do
so himself.
On April 8, 1932 was born Anusia, the only daughter
of Dunek and Ziuta.
She was our "oczko w glowie" (the apple of our eye).
We thought she was the most beautiful child in the
world. When Mrs. Kessler, our neighbour, claimed Anusia
was not as pretty as Shirley Temple, we were outraged.
We thought Mrs. Kessler had to be mean and blind to
say such a thing.
Anusia lived in Kolomyja with her parents
but spent most of her time in our house in Zaleszczyki.
She would come early in the spring and leave when the
cold weather arrived. The day of her departure was
always a sad one. Tears streamed down our faces as
she left. Anusia loved
us and was very happy in our home. Back in Kolomyja,
she always caught a cold, strep throat, or an ear infection.
In 1939, she completed her first grade at a Polish
elementary school. In September of that same year,
the Russians demoted everyone by two years - to harmonize
the Polish system with the Russian system of education.
As a result, Anusia landed in a Ukrainian kindergarten.
When the Germans invaded Poland, Anusia had just finished
her first grade at a Ukrainian school.
DR. DAVID WASSERMAN (Dunek)
Dunek was 32 when he married my sister,
Ziuta, who was not yet 20. He was a physician and worked
in the village of Kosmacz in the Carpathian mountains.
He would visit the mountain huts on horseback, tending
to people in the area. On one occasion, Dunek saved
the lives of a mother and her newborn baby. He stopped
the mother's heavy bleeding, but the infant appeared
to be stillborn. To revive the baby, he prepared two
tubs of water, one cold, one warm, and repeatedly immersed
the newborn first in one and then the other, until
it began to cry. After that, Dunek was considered a
miracle worker. In appreciation of his medical services
to the villagers, the elders of the village applied
for an official government decoration for Dunek.
It is said that in the mid-nineteenth
century, almost the entire population of the Hucul
village of Kosmacz was infected with syphilis, supposedly
spread by the Russian soldiers stationed there during
the military campaign of 1848 to assist Austria against
the Hungarian uprising. This epidemic led to Dunek's
specialization in venereal diseases. He chose to study
at medical schools in Vienna and Paris, where the most
advanced research in the field was being done. After
completing his studies, Dunek and his family settled
in Kolomyja, where he had a successful medical practice.
He continued to travel to the Hucul villages of Kosmacz
and Peczenizyn twice a week to look after his patients.
They did not forget him during the Nazi plague and
wanted to rescue him and his family. We were later
told that the Huculs came to Kolomyja to carry him
away to safety, but by then Dunek and his family were
already in hiding.
After settling in Kolomyja, with my father's
help Dunek acquired a car to enable him to continue
his medical visits to the mountain villages. The car,
a 1929 Chevrolet, broke down regularly, but Dunek proved
to be as good a mechanic as he was a physician. He
was often seen bent over his car or stretched out under
it, repairing some malfunction. He could dismantle
the car and put it back together again whenever necessary.
In those days, when repair garages were scarce, his
mechanical ability stood him in good stead. Alongside
his medical studies, he studied art and drawing. He
was a gifted painter and draftsman, winning first prize
at the doctors' art exhibit. His art teacher was Mr.
Bremkiewicz, a former pupil of the famous Polish painter
Jan Matejko. Dunek was a true renaissance man. He loved
music and conducted his imaginary orchestra while listening
to concert recordings. In those days of doom and gloom,
Dunek, also a gifted comedian, cheered us up by improvising
little sketches in which he played either a poor tailor
courting a girl, or a tinker wandering from village
to village, repairing people's pots and pans while
claiming to be a genius.
Dunek, had a working knowledge of twelve
languages: Polish, Ukrainian, German, Russian, Romanian,
Spanish, French, Yiddish, Hebrew, Portuguese, Czech,
and English. In 1935, as a delegate to an International
Conference in Budapest, he delivered, on behalf of
the Polish Dermatological Society, a paper on the Polish
public health system. In May 1956, at the International
Symposium on Venereal Diseases in Washington, D.C.,
he read from his paper on the Control of Venereal Diseases
in Turkey. At the time, Dunek was a prominent authority
in the field of venereal diseases in Poland, and later
in Canada, where he settled with his family. Long after
his retirement, Toronto hospitals continued to call
on Dunek, seeking his help as a renowned diagnostician.
