Rachela: The Trials and Triumphs of a Holocaust Survivor in the Free World

By Rachela Walshaw Schlufman

In this unique follow-up memoir to the authors first book, From Out of the Firestorm: A Memoir of the Holocaust, young Rachela copes with a new language and culture, raising a family, finding a profession, and always seeking the company of the remaining relatives and friends from her vanished world of Eastern Europe. Rachela shares her amazement at the America of the sanitized Fifties, the revolutionary Sixties, and materialistic Seventies, reliving for us the impact of the JFK assassination, the Six Day War, the moon walk and more, even as private and national events (like Vietnam) provoke flashbacks of ghettos, deportations, and mass murder. Both terrifying crises and small comedic ones are magnified in the survivor-narrators eyes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 1, 2005
• ISBN: 9781469115177

Rachela Walshaw Schlufman

Rachela Walshaw was a teenage girl when the Nazis firestormed her Polish hometown, deported and murdered most of her large family and enslaved her in munitions factories for most of the war. She emigrated to the United States in 1949 with her husband and infant son. The 1991 publication of Ms. Walshaw’s memoirs led to several major book reviews, and dozens of author appearances and presentations. Ms. Walshaw has published poetry and essays on the Holocaust and other topics

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Copyright © 2004 by Rachela Walshaw Schlufman.

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Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Epilogue

For my husband Herbert, my sons Solomon and Joseph,

and my grandson Ethan

Acknowledgments

My special gratitude to my husband Herbert and my sons Solomon and Joseph for patiently reading through the early versions of this book, and to Isaac Mozeson for his wonderful editorial work.

Introduction

When the German army swept over Poland in September of 1939 many cities, including our little town of Wonchok, were burned and gutted. By the time the smoke cleared, hundreds of thousand of Jews in and around my hometown, including most of my family, had vanished in the furnaces of Treblinka.

I survived the holocaust, but at an incalculable cost. On the surface, this book is about my life experiences from the time of my first steps ashore in America. In reality, however, it is about my survival, both physical and mental, after the holocaust. Many holocaust survivors were capable of putting the past behind them, focusing instead on using their newly gained freedom and opportunities in this great country to better their lives and the lives of their families. Though I cannot deny that I too was exhilarated by the prospects that America offered, I was incapable of shedding any part of my identity as a holocaust survivor. As a result, my experiences in America were constantly being filtered through images from the holocaust and my life before the firestorm.

The inextricable links between my world prior to and during the holocaust and my life in America are the basis for the link between my previous book, From Out of the Firestorm: A Memoir of the Holocaust, and this book. While this book was not intended to be as powerful and as chilling as its predecessor work, I tried to weave a much richer story. Whether coping with the holocaust or life in America, what I hoped to convey in both books was that my spirit remained unbroken and resolved to discovering my strengths and talents.

I recently returned to Poland for the first time since being liberated. Together with my husband, my brother Sam, and his wife and their three sons we visited a number of sites, among them the town, now rebuilt, where my brother and I were raised. But it was Treblinka, now a peaceful park-like monument of stones and silent pines, which put my entire life into perspective. There were sections of land allocated to countries, and within each country there was an endless cascade of stones, each representing a town or city annihilated in the holocaust. Each jagged stone was unique, as if needing to validate the distinctiveness of its town’s inhabitants. The haphazard arrangement of these stones, however, made it undeniably clear that these towns and cities experienced a common horrific conclusion.

We desperately searched for our hometown, combing through the stones as though on a hunt for a murder victim. Finally, one of my nephews cried out that he had found it, ushering in a collective release of tension. We gathered around the stone and my brother Sam said Kaddish, a final mourner’s prayer to the spirit of our family, friends, and race. This was the closure I needed, that all the distraction of America could not provide. In the sadness and despair of that moment I prayed for an end to tyranny and terror, and I prayed for peace.

Chapter 1

With typical German efficiency, our train of thirteen hundred emigrants pulled into the Bremerhaven dockyards at precisely twelve-thirty in the afternoon. It was December 18, 1949. My husband, child and I had only to walk the gangway to leave European soil forever. Each step up the ramp brought us further away from Germany. Behind us now were the years of waiting in limbo for immigration clearance to the United States, the hellish years of forced labor camps and concentration camps, and the endless years of starvation, persecution, fear, and humiliation.

