Hidden in the Open

By Millie Korman Selinger

When I met Millie years ago, she shared her story with me. Her narrative gave me the idea and inspiration for the fictional mother and daughter in my own novel. ~ Jennifer Rosner, author of The Yellow Bird Sings

Of the 3,500,000 Jews living in Poland before the war, only 500,000 survived. I thank God or whatever forces that be that three of those survivors were Milanka, Zosia, and Henryk—my mother, grandmother, and grandfather. America offered the Billys family the kind of opportunity and freedom they craved, and in turn they brought to America a unique zest for life which my sisters Amy, Laura, and I always admired. ~ David Scott Korman

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Release date: Jun 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9781977256447

Millie Korman Selinger

When I was eleven months old, the Germans invaded the town of my birth, Lodz, Poland, on September 1, 1939. Because I was so young, I was not privy to the horrors that befell the people around me.

Book preview

Chapter 1

SETTING THE STAGE

My dear mother and I were seated at her small kitchen table, having tea and reminiscing about her past life. Our cups and saucers were dainty flowered porcelain from Bavaria. Between us sat her toaster oven, sugar bowl, white ceramic salt and pepper mills, and a dish with cookies for dipping in our tea. She had painted the mural above the table when she and my father first moved into their third-floor apartment in Shaker Heights, Ohio. The eye-catching winter scene had snow-covered mountains, pine trees hanging heavy with pillows of snow on their boughs, a cloudless sky, and a lovely blue brook rippling in the foreground. She relived her happiest moments skiing each time she walked into the kitchen. In later years, she cut out a photo of the two of them on skis and glued it on the mural’s slope to complete the setting. Over the years, she single-handedly refinished her china cabinet, including the baseboards and doors, reupholstered the living room couch and chairs, with pillows to match, sewed decorative curtains, created many leaded glass pieces including lamps, and hooked a huge rug for the study. Her garden, in which she spent many hours, was her pride and joy. My mother attended a nearby college where she made ceramic pieces from clay to sell at art shows where she had a local following. By now, at age ninety-two, she was a petite four-foot nine-inch little lady, smart, vivacious, talented—a mighty force. Nothing is impossible was still her attitude.

My mother sitting at her kitchen table

I am now a grown woman with children of my own, but the shocking reaction I had when I first learned about my true heritage at the age of eight and a half is still vivid in my memory. I was troubled and traumatized to find out that from birth I had been brought up as Catholic but was actually Jewish. I struggled with my religious identity for many years and hoped to find a key to my confusion. When I first moved to Cleveland and found out my neighbor Noreen was Catholic, I bragged that I was once Catholic too. My mother orchestrated a ruse to save our lives. This is the account I needed to hear in order to deal with my identity. This special woman sitting across from me at her kitchen table realized the significance of telling me her whole story.

Chapter 2

MY NAIVETÉ

As my mother began to speak, I was stunned to learn that as a child survivor of the Holocaust in Poland, I knew nothing. Hitler’s quest for Germany’s world dominance led to an attack on Poland. What followed was unimaginable brutality and horrendous atrocities perpetrated on humanity by the Nazis. Who would have thought that in six short years eleven million people—six million of whom were Jews—would be systematically slaughtered. Because of my young age, I was unaware of the terror that ensued during my early childhood years, age one to six, 1939 through 1945. My mother made sure I was sheltered and safe throughout the war. She thought I had been deprived, but honestly, I did not think I was disadvantaged. I never imagined a different life.

Looking at me, she said, I had a wonderful childhood and I regretted I could not provide you with the same. I did everything I could to make it up to you by having you spend as much time as possible with your cousins and occasionally surprise you with unexpected treats.

When I look through my photo album that my mother meticulously kept for me, I did not see an underprivileged child. Since I did not know otherwise, my memories are of being happy and loved. I wanted to know everything about her life, including her childhood, and what she did during the war years.

My mother began, "I was born on March 16, 1912, in Lodz, Poland. Our last name, Pacanowski, was taken from Pacanów, a town in south central Poland, from where my grandfather’s family came. My parents wed in 1903, brokered by a matchmaker, in the town of Lutomersk. My mother, Helena Glicenstein, was born on February 12, 1883, to a prominent Jewish family. She was very pretty, athletically active, and well educated—an enlightened woman. My father, Abram Dawid Pacanowski, was born in Pietrow on September 5, 1878, to a line of rabbis —genealogically traceable to King David. He was pious, wore the traditional long black coat befitting an Orthodox Jew, had a long beard, curly sideburns, and prayed morning, noon, and night, and all day on Saturdays and holidays.

"Shortly after the wedding, my mother, an unusually progressive thinking woman in those days, persuaded my father to change his coat for a short one, and after some prodding, to shave off his beard and sideburn curls. In 1904 she gave birth to a daughter, Teofila, nicknamed Tosia, followed one year later by another daughter, Franka. Soon after her birth, they moved ten miles east to the large town of Lodz. There, they lived in a spacious, modern apartment with the girls and a maid. Their affluence afforded them the luxury of indoor bathrooms with handheld spouts, a feature that was state of the art in those times, and separate rooms for the toilets. There were two dining rooms, one large and the other small, two bedrooms, and a sitting room.

"My father owned a wholesale store that sold school supplies, envelopes, post cards, and other paper goods. He also established a factory, manufacturing products ranging from toilet paper to crêpe and colored tissue paper, which were used for a popular craft of making decorative flowers. Both grandparents worked in the business, reaping financial success.

My parents were obsessed with the idea of having a boy to carry on the family name. Their third child was me—not a boy. Throughout childhood I overheard lamentations about my birth—the baby was supposed to be a boy. It was repeated so often that I became a tomboy. For example, when I was three, my parents had to call the fire department to bring me down from a tree. At six, they found me on the roof of a barn, smoking crumpled leaves rolled up in pieces of newspaper. I was a tough kid. In retrospect, my penchant for fearless escapades most likely helped me survive the war.

