War Torn Love (51 page)

             
He would say, trying to put a positive spin on the whole mess, “None of them deserved to just lay there all unforgotten, at least this gives him a chance to say a prayer for them they would not have received anything otherwise.”

             
Being there was numerous dead all the time - it provided him and a couple others men full time jobs trying to keep up with the demand. I knew it was severely bothering him, to perform such task. He got nightmares, and woke up in cold sweats.

             
It seemed like we were all being forced to work at least twelve-hours each and every day, usually even more than that, and mostly seven days a week. Each day blended into the other. After a while, it would seem we would grow a touch sad when we woke up in the morning. Knowing this would mean we would have to go through with this all over, and face the hunger once more. Many times forgot exactly what day it was. It affected me – the lack of food and the constant pushing and tiring us.

             
Rarely did the Nazis permit us to have taken our Sabbath, or any of our other Jewish holidays off - against our religion. This was of unimportance to the Nazis, meaning nothing to them.

             
Consequently, if we were not at work, then we ended up spending our time eating and we slept a lot, due to the physical demands being placed on all of us, and still we nearly starved; we seemed to always be exhausted, no amount of sleep could help us. There was nothing available we had could do for amusement to let off some steam. This was not the sort of place to attempt such things, like the any semblance of a normal life we had all left behind. Our old lives seemed like nothing more than a fleeting dream. The only thing any of us wanted now was to survive, and get as far from this place as we could. To survive this, we turned inward to our family, and religion to try to get through this, drawing on each other’s strength, we tried helping one another out.

             
As a very cl
ose family, we did our best
to look after each member, so when ever were all in the apartment together, we make a genuine effort doing our best to completely shut the outside world out. We shut the drapes to the windows, so we would not have to look out on the scenes that could very easily be from the last days. Pretending that it does not existed. Trying to make some kind of resemblance out of our lives, inside this small confining space with the one thing, we still had accessible to us, our imagination our place becomes magical, by using our imagination we our able to achieve just about anything. Poppa and My father-in-law told us all amazing stories. We
also played games, sang songs, it help us all to fell just a smidge better. And while in the apartment we did our best to practice our religion. We could not let our faith be robbed from us.

             
Through all this, melancholy I am very pleased, and ecstatic to say we survived. At times, I believe my husband was the only one that could possibly still keeps my spirits up, these days through the darkest of times. Times I challenged my own faith. Abram and I were still very much in love with one another, as much so as the day that we married. I could not fathom him not in my life.  It surprised me at times, that he could still possibly remotely find me beautiful. As a young couple, it could be quite a challenge to try keeping the romantic interludes between us alive, burning with passion under such extreme of circumstances. You might ask how that could even be possible. Before the German’s occupation started, we made love to one another just about every single night, the feeling I got, I really enjoyed making love to my husband, he tended to always be so tender with me, it made it more enjoyable knowing that he would never hurt me, or take advantage of me.  Fast-forward to our time there – one major drawback to being able to make love, we never have any resemblance of privacy. We all shared a tiny room with my sister as well as her husband, and daughter, and our own daughter, it was wall to wall bed; one could not get out of bed without disturbing someone lying nearby. There was not an inch to spare, modesty had to be completely over-looked and then thrown out the window. It is just not us experiencing this problem, every couple in that tiny apartment had at one time or another suffered from this. We heard at least one
couple almost every night going at it. Out of respect to the couple, we never brought it up with one another - that we had heard them from the night before. This was out of
respect;
we had tried keeping our love alive. And we do not desire to ruin it for anyone.

             
My personal fear for my own relationship was, we as a couple was able to survive through the war. Especially when so much was being stacked against us. I sometimes lay awake at night crying to myself, wondering whether or not our relationship could endure all this, asking myself how it could
, -
I was dreadfully worrying about losing him. Could be very insecure at times, this place was only making it even worse. It had not helped that Abram had been barely touching me these days - the number one thing on his mind these days seems to be obtaining food for the family. Though concerning my husband, one thing he does every single morning and night without missing a single day. I have to when say he pulls me aside, pulls me into him and hugs me, holding me tightly for a minute or so, all wrapped up in his powerful arms, my head buried in his chest, I feel fractionally better.

             
Glancing into my eyes, and then so delightfully telling me, “Hana - my love - with you in my life, I could go through anything, I draw my strength from your love, and your beauty you make my day, my life. You are my best friend. I have to remember that I truly love you; you have to remember to never forget that!”

             
Some days those precious few moments, are the only thing that got me though the day.