The bright skies of liberation that electrified us had gradually given way to a steady stream of clouds that put our hopes to the test. But now, the sun had finally broken through, and the memories of the disappointingly long stays in a Displaced Persons camp to await an opportunity to resettle were beginning to break apart. We were on the ramp to a new life. It would be a struggle in the New World, a different world, but we were too busy to worry about that now.

What a feeling it was when the ship slowly pulled away from it’s mooring. The earth moved beneath our feet! It was my first time on any boat. I held on to the railing for security, but with affection. How could we not love the vehicle of escape from this inhospitable, blood-soaked continent? For all my painful memories, I could keep a soft spot in my heart for pre-war Poland. But there was no nostalgia for the German shoreline that began to shrink away from us with increasing speed. Even the eerie newness of floating upon water was far superior to walking any further in this valley of the shadow of death.

Goodbye Germany! Goodbye Europe! I nearly yelled out loud as a wave of emotion washed over me. No more will I be in the kingdom of ruthless rulers, rigid caste systems, and periodic violence. I did not understand all the nuances of democracy and citizen’s rights yet, but I knew that the United States of America, our destination, would offer social and economic opportunities that we could only dream of.

Our immediate new world was the ship. Most of us passengers were busy exploring the mysteries of her endless passageways and levels. It was a labyrinth to be slowly solved before we could feel at home. The ship was also a Tower of Babel. Beside the dominant presence of American military personnel, there were people speaking several different tongues. The largest contingent of our thirteen hundred immigrant population were 665 Poles. Then came 300 Latvians and 120 Lithuanians. Then the numbers dropped to sixty-two Russians, fifty-five Estonians, forty-five Hungarians and thirty-one Germans—who were the most interesting to talk to. By religion the ship’s population roughly broke up into 650 Catholics of several kinds, 325 various Protestants and 285 Jews, the majority of them being Polish Jews like us.

Each person on board was an incredible story unto him or herself. We spoke to many Poles who had been enslaved by the Germans, and then refused to become citizens of the new Poland under Soviet rule. With all of our different nationalities and religions, we shared a dream for a new and better life in America. We were not shy about making friends in this special atmosphere, and by the end of the voyage we felt quite close to many fellow passengers. I remember how my mother used to tell me, Two mountains don’t come together, but people do. This dramatic voyage was not the time to behave like a mountain—at least not with most segments of the ship. I must admit that Herb and I had trouble with the Latvians and Lithuanians, who zealously cooperated with the Nazis to ruthlessly murder their local Jews. The people of these countries had so much blood on their hands that I could not face and exchange friendly conversation with the very people that might have killed most of my family and thousands of other victims. Most every other contingent on board had no problems rubbing shoulders with Polish Jews, and the general camaraderie helped us get past the difficult parts of our voyage.

Little Solomon, my two-year-old son, was too tired and cranky to enjoy our exploration of the ship. He was constantly crying, so I had to hold him in my arms. Rather than be confined to our cabin at this dramatic time in our lives, my husband and I walked around the deck with our child. The distraction and the fresh air could only help. The bustle of activity as the ship pushed off provided a fine spectacle to our family and to all the passengers. Apparently, we were not the only greenhorns who had never witnessed a ship leaving port.

The crews, both on the ship and on the dock, worked hard and fast to make good on the captain’s announced prediction that we would pull out at exactly three o’clock. I tried to get Solomon to understand what was happening.

Look, Sweetheart, the space between us and the land is getting bigger and bigger. We are going to be far away from Germany soon and will finally arrive in a new place, a much better place.

I noticed that many of my fellow passengers were drying tears. These weren’t tears of relief or collected pain. They seemed to be genuinely sentimental at leaving their homeland of Germany and Europe. They could not have been Jews. We Jews could not be leaving fast enough.

