Remember Us

by Vic Shayne

  So, once in a while, strangers left as strangers.

  As the years passed, however, our meetings with strangers became far more profound experiences, with their fate resting in the hands of my grandfather. This brings us back to Zayde’s business, officially and unofficially, concerning a special category of visitors who traveled a hundred miles or more to find him. They usually came in the middle of the night, just before dawn or right after sunset, sometimes alone and sometimes with their entire family, but it seems like it was always under the cover of darkness. Some were running away from the draft—forced conscription into military service. In those days, for a Jew to be called into the army could mean the end of his life or at least his freedom; many Jews never saw their families again. If a Jew had a family to support yet was called into service, his parents, brothers, and sisters would lose their sole means of support and be left destitute. Frequently, a father would be conscripted as a form of punishment, and young boys would be drafted and never heard from again.

  There were some Jews who came to see Zayde because they had been accused of crimes they did not commit. This was not all that uncommon—an anti-Semitic Gentile would call the authorities on a Jewish merchant or landowner. If the merchant couldn’t prove his innocence, his accuser could make a handsome profit in the deal. Punishment for crimes, whether one was guilty or not, was more harsh for Jews.

  And then there were those who just wanted to flee Eastern Europe for political or personal reasons. Maybe they had relatives who were waiting for them in America or perhaps they foresaw the future of the Jews in Poland. By the 1930s, the political scene seemed to have changed overnight. Those who were once loyal to a king or czar became criminals when the communists took over their region. A few years later, law-abiding Soviet citizens and bureaucrats were transformed into the enemies of new fascist governments. Jews to the west were feeling the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Austria. They were worried with good reason. Many decided that there was no time to wait—they had to get out even if it meant leaving most of their worldly possessions behind.

  The Jews could barely survive these winds of change, and there were thousands struggling to leave Europe. Sometimes people thought it would be harder to flee through western ports, so they headed east toward Russia. But how were they to get out? They needed someone they could trust—someone who knew the escape routes, what kinds of documents were needed, and how to avoid the pitfalls.

  To rely on a complete stranger, as Zayde was to them when they knocked on his door carrying their suitcases, was to put their lives in his hands. There were many times that I sat enjoying cake and milk in my grandparents’ kitchen when the knock came. My grandfather would get up from his reading, glance at Bubbie, then make his way to the front door. He never hesitated to open it wide as if the most pleasant surprise was just waiting on the other side of the threshold.

  Standing out in the cold on one occasion, I remember, was a family of four—a mother, father, and two little ones. The first thing that they saw was Zayde’s warm eyes, thick beard, and broad smile—a warm welcome after days of exhausting travel. Nervously, the father greeted Zayde with a forced smile. He exhaled with a strange, mixed sense of consolation and anxiety. A cloud of steam was coming out of his mouth and dancing in front of the dim light shining on him from inside the house. His wife stood a few feet behind him in the shadows of Zayde’s front porch. Her arms were around her children, her hands holding them tightly to her body.

  To their relief, Zayde invited them inside without the slightest hesitation, waving his arm as he said, “Come in, come in.” Zayde spoke in Yiddish to make them feel more secure. The man and his wife kissed their own fingers then touched the mezuzah on the jamb as they passed through the front door and stepped into the living room. The children were silent as the snow, standing there with glowing red cheeks and wide eyes surveying all they could see in front of them in this, another in a series of unfamiliar surroundings. Speckles of snowflakes immediately began to melt off their shoulders as the man took off his hat and the woman rubbed her hands together, eyeing Bubbie and me straining to look at them from our seats in the kitchen. My grandfather put his arm around the man, the way you do when you see a dear old friend, and, as if on cue, Bubbie started rummaging through her cupboards, preparing something for the family to eat.

