Mosaic

by Diane Armstrong

  Izio was still living with his parents and every day when he came home for lunch Lieba greeted him as if she hadn’t seen him for weeks, and he in turn complimented her cooking as if he hadn’t eaten for weeks. ‘Mama, that’s the best chicken soup I’ve ever tasted!’ he would say, licking his lips appreciatively while Lieba basked in his praise.

  Halfway through a plate of crisply fried potato latkes and cucumbers pickled just the way he liked them—with plenty of dill and garlic—Izio suddenly dropped a bombshell. ‘I want to marry Lola Haubenstock,’ he told his parents. Daniel was shaken. Although Lola’s father was Jewish, her mother wasn’t, so according to Jewish law, Lola herself wasn’t Jewish.

  Intermarriage had become more common in Poland during the 1930s, but it was still regarded as a tragedy by most orthodox parents. Some disowned their children, while others even sat shivah for them as though they had died, observing seven days of mourning with slippers on their feet and ashes on their head.

  Until now, each of the married Baldinger children had chosen Jewish partners. The latest was Andzia who’d married Zygmunt Rosenbaum in 1928. Lieba was bitterly disappointed at Izio’s decision. Why couldn’t a handsome, charming young man like her son find himself a nice Jewish girl from the thousands of eligible girls in Krakow?

  I understand how my grandmother must have felt. Even though Michael and I hadn’t led an observant Jewish life or sent our children to Jewish schools, I still felt a sharp sense of loss when our son Jonathan fell in love with a girl who wasn’t Jewish. I was upset that five thousand years of history were about to come to a dead end in our family. It wasn’t a matter of one religion being better than another; it was a question of continuity being broken, of the end of our traditions, of grandchildren who wouldn’t follow in our footsteps or those of their grandparents. After the Holocaust, it seemed like a betrayal of the millions who’d been slaughtered because of their religion.

  For a devout Jew like Daniel, this was a terrible blow. During the turmoil over Izio’s proposed marriage, my father tried to persuade his parents not to oppose the match. ‘I don’t think that Lola is the right person for Izio but he’s very stubborn,’ he said. ‘The more you try to talk him out of it, the more he’ll dig his heels in, but if you leave him alone, he might see for himself that they’re not compatible,’ he advised.

  But the conflict continued until one of Daniel’s friends, a restaurateur called Szwartz, persuaded him to search for a compromise. ‘If your son won’t listen, talk to a rabbi. If he can’t come up with a solution, ask another and another.’ Eventually Daniel decided that the only way of averting a rift between himself and his son was for Lola to convert.

  Izio knew his strong-minded fiancée well enough to know that this option would be coldly received. ‘It’s not as if she’s really Christian,’ he argued. ‘Her father is Jewish!’

  Daniel remained calm. ‘You know very well that if her mother isn’t Jewish, then she isn’t Jewish either, so you can’t be married in a synagogue.’

  Izio, who was becoming increasingly angry, tried to keep his voice under control. ‘This is utter hypocrisy. I’m not even religious!’

  Daniel fixed his penetrating gaze on his angry son. ‘But you are a Jew,’ he pointed out quietly, ‘and you’re a grown man. You have to think about the future. Unless your wife converts, your children won’t be Jewish either.’

  Izio leapt to his feet as if catapulted out of his chair. ‘So I won’t have any children! I don’t even want to have any children,’ he stormed.

  Izio had met his fiancée in Zakopane, high in the Tatra Mountains. While gliding down the thick powdery snow, Lola had caught sight of a handsome young man with a sensual mouth, and eyes like glowing coals which seemed to devour her face. Soon they were racing each other down the slopes, and sometimes their races ended with them tumbling on the soft snow, exploding with laughter.

  Before long they spent every minute together, taking rides in little horse-drawn doroskys driven by mountain men in their pudding-basin hats and short embroidered jackets. Arm in arm, they strolled around the snow-covered village whose chalets and churches were built without a single nail. Past beech trees and clusters of hornbeams with fluted trunks, they climbed to the stone chapel on the hilltop. While they gazed down at the vista of spruce-covered hills, Izio told Lola how the chapel came to be built. ‘The priest told his parishioners to bring one stone for every sin they’d committed, so it didn’t take long to collect enough building material!’ he chuckled. Both sports mad, they hiked along the steep track to the summit of Mount Gubalowka, and rafted down the foaming Dunajec River.

