Out of the Shoebox (17 page)

Document "relocating" Dr.
Sima Finkelman (marked with the arrow) to the Belzec extermination camp

***

For
two days we travelled in south-western Ukraine, in Galicia towns that had a
rich history of Jewish communities. We visited amazing castles, ancient
fortresses and keeps; among them the wonderful castle in the city of
Kamianets-Podilskyi and the Khotyn Fortress on the banks of the Dniester River.
We visited Chernivtsi (Chernovich) in the Bukovina region and Buchach, hometown
of the author S.Y. Agnon, Jagielnica, neighboring town of Chortkow from which
the Finkelmans came, and Yazlovets from which the Kramer family came. Pepe
Kramer, who lived in the family home and was a friend of my uncle Moshe and
Tonia Sternberg, was probably also from Yazlovets.

I
felt I had to leave Chortkow and visit other places to give myself a break. I
wanted to clear my head of all the emotional upheavals I had been through in
such a short time. Despite my wish to distance myself from the "Jewish
experience" even for a few hours, I was unable to. Every place, every
village, carries with it Jewish history from both the ancient and recent past:
an old synagogue, a cemetery, headstones strewn in a field – all testimony of
the magnificent Jewish community that once lived there. So we found ourselves,
Tania, Viktor, and me, looking for synagogues in villages and towns, and old
cemeteries and broken headstones at the side of the road and in pastures among
hefty Ukrainian cows. There was something pretty, out of context, in the
contrast between the broken gravestones and the wide open fields, that created
a different kind of aesthetic experience which was enjoyable in and of itself.

Only
once I was home, and shared my experiences, did Raya, my wife, provide the
feedback and insight that made the connection between the castles, the fields
of headstones and the cemeteries: "The old castles and fortresses are also
a kind of monument to a life and culture that have passed from this
world." That sentence was enough to summarize my visit to the towns and
villages of south western Ukraine. Evidence of the grandeur of the past
compared with the dilapidation of the present stood out everywhere, proof of a
culture that had disappeared and will never return.

We
drove to Chernivtsi. Viktor wanted me to see a beautiful city that has been
preserved and has survived the slings and arrows of history.

For
some reason, I thought Chernivtsi was in the Bukovina region in Romania. Viktor
corrected me – this seemed to be a common misconception. Bukovina was a duchy
and region in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and, after WWI was part of Romania.
After WWII the southern half of Bukovina remained within Romanian borders, but
its northern half, including the city of Chernivtsi, became part of Ukraine.

We
left early in the morning; the drive took about an hour and a half. The light
traffic made maneuvering between the many potholes easier. When we arrived in
Chernivtsi, Viktor stopped the car in front of a large neoclassical building
typical of the early twentieth century. "This is the Chernivtsi train
station. The road we came by would have been the escape route your parents and
sister took when the war broke out… they would have arrived here by train and
continued in horse-drawn carriages because the tracks were bombed. It was
indeed, like you told me, the last train on which the Polish government fled to
Romania…"

A
number of times during our drive, when I saw the train tracks winding alongside
the road I considered it might have been my parents' escape route, because the
general direction was south, towards Romania. But despite those earlier
thoughts, I was taken by surprise. Again I felt the familiar feeling of the
last few days, that my route in Ukraine was predetermined, and that somehow I
had been led along the tracks of my family's fate.

Chernivtsi train station

Chernivtsi's
beauty took my breath away. Not for nothing is it known as "Little
Vienna". Many houses in the center of town are fine examples of the
architecture that was typical of the period of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The
theater, built in 1905, and the university campus, built in 1882, are perfect
examples of the beauty of that culture. The Jewish Cultural Center, in the
theater plaza, surprised me in its size and beauty, evidence of the size of the
Jewish community on the eve of WWII. It is a shame that the central synagogue
built in 1873, and one of the grandest in Europe, was burned by the Germans in
1941. Later, during the Soviet period, the building's interior was destroyed,
but its façade was preserved and it was converted in 1959 to a cinema.
The building, designed in the Neo-Moorish style, exhibits North African and
Spanish influences, which were seen as exotic and were a part of the culture in
that period, the same influences that I had seen in many other, smaller-scale
buildings in Chortkow. The visit to Chernivtsi was like a breath of fresh air,
an aesthetic experience of manicured streets and wonderful architecture. So I
was not surprised to discover a few buildings in the Art Nouveau and Art Deco
styles, because, without a doubt, the Chernivtsi of the past was a rich city
with a grand culture.

We
walked about town and eventually reached the Jewish Quarter, which is still
referred to as the Shtetl today, and, to my surprise, found an active
synagogue. I seized the opportunity and went in with Tania and Viktor. After
getting permission from the beadle, I opened the Ark of the Torah and showed
Viktor and Tania the handwritten Torah scroll and the ornaments that were in
the ark with it, explaining that these were likely the kind of objects found in
the treasure trunk in my grandfather's house. It was Viktor and Tania's first
visit to an active synagogue, rather than one that is ruined, neglected, or
used as a library or warehouse.

Even
the Jewish cemetery in Chernivtsi was unusually large and beautiful. The
Christian and the Jewish cemeteries are across the street from each other. The
Jewish cemetery is larger, with more than fifty thousand people buried there.
Its grounds and size, as well as the beauty of the large cleansing room, were
evidence of the grand and rich history of the Jewish community in Chernivtsi
before the Holocaust. I could see that it was still active to some extent, and,
like the synagogue, was further evidence that a small Jewish community still existed
in the city.

The
drive back to Chortkow was relaxed and uneventful. I dozed off for much of it,
my thoughts drifting from pretty houses to gravestones, past to present. As we
entered Chortkow, Viktor offered to take me back to the hotel for a short rest.
I thought it sounded strange because I’d invited them to join me that evening
for a dinner of pizza, beer, and wine at the Italian restaurant in the hotel,
so the schedule didn't seem to make much sense. I sensed something wasn't
right, and when I asked directly why we needed a break I received a surprising
response: "It's been 60 days, today, since our baby died. Customarily we
visit the grave after 30 days, 60 days, and a year, so we need a break."
Without hesitating I said I'd be happy to join the memorial… after days of such
intense shared emotions the separation seemed unnatural.

We
drove to Wygnanka. In an open field covered in flowers, in a well-tended
cemetery under a clear blue sky and a setting sun, we stood, Tania, Viktor, and
I, by a small earth mound covered in dozens of white flowers and baby toys, and
said not a word. Silence hung heavy, Tania cried softly, Viktor didn't move. I
could hear him breathing over the weeping and the birds chirping.

"Would
you like me to say Kaddish?" I asked when I realized there wasn’t any
ceremony or prayer. "Of course," they responded immediately. And so I
found myself standing by a baby's grave, under the Chortkow sky, the setting
sun washing the sky red, and saying Kaddish for a baby I never knew.

The
words stuck in my throat. Overcome with tears, I suddenly felt the magnitude of
the contrast, the absurdity or,  perhaps more, the significance of the moment:
that I, Yaron – a Jew whose parents were from Chortkow and whose families were
murdered in the Holocaust; son of a people that mourned hundreds of thousands
of babies murdered in infinite cruelty and whose burial place remained unknown,
among whom was Lijuchnia who appears in my Aunt Zelda’s diary – am standing here
saying Kaddish for a baby of Christian parents on Chortkow ground. I stood with
them and cried.

In Hebrew, I prayed this prayer

***

How
strange it is to be introduced to a story that every child in Chortkow knows;
be it myth or legend, it is the story of the origin of the name Chortkow. The
story, rooted in Slavic mythology, revolves around the eternal battle between
good and evil, God and the Devil. God builds and creates, and the Devil (Chort
in Polish) ruins and destroys, constantly interfering with God's plans. Local
legend tells that when God created the Seret River, which runs through
Chortkow, the Devil tried with all his might to stop its flow. God and the
river fought the Devil. The Devil failed, and, as he was struggling with God, fell
into the river, got tangled in the reeds (ocheret) and drowned. There he
remains, according to the legend, trapped among the reeds at the bottom of the
river. That is why the valley around the river is named Chortkova Dolyna – The
Devil's Valley. The Chortkowskyi family is named after the valley where they
lived, and the town in the middle of the valley – Chortkow – is named after the
family. The Chortkowskyi family built the first wooden church in Chortkow in
the 16th century. Viktor and Bogdan told me that some of the locals, Bogdan
among them, organized and tried to change the town's unusual name more than
once. They circulated petitions, but couldn't get the name changed. Time after
time they ran into obstacles.

When
I heard the story the first thoughts to cross my mind were: How come I've never
heard this story before? How come the legend wasn't told or mentioned in the
literature written about Chortkow? Why was the eternal battle between good and
evil missing from Chortkow's Jewish folklore? And, given the terrible tragedy
that was the extermination of all the Jews in this town and region, a town
where every third resident was wiped off the earth, how did the Jews never
mention the diabolical fate that was hinted at in the town's name or the battle
of good and evil. I had many questions, but not even a sliver of an answer. My
mother used to say, "Chortkow was a kind of paradise until, one day, it
changed completely and turned into hell."

From
the moment I heard the legend, the story of Chort, son of the Slavic god
Chernobog and the goddess Mara, became part of the metaphysical explanation for
the fate of Chortkow's Jews, and the fate of my family. The Jewish residents of
Chortkow, like many Jews in Galicia, studied Kabbalah and understood the meaning
of words and names and their power over people's destiny. Some even changed
their first or last name as a way to solve problems of health or income. How
could they not understand the hidden message in the name of the place where
they lived? How could they ignore the warning signs and go on with their lives
in the Devil’s Valley as though tomorrow could bring nothing but good fortune.

The
extermination of Chortkow's Jews was unprecedented. To my knowledge, it was
more thorough than the extermination of Jews in any other region. Only 80
people from Chortkow survived, less than one percent (0.8%) of the Jewish
population on the eve of the war. For comparison, in Poland, Europe's chief
valley of slaughter, twelve percent of the Jewish population survived, of which
seven percent fled to the USSR. In Chortkow's neighboring provinces about ten
percent of the Jewish population survived, the great majority having fled east
and south when the war began. I thought that, if there was no rational
explanation for such a thorough extermination, then perhaps the metaphysical
interpretation I found could have, at least, foretold that my family was
doomed. Was it coincidence that Tonia's brother was murdered on the river? Was
it sheer chance that my mother's family’s bunker was flooded with water from
the river and her whole family drowned? Or, was it chance that brought me,
after an eighteen-month-long unexpected journey, tracing my family's past, to
Chortkow to sit with Viktor and Bogdan, on a pleasant evening after a hot day,
to hear a legend about the origin of the evil that resides within the river.
The evil that one day rose and turned heaven to hell, as my mother had said. It
raged, killed, murdered, abused and wiped out so many innocent people,
including my family.

Over
a cold beer in a local bar I learned what many did not know, refused to hear,
hid or erased from their memory of the place: the devil, who so efficiently
erased the memory of Mordechai Liebman and many like him, had always been
there. For an instant, I thought the valley expanded, the river flooded and
evil continued its everlasting battle with God...

Chortkow
is a beautiful place situated in a verdant valley through which a river flows.

Chortkow Valley – Chortova Dolyna

***