  After brief introductions, the man, almost stuttering in his nervousness, said to Zayde, “We were told you can help us.” The man was proud and did not want to ask for favors, but what else could he do? This is why he came. He reached into his vest pocket for his billfold, but Zayde smiled and shook his head no. He wouldn’t accept any money. The man glanced at his wife and shrugged. She had nowhere to look so she cast her eyes down toward the floor. The ice from their shoes crept down to form puddles at their feet.

  By this time, I was standing behind Zayde who introduced me to the visitors before he led the man into his study. Their voices faded into a low rumble as Bubbie invited the woman and her children to sit at the kitchen table. I walked back into the kitchen and stood near the stove. I could tell by their accents that these people were not from around our area. Maybe they were from Lithuania or somewhere else up north. This meant they had traveled a very long way to find my grandfather. Several wagon rides, a train trip, and walks over long distances brought them to Zayde’s door. They were tired, hungry, and a bit anxiety-ridden. They had left their family, their home, and their shtetl without looking back. When you arrive in an area—any unfamiliar town—in the dark, you have little idea of where you are. It’s like being dropped in the middle of the desert: everything is strange and foreboding. You don’t know if any area is safe. Zayde’s visitors were disoriented. Their eyes, now visible in the light of the kitchen, were sunken with dark rings under them. Their lips were dry and the woman’s hands were a bit shaky. Bubbie put her hand on the woman’s shoulder and said, “What can I get you?” The woman wanted to be polite, but she was too hungry. She didn’t answer, but Bubbie set out a couple of plates with kugel and leftovers from dinner. Bubbie prompted the children, “Go ahead and eat as much as you want.” The mother eked out a “Thank you.” She was almost in tears at the hospitality. “You don’t worry,” Bubbie said, “everything will be all right—you’ll see.”

  What brought these people to Maitchet? Where were they going? My grandfather had heard their story over and over again. Things were bad in Eastern Europe. There was no future for Jews; anti-Semitism was too much to bear. There were pogroms and intolerable conditions. The only hope for a better tomorrow was to leave their part of the world. Over the years, some of the people who came to Zayde were on their way to Palestine. But this man and his wife had decided that they wanted to go to America. The problem was that they needed to travel across Europe, through a half dozen countries to reach a harbor and board a ship headed across the Atlantic. To accomplish this great feat, they needed the proper paperwork—passports and visas—to pass from one checkpoint to another. Without the right documents, Jews were regarded as escaped criminals. This, at last, is why they came to Zayde’s house. These people were refugees. Like others who had set foot in my grandparents’ living room in the cover of night, the woman at Bubbie’s table, now watching her children eat their first meal in days, told us that she and her husband had to sell or give away all that they owned—their furniture, their books, their clothes, their property, and their business.

  “Twenty-five years of our life we had to get rid of in a matter of a month,” she said. “We left some things with our neighbors to send to us. I don’t think we’ll ever see them again.”

  In their suitcases the family carried a couple dozen photographs and only the bare essentials to make their way across Europe. They said good-bye to all their relatives, no longer had an income, and were on their way to places that were foreign in every respect, from language to customs.

  I walked to the doorway of Zayde’s office. Inside, the man took a seat
across from my grandfather, in front of his desk. I stood in the hallway and kept quiet. As Zayde began to open his desk drawers, the man put his attention on the desktop with its deluge of papers—official documents, notes, and pending business. The man by now understood that my grandfather didn’t need to be asked for a favor. He knew what to do; he knew what this family needed. Zayde was there to do a mitzvah by helping a fellow human being make a new life for himself.

  “Relax,” Zayde said to the man. “Everything will turn out all right. You’ll see.” The man opened the buttons of his overcoat and folded his hands on his belly. Zayde waved for me to come into his office.

  “Motel Leib,” he said, “go and get me four passports.”

  I had already done this several times before, so I didn’t need to be told where to find them. I grabbed a lantern then went into the hallway and pulled down the ladder leading through the ceiling into the attic. The musty smell filled my nostrils and the frigid air gripped me unexpectedly. It was dark but I knew my way around. I stooped over to protect my head from the rafters and took careful steps over wooden crossbeams, feeling my way through the blackness, holding a small kerosene lamp that wasn’t especially helpful.