  Izio loved women, but in all his thirty-one years he hadn’t met one he wanted to marry. But Lola excited and intrigued him. He loved her directness, coolness and independence. Lola was German and lived in Berlin but had come to visit Poland because it was her father’s birthplace. Unlike any woman he’d ever met, Lola said whatever she thought and didn’t play games. As they sat close together by the blazing fire in the ski lodge, sipping spiced wine, he looked into her brilliant dark eyes whose slightly mocking expression he found so exciting, and knew that he’d fallen hopelessly in love.

  More down to earth than her lover, Lola had some reservations about their future. The idea of living in Krakow appalled her. Compared with the vitality and modernity of Berlin, Krakow was small, grey and provincial. Then there were the cultural and religious differences. She had been brought up in a big city, in a liberal German household, unfettered by religion, but even though Izio himself wasn’t religious, she could see that he was attached to his orthodox parents.

  And to make matters worse, there was this outrageous demand that she should convert. She was angry that their marriage depended on her conversion. ‘What does conversion involve?’ she asked in the awkward, German-accented Polish Izio found so delightful.

  ‘You’d have to study a few things about the Jewish religion.’ After a pause, he added with embarrassment. ‘And you’d have to go to a mikveh.’

  Lola opened her large dark eyes even wider. ‘What’s that?’ Izio cleared his throat and tried to explain about the ritual purification of women which took place in a communal bathhouse before their wedding, and each month after menstruation. Lola’s horrified expression left no room for doubt as to her opinion of this tradition. Anyway, why should she convert just to keep an old man happy? She was inclined to return to Berlin and forget the whole thing.

  Caught between the two most powerful people in his life, Izio consulted everyone he knew in the hope of finding an acceptable solution. When he came to see Lola one afternoon, his eyes were dancing with optimism. ‘If you can find some Jewish women on your mother’s side of the family, maybe you won’t have to convert,’ he said.

  Lola’s arched eyebrows shot up towards her widow’s peak hairline. ‘Are you suggesting that in Germany in 1934 I should ask my mother to look for Jewish blood?’

  It wasn’t a great time to be searching for Jewish relatives. One year after Hitler had become Chancellor, anti-Semitism had already started to poison the German air. Although he pretended to dissociate himself from the brown-shirted thugs organised by his evil propaganda minister, those who’d read the Nazi party policy formulated in 1920 knew that Hitler planned to strip Jews of German citizenship and civil rights.

  Hitler had already told Major Josef Hell: ‘The annihilation of the Jews will be my first and foremost task.’ With chilling political opportunism he went on to tell the major that all revolutions needed a focus of hostility and predicted that the battle against the Jews would be popular and successful. ‘The Jews will be hanged, one after another, and they will stay hanging until they stink. As soon as one is untied, the next will take his place, and that will go on until the last Jew in Munich is obliterated. Exactly the same thing will happen in the other cities until Germany is cleansed of its last Jew.’ In 1934, however, Hitler still wasn’t ready to reveal his plans publicly, although his vicious speeches increasingly vilifie
d Jews.

  Despite all the obstacles, Izio and Lola were so passionate about each other that they resolved to get married and Lola agreed to convert. When Lieba and Daniel finally asked Izio to introduce his fiancée, he was anxious for her to make a good impression on his parents.

  ‘They’ll serve either a milschich meal or a fleischich meal,’ he alerted her beforehand, explaining that milk and meat were never served at the same meal in kosher homes. ‘So if they serve meat, don’t ask for milk in your coffee.’ When she asked how many brothers and sisters he had, all he said was, ‘Enough.’ He was too embarrassed to tell her that he had ten.

  Lola’s first meeting with the Baldingers did little to allay her misgivings. As if having to convert wasn’t enough, she was annoyed that Izio’s mother expected a dowry. She thought his parents looked old and sounded old, more like grandparents, and she had nothing in common with them. During one of the many awkward pauses, she looked around the living room at the grand piano with its old-fashioned embroidered shawl flung across the top, the heavy mahogany sideboard with the kiddush cup, menorah and candelabra on the shelves, the big glass-fronted china cabinet in the dining room, and the wooden rocking chair that no-one except Daniel ever sat in, and couldn’t help comparing them with her progressive parents and their modern, spacious apartment with its elegant carved furniture and Persian rugs.

