The book is from compilation of transcripts of interviews that the author's grandmother gave to various people and organisations, including some ten hours of interviews with the author over several days in 2016.
"“In every generation, each person is obligated to view for themselves as if they had been there and left Egypt.”
"In other words, we are required to put ourselves in the Exodus narrative and try to imagine that we, as individuals, were witnesses to the slavery of our people and their eventual deliverance out of Egypt to the promised land of Israel. The following memoir entailed a long, complex process, but I like to think that the words in this memoir of the matriarch of my family serve as our own sort of Haggadah. While it’s a telling of a story not two-thousand years old, but a mere seventy-five years old, because of my grandmother’s survival, we are here today. Because of her, we are a family bound by our connection to this remarkable story of hope, luck, and faith."
"To find more answers, I contacted the International Tracing Service and found documents of my grandmother’s time in the displaced persons (DP) camps in Germany after the war. I also came across her listing on the ship manifest when she and her family came to America in 1949 and dug into the family tree, coming across cousins from both Bea’s maternal and paternal lineage. Perhaps most interestingly, I discovered that my grandmother’s first cousin, Ida Rosenblum, who is only six months younger than she is, lives in the building next door to her. Due to a family misunderstanding, they did not know each other, despite raising their families less than a mile from one another. I think, therefore, that it is important to recognize the deep wounds the Holocaust created and that, even seventy-five years later, some of these small fragments of shattered families are only now being pieced back together.
"In August of 2016, I had the opportunity to travel with my wife to David-Horodok, which is in present-day Belarus, with the David-Horodok organization of Detroit. Together, with other David-Horodok descendants from Detroit and Israel, we walked the cobblestone streets of the town that was once a thriving Jewish community. I found the street on which my grandmother’s house once stood. We walked the seven kilometers to the mass grave where Bea’s brother and father most likely remain, and later journeyed to Sarny, which is today across the border in the Ukraine. Grandma and her mother walked this 100-kilometer journey together in August of 1941.
"There, on the outskirts of town, are three large mounds of earth—the three mass graves in which nearly 18,000 Jews were murdered during the liquidation of the Sarny ghetto. This is the resting place of Bea’s mother. Seeing these locations firsthand was a moving and emotional experience and motivated me further to help complete my grandmother’s memoir."
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"In August of 1941, the German soldiers came into town. Before we fully realized what was happening, the Nazis were in our backyards. Two soldiers stopped my father on the street one day, and one of the soldiers—his name was Karl Ludwig—gave him a pack of cigarettes and the address of his mother in Vienna. “Hitler’s aim is to wipe out all the Jewish people,” he said. “But I feel sorry for your pretty, young daughter. Here is the address of my mother in Vienna. Your daughter should take the train and go there. Don’t tell anyone she is Jewish. My mother will keep her.”
"The six-foot-two soldier continued to call on us for three days, always paying me special attention. He would bring cigarettes for my father each time, along with the same warning for me: “You need to leave. Hitler is coming.”
"On the third day, he called on our house with his helmet under his arm. He’d come to say goodbye to me and my father, but only I was awake. We conversed in German. I didn’t know the language well, but I understood a little bit. “I don’t want to fight,” he said. “But I have an order to move on, so that’s what I have to do.”"
"As my father struggled against his captors, a German soldier put a pistol to his head and shot him in cold blood. I was there when it happened, in the house with my mother. As the shot echoed through the town, thudding through my ribcage like an irregular heartbeat, I ran out of the house to find my father lying in a pool of blood. It was raining. I’d never seen so much rain in my life. Torrents of water soaked me through and pelted my father’s unmoving body. I began to hemorrhage, throwing up blood as it ran from my mouth and nose at the same time. I couldn’t even scream. I lost my voice, my words, and just kept throwing up. I was in a daze, a nightmare I couldn’t escape."
"It must have been ten or fifteen minutes before the Hordotchukas came by again, triumphant as they began kicking the women, disabled, elderly, and remaining children from the town. They threatened us with sticks and yelled at us to move fast. It continued to pour as we left behind my parents’ precious dowry collection that they’d hidden in the cellar for my future husband—a silver candelabra, dry goods, shoes, coats, and blankets—and all the pleasant memories of our little duplex. We left in what we were wearing, skirts and blouses. We didn’t take anything with us, except for my brother’s heavy winter jacket. My mother grabbed it on our way out the door and wrapped me up in it.
