The most memorable and traumatic experience of my childhood was the death of my beloved mother. She, my grandmother and aunt Leytshe were the only people in my entire life that loved me unconditionally. For the thirteen months prior to her death, my mother was the only one that remained of my immediate family.
She died on the 24th of May, 1943. At the time, I was fourteen years old.
I knew that she was dying. The doctor had told me that she had Galloping Consumption (a rapid progression of Tuberculosis). He had asked me to allow him to hospitalize her, but I stared at him bewildered and very quietly murmured: “Dr. Zackheim, you know what they are doing nowadays in the hospital with patients like my mother.”
He did not deny it. He only lightly touched my shoulder with his tender hand and muttered with a choking voice: “Child, you can no longer help your mother anyway! You are only prolonging her suffering and endangering your own life! The longer you are around her, the greater the danger that you may also catch this highly contagious and incurable disease.”
I felt as if I was sinking into a bottomless pit. I do not know how long we stood in the entrance hall, with our heads bent and speechless, but eventually I mastered the courage and said resolutely: “No, Dr. Zackheim, she will not be taken to the hospital! She will stay with me, in her own bed, and I will do everything that is humanly possible to help her!”
I had known Dr. Zackheim for a long time — probably since my early childhood. Prior to World War II, he belonged to the sarne political organization as my parents; he was my mother’s co-worker at TOZ; and he was my parents’ personal friend. In the Ghetto — after a full day’s work in the hospital — he would make house calls (free of charge) and do whatever he could to rescue his patients from death, ease the suffering of the sick, or at least to give people some confidence that someone cared for them. By visiting these sick people in their homes instead of at the clinic or the hospital, he also protected them from being put on the “list of the sick” and thereby, to fall into the category of the next to be deportation.
I do not remember whether he came to us when my father died in November, 1939; but I do remember him being there one year earlier, in 1942, during and after the death of my grandmother and of my brother Elek. Dr. Zackheim was a kind man, a good friend and a devoted doctor. Usually, he would leave medicine, or a prescription.
This time he left our home without leaving any medication.
I was able to get hold of a serum that Dr. Zackheim had prescribed earlier. It was actually a medicine to counteract pneumonia. My mother’s friend, Mrs. Engel, who was an experienced registered nurse, administered the injection. She also told me that this medication would not cure the tuberculosis, but since there was no other available cure and the serum would not harm my mother in any way, she would inject the serum according to my request. I was not going to let my mother die! I was hoping that perhaps the next day or the day after, the Nazis would be defeated, and help would become available.
My mother’s sister, Aunt Surtshe, came one day to visit her very sick sister. Although one could hardly see anything in the dimly lit sectioned off part of the kitchen (which had become our bedroom), I could not help but to notice the tears in my aunt’s eyes as she lovingly held my mother’s hand. My aunt made a pledge to my mother to take good care of me. I knew that two of Aunt Surtshe’s teenage children were on their deathbeds at that time as well. Upon leaving our tiny sleeping quarters, she called me out to the hallway and warned me of the danger of catching my mother’s disease. She insisted that I must find a separate bed to sleep in.
I tried to obey my aunt’s instruction and that night, I slept in a separate folding cot that I received from a neighbor. After one night, however, I got rid of the cot and went back to sharing the single bed in the corner of our tiny living area, with my mother — primarily because the cot was infested with bedbugs and other vermin, and I spent most of the night fighting with them. Also, the truth about my mother’s disease became increasingly obvious to her, so she began to talk more openly about it — and I could not bear to hear the truth. Until now, I had lied to her — insisting that she had pneumonia and that she would soon be well. Additionally, I had become accustomed to sharing a bed with my mother for so many years, and the close proximity, as her death approached, brought us even closer than before -by exchanging intimate thoughts and feelings, and of course, by moving physically closer during moments of emotional distress and upheaval. Even when words were left unspoken — the warmth of my mother’s body, her touch, her unconditional love and concern, just having her beside me – seemed to be enough to relieve my frustrations, my fears and uncertainties. I needed my mother! I felt lost in the lonely cot without my mother beside me.
“Mama, are you angry with me? Why have you lately been turning away from me? You are drifting away from me farther and farther!”
She muttered: “Because I do not want to breathe into you! I want you to survive! You must survive the war!”
After a short pause, she continued: “I am dying, my child. I hope that after I am gone, you will continue to fight — however you can — so that you may rescue yourself! Please, Feygele, you must endure! You must survive! You are the last one of our family! And when the war is over, you must go to England. My sister Kaltsche and my two brothers are good people and they will take good care of you!”
“Mama, mama, please don’t talk that way! You are scaring me! You will not die! You will live! You must live! I will sell all our last remaining belongings; I will buy medicine for you, and soon you will be well again.”
No! I could not accept the truth that my mother was dying and was soon to be torn away from me forever.
It was now several weeks since my mother was able to get out of bed. Laying in her bed quietly, she looked at me with sadness in her once lively, bright blue and now faded watery eyes. Only the sound of her constant cough and her spitting-up phlegm interrupted the deathly silence in the room. She could no longer swallow the food that I had prepared for her. My dear mama was very sick, very silent and very helpless. I was helpless too! I was helpless to save my mother from the clutches of death. I still tried to pretend that all would end well, and tried to go on with daily life as before. Every day, Mrs. Engel came to give her the injection. Sometimes Dr. Zackheim would also look in. As quietly as he would enter, he would leave. He just stared somberly at me and at my mother. Sometimes, I thought, I detected a feeling of guilt; guilt because he — once a great, respected physician — could do nothing to save his patient, colleague and friend.
Two large, pearl-like tears came rolling down her eyes onto her once rosy, high, and now dark-yellow, cement-like, sunken cheeks. I believe that she was trying hard to hold on to life — for my sake. But death was spreading its wings over her. She was gasping for her last breath of air — she wanted to utter one last word.
Suddenly her eyes rolled back and she expired. My mother was gone!
I became like a wild, uncontrollable beast. I threw myself on the bed, lifted my mother’s body and shook her, shook her, shook her with all my might, shrieking: “No, no, don’t die! Don’t do that to me!” (My mother was dead — and I was concerned about me)!
Perhaps she felt that so much remained unsaid. A feeling of guilt seemed to be reflected in her face. I noticed that two pearly tears were again rolling down from her eyes. I kissed her eyes and those teardrops. They were still warm, and so was her body. But not for long.
A neighbor dragged me away by force and put me on a low stool in his room, across the hallway. I do not remember what anyone said to me or around me at that time — or who made the arrangements for the last rites. I only remember that when I came into our quarters again, I noticed blisters all over my mother’s body, and saw that women were washing her. Then they sewed the white burial shroud on her. I also remember watching the Khevre Kedishe (Burial Society) carrying out my mother’s body, putting her in a black cart that was waiting in front of the building and riding away with her. When I arrived at her graveside, the grave diggers were already lowering my mother’s body into the ground.
I was standing alone at my mother’s grave while her body was being covered with soil. I did not cry any more. Complete darkness was all around me, within me, consuming me. Although it was the end of May, I was shivering from cold. This darkness and coldness has followed me throughout my entire life.
••• End of Section One •••
©2001 Fela Infeld Glaser and Marty Capsuto
©2009 First Look Marketing All Rights Reserved