Yiddishlands: A Memoir

31. The Menorah

Lublin was an oasis of femininity after Kraków. The few female delegates in Kraków, had they had something to say about The Future of Auschwitz, deferred to the men. Jonathan, representing one extreme, wanted the whole site constructed of authentic materials as a lasting memorial to the Jewish martyrs. Raphael Scharf, active in Polish-Jewish rapprochement, and Staszek Krajewski, a Jewish liason to the Polish Church, were opposed to making a fetish of the past. It was enough to preserve some part that would stand for the whole. In Lublin, I was immediately surrounded not by one doting woman but by five: Monika, her mother, Joanna, Agnieszka, and Ewa. The last three were single. All were non-Jews, in thrall, like me, to the Polish-Jewish past. All were in agreement that I was the most charming man who had ever visited from New York and that, in general, dark-haired Jewish males were irresistible . What I couldn’t get over was the melody of their English. All but Monika’s mother, who spoke English haltingly, had the same singsong way of raising their voice at the end of a sentence. How come Moses Herzog, a Bellow character whose descriptive abilities I’ve always admired, never took note of how Wanda, his Polish lover, spoke to him in French? Their English fluency bore witness to years spent abroad in exile or in study and to a freedom of spirit, evinced most keenly by their fascination 201 31 The Menorah with all things Jewish. Monika had come to the States to study Yiddish, which was how I’d met her, and she now introduced me to her family and friends.Herhairseemedabittoostreakedthistime—thesecondpregnancy had made it dry as straw—but the glint of her gray-green eyes were still as I remembered them from her going-away party in Washington Heights. While Monika’s mother fed me her incredible chocolate cheese cake and gefilte fish made from a traditional Jewish recipe, Monika and her friends nourished me with stories, from which there emerged one archetypal tale, tailored, perhaps, to its addressee: the tale of how each of them had discovered the missing Jews of Poland. At her perfunctory interview with the secret police before being allowed to spend a month doing research in Oxford on Winnie the Pooh and other British children’s classics, Monika was not forewarned that, at her second tea-time discussion in the common room, her British hosts, despite their careful breeding and stiff upper lip, would cite the dismal record of Polish anti-Semitism and the dastardly behavior of Poles during the Holocaust. What anti-Semitism? she asked, her voice rising an octave higher than usual. Poland had always been a beacon of tolerance! Why, back in the sixteenth century, when there were autos-da-fé elsewhere in Europe, Poland was a safe haven for the Jews. We’re not asking you about the sixteenth century , her hosts replied; we’re talking about the twentieth. Monika returned to Poland deeply troubled. A year later, her British pen-pal came to Lublin for a visit and they were comparing notes. “Who’s your favorite author?” Monika wanted to know. “Isaac Bashevis Singer.” “Who’s he?” asked Monika. “Don’t you know? He writes a lot about demons and the Jews of Poland.” “Really? Perhaps you could send me some of his books.” And that’s how it all started. For Ewa, the revelation happened much closer to home. Ewa was born and raised in Warsaw, the daughter of a class enemy, her father having fought with the Home Army in the doomed Warsaw Uprising. She was eight years old and they were out taking a walk. “Here,” he informed her, “is where the trolley tracks ended—at the walls of the ghetto.” Ewa was afraid of her father and knew enough not to ask: What was the ghetto and who lived there? This she would discover on her own during her years of exile in Detroit. chapter thirty-one 202 The first big fight Agnieszka remembers having with her father was abouttheJews.Overdinneroneeveningherecalledanincidentthathadoccurred in his native town right after the war. A Jew returned and was killed thatverynight.Andalthougheveryoneknewwhodidit,nooneturnedhim in. Agnieszka, who was studying to become a lawyer, was outraged. The manwasguiltyofmurder.Sure,lifewascheap,andtherewasacivilwargoing on, but murder is murder, and for this murder the Poles bore sole responsibility . Her father got...