Long Journey Home: A Young Girl's Memoir of Surviving the Holocaust

by Lucy Lipiner

  One night, he failed to come home. It was probably the most terrifying night of our lives. He was caught carrying the illegal stuff and was taken to the police station. There, he was charged with being vrag naroda, an enemy of the people, and the most serious charge of all—conspiring against the Russian Revolution! These charges were used arbitrarily against anyone for any crime, real or fictitious. Any minor wrongdoing could be twisted into a major offense of treason. My father spent a bad night, during which he was mistreated by the authorities, until Abram showed up next morning. Abram bribed the official, who duly looked the other way when Papa, accompanied by Abram, walked out of the jail.

  Still, the stress in our lives increased dramatically. We had to find another way to deal with the crystal dye. Papa was now known to the police officials, but Mama, Frydzia, and I were not. So Mama started carrying the packages, with Papa following her at a distance. Soon, Frydzia and I took on the messenger job, with my father always following at a certain distance.

  One time, on the way to a designated rendezvous, walking slowly and clutching the package tightly in my arms, I tripped and fell forward. That was probably the scariest moment of my life. I still remember that the dye I was carrying was purple. I was terrified that the brown paper package had broken wide open and that I was covered in purple. Please God, I prayed as I picked myself up. Don’t let me be purple. Please don’t let me be purple.

  Quickly, I wiped my face with one free hand. No, there was no purple on my face. For a moment I felt relieved, but I could not turn around to look for my father. I did not dare. On those errands, he and I were not related.

  I felt bad for him, knowing that he felt bad for me. Papa was a doer. He was very unhappy when he could not help out or do something good for his family. He was steps away from me, yet he could not help me. Purple has loomed large in my mind ever since that night.

  Dangerous as it was to deal in these illegal dye transactions, it was all Papa could do to gain money, and doing it meant that hunger was no longer part of our lives. But the delivery errands had other dangers as well, as Mama and I found one evening that I remember clearly.

  It was a Friday, the Muslim Sabbath. A powerful voice from high up in the minaret called the faithful to evening prayers. Mama and I set out just before nightfall to make the delivery. It was late when we were returning home. Tajik men dressed in their Friday best were leaving the mosque. The town was almost deserted as we got closer to our hut. I hated the dark and quiet streets. Where could you run from an attack inside those narrow streets? I felt uneasy, and I am sure Mama did too.

  I don’t know what made me turn around, but I did—and saw a Tajik man darting out of a doorway, running straight toward us. He grabbed my mother, and I screamed. He began beating her. I don’t believe he was drunk. Muslims generally do not drink hard liquor. Yet there was such violence, such hatred, and savage passion in the way he beat her. Poor Mama screamed with pain, and I couldn’t come to her rescue! Maybe it was fear of being hurt myself, but I seemed paralyzed, rooted to the spot. I just kept screaming, hoping someone would hear us and come to our rescue. No one did. Instead, the man eventually just stopped beating her, as if exhausted or no longer interested, and he simply walked off.

  My mother managed to pull herself together. I remember her saying that he had knocked out her teeth and that she could not feel her face; it was numb. Fortunately, he had not actually knocked out her teeth, but Mama was sore all over her body, with bruises on her face, arms, and legs. She ached for weeks, and she was traumatized for longer than that. I knew because she spoke even less than normal. She just went about her chores. My father was quiet too. I have no idea what he felt—guilt possibly—because he had not been there to help or because he could not do the deliveries himself and thereby spare her from this danger. And, of course, he felt sadness, I am sure.

  I often go back to that awful night. It has never totally left my consciousness. But my understanding of it has changed. When my mother was brutalized, I was very young, and I believed that my presence had saved my mother from being killed. Later, as I got older, I believed that my presence also saved my mother from being raped. Maybe that was partly true. Sometimes, I think there was another reason for the attack. Men routinely beat women in that part of the world. Sometimes, they even killed them, and the authorities turned a deaf ear to these incidents and to the plight of women in general. I remember hearing about a Tajik man who had killed his wife. “And he lives just a couple of streets from us,” I heard my parents say.

  Men in that culture believed that it was their right to punish women for the smallest infraction. Maybe my mother’s attacker had seen her before and believed that she deserved to be punished for something. I think it is possible that my mother was brutalized because she dared to be seen in public in Western clothes, with her face and hair uncovered.

  The stress and all the anxieties in my life caused me to act and think beyond my age. Emotionally and intellectually, I was maturing quickly. I began taking on new responsibilities for myself and my family.

  Ironically, in school, we were routinely reminded that all was well, and we were well and happy to do everything we could for Tovarish Stalin and Mother Russia and the Russian Revolution.

  33

  End of War

  The American president is dead; I remember well when I first heard those words. I was returning home from school one afternoon and walking in Madanyat Street near our hut when I overheard someone saying, “The American president is dead. President Roosevelt is dead.”

  President Roosevelt was frequently mentioned, especially when current events were discussed. In school, we studied only the most basics of the history of the United States and the most important presidents.

