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LEGACY

My mother and I are extremely grateful to the United States of America. Refugees like us understand the greatness of this country. We don't expect perfection, we know it doesn't exist anywhere in this world. But as so many refugees have done before, my mother and I were able to rebuild our lives and to build a future for ourselves. We have had to work very hard, and continue to do so, but we have made it from 'displaced person' status, with no money at all, to the ranks of the great American middle class.

I have tried to live a normal life and have succeeded to a large extent. Very few people know about my early history or my feelings. I realize that in comparison to many other survivors, my mother and I didn't suffer much. It was difficult, to be sure, but we were relatively lucky. What was most devastating for us were the family losses that we suffered. This loss of people I never knew, don't even have pictures of for the most part, is a source of never ending sorrow. And I have spent so many years of my life denying this sorrow. How can I miss people I never knew? How could I be hurt by circumstances I can't remember? I felt I had no right to grieve. I don't know. I only know that the older I get, and the more I try to suppress these feelings, the harder it becomes to do so.

One of my biggest fears in life has always been that someone will see me cry. Since I've been a little girl, I've tried not to let anyone see my cry, tried not to let the pain or hurt show. After all, why should I hurt? I don't remember my father and grandparents. I never knew the aunts, uncles, and cousins that were killed, not even via photographs. I was too young to remember the war itself, the bombings, the hunger, the fear. I wasn't in a concentration camp. So, I mustn't cry. No one would

understand. I don't understand.

It's common when new people meet, to discuss where they were born, their family histories etc. When people ask me where I was born, I feel slightly panicky. What should I tell them? I don't want to go into long explanations. I tell them I grew up in upper Manhattan. It's a subtle evasion because they usually assume I was born there. If I mention I was born in Hungary, they assume it was after the war. If I tell them the place and the year, I see their eyes open, the speculation, and then the question, "How did you survive ?" It feels like an accusation. Then I have to give explanations, it's too complicated.

But I'm tired of hiding my past - like a criminal. As I have grown older, it has become harder and harder not to cry, to hold it all in. I cry more and more. I pick up a newspaper or a magazine, and too often there's an article about a war criminal's trial, or about a survivor. Radio interviews, movies, books - I feel constantly attacked by reminders of World War II. The Holocaust? I hate that word. Is it because the word attempts to describe or categorize the indescribable? I avoid anything that has to do with the topic, when I can, but it often sneaks up on me.

Like the Sunday in October, 1985, when I was driving home after several hours of taping the second interview with my mother. It had taken many years and much effort to get us both to the actual point of doing it. It was around five or six in the afternoon, an overcast, early fall day. As I drove along the Belt Parkway, I met with the usual construction delays and I was trying to empty my mind and body of the tenseness and emotional strain of the interview. As usual when driving, I was listening to the radio. I kept switching back and forth between my regular stations, WOR and WNYC, which are both talk stations. Neither one was very interesting that afternoon, but I finally settled on WNYC. Anything to take my mind off the last few hours. There were a couple of jazz musicians talking about their experiences and playing recordings of their music. I'm not particularly fond of jazz, but I needed something to occupy my mind. So I listened and tried to relax. I didn't want to review the afternoon's events. I was too exhausted and emotionally drained.

As I approached the toll booth on the Staten Island side of the Verrazano Bridge, I felt glad that I would soon be home. I heard the announcer say that the program was over and we had been listening to 'Studs Terkel's Almanac'. "Listen again next week", he said, "when Studs Terkel will interview David Weiman about his book, 'The Abandonment of the Jews in World War II'". It was like a shot going through me. I started to smile at the irony of it, as the tears came to my eyes again. It's always like that, out of the blue, just when I least expect it, just as I was trying to rid my mind of the subject, there it was again, coming at me.

Sometimes I even have something like a panic attack - I start to shake, tears well up in my eyes, my stomach knots up. In public, I frantically repress the tears, control any overt reaction. If I'm alone, I finally have begun to allow myself to cry. I keep hoping I'll cry it all out and get over with it. It hasn't happened yet.

I remember the first time it happened to me. It took place at The City College of New York. I was a history major and was taking a course in Twentieth Century History. The teacher told us one day that our next class would meet in some auditorium to see a movie relating to our subject matter. He didn't say what the movie was about. No warning. I walked into the auditorium and the movie began. It was about the war and had footage taken in the concentration camps right after the war. It was the first time I saw those now well known scenes. I started to shake, I was going to cry or I was crying, and I was desperate. What will I do when the lights go on and the class and teacher see me crying? What will I say? How can I explain the fact that I'm crying. Everyone knows its gruesome, but they're not crying. It's terrible, but it didn't happen to them. How can I tell them that that's what happened to my father, my grandparents, and most of my family? That was the first time. It has happened many times since.

Then there was the summer of '64, after my junior year in college. My best friend and I went on our first trip to Israel with a group organized by an Orthodox college organization called "Yavneh". I don't think it exists anymore. Our group consisted of about twenty college students, and we spent five weeks in Israel and two weeks in Europe. It was a wonderful experience, one of the highlights of my life.

I'll never forget my first view of Jerusalem. We had arrived at night, were driven straight to our hotel, and went straight to bed. We were so excited on the airplane, we hadn't slept all night. As well as being my first trip out of the country since 1949, it was also my first plane trip. I loved every second of it. So we went straight to sleep. The next morning, we woke up and opened the shutters to look out the window. We were staying at the Malon Melachim, The King's Hotel, which is on a hill. Looking out the window, below me I saw a vista full of orange tile rooftops covering cream stone houses, green trees, flowers, all in dazzlingly bright sunlight. It was so beautiful. What a spectacular introduction to the country. That summer was a wonderful experience, one of the highlights of my life.

