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

18. Działoszyce

18 Działoszyce D ziałoszyce sits at the confluence of two tributaries of the Nidzia River in the middle of a vast forest in Poland. It developed from a gamekeeper’s village established by Polish nobles almost a thousand years ago. Favorably situated for trade on the high road to Kraków, it was well populated by the twelfth century. Jews were first permitted to settle in Działoszyce during the reign of Kasimir the Great in the midfourteenth century. Before long, they constituted the majority of the population. For hundreds of years, Działoszyce thrived, with a bustling Jewish community contributing to the growth of the town until the Nazis killed more than 10,000 Jews, leaving fewer than 2,000 impoverished Christian inhabitants. Tata’s brother Jacob, Max and David’s father, left Pinczów, his hometown, when he was a young man and settled in Działoszyce. He married Aunt Cerka, started his own jewelry business, and in time had three sons, Max, David, and Itzhok, and a little, darkly beautiful daughter, Hanna, the absolute sweetheart of the family. Eventually, the family moved to their own house near the town square. Shivering with cold, hunger, longing, and exhaustion, Mama and I wandered into the Liberation 120 outskirts of Działoszyce the same morning we had left the farmhouse. This was only about twenty-four hours after we had left Fredka alone in the room in Kielce, but hardly ever had one day and a night lasted as long, or tested our endurance as thoroughly. We paused to gather courage, get oriented, and figure out the safest way to start our approach. Before us stood a small town, encircled by wintry pastoral views. A smattering of pedestrians walked down narrow streets; they were bundled in dark clothes, boots, babushkas, and peasant caps. The streets stretched into a traceable distance and stopped at a large open area that looked like a rynek (market square). A few horse-drawn carts rolled by. Longingly, I listened to the clip-clop of the hooves and the sounds of farm animals dissolve into the big sky above me. Everything seemed heartbreakingly serene and harmonious; everything belonged—except us. Unsure of ourselves, we started to walk toward the market square. The town felt as foreign and threatening to us as all the other places that had kept us out. We trudged, half sparked by the hope of finding my cousins, and half frozen with fear that they were nowhere to be found. We peered into windows, wishing for the miracle of spotting them inside a room. It did not take us long to reach the cobblestone marketplace surrounded by somber houses with uneven roofs and mostly empty store windows. Timorously, we approached a few strangers and asked if they knew of our family, Wakszlak (Tata’s family surname), who once lived in this town. Did they know Max and David? Someone pointed to a house at the bend of the town square and said politely, “This was the Wakszlak’s house. The Germans took them all away. They are probably all dead.” My heart lurched. My uncle’s house stood like a tombstone commemorating the lives stolen from us. Mama and I whispered, “Uncle’s home. Should we go there?” We had no idea who lived there, nor did we trust it to be safe to knock on the door. Torpid with dread, we remained standing in the square until a young Jewish man noticed us and recognized our panic. He rushed over to offer help. We asked pleadingly, “Max and David Wakszlak, do you know them? Are they here? Do you know?” “Yes, Max and David are here,” he said, and gently advised, “Don’t go to their house. It’s not safe to do that. Wait here. I will find them and fetch them to you right away. You will be okay; you are among Jews now.” The relief we felt when we saw Max and David is hard to describe. They looked at us kindly and were glad to see us. We tried to share with them our wandering from town to town in hope of finding family and help. The words fell from our shivering lips like heavy stones. Mama talked fast, as if our heads were under a guillotine and our lives depended Działoszyce 121 on her message. She made sure that she did...