by Ann Huber
My parents and grandparents applied for a visa to Palestine as soon as there was a governmental agency ready to take the application, sometime around 1946. The United Nations had finally voted to recognize the creation of an independent State of Israel in 1948. I was born in 1950. Nine months later my parents were granted permission to leave for Israel. My grandparents followed shortly thereafter, arriving in Israel in 1951. When we left, we were required to relinquish our Romanian citizenship, our personal possessions and even our personal legal documents, such as birth and marriage certificates. A simple passport named all three of us. It was the only proof I had of my relationship to my parents.
Our ship brought us to Haifa, an industrial port on the slopes of Mount Carmel where it met the Mediterranean Sea. Although Haifa has historically been a center of industry, it was also the site of two universities and home to the Baha’i Temple’s world-renowned gold dome and gardens. From any hillside one could always see the sun shimmering from the sea to the golden dome.
Outsmarting the Romanian authorities as other wealthier Jews had, my parents smuggled out money by sewing a few gold coins into the hems of their clothing. However, much of the other precious jewelry and gold, which my parents entrusted to a messenger, was stolen by him. Many years later they found out the “Devil” was living in Sao Paulo, Brazil—too late to recover anything or even prove any transaction had even taken place.
My parents with me (9 mos) in Bucharest before we left
Romania.
Too proud to take government assistance in Haifa, or maybe too much of a snob, my father refused to accept public housing in one of the new and hastily built outlying settlements where many of my mother’s relatives settled. Instead, he found an apartment in Haifa, a bus ride away from my mother’s favorite cousin, Shelley. Shelley had made her way to Israel in the wave of young Zionists who left Europe in the 1930s. An ardent Zionist, Shelley had a government job for her entire adult life. She and her family always lived in public housing. Her daughters, Tzila and Tova were my constant childhood companions. I have vivid memories of holding on to the railing on the bus as it often sped down and around the hill just in time for their stop.
My grandparents soon joined us and we shared a terribly small space for five people—just two rooms. My parents and I slept in a multi-purpose room while my grandparents slept in the kitchen, another small and narrow space where they unfolded a bed every night. We shared a bathroom with another family. Their doorway opened to a shared courtyard, too, but I have no memory of them. One way to achieve privacy is just to pretend no one else is there.
My birthday party at 8 years old. Mamaia far right,
Netty third from right. I’m fourth from the right.
An armoire and dining table dominated our main space where we celebrated my fifth birthday with cake, candles and school friends, including my best friend, Anda. Our only window looked out onto the shared courtyard, laid with large slabs of marble, everything the color of chalk as it baked in the sun. Every week, a young Arab woman sitting crossed-legged, washed our clothes and sheets in an old tub, wringing them out by hand, and hanging them across the courtyard to dry. It was also in the courtyard that I chased, and was chased, by the three young boys who lived next door. I have warm, sentimental memories of their mother who taught me how to embroider. I still cherish a small Torah scroll replica on the cover of which I embroidered a flower.
One of my other earliest childhood memories starts on my parents’ bed, tucked into the corner of the main room, under the large window, the sun shining in. In my sixth year, I got the mumps, the pain of which could only be soothed by cold compresses on my lumpy little neck. I lay in bed, day after day, staring at an uneven pattern of tape crisscrossing the window. It was taped, as many windows were, to prevent it from shattering should a bomb land on our section of Haifa during the 1956 Arab-Israeli war.
I understood little of why Israel had invaded Egypt, though my parents often talked to me about our safety being threatened by the surrounding Arab nations. I was worried about the possibility of war, but I was never actually afraid. At that time, it seemed that we feared Egypt most because it was the strongest of the nations. Every one talked about Nasser, then President of Egypt. War became inevitable after Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal, cutting off Israeli shipping from the Gulf of Suez. My recovery took as long as the war, less than a week, since Israel agreed to a cease fire after the United Nations assured Israel’s access to the Indian Ocean through the Gulf of Aqaba. No bombs were dropped in Haifa.