Outliving both his wife and his beloved daughter, Anusia,
he passed away at the beautiful age of 96. Sadly, he
left no records of his exceptionally rich experiences.
ANUSIA
I remember when my three-month-old niece
Annie, the only daughter of my sister Ziuta and Dunek,
visited us for the first time in 1932. Everyone immediately
fell in love with her and thought she was a most beautiful
child. Everyone, except Pawlinka. She glanced at Annie
and pronounced: "Ladna, ale to nie Milinka" (Pretty,
but she's no Milinka).
In the nightmarish years that followed, there were
no schools or textbooks. Anusia begged me to teach
her. Having just graduated from high school, I was
able to tutor her to a certain extent, but I found
it very difficult to concentrate on teaching given
that we were living in stressful, anxiety-ridden times.
Anusia, imploring me with her big blue eyes, used to
say: "Mila, please give me a lesson."
I did my best under the circumstances and taught her
grammar, syntax, arithmetic (including fractions),
some botany, Greek mythology, and Egyptian history.
Like a sponge, she absorbed everything, learning and
remembering the previous day's lesson word for word.
Later, in 1944, when the Russians succeeded
in pushing back the Germans, she and her family ended
up in Czerniowce. Her parents immediately hired a private
tutor for her, and after a few months, she was ready
to enter the fifth grade in a Russian school in Czerniowce.
In April of 1945, before the end of the school year,
we left the city together for Romania.
In Bucharest, Anusia attended a Polish school for refugees
for a year. Then, in the fall of 1946, she entered
a Romanian International High School. The Romanian
schools had high standards and were quite demanding.
Anusia worked diligently and did well. We moved to
Prague in the spring of 1947, where she enrolled in
a Czech International High School. This did not trouble
her greatly since the Czech language is similar to
Polish. Then, in the spring of 1948, we left Europe
for South America - first to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,
for three months, and later to Asuncion, Paraguay.
Anusia began her Spanish education in the fall of 1948.
Initially, she couldn't understand spoken Spanish,
but by the end of the school year, she was at the top
of her class. We left Paraguay and finally reached
Montreal on July 1, 1949. In the fall of that year,
Anusia began her last year of high school at Baron
Bing High School, from which she graduated with flying
colours. She later obtained her B.A. in Toronto and
did a year of social work. I was by her side during
all those trying and extraordinary years of growing
up.
Both Anusia and I got married in 1953.
When she met Leslie, she said, "I am starting my life,"
and when I met Izio, I was able to say for the first
time that I was glad to have made it out alive. The
four of us were very close and devoted to each other.
They resided in Toronto while we lived in Montreal.
Every visit with them was wonderful. Their daughter,
Frances, was born in 1957, and two years later, they
had a son, Michael. (To mark our close friendship,
when later Michael had his own daughter, he named her
Mila-Anusia.) When Frances was two, her parents realized
she had a serious hearing impairment. Then followed
the difficult years of teaching Frances lip-reading
and the use of her residual hearing with the help of
a hearing aid. The bulk of this work fell to Anusia.
It was a tremendous task that took a great deal of
effort and perseverance. Mother and daughter were both
strong-willed and the lessons often ended up in tears.
Anusia wanted to prepare Frances for the "hearing"
world. For this reason, she took her out of the school
for the deaf and enrolled her in a regular school,
forcing her to put her utmost effort into listening.
When Frances reached the age of ten, her mother was
diagnosed with a brain tumour. The next nine years
were filled with hope and despair, punctuated by hospital
stays, numerous operations, radiation, and chemotherapy
sessions. Throughout this ordeal, Anusia continued
to teach her daughter to speak. Her hope was that Frances
would lead as close to a normal life as possible.
