Crossing the River

5. The Quiet Season/Childhood in the Ghetto

5 The Quiet Season/Childhood in the Ghetto A Kind of Preface People in the ghetto became more and more accustomed to their peculiar condition. Life before the war became wrapped in the veil of a distant fable. Vain hopes of sudden miracles and last-minute salvation were held no longer. The war front receded gradually, hovering somewhere between Moscow and Stalingrad, and what was happening there—the rumor mill was our only source of information—did not help things in the ghetto.The Germans, for their part, made it known repeatedly that only faithful and diligent work in the brigades would save us from calamity. One tends to think of the anxieties and fears, the efforts to escape and be saved, that filled people’s thoughts as happening to all ghetto residents. But I was largely unaware of what it meant to go to work every day at forced labor. Day in, day out, months on end; what a waste of years! People sought ways of joining easier brigades, seeking special “protection” (it was called “vitamin P”) to get assigned to workshops in the ghetto or in the ever-growing Komität departments. Study groups sprang up, as did a choir and an orchestra, and home-based industries flourished, run usually by women or elderly people, including embroidered goods, tailoring and sewing, carpentry and tinsmithing—any product that could be moved and smuggled through the ghetto gate for trade with the Lithuanians. Dr. Gurvitch and her daughters, for instance, developed a homemade method, which soon became widespread, of printing colorful headscarves with beautiful designs and fast dyes.They were not difficult to make, and before long most of the Lithuanian women in the city and in the villages around it were wearing kerchiefs produced by Jewish women in the ghetto. And throughout this time, there was ceaseless movement in the streets of the ghetto. This was doubtless the sight we presented from the other side of the fence: figures in layers of clothing, all marked by the yellow star, continually gathering, moving between houses and through streets devoid of vehicles, 68 Chapter 5 among buildings stripped of any wooden facade or ornament, with never a dog or a cat to be seen. It was conspicuous especially on weekends—everyone visited everyone else, if they still had anyone to visit. It was a way for the ghetto body to release its accumulated tension. Sometimes, too rarely, warning sirens would reach us from the direction of the city, followed by muffled buzzing sounds from high in the sky, like the delicate murmuring hum of gathering angels, an indistinct, otherworldly presence passing high above without sending us any clear message, without leaving any traces. Much strength of soul and patience were required in those days. Bubble within a Bubble “The quiet season”—thus we called the days after Father was taken, a period that lasted about a year and a half, even though the chronicles of the ghetto overflow with endless descriptions of harsh events during this time. It was as if we were trapped inside a bubble of air in a sinking ship—for the moment we breathed and hoped, but not a soul knew whether the diminishing air would last until the rescuers arrived. Within this pocket of air, a bubble within a bubble—for the space of two winters and summers—was the life we children led. Like minnows swimming confidently through the clear waters of a tidal pool, unaware of the receding ocean, of the fast-approaching tide, so were we. Ignoring as much as possible what was happening around us, our childhood went by. We were left to our own devices during the day, with no school—it had been outlawed—and no parents since by then our mothers were compelled to work outside the home. We played and played from morning to night. Like a vine, whose roots grapple with obstructions and send down shoots even among stones and boulders, we kept on growing. In retrospect, those of us who were destined to live gathered experiences to last a lifetime; those whose fate was already sealed, even though they did not know it, grew like plants in distress that hurry to bloom, trying to accomplish all that they could. But at the time, each of us might have belonged to either group. Each morning my sister and I would wake up to find our mother already gone to work. Food would be ready on the range...