CHANNA ALWAYS HATED STRANGERS

CHANNA PERSCHOWSKI, MY MOMILA, was a beautiful young girl with thin stick-like legs and wavy auburn hair.  She was petite, but her spunkiness made up for it.  Her eyes were soft brown, but when she looked at you, you could see she was filled with determination.

 She was born on November 27, 1929, in Baranavichy, a small rural town in what was then Poland.  Picturesque with its redbrick houses, Baranavichy was nestled amid thick woods that thrived in the country’s moist, dark soil.  Beautiful blue lakes dotted the landscape, and rivers wound their way past ancient castles dating back to the eighth century.  Turrets belonging to the Belarusian gothic style churches competed with the dome-topped, wooden Jewish synagogues, but only in the context of old-world charm.  It was a lovely place to live.  However, my mother’s simple, idyllic life would soon be lost to the horrors of a war like no other.

Channa was the answer to her mother’s dreams.  Eleven years earlier, Rachel Perschowski had suffered the loss of her daughter Sonya, who had been born with a hole in her heart.  The fragile young girl was plagued with shortness of breath and weariness and had spent most of her time in bed.  Rachel was a dutiful mother, never straying far from her daughter’s bedside.  She spoon-fed Sonya bowls of hot, sugary semolina with large dollops of butter that slowly melted around the sides of the cereal.  Despite Rachel’s tender care, Sonya died in her mother’s arms at the age of eight.

Her death was extremely hard on Rachel.  She blamed herself incessantly, wondering what she had eaten or done during pregnancy that could have possibly caused her precious little girl to lose her life.  She visited the graveyard often, spending much of her time sitting on Sonya’s grave.

Rachel’s only joy in those dark days following Sonya’s death was her son, Isaac, who was two years older than Sonya had been.  Isaac had grown into a healthy lad with boundless energy.  He had dark features and had inherited his mother’s worried eyes and prominent Jewish nose.  He was a little short for his age, but was solid as a rock and strong as an ox.  Even at his young age, he had a tender side and had loved his sister Sonya dearly, always treating her with gentle kindness. 

Sonya’s death was very hard on Isaac.  No one could give him the answers he sought or help him express the tremendous sadness he held in his heart.

Whenever he was outside playing and he saw a lizard scurry by, he would remember his little sister.  He’d remember how he used to catch the small reptiles in his hands and carry them into the house.  Sonya would gently stroke the lizard’s back, and they would both laugh until their mother came into the room.

“Isaac, get that out of here!” Rachel would always say.

Isaac’s deep sorrow about the loss of Sonya was lessened with the arrival of Channa.  He adored Channa, and, being the much older brother, took on the role of her protector.  The bond between them would prove to be more important than either of them could ever know. 

A few years later, the family was additionally blessed with another baby girl, whom they named Yetta.  She was a happy baby with round chubby cheeks.  Her hair was light brown and full of curls.

Rachel worked tirelessly and bestowed a great deal of love and affection on her three children.  Often seated on the cold wooden floors, she would play games with them for hours, ignoring the cooking and the cleaning.  On days when the weather kept her younger children inside, she would bake sugar cookies with them.  She would carefully guide their small hands while they pressed various shapes onto the floured dough.  Then she would patiently show them how to sprinkle sugar and cinnamon onto the warm cookies as they cooled on the counter.

Shlomo, the children’s father, was less patient.  He worked hard, and when he came home, he demanded serenity.  He had little tolerance for the children’s noise and energy, and at times, he could be quite harsh. 

“Sit down and be quiet!” he often yelled.  “If you can’t be quiet, go outside to play—and stay there a while!”  When the children disobeyed his demands for silence, he would bang his fists on the table, causing them to run and hide under their beds.

Luckily for the children, Shlomo traveled extensively for business.  He was often away for very long periods of time, which made Channa angry at him.  She constantly feared he had abandoned them.  When he was home, he never tried to earn their love, and they could sense their mother’s indifference toward him.  Neither she nor her siblings ever developed a close bond with their father. 

While Shlomo might not have been the best father, he was an outstanding provider.  He was in the schmate, or garment, business.  He regularly journeyed to America with clothing patterns.  These patterns were then turned into blue jeans and shirts to be sold to the American public.  He would save up all the money he made and take it back to his family in Poland.  With each homecoming came a bundle of cash, which was spent on a variety of things.  The house and the barn always seemed to need repairs, and the children were always outgrowing their sweaters and shoes. 

