You Saved Me, Too: What a Holocaust Survivor Taught Me about Living, Dying, Fighting, Loving, and Swearing in Yiddish (6 page)

Other than this, there isn’t much information about Zychlin that doesn’t involve history. I learn that in your day, the water pump was right near the
mikveh
, the chicken slaughterhouse, and the tin-roofed, stone-walled synagogue. There were stores nearby, plus a church and a library.

It’s hard to find accurate history on the Jews of your hometown. The creatively titled
Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust
states that the first of you arrived in the mid-eighteenth century, and by 1897, you owned all of the town’s 184 stores. One hundred and eighty-four? That seems high. It’s not like there was a mall.

By your time, less than half of the town’s 7,000 inhabitants were Jewish. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum says that in 1939, there were 3,500 of you.

Just as in our town, the Jews fell into extreme categories. We have the people in fur hats and wigs, and Reform congregations where non-Jews can touch the Torah. Zychlin in the 1930s had Hasids following an extreme leader who promised them miracles, and liberal Zionists dreaming of Israel. Zionism was big before the war. During the pogroms of 1918—Shoah Lite?—the kids involved in the Zionist youth movement organized self-defense units. Before the Nazis arrived, there was a Zionist pioneer training farm.

Beyond the city streets, your town was said to be lovely. You could smell jasmine and look at fields of corn. Same as here, minus the jasmine.

Zychlin’s only brush with fame came in September of 1829, when Chopin attended a wedding reception in town. As of 1999, when they finally posted a plaque announcing his visit outside a palace across from the church, people were still talking about it.

There is no plaque, as far as I could determine, for Zychlin’s most famous son, Abe Coleman. Known in America as Hebrew Hercules and Jewish Tarzan, this five-foot-three professional wrestler lived to be 101. He left town before the Nazis could get to him.

There is no plaque for you.

Once, when we were sitting in the chairs in the nursing home hallway, I asked if there was any place you wished you could go.

“I been to Poland, but I’d go there again, just to see what happened,” you said.

I fantasized about taking you back. I’d book us a flight to Poland and hire a doctor to come with us because, obviously, you’d be too anxious to go with just me. We’d see how Zychlin had grown. Zychlin would see how you’d grown. It would be so cool.

But I never even persuaded you to take a ride with me to the bakery down the street once you’d checked into your last home. A trip to your first one was never to be—at least, in reality. Later, you’d go there all by yourself and tell me exactly what you saw.

The first time you spoke to me from a hospital bed it was no big deal. Like many older people, you’d been admitted for fluids and observation during a stomach bug. You called as soon as you were settled into a room to let me know.

“I had a baby yesterday!”

You were a remarkably healthy guy. Well into your eighties, you still had most of your original teeth, despite not having held a
toothbrush until the Americans gave you one after the war. You’d had a couple of operations: the googly eye the Red Cross straightened, the gallbladder removal sometime in America. But you were hardy, so I didn’t worry too much about your overnight hospitalization, though your call confused me. I still barely knew you. Why was I the first person you called? Where were your people?

You once had a wife, a brother, nephews, in-laws, a best friend, work colleagues—people from after, people who weren’t burned. Where were they now?

Before the Nazis, your last name was much longer and had too many consonants. Your American wife convinced you to shorten it. Is it a coincidence that the new name, Lieb, starts with the word
lie?

Bibi wooed you with premarital sexual acts and promises of financial security. Her father owned a grocery store that he vowed to pass on to you if you married her. She was overweight and destined to be a spinster. Her parents wanted her settled. You needed family, so it must have seemed like a decent bargain. You married her, wearing a sharp double-breasted suit. She wore green. I still have the picture.

Right after the wedding, the grocery went out of business. Weren’t you angry? I’m sure you were, but by then you were best friends with anger.

