Chapter 5

FATHER’S DEPARTURE (THE SPERRE 1942)

Fathers job, which he obtained through my letter to Mr. Rumkowski, the head of the Lodz ghetto, turned out to be a double blessing for our family. First, and most importantly, we avoided the mass deportations of thousands of welfare recipients, and secondly, it helped us to survive the devastating winter of 1941-42

At the time, however, we did not foresee the tragic consequences that my dear father would have to endure.

Mother was still without a job due to the slow pace which plagued the opening of a comforter factory. My brother and myself were still too young, and without skills to obtain a factory job.

My father, though very reluctantly and against his principles, took my brother and myself to his old friend, Max Fuchs, asking for his help in finding some employment for the two of us.

Fuchs, who was the father of Rumkowski’s executive secretary, and whose son was the head of the employment department, bluntly refused any help. He told us that he solemnly promised the head of the ghetto administration to stay away from any sort of patronage. "All I can do, my dear friend, is ask my son to send your two youngsters to a labor camp in Germany."

In disgust, we left his beautiful house, ignoring the tempting homemade cookies and tea served on the dining room table. However, just before leaving the nicely decorated room, my father could not resist to remind his old friend when in 1937, he with his children were forced to return from Germany to Poland, my father was the first to help them in their predicament.

The maid was just ready to shut the door behind us, when my father with his head high, proudly put his arms around our shoulders, and without a proper goodbye said; "My family with God’s help, is going to survive, without your help, my friend Mathis"- calling him by his real name.

While stepping out, I managed to have a last glimpse into the room. Max Fuchs, the Germanized Polish Jew, who just several years before became a refugee, humiliated and poor, stood now without any visible expression of regret, heartless and cold.

To me at the given moment, the former best friend of my parents looked as if he would be a Nazi himself.

So, father was the only one in the family to hold a job, fortunately a job with important privileges. Working in a produce warehouse even as a watchman was at the time considered enviable. In addition to his daily soup, he was also permitted to eat on the job vegetables like red beets, carrots, turnips, etc.

However to take out anything, even a frozen or spoiled potato, was not permitted. For such a crime the punishment could have meant deportation of the culprits entire family.

Meanwhile the situation in the ghetto kept on deteriorating. The management of the produce warehouses, besides being corrupt were not skilled enough in the art of maintaining and distributing perishable foods. So, tons of potatoes and vegetables turned rotten and especially during the winter months, became frozen before reaching the starving ghetto dwellers.

To avoid outbreaks of dangerous epidemics, most of those spoiled produce had to be disposed of. This situation prompted many warehouse workers to fill up their pockets with spoiled or frozen vegetables and bring it home to their starving families. Without considering the consequences, my father became one of those "dangerous criminals."

Although mother was terribly fearful of father’s involvement in "stealing," she was nevertheless happy with the few frozen potatoes and some spoiled vegetables that father brought home almost daily. My father’s excuse for doing that was simple and quite logical: "If I would not take it, and my coworkers wouldn't take it, the disposal dumps will be filled even more with those life saving items'

So, the soup at our supper time became a bit better and denser and much more nourishing with produce which would otherwise have been disposed of.

Soon my brother and I became factory workers. My brother with the help of our neighbour, Mr. Feldman, who was production manager of a Nazi uniform factory obtained a job a few blocks away from our residence. While I was hired as a helper at the fur factory through the intervention of an uncle of mine, who was a master furrier.

Relatively comfortable under the prevailing circumstances our family managed to survive the winter of 1941-42 in pretty good shape.

In general however, the ghetto went through a devastating winter. Freezing, unheated dwellings, and mass starvation caused the death of thousands of men, women, and children.

Spring arrived as it always did, but there was no rejoicing. Scores of young men unable to obtain factory jobs or even some daily work, were lining up for voluntary transfers to German labour camps.

At the beginning of spring of 1942, father abruptly stopped bringing home the usual few frozen potatoes and spoiled vegetables. He became moody and seemed to start again to lose weight. Obviously mother looked pretty worried, but didn't say anything. Scared to hear any bad news and not wanting to irritate her husband even further, she even asked my brother and myself to act as if nothing had happened.

We didn't have to wait too long to get a clearer picture of our fathers peculiar behaviour.