Channa loved the family home.  The house had originally been built for Rachel’s mother as a gift from her father, Yonkel, to his only daughter.  The one-story wooden structure had a single fireplace in the kitchen.  A metal roof kept the house watertight, although the rat-tat-tat was loud during the rainy season. There was a covered porch and a charming white fence separating the house from the dirt walkway in front and from the neighbors’ houses on both sides.  In the back was a small livestock barn and a garden where the family grew their own vegetables.  Toward the rear of the property stood a number of mature plum and apple trees that bore sweet fruit, which Channa devoured as soon as they were ripe.

Channa’s great-grandfather, Yonkel, had made a living inscribing and selling Mezuzahs.  A Mezuzah is a tiny parchment scroll.  On it, written in black ink, are two passages from the Torah: Shema Yisorel (“Blessed are you, Lord, our God, sovereign of the universe”) and Vehaya (“Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to affix the mezuzah”).  These two passages declare a family’s faith and unity with God and obligate the bearers to observe Jewish beliefs in and out of the home.  The parchments Yonkel inscribed were placed inside small protective cases that were nailed to the right doorposts of all doors leading inside.

Years passed and life was good for Channa and her family.  The town blossomed as several large Jewish-owned textile mills opened and brought prosperity to many.  The boulevard was crowded with merchants, shoppers, children, and even a few cars.  Electric lines flanked the streets, and horse-drawn carriages, weighed down with bundles of fabrics, rolled down the boulevard.

Channa’s brother, Isaac, married a woman named Frieda and they had two children, Samuel and Ruben.  Isaac worked as a furniture builder for a man with a small shop.  There, they hammered, sawed, and stained wood furniture, filling customers’ orders for tables, chairs, and beds.

Isaac’s children, along with her sister Yetta, provided Channa with an ever-present assortment of playmates.  In addition to her human friends, Channa had several animals.  Her family’s lop-eared goats provided milk for the family and sometimes newborn goats to play with.  One beautiful spring morning, Channa went out to the barn to discover that twin goats had been born during the night.  Two wobbly-legged females stood on the straw with after-birth still hanging off their bodies.  Channa immediately fell in love with one in particular.  She was reddish in color with large patches of white fur, big dark eyes, and long, velvety ears.  She named her Rosa and carried her everywhere until Rosa grew too big.  Whenever Channa entered the barn, Rosa would leap around joyfully.  It was a happy time for Channa.

However, happy times were rapidly coming to an end as Hitler’s war machine crossed into Poland. 

More and more people seemed to be out of work, and large numbers of police were suddenly everywhere.  The atmosphere around the house and within the small town of Baranavichy changed seemingly overnight.

“Remember, you are not allowed to go to the park!” Rachel told Channa as she walked out the front door.  An edict had recently been made that Jews were no longer allowed in parks.

Rachel was starting to feel anxious whenever any of her children were away from her side, and her daughters could feel their mother’s fear.  While outside playing, Channa often spotted grownups huddled in groups and speaking in hushed tones.  Rachel tried to keep dinner discussions off the subject of what was happening, but Channa could not help but overhear disjointed tidbits.  There were frequent mentions of someone name Adolf Hitler and talk of fires and killings.

The list of warnings from Rachel grew longer. 

“Don’t tell anyone where we are hiding the money,” she told Channa as they buried a stocking filled with gold coins beneath the house; banks were no longer available to Jews.  “Don’t leave the house without wearing your coat with the star on it!”  Channa heard as she headed for the front door. 

“Why?” she asked, with a bit of irritation in her voice.

“Because it’s the law!” her mother answered. 

Everyone was nervous and on edge, and everyone was busy hiding their valuables.  Although Channa could not make much sense of it, she could feel that something was deeply wrong.  The home that had always felt so safe was beginning to feel less so.

One evening, someone banged on the front door.  Two heavily armed soldiers told Shlomo he would need to go with them . . . immediately.  He asked over and over again what he had done wrong and where they were taking him.

“Just come with us now,” they said to him. 

Rachel pleaded, and Yetta and Channa cried, but within moments, Rachel, Channa, and Yetta watched their husband and father leave without as much as a good-bye.

Channa screamed hysterically, “Mama, where has he gone?  When will he be coming back?  Why did they take him?  Are those soldiers going to come back and take us away?”  

Rachel stood for a moment, trying to gather her thoughts.  She wanted to give her daughters some comfort, all the while knowing in her heart that their father would not be returning.  After a long pause, she decided to shield them from the terrible realty of the truth with a lie.  “Don’t worry, he will be back.”

