My Bridges of Hope (11 page)

I am suddenly overwhelmed with pain as Rivka concludes the prayers, and all the others chant amen. So many tragedies. So many young, promising, ravished souls. What does the future hold for them?

The Tatras, August 4—10, 1946

It is the first full week of August, and no counselor has arrived as replacement for Frieda.

We have settled into a comfortable routine. The older campers happily carry on with their practice of conducting prayers by themselves, and take turns preparing study sessions on subjects they learned at the Beth Jacob School during the past term. I love these sessions. They give me an opportunity to learn, and give them an opportunity to teach. I believe there is no better way to learn than by teaching, and there is also no better way to gain self-assurance. And what we teenagers need more than anything is self-assurance. We need it even more than love. Our egos are continually starved for nourishment. Will we ever be free, secure adults?

Since I cannot contribute to my campers' knowledge of Judaism, I proposed to conduct
classes in subjects I learned during the past school year—physics, chemistry, math, health, geography, nature, and Russian. My proposal was greeted with enthusiasm. I set about devising games, quizzes, and competitions as framework so that even the little campers can participate in these sessions, mostly held in the shade of the pine forest encircling the villa. It has given me great pleasure to see the little ones just as attentive and as eager to learn as their older peers.

In two weeks our vacation will be over. All summer I watched the mysterious distant hills with yearning and have dreamed of climbing one of them. Finally my fervent wish has come true. Next Sunday we are going on a mountain-climbing expedition to the highest peak in the area!

It will be an all-day hike for the older campers, boys and girls. When I proposed it, Sruli thought a mountain-climbing expedition was a marvelous idea, and he helped me work out all the details.

Mrs. Gold has agreed to care for the little ones when the two camps, together with a professional guide familiar with all the trails,
set out at the crack of dawn for the mountains. It was Sruli's idea to hire the friendly guide from the village, Shmuel, who offered his services within the first week of our arrival.

Yesterday I took the girls to the village to buy good climbing shoes, extra shoelaces, and fruit.

We are agog with excitement. All day Friday we prepare sandwiches and pack knapsacks.

Sabbath is a glorious day. In the morning we conduct joint prayer services with the boys' camp, in the open air. In the afternoon all the boys and girls sit in a large circle on the hillside overlooking the valley while Sruli delivers his weekly Sabbath discourse. The haze of July is gone; August glitters with diamondlike brilliance, revealing an endless row of peaks stretching to the horizon. Tomorrow we shall climb the highest among them!

Sruli and the boys leave for their camp at sunset. Long shadows swallow up their silhouettes, one by one, as they begin their downward path. Sruli's silhouette is last. Just before vanishing, he turns to wave. Or does
he? I cannot be sure. The night is closing in rapidly.

It is bedtime. We must retire early and rise before dawn, to be ready for meeting Sruli, the guide, and the boys at the gate precisely at five A.M.

After putting all my campers to bed, Mrs. Gold and I check on the provisions. Food parcels, drinking vessels, first-aid kits—everything is in order, carefully packed in individual knapsacks.

Mrs. Gold gives me a warm hug. “Much luck tomorrow, young lady!” she calls heartily. “And don't worry about the little ones.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Gold,” I reply, and hug the kind, generous lady in return. “Good night.”

As I lie in my bed, the crisp night air ruffles the satin curtains. Anticipation of the climb, the excitement of the challenge, the sense of responsibility—and the thought of spending the day in Sruli's company—fill me to the brim. And keep me awake for a long time.

Oh, God, am I entitled to such happiness?

The Tatras, August 11, 1946

It must be past midnight when I finally fall asleep.

Heavy pounding downstairs shakes me out of a deep trance. What time is it? It is still dark. Who keeps pounding on the front gate at this hour?

In a daze I crawl out of bed. Now I hear hurried footsteps, whispered voices.

“Don't open the light, Mrs. Gold. Hurry, and call Miss Friedmann. I must speak to her at once. Please hurry.” It's Sruli's clipped voice. Urgency reverberates in the dead of night.

