PRZYTUŁEK

I.  Einsatzgruppen

 

(After we had left the car, and wandered a bit, Dad walked

to a small mound with a certainty such that I knew �"he was home)

 

And it is here that I stand now, with you my son

that so, so long ago �"this was our home

and there, along this line

this was my room

across the way slept mamma and papa

and with me Sofi, Rafi, and Yitzak

 

Over there where the stand of trees now grow

their tall thick trunks seem rooted firmly

like they’ve been there forever

they are newborns, they are intruders

growing in the fields where we planted

for generation and generation

maybe even 500 hundred years

maize and wheat and barley

to feed the shtetlakh through winter

to feed the animals until the next thaw

 

when the harvest came

the entire village celebrated

we drank, we sang, we prayed

and Rafi and Yitzak would play their violins

little Sofi would ask me to dance

and we would twirl and dip and swoop

her blond hair flying, smiles in those deep brown eyes

then our dizziness would make us fall to the ground

laughing until my belly hurt

 

(Dad grew quiet, and I put my hand on his shoulder

‘Papa, we can go now if you’d like’ I said softly)

 

I am an old man now

my back is crooked, I walk with this cane

it’s not as sharp as it once was, my mind

but some things I will always remember

 

When they came, it was sudden

one moment Rafi and I were doing our lessons

the next we saw smoke from the village out our windows

mama said ‘PAPA, PAPA we must go’

but papa stood steadfast

‘This is my farm, we feed them they will not harm us’

Then they were in our front door

kicking and splintering the wood

their mottled grays their high black boots

looked the part of soldiers

the one with thick glasses and slicked back hair, he screamed

“Schwein, Schwein, komm! Komm! Mach Scnell!!!”

and he motioned with his machinegun

 

(Papa, -dad, you don’t have to tell me this, we can go, we can-)

 

oh poor Rafi, he did not rise from the table as I did

the other one, with wavy blonde hair and a slight build screamed

“Juden, steh auf jetzt! STEH AUF!!!”

then he killed him

I do not know why

because he did stand

Rafi, Rafi �"he was a good violin player, a mathematician, he was 17

He �"he was my brother

suddenly I was covered in his blood

and and and

I could not move, I could not breathe

so badly I wanted to run outside the house

to be with mama, papa who were already outside

to be safe in their arms

now, now in that time

before the one with the thick glasses

before he hit me with his Mauser

I could hear the chatter of more guns

they were murdering our hens and our cow

they shot my dog Seskvy

I began to wail

I remember screaming

and the Germans screaming back to me

“HALT MAU! HALT MAU!”

he took his gun like this

(dad showed me �"rearing back and holding his cane like a cudgel )

hit me on my face

and I fell down

I do not remember anything more after this

(dad began to shake and to sob, but would not let me move him back to the car)

 

 

 

 

 

II. Market

 

(driving back to Krakow, papa was very quiet �"suddenly just as we entered the outskirts

he began to speak again)

 

I remember coming here once

before the war as a young man

with my father

we had our wagon, full of wheat and grains and flours

for market

for the bakers to sell

 

My brothers were back at home

I do not know why they didn’t come

maybe a dance to play

or a wedding

or a Bar Mitzvah

something, something I am sure

 

You should have seen the market in those days

all the stalls and the sellers

yelling and calling

‘I have the best fish in Krakow, I have the freshest fish in Krakow!’

‘I sell the highest quality hats! Come sir and see!  Straight from Italy!’

‘Fresh fruit for sale!  Fresh fruit for sale’

and since I had been good helping my papa all of the way

he stopped the wagon

told me sternly ‘Oskar, you stay here a guard this wagon, you are a man now’

For I had just recently turned of age

I took this duty he had given me

this honor he had given me very seriously

put on the meanest face that I could

holding the reigns as tightly as my hands would permit

until they had turned white and were shaking

soon, just as I was getting scared about the wagon

Papa reappeared, carrying two lovely red apples with him

and he said to me

‘For the guard of our fortune’

I can remember these apples perfectly

the skin so red and taut

the inside, juicy and grainy and ripe

so sweet

and when we had finished and had only cores left, father said,

‘Go and feed the horses’

And I did, and they loved it, licking my hands afterwards

in the middle of this crowd, this huge bustling crowd

I fed the horses

And papa

he did not hurry me, but when the horses were finished

I looked up, and papa was resting his head on his hands

smiling down at me

That was my father, my papa

He loved all of us so much

But that day, ah! that day he was smiling at me

 

Then we drove the wagon to the baker

where my father always went to sell his loads

and the baker gave my father a handshake

and he handed me a cookie

and patted me on the head

saying

‘How are you Abry, how is your lovely wife Sylvy?’

he paid us well

then sent us on our way

this man was a Pole

you say to me, ‘What does it matter that he was a Pole?  What does this have to do

with your story?’

you see, these were the days when the Poles still liked us

treated us well

and didn’t spit and call out to us in their best German

‘Juden! ‘Raus! Juden! ‘Raus!’

 

 

III.  Sunset

 

(I do not know why my father wanted to come here

back to a home

that no longer exist

When he decided to return

one day while I was bringing him groceries

from the corner Kosher down the street

it was sudden

it was ‘Son, I want to go to Poland to see my village’

and stranger to me he added

‘To see Auschwitz’

What could I say to this man

my father

who looked upon me with rheumy eyes

and quaking fingers

Mama had died just a year ago

I guess

that Papa needed something

again to tie him to the old country

before his time came as well

 

My father is a stern man

much set in his ways

when I told him I was getting married

not to a Jewish girl

but a woman whom I had fallen in love with

while in college

He exclaimed ‘NIT! NIT! FARBOTN!’

