I Shall Live

by Henry Orenstein

  I spent many sleepless nights fearful of the approaching 1936 summer fair in Hrubieszów. Visions of rampaging mobs armed with clubs and knives breaking down our doors and physically attacking us haunted my dreams.

  Father reinforced all our doors with heavy metal bars, but we knew this wouldn’t be enough to save us in the event of a full-fledged pogrom. Sam, who at that time had already graduated from law school, went with Father to the police and the mayor’s office to ask them for protection during the fair, but all they got was a shrug and the excuse that what few policemen there were would be unable to cope with a large mob.

  The day of the fair came at last, and although there were a number of broken windows and some minor attacks on Jews, there was nothing like a pogrom or even the serious threat of one. We all sighed with relief, and life returned to normal—for the time being.

  Since starting school, I was spending more time with a few of my friends. Among them were Józiek Peretz, my second cousin on Mother’s side of the family, and Chaim Ajzen. Józiek had a beautiful voice, and as we strolled the quiet streets of Hrubieszów after supper he would lead us in the latest hits, like “Bolero” and “Caravan.”

  There were other pleasant memories as well from that apprehensive time. Our tenant on the third floor was a Mr. Zelpowicz, who used four or five of his small rooms as a hotel. Every few months touring performers stopped off in Hrubieszów for a one-night stand and would stay overnight at his place. Our apartment had an elegantly furnished salon, with a large chandelier and a grand piano, and Mother often invited the performers to come there after the show for drinks and a buffet supper. There wasn’t much to do in Hrubieszów, and most of them were happy to accept Mother’s invitation, so we got to meet some of the best-known dancers, actors, singers, and comedians of the day. I remember in particular Dzigan and Shumacher, the most famous Jewish comedy team in Poland. I laughed so hard I needed a handkerchief to wipe away the tears.

  When Josephine Baker, the American entertainer, came to town she almost caused a riot. She was the first black person ever to visit Hrubieszów, and crowds of children, including a number of adults, followed her through the streets, many trying to touch her to see for themselves that the black of her skin wouldn’t rub off. She spent an hour or so in our salon, but unfortunately none of us spoke English. When she switched to French, I managed to exchange a few pleasantries with her.

  Another sensation was the first automobile in town, bought by our mayor. At first kids would run after it, but eventually the novelty wore off. And after that, the streets never seemed safe again.

  Naturally we went to see every movie that came to Hrubieszów. Westerns were my favorites, but I was also secretly in love with Deanna Durbin. I saw A Hundred Men and a Girl, starring Deanna, the conductor Leopold Stokowski, and Adolph Menjou, three times, and that must have been the Hrubieszów record. I had erotic dreams about Deanna, and whenever I heard her beautiful voice my heart would melt. Shirley Temple was adorable too, and everyone was crazy about her. Movies were a great pleasure, except that whenever the newsreels preceding the feature film included items about Jews, they were inevitably accompanied by derisive catcalls and laughter. Our lives were not immediately affected by such things—we had grown used to them by then—but deep down there was an inescapable awareness that our situation was getting worse. It was with great foreboding that we looked toward the future.

  Only the better-educated or well-to-do Jews, however, were preoccupied with these matters; poor Jews were so caught up in the daily struggle for survival that the dangers of anti-Semitism and the deteriorating situation for Polish Jewry generally were to them of only remote interest. But young Jews were becoming more politically active and were more acutely conscious of what was happening. They organized for political action. The most popular groups were the Betar, on the right, under the leadership of Żabotynski, and the labor-oriented Hapoel, on the left. Each had a small headquarters, where its members gathered occasionally to discuss the events of the day and to play ping-pong.

  The goal of both groups was the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, but although each year one or two young people managed to emigrate to Palestine to join the kibbutzim, for the great majority it was only a dream. As far as the older generation was concerned, the traditional greeting “Next year in Jerusalem” was just a greeting and not even a dream. Their roots were in Poland and they knew that, for better or worse, their remaining years were going to be spent there. A few families with relatives in America had emigrated before World War I, when it was relatively easy, but by the 1930s the immigration quotas had been drastically cut, the cost of travel in any case was beyond the reach of most, and for all practical purposes America was no longer a real alternative.

  At the time I didn’t get involved in any of this, and only went to the Hapoel or Betar to play ping-pong.

  September came, and I began my freshman year at the gymnasium. I was very excited about putting on my new blue uniform with gold buttons and matching hat, and I marched off to my first class. Most of the kids knew that I had received the highest score in the entrance exams, and the prestige that went with that helped to compensate for the indignities I had to suffer as a Jew. My lessons with Mr. Hubel had proved useful, and except for physical education I got straight A’s in every subject. I especially loved Latin, and soon was able to read and even converse in Latin with my teacher. That first year I studied hard and continued to read a great deal.

