COMMUNITY VIEWS
The Voices Of Children:
A Holocaust 'Education'
Working with
oral testimonies of
Holocaust sur-
vivors differs from
historical research
of any other sort.
Unlike a written
memoir, which
usually evolves
clearly toward
some point(s) or theme(s), a spoken
narrative, when genuinely sponta-
neous, rarely will do that and simply
cannot be so ordered.
At times, the interviewer's task may
be to uncover a hidden thematic uni-
formity, one not at all obvious to a lis-
tener or the speaker. But such a dis-
covered uniformity often appears arti-
ficial, created or composed by the lis-
tener. Among the numerous difficul-
ties a researcher might encounter is
the essentially anecdotal nature of the
testimonies — disconnected stories
with each seeming isolated from the
others may not have a relationship to
any of the others.
I would like to address that anecdo-
tal aspect of some of my own inter-
views and offer some suggestions
about a particular theme: the educa-
tion of children during the Holocaust.
Sid Bolkosky is a professor of history at
U-M Dearborn. This is a portion of a
talk to be delivered at a conference on
oral histories at Yak University.
I use the term "education" in the
broadest sense, a bit sarcastically per-
haps, but deadly serious as the speak-
ers were when they mentioned it.
In 1940, Jewish bOys in Sub-
carpathian Ruthenia would leave their
homes in small towns and villages to
attend a yeshiva, perhaps in Munkacz
or Chust or Ungvar or Sighet. They
would go by bus or walk the 20-30
miles, be put up at the home of a rela-
tive or stranger, sleep on the floor, take
one meal a day with a strange family,
all for the sake of learning Talmud. A
more religious region cannot be imag-
ined: As one survivor told me, "Reli-
gion was breathed in and out" by the
residents.
Those cities shut down on Shabbat:
In Ungvar, a Jewish doctor headed the
municipal hospital; 1/3 of the city
council were Jews; the Hebrew ele-
mentary school was located on Herzl
Street, and the orthodox archbishop of
the seminary had excellent relations
with the rabbi.
At least in the memory of many
survivors, often idealized, "It was won-
derful," as one of them exclaimed.
Wonderful in spite or because of the
internal conflicts between rebbes —
the Belzer rebbe driven from
Munkacz, the conflicts with the Vish-
nitzer Chasidim in Sighet, not to
mention the Neolog battles and the
disagreements between Chasidim and
Mitnagdim.
One interviewee who adhered to
the nearly legendary description of
that life dominated by "study, charity,
righteousness, piety and social con-
science," said they determined virtual-
ly every action of the Jews in that part
of the world. He said this as both of
us recognized those bitter animosities
between factions: Chasidic rebbes who
cursed each other and modernists,
some of whom, like the Munkacz or
the Sotmar rebbes, cursed, too, the
incipient Zionists in various towns.
Each of those cities so central to
Jewish life and learning shared a phe-
nomenon: the railroad. The train went
to Chust, to Munkacz, Ungvar,
Beregkacz and Kossice, where it
stopped while the Hungarian gen-
darmes ceded authority to the German
SS as the train entered Poland on its
way to the railroad district of Opeln,
through Tarnow, Krakow to the sta-
tion at Auschwitz. If they did not
learn about the scheduled itineraries
and administrative procedures of the
railway bureaucrats, they learned
about the connection between boxcars
and terror, a rudimentary pedagogical
lesson.
Thus began a new education for
them, an initiation into the world of
death. They did not go to those cities
to attend yeshivot this time, but to
brick factories and fenced-in fields or
neighborhoods — to makeshift ghet-
tos.
Of course, not all Jews experienced
the same type of tortuous "education
for death" as Alvin Rosenfeld has
dubbed Wiesen journey into the
Holocaust that led to Auschwitz. Here
is part of the education of a 6-year-old
child hidden by a Ukranian farmer in
a barn for 2 1/2 years. See what she
learned, the sort of knowledge she
possessed by the time she was 7:
"How do I even begin to describe
what it was like to be imprisoned in a
small corner of a barn for 2 1/2 years?
How do you push yourself against a
bale of hay so that you feel better? So
that it would give you protection
against the outside world? And how
can I explain the paralyzing fear that
doesn't allow you to think or feel any-
thing human? Or see anything else
around you?
HOLOCAUST on page 38
30 ("We Are Living The Sandwich
Generation"), touched our hearts and
minds.
By spotlighting his personal experi-
ences of stressful caregiving, he
opened the door to further probe the
neglected status of Jewish caregivers in
our community.
Yes, indeed, we provide meals on
wheels, handymen and human contact
to many aged who live alone.
A social worker will even be provid-
ed to a family seeking to place the
elderly relative in a nursing home.
Who offers respite time and/or tempo-
rary aid to the overstressed caregiver
who is often without family residing
in the local area?
A case history reveals the gap in
Jewish caring. For 10 years, the spouse
cared for her mate through heart
attacks, five bypass operations, gall
bladder, spine, etc. Added were peri-
ods of hospital stays resulting in great
difficulty in obtaining transportation
for the spouse to visit.
From meager savings, seven part-
time aides were hired weekly to assist
in household tasks and shopping. The
caregiver spouse, in ill health herself,
was coping with arthritis, allergies,
asthma and carrying more burdens in
directing the different personalities as
well as attending, day and night, her
beloved husband.
Finally, she realized she needed to
make a change for the sake of survival.
She moved to an assisted living resi-
dence where she hoped her spouse
would be given morning and evening
assistance in dressing.
Soon, it was found that the resi-
dence was poorly staffed. Out of five
days, once again the spouse had to
o by WZPS/Israel Museum
SID BOLKOSKY
Special to The Jewish News
A young girl during the Kristallnacht
pogrom in 1938.
LETTERS
U.S. should be unmistakenly warm and
entusiastic. It is with this in mind that
he readily accepted the invitation
extended to him by evangelical Chris-
tians who, as anticipated, gave him a
rousing welcome. It was a tactical, well
calculated move by the prime minister,
designed to send a "message" to the
White House that the administration's
"impatience" with Netanyahu's peace
policy is not shared by substantial seg-
ments of the American electorate. It was
never intended as an endorsement of
the evangelist Christian's millenialist
agenda.
That the "message" was not lost
upon President Clinton was evident in
Thomas L. Friedman's column in the
New York Times of Jan. 24, indicating
that "when Prime Minister Benyamin
Netanyahu of Israel and Presidnet
Clinton sat down in the Oval Office,
2/13
1998
34
Mr. Clinton began by clearing the air.
The president, according to U.S. and
Israeli officials, basically said to Mr.
Netanyahu, 'I know you're upset
about reports that we are stiffing you
and that we are not doing a lunch for
you and that you are not staying in
the Blair House. But before you came
in here today, you met with my sworn
enemies ... so, Prime Minister, we are
even.' The two pols then had a laugh
over their mutual attempts to stick it
to each other."
Ezekiel Leikin
Southfield
Caregivers
Are Neglected
The article written by Alan Goodman,
appearing in Community Views Jan.