Anusia passed away at the age of 45, leaving
a void in our lives. She was my most cherished companion,
and I loved her with all my heart. Frances went on
to finish high school, and later, college. In 2004,
she travelled to China with her father to adopt a daughter,
Diana. Today she is an active member of the Baha'i
community. Every month, Frances sends out a health
bulletin worldwide over the Internet. She also lectures
on speech therapy. Anusia achieved her goal.
MY SCHOOL
Zaleszczyki High School had restricted
enrolment for Jewish and Ukrainian kids. This regulation
did not come from the local administration, but from
outside authorities. Our director, Mieczyslaw Zawalkiewicz,
was a fair-minded person with a warm personality, well
liked and respected by all the students. My sister,
Lola, once told me how the director, in response to
her smart answer to a question, had commented, "Panna
do tanca i ró˝anca" (A girl for both dance and prayer),
having watched her at the previous night's school dance.
Agnieszka Przeworowna taught us Polish literature.
She was talented and intelligent, and instilled in
us an enduring love for the richness of Polish literature,
in particular, an appreciation for poetry. She directed
and staged plays and was also the head of Hufiec, an
organization for the military training of women.
In the spring of 1938, Agnieszka announced
that there would be a summer training camp on the Baltic
Coast for members of the Hufiec from all over Poland.
With great enthusiasm, my friend, Lusia Rosenbaum,
and I signed up for what seemed like an exciting experience.
But it was not meant to be. That very year two sisters
arrived at our school. Their father, a military man,
had been transferred from Lwów to Zaleszczyki. With
them the sisters brought anti-Semitism, hitherto little
known in our school. On hearing that Lusia and I had
enlisted for the summer camp, they loudly protested
that they were not going to tolerate two Jewish girls
joining them at the camp. Lusia and I promptly removed
our names from the list of participants. I still remember
how much it hurt, and how sad the incident made me
feel. I also remember Agnieszka's remarks to the two
sisters: "I am ashamed of you two, and I am ashamed
of your ideas." It is ironic that out of all the friendly
kids at our school, these two sisters should land in
Canada, where I live today.
There were many good youngsters at our school. One
was Jadzia Trofimowna, a top student and friend, with
whom I shared a bench for four years during my high
school years. She used to correct my spelling, which
was my weak spot. She is a retired physician now and
lives in Krakow. I visited her in 1988, and we are
still in touch. Lola's best friend was Wladyslawa "Dziunka"
Nedilenko. Dziunka and Lola were inseparable. She was
always at our house banging on the piano for hours.
My parents loved her. My father used to say jokingly,
"I couldn't love her any more, even if she were Jewish."
Dziunka's mother claimed to be a descendant of Tadeusz
Kosciuszko, the great Polish freedom fighter of the
nineteenth century. She was a wonderful cook and pastry
maker. Lola picked up some of her skills from her.
During the Nazi occupation, Dziunka used to send us
one-kilo regulation parcels of food. I remember her
egg noodles, corn meal, and sugar lumps.
THE CONCERT
September 3, 1937 was the start of a new
school year.
I was thirteen years old. The new Latin teacher, Professor
Franciszek Holovaty, was assigned to our class as an
extracurricular supervisor. Holovaty's mission was
to revive the dead language by speaking to us in Latin.
He dwelled on the complicated structures of Latin grammar.
He would ask us, for instance, "Quas formas ponemus
in sententias interogativas post cum narativum?" (What
forms are used in sentences ending with a question
mark after the word "when?") The answer, of course,
had to be delivered in faultless Latin. He kept a black
notebook in which he marked our grades. We feared him
and our hearts would skip a beat every time he opened
his book to ask one of us: "Dicat mihi." (". will tell
me."), which was followed by the victim's name. Professor
Holovaty, or Franio, as we called him, at one point
decided that our class needed an orchestra. His wish
being our command, we all looked for the least expensive
instrument to buy, which at that time happened to be
the mandolin. Franio then told us that for Armistice
Day on November 11, we were going to give a concert!