  A few months after the term started, Bienkiewicz, the Polish landowner’s son, began making trouble. Since I was not as strong and athletic as the average boy my age, Bienkiewicz used to pick on me to bully. During recess he would push me into a corner and press me against the wall with his back, hit my ribs with his elbows, and make fun of me. He was taller than I, so I was afraid to fight him, especially since I suspected the other Polish kids would gang up on me if I did. I was too embarrassed to tell the teachers or my parents about it, and so I suffered in silence. Since I offered no resistance, Bienkiewicz was soon bullying me as a matter of routine, and scarcely gave me a moment’s peace. It got so bad I dreaded going to school in the morning. Mother sensed that something was wrong, but I was ashamed to tell her about it.

  This went on for some weeks, and I grew desperate. Chaim Ajzen urged me to fight Bienkiewicz even if it meant getting beaten up. I was afraid of that, but I was still more fearful of being expelled from the gymnasium. No matter what happened, the authorities would never blame Bienkiewicz because of his father’s position, and they might well be just as happy to have an excuse for getting rid of a Jew. However, Bienkiewicz’s tormenting got worse and worse, until at last one day when he cornered me yet again and wouldn’t let me go, I shouted, “Enough! I challenge you to a fight.”

  All the kids around us immediately picked it up and started chanting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” Such issues were usually settled after gym class in the game room, and we all crowded in there. My coach was Chaim Ajzen. He explained to me that Bienkiewicz was actually very clumsy, and that I should have no problem with him: “Just feint with your left and punch his face with your right.” I was scared before the fight, but once the kids had surrounded us and begun urging us on, I calmed down. I was determined now to pay Bienkiewicz back for all I’d suffered from him.

  I quickly discovered that Chaim was right: Bienkiewicz was ludicrously clumsy. Every time I feinted with my left he covered with both hands, and I punched him from the right at will. For the first few minutes all the Polish kids were on his side, egging him on with cries of “Hit the Jew in the gut,” “Punch him all the way to Jerusalem,” but Bienkiewicz was such a poor fighter that no amount of encouragement could help him. He could do nothing but cover himself, while I must have hit him forty or fifty times, receiving back from him just a few glancing blows.

  I was exhilarated. I punched him so many times my knuckles were hurting; I showed him no mercy. At last I was having my moment of revenge for all the weeks of hum
iliation, and it was sweet. Even the Polish kids were beginning to enjoy the show, which had become almost comical. When Bienkiewicz’s nose started to bleed badly, I decided he’d had enough. Chaim shook my hand, and even a few of the Poles came over and congratulated me. I was so happy I didn’t even notice when our gym teacher came in. The crowd immediately dispersed, and to his credit, Bienkiewicz, when the teacher asked about his bloody nose, made some excuse and didn’t complain about me. But he never spoke to me or even looked me in the eyes again during the remaining two and a half years we spent together in the same class.

  One day while I was standing outside our shop with a couple of my friends, a droshka drove up and stopped in front of it. A man in his early forties wearing a striped suit and shiny leather shoes stepped down and paid the driver. He was clearly a stranger in town, and asked me in broken Polish, “Is this the Orenstein building?” I told him it was, and he asked, “Is Mr. Orenstein here?” By chance Father was in the shop, and I told the man to wait and I would get him. When Father came out, he took one look at the man and shouted, “Moshe!”

  It was indeed my uncle Morris from America. He and Father had not seen each other for twenty-four years. In 1912 Morris, then sixteen, had committed an unpardonable sin. He was observed by several Jews holding hands with a shiksa in a little park behind the church in Łęczna, where his family lived. On Saturday the rabbi reported the shameful event to his congregation, and Jankel, Morris’s father, was so humiliated that he slapped the youthful offender in front of everyone.

  That night Morris took whatever money he could find in the house and ran away from home. He arrived in Hrubieszów and told my parents he wanted to go to America. Father hesitated to help him for fear of antagonizing Jankel, but Mother was on Morris’s side. To Morris this was a momentous event in his life, and when he was a very old man the details were still as vivid as ever: “Your mother, Golda, was so beautiful. She had the face of an angel. She told me, ‘Moshe, this country is not for you; you belong in America. Don’t be afraid. You have your two hands to work with; you won’t get lost in America.’” Mother helped him get the papers he needed to emigrate, and Morris was on his way to start a new life in the New World.

  He never saw his father again; Jankel died a few years after World War I. Morris wrote letters home for a couple of years, but after the outbreak of the war the family heard no more from him until his return in 1936. He had married Minnie, a girl from Poland whom he met in New York, and had two sons, Seymour and Danny, and a daughter, Annette. When he arrived back in Poland he first went to visit his mother and the rest of his family in Lublin, where they had moved after Jankel’s death. Always a practical joker, Morris put on a pair of sunglasses and pretended to be “Morris’s friend” from America. No one recognized him until he told them who he was; Father was the only one Morris couldn’t fool. His visit caused great excitement among us. I remember sitting on his lap and asking him all sorts of questions about America. He was surprised at how much I already knew about it from the books I had read, and he gave me his Waterman fountain pen as a reward.

  Soon after Morris left, Felek came back from France. Studying wasn’t as easy for him as it had been for Fred, so it was decided that he would help run the shop, learn the business, and eventually start one himself. At first Felek was unhappy working for Father, and I felt sorry for him. But after a while he fell in love with a girl from Galicia. There was talk of marriage, and Felek would go to visit her and her family. This brightened his mood considerably, and we were all happy for him.

