Where Are We Going? Copyright ©2012 by Miriam Finder Tasini. For information contact the publisher, Richard Altschuler & Associates, Inc., at 10390 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90024, (424) 279-9118, or richard.altschuler@gmail.com.

E-Book ISBN: 978-1-884092-32-9

This e-Book was originally published in paperback format by Gordian Knot Books / Richard Altschuler & Associates, Inc.

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-884092-82-4

Paperback Library of Congress Control Number: 2012906375. CIP data for this book are available from the Library of Congress.

Gordian Knot Books is an imprint of
Richard Altschuler & Associates, Inc.

All rights reserved. Except as allowed for fair use, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Richard Altschuler & Associates, Inc.

Cover Design: Josh Garfield

Dedication

Dedicated to the memory of

my parents

Regina Feilgut Finder and Markus Finder

and

my aunt and uncle

Anna Finder Hochwald and Maurycius Hochwald

whose wisdom and resilience

allowed us to survive

Acknowledgments

I have written professional articles and book chapters as a psychoanalyst, but it was much harder for me to write this story about my family, which brought up so much emotional turmoil. The outcome of my struggles to recall and remember the incidents in this book would not have come to fruition without the support and encouragement I received from those that I am thanking.

First and foremost I thank my husband, Allan Compton, who was a consistent supporter. His experience as a psychoanalyst, as well as a writer of numerous psychoanalytic articles and book chapters, enabled him to be a constructive critic and editor.

Very special thanks to Professor Michael Berenbaum, Holocaust scholar and Chair of the Sigi Ziering Institute at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, California, who generously devoted time to read one of my early drafts. He felt that the book describes occurrences during WWII not documented previously.

Beth Lieberman, one of the editors he recommended, worked with me patiently for many months and helped to bring my manuscript close to completion.

Professor Holli Levitsky, Chair of the Jewish Studies Department at Marymount University in Los Angeles, is a friend who thought that this book would be a valuable addition to the description of WWII events.

My friends Ellen Hoffs, a professional editor, and Judith Springer, a translator, whose lives were also impacted by the Holocaust, have encouraged and supported my efforts to document this epic journey.

Finally I want to thank Richard and Jane Altschuler, my publishers at Gordian Knot Books/Richard Altschuler & Associates, Inc., who patiently and consistently provided valuable scholarly, editorial, and technical recommendations that allowed the completion of the book.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter I: Friday, September 1, 1939

Chapter II: Departure

Chapter III: Markus’s Escape

Chapter IV: Lvov

Chapter V: Deportation

Chapter VI: Posiowek 45

Chapter VII: Road to Freedom

Chapter VIII: Samarkand

Chapter IX: Kermine

Chapter X: Out of Russia

Chapter XI: The Caspian Sea Journey

Chapter XII: Persia

Chapter XIII: Final Voyage

Epilogue: Palestine

About the Author

Introduction

In this book you will find memories, fantasies and family myths that have been aggregated into one story—the story of my family, the Finders (Photo 1, p. 161).

I have wanted to write this story for many years but was unable to bring myself to do so until now. However, the time has come, for I am afraid that if I wait any longer the story will be lost.

In November 1991, I was on my way to Krakow, Poland, to take care of the legalities of my family’s property restitution, and changed planes in Munich, Germany. I felt uneasy there; I was frightened and could feel hate rising in me in full force. I spent the hour between flights sitting in an airport lounge, and though it was irrational, I decided to forego even a cup of coffee. I could not bear to give a penny to anyone who might have had—even remotely—a connection to any Nazi past or present. Whoever I had become in the last several decades gave way to the child who was terrified of those around her, a child whose paranoia was justified.

Starting in September 1939, the Nazis marched into city after city in Eastern Europe, including the one where I lived, claiming they created a “New Order” that was to last a thousand years. They took over the house where my mother was born. When I returned fifty-two years later to the old homestead in Krakow, a four-story mansion, the rats were its only living inhabitants. After long negotiations, I sold it and watched strangers place their signatures on the sales agreement. The lawyers noted the details: the house was built in 1637, it was 10,000 square meters, had defective plumbing, the banisters needed replacement, and the frescoes in the second floor ballroom needed restoration. Generations had preceded me in that old mansion, from the wealthy burghers of the seventeenth century to the hard-working Jews of the twentieth.

As a child, I heard about the ballroom where our family gathered for celebrations and funerals, with angels and flowers painted on the dome above the dance floor. In my early years, I would conjure up the image of people dining and dancing in that room on the night of my parents’ engagement party.

My ancestors came to Krakow six centuries earlier to escape the Spanish Inquisition. Now I was spending ten days there to put an end to the European chapter of our family history.

I heard about love at first sight—after all, Cinderella did marry Prince Charming. But today I wonder if, in my parents’ case, it was also their embroidered memories of their happy past in Krakow . . . memories that helped them to survive the harsh winters in Siberia and starvation and drought in the Uzbek desert, when we endured our long escape from the Nazis.

