The Sky in One Piece

By Hannah Podob

The word Holocaust, to many people, brings images of concentration camps. Indeed much has been written and documented about those brutal places.

Less documented however, are the thousands of Jews who escaped the death camps and hid from Nazi tormentors in the hills, riverbanks, sheds, sewers and holes they dug in the earth of forests. They were forced to seek help from people they hoped would not betray them.

In Poland, well known for its fierce anti-Semitism even before Hitlers rhetoric, many Jews sentenced themselves to death by believing they could trust their neighbors, friends or even strangers.

David Symchowicz, born in Krakow, Poland, had traveled to Berlin and other European cities during these turbulent times. He understood from scenes in those conurbations that the train of virulent hatred was speeding eastward.

Determined to keep his family together, David, his wife Hela and his daughter, Hania hid in a lean-to for two and a half years. This book tells of their harrowing existence, deprivations and dangers and of the courage and peril faced by the people who hid them.

Of course, anti-Semitism, hammered into the soul for so long cannot be turned off like a stream of water from a faucet. After the war, the Symchowicz family tried to start anew in a small Polish town only to be saved again from a pogrom that killed dozens of Jewish families. They made their way to a Displaced Person camp and eventually to America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 19, 2004
• ISBN: 9781465328007

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Copyright © 2003 by Hannah Podob.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any

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Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

This book is dedicated to

the memory of my mother and father,

Helens and David Simco,

to pay tribute to their boundless love and courage

My profound thanks to Patricia Gitt who encouraged me from the very beginning. To Lou Willett Stanek who developed my capacity and very patiently guided me through the process. I am deeply grateful to Barbara Cyran and Thomas Lynch who gave their time, invaluable advice and inspiration so generously.

A special thanks to Don McCauley, author of The Gates of Heaven: The Development of the Christian Church and its impact on World Society. His critique and advice were invaluable.

I’m especially thankful to my husband, Albert, and our sons, Stuart and Roger, for listening, helping, and refueling me at the end of each day.

Gone now are those little towns where the shoemaker was a poet

The watchmaker a philosopher, the barber a troubadour. Gone now are those little towns where the wind joined

Biblical songs with Polish tunes and Slavic rue, Where old Jews in orchards in the shade of cherry trees

Lamented for the holy walls of Jerusalem. Gone now are those little towns, though the poetic mists,

The moons, winds, ponds and stars above them Have recorded in the blood of centuries the tragic tales, The histories of the two saddest nations on earth.

Antoni Slonimski

Polish poet, writer,

and human rights activist

of Jewish descent

(1893-1985)

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS AN unusually cold day for the fourth week of November 1946. A light rain was falling but driven by the strong wind, it felt like sharp needles hitting your face. People walked quickly to the social center of the Displaced Persons Camp in Landsberg, Germany, their bodies bent against the elements.

My excitement could not be dampened by the harsh weather. I was one of the children selected to audition for a part in the Chanukah play that was to be performed on the evening of December 17 in the main auditorium.

I hope I get chosen for a good part, I told Mama. Wish me luck, I said as I scooted out of our small room, the door slamming behind me. My heart pounded with anticipation as I ran toward the Center’s auditorium. Waiting in line for my turn to test for a part, I listened to the other kids read their lines. I was sure I could do as well as them but just to make sure, I was determined to put a lot more feeling into the lines I read. The older boys were given one script to read and the older girls were given another script. The parts for the candles would go to the youngest children who could not have speaking parts but whom the teachers wanted to include in the play. At last it was my turn. I went up on stage, swallowed several times to calm myself and began to read.

Please say your lines again but louder this time—we can’t hear you, the man sitting in the fifth row of the auditorium said.

I started over, practically screaming the lines. Halfway through my audition I saw the man turn in frustration to the teacher and shake his head. I stopped then, tears stinging my eyes as I tried desperately to blink them away. The teacher came forward and took me aside.

Maybe the part of a Chanukkah candle would be better for you, she said. You wouldn’t have to strain your voice so much.

After lunch we gathered in the auditorium as the parts for the play were assigned. Moeshe Stein, a tall, lanky boy, was given the part as one of the Maccabees. Avruhm Hersch, a chubby kid, would play the role of Antiochus, the Syrian king. Deborah Rubinstein was given the part of the center candle. It would be her job to light the other eight. I was the eighth candle. I couldn’t hide my disappointment. My teacher came over to me and wrapped her arm around my shoulder.

There’ll be other plays and when your voice is stronger I’m sure you’ll get a wonderful speaking part. You did very well this morning; it’s just that the audience wouldn’t be able to hear you.

