of a stone. I walked past this small piece every day.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Wall of Remembrance
Many stones had fallen and or broken. Right by the entrance stood this wall comprised of broken pieces of graves, which was called the Wall of Remembrance. I read of other cemeteries where this had also been done.
Further into the cemetery
These are a couple of the graves we uncovered during the two weeks. These two show some remnants of color that must once have been bright.
And now for some photos:
Members of the volunteer group working at the cemetery. The earliest graves are from the late 19th century. The most recent I saw were from the 1970's. Some have been maintained. Most were covered by a dense growth of trees and vines.
Friday, September 5, 2008
An interview with my relative
I stumbled upon this just before my trip. My cousin Nick, whose grandmother was my grandmother's sister, had interviewed our cousin Sali, who I had known (as Sarah) when I was a kid. She and her family were "our Israeli cousins" who came to the US in search of a better life, but went back to Israel after several years. Nick interviewed her about 10 years ago. I had never known about her Holocaust history.
Interview with Sali Glaubach Regenstreif, April, 1998
Published in "Rom-Sig News," Vol. 6, No. 4
I was three years old when they sent us to the camps. My mother and I went together. First we had been sent to the ghetto in Czernowitz, but now we were told to pack a few belongings and that, like at Auschwitz, work makes a better life. There I was with my little suitcase, in my white fur coat and my hand muff, and we were sent to Transnistria. When we came back, they wouldn’t even let us in the house. Russian soldiers had taken it over.
When they sent us to the camps, we started walking. They didn’t give us transportation. And we came to the Dnestr River. We had no way to cross, so the people started making rafts out of branches. And my mother carried me on her back. Another woman had a baby who was crying, and it upset one of the soldiers. She was carrying the baby in front of her, so the soldier took his bayonet and ran it through the child and on into the mother, and then he threw them into the water. After that, my mother carried me, but she always carried the suitcase out in front.
The soldiers set out barrels, and we were told to put all jewelry in the barrels. "If we find anyone with jewelry, we will kill you." If people couldn’t get their rings off, they would cut off their own fingers.
The people marched for miles and miles, and Mother got tired and fell. The others kept walking. A Ukrainian woman who was Jewish took us in and put us above the mantle of the fireplace so we could keep warm. But she took from my mother everything.
Then the Germans came with a loudspeaker and told us that all the Jews must get out of town, and that if any Jews were found, the family that was keeping them would be killed. So the lady threw us out at night. She was afraid for her life.
So we started going but we didn’t know where. They didn’t even give us transportation to the camps, and when we got there they gave us nothing – not like in Auschwitz where they gave you soup. Here you had to provide for yourself. And if you wanted transportation to the camps, you had to pay. There was a truck with people on their way to the camps, but they wouldn’t let us get on because we had no money. But an SS officer saved our lives. We were standing outside in the cold, and the officer said, "Junge Frau, warum sind Sie draussen?" [Young woman, why are you outside?] And my mother said, "We have no money, and they told us they had no room." And he said, "You have no money?" And my mother said no. So he said, "Come back in the morning; we’ll have room."
The next morning, the officer told the people in the truck, "You let her up or I’ll take you all down." My mother, all she had left now was a bar of soap. A bar of soap was very valuable. And she offered it to the officer. But he said, "No, you keep it. You need it more than I do." So my mother said, "What then shall I wish you?" And he said, "Wish me well so I shall come back and see my wife and child." So, even there, there was a human being. That SS officer saved my life. He told the driver of the truck, "You stop in Murafa." It was easier than the other camps.
In the camps, there was a little shack where they took out my mother’s teeth. She had beautiful gold caps – it was very fashionable then. They had no Novocain. So the whole war she spent with no teeth.
My mother used to work for the Germans doing their laundry and their black boots. I’ll never forget their black boots. The camp was run mostly by Ukrainians, with a few Germans. And the Ukrainians wanted to show the Germans they were better even than the Germans. When I would cry, if I didn’t feel well, my mother would put her fist in my mouth that I shouldn’t cry because the soldiers didn’t like it. And she would go through the garbage to take out the potato peels to make a soup, and this is how we stayed alive.
Most of the parents in the camp died. So the others made like an orphan home. The children were lying on straw which was used to make a bed. A pair of twins – five years old – died, so a lady brought candles to place by their heads. But the candles started a fire, and most of the children died. I ran out.
One day, there was a man lying and begging for a little water. Someone got him some water but soon he died. My mother put me to sleep on his body so I wouldn’t be on the hard cold floor. In the camps, they were fighting over the bodies and sleeping on them till they began to stink.
My mother was Rosa Halprin. She was born to Leb Halprin and Sure – I don’t know her last name. She was from Kitov near Kolomea. Sure was an orphan by the time she was two years old. She was raised by her Tante Malke [Aunt Malke], who owned a hardware store. Leb was a widower, 50 years old, and they were married when Sure was 12. Imagine such a young girl with the alte kacker. They had ten children, and my mother, Rosa, was the youngest. They all died in the Holocaust except my mother.
My father was Tobias Glaubach. When he was eight, he was apprenticed to a bookbinder, and he worked as a bookbinder all his life. During the war, my father was a Russian soldier. He was taken for five years by the Russians – before they left Czernowitz, they took all the men for the army. After the war, he had been wounded with a bullet in his lung and he was in Siberia. He wrote a letter to the postal worker in Czernowitz to ask about his family. The postal worker said no, his wife and daughter were dead – they never returned from the camps. But later he heard from someone’s wife that we weren’t dead – that we were living in Czernowitz. So he took a train to come back. He had no money to pay for a train, so he rode on the roof for six weeks, all the way from Siberia, and whenever the train would go through a tunnel, he would get black like a Negro from the smoke.