In my memory, the many places where I have lived have blended with each other. In the house where I was born, I dimly remember hugging the smooth leg of a grand piano while my mother, in a flowing white robe, played charming melodies. There were pictures on the walls in a room with a skylight and very large armchairs. As I stood on my tip toes, I could look at the candelabra in the middle of the long, shiny, gleaming dining room table that seated twelve. Furniture, rooms, paintings, balconies and closets are easier for me to remember than people.

I do remember, clearly, being hugged by my mother’s father, Bernard Feilgut, and sitting on his lap, holding onto his gold watch as he taught me to tell time. My father’s father, Jacob Finder, was honored, admired and feared. I have seen many photos of this handsome, imposing man, and only remember kissing his hand as it rested on top of his silver-handled cane.

My grandfather Jacob was the oldest of five brothers. His life was one that could be the basis for a Hollywood movie. He was the son of a poor, Jewish farmer who built a business that supplied grain to the Polish army during World War I, and, as a result, was able to accumulate wealth and power. He ruled his brothers, employees and children with an iron hand, the same hand that I used to kiss as a child.

Jacob, one of his brothers, and two nephews were hidden for almost two years in the countryside by an old employee. He was denounced for hiding Jews by a neighbor. When the Nazis came to transport them to Auschwitz, Jacob did not go quietly. The villagers, after the war, reported to my mother that they saw him wave his cane at the Nazis and their collaborators. They shot him as he attacked them, and I am proud of him for resisting.

I do not remember either of my grandmothers, but I do recall a photo of my father’s mother, Rosa, lying in bed deathly ill with her youngest baby granddaughter—me—at her side (Photo 6, p. 163). They told me that my other grandmother, Fela, was a stern, imposing woman who loved only her son and never showed any affection to anyone else.

I looked out of my hotel window that winter in 1991 and watched the bundled up pedestrians scurrying across the city square. There was no place here anymore for a descendant of people who were sent into oblivion. The clean-shaven uptown intellectuals, the “modern” Jews and the Kazimierz Jews, who piously wore beards and black hats, were all long gone. They disappeared into labor camps and crematoria. Those who survived found other, faraway places to live. Only a handful stayed.

As I wandered through Kazimierz’s narrow, medieval streets that once teemed with Jewish life, I was overcome by a sense of unreality. I’d left the city more than half a century earlier, as a small child wrapped up in a blanket on my grandfather Jacob’s lap. Now I was a grandmother revisiting my past.

I could see hidden signs of that now extinct community. A school building, once a synagogue, had a Star of David engraved over the front entrance. On some dwellings, mezzuzot, the talismans that Jews are required to post on our doorways, were still nailed onto the doorposts. The Great Synagogue where my parents were married is now a museum, and the Remu Synagogue is currently the only functioning synagogue in the city, and also a museum. The Remu was built in 1560 and had the oldest Jewish cemetery in Krakow. Now only a few headstones remain—those that were too misshapen to be used by the Germans for paving roads.

I walked through a junkyard and over railroad tracks to locate the “new” Jewish cemetery established in 1840—one that has not seen much use recently, as there are few Jews left in Poland. The gates are locked and entry is through an old building that smells of mildew and urine. An elderly woman wrapped in layers of old, torn clothing greeted me and offered to sell me a candle. She said she was one of only 300 Jews who still live in town, and invited me to her home—one room with a bed and a small cooking stove but no sign of running water.

The cemetery was choked with weeds and collapsed tombstones that blocked the path. I tried to decipher the blurred names on the old headstones, but I was not sure whether I had heard some of them in my childhood or if they were familiar old Eastern European Jewish names: Herzog, Klein, Lacks, Sacs. I did find one stone with Nabel, my maternal grandmother’s maiden name.

I considered if my DNA would match the DNA of some of those people who have been dead for more than a hundred years. My grandmother was fortunate, the last of her family to die a natural death, but I could not find her final resting place. Grandparents, great-grandparents, their acquaintances, teachers, friends and relatives—Rozner, Kleinman, Hochwald, Nabel, Hecker—the names were all around me, but I did not know who was who and what my relationship to them might have been.

I can only imagine what my mother—the last survivor of her generation—would say if she sat surrounded by her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I can hear her telling them, “I wish I had been a writer or that I had kept a diary so that my family and friends, too many to name or remember, will never be forgotten. They are all dead, most never survived the train ride to the concentration camps. Others are buried all over the globe. But for the sake of our future we must never forget them.”

All families have histories and legends that are passed on to successive generations. I hope to capture the dim memories mixed with fantasies of my childhood with recollections reported over many years by my parents, Rena and Markus, and a few surviving relatives now dispersed around the world. Now I have to fill in the gaps for them and to honor all those Jewish souls who vanished into the smoky mists of our past.

A Note about Names Used in the Book

Several members of my family discussed in this book either had multiple names of endearment or changed their names during the course of their lives. For the sake of simplicity, I refer to the people below as follows in the book: My mother’s name was Regina but she was always referred to as Rena.

My father’s name was Maksymilian Finder on his birth certificate. In the book, he is always called Markus, the name he used most of his life.

