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Out of the Shoebox

Page 13

by Yaron Reshef


  ***

  On Route to Chortkow

  In the suburbs of Ternopil I saw my first Jewish cemetery in Ukraine. I had no expectations, which is why, perhaps, I found it so full of surprises. The cemetery was situated on a hill overlooking the city, as though the best views and exposures were chosen for its "residents". The gravestones were all cut from local stone and impressive in their design and the craftsmanship they displayed. Some of the symbols on them were unfamiliar to me, being unlike current-day Israeli headstones. The inscriptions were succinct, honoring the deceased and only hinting at the circumstances of death – was it old age or was it unexpected, was it a young man or a maiden. I was quickly able to connect the symbols with the description and sex of the deceased: candles or a candelabra meant a woman, because women bless the candles for the Sabbath; a branch or broken flower indicated an unwed virgin; a tree or an oil jug described a scholar; a star of David for a man; hands held for the priestly blessing of a Cohen. Beautiful headstones, each telling a story, with the inscription matching the symbols.

  Viktor and I walked around and took photos. I translated the Hebrew, Viktor identified the symbols and associated them with the inscriptions. After a few minutes he noticed that the Cohens were buried in the edge plots and asked if there was a reason for it. Once I explained the customs of Cohanim, Viktor made sense of the design and layout of the cemetery and identified its main paths, wide enough and far enough from the other graves so Cohen families could visit the graves of loved ones. The cemetery was pervaded by the same feeling of magic, sanctity and mystery that I’d experienced in a visit to the old Jewish cemetery in Prague. While I pondered these sights, Viktor explained that such cemeteries were found all over Ukraine. "There's barely a city, town, or village without a Jewish cemetery or its remains, whole headstones or their ruins – if you don't see them immediately you can usually look and find some." I had mixed feelings about this: on the one hand it testified to the large communities that once lived here, on the other it was horrific evidence of the lack of any living people, in other words, it was evidence of the scale of extermination. In Ukraine only the dead Jews remain, I couldn't help thinking – at least they escaped the genocide and have a known burial site. I was touched by a simple headstone from 1910. It was less ornate than the others, and the inscription hinted at the tragic end of an old couple: "Here lie husband and wife, who passed away suddenly on the 15th of Shvat in the year 5671 – an old honest man... and an old honest woman..."

  Headstone of the old couple in the Jewish cemetery in Ternopil

  After about a five-minute drive we reached the forest at the outskirts of Ternopil. Viktor stopped the car by a long narrow monument that glistened in the sunlight. The monument had inscriptions in Hebrew, English and Russian. The notable difference between the Hebrew and the Russian and English was unexpected. The Hebrew said: "This place is a mass grave for the righteous who were killed by the Nazis for their devotion to the Lord, may they be damned, the Hashem shall avenge them." The English and Russian versions did not call for vengeance: "In the memory of the holy martyrs Jews that were ruthlessly killed and buried on this side by the Nazis."

  When I told Viktor about the difference in phrasing we both hypothesized that the writers did not want to hurt the locals' feelings. It is well known that a large portion of the extermination of the Jews was carried out by Ukrainians, the local residents. "Everyone here knows Russian, some know English, but no one knows Hebrew," Viktor reasoned, attempting to explain the discrepancy.

  I peered into the forest. Apart from dense trees you couldn’t tell this forest was different from any other forest I’d ever seen. The trees were the same trees, the path was a regular path, and the ground was covered in dense vegetation. Nature had covered up the atrocities of man. I could not reconcile what I saw with the knowledge that I was standing on the site of a cold-blooded massacre.

