an essay by Mikayla Friedman
A German soldier entered my family's leather store in 1939, just at the beginning of World War II. As German soldiers normally were, this man was polite. He tried on his shoes, he bought them, and then on his way out the door he spit on my great-grandmother. Now, my family knew that, as Jews, Poland was no longer a safe place for them. My great-grandfather took his family eastward on trains, and whoever didn’t come along got left behind. Those who didn’t leave Poland were never heard from again.
When the Germans attacked Warsaw, my great-grandparents Dina and Tuvia had just gotten married. They never would have imagined what this war would mean for the Jewish people. There was always hostilities toward the Jews, as well as pogroms. My family was prepared for war, and they had previously lived through wars, but the Holocaust was truly unimaginable.
My family traveled east towards Asia in the midst of World War II by train. They were stopped in a city of refugees while attempting to find any safe place to stay. The Russians, who had inhabited and divided certain areas of Poland, offered them the chance to continue traveling or “to stay here and wait for the Germans.” Everybody knew what the Germans did to the Jews. Dina, Tuvia and their parents got on the transport trains and journeyed eastward. Dina became pregnant with my Savta when the family was deep in Central Asia. At some point, Dina was taken into an army hospital to give birth, while her parents and family continued traveling east. The family ended up in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and miraculously Dina, Tuvia, and their baby Dora found their way to Tashkent, too. The story becomes muddled here, as my family lived in refugee camps from 1941-1945.
My Savta Dora remembers living in wooden buildings without beds. She considers her family one of the lucky ones because, by some miracle, they didn’t end up in the death camps in Europe. In these refugee camps, people died of starvation, malaria, typhus, and much more. Many lost the will to live. But my Savta tells stories of resiliency from these camps. Her mother, Dina, found milk for my Savta in the neighboring farms. Her family used the leather they packed with them to barter for food and water. They survived. My Savta explains, “You had to have a great will to live, and hope that that will to live lasted you through. Of course, the people who died had the will to live, too.” Tuvia’s zest for life, investment in Jewish education, study and sharing of ideas kept him going in the camps. His passion for Jewish education and the beauty of the Hebrew language, poetry, music, and his connection to Zionism kept him and many others fresh and working towards a hopeful future.
My family went back to Poland in 1946 when the war was over. My Savta was already 4 years old, and she had a baby brother, too. They stayed in Szczecin, a ravished post-war Polish city. However, my Savta’s parents could not stay in Poland because there was nothing there except for total decimation. One needed extraordinary strength to go on, but my family kept going. From 1946-1950, they stayed in Displaced Persons camps in Austria, waiting for official documents that would allow them to come to America. In the DP camp, my family was dependent on the good graces of the American government and organizations sent to help after the war. Somehow, the DP camps had large birth rates. The hope that people felt at the conclusion of the war translated to hope for the future, which was seen in the celebrations at the DP camps. My Savta remembers various Jewish holidays that were celebrated as best as they could be, especially the celebrations for a child’s birthday. In the DP camps, there was a real awareness of helping each other, because these people lived a life with traditions rooted in being there for each other. They had hope for the future.
In December of 1950, my family came to America by boat. They were greatly helped by HIAS , an organization that also tried to get Tuvia a job. Tuvia was a very adventurous person in both his mind and in his life; however, he was not adventurous when it came to looking for a good job. He was a wounded person who never really acculturated to America. My Savta says that other people came to America without an education, without anything. Although Tuvia had so much promise, such intellect -- he couldn’t make it here. Dina, however, was more practical. She started working a week after they moved into that “ugly, cramped” apartment in Brooklyn.
My Savta’s history and perseverance inspires me to be kind, and to see the good in the world. One would assume that, after enduring so much pain, a person becomes hard, mean, and pessimistic. After everything they went through, Tuvia and Dina were extremely kind people. Both their resiliency, and the fact they took care of their kids, proves that they did not lose hope. It is virtually impossible to be so positive and warmhearted after seeing so much cruelty, but my Savta does exactly that. To this day, at 78 years old, my Savta still works full-time as the principal of a Hebrew school. She truly sees the best in people, and through her life’s work as a Jewish educator she has energized and encouraged so many students and families. Her work as a Jewish educator influenced my choice to work at my Hebrew school and to be involved in my synagogue. Every day her story (my story!) motivates me to be kind, to see the light, to never give up hope, and--most importantly--to encourage others to do the same.