"We left my father in the backyard with a blanket over his body. My uncle Shevach and his older son Laizel had been taken away with the other men, and my grandfather was with one of his granddaughters, so I didn’t know what had happened to him. Later, I would come to find out that my uncle, cousin, and those other men—all Jewish males over the age of fourteen—had been summoned to the marketplace that day. They had been told to take shovels with them, having been promised to get work that day. The marketplace had been surrounded by German SS troops and Hordotchukas, who’d led the group of men to a close-by village, and they had been shot to death there. They were thrown into mass graves by the Hordotchukas, who stole all the gold rings, watches, clothing, shoes, gold teeth, and other belongings of the deceased. They didn’t even wait to make sure the Jews were dead before they started burying them. Some were buried alive."
"My brother had been hiding with my father, and he’d been seized as well. We found his body on our way out of town, face down in the grass in a bare space between some houses."
"No one seemed to care where we went, so we walked south out of town. As we walked away from what remained of David-Horodok, a Hordotchuka played the accordion—happy music as we marched toward more suffering. My mother decided we’d go to Sarny, a city about 100 kilometers south of David-Horodok, where she had a cousin who might be able to help us. When we passed by the outskirts of town, we ran across the graves. All the men and boys the soldiers had collected had been killed and piled up in holes they’d dug themselves. No male over the age of fourteen had been spared.
"It continued to rain as we left the town, soaking us through and exhausting us, but I said nothing. It was like someone had taken away my tongue, and I didn’t even have the energy to feel afraid. What was there to be afraid of, anyway? I’d just seen the worst horrors imaginable take place right outside my childhood home. That night, when it got too dark to see anymore, we collapsed onto the wet grass and slept. I heard that some Ukrainian men later came and took the young girls they could find, raping them in the fields as the others slept. My brother’s jacket may have saved me from that atrocity. Wrapped up in it and sleeping, I must have looked like an old woman."
"My voice did not return, not for a long time.
"I was still able to see my mother every day, since the houses were just a few blocks from each other. There was a zalman, a single man, staying at the same house as my mother. He would come out and talk to me occasionally about school and Israel. I never said much during our conversations. I was very depressed after what happened to my father and brother. I was in shock. I didn’t talk, and I couldn’t stand when I heard people talking. Instead, I would walk away and stay secluded. These days, they probably would’ve sent me to a psychiatrist. My mother, on the other hand, was incredibly brave. She saw that I was sick, that I was a changed person. She kept to herself and never mentioned my father’s or brother’s names, even though I knew she was hurting just as much as I was.
"It would be years before I realized that we weren’t the only ones who didn’t want to talk about it.
"For a whole year, my mother was able to provide food for the both of us by trading her skill at sewing with a Ukrainian widow. We coexisted with the Ukrainians for a little more than a year, but, in the spring of 1942, we were uprooted again when the Germans formed a ghetto in Sarny to isolate all the Jews and keep them imprisoned."
What happened next, or rather, how the Jews in Sarny were massacred, in thousands, by Germans and their Ukrainian helpers, is described in the next chapter. The horror of this more than matches the infamous Katyn massacre. Beatrice was saved due to a cousin quietly drawing her away and hiding in a very small bunkerlike space for several days.
"When we couldn’t take it anymore, we started to venture out to look for food. Eventually, I was spotted by a German soldier. He learned my routes and followed me one night, giving me a slip of paper with an address written on it. “This is my address,” he said quietly. “Get there and see my mother. She will protect you until I come back.” I figured he had romantic intentions and tore up the address as soon as he was out of sight. Thinking back, it could have been his way to save my life."
"Aunt Dreizel finally told me to go outside the ghetto and visit a Polish couple who lived near its border to beg for some food. “Tell them you are by yourself,” she ordered me before sending me on my way.