  We went on driving. Viktor suggested we stop at Husiatyn. "The majority of the town's residents were Jewish up until World War I. They say there's a pretty synagogue; likely in a state of decay, would you like to go see it?" So we drove to Husiatyn. We got directions from some locals, and after a few wrong turns found the synagogue. I stood amazed in front of the deserted building. It was built in a style I did not recognize, a combination of late Renaissance and Moorish influences, probably due to the Turkish occupation. The synagogue was built in the 16th century on the remains of a castle, and was one of the first grand synagogues in Galicia. Its construction began under Turkish rule, but halted when the Turks left by order of the church, to be later renewed under the rule of the Polish nobleman Count Potocki. The Jewish community of Husiatyn flourished until the beginning of World War I, numbering five thousand Jews on the eve of the war, over half the town's population. During the war the Jewish population fled and returned slowly when the war ended. On the eve of World War II the Jewish population numbered some eight thousand people. The Jews of Husiatyn were exterminated as were all the Jews in Galicia, and the grand synagogue stood deserted. Viktor told me the synagogue was barely damaged during World War II, and when the Allies won and Ukraine came under Soviet rule it was turned into a museum. The Soviets continued to maintain the building. They didn't make any architectural changes, so it was easy to identify where the Holy Ark had stood, and above it a relief of the tablets bearing the Ten Commandments. "The museum was shut down when Ukraine became independent, and the building stands deserted, never maintained, crumbling and filthy, as do most of the synagogues in Galicia, and in Chortkow as well," Viktor explained. "It's not a particular slight against the Jews, this is how the government treats most of our heritage – the crumbling castles, and decaying palaces and grand mansions, deserted one after the other. Only the churches are kept in good repair by donations of residents and Ukrainian expats, which is why they look new and thriving."

  Husiatyn Synagogue

  Only when I saw the grand synagogue, decrepit and in disrepair, through the lens of my camera did I feel emptiness and loss, the feeling that something was missing. What I couldn't feel at the mass grave in Ternopil suddenly hit me in Husiatyn. The disparity between the building's magnificent façade, and the neglect, abandonment and emptiness inside made the absence of Jewish presence palpable. I was ill-at-ease with the realization that only when faced with the physical discrepancy between what is and is not, do I feel the loss.

  ***

  Chortkow

  "We're almost in Chortkow, but this isn't the scenic way into town... you won't see the view of the town beneath us because we'll start at the mass grave in the Black Forest." I stood by the monument that was erected by second-generation holocaust survivors living in Israel. I stood and saw how new real-estate developments were closing in on the killing pits. Once again nature was able to cover up the atrocities of man. Once again I could not reconcile what my eyes saw with the knowledge that I was standing in a valley of slaughter – even the monument couldn't evoke that sensation. Only when I noticed two broken old headstones from 1930, which locals had brought to the monument after finding them near their homes, did tears come to my eyes all of a sudden. The ground around the monument was unkempt, weeds grew everywhere and covered up the paving and the open space leading to the road. But the monument stood defiant against the industrial area breathing down its neck, as though saying: we were here first.

  Within minutes we were in the city suburbs, by the central bus station; an open space with platforms and stops where men, women with shopping bags, crates, and suitcases stood waiting. A sight that could have been taken directly from Israeli development towns of the 1950s. Viktor turned right and announced that we were arriving at the cemetery. The cemetery was situated on a hill above the town. It took a few moments before I noticed the headstones. At first I saw only a patch of woods and a rusted metal fence encircling the trees. But after Viktor pointed to the woods, I noticed gravestones peeking out among the trees. The 70-year-old-forest had been growing wild in the cemetery since the Jew
s were exiled and exterminated. It hid the headstones as though concealing them and isolating them from the outside world. Bullets were embedded in some of the headstones, proof of the battles that took place in the graveyard. It was the first time I noticed that the words for grave – kever – and battle – krav – in Hebrew are made up of the same letters. We walked up and down the cemetery, having trouble making our way among the trees, branches, bushes and nettles, taking pictures of headstones so we could later make out names and dates. I searched for relatives, and my grandfather's grave, Isak Finkelman who died in 1933, but in vain. It was clear to me that the forest kept more of the cemetery hidden than visible. Covered in thorns and scratches we left and went on to the center of Chortkow.

