Day 17: Community centre visit

This morning we met up with Ruta, the Lithuanian consultant on our project, to run through what information we still needed and what we would be able to gather from the archives here over the next few days before we leave. For some reason, I felt dead tired and my brain has gone on strike. So many names, so many places... It is hard to keep tabs of what we have experienced and learnt. Shiv asked me, "So what's your take?" and I said, "Persevere and get through this week." I know that this is only the start of the journey. When we get back, there will be much more to do.

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Persevere we must. We head off to the Central State Archives but it turns out that we arrive smack in the middle of lunch hour. Strike that off the list for today, we will have to come back another time. So we amble up Pylimo 4 to the Jewish Community Centre instead. I am carrying my laptop, audio recording gear, mic cords, spare batteries, and notebook in my backpack. I feel like a soldier on training; the only thing missing is a rifle slung over my shoulder :)

We meet the President of the Jewish Community. He has been dedicated to the centre's work for the last 25 years.



He shares with us the centre's plans for organising the next World Litvak Congress in 2009. We discuss current issues and recent events - like the community's response to the outstanding case of restitution, the recent decision by the prosecutor's office to question partisans, anti-semitic graffiti at community centres in Vilnius, Klaipedia and other locations throughout the country, as well as the debacle over the cemetery site in Shnipishok which gained international media attention. His answers are even-handed and he provides a well-rounded analysis of the various perspectives involved. Things are never as simple as they seem, I guess. But there is no mistaking his alarm at what he views as a rise in incidences involving anti-semitic overtones. He shares with us a reported anecdote of what a teacher supposedly said to a student in class; it is a crass joke which I shall not repeat here. It made me want to gag.

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We have also made an appointment with Chasia at the centre. (See previous blog entry here.) She volunteers at the Union of Second World War Veterans. This is located in a single room in the centre. We tread carefully; after our last interview, Chasia was not feeling well. It is very clear to us that the stress of retelling a painful past can take its toll; we don't want to cause anyone unnecessary pain. I console myself by thinking that it is an honour that those who have spoken to us agreed to do so, and we must treat their accounts with the respect and care they deserve.

So we had planned to make this meeting as stress-free and painless as possible; we ask her beforehand if she is okay to meet so that we can caption some of the photos she gave us to scan. Also to record her reason for choosing the gift she gave us the last time we met as an object to represent her. (It is an amber stone pendant shaped like a tear.) She welcomes us at the door of the office with much warmth.

The office is sparse and functional. There are posters of veterans on the walls. We find Josef's picture there too. Here, we meet a gentleman by the name of Mejeris. Like Chasia, he volunteers his time at the centre. His work is to compile and record the activities of the union, including photo albums of meetings, annual remembrance events etc. The work of this association is to keep the network and community of veterans alive, by staying in touch, by providing a place for them to meet or come to for help, and volunteers are dispatched to visit those who are ill or need assistance. All this work is funded through donations to the centre.


The office of the Union of Second World War Veterans

I ask Mejeris if his photo is on one of the posters on the walls. He asks me to guess which is him. I fail. He points to a picture of himself. He looked so very young then. But then again, he was only 19 when he was enlisted to the front. I take a photo of him next to this picture.





After feeding us chocolate centred biscuits and coffee, Chasia suddenly tells us that she would like to give a gift of a song to Shiv for coming all the way to Vilnius. She tells us she will sing a lullaby in Yiddish. It is about remembering home, mother, and all that is precious. I am surprised and think, is she going to burst out in song with all of us present? She does. She sings in a soft voice, heartfelt and full of longing. Ruta sways in her seat to the tune. I feel Chasia is singing of her own longing for her past; I don't know how to describe how tenderly she sings it. The air is heavy with emotion. Shiv cries. I retain my composure but can feel the hot tears welling up in my eyes. Shiv tells her she is truly moved and it means a lot, especially as she lost her mother only recently. Chasia nods and places her hand over her heart; I imagine she is telling Shiv, 'be brave.'