An authoritative German voice came over the loudspeaker: The ship has entered the North Sea. We shall be facing some stormy weather, which is quite normal for December. Those not accustomed to ocean travel may experience some discomfort due to the ship’s motion in the waves.

Some discomfort? Most of us felt like our stomachs had turned into washing machines. Food was being distributed, but the thought of eating added to our nausea. Herb felt nauseous, and had to use the paper vomit bags that were given out. The rocky motion added fear to Solomon’s health problems. The constant pitching in the agitated sea mostly made me dizzy. Most of the passengers were reacting as badly as we were, but it was a terrible feeling to know that I could do nothing to relieve the suffering of my husband and child.

The first day of our voyage was especially difficult. I knew that I had gone through terrible physical ordeals during the war, but I felt more vulnerable now than before. I had lost a pregnancy only a few weeks before. I felt shaky; I did not have that hard edge of survival that sustained me through the years of starvation and slave labor. Then, if we got a cold we could die. We stronger ones, therefore, rarely got a cold, despite marching in wet and freezing conditions and being forced to live in unhygienic conditions.

I retained enough resilience to regain some balance by the second day on the high seas. I had to be strong for my child, who was not comfortable without a separate crib and with the strange food. Neither Solomon nor Herb were holding down their food, and I worried about their health. We couldn’t get off the ship, so we could only pray that God would calm the waters around our giant ship, the USAT General W. S. Haan.

The Lord of the Winds did hear our prayers, as the next day, December 24th, turned cheerfully bright. The seas were now calm, but the last few days of choppiness showed on everyone’s face. Most of the passengers looked haggard and weary. In contrast, the crew of American marines was happily busy with Christmas decorations. People came swirling back to the decks as though finally spewed out from the dank belly of a great whale. Holiday festivities were set up in the central lounge, complete with a fully decorated tree. I had no resentment of this secular Christian ritual by these good people. And God knows we needed some morale boosting. On Christmas day there were presents for the ship’s children beneath the shining ornaments of the tree. If there were any special masses held, they were limited to groups of interested individuals.

The holiday spirit was soon marred by a death among the passengers. One man apparently did not survive the recent ordeal. Rumors abounded, but we soon learned that there was nothing contagious going around to fan our initial panic. We were many people in a small area, and those of us who lived through deadly ghettos had good reason to fear diseases like typhus. The captain knew that secrecy would backfire, so we were all invited to a solemn public funeral on the main deck. The dead man had no family, so the American marines performed a generic ceremony with dignity and precision.

It was both stirring and upsetting to see the wrapped body sliding off the deck for burial at sea. Doesn’t a creature of the land deserve to return to the embrace of mother earth? Then again, I understood the health concerns of a ship, and the good reasons for this time-honored maritime tradition. I was wrong to equate the sliding corpse to the all-too-familiar sight of another starved Jew being unceremoniously dumped into a mass grave. For the rest of my life, however, vision would compete with memory. There was general sadness on the ship, but no tears for this unknown fellow passenger. From my perspective, he was most fortunate to have died in peacetime, with so much honor and attention given him by so many.

With improved weather and natural adjustment to the gentler rocking, we all felt better. Herb was able to recover his appetite and no longer lost his food. Only Solomon’s continued ill health prevented us from enjoying the voyage. The child was barely eating, and Herb insisted that I take him to the ship’s doctor. At the infirmary I met a young doctor and his nurse, and several other mothers with their children. I was put at ease to see that my child was not the only one who was ill, and that other parents put their trust in the ship’s medical staff.

Nonetheless, I was overwhelmed by anxiety while awaiting the results of the doctor’s examination. He spoke German to me, and told me not to worry.

Your son has a cold and is running a temperature. He will need antibiotics and will have to stay here under our care.

No Doctor, please! I said with an urgency that frightened everyone in hearing. Let me keep the boy with me. I will give him any medication myself. Just please don’t take the child away from me.

You must calm down, Ma’am. Nobody is taking your child away. This boy needs professional care for a couple of days before he can be released to your custody again. If he is treated right away, I assure you he will be just fine. Nurse, please help me register this patient so we don’t have to report a sick child being refused medical care.