My God, what's going on? Groping in the dark, I make my way toward the hallway, where Mrs. Gold's slim, robe-clad figure suddenly appears.

“What time is it, Mrs. Gold? Why has Sruli come?”

There's a quiver in Mrs. Gold's voice: “It's two-thirty
A.M
. I don't know, my child. Hurry downstairs. He wants to speak to you.”

By the time I get downstairs, my eyes are adjusted to the dark, and I can see Sruli's tall silhouette against the front entrance.

“Miss Friedmann, listen carefully. We are in grave danger. The guide we hired for the climbing expedition came to our villa to alert me. Drunken partisans from the village are on their way here. We have to get out before they get here and harm the children. You have to get them out of here in the next ten, fifteen minutes.”

“What do you mean, ‘out of here'? Where to?”

“To the train station. We must leave here. To escape the partisans. They want to kill the children.”

“You mean the climbing expedition is off?”

“Everything is off. Wake the children and get them ready. You must leave the villa by the rear exit. The boys and I can meet you in the clearing at the bottom of the hill in twenty, twenty-five minutes. The guide says there's a train for Bratislava at four
A.M
. That's
our only hope of escape. If we hurry, we can make it. Can you do it?”

“I ... I think so. How do we get to the train station?”

“On foot. I know a shortcut through the hills. Do you know the villa's rear exit?”

“Yes.” On the day of our arrival I roamed the villa, my enchanted castle, and came upon the narrow, bolted door in the cellar. I unbolted it and followed the narrow trail as it wound its way to a clearing in the valley. From there the steeple of the church was visible and puffs of smoke from the passing locomotive reached me among the trees. That must be the shortcut to the train station.

“Miss Friedmann, hurry. Meet you in the clearing.” Sruli shuts the front door soundlessly, and I dash up the stairs to the children's bedrooms. The next ten, fifteen minutes is all a blur. Mrs. Gold is already dressing some groggy little children, and I rapidly pull dresses, shirts, and sweaters over slumping heads. There is no time to explain. The older girls are bewildered as I goad them out of their warm beds and prod them to dress quickly, very quickly, in the dark. We are
stuffing belongings in every available container—trunk, bag, basket, even laundry sack. Mrs. Gold dumps the sandwiches that were ready for the climbing expedition into pillowcases.

Without asking questions the unkempt children follow as we descend one flight of stairs. On the upper landing the grandfather clock shows five minutes to three. God, in five minutes we must be at the bottom of the hill! This is insane. In the moonlight the minute hand is like an eerie, elongated warning finger stretching to who knows where.

There is a sudden crashing sound. Huge pieces of glass hit the lowest stairs before we reach them. Another ear-shattering crash, and the grandfather clock tumbles and dissolves into a myriad of sparkling fragments seconds after the last child leaves the landing.

The little ones begin to shriek in fright. I take Marko on my arm and place my other hand over little Jutka's mouth. Mrs. Gold reaches out to calm the others. We virtually drag the children down the steep cellar stairs as more rocks crash through the villa's large windows. Luckily, the steady thunderclaps of
the stone barrage drown out the children's hysterical shrieks.

They have reached the front gate and I can hear ear-shattering blows against the thick wood. Any moment now they will break through. God, save us.

We reach the entrance to the cellar. Marko's arms feel like a stranglehold about my neck as I bend down to force open the cellar door. Bronia is clinging to my right thigh. Several little hands are clutching at me from all sides. I am a cluster of clinging bodies as we make our steep, precarious descent. Mrs. Gold and the older girls are hauling the baggage on the spiraling cellar steps. Torchlights zigzag above as we reach the bottom of the stairs. They've broken through! They are in the hall, right above us!

“Mrs. Gold, shut the cellar door!” The cellar door creaks shut, and we are plunged into the depths of darkness, and deadly silence. As if by magic, the violent sounds cease, and even the children instantly fall quiet.

But we have no time to lose. Any minute the attackers will discover the cellar door. I must find the exit fast. I place Marko on the
ground and with my free hand reach in the interminable darkness. Oh, God, help me.