  I understood even then and so far away from American shores that the United States had lost a great president. But in many ways, all Allied forces fighting the Nazis had also suffered a great loss. The Russian people considered President Roosevelt a great hero. I remember feeling very sad. Without the American president who would now help defeat the Nazis.

  We spoke of the end of war with longing. “After the War” those were magical words. I remember a romantic song of the time about two people separated by war and how they promised each other to keep a rendezvous at a designated spot at exactly 6:00 p.m. after the war “when the lights go on again and the world is peaceful again”

  For us, World War II ended May 10, 1945. That is when we first heard it. The news had reached us from other continents and thousands of miles away.

  The Nazis had capitulated and had been defeated on western and eastern fronts. They had surrendered unconditionally. It was over. People rejoiced. Happiness overflowed in the tight and narrow alleyways of Leninabad. That same summer I had reached my twelfth birthday.

  Yet, the spring of 1945 was not a good time for me personally. I contracted malaria, the dreaded disease of the region. My parents tried so hard to find quinine, the medicine which the visiting doctor promised would stop the awful chills and fever and sweating. I was fatigued most of the time, and the chills were excruciating.

  One time, I remember clearly that it was middle of summer, and Mama had covered me with everything we owned–blanket, even coats–and still the chills wouldn’t stop. I asked Mama to hold me down physically, and then I pleaded with her to please lie down on top of me, anything to stop the shivering. Later Mama said we both shook from the chills! I didn’t mind. I loved the tight embrace.

  Eventually, Papa was able to purchase quinine in the black market. It stopped the chills but colored me yellow–my face, even the whites of my eyes and the rest of my body.

  Malaria had taken a toll on my health. I had lost weight, my legs were like two sticks, and I had difficulty walking. The warm courtyard in front of our hut was my refuge and my favorite place. I spent many hours–-days, in fact–under the mulberry tree that grew in our courtyard, reading books Frydzia brought from friends. I slept a lot. My family worried that sle
eping long hours day and night might adversely affect my brain functioning. Still, it must have been the long rest–and the quinine–that helped me to recover from the awful disease. Slowly and very cautiously, I began to venture out of the courtyard.

  Whenever I think back of that difficult summer of my malaria, I think of the mulberry tree and how much I loved it. Its branches hung low over the hut, and the mulberries covered the ground. If you did not step on them, you popped them straight into your mouth. Sometimes, we climbed into the tree and ate the berries directly from the branches, but not the summer of 1945. Not me; I lacked the strength to climb up into the branches. I just watched Frydzia sitting up there and filling our cooking pot full of berries. I watched her popping the berries into her mouth and sometimes tease me by showering me with a fistful of mulberries.

  Those were happy times in our courtyard under the mulberry tree. I don’t recall eating any mulberries off a tree in the good old days, before the war, back home in Poland. But the mulberries in our courtyard in Leninabad tasted great, and I never once got sick from eating them.

  My bare feet were stained purple from the berries. I walked barefoot a lot, especially in the summer. Sometimes, my feet felt burning hot from the heat of the dirt streets. Often, I walked hugging the walls searching for a few inches of shade where the ground felt cooler. Still, I loved the freedom of bare feet. For the most part, life was better in the summer. Summer was good for chasing hunger away.

  34

  Summer of 1946

  It was more than a year after the war had ended that our family and perhaps a dozen other families originally from Poland still remained in Leninabad.

  We had been refused permits to travel back home to Poland and were referred to as “those people without a citizenship”— bezgrazdanskye in Russian. Papa had rejected Soviet citizenship in the belief that if we retained Polish citizenship, we would be able to go back home eventually. But he was always apprehensive about having made that decision. Still, he hoped in the end it would all work out in our favor.

  But the Soviet system was not a democracy with freedom of choice and freedom of movement. Stalin was the law unto himself, the ultimate authority in the land. He could do anything he pleased against anyone, anytime.

  The rumors that flew around suggested that we were being punished by Tovarish Stalin for rejecting Soviet citizenship. It was hard to believe, but according to those rumors, our punishment was that we would never go home again.

  Our family and others like us were considered pariahs— very much like the Tartars, the Chechens, and the Ingush people who were deported deep into Kazakhstan and parts of Tajikistan from their native Crimea and Caucasus Mountains on the charge of collaborating with the Nazi German occupiers between 1941 and 1943.

  Still, our only “sin” was the lack of Soviet citizenship. We didn’t do anything wrong against the Soviet people, and we didn’t deserve to be treated so badly. We huddled in our little hut with our worldly possessions packed in the ancient burlap flour sack, ready to go, hoping and believing that our travel permits would be granted soon.

  School was out. Many school friends of ours and their families had already departed. The Jewish orphanage in Leninabad had disbanded, and our little cousins Syma and Frydzia and our friend Anita were among the orphaned children to leave next. So many people were allowed to go back—but not our family. Papa and Mama seemed depressed, and Frydzia and I felt lonely without our extended family and our friends.

  There was nothing for us to do, so we took frequent trips to that part of Leninabad called “the new city” to visit the largest bazaar in town. Papa and Mama didn’t like us moping around the house. They urged us to do something constructive.

