CHAPTER 8

PASSOVER STORY 1937

Over the past few months Poldi and I have spent nearly every day together, going on long walks by the Danube, sharing coffee and pastries at coffee houses and talking endlessly about our future lives despite the unrest that surrounds us. We go to the centre of Vienna to Stefansplatz, the main square of the city. We stare up at the soaring spires of the Gothic edifice of St. Stefan’s Cathedral, where I point out the huge bells and explain that they are rung in loudly clanging peals to call worshippers to prayer on Sunday mornings. Strolling hand in hand, I take Poldi to my favourite spots and show him the wares that are sold in the stores – all manner of goods from hand-crocheted shawls to music boxes with charming lilting tunes that play when the lids are opened.

High above the square the ornate gilded Anker Clock, perched atop the Anker Bank, marks each hour. At noon twelve figures representing key personalities in the history of Austria from Emperor Marcus Aurelius to Joseph Haydn move in an elegant procession across the face as the bells chime. I have made sure to take Poldi at lunchtime to watch his expression of delight at the sight of the moving statues above us.

We talk about our plans and concerns in the face of unsettled political conditions throughout Europe, but are full of excitement as we take in the wondrous sights of the city. I take personal pride in my descriptions of the famous landmarks and am glad to see Poldi’s interest in the history and culture. He tells me that he is eagerly anticipating the arrival of his parents in Vienna and asks me to promise that I will give them this same tour.

When they do come and get settled into their new home, I am invited to spend one of the Passover seders with the Kosiners. Although I have met his family briefly before, this is the first time I have been included at a seder. It is especially significant to me because our family has lost touch with religious traditions. Mama and Papa were secular, modern and assimilated, considering themselves Austrians first, Jews second, a sentiment that is currently popular in Vienna and the way that I have felt myself. Few Jewish traditions were practised in our home. But now that we are being singled out and condemned more and more often, I wonder what it all means and am grateful to be included so I can understand the past as it relates to the present.

Poldi’s family keeps a Kosher home and retains all the observances. When Papa died even minor attempts at preserving the rituals evaporated in our home, so this is my first real view of such religious practice. Poldi’s mother is the essence of traditional Jewish motherhood, warm and kind, opening her heart to me as though I were her own. Her rough hands are callused from years of toil. Hardship and worry have driven grooves into her forehead, but her eyes remain tender and bright. Her hair is grey, pulled back from her face and pinned up simply. A few strands always manage to pull loose around her temples. She is wearing a gold double-sided locket watch, suspended on a long chain wound twice around her neck. Opening it with care, she checks the black numerals imprinted on the creamy face. This is one of the few treasures she has preserved from home, a reminder always of the days allowed to each of us, the time so fleeting.

She notices my observation of her absent-minded motion and explains, “My mother, may she rest in peace, gave me this watch on her death bed. When the Cossacks ransacked our home, I hid it, wrapped in newspapers, buried in the cold ashes of our stove. I have kept it safe from thieves and scoundrels for all this time and wear it close to my heart. I often rub its surface for comfort whenever I’m worried or agitated. It gives me a sense of reassurance somehow. I have my watch,” she says smiling, “and Papa has his books.”

Volumes and volumes of books fill the shelves all around their home. In Polish, Russian, German, Hebrew, and Yiddish, they are lined up row after row. Poldi shares his father’s passion for study and reading and cherishes these papers, worn from constant thumbing, bound in tattered leather, but revered as if they were written on leaves of pure gold.

We sit around the table, set with white linen and old candlesticks of hammered silver that have been salvaged from their home in Poland. “Wandering Jews,” I think, words that take on meaning only when you see the agony of people driven by bigotry and barbarism from their native place and tossed like pieces of broken driftwood on any shore that will take them.

“I wonder if you realize, Nini,” Poldi’s father says to me, “how remarkable it is for us to sit here together in this place without fear. Passover, ‘Pesach,’ coincides with Easter, you know.”

“Yes, of course,” I answer. “I was often invited to the homes of non-Jewish friends to share an Easter dinner with them and even to receive an Easter chocolate.”

“In Poland, it was different,” he replies sadly. “Easter was the time for the most vicious pogroms. Christ died at Easter, you see.”

“So?” I reply without comprehension.

“So, what better time to punish the non-believers, the scapegoats, the Jews? For us and our neighbours, Passover seders were observed with one eye at the front door, not to welcome the spirit of Elijah, the prophet, as is the custom, but to watch for Cossacks ramming their way in. Daughters would run to hiding places to protect themselves from the most violent rape, anything of value was concealed from looting and still, every Easter there would be Jewish blood shed.”

