Esfir Is Alive

by Andrea Simon

  I gathered that this had not been a scheduled stop.

  “Volchin is a small town,” he said. “We found her soon. She is well. I told her I was being sent to Kobrin, and she wrote a note and gave it to me with your address.”

  That was enough information to make me trust this handsome man. Ida would never have given my address to anyone who would harm me.

  I took the paper and my mother insisted on giving the solider bread and fruit. He refused, but no one, not even a soldier, could argue with my mother when she was determined. So much like Ida.

  The soldier ate and left quickly. I said my good-bye and thanked him and ran up to my room to read the letter, my breath ahead of my feet. I had left my journals with Mr. Kozak, who promised to keep them safe. Otherwise, if I had one then, I would have pasted the letter inside. It said:

  My dear, dear Esfir,

  I hope my friend Aleksandr finds you and your family well. I so long to see your beautiful face and share our thoughts and writings as we did so many wonderful times together. We are working hard. My parents send their best regards as I do to you and your family, especially to Aunt Perl. I miss you.

  Ida Midler

  I realized that Ida couldn’t reveal much. It was dangerous for her and for Aleksandr. Who was this soldier to her? Could she have forgotten Mendel? I rejected this thought, believing that Aleksandr may have been charmed by Ida, but he was just a trusted friend to her.

  Why she had signed the letter with her last name, I still wonder. As if there would ever be another Ida for me!

  Perl and I had been so relieved; and when she heard that Ida had singled her out for special regards, she was almost speechless, a state I rarely saw her in. Maybe quiet, sad, but never without a word if prompted. Having no children of her own, Ida calling her “Aunt Perl” was a warm embrace from afar.

  During those dark early days of the German invasion, I read Ida’s letter at least twice a day. Now I was so panicked that the Nazis would storm through our house and take my belongings that I ripped it into pieces and stuck each piece between stones in my cellar’s walls, planning someday to put the pieces back like a jigsaw puzzle. But it didn’t matter because I knew it by heart.

  Thirty-One

  FROM ALMOST THE beginning of the German invasion, officers and soldiers with the letters GFP on their shoulder straps searched through residences. Bursting inside, seemingly at random, they dragged out the inhabitants, sometimes shooting them on the spot. We wondered why they picked one apartment and not the neighbor next door. Then Drora found out that these Secret Field Police pocketed the addresses of Communist Party and Soviet activists and anyone with an antifascist point of view. Secret agents posing as Polish refugees had formulated these lists in the fall of 1939.

  Many of those rounded up were sentenced and executed in groups. We were saddened to hear that Katya Gasilevich had been one such victim. She had been an activist in the Communist Party who had already endured hardships at a Polish camp in Bereza Kartuska. When Drora said Katya’s name, she was visibly upset, her voice cracking. I got the impression that she knew her.

  Drora assumed that these lists also identified noteworthy or outspoken Jews since over two hundred were captured and executed in the fields of a country estate in July. Another large group was executed in August. My grandfather, Yankel Cohen, was among them.

  Khane later told us that the Germans had smashed their front door. They read my grandfather’s name and ordered him to come with them. He asked, “Why me? I am just a religious old man.”

  One soldier explained that they were taking him to register for the distribution of welfare benefits. My grandfather shook his head. Then they grabbed him by his arms and dragged him toward the door. My grandmother tried to pull him back by his feet, and a Nazi soldier knocked her down with his rifle butt. My cousins were crying and Khane was shouting, “You can’t do this. You can’t do this.”

  But they did. To this day, I don’t know why my grandfather was selected. He was not a community leader. He was not a member of the intelligentsia, though he was certainly an intellectual. He was a private family man, a shopkeeper and then a bookkeeper. He was witty and brave and suffered greatly. Though he trusted God to have a reason for Jewish suffering, he attributed his inability to find it to his own failing.

  Being the first of all the horrors befalling my family, it remains the hardest to write about. My grandfather’s death had a profound effect on us. For some, like my grandmother, it signaled the beginning of the end. For others, like my mother and Drora, it sparked such uncorralled rage that their every minute was consumed with thoughts of revenge and escape.