The tall young woman came forward to take Solomon from me. She looked more like a Ukrainian farm girl than a nurse. Perhaps it was the German language and their rigid, clinical behavior, but I was irrationally fearful of leaving my child in their hands. For his part, Solomon more than picked up on my own fear. He had never been away from me like this. After all I went through, is it a surprise that I might have overprotected him? He was whimpering from discomfort for days, but now began to shriek with alarm when the nurse reached for him. Although I thought my dizziness was behind me, I blanked out with a flash of terror and slumped to the floor.

The next thing I felt was a cold towel on my head. The doctor was holding my arm and reading my pulse. I realized that I had fainted. It must have been the flashbacks of Nazis pulling hysterical children from their mothers’ arms. It was all the forced separations of my life flooding back to my anguished memory until I blanked out.

Where is my child? is the first phrase I managed when I came to.

Don’t worry, Ma’am, intoned the doctor. He is right next door in a ward with other children. We are all trained professionals here. Your boy is going to have excellent care and get well very soon. He is in better shape than you are right now. You must calm down for your own good.

The doctor was right, of course. There was nothing rational about the way my heart was racing, the heaviness of my breathing and the tears in my eyes. The best medicine was seeing Herb nearby, waiting for an opportunity to get a word in. Herb was disappointed that Solomon would not be coming out of the ship’s clinic with us, but he offered me strength and calm.

Don’t cry, Darling, he assured me. We have been through much worse than a child with an infection. The best thing we can do for Solomon is to show him not to be afraid. He won’t get well if we act like he is in grave danger.

Herb was right, but I still couldn’t remove myself from Solomon’s presence. I hovered all day beside the door to the children’s ward and snuck in to see him every time the nurse left. No parents or visitors were allowed in the room. This policy was to keep germs from spreading round the ship. The nurse resented my presence, but the more I felt her inexperience and rudeness, the more determined I was to stay on top of the situation.

Aside from a quick hello, I brought Solomon drinks to keep his fever down. When the nurse returned I had to run out and leave Solomon crying again. All those poor children were standing in their cribs and crying most of the day anyway. It seems that the nurse spent much more time outside the clinic door with her boyfriend, an American sailor. The crying of those poor children didn’t bother her at all. She was young and only cared about having some fun. Meanwhile, the sound of my lonely and unattended son crying nearly drove me insane.

Crowded with thirteen hundred immigrant passengers, the ship offered plenty of social opportunities. Once you found people who spoke your language, it was natural to share and seek information. The atmosphere aboard the ship made quick intimacy possible, and when fellow survivors got together we spared no details about our devastated families and communities. With few living relatives, sharing a past, and possibly a future, with people from your country, province, or town was very important. Resting on a lounge chair in the brisk, dry cold of the deck, we made important friends and acquaintances.

Herb preferred the cabin, but I found the air inside stifling and over-heated. I loved the open horizons of the ship at sea, daydreaming about my own horizons in America. I could finally relax, knowing that my son was doing well in his clinic. He stopped crying and was eating better. That morning when I kissed him goodbye, he didn’t even cry and protest. What a relief!

I made my way to the deck for some people-watching and conversation. I was lying back alone, wrapped up in my deck blanket and thoughts, when, all of a sudden, a young man’s face came into focus. I blinked and tried to confirm the reality of my vision. He was a handsome man with blond hair and blue eyes. He had a nice build and was neatly dressed. He was just getting up from his lounge chair to straighten himself up and walk around.

He must have felt my stare, because he turned around, paused, and flashed a strange smile. Perhaps he too wasn’t sure I was the person I reminded him of. Five years is a long time, and our years in the 1940s were more like decades.

I couldn’t have looked just like the pretty young girl he once knew. I was now a mother as well as a survivor. I straightened myself out and lifted myself out of the lounge chair as he approached. Our eyes drew a line that grew short and taut. By the time I was standing up we had fallen into each other’s arms.

What a coincidence, Meteck, I gasped when I caught my breath.

My dear Rachela, he enthused, it’s really you.

We both could hardly believe our luck, both good and bad. Yes,