On that unforgettable sunny April day of 1942, minutes before father was supposed to leave for his night shift, he surprised us by letting us know that he registered as a volunteer to a labour camp at the western Polish city of Poznan. Needless to say that we were shocked, standing in front of him in complete disbelief. Mother started to weep hysterically and the only word that she could bring out was "Why?"and at the same time blocking the door with her slim body.

Father's timing to let us know about his decision was quite diplomatic and understandable. He obviously did it just before leaving the house to give us as little time as possible for unnecessary arguments. His tactics seemed to work. As he immediately left to work, my brother and I, remained with ample time to calm down our hysterically crying mother and calmly assess the situation.

Early the next morning, after father returned from his shift, mother served him breakfast, a slice of bread with margarine and his usual cup of "ersatz coffee." My brother and I were already getting ready for work. "What is that nonsense about going to Poznan?" mother asked quite calmly.

Visibly tired, and hardly keeping his eyes open, father answered quietly but firmly, "This is no nonsense, I am leaving very soon." Not waiting for our reaction, he continued, "I don't want to share. the fate of most men in our neighbourhood; don't you realize that most of them have died or are dying of starvation." He tried to explain that according to his knowledge, the labourers in those camps received enough food to survive. And while undressing to go to sleep he assured us that the war is going to end pretty soon, and that he will return home and so will Moshe and Isaak, and we will be a happy family again.

Needless to say, that there were more discussions and arguments on that subject with lots of tears being shed, but all in vain.

At the end of April, or just the beginning of May, we sadly escorted my dear father to the gates of the ghetto prison from where a large group of volunteers, mostly younger men than our father, were soon going to leave for labour camps.

In the following days I tried hard to convince my constantly weeping mother that dad did the right thing, and that everything is going to turn out as well as he promised.

But deep in my heart I was very skeptical about father’s so-called voluntary departure. It was very difficult for me to believe that our caring and devoted father would voluntarily leave his family. This gentle man didn't have a selfish bone his body and his love for his wife and children was indisputable.

Pretty soon after his departure we learned the truth about father’s predicament.

Sometimes in May of 1942 we received same papers from the ghetto prosecutor’s office which pretty much enlightened us about what had really happened. We were informed that several workers of the warehouse including my father, were apprehended while stealing potatoes and vegetables. The supervisor, apparently, to cover up his own questionable activities, reported them to the police. To avoid certain deportation for my father with his whole family, he somehow managed to reach a deal with the prosecutor who let him voluntarily enlist for deportation to a labour camp without involving his family.

Several days later we received by mail a routine postcard from a camp near Poznan, which read, "I work and am very fine," with just his signature at the bottom. This was the last time we heard from him.

To both my brother and myself, and later to my older brothers who returned safely from the Soviet Union, my father’s heroic act of unselfish devotion to his family and his own sacrifice will forever remain in our hearts and souls.

SEALED CATTLE WAGONS AT MARISHIN

It must have been no more than four weeks after father’s departure, when we heard that a train full of inmates from a camp near Poznan, is being held at the Marishin rail station. The wagons are sealed and the inmates not allowed to enter the ghetto area.

Purposely withholding this piece of news from mother, my brother and I decided to check out the story on the spot. When we reached the station, it became quite obvious that something out of the ordinary is taking place. Scores of Jewish policemen and Nazi soldiers with vicious dogs were patrolling the area putting the whole surrounding streets off limits. A long train with dozens of cattle wagons was visible from afar.

At first it seemed impossible to come near those wagons, but after nightfall, when the soldiers with their dogs left the area, we decided to take a chance and reach at least the nearest wagon.

My brother was waiting while I slowly moved past some dense bushes and not even realizing how, I managed to crawl close to the train. Soon I found myself in front of the very last wagon.

Lying on the ground I looked up to the little barred window on top of the wagon’s front, but there was no sign of life. A dim light from somewhere cast a bit of brightness around that small opening. Slowly I crawled over the rough ground and started to whisper in Yiddish,"Friends, from where did you come" and a bit louder I continued,"Did you by any chance know or heard from Shlomo Kujawski?" There was no answer.