“You would not believe,” Poldi says, “the vile lies we heard frequently in the schoolyard. Once a gang of thugs beat us blue, all the while screaming that Christian blood was used to make our matzoh.”

Poldi’s mother adds, obviously agitated remembering the times that her children had been harmed because of their faith, “The ignorant bastards never understood that our religion forbids us from consuming any blood. Even a tiny dot of red within an egg yolk is enough reason to discard it, and eggs were precious to us. There were many times that we had to do without rather than to taste blood on our tongues.”

“Hatred, you see,” says Dolu, Poldi’s elder brother, “hatred is blind and dumb. There is no explanation for it.”

“All right, children,” their mother says. “Dinner will soon be ready and you still have to read the Passover story. For tonight, forget about the past. Be thankful that we are together and safe. We have a new life here in Vienna, a better life.”

At the dining table, we follow the religious tradition of the ancient Israelites and recount the story of the Exodus from Egypt in times long past. I look again at Poldi, who is talking with his father and brother. Soon they are deeply involved in the tale, conjuring images shrouded in the past, recollected in this way, once a year so that it will not be forgotten. We read from the Hagaddah, the description of the ten plagues that God created to force the Egyptians to allow the Jews to escape from slavery. Matzoh is piled on a plate in the centre of the table, and as we break the crisp unleavened bread, burnt black at the edges, we recite Hebrew chants and blessings, led by Poldi’s father. We are reminded of those who died so long ago and are told to consider the saga as though we, ourselves, had made that journey. We dip our green parsley leaves into salt water, in memory of tears that were shed.

It is written that an enemy will arise in every generation to try to destroy us, and in each of our hearts, we ask, “Why?” Page after page the Passover story unfolds, recounting the journey of the Jews who escaped bondage in haste, fleeing towards a new land. Many of the old people were to perish along the way, leaving the young to build a new stronger nation. That was the way prescribed by God.

Although this tale is repeated year after year by observant Jews, and I myself have heard it many times throughout my life, never before has it hit me with such foreboding and gloom. This story always seemed to me an exaggerated myth, but this time I can easily imagine the sad displaced mass of people trudging away from their homes, clutching bundles of cherished belongings. At the seder, it is customary to dip one’s small fingertip into a glass of sweet, dark wine and to spill one drop for every plague onto a saucer set for that purpose next to the dinner plate. We recite the plagues in unison, one by one, a drop of wine spilled for each. The first three, the original tests to Pharaoh begging him to free the Israelites, are named together and three drops of wine stain the plates: “Blood, Fire and Pillars of Smoke.” Then we recite the ten plagues, one after the next: “Blood, frogs, vermin, wild beasts, pestilence, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, and the slaying of the first born.”

As the blood-red drops stain the white china, we fall into a hush and each of us stares silently at the little pools of liquid in a way we have not done in years past. As the Hebrew words are spoken, I can visualize each of the plagues vividly before me, the blazing pillars of fire scorching the sky, the terror of vermin rampant in the streets, the sudden darkness, the pestilence, and finally the skeletal fingers of the Angel of Death cloaked in a black shroud, floating over all the homes in search of the doomed first-born children. The miracle, we are reminded, is that only by the grace of God did the evil pass over the Jewish homes and spare those who were meant to perish.

The Egyptian Pharaoh, we read, was so obsessed with the very existence of these people that he sent his armies to follow them. Even after he had released them from bondage, ragged and poor as beggars, each living breath from their lungs caused such an inflamed madness in him that he commanded his forces to pursue and destroy them. The mighty chased the weak until they reached the edge of a threatening sea that stretched ahead to the horizon. Their only salvation lay on the other side of that watery expanse. A shiver of dread ripples down my spine. Again the hand of the Lord allowed them to escape as the sea parted before them, then closed once more to drown the soldiers.

Through the flames of destruction that threatened to swallow them, through disease that swelled around them, and the torment of their enemies, the ancient Jews, my people, my ancestors, penniless and destitute, were driven on by willpower and faith. They wandered with faltering hope for many desperate years in search of a place of belonging and stability. The ancient Israelites, so it is written, suffered for forty years in the desert, a hostile place that they could not call home until they reached Canaan, the promised land of freedom.

A story, I think, like a fairytale in a child’s book, that’s the story of Passover. Are there really miracles? As I begin to clear away the dishes into the kitchen at the end of the dinner, I am quiet and absorbed in my thoughts.