  I, as always, was in between. I was devoured by unremitting sorrow and anger. To keep myself from screaming, I would envision my grandfather spouting funny Yiddish sayings. His image became so vivid, so close. Even though I had become a nonbeliever, I believed that he appeared before me, saying, with a chuckle, “Hak mir nisht keyn tshaynik!” which was his affectionate way of saying, “Stop bothering me!”

  Soon, I began to actually hear him curse the Germans. Once he said, “Zol dir vaksn tsibeles fun pupik!,” “Onions should grow from your navel!”

  One night I heard my mother and Perl in the living room. My mother was crying. Perl was trying to comfort her. My mother said, “First it’s Avrum dying, then it’s Velvel disappearing God knows where, and now Papa has been murdered. There’s a curse on the men of our family.”

  I wanted to yell downstairs and say, “No, we know where Velvel is. He’s in Palestine.” I held myself back, trying to remember our last correspondence from him. It had been more than a year and a half before, a lifetime. My mother was right. Velvel was God knows where.

  I DIDN’T HAVE my journal to copy down dates and events. So many executions.

  The Gestapo had a preferred spot, a slope off the highway by the bridge crossing the Dnieper-Bug Canal. They tied the victims’ hands with barbed wire and forced them to kneel at the edge of the slope. Then the executioner would shoot each in the back of the head and push the body down the slope.

  Drora had a friend—she seemed to have so many all of a sudden—who lived near this bloody area. She told Drora that sometimes the Nazis coerced people to run and tumble down the slope, followed by gunfire. She saw one couple that she knew who were newlyweds. They leapt toward their death, holding hands. Another time, she saw an entire family of partisans slaughtered.

  On their way to work, my mother, sister, and Perl, though they were ordered to keep their heads down, often spied corpses at the bottom of the slope rotting in the sun. Targeted by partisans, the Germans moved the executions to the prison.

  In the streets, we still witnessed enough. One day, Rivke and I were walking home and almost at the same spot that my grandfather’s beard had been cut off two years before, we heard shouting. It could have been me having a hallucination because I could swear it was the same group of Nazis that had taunted my grandfather. This time, they lined up a group of male Jews against a fence and, from one to the other, the Nazis took turns punching and beating. Then, with the motion of a hachet, two Nazis went down the line and sheared off the Jews’ sidelocks and beards.

  At first, I thought that maybe I had missed something, that maybe the men were also being hanged from the downward position of their heads. But I couldn’t see any rope or apparatus and realized that it was shame and embarrassment that was as strong as a hangman’s noose.

  When I saw one victim raise his head, his face a bloody pulpy mess, he seemed to stare directly at me. I wanted to shout and rescue him. Instead, I whispered to Rivke, “Let’s go.” We ran home.

  Most of this time was a blur of restrictions and fears.

  The Gestapo confiscated large buildings. Schools turned into soldiers’ barracks, hotels became officers’ quarters, the best homes were reserved for high-ranking soldiers. Groups of appointed Jews came to the house to collect underwear, kitchen utensils, and other items to be used for the Germans. We pa
id fines with gold, silver, jewelry, and other valuables.

  We Jews over ten years of age—I was eleven by now—had to wear a yellow Star of David on our arms and the left side of our chests. We couldn’t walk on the sidewalks except going to and from work. Anyone who fell on the street could be run over.

  I saw this from my aunt Khane’s window: A German soldier said, “Who is tired?” The Jewish man answered, obediently, “I am tired.” The Nazi, with a joking face, said, “Lie down.” He shot the man, who was then trampled by a wagon. I closed my eyes and left the window. My sadness was so deep, my shame at my inability to do anything was so overwhelming, I recognized nothing but fear. Afraid to act, afraid to hide.

  Notices appeared stating that buying from Jews was forbidden. Selling to Jews was also forbidden. Using a Jew as an intermediary was forbidden. Jews couldn’t go into Polish shops or the marketplace. By September, we were not allowed any physical or verbal contact with a non-Jew.

