It was a cold and cloudy October evening. The table was set for five because my grandmother had suffered a stroke two days earlier while visiting Aunt Leytshe and was recuperating there after her “mekhutn” (relative by marriage), Moszkovicz Feltsher, miraculously saved her by “cutting bankes.” This is a procedure in which an incision is made to draw blood into a cup called a “banke.”
The four of us were sitting around the table waiting for my father to return after a day of Zwangsarbeit. We were anxious, restless and continually glancing at father’s empty chair. Though we were very hungry, and the meal was ready, we would not start eating the meal without father at the head of the table—as was customary in “good” Jewish families in Poland.
I turned toward mother – mainly to break the silence: “Mama, why is father not home yet? He always returns much, much earlier!” Everyone else knew that it was late for father to return from Zwangsarbeit and also seemed to be concerned. No one knew why, but no one else asked questions. We sat there in silence — worried and anguished.
Mama was constantly getting up, nervously walking to and from the kitchen, and continually tasting the food on the stove — pretending to be adding once again the final touches to the meal. The aroma from the food was very inviting. I picked up a half-knitted sock that grandma had started, and began to move the five knitting needles as grandma had taught me, but my hands were shaking and I was unable to concentrate on the work — so I soon put it back down. My older brother, Shimon, closed the book that he had pretended to be reading, crossed his legs, half closed his eyes and became lost in deep thought. Elek, who had returned from Zwangsarbeit about one and a half hours earlier, stood up, walked over to the window and remained on the lookout for father coming home.
The silence, restlessness, monotony and worry were growing with every passing minute. Though I was a by nature a fairly happy girl — lively and full of laughter, — I recognized the gravity of the situation; but I believed that the door would soon open, father would enter and our family would once again start the meal in a pleasant atmosphere.
The door opened slowly. Barely moving, holding on to the doorframe, my father entered. He was bent, his face was unusually pale and he was very unsteady on his feet. He was hardly able to remain standing. I thought that father’s appearance and expression had changed an awful lot since the previous evening, when I last saw him. His gray hair seemed to be grayer, his pale face – paler and thinner, and the creases on his forehead were deeper.
Highly alarmed, we all ran toward the door and helped father to be seated at the table. Mother asked him what happened. We were staring at him with great curiosity and concern. Father realized that we were all hungry and suggested that we start eating dinner. Eventually five spoons were dipped into the plates of soup in front of us. Not much of the food was consumed, however. Father merely smelled the delicious food, tasted it and returned the spoon to the table. His hand fell down powerless, and with a weak voice he whispered: “Please, Rukhtshe, get my bed ready for me to lie down. I feel circles in front of my eyes; my head is spinning and pounding; my whole body is shaking, and I have terrible stomach cramps.”
Mama immediately fixed his bed. After she helped him change his clothes, she tucked him in and brought him a cup of tea. Soon father was resting — but not for very long. He was up and about — moaning and groaning due to diarrhea and excruciating cramps.
My brother Shimon went to fetch the doctor. When they eventually arrived (quite some time later), the doctor explained that he had to attend to many sick people that evening. My brother later told us that he had been running around from one part of town to another throughout the city until he eventually found this doctor.
My mother stayed at father’s bedside, and we remained close by. We were anxious to find out what the doctor had to say about my father’s condition. After the doctor examined him, he said something in a whisper to my mother and Shimon. I was unable to understand the conversation, but I thought that I overheard something about an epidemic of Dysentery being rampant in the city.
My father was continually throwing up and relieving himself in a pail that was kept in a distant corner of the room. Throughout the night, he was running, moaning, holding his stomach and complaining of excruciating cramps. I had never seen my father in such a helpless state. I tried to cheer him up with funny jokes, but my mother told me to be quiet and not to bother him.
In the morning, my mother packed some of my belongings and took me over to Aunt Leytshe’s home. On the way there, she explained to me that this was just for my safety – in case father’s illness was contagious. She also told me to be careful, because I would have to share the bed with my sick grandmother who was recuperating from the paralytic stroke.
Although my grandmother was bedridden, weak, and hardly able to utter any words, we knew that she was going to recover. She was already able to move all limbs slightly and was gradually regaining the ability to speak. I tried to be very still when I was in bed with her, since I was afraid that I might hurt her and worsen her illness.
For the next seven days, I did not get to see my parents, or my brothers. I was instructed not to come home until I got permission to return. I couldn’t understand why I was the only one to be removed from the house every time there was fear of a contagious disease (as at the time when my brothers had scarlet fever); why in this case, might there be a danger for me and not for my brothers
My mother did not come in to Aunt Leytshe’s home after she left me there, though I sometimes noticed her peeking through the window— to see me, grandmother, and my Aunt and Uncle. On the eighth day, mama came in, kissed each of us, and told us that she was going to take me home. She explained that father had been admitted to the hospital because his intestines may have gotten twisted from the diarrhea and that the doctor might have to perform an emergency operation on that day. On the way home, mama told me that father did not want to go to the hospital without seeing his little girl beforehand, but that his condition had deteriorated to the point that it could not be delayed. She also assured me that her friend, Ms. Engel, who was working on the floor where father would be staying, was going to take excellent care of him.
I hardly slept that night. The other three in the room (mother and my two brothers) probably did not sleep at all. At a certain moment, I heard Shimon fall over something in the room. When my mother asked him what time it was, he said that it was exactly two o’clock. “Oh”, my mother exclaimed, “I feel that Shimon’s fall was a bad omen! I have a premonition that something terrible has happened to father!”
