My Bridges of Hope (14 page)

The Heinos's charming four-year-old, Elka, talks us into taking her along on our shopping trip, together with her little playmate Jerry from next door. So we set out for the famous Manderla Building, the Slovak capital's eleven-story skyscraper, with two happy children on shiny red scooters.

The outing begins on a high note. Mother and I deftly squire the children and their scooters in bustling downtown traffic. They cheerfully follow us in and out of various shops, marveling at colorful displays.

By noon we purchase most of our necessities. “It's time to take the children home for lunch,” Mommy reminds me, and I call to the children, whom I have just seen playing in front of a toy display. Elka scoots toward us and puts her little hand in mine.

“Where is Jerry?” I ask the little girl. Elka shakes her head, and her blond banana curls fly about. She does not know where Jerry is.

Little Jerry is not in the toy store. I race down the busy street, zigzagging among passersby, retracing our steps, all the time on the lookout for a little boy with a red scooter. I dash into every store we have visited. Have you seen a little blond boy with a red scooter? No one has. I rush around every corner we have turned; return to every shop window the children admired. He is nowhere. I race back to the spot where I left Mommy and Elka, hoping desperately to find him there. No luck. We question people on the street. No one remembers seeing a blond, blue-eyed, three-year-old little boy with a blue cap and a red scooter.

All afternoon we search for little Jerry, to no avail. Our anxiety turns to panic. What has happened to the child? He is from Budapest, a stranger in this city, speaking a strange language. How would he be understood? How would he find his way?

Has he been run over by a car? Has he been kidnapped?

Little Elka is hungry and tired, and inconsolable. Mother takes the sobbing little girl on her arm, and she soon cries herself to sleep on Mother's shoulder. She should be taken home for lunch and her afternoon nap. But I refuse to give up. “We must find Jerry. We cannot go home until we find him.” Mother agrees, and we take turns carrying the sleeping child and her scooter as we frantically continue to comb the sidewalks and stores of downtown Bratislava. We ask policemen on their beat, the conductor of every streetcar that passes. Finally, a young policeman joins our search. He stops all pedestrians and instructs them to keep an eye open for a Hungarian-speaking three-year-old little boy.

It is getting late. Sabbath eve is rapidly approaching.

“Elka has to be taken home,” Mother advises, her voice hoarse with tension. “I'll take her on the next streetcar, and you stay here to continue the search.”

The young policeman finally advises me to report the missing child and have it announced on the radio. He directs me to the main police station on the riverbank. As dusk
precipitates, I battle a bitter cold wind on my way toward the Danube, and by the time I reach the police station, I am near collapse. A stony-faced police sergeant takes the report and gruffly orders me to sign it. Then he issues a warning: “You,
Sle
č
na,
bear full responsibility for the child,” he announces sternly. “If the child is not found soon, or if he is found dead, you shall be arrested and put on trial for murder.”

I burst into tears. The police officer is merciless: “It's too late for remorse now. Much too late.”

I race out of the police building and across the wide-open square toward the radio station. Sobbing, I blurt out my message to the receptionist. He takes down the particulars of the case and passes the note to the broadcast room. The radio announcer emerges from his cubicle to reassure me that he is putting the item instantly on the air.

“Don't worry, young lady.” The tall, thin, balding man has compassion in his voice. “The little boy will turn up. Someone hearing the announcement will surely come forward with information. You'll see.”

“Oh, thank you,” I say with a sob. “Thank you.”

I walk out of the radio station into a dark, cold mist. It must be Sabbath by now; no longer can I ride on the streetcar. I take off for the dormitory at a run to change clothes for the holy day.

Nearing Svoradova 7 I can see candles flickering on the dining room table, and the girls assembled for prayer. I race past the open door of the dining room, past the kitchen, up the stairs to my room. I have no time to take a shower. I wash my hands and face in the bedroom sink, put on my Sabbath clothes, and quickly dash downstairs. In a flash I am on the street once again.

My heart pounds as I knock on the door of the Heinos's apartment. Mrs. Heino's face is glowing with delight as she opens the door: “Ah, Elli, it's you! Come in, come in. We have been waiting for you.”