Finally, he arrived in Czernowitz and he came to find us. One day, this old man who had no teeth asked me, "Maideleh, du veisst vu die Glaubach voynt?" [Little girl, do you know where the Glaubach’s live?] I was scared. He looked awful without teeth. He had only his Russian army coat and he carried a wooden suitcase. And in the suitcase, he brought me a present. It was two red pomegranates. I had never seen one before.
After the camps, we went back to Czernowitz. And we made a living selling salt to the Russian soldiers. We would scrape paint and mix it with the salt to make it seem there was more, and then wrap it very carefully in paper like it was diamonds. But it was illegal to sell to the soldiers and I would be chased by the police.
Then the Russians told us we all had to leave Czernowitz. They took us to the border and we started walking. We went to Sibiu. One day, I heard someone say there were oranges in Palestine. At that time, if you saw someone with a chicken or an orange, you would ask, "Ver is krank?" [Who is sick?] So one day, at eight years old, I got on the bus to Bucharest. I didn’t tell my parents. And when I got to Bucharest, someone took me to an orphanage. My mother went looking for me everywhere crying. Someone had seen me get on a bus to Bucharest, so my mother went begging for money to get a ticket for the train. My mother left early in the morning. She didn’t speak Romanian, but she had the address of a cousin in Bucharest. When she got there, this cousin didn’t even offer her a glass of water. And when my mother asked her to help her, she said, "I can’t help you to find your daughter, because a lady is coming to do my nails."
I was at an orphanage managed by a rabbi. We stayed in a stall, and there was a horse trough where we could wash ourselves and drink. I was washing some underwear when my mother arrived. She had brought me a present: she brought me five or six dried prunes. I didn’t want to go back with her to Sibiu. I told her I wanted to go to Palestine. So she left me at the orphanage with the rabbi.
The rabbi started getting documents for the children at the orphanage to go to Palestine, but because of the British, the children were being sent to camps in Cyprus instead. Then he heard that the Queen of Holland was adopting 500 kids from different orphanages, and I was one of eighteen from this orphanage who were adopted by the Queen.
A week before I could leave, I had to write my mother, in case she didn’t want me to go. I was now nine years old, and I mailed my postcard at the train station as I was leaving – I didn’t want her to come and get me. By the time she got the postcard, I was in Belgium.
I remember we would stand with our hands out the windows and the American soldiers would throw things into the train. I remember the chocolate and the canned milk. We went to Apeldoorn, and the religious relief organizations provided schools for us. So I started school in Holland in 1946. I had never been in school before.
From the Joint [Distribution Committee], I got clothing and care packages. There was a room with lots of clothes hanging from the walls, and shoes. You could pick whatever you wanted. Some were lucky and found a dollar or some chewing gum in the pockets, or an address of some people who would come to get you. But I wasn’t so lucky. But now whenever I give to the Salvation Army, I put something in the pockets so someone should get it.
I was in Holland from 1946 to 1948. One day the Queen came to visit. She brought everyone a present. I got a shawl from her. Then the British left Palestine. Some people got a ship, the Negba, to take the children to Palestine. But they wouldn’t let any children go who were under twelve because of the war with the Arabs. So overnight we all became twelve.
So I went on a ship and came to Palestine, which was by now Israel, on the 10th of October, 1948. It was during the Succoth holiday. They couldn’t take us off the ship then, so at night they took us on a brown bus with curtains for windows, and on top of the bus lay soldiers with guns. The soldiers were 16 or 17 years old.
How I brought my parents out from Romania to Israel – that is another story. What a twelve-year old child can do.... And in spite of everything, and in spite of Hitler, I have a wonderful family, wonderful children, wonderful grandchildren. This I would want people to know.
Interview with Sali Glaubach Regenstreif, April, 1998
Published in "Rom-Sig News," Vol. 6, No. 4
I was three years old when they sent us to the camps. My mother and I went together. First we had been sent to the ghetto in Czernowitz, but now we were told to pack a few belongings and that, like at Auschwitz, work makes a better life. There I was with my little suitcase, in my white fur coat and my hand muff, and we were sent to Transnistria. When we came back, they wouldn’t even let us in the house. Russian soldiers had taken it over.
When they sent us to the camps, we started walking. They didn’t give us transportation. And we came to the Dnestr River. We had no way to cross, so the people started making rafts out of branches. And my mother carried me on her back. Another woman had a baby who was crying, and it upset one of the soldiers. She was carrying the baby in front of her, so the soldier took his bayonet and ran it through the child and on into the mother, and then he threw them into the water. After that, my mother carried me, but she always carried the suitcase out in front.
The soldiers set out barrels, and we were told to put all jewelry in the barrels. "If we find anyone with jewelry, we will kill you." If people couldn’t get their rings off, they would cut off their own fingers.
The people marched for miles and miles, and Mother got tired and fell. The others kept walking. A Ukrainian woman who was Jewish took us in and put us above the mantle of the fireplace so we could keep warm. But she took from my mother everything.
Then the Germans came with a loudspeaker and told us that all the Jews must get out of town, and that if any Jews were found, the family that was keeping them would be killed. So the lady threw us out at night. She was afraid for her life.
