Journeys with My Mother

by Halina Rubin

Over the page, there is just one more, this time an incomplete entry recording the end of Jews in Grodzisk: ‘It took place in the town of Grodzisk on the third of December, nineteen-hundred and forty at eleven thirty …’ and there the account snaps, mid-sentence. We will never know the name of the dead. Perhaps the clerk was ordered to hurry, not to bother recording the name of that person – man, woman or child – who died on that day in early December, because it no longer mattered.

  4

  Zakroczym

  Ola, her parents and sisters used to spend holidays in Zakroczym. In her memory, it remained an enchanting place of expansive river and sandbars. I have two photographs from that time. One and a half, to be exact, because only the portion of one remains. They were both taken on the same day in summer 1929.

  The two couples, Ola and her little sister Reginka set off for a walk high above the river. In the photograph they sit close together, especially the couples. Of the couples I can only recognise Ewa, my mother’s sister. She leans comfortably on a young man; there is a familiarity in her attitude; the man in question is not her future husband yet Ewa looks pregnant. I wonder if this is another family secret or simply a never told story. And if the complexities of our lives are at times impossible to unravel, how much more unfathomable are the events of the past. Nothing is certain, apart from their presence in Zakroczym in that summer of 1929.

  The other photograph is just as intriguing, if only because of its missing part. Here only Ola and Reginka and a little of Ewa’s arm are visible. My baby-faced mother is eighteen and Reginka – a scrawny duckling – is still to turn into a swan.

  Zakroczym, it seems, was full of the Szlangs, at least three generations. Jankiel’s brother, Isaak Szlang, a baker, as well as his sister lived there, together with their spouses and their children. Some, like Jankiel and my grandfather Hersz, were dyers, some bakers, and at least one, Bajmis Szlang, was a tailor.

  In Zakroczym, Jews and Gentiles lived side by side. In worship, they were separate; in commerce, competitive. At times they were neighbourly, at others downright hostile. Prey to ignorance, prejudice and fear, each community kept to itself.

  There was no symmetry, however, in the long history of grievances and harm inflicted on each other. In the early thirties, anti-Semitic riots continued for days. Local thugs attacked Jews and looted their property. It was the same in 1936 when gangs of youths threw stones at the synagogue and nearby houses, smashing windows and terrorising those inside. Only the children held a fascination with each others’ rituals and customs and often became friends. At school they spoke Polish, learned French and German, and studied Polish history.

  According to stories written by the town’s pre-war inhabitants, Zakroczym had a surprisingly rich life. When, on the shortest night of the year, the midsummer night of Saint Jan, flower garlands were sailed on the river with candles burning, everybody went to see the spectacle. It was always a magic night, full of promise: the celebration of summer and love to come. And if, in the forest, one found a tiny blue flower of a fern, which is said to emanate light, one would be happy and rich beyond measure – so the old legend claimed. When the river froze over in winter, skating was the major attraction. In spring, people would come to hear the first cracking of the ice, to see it breaking slowly into big chunks before it moved unhurriedly towards the sea. Nature insinuated itself into people’s lives, regardless of their religious denomination.

  Back then, the Jews of Zakroczym were engaged in crafts and small trading. Though the Jewish community provided social welfare and some merchants offered credit, there was much poverty, and boycotts of Jewish trade made things much worse. The urgency to find ‘solutions’ was not surprising; branches of almost all Jewish parties in Poland were active in Zakroczym, including the youth movements of Hashomer Hatzair, Ha’noar Ha’zioni (Zionist Youth), socialist Bund and later the militant Betar. Even the illegal Communist Party was present in Zakroczym and some of its members were Jews. All this in a community of some four thousand souls.

  Eighty years later, I want to see the place for myself. My friend Mariola says she will go with me. Mariola … we have known each other a long time. I met her when she married my school friend while we were still at university. Back then – slender with narrow, aristocratic hands – she looked impossibly fragile. Her Madonna-like dark eyes, her eyebrows arched as if in bewilderment or innocence, and her maiden name were exotic; her sense of humour wonderful. And though we disagree on some issues we see the world’s absurdities the same way, laughing at everything and each other, secure in our friendship. Travelling together gives us the freedom to take things as they come, to do as we please, inviting the most foolish adventures. Something we could not do with our small children or spouses in tow.