The program was to be a medley of Polish legionnaires'
tunes. In the short time between September and November,
we rehearsed almost daily. Our maestro was a gifted
eighteen-year-old violinist from the graduating class
by the name of Zbigniew Jankowski. During the early
rehearsals, the noises we made sounded more like cats
in heat in March than anything else. But as the 11th
of November approached, one could clearly distinguish
the familiar melodies of the Polish army's marching
songs.
On the evening of Armistice Day, we found
ourselves assembled on stage - petrified. The curtain
rose. Jankowski crossed himself and began to count:
"One, two, three, play!" Not a sound escaped from our
instruments. We had frozen with stage fright. Our conductor
hissed if a little too loudly: "Jezus Maria, PLAY."
Then one brave soul timidly sounded the first note
and slowly, one after another, others joined in to
catch up. Somehow we managed to finish almost together.
Then came the applause: it was tremendous. To this
day, I still don't know whether the applause was in
appreciation of our skill or courage, or just to please
Franio.
THE END OF AN ERA
The summer of 1939 was warm, sunny, and
beautiful. The Zaleszczyki beaches were crowded with
vacationers as usual. We spent almost every day at
the beach with friends. The loudspeakers played feel-good
tunes and people seemed to be content. Then, in August,
urgent announcements began to interrupt the pleasant
music. They would begin with, "Attention, attention.,"
followed by someone's name and military rank, asking
them to report to their army unit. The air was starting
to fill with forebodings of imminent war. An appeal
was launched for donations in cash or valuables such
as jewelry to raise funds for "The National Fund for
Armaments." The names of donors were announced on the
loudspeakers and I was proud to hear my mother's name
mentioned. Toward the end of August, the tourists left
and the beaches became noticeably less crowded, but
we, the locals, continued to enjoy our last summer
at the beach.
On the first of September, as we awoke,
we realized the electric lights were on. We only received
electricity at night, so we knew immediately that something
important was happening. We turned on the radio for
news. The war had begun. The Germans had already crossed
the Polish border and were sowing death and destruction
on their ruthless march to occupy the country. The
radio announcer kept talking about how our brave army
was fighting to halt the enemy, peppering the commentary
with reports of sporadic victories. Often, the news
was interrupted by coded announcements: "Uwaga, uwaga
nadchodzi." (Attention, attention, it's coming.), followed
by a secret code. Our neighbour owned a powerful Telefunken
radio and could listen to the news from Prague. His
face told us that the reports were grim. Shortly thereafter,
German planes flew over our town, dropping bombs on
the Romanian side and killing several people. Then
came the encouraging news: France and England had declared
war on Germany. We were elated, but the German war
machine kept on swallowing Poland.
Our house sat on the main road, leading
to the bridge that connected us with Romania. The Romanian
government gave the order to open the border and people
began crossing to the other side. From our balcony,
we watched lines of Mercedes, Opels, Studebakers, and
other luxury cars bearing diplomatic plates crossing
the bridge into Romania. Then came the private cars,
followed by people on foot, dragging their belongings.
Originally, my sister Ziuta and her family
also intended to cross the border. They arrived from
Kolomyja, sixty kilometres away, in two cars, their
own and a rented car. It was agreed that Lola, who
was twenty at the time, would join them, while the
rest of the family would stay behind. My parents' reasoning
being that since they were old (my father was 57, my
mother 53), the Germans would not harm them, just as
they imagined that the Germans would spare Jasia and
I since we were still very young, and therefore safe!
Another important reason for my father's decision to
stay was the fact that his business had recently began
to recover from the Depression and he did not want
to leave it unattended.
In assessing the situation, my parents
used their own yardstick, one based on their experiences
from World War I, when France and England defeated
the Germans and the Polish army pushed back the Bolsheviks.
They were certain that history would repeat itself
and saw no need to leave everything behind and run
to Romania. In fact, in our backyard there were two
cars, two good horses, and a wagon. It would have been
very easy to load them up and cross the bridge many
times back and forth, especially since we lived a mere
200 metres from the old border. We could have loaded
the wagon with all our possessions, valuables, and
sacks of grain that were stored in warehouses near
our house. But we stayed in Zaleszczyki because, above
all, my parents feared homelessness.