Suddenly, I noticed a pair of boney hands appearing at the window, and then another pair. But instead of a reply to my questions I heard faintly crying voices pleading for help. Gesturing with their skeletal hands, they kept on pleading for water and bread. In low and horse voices they begged to help them to get released and a chance to return to their families.

I asked them to show their faces, with the hope that I might know one of them, but soon I regret my request. What I had seen after a few moments, became one of my worst nightmares. Two skeletal heads of bearded creatures, hardly resembling human beings tried to show their faces through that little opening above, followed by a face of a teenage boy.

The light, although not too bright, gave me quite a clear picture of those three faces. They were greyish yellow and their eyes were placed deep inside their skeletal skulls. Their voices and gestures had more resemblance to monkeys than to humans. I felt both faint and nauseous. Not being able and completely helpless to assist those unfortunate people, and also being scared of getting detected by any of the security men, I ran as fast as possible in the direction from where I came.

My brother’s first question when he saw me was: "Are you sick?" and holding me tight he led me away from this horrible place without even asking further questions.

Sensing my state of mind, he waited patiently until I recovered and told him what I had seen. After telling him only a part of my nightmarish experience, we decided to keep this story from my mother, who suffers enough without knowing too many grizzly details.

The next day it became known that the train with the condemned cargo of innocent victims of Nazi terror, left the ghetto for an unknown destination. This was the time when I truly learned first hand how well the Nazis treated their workers at the so-called labour camps.

THE SPERRE

By the summer of 1942 conditions in the ghetto seemed to have stabilized. The times of deportations seemed to belong to the past. But quite the opposite was happening. Many young and middle aged men and women from all over Western Europe were brought into the ghetto as an apparent substitute for the slowly diminishing labour force.

The many factories which produced items ranging from brooms to military uniforms, furniture and even shoes including boots for German officers, were working full speed. There were also rumors that important parts for the military were produced under strict German supervision. Because of the approaching winter at the Russian front, fur-lined winter coats and fur hats were in such a demand that they caused a severe shortage of workers at the fur factory. Policemen and firemen who were known to be furriers were forced to take jobs at the fur factory.

The knowledge of all that provided the ghetto population with a feeling of confidence and security unprecedented before. A feeling that the Germans need us was the general consensus of the ghetto dwellers. However, during all that imaginary peaceful existence, the death toll from starvation continued to rise.

There was apparently an even stronger feeling of confidence in the offices of the Nazi and Jewish ghetto administrations. Hans Bibov, the Nazi ghetto head, supposedly kept on dispatching positive messages to Berlin, about the excellent work being done at the Lodz ghetto and the importance of the many products being produced by his Jews.

Obviously Bibov, who was far from being a friend of the Jewish people, did all that in order to avoid a liquidation of the ghetto, which would lead him and his large staff of loyal friends direct to the Russian front.

Also the Jewish ghetto administration with Rumkowski himself were confident and pretty sure that they will continue their lives in relative luxury in comparison to the average ghetto dweller and survive the war.

Unfortunately all those hopes and predictions were shattered by the end of August 1942, when posters placed all over the ghetto proclaimed a start of a mass deportation. This unique selective deportation will last approximately a full week and was targeted toward the sick, children, the orphanages, the elderly and people considered by the Nazis worthless.

The selections which started on September the 1st were conducted in a typically Nazi orderly fashion. Every day a different area was surrounded by armed soldiers with their dogs plus dozens of Jewish policemen. The selection was conducted by a high ranking Nazi officer while trucks were waiting on the streets to swallow his selected victims. During the selections all inhabitants of a chosen building had to leave their dwellings and line up on the street in front of the Nazi officer who with a gesture of his thumb decided whether you should live or die. At the same time a thorough search for possibly hidden dwellers was conducted by soldiers and Jewish policemen.

When the time came for our selection, my brother and I put on our best suits and mother who was still looking quite healthy dressed up as decently as possible and calmly together we were walking down the four flights of stairs to face the Nazi beast. During our walk down we were approached by one of our neighbours who suggested that his wife and our mother should hide in a prepared by him hiding place. Reluctantly we agreed.

The street was full of neatly dressed up people hopeful of passing this dreadful ordeal.