  Our first glimpse of the town is from the other side of the river. Zakroczym, high on the escarpment, is a mass of green, its baroque church rising well above everything else. A picture of a township from medieval times.

  Our bus stops a good kilometre from the town, and it is around midday when we start walking along its empty main street. I am thrilled to be here at last; it is too late for a somewhat sceptical Mariola to contain my excitement. Here I am, my mother’s sun-drenched memories firmly planted in my mind: Arcadia. I think the pastel-coloured houses look pleasant while Mariola, for reasons known only to herself, has reservations. I do not care as I am concentrating on the task of discovery. Everything is possible.

  ‘The city square would be a good place to start,’ I say hopefully. ‘There must be some information office, they’ll have a city map, a little café, perhaps a table or two, outside … It feels like another country, don’t you think?’

  ‘You’re thinking Italy …?’ Mariola’s voice trails off.

  ‘Well, it’s a small place … why would anyone be in a hurry?’ I am not giving up yet. I’ve been fantasising about visiting Zakroczym for months.

  Two or three vegetable-sellers spread their measly produce on the pavement; a few drunks stand by the wall. One of them says kurwa10 as I pass. Even before I can take offence, he removes the cigarette from his mouth, bows deeply and apologises. It is so grotesque, I begin to giggle.

  By the time we get to the town square, our mirth morphs into uncontrollable laughter, the kind of which could easily end up in tears. The centre of Zakroczym is empty of people, of traffic, of any human activity or sign of life. There is no café, no restaurant and no information centre. Only one puny dog – named Diphtheria, as we find out later – briefly crosses our path.

  Other people might have found this disappointing or irritating, but we think it farcical. It is so overwhelming; we have to sit at the edge of a large flower container to steady ourselves, to catch our breath.

  We pay a quick visit to the Monastery of the Lesser Capuchins, all fresh in white and pink. There is a curious story about it, told by a German pilot who, many years after the war, visited Zakroczym. He recalled how, flying over the monastery, a sudden vision of a woman spreading a mantle over the sacred place prevented him from dropping his bombs.

  Couldn’t she have spread her cape a bit further? I think to myself.

  There is not much else we can do here so Mariola calls it a day. But I cannot go back to Warsaw without seeing the river and the escarpment. We pick our way further down towards the river, hidden in a thick mat of shrubs and trees, fighting for survival. A long sandy trail interspersed with weeping willows, sunflowers and untrammelled weeds, the swarm of insects – all this is as familiar to me as my own backyard; the path of summers past.

  And then, as if a curtain has lifted, the river reveals itself. It has been worth waiting for: wide, slow-flowing, intensely blue, its unregulated banks green behind the sandbars. It is magnificent. My mother did not exaggerate.

  There are a few rowing boats along the bank. We sit in one of them, taking it all in, scrutinising the river, the steepness of the slope behind, taking time to relax in the sun, undecided about what to do next.

  ‘
The next’ soon makes itself visible: a young man on a motorbike. He moves slowly, negotiating the boats’ moorings, his small son in front of him.

  ‘Oh, is it your boat?’ I ask, panicked. After all, he might be very protective of his property. ‘Do you mind us sitting here?’

  ‘It’s OK,’ he laughs, ‘it’s not mine.’

  ‘Are you a local? Do you know Zakroczym?’ We keep firing questions at him; there is no time to waste.

  The conversation rolls on. Piotr has much to say about his native town. He would like to show us around but not till tomorrow. Tomorrow we will be back in Warsaw, we say, unless there is a place for us to stay the night.

  Mariola has a way of talking to strangers. Her voice becomes at once pleading and beguiling, which most people cannot resist. Piotr is no different. All I can do is to listen. Not for the first time in our travels when she wants to emphasise the urgency of our plight – and, for some reason, there is always a plight – she points out that I live in Australia. It makes my blood curdle. I make a mental note to tell her later how much I resent it.