My uncle, whose name was Maurycius Hochwald, as I put in the “Dedication,” is called Julius, who was married to my father’s younger sister, Anna.

I refer to myself as Mira, and was between three and seven years of age during the events recounted.

Markus’s eldest sister was named Leah at birth, but changed her name to Leontyne, as she is called on the “Finder Family” photo (p. 161). Leontyne’s husband, Wilhelm (Wilek) Hecker, is called Willi.

Markus’s next eldest sister is called by her birth name, Golde. She later changed her name to Eugenia, as she is called on the “Finder Family” photo, and is referred to as “Genia” on page 110. Her husband’s name was Layosz Halasz, who is mentioned in the family photo and elsewhere in the book.

Miriam Finder Tasini

Los Angeles, California

2012

Chapter I

Friday, September 1, 1939

A dog began howling in the garden below. Rena was startled from a deep sleep. Thunder? But I do not hear the rain, she thought. There was no moisture in the air and the patter of raindrops was absent. She looked at the clock by the bedside; it was five-fifteen in the morning. She turned over to go back to sleep when the thunder struck again. This time it seemed closer.

“Did you hear that?” she asked her husband, Markus.

He sat up, got out of bed, and walked towards the window. He stood there a moment then quietly said, “The refinery is on fire.”

Rena muffled a cry of dismay. She jumped out of bed, grabbed her robe and wrapped it around herself as she ran to the window. Markus put his arm around her shoulder and together they stepped onto the balcony facing the river to watch the thick, black smoke billowing above the burning refinery across the Vistula River, obscuring the view of the picturesque city on the opposite bank.

A rumbling sound emanated from the silhouettes of two low-flying airplanes over the river. A rapid series of explosions followed the disappearance of the airplanes into the smoke cover on the opposite river bank.

“Is this bombing a beginning of a war? What else is going on?” Rena kept mumbling under her breath.

The dog was now whimpering in the garden below. Markus cried out, “Come here, Wolfie!” The dog approached the house and sat at the front door waiting to be let in.

Markus pulled Rena gently back into the bedroom and said, “Let us try to find out what is happening, we need to listen to the news. We’ll let Wolfie in and go to the library; the poor animal is going crazy.”

The commotion wakened Mira, their three-year-old, in the bedroom down the hall. She began to cry and yell, “Mama, I don’t like this noise.” They walked down the hall into the children’s bedroom. Markus gathered Mira in his arms and Rena lifted the eighteen-month-old Lisa out of the crib (Photo 9, p. 165). Together they carried the children into the library at the back of the house. It was a large room, with tall bookcases surrounding the large windows that faced an apple orchard. Opposite the comfortable leather couch was a large antique credenza, where the radio sat between shelves that held Rena’s large collection of charming china figurines. Markus turned on the radio.

Suddenly the planes returned and the explosions, although muted by the books and closed windows, continued to wreak havoc around them. The terrified Mira squirmed out of Markus’s arms and clung to Rena’s bathrobe, crying uncontrollably. Wolfie barked loudly in the garden. Markus went to let him in, then returned and gently separated the sobbing child from Rena and carried her to the couch, where he sat down and cuddled her in his lap. Rena, still holding baby Lisa, sat down next to him. The dog settled on the large Oriental rug in the middle of the room.

The radio announcer was reciting names of towns on the Polish western border that had reported bombings. He interrupted his report with an announcement: “We will now hear the inspector general of the Polish armed forces, Marshal Rydz-Smygly, who will provide the information about our battles with the invading German army.”

“This is the Inspector General speaking. We have received a formal announcement that the German army has crossed the Polish border earlier this morning. Our cities are under attack. Our gallant army will resist this savage attack with full force. This armed military invasion occurred without prior declaration of war. This is a barbaric action unprecedented in the history of civilization. There was no direct communication with our government. I am calling all able men to join the forces that will defend our land,” he concluded.

Markus turned to Rena and said, “I always thought that the Germans were gentlemen who played by the rules in business and in war. It seems I was wrong. You stay here with Maria and the children. I have to go to the office. I will have to try to keep the factory running with the night shift, if the day shift is delayed getting to the factory.”

The telephone began ringing. He walked to it and answered, “Director speaking. Yes, I know, I will be there in fifteen minutes.”

Thoughts were racing through his mind as he was getting ready to leave the house. Out loud he tried to sort out their priorities to Rena. “It is hard to make any plans, as we do not know what to expect from minute to minute. I know you will take care of the girls and be safe here with Zosia and Maria, while I go down to the office and try to keep the mill running. But I am worried about my father. He is alone and may not be able to take care of himself in this dangerous situation.”

“Why don’t we bring him here? You know I will take care of him, even if he complains,” Rena said with a smile.

