He was only nine years old when Germany invaded Poland. The youngest of three children, he was a skinny little boy on spindly legs, agile body, and a small pale face. The only outstanding features were his two large brown eyes, mischievous and alert. Since Jewish children no longer were allowed to attend school, he became restless and was constantly on the move.
That quaint small town in central Poland, my hometown, Chmielnik, once teemed with Jewish life. There were houses of worship, including the “big synagogue,” and houses of learning. The orthodox young men studied the Torah; others, after attending public school in the morning, attended Hebrew schools.
In 1970, on one of my visits to Israel, I attended, with my Israeli cousins, a meeting of members from my hometown. As on previous occasions, I was warmly greeted, both as an old acquaintance and as a visitor from America expected to make a donation.
In May 1995, my husband Jack and I traveled to Brussels, Belgium, on a mission to attend a ceremony to be held at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. I was very excited. At the ceremony during that month, Yad Vashem, the memorial in Jerusalem for the Jews and others murdered during the frightful years of World War II and the Holocaust, was going to honor several “Just of the Nations,” the term for those who dared to risk their lives to save others condemned to death by the Nazis.
My husband Jackie and I were invited for a reunion of his former Seward Park High School friends from New York City. These were the young people with whom Jackie had grown up. They and their families had lived and some still were living in the neighborhood where Jackie was born, played, and attended both secular and religious school.
I was in the water up to my neck. The water was cold. We were hiding in the bulrushes and I knew we could not move. It was very quiet and any sound would give us away. Mama gave me some soggy bread. It tasted awful, but she insisted I had to eat it to keep strong.
The annual spring cleaning was in full swing. The windows were open; the carpets were airing on lines outside. People were coming and going, each one busy with a specific chore. The mattresses were being turned over, feather beds aired and stored for next winter, closets emptied and cleaned and the contents replaced or discarded.
On my fourth birthday, it was cold, and snow covered the ground, beautiful, pristine snow. I had a small birthday party because the Hanukkah holiday would be celebrated soon. A birthday party was called imieniny, which actually means “name day.” I received many gifts—puzzles, books, and from my parents, a wool outfit.
In April 1945, the demolition crew to which my father and I belonged was working near an SS facility when a line of military trucks moved slowly down the street, pushed—we hardly could believe our eyes—by a group of SS men. It was an exhilarating sight, pure unalloyed schadenfreude.
On the morning of February 27, 1943, a Saturday, we wearily stood at our workbenches turning out parts for some air-force equipment, my high school classmate and close friend, Gert, working not far from me. Suddenly the door opened and an SS officer stepped into the room. “Pay attention,” he called out. “Drop whatever you are doing and leave by the main entrance.” We were stunned.
