My Mother's Ring: A Holocaust Historical Novel

by Dana Fitzwater Cornell

  Disclaimer

  While specific characters in this novel are historical figures and certain events did occur, this is a work of fiction. All other characters and events, including the protagonist, are the author’s creation. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2013 Dana Fitzwater Cornell

  All rights reserved.

  Editing by Todd Barselow

  Thank you to Brent Cornell for his love and support

  during the completion of this book.

  ISBN: 1490311483

  ISBN-13: 9781490311487

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2013909941

  CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, North Charleston, SC

  DEDICATION

  To all of those voices that never had a chance to be heard.

  And for all of those who suffer in silence.

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  PROLOGUE

  I have kept my secret silent for far too long. I have neither acknowledged nor shared my past, my former life. I have buried it deep down; afraid to unearth even a segment of it for fear that it would cause everything to sink in around me, suffocating my present existence.

  It’s easier to ignore the tattoo on my arm, ignore the limp in my step, and ignore the disrupted sleep of my nights. But, here I am sixty-eight years later, feeble and nearly removed from this earth. If I don’t write all of this down, my story will fade into the darkness like the eleven million other stories that never had a chance to be told. It is for them, for their memories and for the lives they were cheated out of, that I write this book.

  Nearly seven decades have passed and I have likely forgotten exact dates and locations, even some situations, but these are not as important as the material that I have to unfold. The passage of time may have distorted my memories, but no amount of time can erase my emotions. The vivid events that I lived through have remained imprinted in my mind just as if they were sewn into my existence. I have purposely omitted certain names and other specifics, for I felt that their inclusion might detract from rather than enhance the story. The millions of us affected by the Nazi regime were of different faiths, lived in various countries, had diverse educational backgrounds, and were of different socioeconomic classes—and yet we were all impacted.

  Much like a police report documenting witnesses’ testimonies of an accident, each person who writes about this period of history will focus on specific aspects. Each story, each unique observation, brings an enhanced dish to the table of knowledge.

  My goal in writing this memoir is to attempt to capture the emotion—the fear, the uncertainty, the desolation—of that time. It is my intention to send the overarching message about what life was like from my perspective, as I remember it, during the tumultuous years of the Holocaust.

  I understand that my story may be difficult for some people to swallow. For this reason, don’t treat my book as a breezy beach read—something you can pick up and absorb lightly racing through to the last page. Read this in small doses, taking time to reflect. You will come across graphic and disturbing descriptions that may stir up uncomfortable images and feelings, but these are part of my story; they are also representative of what other victims experienced.

  It is my hope that after digesting my words you will have developed a greater appreciation for the world around you, for your life, for your family, and for everything that is significant to you. During stressful times know that you are the captain of the course of your life, maybe not in what cards you are dealt, but in how you choose to arrange them.

  Please read on as I retell my experiences—my hellish encounters—during this war-torn period of our world’s history.

  CHAPTER 1

  My life as I had always known it ended at the age of seventeen. Or maybe it would be more appropriate to say that my life was put on hold for six years soon after I turned seventeen. No, I didn’t suffer from an intense illness and lapse into a coma, only to miraculously awake years later and continue on where I left off. Instead, I had to feel every moment, every ache, of the devastation the Nazis imposed on my family and millions of others like us during World War II. I wish I could say that the pains ceased when the war stopped, but that would be a lie. Some aches never disappear.

  I am just one of many Holocaust survivors, and although my story is no more important or interesting than anyone else’s, stories like mine must be told before there are none of us left to tell them.

  Perhaps I should start from the beginning by relaying the seventeen years I lived on this earth before the chaos really took its toll:

  My name is Henryk Frankowski and I was born into a middle class family on the outskirts of Warsaw, Poland on August 26, 1922. My parents, Stefan and Helena, provided my brother Mendel (born eighteen months after me) and my much younger sister Blima (born in 1938) and me with a comfortable, stable life. My father worked hard establishing his name amongst the array of local shoemakers in the city while my mother, like so many other mothers during that time, stayed at home attending to the details required to care for the household.

  Mother was rather short, no taller than 160 cm (5’3”) and had wavy, coarse, dark chestnut hair and rich, chocolate-colored eyes. Her skin was clear and fair and her white cheeks reminded me of cumulus clouds when she smiled, although they turned into flushed apples when she was anxious or upset. She was a stunning, sensitive, petite woman who respected the fashions of the time, sewing skirts and dresses to keep in style. With a kind heart and a nurturing personality, she was born to be a mom.