 The turmoil inflicted by Hitler’s soldiers continued for several months.  Jewish-owned businesses now had to display yellow stars in their windows.  Physicians could no longer tend to Jewish patients.  A seven o’clock curfew was instituted, and entire families were forcibly removed from their homes in broad daylight.  Then suddenly one day, the mayhem appeared to stop.  The authorities assured the Jews that no further restrictions would be imposed.  A bizarre type of normalcy now controlled their lives.     

For a time, Channa slipped back into her comfortable childhood.  However, Isaac remained skeptical.  Life was not easy under the current restrictions.  Since Isaac could not find work building furniture, he had plenty of time to speak with other young men who were also out of work.  They agreed that Hitler was not done with the Jews yet and that it was time to leave Baranavichy.

Isaac hurried home, eager to speak to his mother. 

“We must leave here!” he told her as she stood by the sink washing dishes.  Even while standing in the safety of their own kitchen, he found it necessary to glance around the room to see if anyone was listening.  His voice dropped to a whisper.  “Things are going to get very difficult, and we had better leave while we still can.”

“No!”  Rachel replied adamantly as she scraped the remnants of the afternoon meal off the plates.  “Why should we uproot the family when everything is quieting down?  What if we go somewhere else and it is even worse?  The neighbors aren’t leaving, and if they don’t think it’s time to go, why should we?”  It was typical of Rachel to use the neighbors as a kind of barometer of what her family should be doing.  “Just wait,” she said.  “Things will get better.”

“Mama, please listen,” Isaac implored her.  “We can’t wait.”

“The neighbor across the street heard that the Red Army is getting close.  When they get here, we will all be safe,” his mother said as she dried her hands on a towel.

Isaac shook his head sadly.  He knew in his heart that he should insist they all leave, but he did not know how to convince her and would never leave without her.  So he kissed his mother goodbye and walked home to his wife and children.

For a brief time life was indeed better.  Then, abruptly, things took a turn for the worse.  Channa watched as neighborhoods were cordoned off.  Bales of barbed wire were unrolled and secured to posts, and places that had been accessible just the day before, suddenly were not.  Street signs were torn down and replaced with new ones written in German.  Since not everyone in the town was fluent in German, many people inadvertently wandered into restricted areas and were severely punished.  One day, Channa sadly watched as her mother turned the radio in to the authorities.  Then, suddenly, she was no longer allowed to attend school.  She was now home all day, which should have been a treat, but somehow was not.

Rachel was walking home from the market place one afternoon when she saw a group of people huddled together around the community bulletin board where all the edicts were posted.  She made her way to the front of the crowd and read the newest posting:

ALL FARM ANIMALS ARE TO BE TAKEN TO THE TRAIN STATION IMMEDIATELY

She hurried home.  As she approached the house, she spotted Channa playing with Yetta.  There was no way to sugarcoat the news. 

“Channa,” she said, “tomorrow morning, we must take all the animals to the train station.”

“No!” Channa said, spinning away and refusing to look at her mother.

But Rachel would not relent.  She put down her bags, held Channa’s face roughly, and stared into her eyes.

“We need to stay invisible to the Germans!” she said in a tone Channa had never heard before.  It was the sound of genuine terror.  Channa knew she had no choice.

The next morning, Channa walked into the barn.  Rosa hurried over.  She stroked Rosa’s head and velvety ears, sadly slipped a rope over the mama goat’s head, and led her away with the twins following close behind.

As they approached the station, Channa heard the sounds of sheep, goats, chickens, and geese.  All had been brought to the station.  A number of freight cars waited with their doors open, and a mass of people were handing their livestock to Germans who were haphazardly placing them into the windowless freight cars.  Tearfully, Channa hugged Rosa’s neck, feeling the goat’s coarse hair against her cheek, and said goodbye.  Her eyes were filled with worry as she looked up at her mother. 

“They’ll be fine,” Rachel assured her.

Conditions continued to deteriorate, and Channa watched day after day as Jewish families were forced out of their homes.  One morning, as Channa played quietly in the living room, a German soldier walked into the family’s home without even knocking.  He announced that their house was to be converted into a Nazi headquarters. 

“But this is our home!” Rachel exclaimed.

“You have no choice!” the stone-faced soldier told them.  “Grab everything you are able to carry on your back.” 

“And where shall we go?” she asked, not quite believing it was all happening. 

 “The nearest ghetto is a few miles away,” he continued.

Channa was broken-hearted.  In her childlike innocence and ignorance, she had hoped she and her family would be spared, but all of a sudden, it was her turn to leave. 

As they gathered the basic necessities and a few valuables, Rachel was forced to acknowledge that she had indeed waited too long to make their getaway.  Now she and her two daughters would need to focus their energies on learning how to survive.

