The End of Days (9 page)

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Authors: Helen Sendyk

Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Historical, #History, #Holocaust, #test

BOOK: The End of Days
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from hand to hand; bodies were soaked with water and sweat. But the bucketfuls of water seemed like thimblesful against the raging fire that engulfed the house. Its wooden planks cracked and fell to ashes.
All night they fought the flames, but finally neighbors and friends began to leave exhausted, their heads lowered in despair. As dawn broke on the horizon, Uncle Nachman and Aunt Lieba faced the charred skeleton of what had been their home and broke down, weeping. As they huddled together with their children beside the smoking ruins, Aunt Lieba lamented, "They burnt us out. They don't want us here. Where are we to go? This is our town, our home. This is where I bore my children, and where my mother bore me. It is the only place we know. This house is all we possessed. What are we going to do now? What can we do?"
Papa tried to console her. "God created us all naked and equal. God provides for all his children. He will provide again for you. Have faith, Lieba, have faith."
With help from the rest of the family, the Laufers managed to survive. Uncle Nachman went back to his fruit stand in the marketplace, saving every penny for a new home. They slowly started rebuilding.
"Where can I go?" Aunt Lieba would answer the sarcastic questions of her Gentile neighbors, who told her not to stay in the same place, in a house that was so unlucky. "This was my parents' home before it was mine. This is my town, my country, my place. This is where I first met my husband, where our children took their first steps, where we taught them right from wrong, and to respect their elders and live in peace with their neighbors. This is the language they speak, the flag they salute in school. Why should we have to search for a new place?"
Deep in her heart, despite her protestations, Aunt Lieba knew that her neighbors hated and despised us for being Jewish, and that no Jew really belonged. "Poland for the Poles and the Jews to Palestine" was the infamous slogan proclaimed more and more often. It echoed in the churches, schools, and government halls. There were Gentiles who quietly coexisted
 
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with Jews, but there were many who openly promulgated boycotts against Jewish-owned stores.
Uncle Nachman rebuilt his house on the same site, settling down to a familiar though precarious life amid animosity from his neighbors. Only in the company of his family and his fellow Jews could he feel comfortable and secure. The pain of his misfortune slowly vanished.
The summer of 1938 was over. Gucia and I skipped happily around. Vrumek went back to Bielsko after his short stay. But Papa was not the same. He was tense and upset. Always on top of events because of his trips to Katowice, he was aware of ominous developments. Jews were being evicted from their homes in Germany and were crowding the big cities of Poland. There were also many dispossessed German Jews in Chrzanow, where they had family to take them in or find apartments for them. The gruesome stories they told of German cruelty were unbelievable.
Papa remembered the Austro-Germans as polite, efficient, and kind, as opposed to the Russians, who appeared rude, illiterate, drunk, filthy, and cruel. In the First World War, Chrzanow belonged to the Austro-German Empire, and people were afraid of falling into Russian hands. So how could these same cultured, intelligent Germans change so radically in only twenty years? How had they been able to hide the beasts within themselves so well? Was the world going mad? Could it be coming to an end?
Marcus and Shaindele Landsman, Great-aunt Channa's daughter and son-in-law from Berlin, fled to their parents' home in Chrzanow. They were tired, penniless refugees who only months before had been respectable, well-to-do citizens. Now their only possessions were their two children, Izzy and Bertha. The first thought that came to Papa's mind was what if, God forbid, he too had to flee? What would happen to his wife and children? What would become of Goldzia? Friday nights were now spent at Great-aunt Channa's, where we all assembled to listen to Shaindele and Marcus. They told of how the Germans forced them to leave, how they barely had time
 
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to pack a few clothes and had abandoned everything else to the hands of the greedy German looters.
Now they were crowded in with their old parents, stripped of their home, their possessions, and their pride. Great-uncle Moishe wiped his teary eyes trying to console his sullen German grandchildren, who were further subdued by the language barrier between them and their Polish cousins.
It felt like Tisha B'Av, the day of mourning for the destruction of the Temple. Mama walked around the house wringing her hands, her eyes red and swollen from constant crying. Papa was unusually quiet, keeping his pain to himself. Blimcia, who felt physically ill, mustered all her strength to manage the store. She had just learned that she was pregnant but could not bring herself to break the news to Mama. How happy Mama would have been in better times! Sadly, there was no room now for her good news. Shlamek, an officer, was being called up to army service, and war loomed on the horizon. Mama was visibly suffering. Nachcia tried to sustain the family and kept us children occupied at home to keep us out of trouble. The streets were becoming dangerous, with rumors of spies being caught in town. The Poles, of course, blamed the Jews. With the threat of war so close, the Jews had a double problem: the war on one hand, and the wrath of their Polish neighbors on the other. Shlamek's leaving for the army was the first blow. For us World War II had begun.
When Papa himself was a soldier in the Austrian army in 1914 he was already a married man with children. He had to survive at any price. He bravely accepted all the abuse, as long as there was the promise of his eventual release from the army. His wealthy sister had convinced the officers in charge that a mistake had been made, that her brother was mentally disturbed and should not have been drafted into the army in the first place. A large bribe had been involved.
But Shlamek was a man with a mind of his own, not open to Papa's advice. "Papa," he would say, "this is not the Austrian army, and the Polacks are not as dumb as these Austrians you describe. And Papa, aren't you forgetting it is now 1939 and not 1914. The Polish officers are anti-Semites out to get us
 
