Transcending Darkness: A Girl’s Journey Out of the Holocaust

10. Longing

10 Longing S ometimes I plunged back into introspection about all that had been dearest in my life. I imagined that if I were free to walk past the barbed wire fences, I would find my best friend, Janka, just as she was before the time of madness—a beautiful, olive-skinned girl with twinkling dark eyes. I imagined that if I would reach out to touch her, she would not vanish into air as she did in my dreams. Reveries flashed and vanished in my head—as rapidly as only thoughts can—when I stood at attention at Appells, when I looked away from heaps of corpses, when I marched to and from work, and when I collapsed on a trembling train floor. Some part of my mind tried to remember that sanity existed—must still exist somewhere. As in a dream, I found myself looking into Nowolipki Street, where we moved from Mila Street the summer of my ninth birthday, one year before the apocalypse. Our street had tall buildings with ironwork balconies and was abuzz with happy noises. Mama was deliriously happy with the move to a “better” neighborhood, a roomier, brighter flat on a second floor, with a balcony and tall windows. The windows in our new apartment gave us a wide view of the entire courtyard and looked directly into the front archway with an iron gate to the street. In the morning, sun Longing 65 streamed in to spotlight cozy corners and rare oleander and eucalyptus plants that Mama proudly placed on the floor. I liked to fling a window open to call out to friends playing in the courtyard, observe neighbors in new outfits, or watch the clouds mutate into giants and dragons. Later, in the ghetto, I stood watch at the windows for German soldiers entering our yard. At home Mama set a tone of song, laughter, and wonderment. “Look at the clouds crowning the sun! Look at the yellow in this yellow flower!” Noticing miracles hidden in the mundane is a gift Mama passed on to us. “Mama, I want a doll just like the one I saw in Bracia Jabkowski’s big store window,” I would beg. “It is very expansive. You will have to save money for it,” Mama responded. I immediately began to save my groszy (pennies) in a tiny porcelain piggy bank. Every so often, I shook the coins out on the table to count them. When the heap grew big, Tata showed me how to stack the coins into towers of ten, to conveniently add up the total. While I waited for my dream doll, Mama said, “No problem. I will make you a doll right away. It will be just as beautiful as you can imagine.” She took out a towel, spread it out on the table and rolled it lengthwise, folded the roll in half, then twisted one folded end into a ball to form a head. She tied a string under the head and placed the doll into my cradled arms. She made the same doll for Fredka. We had as many instant dolls as we wanted. We swaddled our babies in shawls, just as real mothers do. We dressed them in imaginary gowns and jewels, and turned chairs upside down to make cradles. In no time at all, the furniture in the room changed into towers, castles, parks—anything we could dream of. Sometimes, Tata crossed over to our imaginary universe. We built trains with a row of chairs and raced to made-up worlds. Tata sat in the front chair, the locomotive, puckered his lips and blew two short whistle blasts: “Toot! Toot!” He imitated metallic rasps and chugs, and we were off. Tata’s love became my treasured endowment. When he was no more, and I was far from Nowolipki Street and innocent childhood, I brought him back in my mind to remind me that goodness exists—even if only in my memory. Tata’s jewelry workroom was the liveliest and most interesting room in our apartment. It bustled with the voices and activities of four employees who sat bent over a long table creating wondrous bracelets out of gold ingots. With a thin pipette held in the mouth, and War 66 a tiny torch in front, they melted pieces of gold. The molten gold quivered in hand-held asbestos bowls and shimmered like tiny liquid suns...