'World

Cultivating Her Roots

Holocaust survivors' relative visits Poland with eyes wide open.

Suzy Hagstrom

Special to the Jewish News

Chmielnik, Poland

F

or Arlene Garfinkel Speiser,
the child and niece of Jewish
Holocaust survivors, Poland rep-
resents contradiction in the extreme: ter-
ror and tentative hope, death and renewal.
The Detroit native and Farmington
Hills resident anticipated seeing the town
where her late father, Nathan Garfinkel,
was born. She also dreaded beholding the
family tree so cruelly truncated by World
War II's genocide.
Speiser, who operates a market research
company in Southfield, has traveled to
Chmielnik, Poland, twice: once with her
father in 1990 and this summer with her
Aunt Helen Garfinkel Greenspan of Orlando.
In 1990, Speiser found the Jewish cem-
etery in ruins and its broken tombstones
paving Chmielnik's sidewalks. Spray-
painted swastikas marred the synagogue.
She heard people mutter, "Go home, Jews."
In June, Speiser returned to witness the
Jewish cemetery partially restored and
the synagogue in early stages of renova-
tion. Chmielnik's mayor kissed her hand
at ceremonies honoring five Holocaust
survivors.
"This is amazing;' Speiser said while
accompanying her aunt and cousins to
Europe. Expecting hostility, she encoun-
tered transformation instead. After buying
airline tickets, the family learned their trip
coincided with Chmielnik's Jewish festival.
"A Jewish festival in Chmielnik? How
can this be?" Greenspun asked. "There are
no Jews left:'
With a current population of 4,200,
Chmielnik was home to 10,000 Jews and
2,000 non-Jews before World War II.
Nearly all of the Jews, including Speiser's
grandparents, died in Treblinka's gas
chambers.
The festival evolved from a 2002 com-
memoration of Chmielnik's 450th anni-
versary. City officials and teachers reserved
one day to present the former Jewish com-
munity."We thought to explain the Jewish
culture was important:' said Piotr Krawczyk,
Chmielnik's fulltime historian. "Chmielnik
was a Jewish town. No question"
Several thousand gathered for klezmer
music and Israeli folk dancing in the town

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September 25 • 2008

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square, where German soldiers and snarl-
ing dogs herded Speiser's father and aunts
into trucks in 1942.
Remarkably, five Garfinkel siblings
survived Hasag's ammunition factories
in Skarzysko-Kamienna, Kielce and
Czestochowa; the German concentration
camps of Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald
and Dachau; and grueling death march-
es. Sonia Nothman, 85, and Regina
Muskovitz, 79, live in Detroit. The late
Bela Soloway lived many years in Detroit
before retiring to Florida. The late Nathan
Garfinkel rebuilt his life in Detroit, where
he lectured for the Holocaust Memorial
Center.
Traveling with Greenspan helped Speiser
"put into pictures the stories I've heard
all my life:" She likened her first visit to a
Pandora's Box that wouldn't quite open.
"When I came with my father, we didn't
get the family story. We didn't get his story.
We got the political story," Speiser recalled.
"We wanted to see the house, but Dad
would say, later: And we didn't see the
house. Now the things I wanted I'm get-
ting from my Aunt Helen:'
Speiser and her cousins often lagged
behind Greenspun as the 81-year-old
charged ahead on cobblestone streets to
find familiar places. On reaching No. 9
Kielcska, Greenspun wept, overcome by
memories of her mother fetching water
from the well. Speiser cried, too, as she

mourned the grandmother she never met.
"My father would tell me how I would love
my grandmother."
A two-story house has replaced the
original stone dwelling and grain store.
Krawczyk confirmed what Greenspun had
heard: the Garfinkel home was destroyed.
As Soviet troops advanced, Krawczyk
explained, they bombed at random.
In 1990, no one would help Speiser and
her father enter Chmielnik's abandoned
synagogue. In June, town officials ushered

her inside for a music concert. Seated
where her grandfather had worshipped,
Speiser turned to look at the balcony
where her grandmother had observed
services.
Plans are under way to convert the syna-
gogue to a museum of Jewish culture by
2012. "We decided to keep the memories for
the new generations," Krawczyk said. "How
can we build the future if we forget the past?"
Marveling at the reception, Speiser noted
that Poland's emergence into the 21st cen-

Sonia Garfinkel Nothman is a longtime
Detroit resident.

Nathan Garfinkel rebuilt his life in
Detroit. He died in 2006.

Regina Garfinkel Muskovitz is a longtime
Detroit resident.

Arlene Garfinkel Speiser of Farmington Hills, second from left, and Helen Garfinkel

Greenspun, front in black sweater, with Arlene's cousins in Chmielnik, Poland, in
June

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