So we started going but we didn’t know where. They didn’t even give us transportation to the camps, and when we got there they gave us nothing – not like in Auschwitz where they gave you soup. Here you had to provide for yourself. And if you wanted transportation to the camps, you had to pay. There was a truck with people on their way to the camps, but they wouldn’t let us get on because we had no money. But an SS officer saved our lives. We were standing outside in the cold, and the officer said, "Junge Frau, warum sind Sie draussen?" [Young woman, why are you outside?] And my mother said, "We have no money, and they told us they had no room." And he said, "You have no money?" And my mother said no. So he said, "Come back in the morning; we’ll have room."
The next morning, the officer told the people in the truck, "You let her up or I’ll take you all down." My mother, all she had left now was a bar of soap. A bar of soap was very valuable. And she offered it to the officer. But he said, "No, you keep it. You need it more than I do." So my mother said, "What then shall I wish you?" And he said, "Wish me well so I shall come back and see my wife and child." So, even there, there was a human being. That SS officer saved my life. He told the driver of the truck, "You stop in Murafa." It was easier than the other camps.
In the camps, there was a little shack where they took out my mother’s teeth. She had beautiful gold caps – it was very fashionable then. They had no Novocain. So the whole war she spent with no teeth.
My mother used to work for the Germans doing their laundry and their black boots. I’ll never forget their black boots. The camp was run mostly by Ukrainians, with a few Germans. And the Ukrainians wanted to show the Germans they were better even than the Germans. When I would cry, if I didn’t feel well, my mother would put her fist in my mouth that I shouldn’t cry because the soldiers didn’t like it. And she would go through the garbage to take out the potato peels to make a soup, and this is how we stayed alive.
Most of the parents in the camp died. So the others made like an orphan home. The children were lying on straw which was used to make a bed. A pair of twins – five years old – died, so a lady brought candles to place by their heads. But the candles started a fire, and most of the children died. I ran out.
One day, there was a man lying and begging for a little water. Someone got him some water but soon he died. My mother put me to sleep on his body so I wouldn’t be on the hard cold floor. In the camps, they were fighting over the bodies and sleeping on them till they began to stink.
My mother was Rosa Halprin. She was born to Leb Halprin and Sure – I don’t know her last name. She was from Kitov near Kolomea. Sure was an orphan by the time she was two years old. She was raised by her Tante Malke [Aunt Malke], who owned a hardware store. Leb was a widower, 50 years old, and they were married when Sure was 12. Imagine such a young girl with the alte kacker. They had ten children, and my mother, Rosa, was the youngest. They all died in the Holocaust except my mother.
My father was Tobias Glaubach. When he was eight, he was apprenticed to a bookbinder, and he worked as a bookbinder all his life. During the war, my father was a Russian soldier. He was taken for five years by the Russians – before they left Czernowitz, they took all the men for the army. After the war, he had been wounded with a bullet in his lung and he was in Siberia. He wrote a letter to the postal worker in Czernowitz to ask about his family. The postal worker said no, his wife and daughter were dead – they never returned from the camps. But later he heard from someone’s wife that we weren’t dead – that we were living in Czernowitz. So he took a train to come back. He had no money to pay for a train, so he rode on the roof for six weeks, all the way from Siberia, and whenever the train would go through a tunnel, he would get black like a Negro from the smoke.
Finally, he arrived in Czernowitz and he came to find us. One day, this old man who had no teeth asked me, "Maideleh, du veisst vu die Glaubach voynt?" [Little girl, do you know where the Glaubach’s live?] I was scared. He looked awful without teeth. He had only his Russian army coat and he carried a wooden suitcase. And in the suitcase, he brought me a present. It was two red pomegranates. I had never seen one before.
After the camps, we went back to Czernowitz. And we made a living selling salt to the Russian soldiers. We would scrape paint and mix it with the salt to make it seem there was more, and then wrap it very carefully in paper like it was diamonds. But it was illegal to sell to the soldiers and I would be chased by the police.
Then the Russians told us we all had to leave Czernowitz. They took us to the border and we started walking. We went to Sibiu. One day, I heard someone say there were oranges in Palestine. At that time, if you saw someone with a chicken or an orange, you would ask, "Ver is krank?" [Who is sick?] So one day, at eight years old, I got on the bus to Bucharest. I didn’t tell my parents. And when I got to Bucharest, someone took me to an orphanage. My mother went looking for me everywhere crying. Someone had seen me get on a bus to Bucharest, so my mother went begging for money to get a ticket for the train. My mother left early in the morning. She didn’t speak Romanian, but she had the address of a cousin in Bucharest. When she got there, this cousin didn’t even offer her a glass of water. And when my mother asked her to help her, she said, "I can’t help you to find your daughter, because a lady is coming to do my nails."
I was at an orphanage managed by a rabbi. We stayed in a stall, and there was a horse trough where we could wash ourselves and drink. I was washing some underwear when my mother arrived. She had brought me a present: she brought me five or six dried prunes. I didn’t want to go back with her to Sibiu. I told her I wanted to go to Palestine. So she left me at the orphanage with the rabbi.
The rabbi started getting documents for the children at the orphanage to go to Palestine, but because of the British, the children were being sent to camps in Cyprus instead. Then he heard that the Queen of Holland was adopting 500 kids from different orphanages, and I was one of eighteen from this orphanage who were adopted by the Queen.