Sabbath candles are radiant in the silver candelabra. The salon is alive with people. Who are they? I recognize little Jerry's grandmother among them. She is smiling. Mother is beaming as she hurries toward me.

“Mommy, what's going on?”

Mother can barely control her excitement. “Don't you know yet? Little Jerry is here! He was home all afternoon. While we, panic-stricken, rushed about searching for him, he was home playing.”

Soon I find out that the two children had had a quarrel, and little Jerry had lagged behind, sulking. A passerby, believing the child was lost, asked him where he lived, and when Jerry gave his grandmother's address as the well-known “Edlova” Building, the stranger took him to the building's lobby and left. When Jerry walked into the apartment, his grandmother assumed we all had returned from our shopping expedition.

As she was about to light the Sabbath candles, Jerry's grandmother was startled by the sound of her telephone ringing. Her telephone had been silent for years. Since the death of Jerry's mother, her only daughter, in Auschwitz, she had lived like a recluse. Bewildered, she answered the calls, all concerned inquiries and offers of help from neighbors who had heard the announcement over the radio. Then her doorbell began to
ring, and neighbors began pouring in. Neighbors she had never seen before came to offer advice and solace. Once they discovered that little Jerry was safe and sound, they embraced the elderly lady with joy and relief. For the first time in years her home was filled with the warmth of human contact.

In her confusion, Jerry's grandmother rushed to the Heinos's house, all the neighbors following. Did Mrs. Heino know anything about the mysterious announcement on the radio? It was then that Mother arrived with little Elka in her arms, and they all understood the story of the missing child. Then Sabbath commenced, and Mrs. Heino ushered them all into her home.

They all welcome me like a heroine. Moshe Heino raises the heavy silver goblet brimming with red wine and recites the Sabbath blessing. The assembled guests chant, “Amen,” and the goblet passes from hand to hand. I also take a sip of wine. All of a sudden, the room with all the smiling faces revolves about me.

When the guests leave, the grandmother's arms enclose me in a warm embrace. “Thank
you, my dear, thank you. You'll never understand what you've done for me. What a great
mitzvah
you've done.”

I feel dizzy. It is not only fatigue or the effect of the wine. It is happiness. My pain over my brother's leaving has turned into exultation. Instead of grieving over a departure, we are celebrating a return.

Bratislava, November 29, 1947

At the end of May, classes at the teachers' seminary end, and we are in the midst of feverish study for the examinations.

The exams are a marathon affair, a true culmination of eight months of intensive, exhilarating study. For two days a panel of learned rabbis put oral questions to the sixteen of us in every subject on the course curriculum. We all pass with flying colors.

The graduation ceremony is a grand event. The entire Jewish community of Bratislava attends—communal leaders, rabbis, and relatives of the fortunate few graduates who have them. I am more fortunate than most. Tragically, none of the others has a parent present. The parents of Judith and Agi, who survived in the Budapest ghetto, are trapped behind the Iron Curtain in Hungary. The parents of all the others
perished in the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

The day after graduation I am assigned to teach two classes in the Beth Jacob school on our premises and to conduct a study group on Saturday afternoons. At last I am a qualified teacher, officially certified and equipped with proper educational tools.

To top off the marvelous heady feeling, at the end of my first month of teaching I am offered a salary! Isn't life simply wonderful?

In the fall my teaching load is increased to four classes, and my salary is doubled. Now, instead of studying for classes, I prepare for teaching classes, late into the night, every night. My work with Mrs. Gellert and my study of English also continues apace. World events rush by, and in my many abstractions I barely notice.

One Saturday evening in November, after returning from the Heinos's in Edlova, I find the atmosphere in my dorm room charged with excitement. The girls huddle about Annie's shortwave radio.

“Girls, what's going on? What are you listening to?”

“Shush.” Several heads turn. Pointer fingers
are clamped on pursed lips like exclamation marks. “It's the vote.”

“What vote?” My voice drowns into a hiss. “What vote?”

“Shush. The UNO vote. On Eretz Israel.”