In a neighborhood near Shelley’s apartment, my father opened a small grocery store. There was not much need for shoe stores then in Haifa; few immigrants had the money for such luxuries. The store was next door to an Arab café—in 1951, many Jews and Arabs lived side by side in Haifa in relative harmony. Despite the flight of a large portion of the Arab population after the establishment of the Israeli state, there remained in Israel some Arab tribes friendly to the Jews. They lived and worked among us and even served in the Israeli army.
My parents both worked all day while the Arabic music and the smell of strong Turkish coffee wafted into the store. Outside the café were a few small, low tables where Arab men sat enjoying their coffee and smoking at all hours of the day.
My mother, who never cooked, learned to pickle cabbage, cucumbers and tomatoes in large, wooden barrels, which were displayed in front of the store. If I close my eyes, I can still smell the sour pickles and fragrant Turkish coffee blended together with all the other food smells like onions and garlic. There, in that little store, they labored six days a week. Shabbat was sacred. After all, it was a national holiday.
It was left to my grandparents, mostly my grandmother, to take care of me. Mamaia was petite, with short gray hair and lively hazel eyes. She had suffered from diabetes since the age of twenty, requiring daily insulin injections that she administered herself. Nonetheless, she was the matriarch of the family in the full sense of the word. My father always deferred to her and came to consider her as his mother. He spoke to her very respectfully, always using formal Romanian speech and his best manners in her presence.
My mother was thoroughly dependent on her. Both she and my father granted her full authority. Since Mamaia took care of me, did the cooking, sewing and knitting and pretty much managed the household, my mother did whatever my grandmother told her to do. Mamaia always had knitting needles or sewing in her hands. Every year, she made an elaborate costume for me for the Purim holiday. In various years, I was Little Red Riding Hood, a Chinese man, a ballerina, and even a Scotsman in a kilt with a tassel on each of my socks. No detail was overlooked.
My mother, Mamaia, and me, 1958.
Little Red Riding Hood costume, 1954.
I spent time with my parents on Shabbat. They were polar opposites. My mother was the practical one who was anxious about everything. I believe she felt loving and supportive of me, yet she was conflicted about showing it. There was nothing she would not do for me if she thought it was necessary; however, for some reason she worried about spoiling me, and withheld anything she considered unnecessary. When I was older, I was given an allowance. I used it to buy 5 cents worth of candy after school and to go to the movies. If I wanted to buy her a birthday present or a mother’s day gift, I had to borrow the money from her and repay it with my allowance. At some point, that didn’t feel right. It felt like unnecessary deprivation, which I never imposed on my own children.
Sandu, for his part, was a generous gift-giver, a romantic who preferred not to deal or could not deal with his inability to earn an adequate living. As a rare treat, my father would bring for me a single yellow Delicious apple. He would hold it up, perched on his fingertips and playfully proclaim, “It has red cheeks just like you.”
In preparation for Shabbat, every Friday, Mamaia and I walked to the outdoor market to purchase the ingredients for our Friday night family dinner. Walking down to the market on Herzl Street, my grandmother would test my m
ath skills, preparing me for the day when I would have to drive a hard bargain with the food vendors myself. In Romanian she would ask, “How much does two times two make? How much is twelve plus four? How much is forty-five divided by nine?” I always answered in Hebrew. The math drills were beneficial, but outweighed by the heavy watermelon I carried uphill on the way back. A mule-drawn carriage delivered milk and the children all ran out to watch the milkman dole out a potful at a time.
We had a set menu every Friday night—roasted chicken, rice, peppers and watermelon. Mamaia also baked a cake, a variation of a pound cake, in a “Wundertopf”—Yiddish for an Israeli invention for baking on top of a kerosene burner rather than an oven. It looked like a covered Bundt pan, slightly modified, with a center hole which fit between the flame and the pot. I had my own toy-size one. My small cake pan baked atop the Wundertopf.