"Since the ghetto had been liquidated, and since we were near the edge of the ghetto as it was, I found my way to the Polish couple’s house with little trouble. Their last name was Goldchevsky, and I knew them from before the ghetto liquidation. Mrs. Goldchevsky took me in and washed my hair with a bowl of water, caring for me as if I was her own child. She suddenly looked at me and said, “You know, we don’t have any children. We are going to keep you behind the dresser, and, after the war, you will marry a Polish man.”"
Beatrice said she'd come back, and did when the hideout was discovered, but the Ukrainian police were coming to the house of Mrs. Goldchevsky and she told Beatrice, who escaped. At another farm, a woman fed her lovingly, but said her son was Nazi, and gave her a sack and hatchet so she could go pretending she was digging for potatoes. Another Russian woman saved her by blocking her from the view of another guard with her own body, until he left. She hugged and kissed Beatrice and wept, saying she'd wanted to keep her but was now afraid, before letting her escape after he'd left promising to bring a hundred guards.
Beatrice next found refuge with a Polish family, named Yanacheck, in their farmhouse. They hid, fed and protected her in the barn until it was too cold, and then in their home.
"One day in the spring of 1943, the Ukrainians decided they wanted their own independent country. The Jews had been driven out, and now they wanted the Polish people killed as well. News spread that they were burning all the Polish farms in the region and killing their inhabitants with knives and hatchets. I didn’t become aware of this until one morning, when I awoke to the sound of the Yanachecks packing in a hurry to leave their farm. When I asked what was going on, Mrs. Yanacheck tearfully explained everything.
"“We’re going to Germany,” she finally said. “We’re right along the border already—I think we can do it. You better come along too!”"
She got separated from them during the journey, but was treated kindly by other strangers, and sent to work at a farmhouse, where she learned milking and other things. Due to her blue eyes and blond hair, she was taken to be Polish. But then, one day as Easter approached, a co-worker asked her if she'd been to confession, and she responded incorrectly due to her exhaustion so her identity was exposed; she left the farm telling the woman she was returning to Sarny where her family owned a house.
The Yanacheck family had a relative,Anna Kopera, who was her age and who'd died along with her family in the war, so they'd said they'd tell everyone she was Anna Kopera. So Beatrice assumed that identity and got work in Germany, and asked to work in kitchen, was sent to a resort for German soldiers at Tegernsee. She found a friend, another girl her age, Valla, and later they left for Vienna, Valla assuring her it was a nicer place.
They worked in a restaurant in Vienna, but the bombing raids were frightening. They went on to a mess at a training facility for youth, but war came to them, from east, and they returned to Vienna working at a hospital. Valla returned home, and Beatrice stayed on. She was with the hospital, which had moved to Hungary, when liberation came.
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After that the hospital moved to Budapest, and then to Romania. There, for the first time after years, she met other Jews.
"I was recommended to a little shoe shop, where I instantly noticed the shoemaker and his family were Jewish. As I waited, they confirmed my suspicions by speaking Yiddish to each other.
"“I hope you aren’t going to say anything about me,” I said in Russian, giving them a smile. “I can understand every word you’re saying.”
"They froze, staring at me and narrowing their eyes a little. “How?” they asked.
"“I’m Jewish.” A shiver crept up my spine as I realized that this was the first time I’d said outright that I was Jewish since my childhood.
"They didn’t believe me, mainly because I didn’t look the part. They began to speak to me in Yiddish, and I realized that I couldn’t even utter a word in reply. So many years of using Russian, Polish, and German had erased my memories of Yiddish.
"“She must have worked for a Jewish family and picked up a few words,” the shoemaker’s helper, a young man, said in Yiddish.
"The shoemaker nodded. “There isn’t any way she’s Jewish.”
"He strode over to the window and picked up a Romanian paper, handing it to me and pointing out a block of text in Hebrew.
"“I can read that,” I said, and read the entire thing in Hebrew. I hadn’t spoken it in so long, yet I remembered every word and pronunciation.
"“You are blood!” They started kissing me and hugging me, already talking about how they were going to help me find a choisen, a groom, that evening.