  Viktor stopped at the old Kramer house, my mother's old home. It was afternoon, the city had emptied. I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the old, Austrian-style buildings. Every way I looked I saw evidence of a rich and very different past. Viktor led me to the entrance and rang the doorbell. A woman now living in my family's old home answered the door and Viktor simply explained who I was and asked if she would show me the apartment. Other neighbors joined and quickly volunteered to show me their apartments. "After the war your family's house was divided into smaller apartments. Instead of one apartment per floor, there are two units per floor, some of which are rented out." On the ground floor was commercial space – a large store, and a restaurant. "We'll leave that till tomorrow, when my friend Bogdan will be around and will tell you about the treasure," Viktor quickly explained. The Kramer's apartment was enormous. It matched the detailed description in my mother's memoirs perfectly. It still had the same wood floor, and the current resident laughed when I told how my mother described the way they would polish it. "That's still how it's done today – if you have the strength – strong back and legs," she said. The height of the ceiling was surprising. You could easily build a loft in each apartment. We continued to the third floor. Again the space was huge, and above it, to my surprise, in the attic, one of the tenants built a large pigeon coop with hundreds of carrier pigeons. His home was filled with trophies from many competitions. I smiled when I remembered my mother battling the pigeons that would invade the balcony of our apartment in Haifa. Those pigeon wars were part of my adolescence.

  Out in the street again, I noticed for the first time the fishing store at the front of the house. Though my early love of fishing had waned over the years, I never stopped looking at fishing rods and especially fly fishing hooks with their feathers and colorful thread used for catching trout – an aesthetic pleasure I’d never given up. My childhood memory – fishing with my father and his friends – brought tears to my eyes.

  I was full to the brim with the day's experiences, and asked Viktor to take a break from the dead and the memories; "Some good pizza and a cold beer after a shower will do the trick. I just can't take any more."

  The hotel surprised me – a spacious, modern room; news in Ukrainian coming out of a flat-screen TV, and high speed internet. In just a few minutes, I'll be connected to the world again. I turned on my iPad and tried to slip into another world, but failed – it didn’t seem right. Suddenly, I'm alone; sad and shaking like the last leaf on a tree during a storm. Overcome with memories of my family, I fell asleep for a short while. There was excellent pizza in Chortkow. There was delicious cold beer in Chortkow. Viktor and I shared some spicy pizza and cold beer and that was the end of our first evening in Chortkow.

  ***

  Sleeping in Chortkow wasn't easy; waking up was much easier. Despite the comfortable room I had a restless sleep, tossing and turning. I woke up dozens of times, but fell right back to sleep, and when I woke up in the morning I was surprisingly alert and full of energy. We had good coffee at the Italian restaurant in the hotel, and planned our first full day in Chortkow. We both felt that the day before we’d arrived tired and heavy with emotion, and from now on we'd be better off taking it slow and in small doses. We made a list of goals so as not to miss anything… and Viktor read out: "We'll start at the cemetery in the center of town, the one by the Catholic graveyard, we’re better off doing that in the morning while it's cool. Afterwards we can go to your father's house at 279 Szpitalna St., which today is called Pihuty St., then we'll continue to the old synagogue next to the medical school and, from there, to the basement of your mother's house to hear the story of the treasure. We'll take a short break at my place for a light lunch – Tania's mother made us borscht – and then go on to meet an historian who runs the local Chortkow museum. He would like to take you on a walking tour. I think this is a good plan. You have plenty of time and there's no need to hurry." I thought it sounded like a plan for a whole week, but decided to go along with Viktor's pace because I had no idea how things might develop.