The first tragic moment of that unforgettable day occurred when Mr. Szeratzki, himself a member of the "Sonder Commando'"walked into the street carrying his elderly, sick mother-in-law in his strong arms and placing her on top of one of the waiting open trucks. Mrs. Feldman seemed quite calm, but tears kept streaming down her pale wrinkled cheeks.

Even more tragic were the pictures of policemen pulling crying babies from the hysterically screaming mothers’ arms. The intended purpose of this barbaric action became clear to everyone present and chaos and panic replaced the till then prevailing calm. However a certain degree of order was forced on us by the swiftly intervening policemen and Nazi troops.

My brother and I were almost near the Nazi officer when I heard behind us my mother’s voice. "I could not stay hidden while you two were going through this terrible ordeal," and in a whisper she continued, "whatever it is going to happen, let us at least be together.'

Several steps behind us stood an elderly man whom I knew only by sight. The man probably in his sixties with ash grey hair was one of the new arrivals from Western Europe. A pharmacist by profession, he told us that he is still without a job, and that he is the only survivor of his large family. He still looked in fair shape and I told him so, trying to give him a bit of much needed confidence.

When mother suddenly appeared, the elderly man asked her politely if he may join us during the selection. "You are a beautiful lady," he told her, "and together with your two handsome sons, I might have a chance to pass."

Mother did not have a chance to tell the lonesome neighbour of ours that it would be a pleasure to have him join us, when the Nazi officer with a move of his thumb, ordered the four of us to return to the building. Needless to say how happy we all were to have passed successfully the selection. It was also a sheer delight to watch our euphoric neighbour who lived on the second floor of our building, walking back to his room expressing his gratitude and thanks to our mother for being kind enough to help him during this horrible ordeal.

Coming back into our apartment I tried a glimpse down the street. What I saw was a picture of terror and devastation. Several trucks were already filled up with human cargo. Screams and cries from the terrified unfortunate human souls reached our fourth floor dwelling. Familiar faces of neighbours, young and old , sick and some quite healthy were forced into the trucks. Some, who dared to resist were brutally beaten by soldiers, and pushed into the trucks by shouting Jewish policemen. It was a picture of horror, I could never erase from my mind.

When the "sperre" finally ended, several of my cousins who resided on the other side of the ghetto, took the Wolborska street bridge and rushed over to check if the three of us made it through the selections.

One cousin of mine who resided near the ghetto hospital had witnessed scenes of indescribable brutality. She saw new born babies being thrown from the hospital windows into the waiting on the street trucks. Since many missed to fall direct into the trucks, the sidewalk in front of the hospital was splattered with blood and littered with body parts. It was a blood bath of unbelievable proportions.

The scores of vehicles overloaded with elderly and sick men, women, and children piled on top of each other went in the direction of the "Marishin" rail station from where they were transported in sealed cattle wagons to death camps.

There was no doubt in my mind that this was the actual and official start of the final solution.

On the very last day of this largest ever mass deportation from the Lodz ghetto, the neatly dressed up youngsters of the ghetto orphanages, were placed on horse drawn farmers’ buggies and driven through the ghetto streets in the direction of Marishin, obviously on their last voyage. Not fully aware of what is really happening to them many of the children were joyfully singing Yiddish songs.

Soon life in the Lodz ghetto slowly returned to normal. There were however very few families who hadn't lost a member or two, during this horrible disaster. An estimated twenty two thousand men, women and children were rounded up and shipped to the death camps of Chelmno or Auschwitz.

THE AFTERMATH OF FATHER’S DEPARTURE

Almost certain that our father, if he wasn't dead yet, had no chance whatsoever to survive the harsh conditions of the camp at Poznan, I tried my very best to spare my mother from knowing the truth.

She continued her daily routines as if truly believing that her husband is alive and well and with God’s help will soon return to his family. There were times however when I had a feeling that Mother hardly sees a chance for this ever to happen, and that she herself is just putting up an act to ease the pain for my brother and myself.

She continued to kindle the shabbat candles as always, making her blessing and shedding her usual amount of tears by whispering a silent prayer for her husband and children. She also continued with her traditional Friday night meal with "gefilte fish", made from a piece of ground horse meat, and "chicken soup," cooked from another small piece of horse meat. The table, as always, was covered with a clean white table cloth, and my brother and myself had to take turns making the Kiddush over two slices of bread.