Poldi’s mother can see my emotion and worry. Tears mist her eyes as she wipes her hands in her apron, then cups my face between them. I can smell cooking aromas on her body as she leans towards me and starts to speak. “We cannot know what the future holds for any of us, Nini. In my life there have been many changes and sorrow. A Jew’s life has always been a bitter one. But I do know that Poldi has a good heart and loves you very much and that you will be good for one another and strong together. You are young and you have a future to build. Be brave and you will both survive, no matter what obstacles lie before you.”

I try to shake off my sombre mood and to listen to her words of wisdom and encouragement. The political unrest in all of Europe is fermenting, my family’s worries are not far from my thoughts and the fears that Mama expressed are all melded this evening with the warnings of the Passover story. Will our generation suffer as previous ones have done? I want to have a carefree life, the life here in Vienna that I hold dear. Tonight it is difficult for me to think of anything but the prediction of doom.

“Nini,” Poldi’s mother says, interrupting my flow of thoughts. “You are right to worry. Things have been bad for us before, and now Vienna looks like it is becoming another Lemberg with ruffians pushing us around and laws that restrict our freedom. But, my child, it does no good to wallow in fear. Live for the present, this single moment when things are fine, when loved ones are together and we can feel the touch of love. Tomorrow will come soon enough.”

We hug one another with new love and understanding. These people are like family to me now as I have been taken to their hearts. Their strength supports me and renews my hope. The men are laughing, their faces flushed by the warmth of the wine, the good meal and tales of the “Old Country,” told again and again, recounting the experiences of home, better times, before they became outcasts and refugees.

They are sitting in comfortable chairs, leaning as is the Passover tradition, to demonstrate the fact that we all are free, no longer the slaves of ancient times in bondage as in Egypt. Here we are at ease in the security and comfort of our own homes, with no taskmaster to control our words and actions. The three men reminisce about the days of a simpler life now gone, to be retrieved only in fragments of memory. “Remember, Papa?” Poldi begins. “Remember the time in Cheder, Hebrew school, when we played that trick?”

“Listen, Nini,” his father calls out to me, “listen to this story. Bluma, come in here. Poldi has a story to tell.” They recall the day long past in their home town, so far away, when Poldi was a child, and as he tells his tale, I am captivated again.

“Always getting himself into trouble, my little brother, isn’t that true, Poldi?” Dolu says smiling broadly, adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose. Behind his smile is an air of condescension. “You see, Poldi was always full of mischief and daring, not a keen student like me.”

“Let him go on with the story, Dolu. It is a good one.” Their father gently interrupts his older son’s speech and arrogant bluster. Dolu’s face is flushed and he falls silent.

“It was in Jewish school,” Poldi begins, “a stuffy hot day in Lemberg, Poland, and we boys were trapped for endless sweat-soaked hours, studying thick books of Hebrew script, filling thousands of musty yellowed pages. The rabbi-teacher had fallen asleep, slumped over his worm-eaten desk. Then looking slyly at one another, an idea came to us for some wonderful fun, made more delicious by possible consequences.”

We watch his eyes twinkle with the delight of reminiscence. “Go, on,” I say, “what happened then?”

“So we arose from our seats, whispering and trying to control our laughter. One by one we crept, trying not to step too heavily on the creaking floor boards, ever closer to the old man’s chair where he snored. His grey straggled beard spread across his folded arms and spilled over on to the surface of the desk. We each were made to touch the strands in fearful delight to show solidarity. Then with a pot of glue and a thick brush the beard was affixed to the surface.”

Rollicking with teary laughter, we all hold our sides with glee. Even Dolu reluctantly explodes in laughter as he listens to the description. Everyone is mesmerized by Poldi’s stories. He is a gifted raconteur, able to draw his listeners into his mind’s eye so that we feel the moment as he felt it.

“What a story!” his father exclaims. “Tell what happened next.”

Poldi takes a sip of wine, then speaks again, the mounting tone of his voice underlining and building the tension of the description.

“How he raged when we woke him, bellowing our names, cursing our lives, pulling his sticky hair painfully from the desk and then in storming fury chasing us around the room, his face red as a ripe tomato, waving his cane in frantic circles over his head. Each one that was caught suffered the blow of his hard cane on his back or the pull of his bony fingers on his ears, but how we laughed and it was all worth the agony for the fleeting sweet seconds of joy.”

When the tale is told, Poldi’s father taps him good-naturedly on the back and we all laugh again till tears moisten our eyes. Just for those moments, life is innocent and pure. Happiness is suspended in mid-air like a hummingbird and time stops. The talking continues until the candles’ glow has disappeared and the wax has melted away to a trail of pungent smoke that swirls up from each candlestick in a puffy grey spiral.