The View from Here

By Joyce McKee

THE VIEW FROM HERE is a rich, compelling testament to the strength and resilience
of the human spirit. Frieda Bermans clear, honest story illustrates the Jewish immigrant
experience, from escaping the pogroms of Russia in 1920 to fl eeing the persecution of the
Nazis in Romania, to discovering love and building a home in a New Jersey suburb. Frieda
bravely examines her fears, sadness and regrets with infectious candor.
Frieda Berman offers us an important historical perspective on the struggles and triumphs of
women from her generation. It gave me even more appreciation for the choices and options
we have available today, while giving me fi rsthand insight into the diffi culties the women of
yesterday faced and the strength and courage they needed to survive.
- Robyn Hatcher
What happens when the curtain of words daughter, wife, mother, grandmother is pulled
back and the woman is revealed? Describing fl eeing pogroms and Nazis as a child, to living
on her own for the fi rst time at age eighty-fi ve, THE VIEW FROM HERE tells the story of
courage and determination to live and love in the face of crisis and loss. In the cracks of the
hard life so many immigrants faced in America, Frieda recognizes the poetry around us makes
the day and the days stack up to make a life.
-C.O. Moed
Joyce McKee is a freelance screenwriter who lives in New York City with her husband and
two sons.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9781477173572

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Copyright © 2010 by Joyce Mckee.

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Contents

Acknowledgment

Berdichev, Russia

Isai, Romania

New Jersey

Louie Borodinsky

A Widow At Thirty-Seven

Ralph Berman

Second Marriage

A Widow For A Second Time

Reflections

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I t is with great pleasure that I acknowledge to Frieda my immense gratitude and respect. We spent many hours and days talking and in some sense reliving her past. At times it was quite painful and Frieda would often recall events that I hadn’t remembered until we spoke. Our sessions would span the emotions of laughter to tears, but in the end Frieda insisted on moving on and discovering and illuminating the pivotal events as well as pulling on those hanging threads that would unravel times long suppressed.

Mara Naselli in her analysis of memoirs states . . . at its best, [memoirs] wrestle with fact and with the space between fact and memory. We are dependent on stories, not facts, to make sense of our lives. Our narration of a traumatic or life-changing event isn’t created in the event. It’s created in hindsight as we try to make sense of what happened, and like good storytellers, we amplify some things and recede others.

It was my privilege to listen and write Frieda’s story.

Image%201-edited.jpg

Frieda Berman at age sixteen

BERDICHEV, RUSSIA

I don’t know for sure when I was born, but my mother did tell me it was in the summer when the roses were in bloom. My mother lost my birth certificate in our frantic rush to leave Russia when I was an infant. After many long discussions with my brother, we decided that I was probably born in 1920. Until I was seven or eight we never celebrated my birthday on the same day, which was confusing. My brother and I agreed that we needed all the stability we could get, so we selected a day for me to call my own. We picked July fifteenth. I’m the youngest of eight children, of which three died before they reached one year of age.

I remember nothing about Russia. I only know what I’ve been told by my family. I was born in Berdichev, a town located approximately one hundred miles southwest of Kiev, in the historic Zhytomyr province of northwestern Ukraine. Apparently it is a beautiful town located on the green banks of the Gnilopyat River. Beginning in the 18th century, Berdichev was a center of the Hasidic movement, which transformed Jewish practice in much of Eastern Europe. Many revered Hasidic leaders are buried in the historic Jewish cemetery in Berdichev. It is also where Vladimir Horowitz and Joseph Conrad were born. The French novelist Honore de Balzac was married in a famous church there. I imagined that one day I would return but I never did.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917 many groups competed for power in the Ukraine and most of them made life miserable for Jews. The principle contenders were the White Army, the leftover monarchy, and the Red Army, the communists. By 1919 the Bolsheviks had gained control of the area and most of the Ukraine became part of the U.S.S.R. The Jews of Berdichev became victims of a pogrom perpetrated by the Red Army. A pogrom was an organized massacre of helpless people, specifically Jews. It is estimated that between 1917 and 1921 there were approximately 2,000 separate pogroms in which 250,000 Jews were killed.