  Daniel always let his wife do the talking, but Lieba, with her soft short grey hair and kind, homely face, was ill at ease and darted sidelong glances at Lola, trying to figure out why her son had chosen this young woman who spoke such poor Polish and made so little effort to be friendly. Tension crackled all around them and Lola couldn’t wait to leave.

  Sensing Lola’s growing resentment and homesickness, Izio realised that if he didn’t speed things up, she’d lose patience and return to Berlin for good. Eventually they both travelled to Berlin where Lola converted. ‘That’s the kind of thing you do when you’re young and in love,’ she tells me when we meet many years later, and her dark eyes gleam with that bemused expression that captivated my uncle sixty years ago. She’s still sharp-witted and fiercely independent, and hasn’t lost her sardonic sense of humour and candid manner, although the sleek black hair has turned iron-grey. To this day she speaks with a strong German accent and still lives in Krakow, the city she once hated so much.

  Their wedding in Berlin was a very quiet affair. Daniel and Lieba didn’t want to travel so far, while Lola’s mother opposed the marriage and didn’t attend. While they stood under the chuppah during the wedding ceremony, just as the rabbi said ‘Mazeltov!’ and Izio was about to place the wedding band on her index finger, he dropped the ring. Lola was a modern young woman who scoffed at superstitions and laughed at Izio’s nervousness, but perhaps it was an omen.

  Back in Krakow to begin their married life, Lola was homesick but she and Izio were so much in love that she soon forgot her unhappiness. He bought her an aristocratic looking Doberman for company and every day Lola put on her sensible shoes, belted tweed suit and cloche hat and took the dog for long walks. Izio was playful and passionate, and they used to chase each other around the flat like children. Aunty Lunia recalls that her brother was so besotted with his bride that he couldn’t leave her alone, and loved playing with her glossy black hair which he sometimes plaited and tied with scarlet ribbons.

  Lola’s directness, which Izio found so refreshing, shocked his family. People in Poland weren’t used to plain speaking, but Lola said exactly what she thought and even talked openly about sex, which scandalised Lunia and Andzia.

  Lola found Lunia unbearable, a terrible snob, full of her own self-importance, always finding a way to put her down. ‘How wonderful that you’re not tired of wearing the same hat, Lolschen,’ Lunia would say sweetly, exchanging a meaningful glance with her sister Andzia. ‘Here in Krakow, we don’t wear the same outfit until it falls apart.’ One day she leaned forward and asked, a propos of nothing, ‘Lola, how do you say Theory of Relativity in German?’ Lola gave her a long, hard stare. ‘Are you checking me out to see if I’m sufficiently educated for your brother?’ she retorted.

  Aunty Lunia hasn’t changed. When I visit her in Tel-Aviv, I mention that I’ve recently seen Lola. Even at the age of ninety-four, her eyes gleam as she recalls the treasures that her sister-in-law brought with her to Krakow back in 1935. ‘Her father was a Jewish aristocrat, you know. She brought fifteen Persian rugs with her from Berlin and her parents sent furniture as a dowry because they couldn’t get money out. It took her all day to unpack. Of course we received her very well, but she always looked at us with critical eyes.’ Then she adds, ‘Their Doberman had a pedigree, you know.’

  The only one of the Baldinger sisters Lola liked was Fridzia who was out with her boyfriend most of the time. At twenty-two, Fridzia was passionately in love with a law student called Wienio. Sixty years later, with a dreamy voice and rapt expression, she recalls their romantic meeting at the skating rink back in 1933. As she describes the scene, I can see the short young woman with the winning smile gliding on the ice to Strauss waltzes which crackled over the gramophone. In her chocolate-brown velvet skating dress trimmed with fur, matching velvet panties and fur-trimmed cap and muff, Fridzia was convinced that she was the most fetching girl on the icerink.