My parents always came home in time for our weekly feast. After they bathed, Mamaia and my mother lit Shabbat candles and our little family sat at our dining table. Following the main meal, I cut my little cake into tiny, one inch slices for everyone to share. I was clearly a contributing family member.
There were other rituals on Shabbat, and not the religious kind. In the morning, I would accompany my father, dolled up in my Shabbat dress, to meet his buddies in the local park. While the men sat and talked about history and politics, I ran around and played. Every Saturday afternoon, the adults took a well-deserved nap. In the evening, my parents went to the movies and took me along. Unfortunately, one movie, “The Inn of the Sixth Happiness” with Ingrid Bergman, was responsible for a recurring nightmare that survived well into my adulthood. A scene in the movie still sends shivers down my spine though I have not dared to see it since: bare-chested men are dancing with colorfully dressed women who are beheaded with enormous, curved, sharp-looking knives.
After I started school, I took the short walk every day to the Alliance School on Herzl Street, walking back home to play with the neighbors’ children. On special days, I was allowed to play with Anda even though she lived in a better neighborhood and was given piano lessons. In a small sepia photograph, taken in our courtyard, Anda, with short curly dark hair and I, also with short but auburn hair, displayed our birthday dresses. We crowed proudly, “Aren’t these beautiful?” as we twirled and modeled them for the camera in various poses.
In 1958, me (left) and best friend, Anda.
At the conclusion of World War II, the Jewish Agency for Israel asked for reparations, restitution, and indemnification for the victims of the Holocaust. Not until 1953 did West Germany agree to pay $845 million to the State of Israel over the next 14 years. It was to be paid partly in credit for oil and partly with various steel, agricultural, and industrial equipment including tens of thousands of Volkswagen “beetles.”
Until some of the reparations made their way into the economy, which did not happen for many years, life in the young State of Israel was difficult, conditions were harsh. There was not enough food, not enough housing, not enough jobs for the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who made their way there after the war. Not so for me. I was happy and secure, barefoot much of the time, always free to run out the door to play. By the age of ten, Israel’s pioneer spirit had already left its imprint on me. Many Americans have adopted the Israeli word for it—“chutzpah.” My husband calls me “feisty.” Others say I am a fighter who does not give up easily.
Chapter Three
MONTREAL
WITHOUT WARNING, my parents announced we would be going to Canada to start again. As we sat on my bed, on the other side of the room I shared with them, opposite our only window, my mother explained, “We’re moving far away, to a new place. It will be cold there and there will be snow just like in Romania. There you will meet your aunt and cousin but Mamaia will not be coming with us.” Haifa was my home. I was attached to my friends, my grandparents, my school, my street, even my little bed. I was bewildered.
“You cannot tell any of your friends that you are leaving, not even Anda. But, don’t worry; you can come back anytime.” Of course, I believed her. I was only 9 years old. To ease my distress, my mother showed me a new gray wool coat trimmed with a fur collar and gray boots with a matching lining. My eyes widened at this rare gift. “I prepared these especially for you,” she said, as I examined the strange new clothes.
“What about Mamaia?”
“Mamaia will come later.” I believed her.
No one explained why we had to leave Israel, nor exactly where Canada was. A fourth grader, I had no concept of a world greater than Israel and her neighbors. I thought it would be just a bus ride back from Canada, just like the bus ride we took visiting relatives in Tsvat Israel’s northern mountains.
Nor did I understand why I had to keep it a secret, but I was young enough not to question and old enough to obey. I sensed that we were in some kind of trouble. Something was very wrong.
Only a few days after my mother told me we were leaving, long after I had fallen asleep, I was awakened for our journey. My mother’s cousin Chaim, Shelley’s brother, came to transport us to the airport in the ubiquitous Volkswagen beetle taxi.