A week before I could leave, I had to write my mother, in case she didn’t want me to go. I was now nine years old, and I mailed my postcard at the train station as I was leaving – I didn’t want her to come and get me. By the time she got the postcard, I was in Belgium.
I remember we would stand with our hands out the windows and the American soldiers would throw things into the train. I remember the chocolate and the canned milk. We went to Apeldoorn, and the religious relief organizations provided schools for us. So I started school in Holland in 1946. I had never been in school before.
From the Joint [Distribution Committee], I got clothing and care packages. There was a room with lots of clothes hanging from the walls, and shoes. You could pick whatever you wanted. Some were lucky and found a dollar or some chewing gum in the pockets, or an address of some people who would come to get you. But I wasn’t so lucky. But now whenever I give to the Salvation Army, I put something in the pockets so someone should get it.
I was in Holland from 1946 to 1948. One day the Queen came to visit. She brought everyone a present. I got a shawl from her. Then the British left Palestine. Some people got a ship, the Negba, to take the children to Palestine. But they wouldn’t let any children go who were under twelve because of the war with the Arabs. So overnight we all became twelve.
So I went on a ship and came to Palestine, which was by now Israel, on the 10th of October, 1948. It was during the Succoth holiday. They couldn’t take us off the ship then, so at night they took us on a brown bus with curtains for windows, and on top of the bus lay soldiers with guns. The soldiers were 16 or 17 years old.
How I brought my parents out from Romania to Israel – that is another story. What a twelve-year old child can do.... And in spite of everything, and in spite of Hitler, I have a wonderful family, wonderful children, wonderful grandchildren. This I would want people to know.
An interesting article
The article below was posted on the Czernowitz email list, a group of people with interests and/or connections to the city. I believe I read a much less detailed account of the same reunion in a newspaper a few months before my trip, before the name Czernowitz meant a lot to me.
Menachem Av 11, 5768 · August 12, 2008
For Sixty-Five Years I Thought She was Dead
A Wondrous Reunion
Print this Page
ByMirish Kiszner
Simon Glasberg never forgot his sister Hilda.
When the Germans entered their home town of
Chernowitz, Romania, she was smuggled into the
Soviet Union. Simon and his family never heard
from her again.
Simon knew that Hitler, may his name be blotted
out, had sought to strip every Jew of his
identity, his individuality. Mass deportation,
mass shootings and mass graves were their modus
operandi. To them, every Jew was a faceless,
nameless victim, unworthy, not only of the breath
of his life, but also of the memory of his name.
But daily, Simon witnessed his father's sorrow,
his mother's anguish. They wouldn't, couldn't,
ever forget her. Hilda's memory etched itself
onto the lives of his parents. Their heart
wrenching sighs filled their home, magnifying
Simon's own bereavement over the precious sister
he once knew.
Yet time has a way of dulling the harshest of
sorrows. Simon got married, built a family, and
the grief receded somewhat, though never quite
disappeared.
Shortly before Rosh Hashana 2006, Simon's nephew,
Dr. Eric Weiner, touched upon those suppressed
memories, bringing them achingly into sharp
focus, once again.
"Did you know that my father had submitted pages
of testimony to Yad Vashem before his death?" he
asked.
It took a minute for Simon to comprehend what his nephew was referring to.
"Ah, Yad Vashem!" He said at last. "How we wanted
to perpetuate the memories of Hilda! My lovely
sister, Hilda. Oh, Eric, you know how much my
parents searched for her, do you? We a ll did. We
looked and looked and couldn't find her. How much
they criedS" His voice cracked. The tears flowed.
"You know Eric," he said after he'd collected
himself, "We searched everywhere, even in Israel,
while fighting in the War of Independence, we
didn't forget about Hilda. Young, beautiful
Hilda. But we didn't find a trace of her. My
brother went back to the Ukraine to look for her.
Nothing. She had simply vanishedS"
Would his nephew understand? Could he imagine
what it meant to live with the pain of his
parents, his own pain, for so many years? All the
many years faded away. Simon found himself once
again crouching in a cellar trembling in fear
lest the Nazis discover their hideout. His
parents plan had been to smuggle the family into
the Soviet Union. Hilda had been the first to
leave, the rest were to follow shortly.
They'd never made it though, Simon reflected.
Crossing the borders illegally proved too risky
an undertaking for a family with young children.
Poor, little Hilda. What did she think? Did she
suppose that her family had abandoned her just
like that, with nary a thought about her?
Dr. Weiner cleared his throat, interrupting
Simon's ruminations. "Yad Vashem," he said,
"makes every effort to redeem these victims as
individuals. That's what the pages of testimony
are all about, you see."
"Individuals, yeahS" Simon paused for a moment.
"Eric, no one can undo what was done. No one can
bring my little sister back from the grave. Not
Yad Vashem, not pages of testimony. No one.
Nothing." Again, he lapsed into silence.
Eric spoke again. "Uncle Simon," he said softly. "Hilda is looking for you."
Simon sat up straight. Did he hear him say,
"Hilda is looking for you?" Surely not. It
couldn't be. Was he getting old?
"She's living in Israel. In Ashdod. Uncle Simon,
Hilda's alive." He heard his nephew saying.
Could it be? Should he allow himself to be
tricked into this ruse? No. He didn't want to get
too excited. The disappointment would be too
intense. It wasn't possible. Hilda alive? After
all these years? It's beenSlet's seeSsixty five
years now. It couldn't be. All these thoughts
flashed through his mind, but he said only, "Who
told you?" and his voice was hoarse.
"David Schlik. He tracked me down. He started out
by looking for my father, Karol, but when he
discovered that he's no longer alive, he
contacted the chevra kadisha (burial society) who
gave him my phone number."
David Schlick, David SchlikSDid he know a David
Schlik? He turned the name over in his mind. No
memory of David Schlik came up.
"I don't know him," he said tersely. "Who is he? Does he know me?"
"Uncle Simon, David is Hilda's grandson. I spoke to Hilda's grandson."
Simon's throat went dry. All these years and
Hilda had been alive. He couldn't utter a word.20
Eric put his arm around his uncle. "G-d has many
messengers, Uncle. Apparently, Hilda's grandson
learned that his grandmother's maiden name was
Glasberg. He hit the internet, searching for
family members despite the fact that his
grandmother didn't believe there was any hope for
her family, because she had already looked for
them many years ago.
"You could imagine how shocked he was when the
name of his grandmother: Hilda Glasberg, appeared
on the Yad Vashem database of Shoah Victims'
Names, testifying to her death!"
Slowly the pieces in the puzzle started to become
clear. Hilda having arrived safely to Uzbekistan
waited eagerly for her parents to arrive.
Separation is never easy. Surrounded by chaos in
a foreign country and the cold reality of war,
Hilda had suffered greatly.
When the war was finally over, they were among
the surviving refugees who remained locked behind
the iron curtain that had descended on the Soviet
Union. In spite of, exhaustive searches, Hilda
was unable to cross the borders. As time passed,
Hilda accepted the fact that her entire family
had been killed in the Holocaust.
With no other choice, Hilda relegated her aching
loss into a tight corner of her heart, which she
locked and bolted. She couldn't live otherwise.
The pain was too intense. As a result, she never
spoke about her past with her children.
But G-d has His ways. In a miraculous chain of
events, that corner, dust y with age, was
transformed into indescribable joy.
Just before he died, her brother Karol decided to
submit a page of testimony to Yad Vashem. A
curious grandchild discovered her maiden name and
came across that aforementioned testimony.
Not much later, a very emotional brother and
sister were finally united, after 65 years of
separation!
Menachem Av 11, 5768 · August 12, 2008
For Sixty-Five Years I Thought She was Dead
A Wondrous Reunion
By
Simon Glasberg never forgot his sister Hilda.
When the Germans entered their home town of
Chernowitz, Romania, she was smuggled into the
Soviet Union. Simon and his family never heard
from her again.
Simon knew that Hitler, may his name be blotted
out, had sought to strip every Jew of his
identity, his individuality. Mass deportation,
mass shootings and mass graves were their modus
operandi. To them, every Jew was a faceless,
nameless victim, unworthy, not only of the breath
of his life, but also of the memory of his name.
But daily, Simon witnessed his father's sorrow,
his mother's anguish. They wouldn't, couldn't,
ever forget her. Hilda's memory etched itself
onto the lives of his parents. Their heart
wrenching sighs filled their home, magnifying
Simon's own bereavement over the precious sister
he once knew.
Yet time has a way of dulling the harshest of
sorrows. Simon got married, built a family, and
the grief receded somewhat, though never quite
disappeared.
Shortly before Rosh Hashana 2006, Simon's nephew,
Dr. Eric Weiner, touched upon those suppressed
memories, bringing them achingly into sharp
focus, once again.
"Did you know that my father had submitted pages
of testimony to Yad Vashem before his death?" he
asked.
It took a minute for Simon to comprehend what his nephew was referring to.
"Ah, Yad Vashem!" He said at last. "How we wanted
to perpetuate the memories of Hilda! My lovely
sister, Hilda. Oh, Eric, you know how much my
parents searched for her, do you? We a ll did. We
looked and looked and couldn't find her. How much
they criedS" His voice cracked. The tears flowed.
"You know Eric," he said after he'd collected
himself, "We searched everywhere, even in Israel,
while fighting in the War of Independence, we
didn't forget about Hilda. Young, beautiful
Hilda. But we didn't find a trace of her. My
brother went back to the Ukraine to look for her.
Nothing. She had simply vanishedS"
Would his nephew understand? Could he imagine
what it meant to live with the pain of his
parents, his own pain, for so many years? All the
many years faded away. Simon found himself once
again crouching in a cellar trembling in fear
lest the Nazis discover their hideout. His
parents plan had been to smuggle the family into
the Soviet Union. Hilda had been the first to
leave, the rest were to follow shortly.
They'd never made it though, Simon reflected.
Crossing the borders illegally proved too risky
an undertaking for a family with young children.
Poor, little Hilda. What did she think? Did she
suppose that her family had abandoned her just
like that, with nary a thought about her?
Dr. Weiner cleared his throat, interrupting
Simon's ruminations. "Yad Vashem," he said,
"makes every effort to redeem these victims as
individuals. That's what the pages of testimony
are all about, you see."
"Individuals, yeahS" Simon paused for a moment.
"Eric, no one can undo what was done. No one can
bring my little sister back from the grave. Not
Yad Vashem, not pages of testimony. No one.
Nothing." Again, he lapsed into silence.
Eric spoke again. "Uncle Simon," he said softly. "Hilda is looking for you."
Simon sat up straight. Did he hear him say,
"Hilda is looking for you?" Surely not. It
couldn't be. Was he getting old?
"She's living in Israel. In Ashdod. Uncle Simon,
Hilda's alive." He heard his nephew saying.