As part of our stay in Jerusalem, it was only natural that we should visit the Yad Vashem Memorial. I went with great trepidation. As always, I was afraid of what my reaction would be. Yet I could not justify not going, to myself or to the rest of the group. I felt that it was a mandatory thing for me to do, and I went.

The first thing that met my eyes, hanging from the ceiling, was a blown up photograph of Anne Frank. There were a number of victim's pictures hanging there but it is the only one I remember. I always react strongly to pictures of Anne Frank. "Diary of Anne Frank" was one of the only books I voluntarily read, or movies I saw, on this topic. I think I identify with her very strongly. Though there are many differences between us, she was older, from an assimilated Dutch family, and I came from an Eastern European Chassidic background, but I have a picture of myself taken in Newark, New Jersey, when I was about seven or eight years old, and I think I look like her in that picture. I survived. She did not. Her picture always affects me very strongly. That was the beginning of the tour.

We continued our tour of the museum and I maintained my cool. I managed to get through the whole tour without disgracing myself. I don't even remember much about the rest of day except for one more thing. In one of the glass fronted cases with artifacts from the camps, I came across an armband worn by one the inmates, with his name written on it - Mayer Friedman, it read. I know that it is a common Jewish name. It is highly unlikely that it was ever worn by my father, but what a jolt went through me! What a feeling of shock! I'll never forget it. All I remember from that day were those two things, the photograph, and the armband. I had been prepared for a difficult day, but I hadn't been prepared for that. That's what happens so often, the unexpectedness of the assault on my emotions. I never went to visit Yad Vashem again on any of my subsequent visits to Israel. Once was enough. I did my duty.

Yizkor is one of the difficult, recurrent times that I have to maintain control. I try to prepare myself mentally- "Try not to cry. Prepare yourself. I'm not going to cry. Listen to the names. You don't know these people. Don't think about it. Keep the tears form rolling down. Don't let anyone see your wet eyes. Sniffle quietly. Don't use a tissue to blow your nose till later, so no one will guess. Only the old ladies cry." Lately, I try to get out of going when I can. I don't need formal reminders. My loss is always with me. I think about it often enough.

Little things give me a pang. We go to a Bar Mitzvah or a wedding, and there are grandparents at the celebration. I never knew any. When I was in the jewelry business, people would sometimes bring pieces they had received as gifts or inherited from an aunt or grandmother. It may or may not have had much monetary value, but it didn't matter. They wanted it fixed or remodeled because it had sentimental value to them. I don't even know what my father and most of my family looked like. I don't have anything from them. No mementoes, no heirlooms, not even memories. Just the stories that my mother has told me about them. Thank God I have that. Recently I finally got hold of some pictures of my paternal grandparents from an aunt of mine. I didn't know they existed. I still don't have any pictures of my father or maternal grandparents. I doubt I ever will. It's a terrible thing not to know what a parent looks like. I can understand the anguish of adopted children and their wish to know who their parents were.

One of the few times I allow myself the luxury of crying is as I listen to my mother's tapes and write about them. No one can see me. I never work on them when my husband, or children, or anyone else is around. I can cry. Strangely, crying doesn't make me feel better. But much to my surprise, I feel better while I'm writing this. I guess that's why I'm doing it.

Why? Why can't I stop crying? I'm not the only person who has had a difficult childhood. Why does it get worse rather than better with time? Why doesn't the pain go away? I know the rationalization. Every person is unique. Everyone reacts differently in a given situation. I am entitled to feel what I feel, period. I should not need to justify myself, but I do.

I have always felt as if I were invisible, as if I really weren't there. People don't really know I'm alive. If I hear that someone mentioned my name in conversation, I'm always surprised because I didn't think I exist in other people's awareness. I feel as if I have to justify my existence, to find a reason for having survived. Is this a form of survivors guilt? I suppose so. Another label.

I get depressed from time to time. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I'm inherently weak, maybe because I am genetically predisposed to depression. Maybe it's empathy for my mother's pain. She has had nightmares all the years since the war, about her home, her parents, and her family. She dreams that she's home again with her mother and father. And when she wakes up the pain is fresh, as if she just lost them again. It's so painful for her and it hurts me too.

It's easy to ascribe my depression to my early experiences and losses. But many people have had experiences as bad or worse than mine. They have overcome - I should overcome too. I have and I haven't. I function fairly well and am not incapacitated. Casual friends or acquaintances don't know. It just drains me. I live with the depression, the pain, the loss, as with a low grade fever or illness.

I also suffer from what many people call a 'ghetto mentality'. I do not want to be immediately recognized as a Jew in public. When I go somewhere with my family I always want them to wear caps or hats instead of "yarmulkas". They don't like that, but I'm uneasy to be recognized immediately as a Jew. I'm really afraid that someone might hurt us somehow, just for being Jewish. And it can happen and has happened, even here in America. We have only experienced some minor incidents, my sons were taunted by young toughs in passing cars, or some young men once threw pennies in front of my husband and me as they walked by us on the street. But I am always afraid.

I feel a responsibility for Jews the world over. When they do something positive, win a prize or something, I feel proud. When something bad happens or a crime is committed, my first reaction often is - did a Jew do it? Are there Jews involved? I feel the need to justify my existence as a Jew and the existence of the Jewish people as a whole, by constantly proving to myself that we, as a people, have contributed and continue to contribute positively to the good of the world. And even though it is possible to prove that, I am still never at ease or satisfied.

I am afraid - of death, of violence, of the situation in the state of Israel, of the state of the world. I am afraid for my children. I usually expect the worst, yet I know I am lucky. My life is good. God has spared me and my mother. I have a wonderful husband, good, healthy sons, food and shelter. I live in America, for which I am grateful. I count my blessings, but oh how many times I have wished that I had never been born.