‘I will turn my back on you and her’

and he did that day

leaving my fiancé in the hallway crying

leaving my face drained and white with anger

him vowing to disown me

me vowing to disown him

my mother whispering to me and my wife-to-be

‘Do not mind him, he hasn’t eaten dinner yet, you know what your

father is like when he hasn’t eaten dinner yet’

 

now

now here in Poland

years later, he sits holding my wife’s hands

his head bowed

in silence

I sit across the room

and write what has transpired today

trying to comprehend

the things that my father has said

he lapses between the

Yiddish

Polish

German

English

languages, and it is hard for me to follow

but I dare not ask him to repeat

he will say to me

‘I do not remember, what did I say? what did I say?’

and it will be lost

so, I scribble fast on a notebook

and try and sort it out later

in the dim light of this hotel room

for Papa does not like bright lights

so I write in near dark

 

The village where my father came from

was on no map of Poland

that I could find

many nights

weekends

my wife and I scoured

libraries and universities

for pre-war maps

for this name

somewhere south of Krakow

Malév

Malév

Malév �"nowhere according to all that we found

it simply didn’t exist

a historian friend of mine

contacted a historian friend of his

a Polish man

and he came back to me

Malév �"no where on any map

had ceased to exist

in 1942

now, there was nothing left

it was just farmland

maybe, maybe there were some foundations

maybe there were some signs

but the Nazis, the Einsatzgruppen

were very thorough

 

‘I will know it, it does not matter’

my father said

‘I know it was destroyed, I watched it burn’

‘But I will know, it was my home’

and he did

he did know it

he did remember home

 

I think that this is my father’s pilgrimage

his reckoning with what happened to him

50 years ago

and as he sits in silence now

his flat cap on

crisp white shirt

gray suspenders

gray flannel slacks

clean shaven face

his head shaking

his eyes full of tears

this is my thoughtful father

my wife continues to whisper to him

and I continue to try and understand this

and to write about it

‘lest I forget)

 

 

IV.  Sunrise

 

I met a woman in a refugee camp

in western France

on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean

no, no don’t bother asking

I don’t remember its name

or if I do, it does not matter

We were a sight

ack! I could not have weighed 120lbs

even by then

and she, and her hair had not grown back

I was trying to pronounce English

from a book out loud

I thought I was away from everyone

sitting in the trees, away from the camp

so I spoke out loud

to see how the words sounded

well! I must have been terrible

for I heard a giggle that sounded

like a tinkling brook

what a sight she was!

laughing with her hand over her mouth

she was wearing boys clothes

trousers

a man’s shirt

with suspenders of all things!

can you imagine, a woman with suspenders

but to me

ah! but to me

with her blue eyes

and fair skin

she was an angel, a Malach

her name was Ingrid

and she was a German Jew

from Berlin originally

very cosmopolitan

but she spoke Polish well

and I spoke German well

so we would take long walks together

holding hands

she was 4 or 5 years older than me

and all through the summer and fall

we walked and held hands and kissed

but we talked very little

what could I say?

Hello, I am pleased to meet you

my entire family died in Auschwitz;

How about yours?

No �"so we said nothing

then one day, we were walking along the banks of a river

it was a sunny day, with nice blue skies

she pushed me down to the grass

I knew the motions sure

but I had never experienced such things!

the war started when I was just a boy

the feelings that I had!

I think that in our own quiet way

we were in love

 

in November

she started to cough

and with half our camp

she caught pneumonia

the doctors could do nothing

we were too weak you see

so those that caught it died

but the entire time she was sick

I sat next to her bed and held her hand

we never said a word during that time

she smiled up at me each day

I would hold her hand and smile back

 

one day

one morning she died

still smiling and holding my hand

I closed her eyes and kissed her eyelids

and wept at her bed

until the night came again

and the orderlies gently ushered me away

 

Then I came to America

and I met your mother

I spoke bad English

she spoke no Polish

but we liked each other

and so we married

 

 

V.  Coda

 

(My son turned 5 today

we threw him a party

all of his friends were there

Jewish, Christian, and I think a Muslim boy

my father would not approve of the party

my father would love him, though

I named him

Oskar

I felt it fitting

and though I would have liked

he looks exactly like my wife

her face, her build, the way she walks

except for the eyes

thoughtful wet eyes

and a gesture that he makes

a simple sweep of the hand

off to his left side

almost like he is ushering me on

also just like my father

when he does this

he tilts his head

so it is a loving, caring gesture

I do not know how my son got this trait

for my father died on year after Poland

but has it he does

and it reminds me of Papa, Dad, Father

 

I do not know how or when I will tell my son

of his legacy

of the Holocaust

of the terrible things his grandfather went through

what little I know

and understand myself

but there is time enough for that reckoning

that talk

 

I look across the room

at my son playing happily

with his friends

of every race, creed, color

and I smile at my wife

who is already smiling at me

and my son

who is the center of attention!

who plays with toys

but mesmerizes the others with his voice and movements

 

he is my father

so thoughtful, so loving, so enduring

he is my son

 

my father saved his own life

and thereby saved my son’s

He who saves a life,

saves the world entire)

--william paris