Twenty-Three

 

AS THE MONTHS came, my mind was like a stopwatch, frozen on certain events reported in the newspapers. I began to keep a timeline in my own journal. There was so much that occurred; Ida helped me choose what she thought had the most significance for Jews.

In April, anti-Jewish riots broke out in Dabrowa, Cracow, Budapest, and Vilna. In July, the Third Reich ordered special identity cards for Jewish Germans. In September, Mussolini canceled the civil rights of Italian Jews; Jewish lawyers were forbidden to practice in Germany. In October, the Germans demanded that Jewish passports be stamped with the letter J.

That same month, about seventeen thousand Polish Jews from towns across Germany, many of whom had resided in Germany for decades, were taken—in various ways—for deportation to be handed over to Poland, where they were already citizens. Some were allowed to enter Poland; most were interned at various border points and sent to military barracks, where they lived in appalling conditions.

I particularly remember Mendel’s reaction to this news. One night, he was in the living room with Ida. Perl told Ida several times to get ready for dinner. Mendel remained on the couch, not seeming to get the hint. Perl gave up and invited him to join us. Ida grasped her neck as if stricken with a lethal pain. Then she grinned and I thought she was going to embrace Perl in front of everyone.

Perl didn’t like to discuss world events when Mr. Kozak was around. She never knew if someone would say a bad word about the Poles. Of course, Mendel didn’t know the house rules and even if he did, I don’t think he could have controlled himself. He was like Ida in that way.

“Now, there is no getting away from it,” Mendel said.

There was silence. All eyes were on Perl. All ears were expecting her to ask Mendel not to talk about politics. Instead, she said, “Getting away from what, Mendel?”

“Those assimilated German Jews who had thought they’d be immune to persecution, and distanced themselves from Eastern European Jewry, now have to face reality.”

“How true,” Ida said, her eyes twinkling.

Here was another rare time, I was disappointed in Ida. The way she fawned over Mendel was beginning to make me sick. Okay he was a serious person, and I could admit he was a good talker, with good ideas. But he didn’t have to sound so “Mendel-like” with a bunch of girls at the dinner table.

Mr. Kozak said, “Yes, I see your point, Mr. Feigen. We all have to be on our toes.”

 

This deportation was the prelude to the worst event of 1938, beginning on the night of November 9 and continuing the next day—a Thursday when I was in my fourth grade class, a week after my ninth birthday. It was called Kristallnacht or Crystal Night.

We read in the Yiddish newspaper that in retaliation for the assassination of a German embassy official in Paris by a young Jewish refugee, the Nazis instigated crazed rioters and gangs to smash shop windows of Jewish businesses in cities, towns, and villages throughout Germany and German-controlled lands. Stores were looted, thousands of synagogues were damaged or leveled, Jewish homes were burned, Jews were assaulted, ninety-one Jews were killed, and some thirty thousand prominent Jews were arrested and deported. It was the pogrom of pogroms.

 

TWO DAYS BEFORE I left for the holiday in Kobrin, I found a parcel on my bed. It was wrapped in brown paper and tied with a string. I reached in my glass that held colored pencils and pens and found a scissor. Quickly, I cut the string and opened the paper to discover a brand-new black leather journal, like the one I already had. There was a note on top: “Dear Esfir. I know you’re at the end of your journal, and you have been writing in tiny letters on the margins. It’s time for a new one. Happy Chanukah, Love, Ida.”

Like the first one, it was entitled, Journal of Important Words on the first page, only she added, “II” after it. And like the first one, it began with a quotation. I  expected it to be by Peretz, and it was: “But memory can refine everything and improve it.”

There were no limits to Ida’s thoughtfulness, not that I want to paint her as a saint, but it’s natural to remember good about a person, or the very bad. All I had for Ida was a white scarf with long fringes that my mother had knitted. It didn’t compare to a journal but I never claimed to be as thoughtful as Ida. My mother had made identical scarves for the other girls, but I requested a different color stripe on each. I gave the one with a red stripe to Ida. Red was her favorite color.

The next day, I was packing my suitcase in my room when I heard a commotion downstairs and I went to investigate. In the parlor, I saw the Midlers hanging their coats on the coatrack. They had come for a short visit and to take Ida home. Perl greeted them as if they were relatives.

Mr. Midler said, “Hello, Esfir, you’re looking so grown-up. I haven’t seen you in how long?”

Ester said, “It was a year and a half ago, last summer, July 1937, that is.”

“Why, Ester, you have a good memory,” Perl said.

“Only for certain things,” Sala said, sarcastically.

“What do you mean by that?” Ester asked.

“Girls do you have to argue the first thing when we get into the house?” Mrs. Midler said.

“Yes, at least wait until we sit down to tea.” Mr. Midler winked.

I loved his sense of humor.

The Midler girls came up to our room for a little private time away from the adults and vice versa for the adults.

“Esfir, why don’t you show Miriam to Ester?” Ida asked.

A wash of heat zoomed up my neck. It was okay for me and Ania to dress up Miriam, and we were quiet about it because we didn’t want anyone to think we were still babies. But there was no doubt that Ester, who was nearly eleven, was far too old to play with dolls. At that moment, I could have killed Ida.

“Who is Miriam?” Ester asked.

“Nobody,” I said.

“Esfir is shy about showing off,” Ida said.

I was not accustomed to being angry at Ida. Now, she was not only embarrassing me, but insulting. Couldn’t she tell that I didn’t want to pursue the subject by my reddening skin? Couldn’t she sense that by saying “nobody,” I wanted to avoid the subject?

Ida in her own way was trying to find something for Ester and me to have in common other than a similar first name. Further prodding from Ester and Sala gave me no choice. It was bad enough I had to unveil Miriam, but I had to reveal that I hid her under my bed, two secrets Ida gave away in one request.