"True to their word, they took me to another shoemaker’s place that night and introduced me. I tried to be polite, but I knew this match would never work—and getting married was the farthest thing from my plans. Not to mention, in Poland, marrying a shoemaker was considered a very bad match…the worst! Still, I got a good deal on my boots.
"The shoemaker’s family also later took me to a synagogue, which was full of Jewish people, both children and the elderly. The moment I stepped foot into the building, tears filled my eyes. It was as if nothing had happened in this town. They carried Torahs and sat just as they had in the synagogue back home. My heart broke a little at the memories flooding my mind, of all the times I’d sat with my mother upstairs as my father and brother took their seats downstairs. My whole family was gone, and it hurt—more than I could ever describe.
"When I asked how all these people had survived, they told me that the mayor of the town hadn’t given away the Jews."
Three months later the facility relocated and she had few options - relocate to Russia or return to hometown being among those. She chose to return, but the train stopped at Sarny and wouldn't go on. She lost patience waiting for repairs, decided to walk, but found that Jews of her hometown had relocated to Sarny. Harold, a third cousin, found her - his family hadnt survived, hed been fighting with russian partisans. He was interested, and his relatives met her. She married him in December 1945.
"After the war had ended in 1945, Jewish survivors in Russian-occupied Poland were clamoring to escape communism and leave the country. Pogroms and anti-Jewish atrocities were raging over the entire area, and I didn’t want my unborn child to have to grow up in this environment.
"As awful as these riots were, they brought about an unexpected advantage: monthly transports to D.P. (displaced persons) camps in Bavaria, southern Germany. The camps were in American-occupied Germany, which meant we’d be safer and one step closer to getting to America. Most of our friends and acquaintances had already taken the trip to a D.P. camp, and I was anxious to get out of Sarny while we still could."
"In order to get a transport to the D.P. camp in Germany, we’d have to get out of Russian-occupied Sarny and cross the Russian border without getting caught. A friend of Harold’s was forming a small group to do just that. We signed up with money, sealing the deal. All in all, seven of us walked together. We were to reach our goal on foot, climbing the Alps. It would be difficult, but we had to try."
They managed to walk across and get to the camp which was in Bad Reichenhall, where her daughter Debra was born in October 1946. It was three years before they could go to U.S., and from N.Y. they went to Detroit where their relatives had been settled since long before WWII.
................................................After that the hospital moved to Budapest, and then to Romania. There, for the first time after years, she met other Jews.
"I was recommended to a little shoe shop, where I instantly noticed the shoemaker and his family were Jewish. As I waited, they confirmed my suspicions by speaking Yiddish to each other.
"“I hope you aren’t going to say anything about me,” I said in Russian, giving them a smile. “I can understand every word you’re saying.”
"They froze, staring at me and narrowing their eyes a little. “How?” they asked.
"“I’m Jewish.” A shiver crept up my spine as I realized that this was the first time I’d said outright that I was Jewish since my childhood.
"They didn’t believe me, mainly because I didn’t look the part. They began to speak to me in Yiddish, and I realized that I couldn’t even utter a word in reply. So many years of using Russian, Polish, and German had erased my memories of Yiddish.
"“She must have worked for a Jewish family and picked up a few words,” the shoemaker’s helper, a young man, said in Yiddish.
"The shoemaker nodded. “There isn’t any way she’s Jewish.”
"He strode over to the window and picked up a Romanian paper, handing it to me and pointing out a block of text in Hebrew.
"“I can read that,” I said, and read the entire thing in Hebrew. I hadn’t spoken it in so long, yet I remembered every word and pronunciation.
"“You are blood!” They started kissing me and hugging me, already talking about how they were going to help me find a choisen, a groom, that evening.
"True to their word, they took me to another shoemaker’s place that night and introduced me. I tried to be polite, but I knew this match would never work—and getting married was the farthest thing from my plans. Not to mention, in Poland, marrying a shoemaker was considered a very bad match…the worst! Still, I got a good deal on my boots.