  She was making her way towards the buffet table laden with canapes when she almost collided with a young man who blocked her way. ‘Could you please let me pass?’ she asked and with a lopsided smile, he replied, ‘For a princess like you, I’ll do anything!’ and bowed with a flourish, like a medieval knight. When they started going out, he drank in every word and said that her speech was like poetry. When they went skating, he insisted on removing her boots and skates to save her the effort. Fridzia had met the man of her dreams.

  Lola dreaded Friday evenings when the whole family got together, but Izio often managed to talk her into going. She had to sit through dreary evenings of trivial conversations, endless quarrels and snide remarks. If Lunia said something was white, her sister Andzia immediately said it was black. If Andzia bought something, then Lunia pointed out why it was extravagant, overpriced or unfashionable. Later they would both turn on their mother and accuse her of playing favourites, of giving more to one than the other. Then Rozia would complain about one of them in her loud voice and that would start a whole new row. Lola felt sorry for poor deaf Rozia for whom no-one had any time, not even her mother whom she clearly adored.

  Lola noticed that her mother-in-law was often irritated by Rozia’s fussing and upset by Andzia and Lunia’s quarrels. ‘They’re at it again,’ she’d shake her grey head sadly. Sometimes she turned to Lola with an embarrassed smile and a wry proverb. ‘Small children, small worries, bigger children, bigger worries,’ she would say, or ‘Small children in your arms, older ones on your mind. Small children don’t let you sleep and big ones don’t let you live!’

  Lola especially hated visiting her in-laws in winter, when they had to take a horse-drawn sleigh through the frosty streets. ‘Krakow is like a country town,’ she used to scoff. ‘In Berlin we haven’t used horse-drawn sleighs in the city for years.’ She much preferred to go dancing at Cyganeria on Szpitalna Street where the Rosner orchestra played seductive tangos, or to dine at smoky taverns, like Jutrzenka on Sienna Street, where dorosky drivers used to drop in for rich bigos stew which simmered on the stove all day.

  There was another reason for Lola’s reluctance to visit her in-laws. Riding through the streets of Krakow late at night in 1935 was a harrowing experience if you looked Jewish as Izio did. Like Spain, Germany and Hungary, Poland during the thirties had moved sharply towards the right, and from marches and demonstrations it was obvious that ultra right-wing groups like Endecja were gathering support. Members of this party roamed the streets armed with sticks and clubs looking for Jews. By day, Endecja members stood guard outside Jewish shops to stop gentiles from doing business with them; by night, roaming bands beat up any Jews who ventured out into th
e streets, while the police usually turned a blind eye.

  They tried to avoid going home past the Glowny Rynek because the fascist-dominated student association had its headquarters there. Although they always put up the hood of the dorosky, angry-faced hooligans looked inside every carriage and scanned every face. Lola pressed herself against the back seat so that they wouldn’t see her while Izio, his face tense with anger, clenched his fists and muttered, ‘Those bastards! If I could get my hands on them!’

  Lola was shocked by what was happening in Krakow. Poland seemed to be a nation of two distinct groups, Poles and Jews. She found it strange that only Catholics were regarded as Poles, as if being Jewish precluded citizens from being Polish. The street assaults horrified her because they indicated that anti-Semitism was a grass-roots movement. Distressed, she said to Izio: ‘In Berlin, the anti-Jewish propaganda comes from the top, from Hitler and his Nazis, but here the hatred seems to come from the people.’

  It was at about this time that Hitler escalated his persecution of the Jews. On 15 September 1935, the Nuremberg Decrees put into action Nazi policies formulated in 1920. The first lethal step towards turning the Jews into outcasts in their own country had begun. But in 1935 no-one could have guessed what Hitler had in mind when he warned that if the Nuremberg Laws didn’t succeed, ‘it might become necessary to hand over the problem to the National Socialist party for a final solution.’

  CHAPTER 9

  The band was playing Fibich’s ‘Poeme’ the night my parents met, and as he twirled Bronia around the dance floor, my father knew that this was the woman he was going to marry. For the rest of their lives, whenever that tender melody came on the radio, they would stop in mid-sentence, get that sentimental look in their eyes, and my mother would say, ‘Remember?’ and my father would take off his glasses, smile, and hum a few bars.