We watched her go. As soon as she closed the door behind her, I turned on the radio. It was tuned to my grandmother’s favorite classical station, and the soothing sound of Rachmaninoff soon filled the apartment. Michael walked over to the console table where the photographs were displayed. “These are great,” he said. He picked up one of me at sixteen, standing in front of glowing birthday candles. “Wow. You look exactly the same.”
“Man, I hope not,” I said.
“Please, you should have seen me at that age,” he said. “Welcome to Nerdville. Population: Me.”
I laughed. I realized it felt familiar to laugh in that apartment, even though Omi wasn’t there to laugh with me. “I better go find something for her to wear.”
“Want some help?”
“I’m okay on my own,” I told him. “But I’ll call you if I need you.”
“Sure,” he said. “I want to look at these pictures.”
I went into the bedroom. It was a little less tidy than the last time I had seen it. There were clothes strewn across the rocking chair, and a pair of shoes lay by the closet door, as if they had been kicked off just a few hours before.
All the familiar objects were just as I remembered them – the photograph of my grandfather on her bureau, the perfume bottles on her dresser, a double photo frame containing pictures of me and my mother on our first day of school, taken more than twenty years apart.
My grandfather’s old roll-top desk stood open, still in the same place, right underneath the window, across from the bed.
I didn’t notice the typewriter at first. Then I walked over and examined it. It was an old Royal, one that I hadn’t remembered seeing before. It looked fairly old, like it was probably from the 1950s or 60s. The heavy black case was open on the floor next to the desk. An ancient package of Eaton typing paper was inside. The once-vibrant orange cardboard box had faded to a pale peach in the sunlight.
There was paper in the typewriter, and some pages, face down, on the desk next to the machine. I picked them up and peered at the lettering, and suddenly realized that the ink pattern looked familiar.
Miss Jill Levin
Senior Curator
Museum of Jewish Heritage
36 Battery Place
New York, New York 10004
Dear Jill:
I hope that you were not too distressed by the last letter I sent to you. I am sure that it made you feel sad, and angry, and maybe even helpless. But it is time that you knew the truth. It is time that you knew my story, and the story of our family.
Now you know that your mother had two half sisters, and that I had two other little girls, who never had a chance to grow up, or grow old the way I have, and the way, G-d willing, that you and your mother will.
Now you know whom you are named after. I am the person who begged your mother to give you the Hebrew name Chava. She asked me why at the time, but I wouldn’t tell her the answer. I just told her that I liked the name. Nor did I ever tell her that her own Hebrew name, Malka, is in memory of her sister Minna.
Perhaps I am guilty of not telling the truth to you and your mother. Perhaps I am guilty of silence. I never could understand the survivors who so willingly shared their stories, who are comfortable with their memories. Perhaps I am guilty of believing these numbers on my arm would tell you everything you needed to know. Then again, not every survivor is guilty of murder.
For that is what it is. Call it what you wish. Call it a mercy killing, justify it to yourself as I have justified it to myself for all of these years.
I tell myself over and over that I did this to spare my baby an unspeakable fate. Always I remembered the mother and baby murdered just before Chava was born. But I still ask myself, and I ask G-d, if what I did was right? And if I had not done these terrible things, would you or your mother have even been born?
I know now I was right to tell you about everything I lost, and everything I endured. Because I realize you have kept the secret of your boyfriend from me, and you did so because you are afraid that I will disapprove of him because he isn’t Jewish.
And though it breaks my heart, knowing that I will hurt you by saying so, I cannot deny it. I do not approve. I cannot approve. Because I did not survive all of these long years, with my memories of all those whom I lost, and knowing the terrible suffering of my parents, my husband Aron, my innocent children – so that you could throw away our traditions as if their lives – our lives – meant nothing.
It grieves me, my darling, to know that because you have chosen this man, you will be the broken link in a chain that goes back hundreds of years. This is why I have chosen to give you this book, which I rescued after the war from that terrible place in the middle of the field.
As you probably have read by now, all of the firstborn daughters who inherit this book are commanded to give it to their firstborn daughter on their wedding day. Since Chava’s time, it has been passed down in an unbroken chain - l’dor va dor — from generation to generation.
This is what my mother told me, on the day I was married to Aron. And if Minna had lived, it would have come to her on her wedding day. It could not go to your mother because she was not the firstborn, even though she does not know about her sisters. But to pass it on to your mother would have dishonored Minna’s memory. Instead I kept it for all of these many years, waiting to pass it on to you.
After the war ended, I did not think I would ever find the strength to return to the place where I buried the book. I did not want to go back there. I was scared that if I dug in the wrong place, if I failed to remember the exact spot where I hid the book, I would instead find the bodies of those I heard murdered that day.
But because I lived, I knew the book had to live on through me. If I had died, the tradition would have died as well. But because I was still alive, it meant there would still be a chance for our traditions to continue.