  After a minute or so, I came to a large wooden crate filled with official transit papers. In the semi-darkness I counted out four of them. While my grandfather was giving the man careful instructions on how to present paperwork to crossing guards at checkpoints, which trains to catch, and the best route to take, I climbed down from the attic and put away the ladder. Then I returned to Zayde’s study and handed him the papers. He patted me on the back, reached into his pocket, and handed me a couple of coins that were to burn a hole in my pocket until the next morning. Zayde winked at the man; he got a kick out of tipping his grandson.

  Zayde took out his pen, a couple of stamps, some glue, a pair of scissors, and a tweezers, and within an hour he had fashioned new documents bearing names, dates of birth, country of origin, and so forth. He placed his mayoral seal on all the documents. Now it was official. The family was now equipped with travel passes, and in the morning they could be on their way west until eventually they arrived in Germany—maybe Bremen or Hamburg—where they’d take an ocean liner to America, most likely traveling in the steerage or cargo part of the ship.

  Zayde was sure to tell the man he had relatives in America. “My wife’s sister,” he said, “lives in New York . . . It’s a wonderful place; you’re doing a wonderful thing,” he assured the man. “You and your wife will be happy there.” Then Zayde insisted the family stay the night, which is a good thing because the children had already fallen asleep in the kitchen as their mother filled Bubbie in with all the news about their shtetl. Since Bubbie was one of the easiest people to talk to, the woman laid all her fears on the table of traveling into the unknown. Bubbie listened and nodded as she made beds for the family and made sure they would be comfortable for the night. Before sunrise Bubbie would make them all breakfast and pack them extra food for their journey. The man would insist on paying something for all the help, but Zayde’s would be the same answer every time: “You do a mitzvah for somebody else and I will be paid.”

  It was already quite late, so I said good night to my grandparents and took a look at the strangers for the last time as I quietly closed the door behind me. I walked down the block to my house with my hand in my pocket, jiggling the change Zayde gave me for “working” for him.

  I didn’t realize it then, but this family, like the others who were to come and go over the years, was lucky; they were leaving a couple of years before the Holocaust, before the total destruction of all the Jews in our part of the world. My grandfather saved hundreds of people this way, providing just the right documents to get them safely across Europe, through a maze of border crossings, police barriers, and checkpoints. Like a true savior—a personal Moshiach—Zayde never took a penny for helping these people. In fact, on more than one occasion he sent them on their way with some extra cash in their pockets.

  “Money is not something you hold onto,” Zayde told me more than once. I agreed wholeheartedly, and I knew just where to get rid of it. The next morning I bolted out the door and onto the street, rolling my fingers over the coins Zayde gave me, making them jangle in my pocket. I ran all the way to the seltzer store downtown, knowing full well what I was going to do with my change.

  The store was really a combination factory and storefront owned by the Wolinsky family. It sat on the market square in sight of my grandparents’ house. In the back the seltzer was made and the bottles were filled; in the front a counter and a small array of consumables were for sale. When I set foot in the door, I had only one thing on my mind. I was greeted by the owner’s daughter, Miriam Wolinsky, who oversaw the little factory as her three brothers worked in the back filling bottles, turning water into a bubbly drink guaranteed to make you greps. I can still hear the sound of clanging and clinking bottles—like musical notes.

  Miriam was one step ahead of me. “What do you want?” she asked. But before I could answer her, she teased me and said, “Your grandpa gave you some money, didn’t he?”

