by Andrea Simon
“Perhaps, Esfir. But we don’t think so. Anna said that she had heard that they had been taken to a labor camp. Ester was thought to have been smuggled to a relative’s in a little village near Bialystok. You must know from your own research that Jews from that area were sent to Treblinka.”
“No!” I cried.
“Finally, Esfir, Anna, from hearing about others in the area, conjectured that the Midlers probably had been killed at Brona Gora. She did say that the Midler house had been destroyed, another one replacing it that was occupied by locals.”
This could not be. My mentor, my protector, my inspiration, my idol—Ida—could have been lying in the pit next to me.
The next day, Ania left me alone and went out with the baby to help her mother clean a house. She thought by the time she returned, I would have had an evening and afternoon to at least absorb her information. It was nighttime when she opened the door and called my name. She turned on the light and there I was sitting in the dark, my feet planted in a puddle of urine.
I DON’T REMEMBER the rest of the evening. Early the following morning, Ania brought a glass of tea to my bed. I hadn’t been sleeping, but I was resting.
“Esfir, dear. I have something that I was saving for after I told you everything. Now you are leaving later this afternoon and I think I did the wrong thing. It may have been easier for you if I gave this to you first. I didn’t know what to do. I am so sorry if I could have spared you some of this agony.”
How could I be angry at Ania for anything?
Ania was holding a cardboard box.
“Oh Esfir, darling, Mr. Kozak gave me this right before he was killed. He must have known that he wouldn’t live out the war. He said, ‘Ania, you must keep this. No matter where you go, take it with you. Here are Esfir’s journals. Keep them for her. And, if she doesn’t come back, try to find her brother Velvel in Palestine. If you have no luck, keep them for you, for your children.’ ”
All the past years of my defended and stunted emotions melted. I sobbed for hours, on and off. I couldn’t sob for my losses. I sobbed for happiness, happiness that I had a record of my life. My life with Rivke, Drora, my parents, my grandparents, Perl, Ania, the Tarbut girls, and, last but not least, Ida. Here was proof.
Ania gave me back my life.
Epilogue
AFTER I LEFT Ania’s, I returned to the DP camp and resumed my quest even though I realized that it was futile. But one day, I had a name. There on a list of Jews living in Palestine was a certain V. Manevich. His country of origin was Poland. It was not the only Manevich from Poland on the list. When my brother had left us, it was before the first German invasion. Our area had still been considered Poland.
I didn’t have the stamina for another wild-goose chase but I had no choice. I wrote a letter to this person and waited. Waiting became my life. I waited for the proper paperwork. I waited for the turmoil in the new state of Israel to quiet. I waited for a place on the boat. There were so many others before me.
Soon after coming to Israel in 1949, I headed for the referred kibbutz. In my purse, folded neatly in quarters, was the answer to my letter.
I got a ride in a wooden-fenced well of a truck, and the driver deposited me in the middle of an open field, surrounded by an assortment of tents, outbuildings, and rusted farm equipment. He directed me to a woman holding a clipboard, checking off columns as she inspected goats drinking water from cement troughs.
After finding out my reason for coming, she led me past settlers milking goats and half-dressed children running in a circle. Then, she stopped and pointed to a tall and muscular man who was hammering nails on an enclosure of some sort. His back was to me. In not much more than a whisper, I said, “Velvel.”
The man continued to work.
Again, I said, “Velvel Manevich, is that you?” Could this be my once-skinny brother? He jerked his head around and there he was, a handsome man around thirty, with slate-colored eyes and sun-bleached hair.
“Feygele?” he stammered his pet name, little bird.
His big-toothed smile and streaming tears were all the answers I needed. We rushed into each other’s embrace. My brother had survived.
I HAD BEEN alone in the world. Until Ania and Velvel.
After two years at the kibbutz, I met a man, a good man, David, from Grodno. He had his own horrors—concentration camp, the death march. He didn’t seem to notice my dull, stringy hair, the way my clothes hung on my skinny frame, or that my left eye continually twitched and teared. How could he know that even though I was almost twenty-two, I felt like a withered, old woman?