On the day it was given to me, I could not read anything except for Chava’s words at the very beginning of the book, since I only could only read German and Hebrew. And after I came to America, and learned to read in English, I could never bring myself to look at it. Whenever I saw it, in its box on a shelf at the very back of my closet, I could only think of the day I buried it, of what I heard, and the fear I felt, sure that my Aron was among the prisoners, and that I, too, was going to be captured and killed.
My mother and grandmother told me the story of the first Chava, who was given the book by her father, the rabbi Daniel de Guedalia, on her wedding day. It was said that Daniel was a great teacher and scholar of Talmud. When Chava’s mother was dying, she asked Daniel to teach the Law to their daughter, just as her father had taught her. And Chava, in turn, grew up to be a great teacher, one whose knowledge was so very respected that it did not matter she was a woman. When she was a young girl, she taught the littlest boys in the yeshiva from behind a curtain. And after she married and had children, she taught the Law to her daughters as well as her sons.
My mother told me how my great-grandmother was the first to save the book from being destroyed. Her husband was the rabbi – like Chava’s father–of the Rema synagogue in Poland. As the rabbi, he kept the book in the synagogue as it was thought to be a safe place, where all of the holiest texts were kept. There were terrible pogroms in my great-grandfather’s time, and during one of them, the synagogue was burned. Legend says that the rebbetzin, my great-grandmother, rescued Chava’s book at the same time that my great-grandfather, the rabbi, rescued the Torah scrolls. The synagogue itself was saved, but my great-grandmother believed that it was too dangerous to keep Chava’s book there. And she was right; the synagogue was destroyed by the Nazis less than 100 years later.
The book became part of our family library. It passed from my grandmother to my mother, and when they left Poland it came with them to Germany. And then, on the day I married Aron, it came to me.
You come from a long line of strong and faithful people who have kept faith with their traditions no matte
r the cost. As Chava wrote, our generations of scholars upheld the Law as it was taught to them. We have kept faith with our traditions as we have been commanded.
Like all of the firstborn daughters of our family, I have been commanded to pass this book to you on your wedding day. But the truth is that I do not know if I will live long enough to see that day. Nor do I believe anymore that I want to live long enough to see you married.
You, Jill, will be the broken link in this golden chain. Why you are choosing to break this chain I do not know. Perhaps it is because of what I endured and what we lost. Perhaps you are afraid that there will be another war, and another time when we will be taken away and murdered because we are Jewish.
But Jill, even if you marry this man – even if you think that your safety is guaranteed because you change your name, and change your faith, and you and your children and grandchildren are changed and changed again, it will not matter. There will always be those who hate us, those who want to destroy us, those who believe we do not have the right to exist.
And if they do not come for you in your time, they will come for your children or your children’s children. And they will know of the Jewishness that runs in their veins. It is a fact of your blood that you will carry always, no matter what your name or your faith might be.
I only hope that once you read this manuscript – and the story of Chava’s mother and father, which I was never able to read, that you will understand who you are and where you come from.
I placed the papers back on the desk, exactly the way I had found them. Then I looked at the typewriter, where the last sheet of paper was still in place, as if unfinished. I carefully released the ancient mechanism and took the paper out of the typewriter. I held it in both hands as I read it.
When you were here a few days ago, you may have thought I was surprised to hear about your boyfriend, but I was not. Somehow I knew in my heart that you were closing yourself off from our traditions, even though you work in a place that tries so hard to preserve them. But working in the museum is not enough. You must preserve our traditions through your family, and through the life you live, not only through the work that you do.
And it occurred to me that if you decided to marry this man, and forsake our family’s traditions, it would be as if Hitler was still alive, and still destroying us.
I wanted you to have the manuscript but I did not know of any other way to give it to you. I could not find it in my heart to sit down with you, face to face, or as we used to say in my parents’ time – panim al panim – and tell you what was in my heart. I love you and I want you to understand me, I want you to know that you – and our traditions – mean more to me than you can ever know. I think about my parents, my husband, my children – all of whom died for our faith. For so many years, I could not say their names out loud. I did not want you to have a greater burden of the past than the one you already carry.
But there is no choice now; you must carry it, because I am growing old, and soon I will no longer be here to carry it for you.
I sent these letters to you, Jill, because it was the only way that I could tell you my story. I’m sorry you are angry with me. But perhaps now that I have broken my silence, you will understand why you must reconsider. You must end this relationship and cut all ties with this young man.
You are the hope for our family’s future. And now that you know what is at stake, I know you will not allow yourself to break the chain of our family’s traditions. Remember what we have endured and who we are, my Jill, my Chava, and I know that you will understand.
I put the paper down on the desk with the others. Then I sat on the bed. My head was pounding, and my face felt hot.
I heard footsteps from the other room and suddenly felt confused. It was as if she were still there, I thought. I could still smell her perfume; I could still hear the comforting and familiar sounds from her living room.
But I couldn’t reconcile the woman who had lived here with the one who had written the letters. I could not think of her as the mysterious stranger who survived the horrors of Dachau, who watched as her sister suffocated a newborn child to save them both from being murdered by the Nazis, who sent me the manuscript without ever having read the story inside.