The same "festive" suppers with the identical ceremony were repeated on all Jewish holidays and festivals, without fail. On some Passovers the ghetto received permission to bake matza which anybody who wanted to could have instead of the normal bread ration. Although the amount of matza received was much less than the usual bread ration, mother had at least half of our bread ration replaced with Matza.

So our Passover seder table was graced with matza, chicken soup with several small matza balls, ironically made of bread with a small addition of ground matza, instead of regular matza meal.

In addition to the deliciously made gefilte fish there was also a kind of "tzimes"made out of a mixture of carrots and turnips.

As unbelievable as it may sound, we continued to conduct a Passover seder in the ghetto, the same way as my father did all his years until his deportation. I am quite sure that thousands of other families inside this horrible place were conducting their own Passover Seders.

While reading the story about our eventual liberation from slavery, thousands of years ago, we were all praying and hoping that some day we will also be free and reunited with our loved ones.

It is also important for me to mention and remember the three young girls, who after my father’s departure were living with us in our flat, and had the opportunity at least a couple of Passovers to celebrate with us.

After the Bloom sisters, seventeen and ten, lost their parents to starvation, my mother took them in to live with us. She also took in their cousin, Frania, who at the time was already the only survivor of her family. By the end of 1943 the two sisters were put on a list for deportation. Soon after their departure, Frania, then about eighteen was sent to a labor camp in the city of Chestochowa where she survived the war.

In 1947 1 had the pleasure to attend Frania’s wedding which took place in a village near the city of Landsberg.

However the two beautiful Bloom sisters perished in one of the Nazi death camps.

Chapter 6

MY MOTHER

Throughout my memoirs I described in detail the many virtues of my mother and father, (of blessed memory), and could state without exaggeration that they were the best parents children could ever be blessed with.

In a separate chapter I described a most unselfish act of sacrifice by my dear devoted father, and in this short chapter I will add a little bit more about my mother’s devotion to her children and a brief description of her own early years.

My mother was brought up in a strictly religious home. She lost her father during some kind of an epidemic when she was only two years old. Her mother’s second husband who owned a small wool factory, was extremely religious in addition to being a scholar in matters of the Torah and religious teachings, in general. All his free time he spent learning Torah at the Bet Midrash (an extension to the Old City Synagogue).

Zaidy Mendel, as we used to call him, was no follower of any chasidic sect or Rabbi. Those Torah scholars were known as Mesnagdim.

However none of my mother’s five half brothers and sisters grew up to be religious. My mother, however, although a working girl before marrying my father, was the only one of the family to sustain her traditional Jewish way of life and throughout all her life continued on the same path.

Although without a formal secular education, she was well versed in the learning of the Torah and was equal to any Jewish man in reading and understanding of the Hebrew prayer books. She was also educated in Yiddish, knowing perfectly how to read and write in that language.

As long as I can remember she managed to keep a strictly kosher household where the Shabbat and religious holidays and festivals were observed in a not lesser way than at the home of her childhood.

While always working and helping her husband to support the family, her duties and devotion to her family did not diminish.

Those double duties however, did not interfere with her thirst for a good Jewish book and for her love for the Yiddish theatre. I still remember the several photo albums and scrapbooks of actors and shows she collected since her younger years. She used to show off with pride those mementos from the time of the great Yiddish theatre of Lodz.

Having a perfect partner in these activities, my mother and father used to tell us stories about those fabulous times. They also told us that after the building which housed that great Yiddish theatre,was destroyed by fire, the Jewish population of our city and even of most cities all over Europe, were in deep mourning.

Although always busy and most of the time without funds to buy tickets, my parents managed from time to time to attend a Yiddish show or a new Jewish motion picture.

Mother’s only regret was not being able to obtain a formal education while a youngster. Since she was growing up during the Czarist rule over Poland, her knowledge of our country’s language was far from adequate and indeed another of her regrets.

Although still a young woman, mother’s main concern however was always the welfare of her family. Because of her double duties, her time had to be carefully planned. Her cooking and preparing for the Shabbat, as I vividly remember, began Thursday night and lasted until the wee hours of Friday morning. I will always remember the two miniature challahs mother specially baked for my brother and myself which we took with us Friday morning together with our school lunch. She also never forgot to bake a large twisted challah which she donated to the Rabbi’s wife who distributed the collected food items to the poor and needy.