Instead, he called me his beautiful flower. I shook my head and let slip out what I was thinking. “No, my mother was the one who was beautiful.”
“I want you to marry me,” he said.
“I am not a real person,” I responded. “I am a living ghost.”
This time, David’s eyes were the ones tearing and he said, “No, you are a living, breathing woman.”
“There is nothing of me to give,” I said.
He just smiled and said, “You will see, Esfele. Things will change.”
Sometimes I allowed myself the fantasy of getting married without my dear ones. There would be Velvel and his family, a wife and three children. Ania, also married now with a child, wrote me that there would be nothing in the world to prevent her from coming to Israel for my wedding. In this pretend wedding, she would be my maid of honor.
I couldn’t afford to live in fantasy. Instead, I busied myself with work: cutting down brush, planting trees, caring for sick children, studying English and literature. I could as well have been in the convent, but here no one saw through me; they saw me as I was—a Jewish woman with only one of her own, like so many here.
With those who experienced the Holocaust, we had a secret, silent bond. At any mention of our pasts, we nodded and shook our heads as if responding to a roll call. There was no need to recount our losses.
With others, it was different. I met an American couple working on the kibbutz for a summer. The wife questioned me about my experiences and I gave her only sketchy details. She said, “Oh I know, it was so hard for us to get food during the war.”
Almost as insensitive, her husband asked me my philosophy as if I had learned a big lesson. I sidestepped the question with a few rehearsed sentences. If he had expected me to get meaning out of these experiences, he had not paid attention to my evasions. There was no meaning.
But, something nagged at me. Maybe there was no rational explanation for what had happened to the murdered Jews, but their lives were meaningful. And then, when the kibbutz held a ten-year anniversary memorial for a Polish woman’s massacred relatives, I felt ready to take a peek at my past. It was time; it was time for me to bring back the dead, my dead. And I could do it in the only way I knew. I bought a new leather-bound book with lined pages and began my final journal, entitled with my announcement to the world, “Esfir Is Alive.”
On the inside first page, I copied this from my favorite poet:
I am a wandering girl.
My heart is practiced in longing.
And when the day eats up the dew of the night,
I tuck up the small white curtain from my window pane,
And look upon a new street.
There lies coiled up
In a little corner of my heart
Such a singular, trembling idea:
Maybe no one here will love me.
Maybe no one here will want to know me!
—Kadya Molodowsky, “Otwock”
SCOURING MY OLD journals brought back wonderful memories of Ida and my sisters before the carnage. But, they also triggered a recurring nightmare: I had a disease spreading across my face. It began to bulge under my skin, forming a big lump in the middle. The doctor said this was very dangerous and he had to operate immediately. He removed all the skin from my face. It was completely raw. He said after a while, when the skin grew back, my face would become grotesquely sc
arred. In the meantime, I walked around like this with my raw face exposed.
I met Ida. She didn’t know it was me. “It’s me, Ida,” I garbled. “Me, Esfir.” I said something personal so she would believe it was me.
She had been horrified and said she couldn’t be friendly with me anymore. I woke up screaming several times and sank back into this dream. I had no control. Each time, I felt that same rawness, that same need to rid myself of whatever poison was affecting me. No matter what I did, I would be scarred for life.
I spoke to a doctor about these dreams. He told me it was a normal reaction and that they would go away. But I never understood how he could know what was normal since nobody else experienced what I had.
As I wrote my story, I remembered. I remembered my darling aunt Perl who bought me a gorgeous, one-of-a-kind doll, my Miriam. I remembered when I went to Volchin to visit Ida and, bubbling from a rehearsal of King Lear, she gave me a tour of her beloved village. I remembered when I once got lost going to my grandparents and my learned grandfather Yankel said to me, “Even a fart in a blizzard has a sound and a smell.” I didn’t remember the Yiddish translation anymore.