“Great idea. I will call him.” Markus kissed her. “I still think you are the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

Markus rapidly ran down the curving flight of stairs out of the house. He heard several new explosions before reaching the end of the garden path. He felt anxious and was overwhelmed by sadness as he looked at the newly-renovated, hundred-year-old mansion, with its carved doorway and balconies with elaborate wrought-iron railings, sprawling on the top of the hill. The copper roof reflected the morning sun. Rose bushes at the base of the house were in full bloom. The garden was surrounded by a fence to provide a safe playground for the children. A large, recently-built sandbox, a swing and the doghouse built for Wolfie were the newest additions. The lawn spilled towards the fence at the bottom of the hill, which stopped just above the river bank. As Markus looked towards the children’s playing area, Wolfie, out again, approached him wagging his tail. He gave the dog a quick pat. “Be a good dog,” he said. “Watch my girls.”

The Vistula River, which ran through the city of Krakow, was usually crowded with sailboats and wooden barges at that hour of the morning. Now it was almost deserted. Markus saw a lonely barge moving north. He had difficulty imagining there was anyone, anywhere, who had not heard about the war. He unlocked the gate and walked towards the parked car. He started the car and drove towards the six-story building that housed the mill, a mile down the road. He remembered his father announcing the decision to move and enlarge the family business from a small building in Kazimierz, the Jewish section of Krakow where the family lived, to a new location on several acres of land across the river.

The Kazimierz section of town had been the center of Jewish life since the fourteenth century, when King Kazimierz the Great invited Jewish artists and tradesmen escaping from the Inquisition in Spain to settle in Poland. The king envisioned that the enterprising, talented goldsmiths, silversmiths and craftsmen would help his country to become part of the evolving European culture. When the Jews settled in Krakow, they built a new section of town named after their benefactor—Kazimierz. Poland became a Jewish haven for the following 200 years. After 1600, when anti-Semitism became a way of life that restricted Jews from other areas in the city, Kazimierz became a crowded ghetto. Numerous synagogues were built throughout the four square miles, and Jewish culture flourished.

Markus’s parents, Jacob and Rosa Finder, had moved to Kazimierz after their marriage, into a building owned by Rosa’s family, where they had their first child, Leah, ten months later. A year later, they had their second daughter, Golde. Markus was their third child, the only son. One of the family legends about Markus’s birth was Jacob’s announcement in synagogue—“God finally heard my prayers”—after he learned he had his long-awaited male heir.

As he approached the mill Markus recalled the many times, when he was young, that he and his father walked across the bridge to Zablocie, to watch the construction of the mill at the new location adjacent to the bakery. His father always declared on these outings, “This will take care of you, your children and your grandchildren.”

After graduating from high school, Markus (Photo 3, p. 162) was expected to go to a university. Neither he nor anyone else in the family considered Jagelonska University in Krakow as a possibility. Poland tried to introduce a Numerous Clauses law in 1923 to limit students of Jewish origin, but it faced objections from the League of Nations. The law existed unofficially, however, so Jewish students were not acceptable in the newly established Republic of Poland after WWI.

Jacob told his son, “I think Vienna might be a good place to study. I have lived with the Austrians most of my life who treated us, Jews, well. I hope that Poland will change and your children will be accepted to universities. Vienna is a beautiful city and I am sure you will be happy there.”

Markus was initially reluctant to go to Vienna, worried about the competition in a famous educational institution, but his fears very soon disappeared. Vienna—the town of emperors, intellectuals and entertainers—provided him with a range of experience he never imagined was possible. He loved Latin, Greek and literature. He enjoyed the Vienna night life. He and his friends spent many a night waltzing their way through clubs and dance halls.

Markus planned and expected to become a lawyer, but the idea seemed less and less interesting as time went on. His father was providing financial support for his university education, but he did not keep it a secret that he expected his only son to join the now-thriving family business. At the end of Markus’s third year at the university, his father told him the mill had become a shareholders’ corporation and that he was now a major shareholder. Markus had been awarded the fourth largest block of stock, exceeded only by his father, his uncle Izak and his brother-in-law, Willi.

“I know that you wanted to become a lawyer and I am very proud of you,” Jacob told him. “I want each and every one of my children to have a good and comfortable life. Your mother and I hope you will marry soon and have a family. I want you to run Ziarno. I need you because you are smart and able to get along with people. I want to know that my son, my daughters and all their children can all live in comfort for the rest of their lives.”

“I have heard this before, Father, but I do not know much about the business. Besides, you know how I feel about Willi,” Markus replied, irritated.

“Just this once, come to the stockholders meeting next week. I insisted to make you one of the major stockholders, and I would be embarrassed if you did not come.”

“I know how you feel. I will come and try to listen but this is not a promise to join,” Markus answered.

He attended the meeting of stockholders and was the youngest person in the room. He was bored as he listened to the lawyers discussing the reorganization of the structure of the company and the distribution of shares. He did not want to participate in the discussion, and his mind wandered to the soccer game he had scheduled for the next day.

“I am not sure if I can stand working in Ziarno. It seems like a nightmare,” he told his cousin and best friend, Zigi.

Now as he was approaching the mill, he tried to reconstruct the process that led him to not only join the company, but also to assume a leadership role. It was not an easy transition. His father was domineering but cooperated and went along with any decisions, as long as he felt honored and admired in his role as the president and founder. It was his adversarial, combative brother-in-law, Willi, a Talmudic scholar chosen by Jacob to marry his older sister, Leah, who was much disliked by the workers and caused turmoil by his erratic behavior.