"The shoemaker’s family also later took me to a synagogue, which was full of Jewish people, both children and the elderly. The moment I stepped foot into the building, tears filled my eyes. It was as if nothing had happened in this town. They carried Torahs and sat just as they had in the synagogue back home. My heart broke a little at the memories flooding my mind, of all the times I’d sat with my mother upstairs as my father and brother took their seats downstairs. My whole family was gone, and it hurt—more than I could ever describe.
"When I asked how all these people had survived, they told me that the mayor of the town hadn’t given away the Jews."
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Three months later the facility relocated and she had few options - relocate to Russia or return to hometown being among those. She chose to return, but the train stopped at Sarny and wouldn't go on. She lost patience waiting for repairs, decided to walk, but found that Jews of her hometown had relocated to Sarny. Harold, a third cousin, found her - his family hadnt survived, hed been fighting with russian partisans. He was interested, and his relatives met her. She married him in December 1945.
"After the war had ended in 1945, Jewish survivors in Russian-occupied Poland were clamoring to escape communism and leave the country. Pogroms and anti-Jewish atrocities were raging over the entire area, and I didn’t want my unborn child to have to grow up in this environment.
"As awful as these riots were, they brought about an unexpected advantage: monthly transports to D.P. (displaced persons) camps in Bavaria, southern Germany. The camps were in American-occupied Germany, which meant we’d be safer and one step closer to getting to America. Most of our friends and acquaintances had already taken the trip to a D.P. camp, and I was anxious to get out of Sarny while we still could."
"In order to get a transport to the D.P. camp in Germany, we’d have to get out of Russian-occupied Sarny and cross the Russian border without getting caught. A friend of Harold’s was forming a small group to do just that. We signed up with money, sealing the deal. All in all, seven of us walked together. We were to reach our goal on foot, climbing the Alps. It would be difficult, but we had to try."
They managed to walk across and get to the camp which was in Bad Reichenhall, where her daughter Debra was born in October 1946. It was three years before they could go to U.S., and from N.Y. they went to Detroit where their relatives had been settled since long before WWII.
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In Detroit Beatrice managed to finish a three year course at night school and get citizenship while managing one of the two bars she'd persuaded Harold to buy, but a man shooting her in her own bar in 1965 changed their direction. They were doing well, had a good house, and now sold the bars and bought two nursing homes, each managing one. They had three daughters, and eventually ten grandchildren, beginning with first in 1967.
"Rosa Levinson helped set my daughter Rita up on a blind date with a very handsome Egyptian Jewish medical student named Joseph Salama. ..... I came down the stairs and almost fainted when I first laid eyes on my future son-in-law—he was that handsome."
Beatrice relocated to Florida, bought condos, and finally having a good one, decided to divorce since the couple hadn't been compatible. She's never regretted it, and enjoyed her group of women in Florida. Soon after, she met Ben Sonders, a Polish Jew who'd graduated as an engineer from Krakow and was a survivor of Plaszow concentration camp. He had friends who were Schindler Jews, but he'd survived partly due to being electrical engineer. They married in 1983, and were happy together until he died in 2001, when her daughter brought her to live closer to them.
In Detroit Beatrice managed to finish a three year course at night school and get citizenship while managing one of the two bars she'd persuaded Harold to buy, but a man shooting her in her own bar in 1965 changed their direction. They were doing well, had a good house, and now sold the bars and bought two nursing homes, each managing one. They had three daughters, and eventually ten grandchildren, beginning with first in 1967.
"Rosa Levinson helped set my daughter Rita up on a blind date with a very handsome Egyptian Jewish medical student named Joseph Salama. ..... I came down the stairs and almost fainted when I first laid eyes on my future son-in-law—he was that handsome."
Beatrice relocated to Florida, bought condos, and finally having a good one, decided to divorce since the couple hadn't been compatible. She's never regretted it, and enjoyed her group of women in Florida. Soon after, she met Ben Sonders, a Polish Jew who'd graduated as an engineer from Krakow and was a survivor of Plaszow concentration camp. He had friends who were Schindler Jews, but he'd survived partly due to being electrical engineer. They married in 1983, and were happy together until he died in 2001, when her daughter brought her to live closer to them.
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February 01 - 07, 2020 - February 13, 2020.
ISBN: 978-1-7324625-1-9
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