The sympathetic look in her eyes and the gentle tone of her voice was too much for me and I felt tears spilling down my cheeks. I didn’t want sympathy. What I wanted was to be able to speak in a normal voice like everyone around me. I walked towards the end of the line and took my place next to the seventh candle. Feeling humiliated, not only because of not getting a speaking part but because I was the oldest and tallest of all the children who were to play as candles. So I stood there, my head bowed, and my eyes riveted to a spot on the floor. Until that day I had not realized just how low my voice really was. No matter how hard I tried, my voice was no more than a whisper; no one could hear me unless they stood right near me.

As soon as I walked through the door Mama saw the disappointment in my face.

What happened? You look so unhappy.

Mama, why can’t I talk like everyone else? They said no one could hear me from the stage.

Mama sat me down by the table and with a sad sigh said, Remember how quiet we had to be all the time when we were hiding on Mr. Tomaszkow’s farm? How we had to speak in very low whispers? You just got used to speaking that way, that’s all.

Will I ever have a normal voice?

Of course you will, it will just take time. In the meantime you’ll be a beautiful candle and Papa and I can’t wait to see you on stage.

My parents had married in 1935 just as unrest was beginning to heat up in Germany. Like all newly married couples, they dreamt about starting a family. Papa was one of six children and Mama had two brothers. They had aunts, uncles, and many cousins. Theirs was a large family.

I was born in Kraków, Poland on January 1, 1938, my parents named me Hania after a very dear friend of theirs who had died of tuberculosis at the age of thirty-six. It was not the safest year for a Jewish child to enter the world.

Mama told me, when I was born Papa bought the nicest carriage he could find. It was low and sleek, shaped like a sports car and people would stop him to ask where he bought it whenever they took me to the park and promenade. They bought me toys, played with me, and read me bedtime stories.

I was loved, nurtured, and lived my life as any normal child would. We had no way of knowing we would be engulfed by the drastic changes taking place around us and that soon our lives would be changed forever and that my parents’ dream of having a large family snuffed out.

Being only eighteen months old at the beginning of the Nazis’ occupation of Poland, I know only what my parents told me of that period of my life. Some parents spoke constantly to their children about their experiences. This was not the case in our home and that was fine with me. As a young girl starting a new life in a new country, America, I was only too anxious to put those horrible memories behind me. So, I never asked for details. The only time the subject came up was when we got together with other survivors, or mourned the loss of friends and family now living only in old photos that were somehow rescued, or when there was a documentary on the subject on television.

One summer when I was nineteen years old I vacationed in Nantucket with my friend Naomi. One evening we were riding our bikes and got separated. I went back to the hotel where we were staying and waited on the porch for her. While I was waiting, another guest of the hotel, a young man, came over and sat next to me. He was tall and slim. He had blond hair cut short, cool gray eyes, and a strong, square jaw. Although he was American, he represented the epitome of what to me the German Aryan race would look like. As he began speaking, I became ill and started shaking to the point where I had to excuse myself. I ran up to my room and barely made it in time to the bathroom where I vomited. It dawned on me then that I could not escape my past. No matter how hard I tried to deny it, it had always been there in my subconscious. With this inescapable realization came a sudden yearning to know everything. So, I questioned my parents continually, and while they answered my specific questions, they seldom did so in depth and never volunteered information.

Many years later when my own children were learning about World War II in public school and were asking questions about our experiences during the war, I realized how little they knew of our family’s past. I felt it was very important for me to document our experiences. Many Jews suffered much more than we during the war, nevertheless it became critical for me that my children learn and never forget what their grandparents endured, but more, what Jews endured. I wanted them to know how lucky they were to be in this great country, but also to be aware of the danger signals and the need to stay involved in the obligations of citizenship. More importantly, I wanted them to be proud of being Jewish and understand that their heritage is more than ancient stories. Being a Jew had always carried a price and requires that one never be complacent.

While drinking tea one Passover after a Seder, in my parent’s home, I broached the subject of the war, explaining my intentions. To my surprise my parents agreed. Perhaps they conceded that their story should be told. I took out my tape recorder and suggested they start with what life had been like in Kraków before the Nazis and how it had changed. As Mama began talking, her voice started to quiver and her eyes grew red with tears, and all at once she couldn’t continue. Papa tried to pick up where she left off, but he choked up as well. We were shocked at how vivid the memories still were for my parents. I couldn’t bear causing them so much pain, so we stopped and never spoke of it again. Now, of course, I wish I had seen it through, no matter how painful it would have been. One thing became abundantly clear to me; the Holocaust is not a thing of the past, it is