Markus found himself taking charge and enjoying the aspects of the business that required multiple involvements with the employees. He climbed, almost daily, up the six flights of stairs in the mill, greeting the workers as he walked by. He often came to work early in the morning and stood on the loading dock to discuss the orders and deliveries with the dispatchers. Markus hoped that the morning turmoil would not alter the work schedule. He parked outside the small, off-white, office building, and walked towards the large brick building that housed the mill. As he entered the mill he was greeted by the familiar roar of turbines.

The guard at the door greeted him with the familiar, “Good morning, Mr. Director.”

“Have you seen Mihal?” Markus inquired.

Mihal had worked his way up to a main supervisor during the past ten years. He lived with his wife and children on the factory grounds.

“He is probably in the back supervising the loading of the train,” the guard said.

Markus walked to the loading platform. Mihal, a tall, heavy-set man in his thirties, and four other workers were loading sacks onto the two flatbed railroad carriages.

Mihal turned to Markus. “Shall we continue loading? Germans are bombing.”

“Yes,” Markus responded. “We have to continue to live as if nothing changed; we cannot let them win. Let us see if the day shift will get here. Please keep as many of the night shift here as you can. They will get extra pay.”

“You know I will be here,” Mihal answered with a tense smile.

Markus walked back to the office building, unlocked the doors, and climbed up to the second floor. He sat at his desk pondering the next move. Jacob, his sixty-seven-year-old father, was still a major stockholder in the company, but had not been involved in the daily activities of the business since the death of his wife three years earlier. He turned over the management of the factories to Markus and his son-in-law Willi. Markus decided to delay calling his father and Willi until he had a clearer idea about the staffing situation. He dialed home knowing that Rena, whose family had business in the city, would provide some information and counsel.

He told her, as soon as she answered, “I am still all alone in the office. None of the office staff or the day shift at the mill got here so far. The products are accumulating, as only one train has arrived so far this morning. Have you been able to talk to your father or anyone else to find out what is going on in the city? I am not sure what is going on with my father, he is alone and may not be able to care for himself in this dangerous situation.”

She replied calmly, “Papa opened the restaurant at six and his regulars were all there. The city center is calm, but the radio reports that Warsaw and many other cities are under attack. I still think we should try to bring your father here.”

He chuckled as he responded, “I knew that you would have all the information I might need. I will call my father again and send a driver to fetch him.”

He felt a wave of calm and excitement as he hung up the telephone and focused his gaze at a photograph on his desk. It was a beautiful woman in a wedding dress. It was the best decision in my life to send her those flowers.

He thought back to a warm, sunny day early in the summer, seven years earlier, when he had chanced upon his cousin Mania sitting with friends at an outdoor café. Mania stood up and put her arms around him. Turning to her friends and smiling, she said, “Please meet my favorite cousin!”

Markus was in a hurry, preoccupied with a business dilemma, and felt irritated. “My pleasure to meet you," he said, tipped his hat and quickly walked away. But before he disappeared around the corner, he noticed Rena’s sparkling blue eyes and radiant smile. He wondered who she was. Later that evening he telephoned Mania and said, “I want to apologize for rushing off. I hope you were not insulted.”

Sarcastically, Mania answered, “Oh, well. I know you are a busy man, but you could have stopped and at least stayed to meet my friends.”

He replied, “I am sorry I was not very polite, and I hope you would not mind if I asked who the blonde woman was sitting at the table on your left.”

“Oh, so you liked her. She is very pretty, isn’t she?” his cousin jokingly responded. “The beauty is Rena Feilgut. She lives just off the central square at 5 Szczepanska, in the mansion over her family’s restaurant and bar, ‘Under the Three Fishes.’”

Markus was taken aback by this information. That restaurant was not kosher, and he remembered seeing drunken men in front of the bar, which no self-respecting Jew would enter. Markus decided it didn’t matter. What the hell, he thought, I have nothing to lose and she is beautiful.

“I think I want to send her flowers,” he told Mania.

“Definitely do this. I think she liked you,” Mania said as she repeated the address for him.

In a note attached to the bouquet of roses he asked her to meet him.

On their honeymoon a year later, Rena, laughing, told him how surprised she was when her mother walked into her room the next day carrying a large bouquet. “You must have a secret admirer or you’re keeping a secret,” she announced in her usual sarcastic manner.

Rena was puzzled. “I have no secrets,” she reassured her mother.

“Oh! You mean you have no idea who sent you a dozen of the most beautiful, expensive roses in Krakow?” her mother asked, as she placed the flowers on Rena’s desk.

Rena wasted no time before opening and reading the attached note. She said, “These are from Markus Finder, a man Mania introduced me to just yesterday. I don’t understand. He paid no attention to me, barely said hello, and now he sends me flowers.”

“Finder, of the Ziarno Finders?”

“I am not sure, but he is very handsome and Mania says he is nice,” Rena replied.

