Rena's Promise (4 page)

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Authors: Rena Kornreich Gelissen,Heather Dune Macadam

Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Historical, #test

BOOK: Rena's Promise
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for you, I could not bear never seeing my family again. Here is your money back. I am sorry, but I cannot marry you.
Love, Rena
''To tell you the truth, I didn't even discuss Andrzej's letter with my parents," Rena tells me
.
"Why not?" I ask
.
"It would have been devastating to them. I had to marry a Jewish man, preferably Orthodox, and I would never have done anything to upset them."
I wonderif Rena had married Andrzej, would she have been spared Auschwitz? I find that I cannot help trying to rewrite history. The more I read and study about Auschwitz and about the Holocaust, the more she weaves her tale for me, pulling me into the warp of her childhood, the more I find myself wanting to save her from the inevitable. I want her to see the dangers lurking in the neighboring country of Slovakia; I want her and her family to join Gertrude in America before the war breaks out; I want someoneanyoneto save Rena and her sister Danka
.
"Are you tired?" she asks. "You look tired."
"A little. How are you?"
"Oh, I could go on forever." I believe her when she says this, but I also wonder if it's wise to continue. I decide we should take a break and start again in the morning. We eat pierogies and kielbasa for dinner and talk late into the night. The couch we've been sitting on all day pulls out into a bed. Looking at the other photos from Peter Hellman's book
The Auschwitz Album
and reading the narrative of the survivor, I drift off in front of the fire to a deep but dreamless sleep
.
The next morning, with the sun shining in through her rose-colored curtains and coffee steaming in front of me, Rena confesses, "I didn't sleep at all last night."
Over time our relationship has transformed. We've become closer and often call one another just to chat, because we miss each

 

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other. One night she says, ''You don't have to bear me by yourself, Heather. I can share your burdens, too, you know. I just want you to know thatyou're not alone."
I have tried to foster a sense of trust between us, but we progressed beyond that phase quickly. It's as if we've known from the beginning that we are friends. She still tries to protect me at times, but I am insistent that she does not have to endure Auschwitz alone anymore. It's not that she hasn't had her family and friends to support her, but I believe she tries to insulate us from her truthas if she's afraid that she's too heavy, too painful. There are times when I know there's more she's not telling me. Then there are times when her words collapse under the weight of her tears, and I know that only silence can speak for Rena
.
"Did I ever tell you about my dream?" she asks me on the phone one day
.
"No." I grab a pen and a pencil
.
I used to have this dream in Holland, after the war, every night . . . Danka is in danger. Sometimes they order her to jump, sometimes they are pushing her into the pit. Always I am standing there watching.
"Danka!" I scream, running past them, grabbing her hand just before she plummets out of reach. Standing on the edge of an abyss, her fate completely dependent upon what strength I have left, I stare into the void below us that they forced us to dig. How did we ever dig a hole so deep that there is no bottom?
"Rena, help me." Her voice is muted by our palpitating hearts. "Please, don't let go of me."
"I won't," I assure her. My muscles quiver. Every twitch and spasm threatens to betray my promise. My body tenses. This is no dream. "Don't give up, Danka." Shuddering, my nails dig into her flesh, determined to cling onto life.
From behind us Andrzej appears. He takes our hands in his powerful grip and lifts her effortlessly out of the pit. I am so relieved to see him that I cannot speak. He smiles at me, vanishing

 

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before my eyes. "Andrzej!" I call out his name. There is no answer. He is gone.
"If you die before me"I hear Danka's voice"no one is going to cry more than me. But if I die before you, even if there's no one left in the world to mourn for me, I know that you will weep over my grave."
Panting like a wild animal trapped by hunters, I wake. Chilled by internal night fears, uncertain of where I am or who I am, I struggle against the sheets entangling my arms and legs. I search the night table for a candle to light, but the room remains dark. My name has been erased from my mind. I am a number once more.
Rena shows me the scar on her forearm where her number used to be; there's a small dot of grey-blue ink still imbedded in her skin. "That was the bottom part of the one," she tells me
.
It is the color of faded black
.

 

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Slovakia
 
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Only one family had a radio in Tylicz. In the afternoon they would open the window and everyone would gather outside to hear the news of the world and listen while Adolf Hitler made strange and fervored speeches threatening the Poles, the Jews and anyone not Aryan. The Kornreichs were concerned about the sudden annexation of Slovakia with Germany, in 1938, because Sara and Chaim both had brothers who lived just across the border, in Bardejov. But the anguish of Andrzej's secret proposal made the rest of the world seem far less significant to Rena
.
Germany and Russia made a pact between them; with trepidation the Kornreich family listened to the news and Poland itself trembled with fear. While Europe held its breath to see if appeasement would work, Poland called up its young men to join the army and defend their country; it had been divided too many times not to take the threat of Stalin and Hitler seriously
.
On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. "And there was no more innocence in our lives," Rena tells me. Lulled into the belief that the world would help them, Poland was plundered. Tylicz was immediately transformed from a sleepy little border town into a strategic position within occupied Poland; German border guards, watchdogs, and guns were everywhere, and the Nuremberg Laws were put into effect. A man named Joseph, from

 

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the synagogue, was appointed as head of a new organization, the Judenrat, or Jewish Council, and was ordered to deliver the names of all the young Jewish people living in Tylicz. Within the first week of the Nazi invasion, Jews were forced to wear armbands at all times, with the star of David embroidered on them in blue. They could no longer buy food from Gentiles, hire Gentiles to work for them, or cross the Polish border (they were still allowed to trade goods with Gentiles). Any Jew or Gentile disobeying German law, it was proclaimed, would be considered a traitor and punished by death
.
Danka and Rena, along with other young Jewish men and women, were assigned to clean the army quarters, polish shoes, scrub floors, and do anything else the Germans ordered them to do. For years a poor Gentile woman had come to the Kornreichs' house every Sabbath morning to light the fire and reheat the meal Mama had prepared the day before. Under these new regulations she was no longer allowed into their house or to do any work for the Kornreichs. She cried when she came to say good-bye, and the Kornreichs, along with the other Jews in Tylicz, in order not to break Orthodox law, refused to light a fire on the Sabbath. Papa and the other Jewish farmers, unable to hire anyone to help, resorted to working overtime to harvest their crops. Danka and Rena worked from first light to late in the night, dividing their chores between the Germans and their own farm
.
Since there was no law against trading services for goods, Zosia's sewing was used to trade for butter, cheese, and flour. There were still Gentile farmers who would do business with their Jewish neighbors because Tylicz was a close-knit community and the Germans were not respected, they were only feared
.
The Kornreichs hadn't heard anything from Zosia's husband, Nathan, since the start of the German occupation, when he had joined the Polish army along with the rest of the able-bodied men in the country. Then, in October, a card came in the mail with a Russian postmark. Zosia handed it to Mama, folded her hands in front of her

 

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