  Father, on the other hand, stood taller than 183 cm (6 feet), and had rich, black hair and intense hazel eyes. A cigarette pressed between his lips like it was an extension of his mouth; his thoughts always appeared to be resting in another world. He had a domineering presence but a quite reserved personality except when he was angered. He took life very seriously and focused more so on being a good provider than on being an attentive dad, or so it seemed to me at the time.

  We lived in a fairly old neighborhood, in what I believed to be one of the most marvelous cities in the world, which was always animatedly alive with the happy shrieks of clusters of children playing in the alleyways. Our a
partment was reasonably sized; not what I would describe as large, but it was sufficient to meet our needs. Located on the ground floor of a four-story apartment building, it consisted of three bedrooms, a small kitchen and attached dining room, and a perfectly proportioned living/lounging area.

  Our home was adequately furnished, mostly with various hardwood pieces. Our prized kitchen table, a wedding gift from one of my father’s wealthy friends, was made from beautiful reddish-brown mahogany. My mother was fond of spending every Sunday afternoon leisurely rubbing oils into the wood to make it shine. The other chore she reserved for Sundays was cleaning laundry. Up until I reached my school-aged years, this was my favorite activity to help her with. She would sing fragments of happy tunes as she went about her work, teaching me how to hum and sing along so that together we filled the air with our joyous music. After she finished scrubbing each garment thoroughly with a bar of thick, creamy soap, checking for stains, she would pile them all together into a well-used wicker basket. Once the basket was overflowing, she would lift it from its resting place, cuing me to stand up from my stool next to the sink and follow her outside. She would hand me a paper bag full of rounded clothespins and after she smoothed out each individual garment and positioned it on the clothesline, my important job was to slip the clothespins into place. It seems rather silly, thinking back, that this simple task provided me with so much joy. It made me feel as though I had a sense of purpose, that I was helping my mother with her duties and that, for the first time, I had something of value to offer to another person.

  Once a month she would wash the handmade, half-length linen curtains that adorned every window; there must have been at least a dozen of them. On these occasions, mother’s Sunday chores took well into the evening. I treasured these days the most because it meant additional time assisting my mother with the cleaning of the charming window furnishings I found so fascinating. I recall how the curtains floated in and out, sometimes even fluttering out to the sides like nimble ballerinas, on windy days. The unpredictable rhythm of their dancing soothed my spirit. I’d oftentimes sit on the floor with my legs stretched out in front of me staring up at the windows as people walked by, watching as the linens danced, entirely entranced.

  Through these windows the heavenly, sweet smells of my mother’s daily baking drifted outside so that even before Mendel and I opened the door we knew what we would be having for dinner and dessert. Sometimes I thought maybe she cooled her tarts close to the kitchen window just to tantalize our senses so much so that my brother and I would be lured inside of our own accord, thereby willingly capping off our evening outdoor playtime without a fuss. It worked so well that our friends were known to follow us inside to share in the pleasure of enjoying mother’s delicacies. There was always something baking in the oven—rye breads, pastries, and meat dishes were her specialty.

  Just as most children would describe their childhood as being carefree, so would I. I would even go so far as to refer to that time as idyllic. To me, Warsaw was a city of endless pockets of magic. I didn’t fully appreciate the intrinsic beauty of the historic architecture until I was an adolescent, but as a young boy my imagination told me that the cathedrals, churches, and synagogues were palaces in which kings and princesses resided. Every time I walked past one of these magnificent structures I would inch up to it and then lean my head all the way back, looking up to the pinnacle of the roof. The palaces would seem to rise up to greet the clouds. I would then close my eyes and pretend I was a knight ready to save a distraught princess. Sometimes I would stand there for hours, always hoping that a princess would appear and cry out to me, fulfilling my fantasy. When I returned home at night my mother would ask me where I had been that afternoon, but I would never tell her about my journeys to the palaces. I always had a detailed prepared excuse to offer her, usually involving visiting my friends or sitting on the sidewalk across from a coffee house listening to the clanging of china, adult gossip, and accordion music. She’d smile at me like she knew I was hiding something, but she never made me unlock my chest of secrets.

  My mother, like mothers tend to do, somehow discovered my fascination with fairy tales, because the first time I brought home a report card full of high marks she took me to see a real palace. “When you excel, you get rewarded,” she told me, and so we visited the Royal Castle in the Old Town area of Warsaw. She explained to me how although the president now lived there, monarchs used to reside in it. The grand clock tower stood far taller than the rest of the immense building, and was what I was most fond of. Making our way around the building, mother pointed out the gorgeous architecture, which she said was influenced by several different architects each with their own style. The breathtaking structure was enormous and the rows of windows housed in its walls seemed to go on forever. After seeing it, my imagination was fueled even further.

