But that was in Piotrków. Now, in Warsaw, I start to feel directly threatened. At the university, the members of Endecja carry out campaigns called “Days Without Jews,” meaning no Jews are allowed on the campus for days, weeks, or months. Often they stand at the gates to the university and make us show our identification cards, which have ZHID stamped on them. The members of Endecja scrutinize the card of anyone they think looks Jewish. Then they beat up those Jews who try to enter to go to classes. Jewish blood runs over the cobblestones of the courtyard.
The most frightening part is that there is no one to protect us. The police are not allowed to interfere on the campus, where they have no jurisdiction. I am filled with a sense of helplessness and outrage that the university permits this injustice.
Somehow the people in Endecja do not guess that Heniek and I are Jews. They never demand to see our identification cards and they always let us through, but each time I have to pass by them, I tremble, my stomach churning with fear. I am particularly worried about Heniek because they are brutal to the men, but he just smiles and tells jokes and they never stop him.
Once, in my history of philosophy class, we have an oral test. The teacher calls the students into a room in pairs. The boy I am with answers all the questions exactly as I do, but he has brown eyes, dark curly hair, a large nose, and a Jewish name. The professor points to me and says to the boy, “Pani Gomolinska said it right and you didn’t. You have failed.”
I feel so terrible for him. It is his third try at that test and because he fails, he has to leave the university.
With my light hair, rosy cheeks, and Polish name, I pass.
Passover
Passover has a message for the conscience and the heart of all mankind. For what does it commemorate? It commemorates the deliverance of a people from degrading slavery, from most foul and cruel tyranny. And so, it is Israel’s—nay, God’s protest against unrighteousness, whether individual or national.
—Rabbi Morris Joseph (1848–1930)
APRIL 1939
We all know our history—that Jews have long been considered different and have often been hated and feared. We are used to living with discrimination and inferior rights. On occasion the ever-present virus of anti-Semitism erupts into violent persecution and we are subjected to pogroms and exile. In my personal experience, it is simply an unfortunate fact of life, which we Jews have learned to accept and endure, like putting up with a bad cold or too many days of snow.
I have always loved Passover because it is such a beautiful affirmation of the triumph of the Jews over our oppressors. We rejoice in the victory of our ancestors who went out of Egypt where they had been horribly degraded by slavery and indignities. We recite from the Haggadah, the book retelling the story of the anguish of our bondage: that by many miracles of God, Moses was sent to free us from slavery and lead us to the Promised Land.
But because of the increasingly horrifying news coming out of Germany, Passover of 1939 is terribly different from any other I have experienced.
After Hitler became chancellor in 1933 and then führer in 1934, he had decreed that the army must swear its full allegiance to him and only him.
In September 1934, the Nuremberg Laws—anti-Jewish laws—were enacted. No Jews, even if they had lived in Germany for four generations, were allowed to fly the German flag in front of their houses. Jews had already been excluded from the army and so many professions. It was difficult for Jews to go to medical school in Poland, but not impossible. In Germany, in 1936, Jewish doctors were forbidden from practicing medicine in German hospitals.
By the end of 1936, Heniek and I had started hearing rumors that anti-Hitler Germans and Communists, Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, disabled people, and Jews were being rounded up and sent away to “concentration camps.”
Suddenly my eyes are wide open and I see new images of persecution. I listen to the Seder story with new ears and taste all the foods with a new tongue. It makes me feel depressed and afraid.
But I don’t think of these things when I first wake up on the morning of the Seder. I start out in a happy mood. I am home from the university in Warsaw for a week and able to rest my brain. It’s so much fun being in the kitchen with Mama and Janova, and I am actually going to help prepare the food. Of course, because of my reputation as a terrible cook, I am given only two jobs, and watched very closely at that.
I will decorate the Seder tray and finish making the charoset. As I carefully place the ritual foods on the Seder plate, for the first time the Passover story strikes me as not just symbolic but frighteningly real.