And we weren't the only ones who didn't
leave. Not many locals took the road to cross the river.
The fact that so few people from our town joined the
stream of refugees crossing the border was testimony
to our deep attachment to Zaleszczyki. Among the few
who did leave town, I recall Baron Turnau and his family,
who later landed in Rhodesia, where he settled and
operated a Laundromat; the head of our district, Jozef
Krzyzanowski, who became the Consul General of Poland
in Bucharest; my cousins, Neta and Mark Heller, and
Wusiek Fell.
I also remember a retarded couple, Cyraly
and Pesie, who also left Zaleszczyki. They were from
among the very poor in our town. There was a Jewish
custom to pair off mentally disadvantaged individuals
from poor families as it was believed to be a good
deed. Their arranged marriage took place under a canopy
and was blessed by a rabbi. The townspeople collected
some furniture, dishes, and bedding for them. It was
these two whom my mother spotted in the crowd waiting
to cross the bridge into Romania. She stopped them
and asked, "Are you crazy? Where are you going?" To
which they replied: "Crazy are the ones who stay behind."
Cyraly and Pesie survived the war in Romania, in conditions
that were pure luxury for them. They received a monthly
allowance from the state, just like the other refugees.
In the meantime, the stream of people
crossing the bridge over to Romania turned into a river.
Soon army units joined the civilians. It was a sad
sight to see young soldiers dragging their feet from
hunger and exhaustion. Our cook, Mania, baked lots
of buns that I handed out to the soldiers. Then, just
as Dunek, Ziuta, Anusia, and Lola finally decided to
join the crowd and were getting ready to leave for
Romania, the news reached us that the Soviet Army had
crossed the eastern border to "protect us." Ziuta and
her family changed their plans and returned to Kolomyja,
taking Jasia with them. The Russians arrived in our
town on September 17th. In the beginning, they were
seen as the lesser of two evils. Once the Russians
rolled in, they immediately closed the border by posting
a tank and armed guards on the bridge. After that,
the border was sealed.
Thus began our sad life full of regrets
about missed opportunities. Shortly after the Russians
occupied Zaleszczyki, a cavalcade of trucks emptied
out all the grain bins my father had stored in warehouses
after the summer harvest. I overheard my father telling
my mother: "Even if the war ends tomorrow, I am ruined."
The deportation to Siberia and arrests
started later. Many members of my family were arrested
and their properties confiscated. We feared that our
father would be imprisoned and deported as well, so
in the spring of 1940, Ziuta and her husband took our
family to live with them in their small apartment in
Kolomyja. Leaving our home was a devastating experience.
I dreamt about my home for a long time, missing our
old life there.
The apartment was too small for all of
us, so when in the spring of 1941 Klara, Jasia's oldest
sister, got married, she suggested that Jasia go to
live with her in Czortków.
We didn't want Jasia to leave us, but my brother-in-law,
Dunek, insisted that we were overcrowded, and that
it would be better for the sisters to be together.
I recall we cried bitterly when Jasia left. Even my
father, who seldom showed any emotions, shed tears.
Shortly after war broke out between the Soviet Union
and Nazi Germany, Klara's husband was drafted into
the Soviet army. Jasia took this opportunity to return
to Kolomyja. It was the happiest day for me, when,
in the midst of terrible times, Jasia appeared on our
doorstep. There was no end of kissing and hugging.
There was also no question of ever letting her leave
us again. From that day on, she shared with us every
morsel of food, our every hope and despair. Only then
I understood how much she meant to me. She moved with
us into the ghetto, where we shared a room with six
other people. Jasia was with us on the death train
too.
KOLOMYJA: CLASS OF 1941
I was in my last year of high school when
we fled our home in the spring of 1940 and went to
live with my sister, her husband, and their daughter.