I sat on my grandmother’s bed, unaware that I was gripping the paper in my hand. After another moment I looked up and saw Michael at the doorway.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“It was her,” I said, my voice shaking. “It was her. She sent the letters.”
“What letters?” Michael asked, mystified.
“The letters. The manuscript. Daniel and Margaret.” I continued to stare at the sheet of paper. “It was from her. Everything came from her.”
Michael swiftly came over and put his arm around me. My hands were trembling.
“Let me see the letter,” he said.
I shook my head. “No, Michael. Please.”
I gripped the paper more tightly in my hand.
“Jill,” he said quietly. “Don’t do this.”
He gently extracted the paper from my clenched fingers, and I watched his face as he read it, waiting in the silence for his reaction.
“My God,” he said softly. “Reconsider. Cut all ties. Remember who you are.”
I could feel the tears starting to come. Before I knew what I was doing I was really crying, coughing, sobbing, almost unable to breathe. And just when I needed him to hold me and tell me that everything would be okay, he instead took his arm from around my shoulders. I could feel his body withdrawing from mine. I could feel him watching me as I cried.
Finally, he spoke. “So? Is this where it ends? With my love for you being compared to what Hitler did?”
I shook my head. “I can’t talk about this right now,” I sobbed. “I need time to think. We need time to talk about this.”
“Is there really anything left to talk about?” he asked quietly. “This says everything she felt. And you know what you have to do.” I could hear the bitterness in his voice. “How can you possibly deny her last request?”
“I need to get out of here,” I said, feeling all at once the sense of darkness and claustrophobia that I had always felt here. “I need some air.”
He stepped aside as if allowing me to walk out without him. “Where are you going?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Can we just talk later?”
He nodded sadly. “We’ll have to talk later,” he said. “If nothing else.”
Minutes later I found myself on the 9 train, heading downtown. I stared, unseeing, at the other side of the subway car. Every once in a while I felt more tears stream from my eyes and roll down my cheeks, but I didn’t try to wipe them away. I could sense people staring at me, but I didn’t care. I certainly wasn’t the first person to weep on a New York City subway, and I wouldn’t be the last.
I finally heard the conductor announce the last stop, Battery Park. The train pulled into the station and I could hear the high shriek of the brakes as they ground to a halt. I stood and walked out of the nearly empty car and up the stairs.
Outside, it was cold and sunny, and a little breeze blew in from the harbor. Without thinking, almost automatically, I walked toward the museum.
I pushed the glass door open and the security guard waved me in with a grin.
“Running late today, Jill?” he asked jovially.
I muttered something unintelligible and dug around in my bag for my ID badge.
“No need,” he said. “Come on through.”
I walked through the security gate and found myself in the lobby. The afternoon sunlight shone through the wide windows, turning the peach-colored stone walls a rosy pink. Visitors’ voices echoed and hummed throughout the room. All around me there were crowds of people – schoolchildren and teachers, teenagers from both public schools and yeshivas who eyed each other with curiosity, groups of visitors led by docents and uniformed guards, standing silent and attentive, surveying the scen
e.
I didn’t see anyone from my department, and realized that they were probably all upstairs working on the Berlin exhibition plans in the third floor conference room.
For a moment I debated going upstairs and putting in an appearance, but I didn’t feel like I was up to hearing my colleagues’ well-meaning condolences. Instead, I ducked into the long, dark hallway which would take me into what we always referred to as the core building – the heart of the museum itself – the three floors which taught our visitors about the Holocaust from the perspective of those who had lived through it.
I entered the space, thinking about how long it was since I made this journey through the exhibition as a civilian; I had first visited the museum just before my interview with Larry, more than seven years ago. I thought about how moved and inspired I felt after touring the galleries, and how I had known that this was where I wanted to work.
Now, after so many years as a curator, I now only spent time in the core building during rotation or maintenance. I had trained myself only to think about things like the temperature in the galleries, and the duration of time that certain artifacts spent under the lights. And on the occasions I passed through these galleries on my way to meetings or events, I found myself checking for fingerprints on the glass cases, or exhibition labels coming loose from the walls. I had come to see it all as a work project. It had been years, I realized, since I had actually paid attention to the story being told by these objects.
At the first gallery, my fingers brushed over the rough gray textured walls of Jerusalem stone at the entrance. I looked up to see the word engraved above me – Zachor –Remember.
I thought about my grandmother, about the numbers tattooed on her arm, about the letter she had left behind. And I knew I couldn’t bear to remember just now, not yet.
Walking through the first floor, I looked one by one at the display cases of objects representing Jewish life more than a century ago. I paused by those containing hand-sewn wedding gowns, and ancient, yellowing bris and bar mitzvah and wedding announcements. Another case held two beautifully-illustrated family trees that ended abruptly in the late 1930s. The artists who had drawn them did so having no idea how soon they were to be uprooted.
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