Out of Chaos: Hidden Children Remember the Holocaust

The School Lessons

16 The School Lessons Leonie Taffel Bergman I am in class. My desk is wood; it has an inkwell, and I am holding a pen over my penmanship book. The teacher is showing us, again, how to write our letters. “Make the circle; don’t lift the pen; continue the circle and make it larger; it will turn into an oval; don’t leave any spaces between the circle outlines.” We are to measure carefully the ink on our points, shake off what is too much, and begin to form the shapes that she shows us. I try hard—but my pages are always messy. The teacher stands near me, corrects my hold on the pen, positions the notebook, and helps me form my letters. I hope for improvement, and so does she. After all, she has tried in her firmest, yet unorthodox, way to have me focus on improving my penmanship, and she expects it will now have had an effect on me. It does, but not what she had hoped for. Not more than a few weeks earlier she had me stand on a table at the door where all the children were leaving to go home. I stood there, in full view of every student walking out of school, holding my penmanship book wide open so all the ink blotches and red marks could be seen by them. She hoped my embarrassment would force me to write better. It did not work. I was embarrassed, but my penmanship did not improve. I am six years old in 1941, and in the first grade of a public elementary school in Schaerbeek, Brussels. It is in this same classroom, some weeks later, on a typical school day, when another lesson is introduced. As the class is doing some reading work, a messenger comes in and confers with the teacher. After the messenger leaves, the teacher calls me to her desk. She tells me to take my things and put on my coat. I have to leave. My mother is coming to get me. After waiting for over an hour, ready to leave with my mother, I see another messenger come into the classroom. She approaches the teacher, and soon after the teacher tells me that it isn’t necessary for me to leave. I do not know why this change occurs. The teacher seems relieved, though she never explains anything to me. The rest of the day does not seem unusual. About a month later, with much more urgency, my teacher tells me to take all my belongings and to go to the principal’s office immediately. I become very fearful at that news and at the rush and suddenness of this command. What will my mother think? Will I be able to go outside again? Or must I now stay shut in, within the limits of “safe walls”? What place is safe? Can I be told again to leave? I ask, but I do not know. I ask, but I cannot understand. I was then taken home by someone. And that was the end of my public schooling for over four years. Soon the years of hiding would begin. In the Beginning 17 Figure 5. Leonie Taffel and Chaya Horowitz in a firstgrade classroom in Brussels, Belgium, 1941. Leonie is in the second row near the bookcase, with a bow in her hair. Chaya is to the left of the teacher in the back row. Photograph courtesy of Chaya Horowitz Roth. ...