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14 Friday, February 21, 1986

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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

A SHORT STORY

In 1945 the following incident took place
in the death camp of Buchenwald. There
were two young Jewish girls who had be-
come very devoted to one another during
the few months of their imprisonment.
Each was the last survivor of her family.
One morning one of them awoke too weak
too work. Her name was put on the death
list. The other, Raizel Kaidish, argued with
her friend that she, Raizel, should go in-
stead. She would tell the Germans there
had been a mistake, and when they saw
how strong and fit for work she was, it
would be all right. Someone informed on
the girls and they were both gassed. The
informer was rewarded with Raizel's kitch-
en job.
I am named after Raizel Kaidish. My
mother knew her from the camp. It is
noteworthy that although the war took all
her relatives from her, my mother chose
to name her first child, her only child, after
someone outside the family, after the
heroine of block eight, Buchenwald.
My mother's moral framework was
formed in the camp. Forged in the fires, it
was strong and inflexible. One of her cen-
tral concerns was that I, without myself
suffering, would come to know all that she
had learned there.
My moral education began at an early
age. It consisted at first of tales from the
camp. People in my real life were nice or
mean, usually a little of both. But in the
tales there were only saints and sinners,
heroes and villains. I remember question-
ing my mother about this, 'and her answer
to me: "When times are normal, Rose, then
normal people are a little nice and a little
mean together. But when there are hard
times, when there is not enough to eat or
drink, when there is war, then you don't
find a little nice and a little mean mixed
together. You find only greatness. Very
great badness and very great goodness."
The people in my life did not seem so real
to me as the people in the tales, When I
closed my eyes I couldn't picture the faces
of my friends or family. All that I could
make out.of my father was a vaguely sad
face around the glinting rimless glasses.
(It seemed, in my child's mind, that the
light bouncing off from those polished
lenses gave the wrong impression, sug-
gesting something hard and resistant,
whereas I knew that everything in my
father yielded to the tonch.) Even my
mother's features wouldn't come into
focus, only her outline; tall and always
erect, in the grey or dark blue suit and the
white blouse, her light brown hair in a low
bun at the nape of her neck.
But my images of the camp were vivid
and detailed. The pink rosebuds on my
wallpaper were$ t not as real to me as the

The Legacy
Of Raizel Kaidish

BY REBECCA GOLDSTEIN

.

Rebecca Goldstein is ,the author\ of a noue4

Art By Michael Mantilla

The Mind-Body Problem.

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