             
This place had taken all the hope of bearing more children from us, at least not until this was all over and finally behind us. I do not want to have
another baby just to watch it
being forced to slowly starve. Nervously - for me every time we made love, I secretly hoped and prayed to our God I did not end up getting pregnant. Imagine me not wanting to get pregnant, when it had always been my dream to have a large family. I would not want to bring in another child into such a cruel world with the presence of such malevolence all around us, knowing I would not be able to feed this child – that would truly be selfish. My worst fear was if the day arrives and I cannot feed my daughter, then I do not know what I would do. Not when I am forced like straight out of a real nightmare, looking into my daughter’s heartbreaking eyes every single day, and had to witness firsthand the anguish on her adorable face, with no improvements. She was always asking me the painful question “why this was happening to us, had we done something bad, was she a bad girl?” However, her young mind she was only two-in-a-half years old she could not possibly wrap her mind around it.  However, when she started crying and then pointing to her tummy, saying, “I am hungry!”

             
I just do not know what to say to her to comfort her, since she is constantly hungry.

             
“Mommy I am hungry!”

             
It tears my insides apart. Thing you have to understand my daughter was saying this after we had already eaten; most nights she went to bed crying from hunger. Sometimes we only had sufficient amount of food
to eat once day. The worst is knowing there was nothing I could do to alleviate her hunger pains!

             
We do not actually live here in Tuliszkow, rather we barely exist and I have learned there is a big difference between the two. We do not live much better than the rat’s that hang about. We have a few things in common. The rats, as well as us are both willing, and search out food scraps. I even have seen people firsthand eating scraps off the ground when something was dropped; no food went to waste ever.

             
Gitla had finally gotten pregnant - somehow through all this madness life couldstill flourish. We were given hope by this blessed event for more than three months we fed off this wonderful news for strength.

             
However, it was to prove to be not so good news for very long, she suffered a miscarried. I think in her fragile condition going into this, she had needed some happiness to snap her out of her depression, she had been barely been hanging on to reality as it was. I think that this was compounded with all the suffering - it proved to be too much. None of us could had possibly imagined.  For a brief time while she was pregnant, she started smiling once more. She had such a pretty smile. But a couple of days after suffering the miscarriage, When we arrived back from work, she had told us she was excusing herself to go the bathroom, she walked over and kissed Judka, her husband, told him,“I love you Judka,”

             
I had not thought anything wrong with her behavior to make me suspect anything was wrong, but Judka on the other hand thought she was acting a bit strange.

             
Instead of going the bathroom, she went up to the top of our apartment building where we were living, and ran building up speed as she made her way across the roof top, and then leaped off the roof. There was no hesitation on her part whether or not she should do it or not. She did not even scream out as she fell to her death.  She had been completely heartbroken, had not been sleeping, or eating, she had shut down, yes, we all had been concerned about her, on hind side, we should had been even more so. The Nazis had managed to completely break her. She left this world, leaving a brief note, we found later on after her death, which read as
followed, “I
just cannot do this any longer! I am sorry to all of you, especially you my dear Judka. Please try to forgive me!”

             
Then more tragedy and sadness struck, another dark forbidding cloud passed over our family like a heavy evil weight, about a week after Gitla’s death. Judka was not right in the head after his wife’s death. Due to the requirements of Judka’s job Judka went outside the Ghetto, to a makeshift cemetery, while digging graves in the hot afternoon sun, when I guess he too had snapped, completely heartbroken with the loss of his wife. He deeply loved her. She was his first and only love. She had been the only thing that had been keeping him going all this time.

             
He laid down his shovel. Screamed out, not trying to hide his next move, “No, no more, you Nazi bastards you took my wife from me I want to go to her!”

             
He tried to make a run for it. Escape all this madness; just leave it all behind him, before he laid down that shovel. He knew
darn
well what it was he was doing. He knew what the outcome was going to be ahead of time. Honestly, that is exactly what he had sought.  He had managed to make it about five-hundred yards from the grave he had been digging, before two soldiers spotted him tearing off, and he was plowed down with a hail of machine gunfire. Frankly, I do not think he had, had any sort of intention at all of actually escaping, but rather he intended on only escaping the sheer madness this place represented, and the loneliness he had been experiencing, living in a world without his wife proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

In less than a week, the Ghetto had claimed two of my dear family members, plus a baby that should never have died. This place was dragging us down like an anchor, which we could not seem to escape from. The Nazis had taken too much of my family - enough was enough. Truth be told what they both ended up doing because of despair. Absconding from this world nothing. Nothing of us had not thought of doing, including me before, probably at least a couple different of times in a single day, nearly every day. We would all be lying if we said anything otherwise, but our strength comes by not acting on such a dark thought. Those of us that stayed behind, we chose to survive. They left us behind to pick up the pieces. We could not possibly blame any of them. It helped that we could understand. With understanding, came forgiveness.