By then, it was clear that my father, being a fairly
wealthy industrialist, would soon be arrested and exiled
to Siberia.
Once in Kolomyja, I registered at a Polish
high school, where a majority of the students were
Jewish. I was immediately welcomed and befriended by
every one of them. They were a remarkable group of
bright youngsters, ambitious and determined to go on
to university so as to achieve prominent positions
in life. Here in Kolomyja, we were all poor. Nobody
had money to pay for college. In order to obtain a
university scholarship, one had to be a straight-A
student. We all worked very hard and helped each other
with schoolwork. There were 26 students in our class,
some of them exceptionally gifted. All of them were
determined to succeed. We were only four girls, but
we worked hard to keep up with the boys. I don't recall
all of their names, but my thoughts go back to Jonek
Miller, whom I planned to marry. He was the top student
in all subjects: science, languages, literature, and
sports. In those days, giving a helping hand to other
students was not considered cheating. On the contrary,
it was a sign of magnanimity. Jonek was a genius. After
handing in his exam papers, he would immediately distribute
the correct answers to those who needed them. His best
buddy, an equally gifted student, Dziunek Klaffe, was
a refugee from Vienna. Dziunek was a hunchback, but
this didn't make him bitter. He excelled in literature
and wrote beautiful poems in both German and Polish.
Then there was Langer, who wanted to be an actor. I
can still see his handsome face as he recited long
lines of poetry with power and emotion. Sammy Wiener
was a great comedian. He was particularly funny as
Moliere's "Malade imaginaire." Watching him on stage
brought us to tears and laughter. One of my classmates
was a concert pianist - unfortunately, I have forgotten
his name - it might have been Bretler. He used to entertain
us during the school dances with his great rhythmic
tunes. Another boy had a talent for drawing. His sketches
and drawings of human figures in motion covered our
classroom walls.
I remember the Sonnenschein brothers, both top students
destined for scholarships, planning to study medecine.
By the end of May, exams were over and we were planning
to stage the play "Platon Kreczet" by Alexander Korneychuk.
Langer and I were given the leading roles. We were
also planning a big dance, a prom. But the year was
1941 and Hitler had other plans for us. On the 22 of
June, Germany invaded the Soviet Union and in a single
stroke erased the future of our entire class, turning
our lives upside down.
The first among us to disappear was Dziunek
Klaffe, who ran away to Russia. I lost contact with
all the others, except for Jonek. Jonek used to come
to our house with books for me to read. He was still
hoping and planning a future for us. The last time
he came around was in October of 1941. "When will I
see you again?" he asked, as we were saying goodbye
at the front door. He then added with a bitter smile:
"It's difficult to make plans these days." Jonek was
caught the next day, along with many others, during
a raid on Mokra Street. A few days later, he and thousands
of others were shot in a forest near the village of
Szeparowce. Jonek was eighteen years old. He was buried
in a mass grave, with a picture of me in his breast
pocket. I dreamed of him many times, sitting at the
foot of my bed.
I don't know how the rest of my classmates
died.
I know only that almost none of them survived the war.
Years later, a friend of mine who spent the war years
in the Soviet Union told me about a hunchback he had
met there who taught German, to whom he occasionally
brought a bowl of soup. It might have been Dziunek
Klaffe, the poet.
Another classmate was Czesio Kruszelnicki,
a Catholic who had a crush on me. He saved the life
of Mira, a Jewish girl whom he later married. Another
from the class of 1941 was Zosia Huber, of German origin.
I ran into her again in 1942, that dreadful year, as
I was walking down the middle of the street leading
to the ghetto - Jews were forbidden to use the sidewalks.
On my arm, I wore the Star of David. In a spontaneous
gesture of protest and camaraderie, Zosia approached
me, grabbed my arm, covering the armband with her coat,
and pushed me over to the sidewalk so we could talk.
I can only wonder what would have become
of my classmates had the horrors and madness of war
not taken away their futures by ending their lives.
I will always remember all of you.