In the morning, as the clock struck 6:30, we heard a tap on our windowpane. My mother quickly jumped off the bed and ran toward the window. As soon as she opened the shutters and took one look at Ms. Engel, she let out a hysterical scream: “Children, you no longer have a father!”
Evidently my mother, who understood the seriousness of my father’s illness, recognized our tragedy as soon as she noticed her friend’s facial expression.
Sobbing broke out in all corners of the room. Ms. Engel, who was standing outside in half-darkness, was trying to calm my mother: “Rukhtshe Infeld, your husband was operated on. He was brought out of the operating room just before 2:00 in the morning. He woke up from the anesthesia and asked me how soon he could see you and the children. He begged me to stop over on the way home to tell you that he loved you very much, and that he wanted you and the children to come to see him as soon as possible.
My mother, though she knew her friend as a very honest person and tried to believe her words, but she had picked up the other woman’s body language. Ms. Engel’s posture, her downward looking eyes, and sloping shoulders told her more about my father’s state than her words.
As soon as the curfew was over, my mother and Shimon went off to see father. Before they left, mama asked Elek to take good care of me and not to come to the hospital until she sent for us. But we did not obey. As soon as we got dressed, we ran over to the hospital.
My mother’s premonition was right. When Elek and I came to the stairs of the hospital, we found my brokenhearted mother and shattered brother Shimon, who had been waiting there for nearly an hour, coming down the stairs devastated with their heads drooping down. Our mother merely stared at us. She was apparently unable to utter a word. At last, Shimon told us that instead of being allowed passes to visit our father, they were told that Bernard Infeld woke up from the anesthesia but died a few minutes later, at 2:00 A.M., and that his body had been moved to the hospital morgue in the back of the hospital. We all walked toward the small gate in the back, but we had to wait till eight o’clock to be allowed in. As we waited, I leaned my head on my mother’s breast, but she did not pay any attention to me.
When the small gate in the back was opened and we were allowed to enter, they pointed out where my father’s body was. We passed by a corner with show-windows around it. One could not help noticing a young boy in a Polish military uniform, laid out on a table. Nobody came to view his body.
I didn’t cry like the rest of my family. I just felt as if heavy loads were pressing against my chest and my head. “Does that mean that now, at ten years, I am an orphan without a father?” I thought. “How could that be, how was it possible that my handsome, intelligent father, who was alive just yesterday, had departed us forever?” I could not accept the fact that I would not see my father alive again; that he would not hold me on his lap, test my knowledge of math, teach me the German language and German poetry (as he had in the past); that he would no longer check my school work and the neatness of my notebooks and nod disapprovingly if he found ink spots; that I would not see his proud, shining face, expressing pride after testing me on these subjects; and that I would not hear him singing again “nigunim” (songs without words) from his childhood.
We entered the tiny cool chamber. My mother bent down on the ground beside my father, and uncovered his face to see whether it was really he. There he was — on the cold stony floor — with open eyes and an open mouth. His face was cold and yellow like clay. The rest of the body, under the black cover seemed to have shrunken.
A new wave of tears covered the tiny chamber. I was now weeping too. I felt a sharp wound had opened that would never heal. Of course, the biggest impact of his death was on my mother who stared at him for a long, long time, observing his every feature — until she eventually covered his lips with hers. Shimon forcefully removed her from his body and the chamber. He indicated that I, a child, was around and that the scene was shocking and devastating to me.
Shimon soon went to make arrangements for father’s fmal rites and burial. My mother reminded him to make certain that they knew at the Rabbinate that the deceased was Berish Infeld from Piatek, the son of Reb Shimon, the Alexander Khosid. I could not understand why this suddenly became so important. My father never spoke about his yikhes and despised the strict upbringing in his home and at the Yeshiva. He referred to the learning of Torah as: “filling up heads with sawdust.” Elek said that because of his family ties, my father would be buried in a privileged grave – in an important section on a main road of the cemetery.
Despite the danger of being hailed with stones by the Poles who resided in a nearby area outside the Jewish cemetery, my father had a traditional and relatively large funeral. After the funeral, we sat down on low stools (as is traditional during the “Shive” week of mourning after the funeral) and Aunt Leytshe fed us with bagels and margarine. My father’s sister, Reysye, who had been estranged from my mother for many years, also sat with us. Whatever grudge had kept them apart in the past, seemed to have left them. After approximately 24 hours, my mother, declared that due to the abnormal circumstances of the war and contrary to tradition — Shive must be over and that we must now find a way to get on with our lives.
Although my father’s death is forever engraved in my memory as a personal tragedy, to me it also marks the beginning of our national tragedy, particularly, the suffering by the most innocent Jewish children in the German occupied territories This suffering has no comparison in the history of mankind.
I realized — for the first time — that despite the fact that the universe was so huge, our lives were so limited and constricted; that the sun does not shine for everybody. I thought that my father’s death was a multiple tragedy: for the first time in my life, I was feeling the pain of an orphan; my worry-free childhood thoughts and dreams had now evaporated; and though I didn’t know it then, this was the beginning of many more personal tragedies. My father was the first victim of the war among our large, extended family in Lodz. He died on the second of November, 1939, two months after the outbreak of World War II. More than five and a half years of suffering were yet to come.
(to be continued…)
©2001 Fela Infeld Glaser and Marty Capsuto
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Child In Captivity 