CHAPTER 6
WE HAVE BECOME A NEW PEOPLE AND A RENEWED PEOPLE
No one spoke about the neighbors who were gone, but the thought was there in their minds. Those who remained were forbidden to worship in the Temples. The men and women gathered secretly in homes of people they could trust and made a list of where and when they would hold prayer services. Prayers and services continued in Micholovce during the beginning and until the end of the war. Those who remained had special permission from the Nazis to stay because of their businesses; they were designated as needed for the German cause. Frank had gone to Bernard again on behalf of Joseph Freier and his family. He had asked that Joseph and his family be allowed to stay in Micholvce. Joseph had to sign over the business to Frank and Joseph became Frank’s foreman.
We heard stories of men and women who had escaped from the back of trucks. There were vivid and terrifying stories of the Nazi machines, which were used at the gas chambers. There were stories also told of waking up in the depths of dead lying in deep pits. Some told us of the untold horrors they faced in the woods while hiding, and of the dying from disease, pestilence, and the dying from hunger in the woods. Few survived this torturous existence. And in the absence of any worshiping to God because it was forbidden, those victims of untold atrocities still kept their faith. We still kept our faith and believed more in our Judaism.
This time we were lucky. We did not lose this game of ultimate death with the Germans. After a few days, my father took Sam and they wandered in the dark by themselves, knocking on doors to see who amongst us had survived. We had all lived near one another. After the atrocities, no one knew who lived next to whom.
Others had managed to elude the Germans, too. We renewed our ties with friends and neighbors and family members with tears of joy and seemingly endless stories of survival. Our thirst for revenge was sizzling in all of us, but there was the sense of hopelessness of not knowing how to fight. We were not trained. The few of us who had been drafted into the Russian army had never held prominent positions. We as Jews were always limited by the Russian Cossacks and the Tsar. But from all the years of persecution, and revolts against us, we had developed an untenable will of resistance to survive.
The trees all were clothed with leaves and we saw the buds of new vegetation still busting through the earth. We sang praises to the Lord by reciting verses of one of the verses of King David’s psalms. After hours of steady walking, our mouths were parched from thirst and our bellies ached from hunger. We had not yet learned to deal with the extreme deprivation on our bodies in times of stress and in times of warfare and took a dangerous chance of walking out of the woods and going back to our home.
The first thing we saw was people walking in the streets. This was our biggest surprise. Houses had open windows. All doors were closed. A small light could be seen shining from inside some of the homes. The neighborhood at first looked untouched by war, in that most of the homes were intact. But the silence in some of the homes was eerie and foreboding. There were telltale signs of unpacked suitcases, coats that had fallen off of beds, sweaters that were piled high on kitchen chair; and rotting food in the back yards of homes; and trash and broken glass in the front of some others. We knew that these people must have had contacts and money. We prayed for those poor people who didn’t.
All these sights indicated to the observer that shattering events were taking place. Yet, the items lay so still as though just recently uncovered by gentle hands, sifting from the sands of time in another time by a dedicated archeologist. I wanted to go back to the days when I walked with my brothers to school. Sam would always invite friends over and they would eat cake left outside on a counter for them; gulping the huge morsels in their mouths; not even washing off the bits and crumbs left on their lips and just barely flapping off the crumbs from their shirts; energized, they ran to the backyard to play soccer; they played one game after another; it was nighttime before they stopped and went home. Sam was bright but never a good student. The game and winning the game was the reason why.
Life somehow went on. We found the way to work. The children found a way to learn even though they had to stay at home. For we had the message from God telling us to have tenacity and to go on; we were determined to live. We had some money stored away. Where was the money hidden? It was pasted behind the wallpaper. My father’s wood business was being run by his foreman. My father always knew that he could get money from his foreman when he needed the money. That was the bitter irony in this war. Some people were good and they never changed and they became better people, more responsible people. Others were bad and they became worse. Men and women were either overcome by the war. Many took their own lives. Some tried to save themselves and others, risked their lives time after time. Some thought only about themselves; they were cunning with schemes to survive at the expense of anyone. They had never before become so ruthless. Many were in denial–-made it worse and their fate was decided in most cases very quickly by the Germans.
We heard stories of men and women who had escaped from the back of trucks. There were vivid and terrifying stories of the Nazi machines, which were used at the gas chambers. There were stories also told of waking up in the depths of the dead lying in deep pits. Some told us of the untold horrors they faced in the woods while hiding, and of the people dying from diseases, pestilence, and the dying from hunger. Few survived this torturous existence. And in the absence of any worshiping to God because it was forbidden, those victims of untold atrocities still kept their faith. We still kept our faith and believed more in our Judaism.
This time we were lucky. We did not lose this game with the Germans today. After a few days, my father took Sam and they wandered through the neighborhood by themselves, knocking on doors to see who amongst the many of us had survived. Yes, others amongst us had managed to elude the Germans, too. We renewed our ties with friends and neighbors and family members with tears of joy and seemingly endless stories of survival.