Her mother asked, raising her voice, “You don’t know? I wonder if he is Jacob Finder’s son. Finder is one of the richest men in town. Aren’t you interested in anything besides sports? Don’t you care about who does what and who is who?”

Rena was not concerned about his social status, but she realized that she would, indeed, like to know more about the handsome man who sent the flowers.

Later that evening she called Mania. “You probably will not believe it, but your cousin sent me flowers. My mother wondered if he is related to the Ziarno, whatever that might be . . . Finders?”

“Just walk on the bridge east of the castle and look at the buildings across the river. You cannot miss the large mill. The railroad tracks go into it and the whole thing seems to go on forever,” Mania said.

Markus telephoned the next day and invited her for coffee. They met in a small restaurant away from the crowded center of town. He seemed more interesting than any of her previous suitors. He was older, educated in Vienna, had traveled around Europe, and was a successful businessman. Rena was pleased when he asked her to meet him again.

“I better not fall in love with him. I doubt if I can fit into his life,” she told her sister. “Mother claims that his family is one of the richest in town. I know we are not poor, but we live near the central market above the restaurant. I am sure it never crossed his mind that I have never been outside of Poland.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” her sister exclaimed. “Everyone is always telling me about my beautiful, charming sister. Look at all the men who pursue you. I cannot believe it that you are worried.”

Two weeks later, after a dinner in one of the best restaurants in town, Markus noticed that Rena seemed to be uncomfortable, as she moved her fork around the empty desert plate.

She said, “It is getting late. I have to go home.”

“Is anything wrong?” he asked.

“Oh, no, it was a wonderful evening, but I have to go. I get up early in the morning to help my father open his restaurant,” she answered. “I will take you there tonight. You can meet my father. Everyone loves him.” She noted some hesitation and continued, “Do not worry. It is safe and no one will see you. My sisters are afraid and embarrassed when they go in, but I go in every day and I only had to throw a plate at someone once.”

He felt confused. Did he really want to follow this beautiful Jewish woman to the bar where she worked for her father, and threw plates at drunks who, he assumed, tried to assault her? He agreed to go.

Soon they left the restaurant and walked from the central square onto a narrow side street lined with medieval buildings. The third one just off the main square, number 5, was a four-story structure built by a wealthy merchant in 1637 that now belonged to Rena’s family. The arched entrance was wide enough to allow a carriage with horses to enter into the courtyard at the back of the building. The floor on the street level had been converted into a restaurant/bar.

Markus had passed this place many times but had never been inside. A metal sign with a design of an outline of the bodies of three fish hung above the restaurant entrance. They entered a noisy, smoke-filled, dimly lit room with a low ceiling. The place was crowded. Mostly men and a few women were seated around four tables along the wall. All the stools around the wooden bar, scarred by years of use, were taken. Liqueurs and whiskeys in bottles filled the shelves behind the bar and were in glass containers on the side of the counter. Markus noticed a waitress talking to a man standing behind the register. He was short and wiry, had bushy grey hair and a white mustache, and wore a suit and a bow tie.

Rena said, “Good evening.” The man turned to her and his face lit up with a smile. He walked rapidly to greet her, threw his arms around her, and kissed her on both cheeks.

“It is the wrong time for you to come to work, so what did I do to deserve this special visit?” he asked.

“I wanted my friend Markus to see where I spend my mornings and maybe” . . . she stopped, laughed and added . . . “meet my funny father and hear his jokes.” The man looked at Markus for a long moment, and then turned to offer a handshake.

“I am Bernard and I am glad to meet you and welcome you to my restaurant (Photo 5, p. 163). Rena does not like it when I tell people that she is everything any woman can be: beautiful, intelligent and what an athlete! I hope you know how lucky you are to be her friend,” he added with a smile.

Markus noted sparkling blue eyes under Bernard’s thick gray eyebrows.

“Please, please, stop!” Rena interrupted. “Markus will think I bribed you to say this.”

Rena and her father had, as Markus found out over the years, a teasing, joking special relationship. Markus liked the friendly Bernard, but he had no desire whatsoever to go back into the “Under the Three Fish” bar. His attraction to Rena remained undiminished, but he began to wonder about their different worlds and life experiences. Athletic activities were a main interest in her life, but unlike his sisters who studied piano, French and German, Rena spoke only Polish. Neither she nor anyone else in her family seemed to engage in any intellectual pursuits.

A few weeks after they met, he was taken aback when she asked, “Would you like to come to my race on Sunday?”

“You race?” he responded. “Where? With whom?”

“It is at the Maccabi, you know, the club. Sometimes we race at the pool and at other times in the river,” she said in a matter of fact tone.

He hesitated. Maccabi was a Jewish sports club but he was unaware that it accepted women as members. He had never known a woman who engaged in such activities. His curiosity was aroused. He decided to go to the race. When Rena emerged from the dressing room, he was unable to take his eyes off her. He watched her slender, muscular body in a tight, black bathing suit, and began to imagine asking her to get married the following week.

I must be crazy, he thought. I met her three weeks ago. I met her father once. We are so different. I am supposed to be an intelligent man. Getting married next week!