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for being Jews, but I am going to show these pigheads that a Jew can fight as an equal."
"How is he going to survive with this kind of cocky attitude?" Papa would say. "When the bullets fly, don't be a hero," he begged Shlamek.
In his heart, Papa knew Shlamek wouldn't heed his advice, and this worried him. He prayed to the Almighty to keep his son under his wing: "Please, God, put him in your category of foolish ones who cannot protect themselves and are, therefore, subject to your protection."
"You should have listened to me," Mordechai said. "We could have all packed up and left for Palestine. There was still time when I first came here. I, unfortunately, did not have the money. But you, Pinchas, you are a wealthy man; you could have helped all of us. I begged you that we should leave. Now I am afraid it is too late."
"You are really talking nonsense," Uncle Pinchas would answer, all puffed up and defensive. "You want me to leave my house, the store, the warehouse, the merchandise, to take a suitcase, my wife and my children and go travel? And how in the world would I feed my wife and children for the rest of my life?"
"Don't get angry," Papa interjected. "The trouble is that you are both right. You see, Pinchas, Mordechai here is in a different situation than we are, having only his wife Rosa and daughter Annie. When the Germans chased him from his home in Hamburg, all his possessions had already been taken. What does he have to lose? The job he is looking for might well be in Palestine. With us it is altogether different. I wish I could go. The stores?
Nu
, I would leave the stores. We would start new stores there. I have sons who are strong and young. We would start a new life. Believe me, when I look at the
halutzim
[pioneers] I employ, I envy them. I wish I were as young and could go to Palestine with them to start a new life. But I also have a household full of women. And most important, there's my beloved daughter Goldzia. Where can I go with her? How could I travel with her? So we are staying here to meet our destiny. God is not going to forsake us. I have faith
 
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that our Creator will save and protect us. He has already given me my share of grief; perhaps what remains is only the good. So we will put our lives in his trust."
"I believe in God too," Mordechai responded, "but unlike you, Symche, I believe that God has given you life which he wants you to actively protect and cherish. And when you fulfill his commandment of self-preservation, he will be pleased with you and bestow his love upon you.
"I have seen the German beast in action when they dispossessed us in Hamburg. There is no good to be expected. These nationalists are not the Germans we have lived with all our lives. They are under Hitler's spell. They forgot all we did for Germany, our countryor so we thought, and just because we are Jews. They claim superiority as the Aryan race. They have
scientifically
legitimized their hate. God knows what else they are up to. A Jew can not trust anyone anymore in this world. If you believe that your Polish government is going to protect you, you are mistaken."
"Don't you understand?" Pinchas said in an apologetic voice. "I do believe you. Your reasons are genuine and substantial. Still, you cannot compare your situation to ours. All my life I have worked hard, traveling every other day to a different marketplace, getting up in the middle of the night to get there on time and set up the stall. All day long, I'm on my feet, in rain or shine, snow or sleet, my eyes open for customers. All day long I'm without a decent meal, without a toilet till late at night, when I finally pack up my wagon and start my journey home. By the time I get home my kids are asleep, and I am too tired to eat.
"Still, all of it is a labor of love, for, thank the Almighty, I have established myself. My shoes are known in every town and surrounding village. They wouldn't buy from anyone else for half the price. My customers, the Poles, they keep coming back to me for their shoes, for shoes for everyone in their family. I have a name. I have a future here. I have my house, and my store is doing well in Chrzanow. One gets older, you know, and cannot always work so hard. Here I have a future for myself and for my family.
 
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"Now how do you propose I take the hand of my wife Esther and say, 'Esther, my dear, let's leave all this behind. Let's take our children and go to Palestine.' People in that hot desert climate do not even need the type of shoes I make. They mostly run barefoot on the sand. I happen to know. The fund-raiser from Palestine is always a guest in my house when he visits. And then, of course, my Esther would never leave her sister Surcia or her mother. What would we do with her old mother? Shlepp her along at the age of seventy-two? She should live and be well till one hundred twenty. Neither could we leave her as an additional burden to Surcia. So you see, it is simply not feasible, not possible."
"Still, it looks like war, and I am worried," Papa repeated. "Mostly I worry for my Shlamek. The children nowadays consider Poland their country. But is it our country, our land, our people that he is out there defending? He would be defending those that persecute him, and for what?
Oy
, the children of today, they really think they can change the world. They think they can gain equality and recognition by serving. Silly children, if they would just look into our history they would know better."
And so the discussion continued until it was time to collect the children and go home. The sense of insecurity deepened.
 
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Chapter 4
It was Wednesday, August 30, 1939, late afternoon. Someone came into the store all huffing and puffing. He was talking urgently to Blimcia. Blimcia went to call Mama. Sholek and I were out back in the yard when Mama called us to come inside. She was quite agitated. When Mama's cheeks became rosy pink, I knew she was frightened. Mama's words were unusually clear and strict.
"Stay near the house!" she ordered us. "There is trouble in town. There has been shooting in the marketplace. They say a spy has been caught."
Everyone was nervous. Sholek was dying to sneak out to the marketplace to see for himself. People were standing outside

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