The thirst for revenge was sizzling in all of us, but there was the sense of hopelessness of not knowing how to mobilize an army. We were not trained as a group for fighting. The many of us who had been drafted into the Russian army had never held prominent positions. Many of us never came back. We as Jews were always limited by the Russian Cossacks and the Tsar. However, we had seen how they had trained their armies, how they mobilized, how they transported their armies, how they stored their supplied, how they obtained their supplied; we were not entirely ignorant. But, how, who will do this and who will pay for that and who will implement that–there was so much planning to be done and we did not have any time to do it. We had to fight and we had to fight as soon as possible. But from all the years of persecution, and revolts against us, we had developed an untenable will of resistance to survive. This was besides our peaceful way of life.
CHAPTER 7
JOSEPH WORKING AND ANNA DELIVERING BABIES
New wallpaper was pasted and many of the rooms had money pasted on the inside of the wallpaper. But the heart and soul of the family was constantly thinking about G-d. No one knew what would happen on the next day. As time went on, Joseph as well as many others talked of being able to warn each other when the Germans came. It was harder than ever to send out an alert for there weren’t that many Jews left on the block anymore.
Martin caught more colds than the other children. He was at home more. He helped his mother to cook. He helped his mother to clean the house. He helped his mother gather and carry the groceries when she went to shop, even though all food was rationed. Thoughts of hunger and fear of being captured hovered over them; but, nevertheless, life went on. Jewish people married. Babies were born. Anna was a midwife.
There was a knock on the door in the middle of the night—it was the middle of March and the winter was still stiff and bitter cold, but there were some signs of the new buds on the leaves of the trees. Joseph tied the straps in a knot in the
front of his maroon colored flannel robed, the strap on the lap swinging up and obscuring the yellow star, which every Jew had to sew onto their clothes, but only for a moment, but it reminded Joseph to have more faith and he ran down the stairs quickly and asked as he spoke through the thick, wooden brown door, “what is it?”
A voice of a young man shouted, “Help me. My wife needs a midwife”. Joseph opened the door and said to the young man whom he had known since he was born, “Schmul, please sit down, and I will get Anna”.
Anna had heard the young man’s plea, and she had gotten dressed, and had brought her bag. She came down the steps dressed in her best dress and wearing a kerchief to cover her head. Joseph and Anna looked at each other. She said to Joseph, “I will just put on my coat and take my bag”. Joseph said, “Be safe”. Anna nodded with her head, and she went with Schmul.
It was a distance, around 10 blocks, around the other side of the synagogue and this night was very dark. “Would you like me to light a match?” Schmul asked. “Better not to”, Anna quipped. Do you want the Germans to see us?” Schmul rubbed his mouth with his left hand and said with a voice that was noticeably quivering, “what a time to bring a baby into the world”. Anna said to him as they walked briskly in the front of the homes along the road, “you must never question the will of the Lord for he is the giver of life”.
Schmul looked up at her and said, “Maybe there is hope, but I do not think we will survive this war”. Anna quickly retorted, “You are young and you are brave. After the baby is well enough, you must leave. You do know that. “But how?” he asked. And he said, “We have no money”. Anna told him, “it will not be easy, but you must find out who is leaving and ask if you can go along with them”.
Schmul replied, “I will do as you say”. They were fast approaching the home. It was built as a small house, but several rooms were built in the back, and all of the rooms inside were very neat. A lady who lived next door had come over to help, even though she kept on looking up at the clock and batting her eyes and wringing her fingers. She made everyone else nervous.
Anna asked the young woman, laying on the bed whose face was full of perspiration, “what is your name”, and while breathing puffs of air in and out and crying, she muttered the name, “Rose”. “Oh, what a beautiful name you have”. Then Anna paused and she asked how far apart are the contractions?” and Rose replied in a hurried voice, “one and one/half minutes”. “Then I would suggest you move your feet closer to me and let me see if I can see if the baby’s head coming”.