I’m sorry to report that I’m wearing jeans again. I was in a hurry. I know how you feel about my clothes. You say, “You look nice,” on the infrequent occasions when you approve. You like the knee-high black boots, even though I worried you’d have a Nazi flashback before I wore them in front of you for the first time. You hated the outfit I wore to Carrie’s bat mitzvah. I was so happy to see you there, so touched that you’d deigned to enter a synagogue on my behalf. Of course, you took off before the reception and missed the klezmer band, but at least you paid your respects.

Let me remind you what I wore: a green Ralph Lauren cardigan that’s still the most expensive item of clothing I’ve ever bought, and a plaid silk skirt made in Italy. The skirt flared and poufed, its light fabric changing shape as I moved. I got many compliments on that outfit, but not from you.

“What the hell are you wearing?” you asked that morning when you greeted me. “It’s all wrinkled in the back.”

You insulted that ensemble for weeks afterwards, until I finally told you to cut it out. I’ve since learned that you’re much more into traditional tailored styles than avant-garde fashion. More Jackie O. than Madonna.

Your critiques of my hair when it gets too long are easier to take.

“Get the hair out of your eyes,” you say, brushing my bangs aside. “A little trim in the back and you’ll look good.”

So it shouldn’t have surprised me when one day you sneaked up behind me in the supermarket and tried to push your fashion agenda.

“Promise you won’t give me a hard time,” you said.

“I promise.”

A few minutes earlier you’d popped out of a blood pressure booth as I wheeled my cart toward the bread aisle. You were pulling on your blazer and I was dressed in my usual worn, torn boy clothes. It took me until my late forties to realize that it’s okay for a woman to dress nicely even when there’s no occasion or no employer in sight.

We had hugged, kissed, parted. Now you were handing me a check.

“I signed my name, but you write in two hundred dollars and the rest. Go get yourself some spring clothes.”

“I can’t do that!”

“You said you wouldn’t give me a hard time.”

“Okay, okay, but I can’t take that much.”

“Vhat did I say?” firmly, like a father.

I took the check with no intention of cashing it. But I couldn’t figure out exactly what to do with it. If I ripped it up, you would have been insulted. You’re such a numbers whiz that you’d definitely notice
the missing check at the end of the month. You should have been an accountant, perhaps in a fashion house. I did nothing with the check for a long time, but seeing it on the counter delighted me. When was the last time someone had bought me clothes? My mother in high school? A man never has. I spend my days buying clothes for other people, then washing, folding, and—in most cases back then—pulling those clothes over their owners’ butts. For the first time in years, it felt as if someone was taking care of me. I had a sugar daddy.

Finally, you called and asked if I’d cashed the check. I pretended that I’d forgotten the amount you told me to write.

“You know what I said!” you bellowed.

“But I don’t need it.”

“Need, schmeed,” you said. “Look. I get a check from the Germans every month. I appreciate what you do for me. You come when you don’t have to.”

The check from the Germans, which would get us into so much trouble later, was the one thing that gave you a little power in the world. You could never afford your own house, and I’m sure you never had one share of stock to your name, but you could buy gifts.

You finally agreed to let me write whatever amount I wanted on the check. I settled on $100, less than you’d offered, but enough to make you proud of your generosity. Then I went out and bought a white sundress with blue daisies on it, courtesy of the Nazis, who probably had no idea that one day they’d be paying for a Jewish man to buy a Jewish woman a new spring dress.

The last baby in your family arrived. You were nearly nine years old. It was a girl—again—this one named Sarah. The house was full of kids. Mendel was ten and Berek, who would later live out the American dream as Bill, was three. Both of them would grow thicker and stronger than you, and more handsome. You said it, not me. You told me your father wasn’t so good-looking and that you resembled him. I can
see from photos that Bill was dashing, and you’ve told me that Mendel was, too. But I’ll have to take your word for that. Who knows where photos of him ended up.

Helen was six and Hannah was two. With her black hair and eyes, Hannah would grow to be the most beautiful one, in your opinion. No one would ever marry her. Helen, you remember, was fat. You told me she looked twenty when she was only thirteen. Let’s hope that bulk helped her later.