  So we started a little business of our own—turning cucumbers into pickles. We stuffed small cucumbers into a jar filled with water, small pieces of bread, and some salt and placed it in the hot sun. With the lid tightly closed, we created a fermentation tank that produced sour pickles within the span of one day.

  We took the jar to the bazaar and positioned ourselves near other vendors. They were not too happy about our enterprise. They waved their hands at us angrily, as if to shoo us away, trying to discourage us from doing business in the bazaar. But people liked our pickles, and we did a brisk business. For a few kopecks a pickle, we emptied the jar very quickly. With our earnings, we bought fresh cucumbers and then ran home to start the whole process again.

  Mama and Papa were proud of us. We helped supplement our daily existence, and that made us feel proud too.

  But we also loved spending time in the bazaar among throngs of people. Some vendors were nice to us. Sometimes, they even offered us some dried fruit and almonds, especially when we looked at them with our big, sad eyes.

  The atmosphere in our hut was not cheerful at all. Actually, it was quite depressing. Most everyone in our extended family had departed. First to go was Tante Bronia, and I missed her the most. She and Uncle Beno were “good citizens.” They were well liked by the Soviets. Bronia had held a legitimate job working for Tovarish Stalin, the revolution, and Mother Russia. She was not a “speculant,” as the Russians referred to people who engaged in illegal business, although the truth was that everyone who tried to survive did some illegal business on the side. To the Soviets, however, such people were counterrevolutionaries. And while it was true that Tante Bronia had a little job in the fruit processing factory turning uriuk apricots into preserves, it is also true that she was forced to steal jars of preserves just to supplement their daily existence. She sold the preserves and bought bread for herself and Uncle Beno. And these transactions generally took place in the black market. The Soviets believed Tante Bronia was a good citizen only because she was never caught stealing the fruit preserves.

  Next to go was Tante Esther, Papa’s oldest sister, and her husband, Uncle Benjamin the older, along with their youngest daughter, Tosia, their oldest daughter, Bella, and Bella’s daughter, Lily. Lily was no longer a baby; she was six years old.

  So many people were allowed to depart—but not us. We kept waiting, hoping to hear good news from the authorities. Almost daily, Papa visited the emigration office, inquiring about our travel permits. Each day, he came back disappointed—no travel permits.

  Then one day in June, Papa returned home, his face transformed, exuding joy. He was absolutely glowing. I knew immediately that he had good news.

  “We can go. We can leave today. Do you hear me? We can go!” His voice rose, and in his hands, he waved a sheet of paper over our heads. Mama, Frydzia, and I just stood there in disbelief. Then I ran up to him, trying to grab the paper in his hand. He wouldn’t let go. “No,” he said, “let me read it to you.”

  It was just a few words on a piece of paper, but it said volumes. It changed our lives. I will never forget that paper and those few words—“permission to depart from Leninabad …”

  Within minutes, we had gathered up our meager belongings; our home was once again transformed into a hut with four empty walls. We said good-bye to our dear neighbors, Rachel, her daughters, Sara and Zina, and son, Abram; all had tears in their eyes. “One day we will meet again,” they intoned. They too were hoping to leave the Soviet Union.

  With our bundles in our hands, we ran all the way to the station on the outskirts of Leninabad. In the station, we ran into a few families we had known for years. They too had received permission to depart Leninabad. We piled into a cattle train—only this time, the boxcars were no reason to despair but to rejoice and celebrate. At last, we were going home.

  35

  Coming Home

  It was a long trip. It took weeks in those days to go from Asia to Europe. At first, the unvarying, windy steppes of Kazakhstan out the train window made for long, boring days across hundreds and hundreds of miles—no one knew for sure how many. Still, we were happy.

  We were going home—there to be reunited with family we had not seen in six years. Papa and Mama spoke with great anticipation of being reunited
with their sisters and brothers after all those difficult six years of war.

  We arrived in Poland six weeks after leaving Leninabad. It was still summer, so different here from the scorching summer of central Asia. Unlike Leninabad, the Polish summer offered an abundance of flowers.

  Finally, we came home to Poland. What was to have been the best time of our lives turned out to be the worst possible time of our lives. This was not the same Poland we had fled six years earlier. Something was terribly wrong in the country we had so longed to return to.

  In some stations, we heard terrible comments from the local population.

  “Look,” I remember hearing someone say, “unslaughtered chickens are returning.”

  There were disquieting rumors—unbelievable rumors— of Jewish people having been slaughtered in ghettos and extermination camps, betrayed and denounced by their Polish neighbors. The price for handing over a Jew was half a kilo of sugar! And sometimes, Jews were handed over to the SS men or the Gestapo for nothing at all—no sugar or anything.

  We had not heard such things before. How could they be true? We could not accept such a cruel reality. It was too horrible and too evil to comprehend.

  We spent several weeks in Krakow that summer. We thought it was the best location to search for members of our family, and it was close to our home in Sucha.

  We found no one alive. Mama’s two sisters and two brothers, Papa’s one sister and one brother, and dozens of family members on both sides had all been killed by the Nazis and their Polish and Ukrainian collaborators.

  Later, we learned that, here and there, Polish people, called the Righteous Among the Nations, saved Jewish lives. Unfortunately, there weren’t enough such good people.