  Piotr thinks it should be possible to find a place for the night and recommends a comfortable resort up on the plateau. We make tentative arrangements for the next day, exchange our mobile numbers. Piotr has to go. He has promised the day to his son.

  The escarpment, dissected by post-glacial ravines, is very steep. The path goes straight up and we climb it with great difficulty, heading towards what appears to be a miniature timber house of the notorious Baba Yaga, a child-eating witch. But we are no longer children who need to be fattened, just two women of a certain age who have chosen the worst possible way of getting to our destination. From the top – there are two viewing platforms – the vista is extraordinary. The river and the lay of the land can be seen for miles in every direction; it’s a wondrous view.

  I discover that the river is twice as wide as we first thought. What appeared to be the other side is, in fact, a huge sandbar in the middle. Now I can understand why Zakroczym, with its river and the escarpment, was Ola’s much-loved place.

  Here on the plateau, wild nature has been replaced by a lawn the size of a football field: not a blade out of place, not a weed in sight, not a human being or a dog either. Somehow, unintentionally, we find ourselves on private property. One of the houses looks like a place built for tourists. All timber, it smells of freshness, every door unlocked. We call, repeatedly, but there is no answer. We sit outside on garden chairs but I am too nervous to stay still.

  ‘We could easily spend the night here,’ says Mariola. ‘There is everything we need.’

  The house further back is also empty but there are signs of life. A portable radio in the window blares some forgettable music; a Toyota Land Cruiser has its door open, car keys and money carelessly left by someone who is not far away and not worried about security. No doubt, we are trespassing. I am no Goldilocks though, and I consider the absence of dogs a blessing. The property is well fenced off; we happened to enter through the only chink in that fortification by walking directly towards the Baba Yaga house. No point going back the same way. It was difficult enough to get up, going down would be harder and we are yet to find the tourist resort recommended by Piotr. We sit in the open, waiting for someone to lead us out. Surely, there is nothing to worry about?

  ‘Do I look respectable?’ I ask Mariola.

  ‘You look like an Australian lady,’ Mariola says, then regards herself in her small mirror, ‘and I look like your Sancho.’ She brings out a few bunches of small dark grapes.

  ‘Shit … stop it, we’ll end up in the clink. That’s where we’re going to spend the night!’ I say. The grapes are delicious, the best I have ever tasted.

  ‘Considering our age, they wouldn’t keep us long and we could save on accommodation.’

  ‘I’ll be deported but you’ll have to explain it to Felek,’ I say. ‘Don’t know what’s worse.’

  We eat more grapes.

  Eventually three men appear, three brothers, it turns out. We introduce ourselves and apologise profusely. One of them disappears and we are faced with two fellows looking at us intently.

  ‘God sends you!’ blurts Mariola.

  The brothers say nothing and we, Mariola and I, carry on together, excitedly and excessively, I’m afraid to say. We both look as anyone of our age would at the end of a hot day spent walking. We look deranged. I can see it in the mocking eyes of the younger brother. He is not amused. The other one is chatty. He walks us to the main – securely locked – gate and explains how to get to the tourist resort.

  Though only a couple of kilometres further, the path across the ravines is rough. When finally we get there, we discover that there are no vacancies in this place with a million-dollar view. Perhaps it is just as well. We leave a message on Piotr’s mobile to let him know that, regrettably, we’ll be on our way home.

  All we can do now is find our way back to Zakroczym. Leaving behind the woods, the river and all the big mansions, we trudge across fields already ploughed for next year’s crops. There is something dreamlike about this place in the late-autumn afternoon: the distant township across the fields, its church visible from afar and the voice of its bells. Even so, I feel defeated and do not want to go back to Warsaw. If there is nothing to see of the Jewish Zakroczym, I would like to see that nothingness: the place where the synagogue used to be and the mills, because in two weeks I will be flying back to Melbourne. Yet, short of spending the night on a bench at the bus stop, we have no choice but to leave.