And there were other memories. I remembered looking at the disdainful poses of our Polish and Belorussian neighbors who came into our shop; the chest of a girl wearing a red blouse like Rivke had to give away; the faces of all those shunning us like we were vermin or worse as if we were not there. Sometimes, I had begged Rivke or Drora to hold me back. I could have killed each person with my bare hands. I had that much hate inside me—even more than for the Germans who were never my kind.
I remembered my last moments with Rivke at Brona Gora. When she had called my name, when she needed me the most, I was silent. Until I die, I will see Rivke’s once-round, adorable face, her rolling eyes searching for me as she was killed. There will never be a worse moment for me.
The hole inside me is still as deep as that pit that swallowed thousands of Jewish bodies. My sorrow flows through that hole, never-ending.
By happenstance, I had survived. Me, a nothing, a nobody. My grandfather would have said it in Yiddish, a pisher. Had it been a fluke, luck, a miracle—who knows why? Yes, why . . . why me? I kept asking this question. If I allowed myself to believe in a benevolent God who had something more for me to do, I would have an answer.
And so, I have come to the end of my journal. People have questioned me about my life. I have been invited to speak at gatherings. I have been asked to be interviewed. I have refused them all. This is the first and the last time I will reveal my entire story.
ONE MORE THING. I would like to record the names of my family and friends, the ones who didn’t survive.
My mother Sheyne Cohen Manevich, a woman of grace.
My sister, Drora Manevich, who should have been a lawyer.
My sister, Rivke Manevich, my heart.
My grandmother, Ruth Manevich, a great humanitarian.
My grandfather, Morris Manevich, a gentle man.
My grandmother, Elke Cohen, a pious woman.
My grandfather, Yankel Cohen, philosopher and linguist.
My aunt, Khane Cohen Wornick, a devoted mother.
My aunt, Perl Cohen Epstein, storyteller supreme.
Rachel Novick, a lonely girl.
Freyde Finefeld, a courageous fighter.
Yossel Finefeld, a compassionate man.
Liba Levin, who dreamed of love.
Fanny Levin, a kind soul.
Gittel Auerbach, friend extraordinaire.
Jozef Kozak, a prince among men.
Mendel Feigen, activist and orator.
Iser Midler, a man of sensitivity.
Bashke Midler, a woman of surprise.
Sala Midler, who would have been a mayor and/or poet.
Ester Midler, an irrepressible spirit.
Ida Midler, who could have been anything she wanted.
Let the world know about Freyde, Rachel, and the twins. Tell them about Mendel Feigen. Share stories about Perl, my grandparents, Gittel, Rivke, Drora. Introduce them to Ida. Explain that once upon a time, in a corner of Belorussia that was sometimes Poland and sometimes Russia, there was once a people whose only crime was being Jewish.
—Esfir Manevich, Israel, 1952
Author’s Note
The historical events in Efir Is Alive are factual. The real Midlers were my relatives from the village of Volchin in what is today the Eastern European country of Belarus. In June of 1942, the real Esfir Manevich was shoved into a cattle car and transported from her native city of Kobrin to a forest area between Brest and Minsk called Brona Gora. There, during the summer and fall of 1942, the Nazis systematically murdered 50,000 Jews, including an estimated 36,000 from the city of Brest.
Of the Jews who filled eight mass graves, Esfir was the only known survivor to give recorded testimony (three paragraphs) to the Soviets in 1944. At the time, she was twelve years old. She then disappeared from written history, at least from my numerous efforts. As I have learned repeatedly in my search for the truth, more information about Esfir may still be out “there.”
There have been a few recent uncorroborated reports. A man supposedly survived the Brona Gora massacre. He was shot and killed later in Bereza when he tried to escape. Also, two people from Bereza and one woman from Antopol purportedly escaped the killing fields.
In my version of her life, Esfir writes her remarkable story ten years after the massacre. Many of the characters’ names and experiences are a combination of real and imagined. Others are true to life—to those who believe.
Glossary of Yiddish Words and Phrases*
Afn ganef brent dos hitl. On the head of a thief, burns his hat.
Ales in eynem is nishto ba keynem. All in one is to be found in no one.