I was anxious to know even more about my mother’s youth, so she told me, All three of us went to a private school for girls in Lodz where more than half of the students were Jewish. Since school ended at one in the afternoon, we could then pursue our hobbies. The three of us took weekly piano lessons which I hated. But when I was seven years old, your grandmother taught me to ice skate, which I loved. Since the temperature was below freezing all winter, I could skate from November to March, which I did every day. When I turned ten, two wonderful things happened—the small dining room became my own bedroom, and I was permitted to quit the dreaded piano lessons to begin drawing classes. Visual arts became my passion for the rest of my life.

How did you spend your summers when you were young? I asked.

"Until I was twelve, the family rented a villa at the seaside resort of Sopot, near Gdansk, an overnight train ride. The resort was famous for its mineral baths. Your grandparents alternated staying with us, each six weeks at a time, while the other minded the business in Lodz.

"I learned early on that if I refused to eat at the dinner table, my parents would bribe me. Even if I liked what was served, I pushed it away and in the end was promised to get my latest wish. I became cunning at an early age.

"The following summer my mother wanted to take me to a new resort in Busko, fifty miles from Lodz, but I refused unless I got a bicycle. Coincidently, a friend of your grandfather’s was visiting from Germany, so I kept repeating in German eine rade (a bicycle). The next time he came to our apartment he brought me a beautiful bike, shiny chrome with blue net over the rear wheel. We wore skirts while riding in those days, and the net prevented the hems from catching in the spokes. Only after I had the bicycle did I agree to go to the holiday spot. It appears I was spoiled, but I wasn’t. I just figured out how to get what I wanted.

"Busko was hilly, but I was persistent and stubborn. I learned how to ride that summer—my scabbed knees attested to it. The bicycle became my lifeline for transportation and recreation, and on occasion, playing hooky. When we returned to Lodz, I joined a bicycle club. Every Sunday, our weekly excursions took us out of town. Each year I won the coveted award for most miles pedaled.

"During my last year of high school, I developed an ear infection. Antibiotics had not yet been made available to us in 1928, so it advanced to a full-blown mastoiditis. The involved area was two millimeters from my brain—no one in Lodz wanted to attempt the delicate mastoidectomy. We went to see the best surgeon at a private clinic in Warsaw, and the operation was set for the next morning. As was the custom when making important decisions, my father went to the rabbi to ask his advice regarding the surgery, telling the doctor to postpone the procedure until he returned with the rabbi’s approval.

"Your grandmother convinced the doctor to hurry with the course of action. By the time your grandfather returned, the four-hour procedure was already done—successful but rendering me deaf in that ear. Doctor’s orders were for me to remain in Warsaw for a few weeks so that I could be closely monitored. I stayed with my mother’s second cousin, Fela Haber. She and her husband were poor, so my parents paid them for my care. Their apartment was across the street from the famous Polish jail, Pawiak—later to become the site of the Warsaw ghetto.

"When I recovered from the difficult surgery, I resumed my social life, including going to parties where boys were invited. On one such occasion, the hostess announced we would play a game called fanty, a version of spin the bottle. A good-looking boy named Henryk found himself in the position where the fant (bottle) pointed to him. He stood up, walked over to me, and planted a kiss on my cheek. That was the beginning of a relationship that would span over seventy years. For the first six years we went almost everywhere with groups of friends . . . never as a couple.

Zofia (nickname Zosia) at age 25

"Your grandparents had no inkling that I was seeing someone special until I started inviting him to our house. He got along well with my sisters and my mother, playing bridge with them while I knitted. We became romantically involved, which resulted in an unwanted pregnancy. I quietly had an abortion in my doctor’s private office. We spoke of marriage, but Henryk’s older sister had to marry first, as was the custom. Once his sister, Regina, became engaged, Henryk asked my mother if she would allow me to go with him on a skiing trip to Zakopane, a famous ski resort in the Tatra Mountains.

"She asked, ‘When would you like to go?’

"He responded, ‘For Zosia’s birthday, March 16.’

She looked at the calendar and said, ‘All right, then on Sunday March 14, your wedding can take place and you can leave the next day.’

That’s a great story, I said. How did he react?

"He was both jubilant and speechless. Your grandmother spared him the awkwardness of asking the big question. Henryk presented me with a beautiful diamond engagement ring. The wedding was a lovely event, albeit hastily orchestrated. I wore a long, white satin dress. It was fitted at the waist with a flare at the hem and a puffy wide collar at the neckline. Henryk looked handsome in a dark suit and a white shirt sporting new cufflinks I had given him as a gift.

"My new husband bought me a pair of ski pants, and off we went by train on a romantic honeymoon. We had a wonderful time until your father had a calamitous accident running into a tree, which caused him to break his clavicle and bite through his tongue. That ruined our trip but not our love of skiing or each other. Except for the war years, as you know, we spent our wedding anniversary and my birthday on ski slopes until we were in our mid-eighties.

"I was twenty-five and your father twenty-seven when we married, and we wanted to start a family. Soon, I became pregnant with you. My doctor gave me instructions for an easy delivery by telling me to eat large amounts of grated carrots and no meat—so the baby would not have hard bones. Because of my previous surgeries, Dr. Maryla Ichner put me on bed rest for the last three months of my pregnancy. Throughout the nine months, I stared into your father’s alluring hazel eyes, hoping yours would be hazel too. You were born on the morning of September 21, 1938, weighed five pounds, had black hair, rosy cheeks, and not hazel, but big dark brown eyes. We named you Emilia after my grandmother but called you Milanka.

"When you were just a few days old, I fell asleep while I was nursing, and