What did this new baby look like? You’ve never told me. She was one of the memories you only squint at, and then as infrequently as possible. I have pages and pages of notes on your life, and all I know about Sarah is that she liked to sing. You’d be trying to do your homework, and she’d be warbling a Yiddish song over and over.
My grandmother will bake challah. My grandfather will be healthy
.

I think that line is still stuck in your head.

Your mother sang, too, but she didn’t read. She was completely illiterate. Your father could only read Yiddish. But like so many Jewish parents, they believed in education, at least to a point. Besides religious school, you all went to public school until fifth grade.

School wasn’t bad. You were good at math. You had to speak Polish in class, but lapsed back into Yiddish at recess. On cold days, the teachers passed out warm glasses of milk and bulky rolls. Around the time the baby was born, you were walking your first crush, Braune, home from school. Her family owned a candy store. You carried her books.

You were a late bloomer with the girls, but you had your crushes. Even more serious than Braune was the creamery owner’s granddaughter. She was one of several sisters.

“She used to talk a lot. She was a little shorter than me. Maybe she was five-five.”

You were around eighteen years old when you started to notice her. You didn’t shave yet, and you still had that crossed eye, but you thought you had a chance. You suspected her parents wanted to marry her off so they could move on to the next girl, get her off their payroll. Why shouldn’t it be to you?

“You know, they used to say in Poland, when a man looks a little nicer than a monkey, he’s okay then. As long as he’s a man.”

You were old enough to get married by then, but it didn’t happen. Maybe you were playing the field, though that’s doubtful, because you said you’d never touched more than a girl’s shoulder before the war. Breasts were only for babies. It was American to use them for foreplay.

I’ve asked you the creamery girl’s name several times. Once you told me it was Rose. Other times, you claimed not to remember. Was she the same girl who brought you bread in the ghetto? Wasn’t that Rose, too?

They say the Nazis were really good at keeping lists, but I can’t find a single Rose who would have been around your age and who lived in your town on any of them. Not on a list of the survivors or a list of the martyrs, as the memorial book calls them. No Rose from Zychlin in the displaced persons camps, or on a museum roster. But I also can’t find the names of two of your sisters on any list, even though I know they existed. And that you’ve never gotten them out of your mind, either.

You’re not my only cause. I also spend a few hours a month trying to help foster kids. Every six months, kids’ cases come up for review, and a committee of two professionals and a volunteer from the community—that would be me—decide whether they’re safe. We also determine if they’re on the right track: adoption, reunion with parents, institutionalization, or foster home being the most common options.

I started this assignment when you were still independent because I wanted to see from the inside how difficult foster kids could be. David and I had seriously considered adopting one. My shrink says the idea appealed to me because I’d wanted saving as a child. Plus, I had a lot of suburban guilt to assuage.

We went to an information session for potential adoptive parents, but the group leader tried to scare us away.

“There is no way you want to get involved in this,” she said.

Friends also thought we were nuts. One of them, a psychologist, said that at best, a foster child would screw up our biological children, and at worst, he’d kill us in our sleep.

Volunteering as a case reviewer gave me a more realistic picture. Many of the kids are terribly damaged, but not beyond hope, especially if they join new families when they’re still in diapers. It’s also good if they’re significantly younger than the other kids in the adoptive family so they can get more undivided attention. We decided to wait until Max and Carrie were teenagers before starting the process.

Then you stepped in as the foster child understudy.

I still have a soft spot for foster kids, and sometimes consider becoming a state social worker, but as long as you’re around, I’m full up on motherless dependents.

I’m here, on that steep hill that leads to the parking lot of the big cement building that is the final Promised Land for so many. It’s too cold for anyone to be sitting outside, even the guy with the giant glasses who’s always smoking out here in his wheelchair. Maybe later it will warm up and the robust residents will roll out. You used to like it out here, despite the fight you always picked whenever I’d suggest fresh air. But once I got you out, you relaxed. We’d sit here until the sun almost burned through our jackets, but we wouldn’t take them off. Sometimes, between winters, it’s nice to get too hot.