When I was three or four years old my mother, Hinda, began to tell me stories of my family’s exodus from Russia to Romania. It’s not clear exactly why we were forced to leave our home in Berdichev. We may have been part of random selection, or perhaps we were singled out because we were successful Jewish merchants and therefore a threat.

My grandfather, Jacob Simon, was considered a first-class merchant in Berdichev. There was a hierarchy of merchants: first, second and third-class merchants. Grandfather owned a large wholesale dry goods business, which entitled him to a permit to buy his merchandise in Kiev. Then he’d have it delivered to his warehouse in Berdichev where he sold it to the second-class merchants, and they either sold directly to the public or resold again to third-class merchants and then to the townspeople. My grandfather owned a spacious two-story house in a beautiful neighborhood in town where he and my grandmother lived upstairs while my mother and father lived with my brothers and sister and me on the ground floor.

The Bolsheviks patrolled the town day and night and would invite themselves into people’s homes for routine inspections. When the soldiers would march into my house, my mother would appear cordial; she’d serve them coffee and sweets, engage them in small talk, try to appear calm and tolerant, but inside she was trembling like a leaf. She had heard many stories of how they would burst into neighbors’ homes and one by one order them to leave. The soldiers would scream, Don’t touch anything! Leave everything the way it is. Just get out.

If they stopped by our house when my father was home, he would run and hide in the attic while my mother distracted them with her charm. My father, Iuda, had witnessed what they’d done to his friends and was terrified of them. They would enter, armed with guns, and if they didn’t approve of something you said they’d shoot you in the head, in a second… and finish their coffee on the way out. My mother knew it was a matter of time before we would be forced to leave.

One morning in early March, 1921 they came by for their routine inspection and ordered us to be gone within twenty-four hours. No reason, no discussion. We had planned to pack everything we could manage to carry on foot and to head to the border of Russia and Romania. At the border we would try to bribe a boat keeper to take us across the Dniester River into Romania. My mother took her most valuable pair of earrings, emerald studs, rolled them in tissue paper and hid them inside her; it was the only safe way to smuggle them out and they were her ticket to freedom; she knew she could use them as a bribe to flee the country by boat. My grandfather had prepared in advance for this day. He had lined his winter overcoat with mink and had sewn in secret pockets to carry out the family’s gold bars and coins. He also hid sterling silver in the hem of his coat.

My father convinced us that he must stay behind and wait until he felt it was safe for him to leave. He had reason to believe that the soldiers would kill him if they recognized him, and at this point they were unaware of his whereabouts. He promised to meet us at the border town of Barsurbia, in Romania, within a month. According to my mother, she was so concerned about me, my brothers and sister, and her parents that she didn’t remember being worried about separating from my father. I was an infant, maybe seven or eight months old. Esther was 16, Nathan 12, Milton 7 and Jacob 5.

When we arrived at the border dozens of people were anxiously waiting for a boat. Jacob, my grandfather, discreetly bribed the boat keeper with his gold coins. The boat keeper accepted but insisted that Jacob go first, without the rest of us, because there was only one spot left on the boat that was leaving at that time. There was no time to argue.

My mother was devoted to her father. She pleaded with the boat keeper to allow her father to wait and go with his family. She was terrified of being separated from him. Even though she was married, she had never emotionally separated from her father; he was her true love, her anchor. The boat keeper flatly refused, unaffected by my mother’s plea, so my grandfather had no choice; he reluctantly boarded the boat alone. The rest of the family watched as his boat pushed off into the gray, choppy waters. It was the middle of March and the river was still freezing cold.

On the boat with my grandfather was a beautiful young bride. My mother had learned before they boarded that the young woman had recently been brutally raped by a Bolshevik soldier. She was severely traumatized; one moment she’d stare trancelike into space and the next minute she’d cry hysterically. As they rowed out to sea she began to fling herself from side to side of the crowded boat. My family watched as the passengers desperately tried to calm her down but she was inconsolable, wild, like a madwoman deranged by fear. "Sit