Noike: A Memoir of Leon Ginsburg. Suzanne Ginsburg
direction.
Noike grabbed the nails, held them tightly, not moving a limb.
Pesel hid under some bedding; everyone else had left by now.
Through the cracks in the wood, Noike saw three Ukrainian police wearing their signature black uniforms with the word Militzia printed on the back enter the hiding place and begin looking for valuables and any remaining Jews. As two of them hunted for valuables, a third walked around the room, thrusting his bayonet into possible hiding places. Every few minutes a match would strike, illuminating the darkest corners of the basement. In the faint light Noike saw the officer with the bayonet, a young man not more than twenty, approach the place where his mother was hiding. The man raised the bayonet over his shoulder and sank it into the pile of bedding. “No, no,” Pesel cried, pierced by the bayonet, “I’m coming out!”
Noike froze; he was afraid to breathe.
He watched the police officer grab his mother by the arm and lead her out of the hiding place. He wanted to do something—to shout, to attack, to run—but his mouth, arms, and legs obeyed his mother’s last words: Don’t move until it’s safe. Don’t move until it’s safe. Don’t move until it’s safe. Her figure grew smaller and smaller as they neared the outhouse entrance.
And then she was gone.
The two other officers continued to search the basement, kicking over empty boxes and crates, opening any packages left behind. One of the men stopped a few inches away from Noike and paused to light a cigarette. He was so close that Noike could smell the phosphorous from the match, the first puff of cigarette smoke. The man slid the matchbook back inside his pocket and walked away.
When they finally left Noike slowly let out his breath.
He remained frozen with fear behind the wall, listening for sounds of the police. Sometime later another man came down into the hiding place wearing a dark, threadbare suit. Noike stood still, unsure whether it was safe to come out. As he squinted through the cracks in the wood he recognized the man as Moishe Burshtein, the head of the Judenrat. He had been a community leader before the war, organizing fundraisers for the poor and celebrations during the Jewish holidays. The German authorities forced him into the Judenrat role, threatening him and his family with death if he did not cooperate. With the raids almost complete, they no longer had any use for him.
Noike stepped away from the wall and slowly walked over to Mr. Burshtein. “I’m looking for galoshes,” Mr. Burshtein said, his forehead damp with sweat. “I’m going to the woods tonight—it’s muddy there.” He seemed disoriented, as if he had just awoken from a deep sleep. Noike was also in a dream-like state, his mind and body following a script unknown to him. The hiding place, the police with the bayonet, his mother’s capture—none of it seemed real.
“Moishe, where are you going now?” Noike grabbed at the man’s sleeve. He had no plan, nowhere to go.
“Next door,” Mr. Burshtein said, nodding towards the other house. “They might have some galoshes in the attic.”
Noike followed him into the open-air attic, which was littered with bits and pieces of old furniture. They were moving an old trunk when they heard a noise near the foot of the ladder. Mr. Burshtein glanced down, meeting the eyes of a Ukrainian police officer who was pointing a rifle directly at him.
“Get down here!” the policeman ordered. “Is anyone else up there?”
“Nobody, just me,” Mr. Burshtein’s voice quivered.
Unsatisfied, the policeman called over another officer to guard Mr. Burshtein while he searched the attic.
Noike crawled into the far corner of the attic, into the small space where the slant of the roof met the floor. Terrified of capture, he pressed his body against the attic wall, disappearing into its dark shadows. As he lay there, he heard the policeman climbing the ladder, a brief pause, then the sound of his descent.
“The Jew was telling the truth,” he said to the other officer. They hauled Mr. Burshtein off to the synagogue, never to be seen again.
Noike knew the attic would not be safe for very long. He remembered another hiding place his mother had mentioned: the rebbe’s house, only a few doors down. The rebbe’s daughter, Malka, owned a popular ready-to-wear clothing store.
Noike descended the ladder and looked down the street. He was met by a religious silence: all of the homes had been Jewish; all of them had been raided. Pressing his body against the white picket fence, he sidled past one, two, three houses, until he reached the rebbe’s house. He walked inside and surveyed the main room: it had already been ransacked by the locals so most of the furniture was missing; unwanted items were discarded on the floor.
“Malka,” he began to call quietly, “Malka.”
No answer.
Again, he called, “Malka, Malka.”
No answer.
He started to leave the house when he heard someone say, “Shhh . . .”
He turned around and saw a board raised in the wall, under a table in the corner of the room. As he neared the opening, two hands reached out and dragged him inside.
He fainted.
7
THE LITTLE SEPIA PHOTO
New York, circa 1980
The wooden dresser in my parents’ bedroom was too tall for me to reach when I was little, but I could see it from a distance, reach it if I pulled over a chair. Sometimes I carried over the vanity chair from the master bathroom, other times I dragged the wicker chair from beside the television. Eventually I could stand on my tiptoes, stretch my arms out, and run my fingers across the shiny, lacquered surface. On it rested a ceramic vase from China, a wooden jewelry box from Japan, and framed photos of my grandparents.
My hands would immediately gravitate to the framed pictures.
The large, color photo of my maternal grandparents was taken at my parents’ wedding reception, in front of a blue, floral background. My maternal grandmother, whom I called Baba, is in a pink, satiny dress and has her dark, brown hair pulled into a tight bun. Her arm is wrapped around my grandfather, who is dressed in a black tuxedo. He has jet-black hair and a pencil-thin mustache; both are neatly trimmed. I never knew this grandfather but my Baba often referred to him as my Zeidi and said that he was a “good man.” A few months before she died, she told me she would be seeing him soon.
The photo of my paternal grandparents was much smaller in size and more mysterious: their image is painted in sepia tones; they are floating in front of a solid sepia background. The photo must have been taken somewhere in Europe, I guessed. My grandmother looks very fashionable in the photo, her hair done in the finger wave style I had seen in old movies. My grandfather is wearing a tweed, three-piece suit with a skinny tie and a handkerchief in one pocket.
I first understood that they were dead when I learned that my siblings were named after them: my sister after Pesel, my brother after Kalman. My mother told me that my Grandfather Kalman died before the war, while my Grandmother Pesel died during the war. I somehow understood that during the war implied a more tragic end; I never dared to ask for more detail. They were never referred to as my Baba or my Zeidi; their premature deaths somehow robbed them of our familial endearments.
When no one was looking I would take the frames down from the dresser and gently place them in an arc on the nubby yellow carpet, as if they were guests at a tea party. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, I would pick up the picture of my paternal grandparents by the edges of its lacy gold frame, careful not to get my fingerprints on the glass. The little photo was