Two weeks later Markus very casually invited her to meet his parents. “We used to have a big dinner Friday night,” he explained, “but my sisters do not come very often because they are busy, as I told you, with their children. So it might be just my parents” (Photo 2, p. 161).

“Are they very religious?” Rena asked; then she added, “I have never had much Jewish education.”

“Do not worry. We do just the usual—candles, bread and wine,” he answered.

He met her the following Friday and escorted her to an elegant apartment in the new part of town where his parents now lived. The maid opened the door. “They are expecting you in the dining room.”

A wide hallway lined with family pictures led into a paneled dining room lit by a large, crystal chandelier. They were greeted by Jacob, his father, dressed in a dark suit with an embroidered kippah on his head. He was sitting in a large armchair at the head of a long table with an open prayer book in front of him. He was prepared to be the leader of the ceremony. The table was covered with a white tablecloth, and an elaborately embroidered napkin covered a challah on a round, carved, wood plate set between two silver candlesticks. The table was set for six.

“Who is coming?” Markus asked.

“Izak and Lola came in from Bochnia,” his father explained.

Markus looked at Rena, noticing her discomfort, and said, “It is my uncle, my father’s brother. He is very nice.”

His mother, Rosa, a slight, graying, smiling woman, walked in with a barely noticeable limp, wearing a long, black skirt and white, silk blouse. Going right up to Markus, she hugged him and said, “I tried to have just the two of you but they arrived unexpectedly and had no other place for Shabbos. They are getting ready in the back room. Please introduce me to your charming guest.”

Markus put his arm around Rena as he said, “This is Rena Feilgut, and thank you for letting me bring her for dinner.”

Rosa hugged Rena and said, “My son told me about you and I am glad you came.”

As soon as Izak and Lola walked in Jacob waved his arm and, without introducing them, said, “We will talk later. Please sit down. The sun will soon set. It is time to start.”

Rosa lit the candles, then circled them three times with her hands while covering her eyes as she recited her prayer. Jacob stood up and with a majestic gesture, picked up a silver goblet filled with wine, and sang the blessing.

“You do the motzi,” he said, turning to his brother and bowing his head with a gesture of respect.

The maid, who was waiting in doorway, brought in a bowl of water and a towel. Izak dipped his hands in the water, dried them, and sliced the challah. As he finished the blessing, he passed the slices around the table.

During the meal Rosa tried to pay special attention to Rena, asking about her food choices and being careful to avoid any personal questions that might make the younger woman uncomfortable.

On the way home Rena said to Markus, “Your mother is an angel. I felt she saved me tonight. I felt so strange. I guess you had no way of knowing that I have not been to such a religious ceremony since the death of my grandmother fifteen years ago.”

He made no comment. Once again he wondered how they could ever live together if she thought a simple Friday night ceremony was so religious. But over the next few weeks, as he watched Rena interact with her friends and thought of her charm and ability to laugh and talk to anyone and everyone, he realized he was not the only one who appreciated her, but that everyone loved her.

Well, almost everyone. Jacob, his father, made every effort possible to discourage the progress of this relationship. The week following the Friday night dinner, Markus was in his office trying to reconcile the orders of the previous week, when he was interrupted by a knock on the door.

His father came in and sat down. “I know that you are a wise young man, but sometimes love can make it difficult to make good decisions. The young woman who came on Friday is very beautiful and charming, but I have been asking about her family for the last two days. Everyone in town knows that the bar on Szczepanska Street is owned by a Jew. I am wondering if you knew that this was her family and that she was born and lives above the bar. I hope you are not considering making any plans for the future with her.”

Markus felt a rage rising up inside him. He knew that Jacob—a wealthy, prominent and powerful leader of the Jewish community—would not consider Rena, a daughter of a bar keeper, as a suitable bride for his only son and heir. Although Jacob had grown up in poverty, he never reminisced about his early struggles. Markus remembered visiting his farmer grandfather in his small house with a thatched roof at the edge of the village where Jacob and his four brothers were born. Jacob’s insistence on giving all his children names of members of European royal families reflected his view of his desired place in the world. Named after a son of an Austrian Emperor, Maksymilian, Markus felt embarrassed by the name growing up, and with encouragement from his mother he refused to use his first name.

He tried to avoid a direct confrontation with his father and responded quietly, “I have not made any decisions but I think she is a very nice woman. I know Mother liked her when she came to dinner.”

“Yes, yes I know. Mother asked me to leave you two alone. I did not agree with her. You would be ruining your life.”

“I am sorry to disagree but I do not believe that my life will be ruined if I marry a woman who does not speak French or play the piano like my sisters,” Markus responded.

“My God, I was not talking about French or German. I could not believe it but no one in that family goes to services. Her father, even if he received an aliyah, could not read the Torah. I am not sure if he can read Polish. I have expressed my opinion, and you will have to decide whether you want to be part of such a world,” Jacob said in a raised voice. He picked up his cane and left the room, slamming the door.

During the subsequent weeks, he acted as if this incident had never occurred, and did not mention or ask about Rena, although he most likely knew that Markus continued to see her every day.