  In the spring of 1937 my first year of gymnasium was drawing to a close. I continued to be the only straight-A student in my class. At the end of the school year a prize-giving ceremony was held, which was attended by all the students and their parents, with the director of the school awarding a prize (usually an inscribed book) to the best student in each class. When our turn came, to everyone’s surprise the director announced that the award committee had decided that no one in the freshman class had reached the required level of excellence, and that therefore no prize would be awarded.

  I sat in a state of shock, realizing that this was their way of preventing a Jew from getting the prize. To give it to another student would have been impossible, a travesty of justice; therefore, ours was the only class without a prize. My parents were saddened, but not surprised. Father said to me, “This is our fate, and we must deal with it as best we can.”

  This incident had a profound effect on me. It made me very bitter, and when the sophomore year began in the fall, I had lost all interest in my studies and didn’t bother to do any homework. This caused no difficulty at first, because by this time the teachers assumed that I knew all the answers and seldom checked up on me. I actually was ahead of the others anyway, so I could afford to coast for a while. I even stopped reading books, and instead played a lot of ping-pong, read the newspapers, and listened to the radio with great interest.

  Hitler was now the undisputed dictator of Germany. Many, if not most, Jews had begun to realize that this former “painter,” the butt of many jokes and initially not taken seriously by most Germans and other Europeans, was now becoming a serious threat to our very existence. Polish anti-Semites were encouraged more and more by the example of their powerful neighbor to the west, and talked openly of the necessity of finding a “solution” to the Jewish “problem,” which meant nothing less than finding a way to get rid of the Jews altogether. Signs reading “Jews to Palestine,” even “Jews to Madagascar,” appeared everywhere. Palestine was not a realistic possibility, because the British had no intention of letting any substantial number of Jews into their protectorate, but the Madagascar option was widely discussed. This former French island colony is located east of Africa, not far from the equator, and consists mostly of tropical jungle—a highly unsuitable spot for mass immigration from Europe. It was symptomatic of how desperate the situation in Poland was becoming for Jews that some of them considered the “Madagascar option” as a feasible possibility.

  In 1938 Uncle Morris came to visit us again. This time we were expecting him, and after he spent a few days with us, Father took him for a week’s vacation to a spa. This was shortly after Chamberlain’s visit to Hitler in Munich, from which he had returned to England waving a piece of paper signed by the Führer and proclaiming that he had achieved “peace in our time.” Chamberlain then stood by and watched helplessly as the German soldiers trampled brutally over what was left of Czechoslovakia.

  The morning after Morris left, I spoke with Father about Hitler and the threat he represented to our future. I was eloquent, talking about Hitler’s concentration camps. I said I was convinced that the invasion of Poland was inevitable and imminent, and that I thought we should all go to America.

  Father agreed with me about the approaching danger, but felt that it would be very difficult for him to begin a new life elsewhere. All his roots, his business, his friends, and most of the family were in Poland. “How can I now, at the age of fifty-six, start from scratch in a foreign land, without understanding a word of English?”

  I sensed that I was making no headway, and in desperation I did something I had never done before: I threw myself on the bed and started crying almost hysterically, repeating over and over, “But you don’t understand. He will kill us all. He will kill us all.”

  Surprised at the intensity of my feeling, my parents looked at each other, not sure how to handle the situation. Finally Father sat down on the edge of the bed, put his arms around me, and said, “I cannot go, but if you feel so strongly about it, I will send you to America to study after you graduate from the gymnasium.” I realized then that it was useless to try to change Father’s mind, and I never brought up the subject again.

  In fact, although a few families in Hrubieszów had relatives abroad and the financial means to emigrate, only one family actually did so. Dr. Grynspan had a very successful medical practice and his family had lived in Hrubieszów for generations, but one day he and
his wife and children said farewell to their relatives and friends and left for Argentina. This event was much discussed by the Jews of Hrubieszów. Some felt that the doctor might well prove to have been the smart one in the end, but no one else followed his example. I admired his courage and wisdom, and wished that my family would follow the Grynszpans’ example.

  By now I was well into my junior year of gymnasium, and still riding on my reputation as a good student. Then one day, when our history teacher asked me to lead a discussion on a subject we had been studying for weeks, he discovered that I was totally unfamiliar with it. He was shocked and angry that he had let me get by with bluffing for so long, and threatened to fail me. He notified other teachers of his discovery as well, and suddenly I was in trouble.

  I began studying day and night, frantically trying to regain the ground I had lost. My parents were surprised and troubled to learn of my drastically lower marks. In the end I managed to get promoted to the senior year, but for a while it was touch and go.

  Our last summer before the war we spent in Domaczów, a resort deep in the woods about a hundred miles north of Hrubieszów. There was some talk of an impending German attack, but most people dismissed it from their minds. Our villa was surrounded by trees and I enjoyed myself lying in the hammock, reading, swimming, and playing poker with the other kids. We returned home in the middle of August. The radio and newspapers were full of rumors of concentrations of German troops on the Polish border. Hitler was rattling his saber and demanding Danzig and the “corridor.”