The large white china tray has six circular spaces. In one I put the maror—the bitter herbs—the horseradish, which will remind us of the bitter lives of our ancestors when they were slaves in Egypt. In the next circle, I put the karpas—some spring onions, radishes, and parsley, because Passover is a celebration of spring and rebirth. It is a joyous holiday promising us new, fresh, and happy beginnings. I carefully place the bowl of salt water in the center of the tray so that we can dip our herbs in that water to remind us of the tears the Jewish slaves shed in their misery and bondage in Egypt.
The charoset is from a recipe of my mother’s mother, who died when I was very little. Janova has just peeled and cored the apples and it is my job to help her by chopping them up with almonds and raisins and a little cinnamon and some wine. I try to keep the charoset dry because it symbolizes the mortar the Jews used when, as slaves, they were laying bricks for the pharaoh.
It is almost sundown. The matzo balls are bouncing in the chicken soup and the smells from the kitchen are the smells of heaven. To complete the tray I place a burned bone from the lower part of the front leg of a lamb, representing the Paschal Lamb. This bone symbolizes the spring lamb God ordered our ancestors to sacrifice to Him and eat before they fled Egypt. And last, a hard-boiled egg that has been scorched—another ancient spring symbol of the renewal of life. Carefully I take the Seder tray to the table. We will begin our celebration in half an hour.
There is a knock on the door and my mother’s favorite brother, Josef Libeskind, his wife, Sura, their son, Janek, and their young daughters, Mala and Rozia, come to wish us a happy Pesach. They are on their way to celebrate Passover at the house of their oldest daughter, Mania. The family has gotten so big. Most of their eight children are married and some already have children of their own. We hug and kiss one another and wish we had a table large enough for all the Libeskinds and Gomolinskis to be together on this joyous holiday.
When they leave, we stand around our table. There are nine of us: Mama and Tatte; my brothers, Josek, Idek, and Beniek; my nephew, two-year-old Marek; my sisters, Regina and Hela; and me. Sadly missing is Hela’s husband, Jacob, who is in the Polish army somewhere on the eastern border.
It is sundown and Mama says the blessing as she lights the candles. Tatte says the prayer over the wine and we each take our first sip. Then Tatte says the blessing over the karpas as we dip it in the salt water to remember the tears of our ancestors. Tatte holds up a matzo. There are three matzot under a cloth on the matzo plate and the middle one, which he holds up, is called the afikomen—the dessert.
Tatte takes it into another room to hide it, but this year we are missing the excitement of little children rushing off to search for it later in the Seder. Who will find it and get a special prize? Regina is too old and Marek too young to care, and this year there’s more reason for worry than joy.
Now it is time for the Four Questions. I still remember my pride when I was six and the youngest who could read. It was my job to ask the Four Questions. Now Regina, at twelve, is the youngest who can read. It is not exciting for her anymore, but she does a good job. She sings them in Hebrew and then reads them again in Yiddish. “Why is this night different from all other nights? On all other nights we eat both leavened and unleavened bread. Why on this night do we eat only unleavened bread? On all other nights we eat all kinds of herbs. Why on this night do we eat
especially bitter herbs? On all other nights we do not usually dip our foods even once. Why on this night do we dip them twice? On all other nights we eat while sitting up straight. Why on this night only do we recline?”
And Tatte answers the questions. He explains that we eat the matzo like the flat bread of our ancestors, who had no time to let their bread rise in their sudden flight from Egypt; that the bitter herbs recall our bitter lives there as slaves, and the salt water we dip them in symbolizes our tears. He says we are all free like kings, now, so we can eat like kings and recline.
Then we all take turns reading the story from the Haggadah.
Mama begins: “People have risen up to destroy us but the Holy One, blessed be God, delivers us from their hands. Our story begins with bondage and degradation but ends with freedom and dignity.”
Josek gets to read the part about the famine in Israel and how Jacob took his people into Egypt, where they became great and strong.
