What Happened to Your Thumb, Daddy?

 

I first asked my father that question when I was about nine years old.

I had always known that his right-hand thumb was missing, yet, unlike others, I had never paid much attention to it. Neither had I considered it odd when he held the pen between his index finger and middle one when he signed my report cards. I had simply got used to it just as I had to seeing the huge scar in his shoulder, caused by the bullet that had pierced it in mid-1942 as he was fleeing the drunk Lithuanians who stormed his room. All I remembered was that when I asked my mother about it, she replied that he had lost his thumb when he was a partisan during the Shoah.

I want to take this opportunity to express gratitude to my classmates who used to mock me and tried to shame me during the early grades of elementary school. Some imitated the way he held his pen. Others suggested that since he was a butcher, he cut his own thumb with the axe which he used to chop the cattle bones. Had it not been for their disparaging and belittling attitude, I would have probably learned that truth much later in life.

One Shabbat, after he returned from synagogue, I decided to ask him about his thumb. This is his story.

My father was born in a little town between White Russia and Lithuania. When the Nazis invaded their town and food became scarce, he exchanged a fur coat that he owned for a loaf of bread with one of the local gentile farmers.

Later, the Nazis gathered the Jewish residents of the area, in a nearby ghetto.  Several months later, they were transferred to another ghetto and then to a labout camp. As it was becoming clearer that the eventual goal of the Nazis was to murder the Jews, my father, along with three other Jewish men, decided to escape and join the nearby Partisans. The Nazis killed the three other prisoners. Though he got away, my father sustained an injury in the groin, missing his testicles by a hair. He continued to run until he reached the adjacent forest.

Upon reaching it, he fell asleep and ended up spending the following day there. His raw wound made it impossible for him to go anywhere. In the evening, he finally gathered all his strength and started crawling with no visible destination in sight. He barely made his way to a nearby farm where the farmers fed him, cleaned him a little and let him spend the night. The following day, they asked him to leave as his presence would endanger them. They gave him some bread and some cover against the cold.

Again, he set out for the unknown. After a short while, exhaustion took over, he stopped and fell asleep. When he woke up, in the morning, he found the world covered with snow. Looking around him, he suddenly recalled that the farmers had mentioned that in the forest, the moss grew on the north side, hidden from the sun. With that bit of information, he decided to turn right and follow that direction.

His wound, thick and coagulated with blood, was causing him great pain. He was hungry and weak. It took him half a day to walk a mere two and a half kilometers. Moving with caution, he made frequent stops to restore his strength and to ensure he had no one after him.  During some of his stops, he used the opportunity to disinfect the open wound with his urine for the lack of other disinfectants.

He spent the rest of the day in the forest and fell asleep in the hope that someone would eventually find him.

The following morning, in the early hours, he heard some footsteps which startled him out of his sleep. He looked up and recognized the gentile farmer with whom he had traded a fur coat for food. He was wearing the same coat.

The man was alarmed at the sight of my father’s bloodied leg. Upon hearing his story, the farmer took off his coat, covered my father and then disappeared. After a short while he came back with some bread, homemade vodka and dried meat. He told my father that some Jewish partisans were gathered in the forest and came by his place, daily, to get some food. He also mentioned that their path was close by and suggested that my father stayed awake so that he didn’t miss them.

In the late afternoon, he heard some noises and noticed two young men approaching his hiding place. He called out to them. They came close, picked him up and carried him to join their group in the middle of the forest.

In the makeshift field hospital, the partisans’ doctor operated on him and removed the bullet. Within a few days, my father was ready to walk again. Weeks later, after a short training session, he was strong enough and ready to join in a mission against their Nazi oppressors. Wearing his fur coat over a thin shirt, which had a pocket on its left side, equipped with a rifle, my father left for his first mission.

On their way to ambush the retreating Nazi troops, they passed through the ruins of some Jewish homes. In one of them, my father found a small Siddur (a Jewish daily prayer book). Out of reverence, and his deep belief in G-d, he picked it up and slid it into the left side pocket of his shirt, under the fur coat.

When the partisans reached their destination, they positioned themselves’ ready to act. Suddenly, no one had any idea where it came from, a shot broke the silence. The bullet hit my father’s thumb, went through the heavy fur coat, ultimately piercing the Siddur, to end in the shirt’s pocket.

His thumb had to be amputated but his life was spared.

I remember the surge of pride in me, as I was listening to him.

The following day, I asked the teacher to speak to the class. My wish was granted.  I shared my father’s account with my classmates “My father is a hero,” I concluded. “How many of you can say that about your fathers?”

The thick air of silence was deafening. I believe that was a defining moment for many, a moment where they realized that my father was also their hero.