In her very limited free time, mother took on a kind of duty which I always used to admire. Since many of our women neighbours were completely illiterate, mother used at least twice a week to read to them the important news from the daily paper and once a week she gave them a special treat by reading the continuations of great romances and letters to the editor reprinted in our local newspaper from the New York Yiddish "Forward." Judging by the way the ladies swallowed mother’s every word, those eagerly awaited weekly readings must have been among their most important and very appreciated events in the lives of those poor ladies.

Mother also seemed to have great pleasure in organizing those sessions and considered them a "Mitzvah" indeed.

There were of course times when mother had to do things which were far above her strength. But at times like that there was always someone ready to give her a hand, sometimes it was her husband and on different such occasions there was always one of her sons.

At this particular time, some time during the latter half of the 1930's, my mother was almost without any help at all. My oldest brother was then serving his second half of a ten months sentence in a prison for political offenders in the town of Linczyce, and father was hospitalized with a severe case of jaundice. Isaak was doing his apprenticeship at a fur factory, and my twin and I were attending school in the morning and Hebrew classes in the afternoons.

Mother suddenly found herself in an impossible position of not only having to care for the house and family, but also to take over full responsibility of a thriving business. At once she turned into a tower of strength.

Without ever complaining or openly showing any signs of strain she took full care of the business, without neglecting in any way her children and household. In addition she also fulfilled a task previously done by father, namely arranging and sending the periodic large food parcels to our brother in prison.

Realizing, of course, that the food she sent had to be shared by a large group of inmates in Moshe’s cell, mother was nevertheless happy to be able to send those parcels: "Even if he gets only a small fraction of what I send, it still makes me feel good," she used to say.

Although I was just a kid at the time, I was quite amazed and really proud of how mother managed to come through these extremely difficult periods, unscattered and still in good health.

THE DEPARTURE OF AUNT RACHEL

The emigration to Palestine by mother’s younger sister Rachel, turned out to be quite a blow to both of them. The year was 1935. The Jewish boycott against German goods was in full swing, especially among businessmen who used to deal direct with Germany. So, Aunt Rachel’s husband, a successful fur merchant decided not only to stop dealing with the Germans, but also to leave Europe altogether.

Being at the time president of the General Zionist party of Lodz, uncle Abraham had no difficulties to obtain permission to enter the British mandated Palestine. His ability to invest heavily in his chosen country must have been another important factor in receiving the visas as fast as he did. So, Aunt Rachel with her husband and three children left Poland several years before the great disaster.

With her sister’s departure, mother also lost her dearest friend and constant companion.

Although mother had five more siblings her bond with Aunt Rachel was special indeed. Only the two of them were from the same father, while the others were children from their mother’s second marriage. For an unknown to me reason these two little sisters were never formally adopted by their stepfather and never called him father. Instead they respectfully addressed him as long as I remember as Uncle Mendel.

Being only about one and half years apart in age, it was quite understandable that under those circumstances they both became not only loving sisters, but extremely close friends. With an always busy husband, sharing his time between the business and his activities in the party, Aunt Rachel spent a lot of time with my mother. She really did her utmost to give her hard working sister a bit of pleasure and a much needed change in her daily routine: "I can't look at the way you are constantly working, while I do almost nothing," she used to say, while tenderly hugging and kissing her oldest sister. So routinely once or sometimes twice during the week the two of them used to spend a couple of hours together. Sometimes they enjoyed a show or a movie together and on other occasions just a coffee and cake in one of the many coffee houses.

Although I was just a kid at the time, I still remember how deep in my heart I was grateful to Aunt Rachel for being so good to my mother.

After her beloved sister’s departure, mother’s life was not the same any more. Normally, time is supposed to be a great healer, unfortunately not in this case. The longer their separation lasted the more difficult it became for mother to adjust. Her suffering became so vivid, that it started to reflect on our entire household. Especially sad were the days when the mailman brought in a letter from Tel-Aviv.