JUNE 1941
On June 22nd, we awoke to the roar of
bombers flying overhead and the sounds of explosions
coming from the direction of the railway station. We
heard over the radio the shocking news that the Germans
had invaded Soviet Russia. The attack came to us as
a complete surprise. We had known about the Ribbentrop-Molotov
Non-Aggression Pact, and could not imagine that such
a violation could occur. The evacuation of all Soviet
citizens and members of the Communist Party began within
hours. Evacuating to Russia was simply unthinkable
for us. Doom and gloom spread their menacing wings
over our lives. The Soviet army took a few days to
withdraw. Then a glimmer of hope appeared. Instead
of the German army, a Hungarian Unit entered Kolomyja
and occupied the main Administration Offices. We spent
a few relatively calm weeks under the Hungarian occupation.
They recruited a number of men to clear the bombed-out
railway station, but on the whole the people working
there were treated well, and were even given some bread.
One picture of this short-lived occupation
is engraved in my memory. The balcony of the apartment
in Kolomyja faced the Ukrainian church and the large
lawn surrounding it. The Hungarian army occupied the
presbytery of the church. One beautiful summer evening,
soldiers and officers were sitting on the lawn around
bonfires, where geese were roasting on the spit. One
soldier picked up a violin and began to play a hauntingly
sad melody. A few other soldiers picked up the tune.
From the balcony where I was standing, I could see
men crying. Tears began to run down my own cheeks.
Years later, while living in Transylvania, I heard
that very same melody. Someone told me the song was
called "The Last Letter". Shortly afterwards, the Hungarian
unit marched to the front to be slaughtered by the
Soviet forces; the Gestapo took over Kolomyja and the
terror began.
EWA
I remember the day in the summer of 1941,
when I first encountered German brutality. Our town
of Kolomyja had already come under German occupation.
The news spread rapidly about the fate of the thousands
of Hungarian Jews of Polish origin expelled from their
homes. The Germans had drowned many of those trying
to cross the Dniestr River to reach Poland. Only a
few hundred survivors somehow managed to reach Kolomyja.
Our community, shocked by this inhuman treatment, tried
to help ease the misery of these survivors.
Under German occupation, food was scarce
and rationed. To provide the survivors with food, the
Jewish community assigned them to various homes. One
such family, a couple with a little girl named Ewa,
was assigned to our family. They came everyday. Ewa
was a very pretty five year old. She had big, dark,
sparkling eyes trimmed with long lashes. She was always
smiling. Her black hair swept down over her little
arms in soft beautiful waves. She was full of life,
running and playing games, hugging and kissing her
parents, moving and chattering endlessly. It was obvious
that Ewa was like any normal, happy child brought up
with loving attention. I couldn't understand her as
she spoke only Hungarian. I just looked at her smiling,
happy face, and smiled back. We seemed to understand
each other without words.
When the family came to our house, the parents held
the little girl by the hand. The parents were silent
and grief-stricken, while Ewa seemed merry and lively.
I could see how they were doing all they could to spare
their little daughter the grief and hardship of their
situation. I would often notice the parents putting
away a part of their meal for the child's supper or
breakfast.
One day, in the winter of 1941, Ewa showed
up accompanied only by her father. She stood there
silently. Her big, dark eyes expressed bewilderment.
She kept very close to her father and would not leave
his side for a moment. She no longer smiled and not
a sound came from her little lips. The father told
me his wife had been killed on the street by a German
bullet.
By the spring of 1942, we had to leave
our homes and move to a crowded ghetto. We couldn't
take much with us, and very soon hunger began to gnaw
at our insides. The food we could share with Ewa and
her father was meagre, but they kept coming anyway.
I can still remember them standing in the doorway,
waiting, the father looking thin and aged, and the
little girl staring straight at me, not uttering a
sound, just looking, her eyes pleading: "Will you give
me something to eat today? Perhaps a potato, a piece
of bread, some warm soup."
One gray fall day, Ewa stood alone in
the doorway. Horror and panic reflected in her face.