She walks us to the lift to send us on our way and say goodbye. She says, 'after you leave, we still have much work to do.' She says she hopes to continue to have the strength to keep doing what she does. She is 87 years old; may God grant her many more years.

Day 4: A Hard Day

Today is the most difficult day of all since we arrived. We meet Ruta, an academic who will be our guide and translator for the following days we are here. We have a team meet at 9.30am to discuss the possible line-up of interviews and schedule for the next few days. We will meet two Holocaust survivors today, Berl and Chasia.

Today has turned out to be the most difficult day for me. I don't know whether fatigue has caught up with me or what, but I am exhausted. I think it has to do with trying to focus on what's being said without understanding what's being said, reading the expression on faces and trying to match it with what the translator is saying, or whether it's about taking notes and trying hard to catch as much as possible down on my notepad. It's also our schedule of course. Waking at 7 or 8am, getting ready for the day, and being on the move until evening. Today, we got back only at 10pm as we returned to the apartment, dropped off our equipment and went to dinner immediately.

After dinner, I spent the last hour scanning photos and recording items we have been given as exhibits. Such amazing gifts - Ben gave us a yamulke and a medal; Chasia an amber pendant. They gave it to us and don't expect it back, though we are happy to do so.

But I think what's worn me out most are the stories. I can't even watch a World Vision ad without feeling angry and sad and everything else in between. Today, when Berl and Chasia shared their stories, I was consumed by both.

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Berl is 84. He lives alone. He is blind on account of his diabetes and glaucoma. He proudly serves boiled eggs, matzo crackers and wine. He speaks about losing his family; his bike ride to his father's 30 kms away to warn him of the Nazi invasion. His dad didn't leave. He was killed. He talks about how he joined the Soviet army when he was 17; he unexpectedly unzips his trousers and shows us a deep long scar where he was wounded in the hip. He recalls that this was "good" because he was off duty for 6 months. He relates tales of moving from place to place, living on food rations dispensed to veterans, of his first wife and his second; also his children. He tells us, "I am 84 years old and close to God." He is waiting, waiting, it seems to me. What he hates most is his blindness because he can no longer work or drive a taxi; his time is spent with his mind. And it is turning against him.


Berl

Berl tells us he is sad; sad when he learnt that there was a Neo-Nazi march this year and it was escorted by the police. Sad that it dishonours those who died. He starts telling us about people being lied to; asked to dig a hole to store food, then buried alive. I think he has lost faith in people. We ask him if he will lend us something for our exhibition or something he can give us; anything representative of him. He gives us a medal he gets for being a model Soviet worker and a yamulke.


Berl's gift

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After lunch, we meet Chasia. She is sprightly and elegant; she has make up on to welcome us. I feel intrusive; her flat is small and we have taken up all the space. Her son has to move into the kitchen to make way for us. I park myself on the door frame between the living room and the balcony; there is no room for Chasia, the camera, Jess and Dan, Ruta, Shiv and I.

She tells us of her Zionist fervour in her younger days. Her first husband, her son, her in-laws, the ghetto. How they had 25 people in a room and one bottle of milk for her 6-month-old son when they first got to the ghetto; how they somehow adapted. How her husband joins the partisans in the forest. How they all die.


Chasia

She shares how she was shot in the arm by a comrade testing a weapon. How she later remarried after the war. She has two children now; she named her son the same name as her first. How she carries the burden of blood lost that she may live. Her story is too steeped with pain to relate much here, too rich in detail to give it justice in a short paragraph, and too harrowing to feel and absorb at one sitting. Her brother has moved to Israel but she has stayed because "this is where my children died."

I am at once awed when she speaks of the joy she has at work - in a community center which used to be the college she spent her youth in - and humbled. I don't know where she finds the strength to forgive and yet not forget.

I am not sure I am looking forward to hearing more of these stories. I am not sure if I feel inspired or angry or frustrated. It all seems so unfair.