A German soldier had also visited Isaac and his family that day.  They, too, had been evicted from their home and were heading for the ghetto.

The ghetto was ten blocks long.  Polish citizens who happened to have homes in the newly designated ghetto area had been “asked” to give up their smaller homes for the newly vacated larger homes of the Jews.  A single-family house in the ghetto was now going to be occupied by multiple Jewish families.  German soldiers directed arriving families toward specific homes.  Each family unit was allotted a room and everyone in the house shared the kitchen.  There was a minimal amount of furniture, and drying laundry was always draped across the room.  The windows no longer bore curtains, as that fabric was now needed for more practical uses.  It was impossible to keep warm with the cold drafts of air blowing through the unprotected windows.  Isaac and his family had a room down the hall from his mother and his sisters, and they all derived comfort from being in the same house together.

Channa had brought very little with her to the ghetto, just some clothing, shoes, and a few of her favorite possessions.  Seated in the room that would be her home, she had much to mourn.  Someone else would living in her house, and someone else would be sleeping in her soft bed.  The sense of security she once took for granted was now lost forever.

Because quarters were so close and they had so little, Yetta and Channa began fighting about nearly everything.  On occasion, their squabbles were so noisy that the family in the next room banged on the walls.  One afternoon, the woman from next door burst into their room and threatened to contact the Jewish Police.  Rachel was not especially scared; the neighbor woman surely would not want to create trouble for herself.

Rachel and her two daughters did their best to maintain some semblance of a normal life, but conditions were bad.  Food provisions, which consisted of small portions of bread and meat (usually horse), were dispensed once every two weeks, so the search for food was relentless.  Each day, Rachel and her daughters dressed warmly and headed out to begin their search for ways to supplement their meager diet.  In the middle of what was now a car-less street, vendors, mostly women, placed their pitifully few saleable possessions on makeshift tables or spread them out on blankets on the ground.  Some of these vendors had acquired their surplus of food from black marketers who had smuggled them into the ghettos.

Buyers crowded around them, arguing about the price.  Negotiating the cost of a potato usually took Rachel quite a while, so when Yetta and Channa grew sufficiently bored with the haggling, they would run and join the other children.  Within the safety of a group, the youngsters braved the new barbed wire fencing that the Nazis had recently put up.  There was something strangely fascinating about the razor like protrusions that adorned the loops.  With Jews disappearing weekly, these new fences systematically shrank the size of the ghetto.  Channa stared at the coils of razors along the bottom of the fence.  How small her world was becoming. 

At home, Rachel made sure nothing was wasted of their precious purchases.  She carefully saved potato peels and other scraps that, until recently, would have been saved for the goats.  Clothing, although tattered, could be sewn almost new again.

 “Remember not to throw anything away,” she repeated to Channa and Yetta so many times that Channa even heard those words in her sleep.

One afternoon, Channa and Yetta went out into the sunshine on a cold, clear day.  Everyone was wearing hats and some had donned blankets to ward off the chill.  A short distance from where Channa and Yetta stood was a German soldier.  They couldn’t help but stare at him.  His black leather boots gleamed, and his thick wool coat looked so warm, but it was his rifle they couldn’t stop looking at.

 “Halt!” he called over, breaking their hypnotic trance.  Startled, Channa held her breath as he approached her.  His eyes were cold and steely as he towered over her.  “Can you sew?” he asked her in German.

“Yes,” Channa answered quickly.

“Wait here!” he ordered.  She could have run, but she was too scared to leave.  She stood there, frozen in place for what felt like hours.  She feared for her little sister, but dared not send her away.  Finally, the soldier returned, spilling a load of dirty, stinking, hole-riddled socks into her arms. 

“Mend them and bring them back to me tomorrow!” he ordered.

As Channa walked home with Yetta, she was careful not to drop a single sock.  Yetta pushed open the doors to their home and they ran into the kitchen to tell Rachel what had happened. 

“What should I do now?” Channa asked her mom as she dropped the socks onto the table.

“Well, you’re not going to give them back!” her mom told her sternly.  “We’ll give them to Isaac.  And make sure the soldier never sees you again.

As the sun was coming up one morning, the sounds of gunshots and shattering windows woke Rachel and her daughters.  They ran over and looked out the window.  Rachel knew instantly what was happening: a Pogrom, an organized killing.  They ran out the back door and sought entry to a hiding place beneath the house that they had prepared for such a moment.  They crawled on their hands and knees and then on their bellies until they were deep inside. The earth was cold and wet, and the floorboards above them left little space for movement.

Channa and her family spent a long, cold, hungry, bathroom-less day there, but it was the darkness that frightened Channa the most.