Secrets in the Suitcase: Stories My Mother Never Told Me

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© 2012 by Rosalie Greenberg, M.D. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/03/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-8209-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-8210-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-8211-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012919493

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION: BASHERT

FROM HER PEERS

1.   IN HER OWN WORDS

What 3Writing Does for Me

The Truth: To Tell or Not Tell?

My Teacher

2.   THE EARLY YEARS

The Background

I Remember My Mother

M.O.T.H.E.R.

The Dog

Malkale: Youthful Memories

Forbidden Fruit

In Poland

In Poland (A Poem)

Helen

Mud

A True Friend

Sukkot

Kitty

Aunt Fiegelle

Vacation Days

The Prize

Wander Vest

March to a Different Drummer

Fire

3.   THE WAR YEARS

The End of the Skala Jewish Community

Thou Shall Not Question G-d’s Actions

Love

Today versus Yesterday

Mazel - לזמ

A Chanukah Miracle

Destination

A New Neighbor

Almost Done

The Golden Bracelet

The Pig

Please Don’t Forget

Friendly Advice

Decisions

In the Bunker

Mommy, Tell Me Why

4.   THE WAR IS OVER

The Aftermath

The Mezuzah

A Tear, One Tear

Love Letter

The Secret

I Love You Not for Your Virtues but in Spite of Your Faults

Mayn Scheichlech (My Shoes)

The Wedding

Laughter

Charity

A Gift

A Tear—II

5.   AMERICA

The Trip to America

The Hospitable Lady

An Unfinished Story

If

What’s in a Name?

New Experiences

From Primitive to Modern

1938 Sixty-Seventh Street

Aunt Fanny, Mamele

The Beach

Kolade

To Forgive but Not Forget

Why Do I Hurt?

Reserved

Being Ill

Brown

The First Time I Heard the Word Shoplifter

The Storm

She Looks Exactly Like You

A Simcha (A Celebration)

An Overprotective Mother

Treasure in the Attic

Being Someone or Something Else

Newfound Friends

My First Trip

No Escape

I Belong

Changes

Decisions, Decisions …

Tradition

Status Seekers

Anti-Semitism

Germs

Ruthie

Riva

A Surprise Party

Nachas

Zayde

Longnose

A Career Choice

Labels

Nature’s Laws

Starting All Over

A Little Bit Better, A Little Bit Bigger, A Little Bit Longer

Parents and Children

Outraged

It Seems To Me

Epilogue: ALWAYS A MOTHER

Always a Mother

A Child’s Prayer

SAM GREENBERG’S STORY

Although I have put the stories together, there is no question that this book was written by Molly Greenberg, my mother.

I strongly believe that she would support my words.

This book is dedicated to the memories of my mother’s sisters and brothers: Roza, Helen, Rubin, Mendel, and Lieb Feuerstein.

And to my father’s parents and sister:

Abraham, Jochewet, and Hannah Greenberg.

And to all the victims of senseless bigotry and hatred, whose lives were cut short—may their memory be a blessing. Amen.

Acknowledgments

Many people helped me make this book of my mother’s words a reality. I must thank my close friend, Lois Tigay, for getting me started on this journey by helping transcribe my mother’s stories. Thank you, Natalie Elman, for your assistance with the title, even when the book was still just a concept in my head. I am indebted to Sunny Yudkoff for her masterful translation of my mother’s Yiddish poem. I am grateful to Sandy Marino, Claire Guadagno, and Faye Cunningham for their unflagging encouragement and support. As always, thank you Jacqueline Tull; without you, my day-to-day life would be so much harder, and finishing this effort would have taken much longer.

My parents’ longtime friends from Brooklyn, Judith and Israel Shiloff, were helpful when we met to talk about my parents’ experiences after arriving in America. To Tony Hauser and Max Mermelstein, I applaud all your hard work to keep knowledge of our common Skala roots alive. Max and Clara Mermelstein, Malcia Rothstein, and Leo and Susie Karpfen were all so kind in opening up their homes and their hearts to me in discussing memories that I know at times were very painful. I am indebted to Susie for her input with the manuscript.