Could it be? Should he allow himself to be
tricked into this ruse? No. He didn't want to get
too excited. The disappointment would be too
intense. It wasn't possible. Hilda alive? After
all these years? It's beenSlet's seeSsixty five
years now. It couldn't be. All these thoughts
flashed through his mind, but he said only, "Who
told you?" and his voice was hoarse.
"David Schlik. He tracked me down. He started out
by looking for my father, Karol, but when he
discovered that he's no longer alive, he
contacted the chevra kadisha (burial society) who
gave him my phone number."
David Schlick, David SchlikSDid he know a David
Schlik? He turned the name over in his mind. No
memory of David Schlik came up.
"I don't know him," he said tersely. "Who is he? Does he know me?"
"Uncle Simon, David is Hilda's grandson. I spoke to Hilda's grandson."
Simon's throat went dry. All these years and
Hilda had been alive. He couldn't utter a word.20
Eric put his arm around his uncle. "G-d has many
messengers, Uncle. Apparently, Hilda's grandson
learned that his grandmother's maiden name was
Glasberg. He hit the internet, searching for
family members despite the fact that his
grandmother didn't believe there was any hope for
her family, because she had already looked for
them many years ago.
"You could imagine how shocked he was when the
name of his grandmother: Hilda Glasberg, appeared
on the Yad Vashem database of Shoah Victims'
Names, testifying to her death!"
Slowly the pieces in the puzzle started to become
clear. Hilda having arrived safely to Uzbekistan
waited eagerly for her parents to arrive.
Separation is never easy. Surrounded by chaos in
a foreign country and the cold reality of war,
Hilda had suffered greatly.
When the war was finally over, they were among
the surviving refugees who remained locked behind
the iron curtain that had descended on the Soviet
Union. In spite of, exhaustive searches, Hilda
was unable to cross the borders. As time passed,
Hilda accepted the fact that her entire family
had been killed in the Holocaust.
With no other choice, Hilda relegated her aching
loss into a tight corner of her heart, which she
locked and bolted. She couldn't live otherwise.
The pain was too intense. As a result, she never
spoke about her past with her children.
But G-d has His ways. In a miraculous chain of
events, that corner, dust y with age, was
transformed into indescribable joy.
Just before he died, her brother Karol decided to
submit a page of testimony to Yad Vashem. A
curious grandchild discovered her maiden name and
came across that aforementioned testimony.
Not much later, a very emotional brother and
sister were finally united, after 65 years of
separation!
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Back home
Now that I am home, I will attempt to fill in some of the impressions I didn't have time to record before. It will be rather piecemeal, but then, the rest of the blog hasn't been particularly chronological. I hope that hasn't made it too difficult to follow.
When I have recorded as much as I can of this trip, I think I would like to share some of the details of my previous experiences volunteering over the last several years, in Thailand, Romania, France and Peru. Loring says this trip seems like more of an adventure than my other ones. I am not sure that is true, although certainly the personal aspect and discoveries have made it special and significant in ways different from the others. But I am wondering if I just haven't conveyed, to anyone, as much detailabout the other trips as I have of this one, even though it feel like there is so much from Cz. I haven't yet said.
So when I am done telling you about Czernowitz and perhaps some other adventures from my other destinations this trip, I hope you will follow me back in time to some of my other volunteer experiences. Perhaps I might even entice someone to participate in one her or himself!
Well, back to Czernowitz: I recounted some, but not enough, of the Yiddish conference. We attended the opening ceremonies, at a lovely outdoor courtyard of some Jewish center. It was mostly speeches, luckily translated into English. The next night was the first official night. More speeches, and then a performance by an Israeli woman named Ruth Levin. Her father, Leibu Levin, had been from the city. He was a musician and storyteller. Ruth is a singer as well. She performed, in Yiddish of course, so I could not understand a word. She was so dramatic, so passionate, that her performance was extremely stirring, even without knowing what she was singing about. I believe some of the songs were her own, some her father's, some traditional. I recognized one tune and can't stop hearing it now, over two weeks later. But I don't think I could reproduce it outside my own head! Leibu Levin had died in the 1980's. His grandson, Ruth's son, was with her and videotaping the event. I talked to both Ruth and her son a bit.He was about 14, had never met his grandfather. I asked him if he was intersted in music, too. He said he had taken some instrument, I forget now which. But that he was now learning to play the guitar. I wonder if he will carry on the family musical heritage.
At the end of her performance, Ruth showed a video of her father telling a song-story, which again of course I didn't understand. But I was fascinated. His face was amazingly pliant, he reminded me in a way of a more serious Danny Kaye, who I hadn't thought of in years.
I notice that Ruth Levin has posted to the CZ email list extensive info about her father, which I haven't yet had time to read, and I imagine there is other info available about him. I know that he was exiled for many years by the Russians, freed when in his 40's.
On to another incident I had been wanting to recount. In addition to Marina, who I have already mentioned and who volunteered with us for most all of the two weeks, there were several other young local people. One was Costa. He was Jewish, had been born in Czernowitz. I believe his parents had migrated there from elsewhere. He also was a consistent volunteer, although not quite daily as was Marina. Another person I couldn't talk to but was very taken with, just very amiable. He came with us on the visit to the Cz synagogue, where I gather he is a member. (He says he just comes on the holidays.) As we entered, he donned a traditional black hat, like the rabbi's, rather than a yarmulke.There were several there and I guess people had their choice. He looked so cute in it, and that is the image of him that will remain with me.