When father used to ask her about her sister, her answer was short and always the same: "she's fine, everything is fine." We all thought of course that her sadness and all the tears were only because she missed so much her little sister, as she fondly used to call her.

Finally, not being able to conceal it inside herself any more, mother came out with the truth. "My dear sister is miserable," mother burst out sobbing as if God forbid somebody in the family would have passed away. Not being able to control herself, she told us how aunt Rachel’s life became miserable and almost unbearable. Mother kept blaming her brother-in-law for his refusal to stay in Poland. What we found out later, was the unfortunate fact that my uncle had lost most of his holdings soon after their arrival in Tel-Aviv. He fell victim to a group of real estate swindlers who almost wiped him out.

Being used to a life of leisure, with a steady housekeeper, and a niece of my uncle acting as a nanny to their children, the reality of life in Palestine seemed indeed quite miserable. Aunt Rachel instead of keeping that misery to herself did not miss an occasion to convey her misery to my poor mother. However, at that time my aunt could hardly realize that her husband with his "stupid Zionist ideas" as she used to write, saved her and her three growing children from becoming victims of the Nazi’s final solution.

SEPTEMBER 1939 - AUGUST 1944

During the entire period of the Nazi occupation, my mother was a tower of strength. Of course, she was not immune to suffering, but always kept her pain locked inside herself in order not to cause additional worries to her family. Without showing emotions, she suffered silently when her two oldest boys had to leave home and continued suffering until the last hours of her life thinking about them. It was easy to sense her real emotions each time she was kindling the Shabbat candles with a tearful and silent prayer. These sessions became more intense after my father’s departure in 1942. I fully realized that the events of the recent past kept on torturing her.

Her perseverance and exceptional determination to stay strong for her childrens’ sake, must have been the main factor of her ability to go through all that hellish period. Mother of course gave all the credit for her good health to God the All Mighty. Also our fortunate avoidance of the many deportations during the ghetto years and the survival of the deadly epidemics she gave credit to her unbreakable belief in the mercy of the All Mighty. This sincere belief kept her going until the last minutes of her life.

To truly describe the love and devotion of my mother will be sufficient enough to describe an event that occurred in the spring of 1943. This was the time when the bi-monthly food rations which usually were distributed with their German punctuality on every second Monday, was for no apparent reason delayed by several days.

Most ghetto dwellers were normally using up those meager rations and the two kilo loaf of bread during a period of mostly ten days, and workers managed to pull through the remaining several days with the help of the daily soup at the factory. Very few people however including my mother were painfully managing their households by equally dividing the rations into equal portions to assure that some food, no matter how little, would last through the full fourteen days. .

Needless to say it was very difficult to exist on such a small amount of food, but at least we were not left even for one day without food at all, no matter how little.

My dear Mother with her exceptional skills and some sort of manipulation, always managed to keep some left over items for an extra day, in case of an unexpected delay in the food distribution

This time however, the delay lasted for a period of three to four days. People were literally collapsing on the streets. Every morning special squads were collecting dead bodies of men, women and children off the sidewalks and from the dwellings. The disaster reached the highest proportions. This enormous tragedy is impossible to describe with simple words.

Mother still somehow managed to put on the supper table some sort of watery soup, but the bread ration was already completely used up. On the third day all the three of us were still going to work at the usual time, but we were so weak that the short walk to the factories turned into a torturous venture.

I cannot recall how many coworkers were already missing, but on this exceptionally warm spring day, those workers who were present, were just sitting around without having the strength of doing any sort of work. The factory soup on that day was almost without the usual few slices of potatoes, an apparent victim of the prevailing shortages. Nobody on that day seemed to conduct any conversation with a friend or coworker. They were just sitting at the tables or machines as if half paralyzed. There was no intervention by a foreman or instructor.

The day was dragging on endlessly. Since the place had very large windows, the warm spring sun, not having any restrictions, was generously warming the half starved to death bodies of the young men and women present.

At about three P.M., I decided to go down to the backyard to get some fresh air, something I would never be allowed to do during a normal work day. Since our factory was located in a former school building, the backyard was nicely paved and surrounded by an iron fence. Close to the fence, and all around the yard there was about two feet of ground allocated for grass. Being terribly weak and more hungry than ever before, I sat down on some freshly grown grass, and rested my boney back on the iron fence. I didn't even realize that I took a place exactly opposite the small gate which led to the adjoining factory where mother was working.

