A bookend at the Vilnius Yiddish Institute library shelf
Hers is an amazing and remarkable life journey, full of unexpected twists, helped along by the kindness of strangers. A friend and her narrowly escape the Vilnius ghetto liquidation on the 23 September 1943. On that very same day, they meet with their units and the leaders decide that there is "something hanging in the air." Fania tells is that the Germans attempted to keep up the pretense of normalcy by trucking in piles of clothes and instructing these to be mended. But something did not feel right. The leaders decide that 6 pairs of women should be chosen to leave the ghetto and make contact with the partisans in the forest. It is too risky to form units of men to attempt this contact as it may raise suspicion.
Fania tells us how she waits for nightfall by returning to her family. Her mother gives her a purse and a bag of green peas. But her friend shows up not long after and suggests they try and leave now as one of the smaller gates has been left unattended. They leave and in the street, they see that there are militia policemen closing in on the perimeter of the ghetto. They avoid capture by walking in circles and when they look back, they see soldiers and trucks arriving at the gates of the ghetto. They are not German and have dark green uniform, Fania thinks they are Estonian...
They sleep in the forest at night, wander through the villages in the daytime trying to get their bearings. At one village, a woman gives them bread and milk. They lie about heading to their aunt's to help harvest potatoes. They cross themselves as they have been told to every time they see a cross. They come across German soldiers and do their best to act nonchalant as they go on their way. In another village, a Polish man warns them that German soldiers raped and killed a woman in their village; he leads them to a hut to stay the night for their safety. He susses out that they are escaping to join the partisan without being told. He returns the next morning and puts them on their way with more bread and milk and directions.
Fania says she has no idea why they trusted these strangers but when they find themselves in the thick of the partisan stronghold and are intercepted, they do not give the password but laugh hysterically out of relief; a release of pent-up fear. Throughout her retelling of the story, Fania recounts all these incidences with humour and a practised lightness. But there are moments, not so much in words, but in her facial expressions and in her eyes, I can feel the depth and weight of her emotions. I almost cry openly when she tells us about what happens after liberation. For example, how a woman tells her that her sister is alive. So Fania waits at the train station every day for a month in the hopes of seeing her. How when she meets the woman again and tells her she still has not seen her sister, the woman - perhaps deranged or unstable - says, "who told you she was still alive?" How when the concentration camp survivors returned, she hugged strangers in the street. Her learning about the fate of her father and mother. She tells us she cannot forgive the murderers but she does not blame nations for what happened.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Later, we meet an official who advises on Jewish affairs at the Ministry of Culture. I contrast the policyspeak about national integration and tolerance with the survivor accounts I have heard. They feel remote and worlds apart. The question is, I ask myself, how can we merge the two, so that history stays relevant, so that survivors are not viewed as relics of a bygone era, but living reminders?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have been ribbing Shiv for being so hard working; when we get in each day, she's at the computer immediately. Last night, she acts silly. I ask her what's up and she starts giggling and then laughing hysterically - she has been reading up on the fate of some of the partisan members - "One hung himself, another killed herself, they all suicided!" It's not that she finds this funny; I think this project is finally getting to her. I feel the same. It's like an accumulation of feelings. Even I can't explain it... but it's an exhausting/sapping mix of feelings; of despair mingled with disbelief, compassion and anger, and... I don't even know what.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment