Out of the Shoebox (4 page)

Father’s
letter with the cash got delayed in the mail, and on Oct 10, 1932 the Technion
wrote: “This is to inform you that your letter of acceptance as a student has
already been mailed. Since to date we have not received the deposit, we could
not submit your papers for a visa and you will therefore not be able to study
in the academic year 1932/33. As for your intent to come to Israel as a
tourist, we cannot advise you.”  I can just imagine what went through my
father’s mind at the receipt of this letter. The drama at his home must have
continued for about a week until, 8 days later, another letter from the
Technion arrived, confirming receipt of the money. Nonetheless, the Technion
reiterates that time is short, and my father may not be able to start his
studies as planned and may have to postpone his arrival by a year. That same
day, Oct 28, 1932, the director of the Technion wrote to the British Mandate’s
head of the Department of Immigration & Travel in Haifa, with an urgent
request to issue a student visa for my father.

A
month later the longed-for visa confirmation reached the Technion, which in
turn gave my father the good news by registered mail: “We hereby send you a
certificate with which you can receive the visa to Palestine from the British
Consul in Warsaw. Please inform us directly when you expect to leave, so that
we may determine whether you’ll be able to begin your studies this year or only
in 1933-34.

My
father arrived in Haifa on Dec 26th 1932, and the next morning presented
himself at the Technion and signed all enrollment and declaration forms
required by the British Mandate authorities. He completed his mission in time:
immigrated legally in 1932, five days before the year's end.

Ada
gave me my father’s file, comprising all of two sheets of cardboard. One had my
father’s personal details, and the list of subjects and grades for the four
years of study.

Clearly,
nothing was ever entered on this page. Which – as Ada pointed out – indicated
he never studied after being accepted. The other sheet showed the tuition and
payments made, and is proof that my father made the first three payments,
totaling 12 lira and 300 mil of the IL18 he was to pay for the first year. In
other words, my father indeed did not study at the Technion, but used his
enrollment as a legal way to make aliya.

The
declaration my father signed at the Technion on 27 December 1932:

DECLARATION

I, Shlomo Zvi Finkelman, upon receiving permission to enter the
country as a student of the Hebrew Technion in Haifa, herewith deposit with the
Hebrew Technion in Haifa the sum of fifteen lira as guarantee that should I
wish to leave the country within four years of my arrival, I shall do so
immediately at my own expense; otherwise the Hebrew Technion in Haifa shall be
permitted to use the sum of 15 lira towards the expense of returning me to my
country of origin. In such a case the Technion will not have to account for its
expenses for my return, based on the permission hereby given to it.

In addition, I agree to leave Israel as soon as I remain without
funds or should I become a burden to the public during those four years, and in
case I fail to do so I agree that the Hebrew Technion of Haifa shall make all
arrangements it deems fit to return me forthwith to my country of origin.

Signed:
_______________ [S. Zvi Finkelman]

Haifa,
27/12/32

Witness
_______________

Address:
The Technion Business or Position

Witness:
______________

Address:
___________ Business or Position

There was one more
envelope left. With two letters inside. An accompanying note and a declaration
the Technion demanded. For some reason my father had forgotten to mail it
together with the deposit. When he realized, thirteen days later, he hastened
to mail the declaration with the following note:

“I attach
the declaration which I forgot to mail previously. Please be informed that all
my papers are now in order. Kindly try to send me the visa as soon as possible
so that I may come before 1.1.1933. I remain, respectfully, S.Z. Finkelman.”

I
carefully detached the declaration from the top page, looked at it, and must
have gone pale. Ada asked me with concern: “What’s wrong? What did you see?” My
expression must have given me away. It took a few moments before I got my
breathing under control. “Mordechai Liebman and Shmuel Meiselman signed this
page,” I mumbled. “I don’t understand,” she replied, “Who’s Mordechai Liebman?
Who’s Shmuel Meiselman?” “Don’t you see? I was looking for my father’s address
in Haifa, and found proof that Mordechai Liebman was his friend.” Ada looked at
me, still confused. “I’ll explain. I know it sounds strange and maybe
illogical, but I found what I was looking for. Weird thing is, I wasn’t even
looking here for proof of a connection between Mordechai and my father. There
was no logical reason to look here. You know, when I came to see the documents
you found, I prayed that they’d contain info on my father’s places of
residence. Only here did I find out that he never studied at the Technion,
which is why there was no address on record.  But I did find his parents’
address in Chortkow; and even more significant was the discovery of proof that
Mordechai Liebman was a close friend, since he wouldn’t have signed that
declaration otherwise.” This was probably the last testimony a man named
Mordechai Liebman left, before being murdered in the Holocaust. There isn’t
even a testimonial page for him at Yad Vashem; but here he exists. After
calming down, I gave Ada a brief version of the story of the lot and the
partnership between my father and Mordechai Liebman.

Stranger
yet was the fact that the Technion apparently had no need for that declaration
and didn’t use it, which is why they didn’t bother informing my father that he
hadn’t mailed it. Only when Father finally came to the Technion was he required
to sign the original declaration. The enrollment forms must have mentioned that
he would be required to sign such a statement, and in his eagerness my father
construed that to mean that it must be done immediately.

Thanks
to that mistake I found proof of the connection between my father and Mordechai.
The second witness, Shmuel Meiselman, brother of Asher Meiselman, was Father’s
friend from Betar – which I knew about. The connection between the three –
Mordechai, Shmuel, and Shlomo Zvi – explained Mordechai’s photo appearing on
the Meiselman family memorial page on the Chortkow website. I felt that the
pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fall into place.

I
came back from the Technion holding a treasure; I’d received the folder with my
father’s original documents.