“Here she is,” I said, standing Miriam up on my bed. “Now you’ve seen her, I’ll put her back.”

“No, don’t put her back,” Sala said. “I think she is beautiful. Like a movie star. And that dress, it’s shiny.” Sala rubbed the material between her finger and thumb as if she were a fabric buyer evaluating the quality.

“She’s okay,” Ester said, walking to the window, peering toward the scene outside with fake interest.

Being from a family with three girls, I was certainly familiar with what we said and didn’t say, what we felt and what we pretended to feel, how we competed and how we acted as a unit.

As if it wasn’t uncomfortable enough with all these girls, Ania suddenly appeared by my opened door. She stopped in place and said to me, “Sorry, Esfir, I didn’t know you had company. Your aunt Perl told me I could come up.”

I introduced everyone. The Midler girls sat on Ida’s bed and Ania and I on mine, with Miriam in between. Ania had mentioned that she just came from church where she was helping her uncle, Father Janusz, take food packages to a convent that cared for poor families. Ania wore a small gold cross around her neck that she had just received from the Mother Superior and she was sliding it back and forth on its chain.

Suddenly, Ania sat up straight. She must have noticed that Ester also wore a necklace, only hers featured a silver Star of David. It was as if she just realized that she was the only non-Jew in the room. Usually, at Perl’s Ania met a mix of people: Poles like Mr. Kozack and Sonia, the woman who helped clean the house; Belorussians like Maria, who played with Freyde in the young people’s orchestra, and a girl who was Fanny’s coworker at her after-school job setting up stalls at the market. And then the Jewish boarders.

The younger Midler girls had Christian classmates and regularly associated with non-Jewish villagers. Lately, though, their father expressed wariness. Ida had told me that Iser warned them to stay away from the churches on Sunday because the Russian orthodox and Catholics from the outskirts came to the village to worship. The Catholics often got drunk and started fights. When they would meet Jews, they’d give them a hard time, often provoking fights. Mrs. Midler, on the other hand, had stuck up for her Christian neighbors and countryside peasants. She had only the best relations with them.

Ida was uncharacteristically quiet. She normally tried to make everyone feel at ease. Later, when we were alone in our room, she confessed to me that she had been preoccupied by something her parents had said at lunch, how there were more and more restrictions on when her father could conduct his business and with whom. Volchiners were losing their incomes and couldn’t afford to fix a broken bicycle even if they needed it to travel for a job. It was similar for sewing machines, another necessary luxury or, more correct, another luxurious necessity. Mr. Midler was generous and often fixed broken parts for nothing, but he couldn’t afford to donate a new one.

When Ida had asked him about going to America, her father said he was having trouble getting visas for the whole family, but he would think of something. Ida’s mother had said that he was always worrying about the future, that she was sure things would get better. Then the real reason for Mrs. Midler’s reluctance came out: She could never leave her parents who lived in a village called Bocki. They had a small farm that they loved; they had worked hard for their land and wouldn’t give it up without a fight. And they were getting old and frail and couldn’t make the long, hard trip to America.

Ida couldn’t contain herself and had blurted, “If we have to stay here, I can give up school. Now that Sala is fourteen, she should be going to the Tarbut, too. It’s not fair.”

Mr. Midler said, “Idaleh, you’re right. It isn’t fair. But it took a lot of trouble and money from our relatives in America to get you into the Tarbut. You will be finished in a year and a half. We have to help one child at a time and you Ida are the oldest.”

Ida had pleaded with unrealistic scenarios: that she could drop out of school for a year while Sala went to a secondary school, maybe the Yiddish school in Visoke, like Sala’s friend Hanna did. She had never said anything to them about her worst fear: that maybe they wouldn’t be going to America.

“This is what we have decided as a family, Ida.” Mr. Midler’s tone had been firm; Ida had known this was the end of the subject.

“What are you thinking, Ida?” Sala asked. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who had noticed Ida’s silence.

“Oh, nothing much. You know me, my mind is always somewhere else. But listen, while we are lucky to have all of you girls here, let’s do something special.”

“Like what?” I said excitedly, grateful to Ida for breaking the spell of silence.

“We’ll play Geography,” she said, making it up as she went along. “I will take out my map of the world, unfold it, and lay it on the floor. The selected person will stand in the center of the map, blindfolded with a scarf, and turn round and round until one person says, ‘Stop.’ Wherever she lands will be her unknown place. The others will yell out the name. Then the blindfolded girl has to spell the name, say where it is, and what she knows about it. Everyone will have a turn.”

“That sounds like fun,” I said.

“But it isn’t fair,” Sala said. “You and I will know more than the younger ones.” It’s strange that in a short time, both older Midler girls had been declaring that something “wasn’t fair.”

I couldn’t decide if Sala was truly thinking of us or if she wanted to spoil her sister’s plan. By virtue of her age, Ida always got to be the leader.

“Okay, Sala, you’re right. The younger girls will get an extra two points, for free.”

“Well, I still don’t think it’s fair,” Sala said, without much conviction. She had little ammunition to fight her big sister, especially when she saw the younger girls eager to begin.

We played Geography for an hour. When it was my turn, I got Chile and Japan. I was able to spell both countries and knew that Chile was in South America and that the Japanese were Oriental and some of the women wore long and colorful dresses. I got five points and two free ones. Ester also got seven. Ania got eight. Sala and Ida tied at ten. It was so much fun that Ania and I vowed to play it often.

After the Midlers left, I felt better about the girls as if spanning the globe together brought us closer. In the end, we were all girls worrying about our families and our places in a new and frightening world.