Then Idek reads that Pharaoh feared the Israelites and made them slaves. The Jews cried to God. He revealed himself to Moses in the Burning Bush and told him to go to Pharaoh as His messenger and tell Pharaoh to “Let my people go.” When Pharaoh refused, God sent the first plague; and with each refusal, another plague; until after the ninth refusal, He sent the worst plague of all.
Idek continues to read that in preparation for their flight, God had Moses instruct the Jews that on the tenth of that month they must take a perfect, unblemished male lamb or goat into their home, keep it for four days, and then, together as an assembly, each household must kill their animal at twilight, and smear some of the blood on the doorposts and window frames of their homes. Then they were to roast the animal over a fire and eat it quickly and bake their bread unleavened, as there would be too little time to wait for the dough to rise. They must be dressed with their sandals on and be prepared to flee.
Now it is Hela who leads us in reciting the Ten Plagues. With each one, we dip our pinkie fingers into our wineglasses and shake a drop onto our white china plates. It definitely looks like blood. In a deep voice Hela chants in Hebrew: blood, frogs, lice, insects, cattle disease, boils, hail, locusts, darkness. Then God sends the last plague: the death of the firstborn sons of Egypt.
Beniek continues the story. Because God had instructed us to mark our houses with the lambs’ blood, the Angel of Death knew which homes were Jewish and passed them by; our firstborn sons were spared but the oldest son born to any Egyptian family perished.
At this part, Hela grabs Marek and holds him tightly to her breast. Beniek reads that when Pharaoh’s own son died, his agony was more than even he could endure. Pharaoh surrendered to God’s greater power and finally agreed to let the Israelites go.
Moses led the Jews quickly out of Egypt, taking what little they could carry and their flat, unrisen bread. When they reached the Red Sea, the waters miraculously parted to allow the Israelites to walk across. But when the Egyptians, running close behind, tried to follow, the sea flooded over them, drowning them all.
It is now my turn to finish the Passover story before the dinner. I read of how Moses and the Jews wandered in the Sinai Desert. When they reached Mount Sinai, God instructed Moses to climb alone to the top and there He revealed to him the Ten Commandments and our laws and covenant with Him, the Torah. And then I lead the song “Dayenu,” which translates as “It Would Have Been Enough for Us”: “God has done so many wonderful things for us. If he had only brought us out of Egypt, dayenu. If he had only given us the Sabbath, dayenu. If he had only given us the Torah, dayenu.”
We sing and sing: “Dye, dye-AI-nu, dye, dye-AI-nu, dye, dye-AI-nu, dye-AI-nu, dye-ai-NU, dye-ai-nu…”
And then we drink from our second cup of wine.
We look at the Seder tray and Mama reads about the meaning of the lamb bone and the matzo. Tatte blesses the matzo and explains why we have the maror, the bitter herb. At long last, we can put the charoset on the matzo, like the mortar our ancestors put on the bricks when they were slaves in Egypt, and we eat.
What a feast! First, we have hard-boiled eggs in salt water, then the matzo-ball soup, then roast chicken with the most delicious matzo-meal stuffing, always moist and juicy because of the chicken fat—the schmaltz. We also have beef brisket and candied carrots, hot apricot-and-prune fruit compote, and a sweet matzo kugel. And coconut macaroons and sponge cake for dessert.
But I cannot stop hearing the song “Dayenu.” It is ringing in my ears, haunting me. Maybe it is the wine. The tune won’t leave my head, but now I’m hearing different, horrifying words. I’m thinking that when Hitler became führer of Germany, dayenu, that would have been enough. When the anti-Semitic Nuremberg laws were passed, dayenu.
The song is drumming a beat in my brain. Just last year, Hitler took over the country of Austria and all his anti-Jewish laws applied there. Then Jews in Germany and Austria had to register all their property. In September, Great Britain and France agreed to give Germany the Sudetenland. That’s part of Czechoslovakia, so close to our western Polish border. Dayenu.