A couple of days later, in the early evening after work, I was walking thru the downtown and ran into Costa. It was a nice feeling to run into someone I knew, in the street, made me feel like I belonged. Costa tried to say something to me in Russian. I understood not a word. He tried again, much more slowly. That didn't help a bit. Then he said something in German. I only knew that because I understood one word. It was "arbeit".The only reason I know that word is from the wrought iron saying on the gateway at Dachau, and Auschwitz, the ultra-ironic "work makes you free." What were the Nazis thinking when they wrote that? Were they being intentionally, cruelly ironic? Or did that not even occur to them?" So, I understood (I think) that Costa was talking about work, ie. at the cemetery. I decided he must have been saying, see you at work. So I nodded and said,ok, arbeit, a couple of times and we went our separate ways. Of oourse, I might have been entirely wrong.
Another vignette: On the train leaving Lviv, Ukraine at 6 am for Krakow, I shared a compartment with two youngish women. When I entered the train, only one of them was there, and I woke her up. She was Ukrainian, spoke some English, and was very friendly. (I notice I keep saying that about the Ukrainians I met.) She did not mind at all that I had awakened her, helped make room for me and my large suitcase and gave me a boost up onto the middle berth. When I awoke a few hours later, she and another woman were chatting. I never did find out if they had known each other previously, or had met on the train. It sure seemed like they were good friends. But the second woman hadn't been there when I got on the train. Anyway, Ukrainian woman number two was equally friendly, althoush she didn't speak any English. We all got along famously for the many hours of the train ride, with the first woman translating for me and the other. I explained what I had been doing in Czernowitz. And she, the second woman, immediately said she knew about us, had seen us on tv. And she didn't live in Czernowitz. So I guess we were on national, not only local, tv. What a strange feeling, to be told I'd been seen on TV, by a woman on the train!
I don't really know how many tv programs we were on or newspapers we were in. We never did see the newspaper story that we were interviewed for. We did see one tv segment, and at least one other station came and interviewed us at the cemetery. There had been at least 4 tv stations at the press conference at the mayor's office. I am guessing that even the stations that didn't interview us at the cemetery carried the story. So I guess I am a local Czernowitz celebrity! Even in stores we went into in town, when we told people what we were doing, they had already heard about us.
Back to the train for a minute - on the Ukraine-Polish border the train tracks change gauges, I guess it dates back to the Soviet times and not wanting to make transportation too accessible to other countries. So the trains need to stop (for an hour or two) while they switch wheels. (not trains, wheels.) and they do it with all the passengers in the trains. On the way to Ukraine, I wasn't even aware of it, slept thru the whole thing. On the way back, though, it was daytime. They slid a whole series of forklift like things under the train cars, to hold them up while they switched the wheels. And from what I hear, the difference in the gauge is only centimeters.
Because we were there for so long, and you aren't supposed to use the toilets when the trains are in a station (especially while the workers were right there,probably wouldn't be too pleasant for them), my compartment-mates decided they would ask if there was a toilet we could use nearby. I trusted them thru all the banter with the conductors, which I could only guess at, and they sent us down the tracks to the train workers' office and toilet. There, more banter with a bunch more workers, and then each of us took our turn. As we headed back down the tracks to our train, no longer suspended, it began moving, slowly, backwards. There were a few brief panicky movements until we realized they were just separating cars, part of the train to head to Warsaw, the other to Krakow. Actually, if I was going to be stuck somewhere, I wouldn't have minded being in the company of these two jovial women. One of them, the one who spoke English, worked as a maid for a family in the Netherlands, and I think was heading back there. She had a 7 year old daughter who lived with the woman's parents in Ukraine. The daughter's name was Carolina, same name as my daughter. We parted ways, suddenly, in the train station in Krakov, relationship as easily dissolved as it had been made. We wheeled our suitcases off in opposite directions, never even having said goodbye.
Well, that is all the Czernowitz details I can think of at the moment, but I hope there will be more. And I think there are some aspects of our subsequent two weeks in Poland and the Czech Republic that I will also want to recount.
Til then.
When I have recorded as much as I can of this trip, I think I would like to share some of the details of my previous experiences volunteering over the last several years, in Thailand, Romania, France and Peru. Loring says this trip seems like more of an adventure than my other ones. I am not sure that is true, although certainly the personal aspect and discoveries have made it special and significant in ways different from the others. But I am wondering if I just haven't conveyed, to anyone, as much detailabout the other trips as I have of this one, even though it feel like there is so much from Cz. I haven't yet said.
So when I am done telling you about Czernowitz and perhaps some other adventures from my other destinations this trip, I hope you will follow me back in time to some of my other volunteer experiences. Perhaps I might even entice someone to participate in one her or himself!
Well, back to Czernowitz: I recounted some, but not enough, of the Yiddish conference. We attended the opening ceremonies, at a lovely outdoor courtyard of some Jewish center. It was mostly speeches, luckily translated into English. The next night was the first official night. More speeches, and then a performance by an Israeli woman named Ruth Levin. Her father, Leibu Levin, had been from the city. He was a musician and storyteller. Ruth is a singer as well. She performed, in Yiddish of course, so I could not understand a word. She was so dramatic, so passionate, that her performance was extremely stirring, even without knowing what she was singing about. I believe some of the songs were her own, some her father's, some traditional. I recognized one tune and can't stop hearing it now, over two weeks later. But I don't think I could reproduce it outside my own head! Leibu Levin had died in the 1980's. His grandson, Ruth's son, was with her and videotaping the event. I talked to both Ruth and her son a bit.He was about 14, had never met his grandfather. I asked him if he was intersted in music, too. He said he had taken some instrument, I forget now which. But that he was now learning to play the guitar. I wonder if he will carry on the family musical heritage.