  Fall was the appropriate season for the crumbling of our lives. Kobrin became an important administrative center, headed by Commissar Pantser. He was headquartered at my school. Plans for the destruction of the Jewish community were fully operational.

  Thirty-Two

  NO JEW WAS surprised when we were ordered to move. We had two days to prepare our belongings. Our ghetto would be divided into two sections: A and B.

  Our biggest fear (they were always getting bigger) was that we would be separated. Ghetto A was the largest in territory and population. It was designated for Jews who were considered useful like specialists, workers, the physically strong, and the wealthiest who could afford bribes. This would be the best place to be, we thought. We had sold everything valuable and hidden money for an emergency. This seemed to qualify.

  There was a chain of command for bribing. My mother found her lowly contact who would pass on the request. Pooling my mother’s, Perl’s, and my grandmother’s money, she also bargained for Khane’s family, by now amounting to two teenage boys, Efraim and Mordechai. Khane’s oldest son, Reuven, had been conscripted into the Red Army and was stationed somewhere in “God forsake’s land” as my grandmother called it. Khane was sickly with tuberculosis and couldn’t work, and my grandmother was sixty-eight and had severe arthritis.

  The contact took the money without giving assurances, predicting it would be difficult for my grandmother and Khane. We hugged our relatives and vowed to find each other once we were assigned accommodations.

  We worried about my father’s brothers, their families, and my grandparents, Ruth and Morris. Morris had been a skilled laborer, Ruth was a strong, healthy woman, and my uncles were influential, so we also prayed for our reunion with them in Ghetto A.

  I was also crazy with concern about Gittel, begging my mother to say she was our other sister. Her parents had lost their book-dealing business in 1939 and had exhausted their savings. They hocked everything of value. Although once a good businessman, Gittel’s father had few practical skills that he could demonstrate and he was thin and stooped. Her mother was a talented pianist, but hadn’t played in years. Gittel’s brother was five. I didn’t think her family had much of a chance for Ghetto A. My mother couldn’t take on another child, and, even if she had agreed, Gittel’s parents wanted their children with them.

  Still, I prayed. Funny that I keep saying “I prayed.” I admit to being one of those people who only pray when they need something, so let it be. During this time, I prayed constantly, I tapped surfaces, I repeated words, I flung salt over my shoulder. Desperation makes you cling to anything.

  This is what we heard: Ghetto A was in the southern part of Kobrin; a two meter-high wooden fence separated the ghetto houses from the adjoining streets. Ghetto B was in the western side of Kobrin, on the right bank of the river. There was no fence. This was not good.

  I rehearsed packing my essentials so many times, you would think I would have known what to take. I wore my coat. I had a small leather travel bag. I selected a sweater, underwear, skirt, blouse, socks, two of my most treasured books (and the thinnest), a notebook, a shawl. But there was one thing that nagged at me. Should I or shouldn’t I take Miriam? I dared not ask anyone in my family because I knew the answer. I wrapped her in my shawl and placed her underneath my clothes. I couldn’t close the bag. Something had to go. I spent at least an hour rearranging, discarding, repacking. Finally, I gave up my shawl and wrapped Miriam in my sweater. It was a tight fit.

  Whatever my mother bribed didn’t work. We all got Ghetto B. The Germans led us to a long street with rundown two-story buildings. Walking ahead of us was a bent and red-bearded man with dingy talis fringes hanging down from his tattered black coat. He turned around and poked my arm. “Have you seen my Hinde?” he implored. I shook my head. I heard his cries for Hinde as the Germans slapped him aside and shoved us into a brick building with exposed bags of trash piled in a heap. They pried open the front door and led us up a narrow staircase stinking of diarrhea and vomit. After pushing us inside a room, they slammed the door and I heard them rumble down the stairs. It was quiet. Then I heard another “Hinde” and a gunshot. I scrunched my shoulders and put my hands over my ears, and mumbled, “Poor Hinde.”