Trying as much as possible to forget my hunger pains, I desperately attempted to get some sleep. Apparently with the help of the soothing warm sun, I somehow succeeded. I apparently had a short nap without dreams or nightmares, so when I heard my mother’s voice calling my name, I swiftly opened my eyes. Surprised and even scared, I asked her how and why she left her work in the middle of the day.

She tried her best to assure me with her soft voice full of love and concern, that she somehow had a feeling that I found myself in a situation in which I could need a little bit of nourishment. She handed me a small pot of soup, and kissing my forehead, told me that she had to go home and cook a little bit of soup with a couple of spoons of left-over flour. Assuring me that she still had a bit of flour left for tonight’s supper. Putting the pot next to me I slowly stood up and embraced my dear Mother while tears were streaming down from both our boney cheeks. This display of a Mother’s devotion, I will carry in my heart forever.

The regular distribution of rations after a delay of several days resumed in a normal fashion, but the cost in human lives during that unexplainable short period of time, was enormous.

A CASE OF A GUILTY CONSCIENCE

I am still not sure what caused Mr. Max Fuchs, my Father’s old friend, suddenly to come to our rescue. This time he did it without our pleading or asking. Who or rather what influenced this seemingly heartless person to turn into a human being if only for one good deed.

If my memory serves me well it was in the late spring of 1942. A new directive by the Ghetto administration posted all over the Ghetto and published in Rumkowski’s totally, irrelevant newspaper, (a paper without any actual news) stated that everybody regardless of gender or age included children over ten years old are obliged to acquire a working card. Needless to say that such a directive was taken very seriously since it could have been considered a matter of life and death.

Several months had already passed since my Father’s deportation and Mother was still without a steady factory job. Although my brother and I were fully employed, the danger of all of us being deported in case Mother’s name should be put on such a list

Fortunately for us the manager of the so called cooperative (the store which distributed the food rations) was Mother’s old friend. This friendship went back to the period when my parents were also friends with Mr. Fuchs before he immigrated from Germany. Apparently Mother must have mentioned in passing about her problem to the store manager who still continued his friendship with Mr. Fuchs. I'm quite sure that this man, whose name I could not recall told Mr. Fuchs about our predicament. He was probably convinced that this time through his son who headed the employment department Max would be of some help. This, if I remember well, must have been by the end of March 1943.

It seems that Mr. Fuchs, my parents’ former friend, who in an unforgettable cruel manner once refused to assist in finding jobs for my twin brother and myself had gone through some unexplainable bout of guilty consciousness. This time he apparently decided to do something for the family of his once best friend.

I vividly recall that nice sunny spring afternoon, while still in bed after a night shift at the factory, I heard somebody calling my name from down the street. As always on such a nice day I kept the window wide open. I looked down from where the voice came and noticed a neighbour’s kid standing next to an elegantly dressed handsome couple. "Yomin" the kid shouted "This man wants to see you"... after a harder look down from my fourth floor window I was able to recognize the tall lean body of Mr. Fuchs who waved in my direction signaling for me to come down.

I ran down, mostly sliding on top of the railings as I always did since my early childhood. It didn't take more than two minutes for me to stand in front of him. Mr. Fuchs greeted me with a warm handshake and a smiling face.

Probably being aware of my Father’s fate, he asked only about Mother’s health, while handing me a working card for her ... "Give this to your Mother with my best regards and good wishes" he said while walking off without any further explanation, holding the arm of an elegantly dressed pretty girl, half his age. About two days later Mother began to work in a shirt factory,

When I returned to our flat Mother just came in from visiting a sick neighbour. I excitingly told her what had happened, and persuaded her to look down the window from where she could still catch a glimpse of her old friend.

"What is going on?" she asked with tears in her eyes..."where was our good friend when Daddy was being deported?", and with a move of her arm she dismissed his good deed as a disgusting and blatant act by a man with a guilty conscience.

This was the last time I ever saw my parents’ old friend, the father of Mr. Rumkowski's executive secretary and of a big shot son. As I learned later, all the three of them survived the Holocaust and returned strong and healthy to their "German homeland."