She was a frightened child, all alone and helpless
in a strange world. Her eyes begging for answers: "What
is happening around me? Why did they take my parents
away from me? Why am I always hungry?" I did not have
any answers, nor could I help her.
I saw Ewa a few more times. One time I
hardly recognized her. Her beautiful dark hair was
gone, shaved to the scalp, but her face remained beautiful.
Her wide-open eyes seemed to take up half of her face.
The bewildered look was still there. She was swollen
from hunger and could barely walk.
A few days later, on a cold October day,
I saw Ewa for the last time in the big town square,
together with six thousand other people herded together,
awaiting to be transported to the gas chambers. Ewa
sat on the brown sparse grass, shivering from cold
and fright. She was panic-stricken and understood that
something terrible was going to happen to her. Now
they were going to kill her, just as they had killed
her mother and father. Ewa was weeping.
Today, so many years after your death, my little Ewa,
I still hear your childish, trembling voice calling
out: "Anyukam" (Mama), and I see your big, black, terror-filled
eyes.
THE GARDEN (MAY - AUGUST 1942)
Every morning, we had to report to the
Arbeitsplatz (work assignment square), where we were
assigned to various daily tasks, such as washing windows,
cleaning offices and schools, or sorting metal in warehouses.
In early May, a group of ten people was ordered to
dig up a large plot of land to plant potatoes. The
land belonged to a house occupied by Louise Kaiser,
secretary to the mayor. It was one of the few modern
houses in Kolomyja equipped with indoor plumbing. After
the potatoes were planted, the whole group was dismissed,
except for my sister Lola and myself, who were given
the task of planting some vegetables and arranging
a flower garden. We worked there until the end of August.
I loved gardening. Planting seeds, watching
plants grow, even watching lawns turn green and healthy
gave me the feeling of living a normal life. I weeded,
dug holes, watered the plants and generally enjoyed
seeing life germinate in that garden. From time to
time, I was called to the house to wash big loads of
laundry. At such times, the cook was told to give me
something to eat. In the evening, we marched back to
the starving and dying ghetto. Once, Louise Kaiser
gave us coupons for a few loaves of bread. On another
occasion, I recall her having visitors from Germany:
her mother and her six-year-old daughter. They must
have been talking about the starving people in the
ghetto because the little girl followed me around the
garden all day long before gathering up the courage
to get close enough to me to reveal a piece of bread
covered with butter that she had carried under her
apron. She then asked me: "Magst du das?" ("Would you
like this?"). She was just a little girl, but she gave
me more than just a piece of bread. For a moment, she
stilled my hunger for human decency.
There was a garage in the courtyard of
Louise Kaiser's house. The car parked inside belonged
to the mayor of Kolomyja. In the room adjacent to the
garage lived the mayor's driver and his pregnant wife,
Agnieszka. She was a good gardener and often instructed
us on how to tend to the flowers and vegetables. Agnieszka
and her husband were Poles, refugees from someplace
in Wielkopolska. They had lost everything in a bombing
raid in 1939. They were both very decent, loving people,
and they really struggled to make ends meet. One day,
Agnieszka decided she wanted to make us an apple cake.
She set aside some eggs and sugar, but it took her
some time to gather the necessary ingredients. In the
end, she treated us to a divine, mouth-watering delight.
I am sure that upon hearing about the liquidation of
the ghetto, Agnieszka mourned for us. I wish I could
have told her that we survived, and kept the memory
of her kindness and affection.
\
WALNUT LIQUOR
It was in 1933 that my father leased the
estate called Gródek from Count Dunin-Borkowski for
the last time. The farm had its own distillery for
producing alcohol from potatoes. At the time, the Polish
government held the monopoly for the purchase of alcohol.
This meant that the entire production of vodka had
to be sold to the government. From time to time, my
father would bring a bottle or two home for his own
consumption. Making wine and other spirits was a hobby
of his. There were always a few glass balloons filled
with fermenting fruit on the windowsills in one of
the rooms. He often made a delicious blueberry liquor
called afiniac by covering blueberries with alcohol
and sugar. He used the same natural process to make
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