At the end of her performance, Ruth showed a video of her father telling a song-story, which again of course I didn't understand. But I was fascinated. His face was amazingly pliant, he reminded me in a way of a more serious Danny Kaye, who I hadn't thought of in years.
I notice that Ruth Levin has posted to the CZ email list extensive info about her father, which I haven't yet had time to read, and I imagine there is other info available about him. I know that he was exiled for many years by the Russians, freed when in his 40's.
On to another incident I had been wanting to recount. In addition to Marina, who I have already mentioned and who volunteered with us for most all of the two weeks, there were several other young local people. One was Costa. He was Jewish, had been born in Czernowitz. I believe his parents had migrated there from elsewhere. He also was a consistent volunteer, although not quite daily as was Marina. Another person I couldn't talk to but was very taken with, just very amiable. He came with us on the visit to the Cz synagogue, where I gather he is a member. (He says he just comes on the holidays.) As we entered, he donned a traditional black hat, like the rabbi's, rather than a yarmulke.There were several there and I guess people had their choice. He looked so cute in it, and that is the image of him that will remain with me.
A couple of days later, in the early evening after work, I was walking thru the downtown and ran into Costa. It was a nice feeling to run into someone I knew, in the street, made me feel like I belonged. Costa tried to say something to me in Russian. I understood not a word. He tried again, much more slowly. That didn't help a bit. Then he said something in German. I only knew that because I understood one word. It was "arbeit".The only reason I know that word is from the wrought iron saying on the gateway at Dachau, and Auschwitz, the ultra-ironic "work makes you free." What were the Nazis thinking when they wrote that? Were they being intentionally, cruelly ironic? Or did that not even occur to them?" So, I understood (I think) that Costa was talking about work, ie. at the cemetery. I decided he must have been saying, see you at work. So I nodded and said,ok, arbeit, a couple of times and we went our separate ways. Of oourse, I might have been entirely wrong.
Another vignette: On the train leaving Lviv, Ukraine at 6 am for Krakow, I shared a compartment with two youngish women. When I entered the train, only one of them was there, and I woke her up. She was Ukrainian, spoke some English, and was very friendly. (I notice I keep saying that about the Ukrainians I met.) She did not mind at all that I had awakened her, helped make room for me and my large suitcase and gave me a boost up onto the middle berth. When I awoke a few hours later, she and another woman were chatting. I never did find out if they had known each other previously, or had met on the train. It sure seemed like they were good friends. But the second woman hadn't been there when I got on the train. Anyway, Ukrainian woman number two was equally friendly, althoush she didn't speak any English. We all got along famously for the many hours of the train ride, with the first woman translating for me and the other. I explained what I had been doing in Czernowitz. And she, the second woman, immediately said she knew about us, had seen us on tv. And she didn't live in Czernowitz. So I guess we were on national, not only local, tv. What a strange feeling, to be told I'd been seen on TV, by a woman on the train!
I don't really know how many tv programs we were on or newspapers we were in. We never did see the newspaper story that we were interviewed for. We did see one tv segment, and at least one other station came and interviewed us at the cemetery. There had been at least 4 tv stations at the press conference at the mayor's office. I am guessing that even the stations that didn't interview us at the cemetery carried the story. So I guess I am a local Czernowitz celebrity! Even in stores we went into in town, when we told people what we were doing, they had already heard about us.
Back to the train for a minute - on the Ukraine-Polish border the train tracks change gauges, I guess it dates back to the Soviet times and not wanting to make transportation too accessible to other countries. So the trains need to stop (for an hour or two) while they switch wheels. (not trains, wheels.) and they do it with all the passengers in the trains. On the way to Ukraine, I wasn't even aware of it, slept thru the whole thing. On the way back, though, it was daytime. They slid a whole series of forklift like things under the train cars, to hold them up while they switched the wheels. And from what I hear, the difference in the gauge is only centimeters.
Because we were there for so long, and you aren't supposed to use the toilets when the trains are in a station (especially while the workers were right there,probably wouldn't be too pleasant for them), my compartment-mates decided they would ask if there was a toilet we could use nearby. I trusted them thru all the banter with the conductors, which I could only guess at, and they sent us down the tracks to the train workers' office and toilet. There, more banter with a bunch more workers, and then each of us took our turn. As we headed back down the tracks to our train, no longer suspended, it began moving, slowly, backwards. There were a few brief panicky movements until we realized they were just separating cars, part of the train to head to Warsaw, the other to Krakow. Actually, if I was going to be stuck somewhere, I wouldn't have minded being in the company of these two jovial women. One of them, the one who spoke English, worked as a maid for a family in the Netherlands, and I think was heading back there. She had a 7 year old daughter who lived with the woman's parents in Ukraine. The daughter's name was Carolina, same name as my daughter. We parted ways, suddenly, in the train station in Krakov, relationship as easily dissolved as it had been made. We wheeled our suitcases off in opposite directions, never even having said goodbye.
Well, that is all the Czernowitz details I can think of at the moment, but I hope there will be more. And I think there are some aspects of our subsequent two weeks in Poland and the Czech Republic that I will also want to recount.
Til then.
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