In the dark, I climbed out of the taxi onto the tarmac, up a ladder, and boarded a plane. It was like a scene out of Casablanca—dead of night, a warm wind howling, engines roaring, gasoline smell polluting the air, quickly being shepherded onto the plane as I clutched a new sweater from Mamaia. I never got to say goodbye to either my cousins or my friends. For years, I felt the clandestine departure with a heavy heart.
We expected to fly directly to Montreal, but an early snowstorm required a stop in Labrador, Newfoundland. It was a gray wasteland with nothing to see. I had always had a problem with motion sickness, which had been unexpectedly exacerbated by my first experience with beef aboard the airplane. Or, maybe it was fear of the unknown that had unsettled me. Another takeoff and landing only made me sick a second time during that trip.
Montreal, in Quebec Province, Canada, is an island in the St. Lawrence River first discovered by French explorer Jacques Cartier, seeking a northwest route to Asia in 1535. The French influence persists although the English conquered the City in 1760, resulting in tremendous industry, growth and wealth by and for the English. When we arrived in 1959, French-speaking Quebecois were an oppressed minority for whom the Separatist Movement had yet to gain prominence. We knew little of this conflict when we arrived. What we knew was that there was a large Jewish community and a Canadian population that welcomed its immigrants.
In Montreal’s Dorval airport, we landed on top of a thin layer of snow, the first of the winter and the first I’d ever seen. My mother was giddy when she saw the snow which reminded her of Romania. “Aren’t the snowflakes soft and wet? Stick out you tongue,” she told me as she demonstrated. “See how they float down onto your hair and face?” I did not know what to make of the cold white specks of water on my skin and tongue. We’d left behind a warm howling wind and faced a very cold one instead.
We were greeted by friendly immigration officials who smiled and seemed genuinely happy to see us. Late that night, after we made our way through immigration and customs, where I did not understand a single word, I immediately recognized my father’s sister, Aunt Lily, who came to meet us. Lily and Sandu looked so much alike—dark skin, dark curly hair, widow’s peak, dark brown eyes and the same shy smile—it was uncanny. Lily was shy, even more shy than my father, and she tilted her head down a little toward her chest as she greeted us. She was very tall and bent down to grab my arms to hold me at arms-length so she could look me over before kissing me. Her skin felt so rough on my face, unlike my mother’s soft cheek.
They drove us to the apartment they shared with their daughter, Anna, on Linton Street in a relatively new neighborhood. The streets were divided by a grassy median planted with young trees and lined with neatly laid out, small lawns alongside the sidewalks. Many such neighborhoods sprang up in the 1950s, and look much the same today although the tr
ees now tower over the medians.
The neatly furnished apartment was on the third floor of a walk up, with multiple bedrooms and a balcony overlooking the street. I was not surprised to find that Lily shared my mother’s compulsion for cleanliness. My parents and I shared a room with a Singer sewing machine with a manual pedal just like the one on which Mamaia had sewn my yearly Purim costumes. “Who would sew the next one?” I asked myself.
Lily had met her husband Julius (nicknamed Lulu) in Romania when he was on his way back to his native Austria from Russia, where he had ended up after a forced march as prisoner of the Nazis. They’d last seen Sandu and Netty when they came to visit in Galati during the War. My mother told me, “I gave Lily a negligee as a wedding gift. It was a used one that Mamaia and I altered for her. There was nothing else in wartime.” Lily and Lulu left Galati for Austria, where they were imprisoned in a labor camp. After the fall of the Nazi regime, they spent some time in an Austrian displaced-persons camp before immigrating to Montreal in 1951, about the same time we were making our way to Israel.
Over the years, Lily and my father’s correspondence had been rare since my father did not know how to read or write. Though there was a palpable closeness between them, having grown up separately, Sandu and Lily did not know how to relate to each other. After a fifteen-year separation, they barely looked at each other. They avoided direct eye contact and they hardly spoke. They were both not only extremely shy, but also socially awkward in general not to mention a bit paranoid.