  Within minutes we arrived at our first stop, the Jewish cemetery located by the Catholic cemetery. Viktor explained that it was still in use until the 1930s, when they ran out of space. "The old cemetery was by the hospital, near your father's house, but it was full so they moved here. The old cemetery has only one headstone, that of Rabbi Friedman, Chortkow's rabbi. The other headstones were stolen by the Nazis who used them to pave roads. There are people buried beneath the woods by the hospital, but the graves are no longer marked. We'll go past it later today." We walked around the Catholic cemetery but we couldn't find the Jewish one. When we asked workers digging a new grave where the Jewish graves were they pointed to an area covered in brush at the edge of the cemetery and said, "The Jewish cemetery is covered in trees, you'll have to hop the fence because the gate is locked." After we cleared the stone wall, we saw another tangled thicket and, among the trees, many headstones, some still standing and some in various states of decay. I could not believe my eyes. I knew that the trees had been cut down only five years ago, but the lack of maintenance meant it only encouraged growth. Wherever a trunk had been cut down, four new trunks had grown. In fact, the new trees and the brush protected the graves by preventing people from coming. We walked around methodically as I tried to locate my grandfather's grave, which I hadn't found the day before. On the back of each headstone was the name of the deceased in Polish, which allowed both Viktor and me to search. It felt very strange, like a scene from Indiana Jones: a small dense wood in the center of town… with us chopping branches and making our way from headstone to headstone, trying to find ones that had fallen and were hidden in the brush, or concealed among the trees and bushes. Suddenly I heard Viktor call out, "There's a Finkelman here." Chills ran down my spine as I read the headstone. It was the grave of Eliyahu Finkelman son of Mechel. Eliyahu was my father's cousin. Mechel's father was my grandfather's brother. Eliyahu was my Aunt Zelda's father; he died in 1921 when she was only three, after which she lived in my father's home. Eliyahu is the grandfather of Mordechai and Linette Liebling. It was the only family headstone we found. I was certain that there were others in the cemetery but they were likely hidden. I stood at the grave of Eliyahu son of Mechel Finkelman and said the Kaddish prayer. It moved me to tears. For over seventy years, and perhaps longer, no one said Kaddish at this grave. It was a prayer for all of my family members whose resting place remained unknown.

  Headstone of Eliyahu Finkelman’s grave

  We left the cemetery full of emotion. Viktor asked about the prayer I’d recited, what language it was in and how long it had existed. I explained its meaning, that it is said in Aramaic and that it predated Christianity.

  We were on our way to my father's home when suddenly Viktor stopped the car and pointed to a house on the other side of the road. "That's my house, we'll eat lunch there later, but I just want to show you some headstones right here… let's get out of the car for a few minutes." We stood by a small pile of rubble. I didn't notice the details at first, but after a few seconds I could see it was made up of broken headstones. "These were used for the curb on Pihuty Street. The Nazis used headstones from the old cemetery to pave roads in rural areas, and for curbs in the city." When he saw ho
w appalled I was he explained that in recent years Chortkow has been replacing the curbs and repaving the roads, a slow task that is not yet completed. It was difficult to make out the inscriptions on most of the headstones, but a large piece, weighing close to sixty kilos, was covered in beautiful carvings of a lion holding a crown over the Ark of Torah. The stone was broken on the other side of the crown, where the second lion should have been. I couldn't move. Seeing the fragments of headstones threw me back to my Kaddish prayer earlier. I asked Viktor if we could move the headstone fragment to his place. "I can't bear the thought that it'll just lie here at the side of the road. Let's move it into your garden, where at least its beauty can be appreciated." I don't think he could have refused. He came back with a wheelbarrow and together we managed to place the headstone fragment in his garden.

  Headstone fragment that we moved from the street to Viktor's garden

  We drove along Pihuty Street toward the Finkelman house. Of course now I could identify the curb built from headstones and the gaps where they had been removed. I was horrified that this was the road leading to Chortkow's hospital. I immediately recognized the Finkelman home. It was identical to the picture I got from Miri. It was the house that Kobe Kon had described only a few weeks earlier. The house that stood before me was a kind of architectural gem, built by a craftsman in the early twentieth century.

 

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