Rose screamed out as Anna felt for the baby’s head. Anna spoke quietly to the young man, and she went back quickly into Rose’s room. She said, “Rose, look at me. You will come through this. I have been through this five times myself, and I have beautiful children. They make my world”, and she muttered to herself, “If the Nazis do not destroy it”, and she said slowly, “I will have to turn the baby around, and you will have to help me”. “Here”, she said, as she pulled out a small bottle of vodka from her bag. Rose pulled her head up from the huge, duck feather pillow she had been resting on, and she opened up her mouth and Anna poured in droplet by droplet from a large silver tablespoon. Rose rested her head on the pillow, and Anna deftly placed her hands around the baby’s head and neck and shoulders and very carefully turned the little body around. Rose had dozed off, but Anna woke her up and said, “come on, push, and Rose gave a large push and the baby’s head moved out of the internal crest it had been nesting on. Anna looked at Rose and said, “Rose, you can do it, now give one more push”, and Rose did just that and as the head of the newborn baby came out of Rose’s womb, Anna grabbed hold of the shoulders and pulled the baby out ever so gently. Rose was dazed, but looked fondly at the baby. The baby lay down on its bed and the neighbor woman covered Rose and said, “there, now, do not worry about the baby”, and you will be fine”, and Rose nodded her head as if to say, “yes”. Rose could hear the baby crying out loudly. Anna had held up the baby by its legs and had slapped its bottom and as the baby was crying, she washed the newborn with the warm water and soap in the basin that had been placed by the side of the bed. She wrapped warm diapers around its bottom, and she wrapped its young, beautiful body into a rainbow colored cloth made of wool. She called out, “it is a boy. It is a boy”. She said to Rose, “here, here is your son. Take him and hold him”. Rose smiled and she reached out for her baby son. Anna said, “To have wonderful things happen during a war is a wonderful thing”.
She wrapped her kerchief around her head and tied it under her neck and put her arms through the inside of the coat, and she said, “My, it is late. I must be going”. She walked out into the cold and damp air, but stopped for a minute to look up to the sky and breathe in the air. Then she checked to make sure that all of her buttons had been buttoned and she pulled the right side of the collar over the left side.
She had gone only a few steps out the door, when she turned around and said to the lady neighbor, “it might be best if you and I stayed for the night”, and she paused and then said in a serious tone of voice, “just in case there is bleeding”.
After breakfast the next morning, seeing Rose and the baby were doing fine, she left and was out the door as though she had disappeared. She bowed her head and walked swiftly past one house and then another. She had gone about half the distance, when she paused and looked around, as she pondered, “What is the fastest way to go to my house”. She decided to walk behind the houses, because it was safer, but she would have to walk slower, because she did not know her way as well. She walked while her breathing got louder and she could see the condensation of the air blowing out of her lips and her nostrils. She wanted to stop and rest, but she said to herself, “it is a miracle that I have made it this far, oh, if only I can make it back to the house safely!” and she continued on her way. Two lights shined from the distance, and she knew instantly who they were. She looked up to the sky for strength, and she found the strength to be elusive.
She chuckled to herself as she said, “I certainly know better than to ask them for help”! They will help me all right, but to the grave sooner than I want to go”. She darted in the back of the nearest bushes. The lights got brighter and brighter, and with every moment that passed Anna’s breathing got heavier. She waited for them to pass. The car crept by slowly. It crept passed this house. Then it went on. Anna thought to herself, “better to wait for a while after they have gone”, and she was right! The car turned around and the lights moved closer and closer from the other direction. Anna’s breathing got even louder and she could hear the pounding of her heart, and her fists were clenched across the bottom of her chin. She waited. She waited and then the car passed by slowly. She waited for a few minutes longer, got up and arched her back and breathed in deeply and breathed out again and again until she felt that her strength had returned and she walked, one foot before the other, walked briskly passed two more blocks of houses, and, finally, approached the back door of her home and knocked gently.
Sam, the eldest son, had been waiting for her. He moved the curtain a tiny bit from the edges of the window and peered out. He smiled as he saw his mother and went immediately to the back door and opened it up. Anna’s face was ruddy and she did not speak, but she rubbed her hands together and walked over to the fireplace and closed her eyes for a moment as she felt the warmth from the fire pumping through her veins.
“Come”, her son called her name very gently, “come and sip some hot coffee”. She walked quickly to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair for herself. She sipped the hot coffee that had sat in the pot for at least four hours and she smacked her lips, showing what she was too tired to express. She asked for a piece of bread or a piece of cake. Sam obligingly went to get it for her.
Life somehow went on. For we had the spirit of God telling us to have tenacity and to go on; we were determined to live. We had some money stored away. My father’s wood business was being
run by his foreman. My father always knew that he could get money from his foreman if he needed the money. That was the bitter irony in this war. Some people were good and they never changed and they became better, more responsible people. Others were bad and they became worse. Men and women were either overcome by the war. Many took their own lives. Some tried to save themselves and others, risked their lives time after time. Some thought only about themselves. They were cunning with schemes to survive at the expense of anyone. They had never before become so ruthless. Many were in denial–-made it worse and their fate was decided in most cases very quickly by the Germans.
We heard stories of men and women who had escaped from the back of trucks. There were vivid and terrifying stories of the Nazi machines, which were used at the gas chambers. There were stories also told of waking up in the depths of dead lying in deep pits. Some told us of the untold horrors they faced in the woods while hiding, and of the dying from disease, pestilence, and the dying from hunger in the woods. Few survived this torturous existence. And in the absence of any worshiping to God because it was forbidden, those victims of untold atrocities still kept their faith. We still kept our faith and believed more in our Judaism.
The Grayling Page 4
