We are all part of a chain in one way or another.
Some are a link in a family line, others are the connectors in the history of an
ethnic group, a nation, a social, cultural or any other assembly.
That link is not always staring at us or is clearly
visible. Sometimes, we need to search for it, join scattered dots, cross- check
facts or dig deep to discover it. In some instances, we may be lucky enough and
discover that tiny clue which will lead us to the component that we are in
search of. In others, unfortunately, we may find that the weakest link is not only
weak, but also nonexistent.
In 2002, I embarked on the quest for one.
It happened when my daughter and I attended a
summer school programme in Yiddish studies at the University of Vilnius,
Yiddish Institute.
Over one weekend, we went to visit both my
parents’ hometowns. My mother’s, Smorgon,
was first on the list. Since I had visited the place two years earlier, I was
rather familiar with its layout which, incidentally, unlike that of my father’s
and others that I visited, changed considerably since the time my mother had
lived there.
My mother’s house was no longer there. The
large and menacing grey Pravoslav Church that had once stood there and which my
mother could see through her bedroom window, was demolished once the Soviets
entered town. The only remnant of the days gone by was the habitual market day
which took place on Wednesdays.
Just as I had in my first visit, two years
earlier, I tried, again, to find some information about my family’s history, a
shred of evidence, a weak link that could reconnect me to that place.
Our tour guide, Regina, a Yiddish speaker
herself, was immensely helpful. She was able to find one man who was seventeen
years old when WWII broke out. Surely, I thought to myself, he would have heard
of the Kozlowsky family (fictitious name, for obvious reasons). My grandfather
owned a big, successful wholesale business. He was the richest man in town and
their big spacious home was located near the city square.
The old man we met (in the photo below) who was eighty years old at the time,
was blind and could not remember much. I tried to help revive his memory and
mentioned the name of my grandfather’s competitor, Bernstein (likewise, a
fictitious name) but to no avail. Nothing!
I felt empty. I had brought my daughter all the way for nothing, no proof, whatsoever, of a world, part of her world, that once was. The missing link was nowhere to be found.
Our next stop was my father’s hometown. A poor place with a few scattered
houses where time stood still. No slight chance of finding the long searched
for missing link, there, it was obvious.
“Is there another place you wish to visit before we head back to Vilna?” Regina
asked me, noticing my great disappointment.
“Oshmiany,” I responded automatically.
Both my daughter and Regina looked surprised. “Why?” probed Regina, “did you
have any family there?”
“No,” I said, “But my parents used to mention
that name more than once. I am curious to see it.”
“Interesting,” observed Regina, “I happen to know a Jewish family there, the
only Jewish family left there.”
Like my father’s hometown, not much seemed to
have changed in that small community since the war ended, according to Bluma De
Leon.
Bluma, a woman in her eighties, lived with her daughter, her son in law and two
granddaughters in a small house, surrounded by farms, in an area sprinkled with
what seemed to have been semi built houses, and many ruined ones.
Somehow, she managed to survive the war and moved
to Oshmiany after it ended.
“I was born in Kreve,” she started her story, in Yiddish, of course, “where my father owned a small retail store.”
“Kreve?” I asked, “it was not far from Smorgon, was it not?” I knew the name since
my grandmother used to tell me stories, in Yiddish, about life in those little
shtetles. I could see them in my mind’s eye. I could draw a map and place each
and everyone of them on their approximate locations.
“Yes, I knew Smorgon. I used to go there with my father,” she answered without
hesitation. A glimmer of hope was ignited in me. A sliver of light was shinning
towards me from afar.
“You have been to Smorgon as a child?” I asked with my mouth wide open and
sparkling eyes. “What did you go there for?” I persisted as if clinging to the
edge of a lifeline.
“My father used to buy supplies such as flour
and sugar from Bernstein.”
“Wrong name, wrong link,” a tiny voice
whispered to me as I sank deeper into the armchair in which I was seated. And
just when I was ready to give up, I suddenly heard Bluma’s voice as if in a
dream, “herring, however, the best herring, he bought from Kozlowsky."
I jumped in my seat. “Did you say, ‘Kozlowsky?’”
I heard myself saying.
“Yes,
because he was famous for his herring. It was the best there was.” As the tears
began gushing down my face, I stood up, walked to Bluma, hugged her and in a strained
voice said, "I am his granddaughter. You are the evidence I have been
looking for, the living proof, the confirmation that the chain has never been
broken. Thank you,"
“But I am just a weak eighty years old woman,” she added, as she was wiping her
tears.
“Even the weakest link can, sometimes, become the strongest one.” I whispered
to her as we stood there holding each other for a long while.