Without my dear friend and communications director Marisa Tuhy’s persistence and belief in me, this book might not have been completed. To her family: Jim, Tess, Alice, and Nora, I thank you for your patience and generosity in sharing your wife and mother’s time and talents to help me with my project.

My sister, Evelyn, and I are beyond thankful to Molly Burack, who taught our mother’s creative writing class at the West Orange Jewish Community Center. By appreciating and encouraging our mom’s creative efforts, Molly provided her with a safe way to finally let out her innermost feelings of pain and torment.

I am eternally indebted to my husband, Soly; my sons, Ryan and Matt; and my sweet dog, Asta, for reminding me every day, just by their presence, how blessed I am.

Last but not at all least, I have to thank my parents for giving me such an amazing sister, Evelyn. Her limitless love, support, and strength in everyday life is more than any sibling could hope for. Helping me with this book in different ways—accompanying me on visits to our parents’ old friends, spending hours going over the minutia in the manuscript to make sure our mother’s words were clear and right—made it easier for this book to exist. Thank you, Sis, with all my heart.

Introduction

Bashert

Bashert (טרעשַאב) is a Yiddish word that means destiny, fated, kismet, or the phrase what’s meant to be is meant to be. I often heard my mother utter this term when I was a young child growing up in Brooklyn. She would use it to explain the reason why something happened—whether good or bad. It was her way of helping me make sense of things that on occasion defied reason.

Looking back at my life, I realize that the concept of bashert has served me well as an important calming and grounding belief. As you will soon learn, the discovery of my mother’s stories and the subsequent creation of this book fall under that same guidepost.

It was the spring of 2007. My older sister, Evelyn (aka Evie), decided to remodel her kitchen. Rummaging through her drawers, cleaning before the destruction of the old kitchen and the planned construction of the new one, she came across a few items that she couldn’t quite place. One of them was a small key that was hiding in the back of a narrow cutlery drawer. After a few seconds of thought, she decided that it probably belonged to something insignificant and long gone. After all, had it had meaning, she’d never have left it in such a hidden place.

With that, she put the key in the middle of the kitchen table, with all the rest of the odds and ends she continued to discover.

Once she got started in the kitchen, she was so driven that she decided she had to take on the basement. The children’s old toys, her old books from college, and her spouse’s neglected shoes from his youth were all sent packing.

In the midst of this cleaning furor, she found a vaguely familiar small suitcase. It was a black metallic American Standard case, probably as old as her thirty-four years of marriage. It had been her husband’s gift from my parents when he finished law school. She pressed the appropriate tabs repeatedly but nothing happened. Looking more carefully, she realized that this particular black case required a key. Thirty years later, where was this key? She didn’t remember. Evelyn brought the case up from the basement to throw out with the other discarded items she piled together. It was then she remembered the key in the middle of the kitchen table. Well, she thought, there was nothing to lose. Evelyn got the key, and to her astonishment, it slid right in. The case opened effortlessly. No, it did not contain gold or diamonds or jewelry but one-of-a-kind items that were of inestimable and infinite value to the right people. In this satchel were the stories of my mother’s life. Any adult child would be excited to make such a discovery. The difference here is that my mother never really spoke about her childhood to my sister and me as we were growing up.

You see, my sister Evelyn and I always knew that our parents were originally from Poland and survivors of World War II and Adolf Hitler’s attempts to make the world Judenfrei (free of Jews). My father had aunts and uncles who came to the United States before the war, who made it possible for him to bring his family to America to start a new life.

Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, we were familiar with some of my father’s family: our great aunts and uncles, my father’s brother, Ben, and our various cousins. We were told a little bit about my dad’s youth in Europe. But our mother never really spoke about her background. We knew the outlines of her life—she was an orphan by age three, raised by her five older siblings. Unlike the rest of her Jewish-looking family, she was born with blond hair, blue eyes, and a small nose. Her looks were the key to her survival as she lived through World War II. By leaving her childhood home and assuming the identity of Mary, a Polish shikse (a non-Jew) she was able to survive. Under this guise, she was able to obtain a job as a Christian maid/nanny for a Polish family that had no idea of her real identity. Her non-Jewish exterior helped her secure ongoing shelter, at least until her true identity was discovered. She then was able to go to another city and not be discovered.

After the war, my mother returned to her former hometown, Skala Podolska, to learn that most of the Jewish people had perished, including her five siblings. Within a few months, she married my father, Sam Greenberg, another Skala survivor who was ten years her senior.

The couple spent the next few years in a displaced persons (DP) camp, called Fohrenwald, in Germany, where my older sister Evelyn was born in October 1946. They stayed there until January 1949 when they received approval for immigration to the United States to join my father’s aunts and uncles, who were residing in New York City. Less than two years later, in December 1950, I was born.

Growing up in Brooklyn, I always felt there was an unspoken horror and pain that existed within my mother’s heart, whose details I did not know.

In 1984, after my sister’s two children, Jonathan and Elysia, were born and I gave birth to my first son, Ryan, my parents made the difficult decision to move to New Jersey from New York City to be near their grandchildren.

It was only a few months later that my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer at age sixty. Ever the fighter, she spent the next ten years courageously battling the illness’s recurrences and progression, through different surgeries, multiple courses of chemotherapy, and radiation treatments.

It was during this time that she joined a creative writing class for seniors at the local Jewish Community Center (JCC) in West Orange, New Jersey. There, through the encouragement of her gifted teacher, Molly Burack, and her supportive classmates (including her spouse, my father, Sam), she was finally able to muster the courage to confront the pain of her past.

During these years, she won two awards for her writing: The Legacies Award (1992), a national competition sponsored by the Jewish Association for Services for the Aged, and a creative writing award by the Authors/Writers Network at Montclair State College. In addition, some of her stories were published in local newspapers during the Jewish holidays. It was through the process of writing that my mother was able to experience a bit of inner peace. She took great pleasure in visiting local elementary schools and reading stories about her childhood to the children. They in turn wrote very sweet letters thanking her for sharing memories of her youth with them.

Mom passed away in June 1995 from complications of her long-standing struggle with cancer.

A few weeks after her funeral, we packed her possessions and put some in storage at Evelyn’s home and mine, and left some with our father when he moved into a senior citizen’s facility.

Dad lived more than a decade after Mom passed away. In his last three years, he developed a post-stroke dementia and spent time living with both my sister’s family as well as my own.

As my children got older, I began to have more time to think about my parents’ lives.

I thought about looking closer at my mother’s stories, assuming there existed no more than twenty in total, and maybe getting some of the pieces published.

Once my sister told me about her fortuitous discovery of my mother’s forgotten writings, I knew that finding the key and the suitcase were the signs that I had to work on this book. Or put another way, as I like to view it, my sister’s discovery meant that this book was truly beshert.

Rosalie Greenberg, MD

August 2012

From Her Peers

My mother’s creative writing class created a book of stories that they dedicated to her. It began the following way:

This volume is dedicated to the memory of our beloved classmate, Molly Greenberg, a Holocaust survivor who found her voice as she opened her heart to us.

Molly Greenberg was a born storyteller. Eagerly the group would await her tales, some heartbreaking, others humorous, always poignant. In 1992, she won a prize in the nationwide Legacies contest for writers over sixty. On several occasions, she read her stories and spoke with grade school children about her own childhood in Poland and her life during the Nazi regime.

Molly Greenberg was a light in our class … gone too soon. May her memory be a blessing.

Teacher Molly Burack

Creative Writing Class

JCC West Orange

1996

CHAPTER ONE

In Her Own Words

What Writing Does for Me

Surviving the terrible ordeal of the Holocaust left me with an