 It
was an amazing feeling. As soon as I reached the office I showed my partners
the letters, so proud of my dad’s beautiful Hebrew and penmanship. You couldn’t
tell from his handwriting that Hebrew wasn’t his mother tongue; it looked well
practiced, without any corrections or erasures. The writing, done with a
fountain pen, was fluent, without those typical dots which occur when a
fountain-pen user stops or hesitates.

With
immense pride I showed my partners the school transcripts, as if the grades on
those Vienna documents were my own, and the stylized handwriting was mine.

The declaration with the signature
of witnesses Mordechai Liebman and Shmuel Meiselman

DECLARATION

I, S. Z. Finkelman, wish to gain permission to enter the country
as a student of the Hebrew Technion in Haifa, herewith deposit with the Hebrew
Technion in Haifa the sum of fifteen IL  as guarantee that should I wish to
leave the country within four years of my arrival, I shall do so immediately at
my own expense; otherwise the Hebrew Technion in Haifa shall be permitted to
use the sum of 15 lira towards the expense of returning me to my country of
origin. In such a case the Technion will not have to account for its expenses for
my return, based on the permission hereby given to it.

In addition, I agree to leave Israel as soon as I remain without
funds or should I become a burden to the public during those four years, and in
case I fail to do so I agree that the Hebrew Technion of Haifa shall make all
arrangements it deems necessary to return me forthwith to my country of origin.

Signed by me in the presence of:

Witness signature:  ( - ) [Mordechai Liebman]

Witness signature: ( - ) [Shmuel Meiselman]

( - ) S.Z. Finkelman

Chortkow, 24/X/32

“You’ve
got to write this story… this is an unusual development and this is only the
beginning,” said Hanan, my partner. “There’s potential here for a fascinating
story.”

“I’m
not sure it’s of interest to anyone but me, but I’ll think about it,” I
answered out of politeness, but I actually smiled to myself; the idea appealed
to me. All that’s needed is for events to continue to unfold, so as to add
volume to the story, I thought to myself, as I continued to elaborate on the
fantasy.

That
week I asked my sister to do a thorough search at her home to see if she could
find any other letters or documents relating to our parents that could shed
light on their early years in Palestine.  She didn’t come up with anything new,
but gave me the few documents she did have, including our mother's memoirs
written over 15 years before I embarked on this quest.

It
happened one Saturday morning, around 5:30 a.m. I woke up with a start, soaked
in sweat, both body and sheets. For a moment I thought I must’ve peed in my
sleep, but within seconds it all came back to me with incredible clarity: my
father appeared to me in my dream. I can’t help chuckling as I write, the last
sentence sounds to me like something out of a folk tale. But I actually did
dream about my father.

I
dreamed that I was lying in bed, and Father suddenly appeared. He stood by my
bed, looking at me from above. He looked far younger than I remembered him –
perhaps 35 or 40. A little like the photos in the family album I made many
years ago, from the photos my mom had kept. I’d gotten used to the fact that
Father kept looking younger over the years, particularly in the picture my
mother had framed after his sudden death; a picture that hung on the wall over
her bed all those years. As time went by and I got older, he became younger,
like the picture of Dorian Gray. He stood there and looked at me, and at Raya
sleeping next to me, for a few moments. Then suddenly, before I even uttered a
word, he took out a gray cardboard folder that contained architectural drafts and
drawings, and began telling me about the design of the building: “See, we
wanted to build an industrial plant. The structure was very simple, no
decorative features. The main thing in the design was the north-facing windows.
They gave the building its unique character. Like a box with saw-teeth over it.
The windows were on the roof, you know – to let northern light into the
building. Light rather than sun. Here in Israel the sun is very strong, too
blinding; not like the soft sun in Europe. The windows were like a series of
triangles on the roof; the triangle’s slope facing south, its vertical side
facing north, repeated thirty times. The vertical side is glass and the slope
is metal. That was the way to catch the light but not the sun. Direct sun is
from the east and west; from the north we only get light. But you already know
that we never built it – it didn’t work out. The lot remained empty all these
years, nothing was ever built on it.”

The
drawings and sketches were clear and sharp, the way I remembered them from
childhood. There was no doubt that I’d seen them in the far past. They looked
nothing like modern architectural drawings. There were no trees, people or
cars. You could only figure out the scale based on the size of the windows in
the roof and the height of the doors at the front. The proportions were
pleasing and the structure looked aesthetic despite its simplicity.

Father’s
voice was faint but very clear, as if he was ensuring that I understood every
detail. “Don’t be surprised, that was my name: Salmon Hirsh Finkelman. That’s
the name on official papers. But on drawings and plans I was always Shlomo Zvi
Finkelman. That was my Israeli name, my name as an architect, my new name. I
wanted to leave the old name behind.”

Suddenly
Father’s voice changed, became much louder, sounding like a reprimand. And
indeed, he was scolding me: “I don’t understand how come all these years you
neglected the money in the bank. You’re irresponsible! It’s unacceptable for
the money to lie in the account unused, losing its value, and you people don’t
care. Find it and take care of it.” Father’s voice continued to intensify,
turning into unpleasant yelling, scolding me… and that’s when I woke up with a
start, drenched in sweat. I lay in bed, trying to get my breathing back to
normal. My heart was beating fast and loud, an unpleasant buzzing sound in my
ears. I was panicking. For fifty-four years I hadn’t dreamt of my father. Not
one dream. Some years I prayed that he’d appear to me in a dream, but it never
happened. As a child I believed that if I succeeded in holding my breath for a
very long time, he’d appear. I have no idea where I got that notion, but
obviously it didn’t work. The only thing I got from those attempts were severe
headaches. In this dream-state encounter we did not share a conversation. It
was Father’s monologue. A monologue starting with a pleasant explanation and
ending in a scolding.