Like in a recurring nightmare, strange yet familiar, I grope in the dark for an escape hatch. The wall is rough here, and a sharp metal object juts out. I bruise my wrist and feel it turn moist. Will our pursuers catch us by following the trail of my blood? God, let it be the door hinge! It's the hinge of the bolt. I grip it with all my might. God, help me! Help me!

The bar slides down with a creak, and the door swings slowly open.

Cold air rushes in through the open door. Moonlight falls on stunned faces. A collective gasp like a muffled shriek escapes from terrified lips. In panic, I whisper, “Children, please, not a sound.”

We file out into the open, one by one. After the pitch-blackness of the cellar, the light of the pale moon strikes us like broad daylight.

Thank God, the trail is perfectly lit, and we begin our descent with relative ease. The children shiver violently in the bitter cold. The silence of the night is shattered only by the chattering of little teeth and the swishing of cold, wet foliage underfoot.

I pray under my breath as we advance steadily through the silent domain of the moon, the valley, and the forest. I pray that the children will keep walking, that we will reach the clearing in time. That we will reach Sruli and be safe. I pray that the next clump of dark shrubbery will not turn out to be an ambush, that from behind that thick grove ahead no rioters will suddenly pounce upon us.

There is no trace of the rioters here. The rioters belong to another planet. But who are they? And why are they after us?

Only later do I find out that they are former partisans drunk from their celebration of Partisan Week in the village tavern. Shouting obscenities against Jews, they left the tavern and went for their axes and pitchforks to “kill the little Zhids up there in the hills.” In their drunken, murderous rage, the rioters meant business. Last year during the same week former partisans killed three Jews in Bratislava.

Finally we reach the bottom of the hill and emerge into a clearing. Thank God. This is the clearing for our meeting with Sruli and the boys. We've made it.

But where are they? Have we come too late?
What time is it? The clock tower is faintly visible. Oh, God, it's twenty minutes to four. We've missed them! They must have gone on to the train station. Mrs. Gold is whispering something, but I cannot hear. I cannot understand. We must follow Sruli and the boys to the train station. How far is it from here?

Hurry, Mrs. Gold. Hurry, children. We must make the four o'clock train. We must meet Sruli and the boys at the station.

The children's noisy breathing betrays their valiant effort at crashing on and on. Not a whimper escapes their lips as they march, shivering, on tiny feet through cold, wet underbrush. Twenty minutes to go. Let's move faster. Children, please, just a little faster.

The path is steeper here. The little children cannot make it. We must take them in our arms. The trail suddenly narrows into a wedge among the tall thicket. Breathing with effort, we force our way through hostile, heavy growth. My jacket sleeve catches on a branch. As I jerk myself free, I step up onto a paved platform. The train station!

Right before my eyes towers the gabled roof of the station house. Two rows of silvery
tracks glisten in the moonlight. In the middle of the platform a white sign looms, and on it two words in black letters: VYŠNE RUŽBACHY. The clock tower is clearly visible from here. It's eight minutes to four. The train is due to arrive in eight minutes.

Children! Mrs. Gold! We have made it!

The station is deserted. Not a living soul anywhere. Where are Sruli and the boys?

“Let's go into the station house,” suggests Mrs. Gold. “It must be warmer in there. And we can rest on the benches in the waiting room.”

“The boys will never find us in the station house, Mrs. Gold. We must wait for them out here.”

What if the rioters have discovered by now that we fled? What if they are following us and catch up with us here even before the train arrives? “Let's go behind the tall hedge. Let's wait there till the train comes. There we can rest on our luggage.”

Like little rabbits we crawl through the narrow opening in the hedge and crouch on trunks and duffel bags. Bronia is sucking her thumb as she snuggles near me. Both Marko
and Ruti crawl into my lap. Mrs. Gold and the older girls all take little children into their laps. From here we scan the platform, unobserved. There is no sign of the boys. Where are they? And where is the train? It must be four o'clock by now.

Have I made a mistake? Perhaps Sruli did not say four o'clock. Perhaps he said five o'clock. Or three? What if there was a train at three
A.M
. and the boys left with that train. What will become of us? My dear God, what shall we do?