  In the apartment, we had one small room. There were two other rooms occupied by Jews. I wondered who had lived here before and where they went. Were they non-Jews? Did they go to our house? The ghetto rule stipulated five to six people per room. With Perl, we were five and hoped no stranger would be added.

  Our room had no furniture. Anything of value had already been taken. There was no water. Luckily, we each had an apple and a piece of bread, which we didn’t dare eat.

  My mother asked us to remove anything soft from our bags. All of us donated a sweater and a coat. My mother and Perl also gave a wool scarf and a towel. In a short time, we improvised a sleeping area that took up all the space. It was Shabbes evening, our first night in the ghetto.

  VERY SOON, WE adapted to the rules. I shouldn’t say adapted because that implies ease. It wasn’t easy. We were obedient puppets. We didn’t question because there were no answers that made sense. The less conspicuous you were, the better.

  We lined up for rations. Each family received some potatoes and/or a little bread.

  We were forbidden to leave the ghetto unless we were part of a work detail. Rivke and I stayed home while my mother, Perl, and Drora went to work. They got up at five a.m. and marched in lines under police surveillance for ten miles in the cold and dark. Usually, the work involved digging trenches. As winter set in, many workers, worn out and improperly dressed, froze on the way and died.

  Even if we had been allowed to leave the ghetto on our own, we would have been seen. We had sewn a yellow circle onto our garments on the back of the shoulder (and on the chest) that could be seen from afar. The Germans called it Schandenflek, spot of shame. We were branded.

  When the ghetto was set up, the Germans had selected several prominent Jews to serve as our liaison. The Judenrat or Jewish Council, headed by a rich merchant named Angelovich, was supposedly established as our governmental body. It really was our source of news and a mouthpiece for German orders. The Judenrat had its own police, armed with clubs. They supervised the lines of workers when they went beyond the ghetto boundaries. We went to their “office” to complain about food and work, to beg for favors, to barter with the Nazis.

  We regularly checked the lists of Jews. According to the Judenrat records, Gittel and her family, and Khane and my grandparents, were also on the lists for Ghetto B. It took a long time to find their whereabouts. Grandma Elke had been separated from Khane’s family, and she, like my grandparents, Morris and Ruth, was placed with strangers. Thank God we had located my father’s brothers and their families, who lived in a building a few streets away. We weren’t certain what happened to Khane’s sons as they weren’t on any list; we assumed that they were taken somewhere for work as they were fit and healthy. Gittel and her family were missing.

  Work duties b
ecame diversified as the Germans needed skilled labor. Our stores now were owned by Christians. Artels were created where Jews could work under the supervision of Christians. Luckily my mother, Perl, and Drora were transferred to a large artel of five hundred workers. They were hoping to obtain their skilled worker’s certificates, which would give them a chance to transfer to Ghetto A.

  On occasion, the Germans herded Rivke and me outside the ghetto with other older children to work at one of the smaller artels. We were lucky because many children over twelve were plucked from their families and transported to labor camps. Rivke was thirteen but looked my age and nobody checked the ghetto name list. We were also lucky that we were placed in one of the better artels; some were headed by sadistic monsters. When we walked there, we had to keep our heads down, but the signs were everywhere: “Kill the Jews.” “Jews are Communists.” “Jews are the troublemakers of the world.” Onlookers often shouted these slogans.

  ON A BITTERLY cold December day, my mother noticed a pile near me, wrapped in newspapers that I had found in the garbage outside.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  From her tone, I was afraid to answer. Instead, I unwrapped the paper.

  “You brought your doll?” My mother’s voice was flat. Her face was sweaty and red even though it was frigid in the room.

  I stood still, feeling like I was getting shorter by the minute.

  “You brought your doll when we are starving and freezing to death? You could have packed potatoes or another sweater.” She made a fist and raised it toward my face.

  I started to shake. I thought my mother was going to kill me. I never saw her this angry.

  Perl gripped my mother’s arm and pushed it down.