A make unter yenems orem iz nit shver tsu trogen. Another person’s problems are not difficult for you to endure.
A meydl mit a kleydl. A cute girl showing off her dress.
A pish on a forts iz vi a khasene on a klezmer!A pee without a fart is like a wedding without a band!
Az di bobe volt gehat beytsim volt zigeven mayn zeyde!If my grandmother had testicles, she’d be my grandfather!
Az men shmirt nit, fort men nit. If you don’t bribe, you don’t ride.
balaboste. An excellenthomemaker.
Belz, Mayn Shtetele Belz. Belz, my little town of Belz.
bes-medresh. House of study and prayer for Jewish males.
bopkes.Nothing; worthless; trivial.
Brisk. Brest.
Brisk D’Lita;Brisk Delite. Brest of Lithuania.
bubele. Term of endearment; darling.
challah; khale. Braided bread glazed with egg, served on Shabbes and holidays.
chometz; khomets. Leaven products.
chutzpah; khutspe. Nerve; gall; guts.
davn, davening. To pray; chanting with a swaying motion.
Der mentsh trakht un Got lakht. Man plans and God laughs.
dreydl. Spinning top used during Chanukah.
Er est vi nokh a krenk. He eats as if he just recovered from a sickness.
es. Eat.
Fardrey zikh dayn eygenem kop vestu meynen s’iz mayner!Go drive yourself crazy, then you’ll know how I feel!
feygele.Little bird; a dear child.
gants gut. Pretty good.
gefilte fish. Stuffed fish.
gelt. Money.
Got in himl! God in heaven!
goy (goyim). A non-Jewish person (people); a gentile.
Hak mir nisht keyn tshaynik! Don’t bang me like a teakettle! Stop bothering me.
Kaddish; Kadish.Themourners’ prayer, glorifying God’s name.
kasha kreplach; kasha-kreplekh. Cooked cereal-filled dumplings,
Kiddush; Kidesh. The blessing over wine, before meal, on Shabbes eve or festivals.
kreplach, kreplekh.Small dumplings, triangular or square.
latkes. Potato pancakes.
mandelbrot; mandlbroyt.Almond bread
&nb
sp; matzoh; matse. Unleavened bread.
Mayn sheyne meydele.My little girl.
Mayn zun. My son.
Mazel tov!; Mazl tov! Congratulations!
mikve. Ritual bath.
mitzvah; mitsve. Virtuous deed.
Nu? So? Well, now.
Nisht far dir gedakht! God forbid! It shouldn’t happen.
Oy Gotenyu!Oh, dear God!
Oy, mayne sheyne kinderlekh. Oh, my beautiful little children.
peyes. Side earlocks.
perene. A featherbed.
Pesach; Peysekh. Pesach.
pisher. Anobody; an insignificant person.
rugelach; rogelekh. Small, crescent-shaped, rolled-up pastries with different fillings.
Seder; Seyder. Ritual feast marking the beginning of Pesach.
Shabbes; Shabes. Sabbath.
Shema Yisrael. “Hear, O Israel,” The beginning of the most common Hebrew daily prayer; also recited on one’s deathbed.
sheyn. Beautiful.
shiksa; shikse. A non-Jewish woman.
shivah. Seven days of mourning.
shlep. Drag; pull.
shmate. Rag.
shnaps. Intoxicating spirits.
shtetl. Little town.
Shtup zikh nit vu men darf nit.Don’t push yourself into places you shouldn’t be.
shul. Synagogue.
shvitsbod. Sweat bath.
Talmud. Massive compendium of books on learned subjects.
talis. Prayer shawl.
tante; mume. Aunt.
tsatskele. A little plaything; a cute female.
vants. Bedbug.
Vos makhstu?How are you?
yarmulke; yarmlke. Skullcap.
Yeder mentsh hot zayn eygene mishegas. Every person has his own idiosyncrasies or craziness.
zeyde. Grandfather.
Zol dir vaksn tsibeles fun pupik! Onions should grow from your navel!
*When there are two versions listed, the first is the popularized, common one, the second the correct Yiddish one.