  An hour later, just as our bus is pulling up, Piotr calls. ‘It’s getting late. You are most welcome to stay at my mother’s place. I’ll take you around tomorrow,’ he says.

  Mariola hesitates but I have no scruples. So, at the end of a very long day, we are in a stranger’s apartment. We have it to ourselves and I fall asleep even before my head hits the pillow.

  Piotr is generous with his time off work and willing to help, but he knows nothing about the Jewish Zakroczym. Who would tell him, assuming he were interested? Nevertheless, he knows the place which the locals call kerkut. Kirkut,11 Mariola corrects him, almost automatically. It is something I could not possibly do.

  He takes us to a sparse forest of young maples and oaks. Here, we wade through leaf litter looking for the matzevot12 but find nothing. There is no evidence of a cemetery ever being here. Mariola does not think a place as full of hillocks as this one would be suitable for burials. She is right, of course. Suddenly I am overwhelmed by sadness, unreasonable anger, on the verge of a tantrum, about to proclaim the cemetery to be here, because the leaves, the trees, the lightness of air make it perfect. More than anything, it is all too much for me.

  I want to go home, but Mariola and Piotr are determined to find the actual place and we keep driving on. Surprisingly, we happen on an old man who vaguely remembers the mills – he makes an indeterminate gesture in one direction – and tells us how to get to the plot that was once the Jewish cemetery. What we eventually see is a rectangular paddock, the property of someone whose house is visible at the far end. The field is greening, the owners are growing oats here. There are no graves left. They, like the field itself, must have been put to different use. This is my last and lingering impression of Jewish Zakroczym. Even the graves cannot be found here.

  We hardly talk on the way home, each of us in our own thoughts, our mirth evaporated. I close my eyes only to see everything again – the river, the escarpment, the clouds above the church, the paddock and the town square; a patchwork of impressions.

  I had known before coming here that nothing remains of a few centuries of Jewish life in Zakroczym. There is no reason for me to feel sad. But reason has little to do with it. I have seen with my own eyes a people’s existence erased, the fate of Zakroczym’s Jews finally sealed.

  In September 1939, when the war broke out, Zakroczym, being so close to the fortress of Modlin, was heavily bombarded. Its losses were enormous – most, seventy per cent, was in ruins
, many people killed and many more wounded. During that month some people sought shelter in Warsaw and the surrounding towns. They returned home to find ruins and, soon, the occupiers.

  While the town authority was still in the hands of the local Germans (Volksdeutsche), the attitude towards their Jewish neighbours was reasonable; there was no violence. The brutalities began with the arrival of the Gestapo, the gendarmes and German soldiers.

  The first deportation of Jews from Zakroczym took place on a Sunday at the end of June or the beginning of July 1941. The town was surrounded by German gendarmes and armed Volksdeutsche. The Jews were herded into the town square, the same one where we senselessly laughed. Those who did not have resident permits, together with old people, were put onto lorries and taken to the camp at the nearby town of Pomiechówek. The conditions there were terrible, the food scarce. Although some inhabitants of Zakroczym risked their lives to deliver whatever they could to the camp, prisoners were dying of hunger.

  A few months later, the remaining Jews were ordered to assemble in the very same place for the last time. Then they were forced to walk to the town of Nowy Dwór to swell the numbers of the district ghetto. From there, in November 1942, two deportations took place. Soon after, the ghetto was liquidated; the remaining Jews were sent to Auschwitz.

  According to JewishGen records, the Szlang family shared the same fate as the other Jews of Zakroczym. After the war, none of them could be found. I would like to call them by their names, to allocate their proper places in the family tree. This is not possible. I can only assume that before the war, their daily lives were not unlike that of others in the community – their views as diverse, the young as keen to break free from convention. It must have been a vibrant, if not claustrophobic, place for those with unbridled energy.

  5

  Ze’ev

  Never fret for an only son, the idea of failure will never occur to him.