  I put my change down on the counter and Miriam handed me a great big chunk of dark chocolate wrapped in brown paper and tied the package tightly with string. Just to drive me crazy, she slowly tied a bow before handing it over. Even as I think of this today, my mouth waters like it did then, so much that I don’t even know whether I said good-bye to her before heading out the door. A minute later I was running back down the road holding the chocolate in one hand and half a loaf of bread in the other. I was in heaven. It was cold but the sun was shining and crystals of ice were glimmering on the rooftops. I ran all the way home with a little gift for my little sisters—for each a piece of chocolate that I cut with my knife. I can still see their eyes lighting up, and before you knew it they were wearing a wide ring of chocolate around their mouths. We made an entire meal out of chocolate and bread and milk. Simple pleasures. I’ll never forget the novelty of eating chocolate in Maitchet.

  Our World Started to Change

  By September 1939, somehow Europe had grown smaller. Germany and Hitler were no longer a world away. The political climate in Germany spread like a fire. Stalin had made a deal with Hitler to take over Poland and divide it between the Soviet Union and Germany. This was the very first stage of the war that was to end my life. The Holocaust began to sprout from seeds planted generations ago.

  Immediately, people began running away from the German advances through Eastern Europe and western Poland. Hundreds of thousands of people were pushing to the east, trying to escape with their lives from places like Poznan, Lodz, and other towns. Most didn’t even know where they were going. People were traveling on foot, some by wagons, and others on bicycles and in trucks. Trains were overflowing with frightened travelers and their suitcases. They only had what they could carry and soon the roads were flooded with refugees. Some who managed to get away were lucky, because in another couple of years their hometowns became the sites of mass murder and deportation centers to the concentration camps. Most who ran away from their homes in 1939 were eventually trapped in newly-occupied German towns and sent to their deaths. Germans, and those of German descent, were suddenly granted the right to take over Jewish shops, businesses, and homes so that Hitler could Germanify as much of Eastern Europe as possible. If you were German, you got a promotion—a right to own something that was not your right to own. Jews were forced to leave everything behind and take to the road.

  Years later, when we heard how Germans were shooting people to make Europe Judenrein (free of Jews),we found such reports difficult to believe.

  Still, we were close to the Russian territory, and the rumors remained, to us, outlandish. Life, business, and entertainment went on as usual in Maitchet. Hitler’s rhetoric on politics, as well as the brewing war to the west, remained vague and surreal. Pogroms were nothing new to us, but how could you believe that there was a plan to get rid of all the Jew
s in Europe? For the most part the Jews in my town wondered what Germany’s politics had to do with our daily lives of working, swimming in the Molczadaka, or going to shul to learn Talmud. “They’re just rumors,” some people would say. “Why should we worry about Germany?” Others said, “There have been wars before. Somehow we’ll get through this one.”

  Those who came running through Maitchet with their scared expressions and woeful stories were seen, by most, to be exaggerating. It will all pass, we thought.

  Without great fanfare or notice, we were soon to be at war. Germany attacked Poland in 1939. At the same time, according to Stalin’s pact with Hitler, the Soviet Union took over eastern Poland, where we lived, including Belarus and western Ukraine. When this happened, there was officially no more Poland. It was now in two parts—German and Russian districts. The Polish army was defeated almost overnight and for a short time we were Russians again.

  For the most part, on a personal level, 1939 was uneventful except for one incident I recall. By the time the Russians took over Maitchet, we had our own railroad and I got the assignment to work for our local stretch of tracks. Having an artistic talent, I found myself making signs along the railroad—stop, go, directionals, warnings. I had good handwriting and was good with a paintbrush. Another guy from my town, a Pole a year or two younger than I, was my assistant. We would cut a piece of wood, then carefully paint letters on the signs in both Russian and Polish, then attach them to long wooden stakes, erecting them in well-placed areas alongside the tracks. At night my colleague and I worked the late shift by setting out across the tracks with kerosene lamps. Our assignment was to carefully and continually inspect our section of track to make sure there were no problems. We looked for loose spikes, missing track, rotten boards, and obstructions—anything that might jeopardize the trains, passengers, and cargo passing through and around Maitchet. It was our job to keep our one section safe.