It was late in July. Summer months brought most of the city activities to a halt. Markus and Rena were walking after dinner across the city square, when Rena put her hand gently on Markus’s arm and said softly, “I hope you will not be upset but I am going away to Hamburg to visit my aunt. We planned it months ago. She is more of a friend than an aunt; she is my mother’s youngest sister. She was five when I was born.”

Obviously surprised, Markus did not respond. She continued, “I do care about you . . . well, I really love you, but everyone is going away. I will be back in ten days.”

“You have to do what pleases you and I hope you will enjoy the company of your aunt,” he responded angrily.

“Oh, please do not think that I do not like your company. These weeks have been the best time of my life. I think maybe if we feel what it is like to miss one another it will be easier to make decisions about the future,” Rena responded.

“You can be sure I have been thinking about the future. Are you worried that I will not marry you?” he asked unexpectedly.

“Well, you have not mentioned it. I have not seen your family since that first Friday night. This is my first trip outside the country. Do you really want to marry a girl who has never left Poland?”

Markus said, “I do want to marry you whether you have traveled around the world or not. I feel that I can talk to you about the world, my business, my friends, and you understand me as no one else has ever done. I think I was afraid to tell you about my family. I guess I have to tell you the truth. It is my father. He thinks he is like royalty and the daughter of the king of England would not be good enough.” Then he added, laughing, “I hope you will marry me when you come back from Germany.”

She was taken back. “Get married just like that? I know you do not joke. Are you serious? Can we wait to decide when I come back from Germany?”

Ten days after she left he received a letter with her photograph, on the beach in a bathing suit (Photo 4, p. 162). The note that accompanied the picture said, “I hope this will help you remember. I am coming back next week on Thursday on the 5 o’clock train. You are the only one who knows the time of my arrival.”

He waited on the platform and, as soon as he saw her, ran up to her and hugged her. “I am so happy you are back. I just could not wait to see you. Will you marry me?” he said, as he kissed her.

They married the following September just before the High Holidays. It was considered a great event, closely watched by the Jewish community. People talked about them as “Cinderella” marrying a “prince,” a grandson of a famous scholar and son of one of the wealthy leaders of the community. People lined the pavements of the Jewish Quarter of Kazimierz and watched Rena in an open, horse-drawn carriage, with her white veil floating in the wind, and her mother and father seated beside her, as they proceeded to the entrance of the Great Synagogue.

Markus’s reminiscing was interrupted by a knock on his office door. It was Mihal. “The railroad has been blocked. We cannot send out the merchandise. We will have to stop loading,” he said.

“Let us hope it is temporary,” Markus said, trying to reassure Mihal as he was leaving. “We do not want to create panic. Let the men take a break and we will wait and see if the situation changes before making any decisions. I know you will do what needs to be done and we will talk again later.”

How much longer will this chaos continue? I cannot imagine what else can go wrong? He looked out of the window and felt relieved when he saw the driver whom he dispatched to take Jacob to the house walking towards the office building. The driver entered the office and said, “It was a slow ride across the bridge. I am afraid it is a different world, but I did bring your father to your house. Your father is safe.”

Jacob arrived at the house on the hill shortly before noon. He was a tall, imposing man, youthful in appearance, and always carried a silver-headed cane, although he did not have any gait impairment. Waving his cane, he complained in a loud voice, “This is mass hysteria. I have been dragged out of my bed without breakfast. I am sure this is all going to be over by next week.”

Rena, who was accustomed to his dictatorial style, gently tried to calm him down. “Papa please come in and sit down. Zosia will bring your breakfast in a few minutes. She boiled eggs for you and baked some fresh rolls.”

“Just make sure the eggs are boiled for only two minutes,” he announced as he followed her into the dining room.

Rena heard the laughter in the nursery and called down the hall for Mira to come and greet her grandfather. The little girl approached him slowly and kissed his outstretched hand. She felt intimidated by the old man, who never hugged or kissed her. Her other grandfather took her for walks in the park and held her on his lap as he told her funny stories or taught her to read and tell time.

Zosia came in and set the tray, covered with a white, linen napkin, in front of Jacob. She carefully placed an egg in a cup and sliced off the top.

“I hope the egg is soft enough for you sir,” she said.

“Thank you. Your cooking is always perfect,” Jacob answered.

The phone rang as he picked up the spoon. Rena answered, “Yes, he is here,” and turned to Jacob. “It is Anna. She is worried about you. She wants to talk to you.”

“Alright, alright,” he mumbled as he reached for the telephone. After listening a moment, he said, “Please stop the hysterics; the war will be over in a week and I am sure I can go back home by this evening. I am being called to the Torah at the synagogue tomorrow.” He paused to hear her response, then said, “What do you mean, asking how they can have services? We have never missed one since 1920.”

He was clearly irritated by his youngest daughter’s anxiety. “Let us talk later; Rena wants to talk to you,” he said, and handed the receiver over to Rena.

“Please do not worry, we will not let him go home tonight. I am sure Markus will be able to convince him to stay,” Rena told her sister-in-law.