We all feared what was coming. We knew. This was more than enough. Now all Jews in Germany and Austria and the Sudetenland have to have a J stamped on their identity papers. Last October, Germany expelled seventeen thousand Polish Jews who had been living in Germany and, at first, the Poles refused to let them into Poland. They were stranded on the border for weeks. Dayenu.
We were shocked, but sadly not surprised, by the violent anti-Jewish pogroms that were carried out last November 9 and 10. Every single city and village that had Jews in Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland was affected. It was called Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. Over one thousand synagogues were burned and destroyed, tens of thousands of Jewish shops and homes were vandalized, thirty thousand Jewish men and boys were sent to concentration camps, ninety-one people were killed, and a law was passed stating that all Jews must transfer their retail businesses to Germans. Dayenu. Enough.
But it still wasn’t enough. On November 15, all Jewish students were expelled from German schools. And one month after Kristallnacht, Hitler told the Jews they owed Germany one billion German marks to repair the damages of Kristallnacht!
It is hard to believe that the Jews paid for what the Nazis did. But what else could they do? They had no choice.
* * *
In January, exactly six years to the day after Hitler became chancellor of Germany, Heniek and I heard him speaking on the radio. Hitler was at the Reichstag, the parliament building in Berlin. He said that if there were going to be a war, it would mean the Vernichtung—the annihilation—of all the European Jews. Heniek and I sat there and hugged each other, shaking and feeling sick.
And just two weeks ago, in March, the Germans marched into Czechoslovakia and now they occupy that country, which borders Poland. It is more than enough.
As I sit with my family around the Passover table at this annual celebration of our freedom, I wonder: Where is our God? Dinner is over and we sing more songs. We open the door for Elijah. We drink from our cups of wine. Regina finds the afikomen and we sing the song “Chad Gadya,” and again I fear that our past is becoming our future. The words of “Chad Gadya” (“One Little Goat”) are:
My father bought a little goat for two coins,
but a cat came and ate the goat
and the dog came and killed the cat
and the stick came and beat the dog
and the fire came and burned the stick
and the water came and put out the fire
and the ox came to drink the water
but the butcher came to kill the ox
and then the Angel of Death came to kill the butcher,
but then God killed the Angel of Death.
And I think: We Jews have been so patient through five thousand years of so much pain and terror, always fervently depending on God to save us. And He always has, but after so much suffering. I wonder: What will happen to us Polish Jews? How long must we wait before God
comes to kill the Angel of Death, and what will happen in the meantime?
Wojna!
War is the national industry of Prussia.
—Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, Count of Mirabeau (1749–1791)
SEPTEMBER 1, 1939
It’s eight in the morning and I should start packing to go back to the university in Warsaw, but it’s already very hot and it is the last Friday of my vacation, which I want to savor. Soon it will be Shabbos, so I decide to wait until Sunday to pack. On Tuesday, Heniek and I will take the train to Warsaw together. He has a good job apprenticing for a lawyer. I will be starting my third year of university. The summer was lovely and lazy, but I am excited to get back into learning, especially because I will be studying Shakespeare and Charles Dickens and the Victorian period of literature and art.
By this time, I feel adept at reading and writing in English and have fallen in love with the language and the literature. There is something musical about English. I no longer love hearing German spoken, and now when Heniek and I listen to the German radio, the sounds of the words are as ugly to my ears as the dark and frightening things they are saying.
We know that since Hitler occupied Czechoslovakia in March, he has been massing Nazi troops near the western Polish border. In August, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed by Germany and the Soviet Union. They called it a nonaggression treaty, but we know what it really means. In case of war, Germany and the Soviets will divide Poland between them. So we are not safe on our western border with the Germans ready to invade, and we are not safe on the eastern border where the Russians will come in. We keep hearing of the Germans’ need for Lebensraum. Again and again Hitler screams that the Germans need more room for their perfect Aryan people. We know that Poland is a large, beautiful country and conveniently just next door. We know that Hitler sees the Poles as Untermenschen, subhuman creatures. If the Nazis view the Poles as Untermenschen, what are we Jews? I shiver to think about that.
Claiming My Place Page 8