My God, I have completely forgotten. For weeks rumors have circulated that the big powers of the world would finally render a decision on Eretz Israel. At a meeting in New York they would vote to establish a Jewish State in Eretz Israel, turning our fervent dream into reality. And I, submerged in my million activities, had lost track at the critical moment.

Ears are plastered onto the set. I can't make out a word. All I hear is static. All of a sudden, there is a burst of noise, a distant implosion. What was that?

“I don't know,” Annie whispers. The proud owner of the sophisticated set, Annie knows English and is our link to the Western World. “I'm not sure. The vote seems to be over.”

“The vote is over! What are the results?”

We stare at each other. Annie turns the knobs. The static crackle grows louder. No one knows the results of the vote.

All at once the door bursts open, and Eva appears in the doorway, her face agog: “Girls, the big square before the Redute movie house is full. People are dancing around the fountain, right in the middle of the square . . . blocking traffic. It's wild! All the cars, buses, trucks are at a standstill. Hundreds are dancing. All the Mizrachi kids are there. I'm also going!”

So it has finally happened! I follow Eva up the stairs at a run to get my coat. “Eva, wait for me!” In a feverish haste many girls grab sweaters, coats, scarves. It's a nasty, wintry evening in late November. What day is it? The twenty-ninth. I race down the stairs, across the lobby, and down the front steps. Eva is nowhere.

I am breathless with the weight of the moment as I run up the street toward Michalovska Street, crashing into a flow of human traffic. Nothing matters. My sweat mingles with cold drops of rain. My hair is matted. My temples throb to the drumbeat of one thought: Eretz Israel. . . Eretz Israel,
našá svetá zem
. . . our sacred land, our home.

As I approach the Carlton Hotel, a powerful
gust from the riverbank hurls the sound of singing toward me. A turn of the corner thrusts me face-to-face with a most incredible spectacle: The square is covered by a human carpet, a swinging, swirling, rhythmic carpet of thousands upon thousands—an enormous spinning wheel of dancers. The dancers are locked arm-in-arm, bopping up and down in the
hora,
the spirited dance of the Jewish pioneers in Palestine that has become a symbol of our movement. Triangular blue scarves with the Zionist emblem flutter in the wind.

I approach the racing circle and place my hands on the linked arms of two young girls as they whiz past. They instantly separate and welcome me into the circle, and we dance on, without breaking the cadence. I can feel the rush of cold, moist air as I dance faster and faster. It penetrates my throat as I sing, louder and louder. My hair flies in the wet wind, my feet slam against the wet asphalt, but my head is in the clouds. A thousand cars honk, and a thousand throats sing. The chime of the church clock filters through it all, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. It's eight o'clock. History is in the making. The Jewish
State is born. The theme reverberates in the breeze: “Eretz Israel,
našá svetá zem
...” Land of Israel, our sacred homeland . . . homeland. Homeland. Homeland. The dark, wet wind carries the message to the lusterless sky.

Eventually the magic circle slows to a halt, but it does not disperse. Not yet. Not yet. Faces glow with exhilaration as the singing starts up again, and arms remain locked. We want to hold on to the moment just a little longer.

Eretz Israel has just become a reality. Now the British can no longer keep the Jews out of the Jewish homeland. They can no longer prevent the refugee ships carrying young Jewish pioneers from landing on the shores of our land. No longer can they put Jews into prison camps just for yearning to step on the sacred soil of Zion, OUR LAND!

The gates of Eretz Israel will be wide open for us. The British “White Paper” is dead. No more restrictions. My God. My God! From now on we can go to Eretz Israel freely, whenever we want! All the refugees, from all countries. The Exile is over.
“And all the exiles shall return to Zion . . .”

“Shalom, havera.
See you in Tel Aviv!” A young fellow dancing near me unties his blue neck scarf and ties it around my neck: “See you soon, in Tel Aviv!” “In Haifa,” his friend cheers. “In Haifa!” Others cheer and laugh. “In Jerusalem!” “In Beer Sheva!” “In the Galilee!” “At Lake Kinneret!” “On Mount Carmel!”