  I did have a handful of close-knit friends, but I never invited them on my superhero themed excursions. Instead, the humble gang of us would spend the majority of our time together riding our corroded bicycles around the cobblestone roads, thudding over every cobble. Along a fairly secluded road there was a stretch of huge stones covering a path close to a hundred meters long. My buddies and I would make a contest out of riding along this rough patch, racing and trying to see who could recite the most of a generic sentence out loud without screaming or braking. Admittedly, though I enjoyed it, I was never very good at this game. Twice I backed out before I started, and once I toppled off my bike, scraping my knee and bruising my elbow. Perhaps for this reason I spent a majority of my childhood alone, lost in a fantasy world.

  Birthdays came and went, and as I got older, I would at times invite my younger brother on my outings with friends, sometimes by choice and sometimes by my parents’ command; but he was more of an annoyance to the group than anything else. Mendel would nag and whine so much that there were many times I was forced to leave the group’s adventures and take him home. The cause for his complaining was not self imposed, however. My friends and I would play tricks on him, such as pretending we were talking out loud to each other and then calling him “deaf” when he didn’t know what we were saying. We’d move our lips and gesture wildly so it looked like we were actually involved in interesting conversation and then laugh and laugh when Mendel would pull and shake his ears. He would get a terrified look on his face and demand he could really hear. We also made fun of the rust-colored birthmark on his left cheek which looked like a clover. Mocking him, we’d call him “shamrock” as we threw freshly plucked clovers at him. Ultimately, these tricks would end in him breaking down in a mess of tears, crying for mother. When you’re in your pre-teenage years you do what you can to fit in with your peers, and I felt that his misery was worth it if it meant keeping me in my current social circle and standing. Looking back, however, I feel pangs of guilt for my immature acts. My behavior was regrettable.

  While I don’t have many early memories of Blima, I do recall the day she was born. It was a rainy July morning when the midwife delivered her in my parents’ bedroom. Father was at his shop at the time. A plump woman who lived above us assisted with the birthing process; she stood at mother’s bedside holding a tub of warm water, mopping her forehead as mother gave birth to an almost lifeless child. I wasn’t allowed to be in the room, so I watched my mother sweating and screaming by peeking in her window until the ordeal frightened me. I remember how Blima had colic so severe that Mendel and I would stuff toilet tissue into our ears at night to muffle her unceasing, heartbreaking sounds. I can picture her sweet, plump pink cheeks and her dark amber hair. Aside from her crying, she was handsome, just like a perfectly stitched doll.

  If only our innocent lives could have stayed that way…

  CHAPTER 2

  My mother and I had a very close bond, a deep connection to each other that has remained unparalleled throughout my life. One of my first recollections is of her rocking me on her knee, calling me “her little angel.” I was never told what my first word
was, but I would like to think that it was “mama.” A love like the love she conveyed to me must be rare.

  Every day after school she’d be standing at the door of our apartment waiting for Mendel and me to return home. Mendel would rush into the kitchen to consume a still warm freshly baked pastry while I would run up to my mother, my dearest friend, to tell her every small detail since we’d parted that morning. We’d wander outside, walking once—twice if I was lucky—around the street as we talked about both mundane and interesting topics. We mostly spoke in Polish, with only rare instances when we spoke in Yiddish. She’d gently nudge me to elaborate so that she could understand my feelings about certain issues from time to time, always expressing interest in the current events shaping my life. As we walked, she tended to mindlessly move her wedding band from side to side as it remained on her finger, revealing a narrow path of worn away skin. Twisting her ring as we talked, she never seemed to be completely at ease even though her face remained relaxed. Many people have nervous tics, something they automatically do when worried, and so I let her keep hers without asking questions that might make her feel uncomfortable. Years later I came to understand the root of her uneasiness (as I’ll explain later).

  On a dreary, overcast afternoon when a storm was brewing just to the south, mother walked slower than usual despite the impending tumultuous weather. The wind billowed rapidly, as growls of thunder became more distinct. She slowed her pace even further, and I looked over at her, noticing that she was lost in thought, stroking her ring with affection, her eyes watery. She followed my eyes to her right hand (in accordance with Polish tradition she wore her ring on her right hand), breathed in deeply, and smiled shyly. “I almost didn’t get one of these,” she told me. “Your father was too poor to afford a wedding ring but we were young and impatient; we wanted to get married right away. Do you know what I did? I went to the jeweler without him knowing and picked out and paid for this ring. Your father was so embarrassed that he wanted to march me right back to the jewelry store to return my ring. After I convinced him that this was a ridiculous suggestion, he relented. He was ashamed that he couldn’t provide for me, but I didn’t marry him because I wanted him to buy me nice things. I married him because I love him. I hope you can find that kind of love one day, too.”