Becoming Basia
I’m running from death
Looking over my shoulder
Heading straight for Her arms
—Helen Reichmann West, “Ouroboros”
1942
At long last the train is pulling out of the station. I wonder how long I have been holding my breath.
Out of the corner of my eye I see Pan (Mr.) Dobranski sitting next to me. I know it’s not possible that he can hear the pounding of my heart. Even so, I reassure myself that the clatter of the train’s wheels masks the sound. I am lucky to have him as my traveling companion. His typical Polish looks will help camouflage me from being discovered as a Jew.
Fortunately, there are no Nazi soldiers on the train; at least not in our car, at least so far.
Looking out the window, I see the houses of Piotrków fade quickly behind me. I slow my breathing and try to relax. I have six hours before we get to Nowy Sacz. Six safe, quiet hours to empty myself of my past, my name, my identity.
Sura Gitla Gomolinska is no more. According to my forged Kennkarte, I am now Danuta Barbara Tanska.
Suddenly, I’m in a panic to make sure I have my new identity papers with my new name. Barely moving, I put my left hand in my coat pocket. I won’t take the card out to look at it. That could raise suspicions. Just feeling it between my fingers will give me peace.
It’s not there!
A wave of nausea washes over me. With no identification I could be killed.
Desperately, my fingers search the deep pocket.
It couldn’t have fallen out. This can’t be happening, not here, not now.
My head spins until I remember that I had put it in my right pocket, not my left. I reach into my coat with my other hand.
There it is.
Such relief. I feel the card with my fingertips. I see it so clearly in my mind: there is my photograph; there is my new name on the gray cardboard the Germans use to identify Poles, not the yellow cardboard designating “Jew.” I am no longer a Jew to be deported and sent to the camps, or worse; now, officially, I am a Pole.
But the sudden relief mingles with anger at myself. How could I have been so stupid to put the only thing that stands between life and death loose in a pocket, even a deep one? I had carefully decided not to put it in my purse. Purses can be stolen. But a pocket! Pockets have holes; a skilled thief could grab the card without my knowing. What was I thinking? But then I remembered that mad rush to get out of the ghetto. How could I have been thinking clearly about anything? I should have stuffed it in my bra where I had put my money. As soon as I have some privacy, I will put it there.
I feel reassured now that I have settled on that plan. As the train rushes forward, I wonder what I should call myself. Danuta? It’s so perfectly Polish but I don’t like the harsh sound of it. Barbara is nice and common but so formal. Sura Gitla was always called Gucia; such a sweet-sounding nickname.
My fingers are caressing the Kennkarte in my pocket and suddenly I see it, I hear it.
Basia …
That’s who I will be. It feels so warm and familiar. It’s a good nickname for Barbara and it has the same sweet sound as Gucia.
I lean against the window and say goodbye to Gucia and my past. Basia is now journeying forward to the resort town of Nowy Sacz and her uncertain future.
First Grade
A desire for knowledge for its own sake, a love of justice that borders on fanaticism, and a striving for personal independence—these are the aspects of the Jewish people’s tradition.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955)
1922
“Gucia, Gucia!” Krysia calls to me. “Gucia, wake up. Have you forgotten what day it is?”
Krysia has been our maid since I was an infant. It is because of her that I speak such fluent Polish. She throws off my quilt, and when she sees me lying there, she gasps, covers her mouth, and jumps back in surprise.
I leap out of the bed fully dressed, shaking with laughter.
“But Gucia, with shoes on, and in your bed?” She is horrified but can’t stop herself from laughing along with me.
How can she think I would ever have forgotten this day? I have been awake since the Kosciul Bernardinski church bell struck three a.m. Then I had quietly dressed myself, being careful not to wake my ten-year-old sister, Hela, who was sleeping like a log next to me in the bed we share.
Today, as usual, when the sun peeped through the lace curtains at sunrise, Hela woke up and got dressed. I pretended to be sound asleep. She probably didn’t remember what an important day it was for me and so she didn’t try to wake me.
As I had lain there waiting for Krysia to come get me, my teeth chattered with excitement, little shivers going up and down my body. It is to be my first day of first grade … a day I have waited and yearned for as long as I can remember.
Krysia straightens my dress and unwinds my braids. She explains, as she often does, that my hair is just too fine to make good braids and that fine blond wavy hair is just as beautiful as thick straight hair. As usual, I don’t believe her. She ties my wispy hair away from my face with a blue satin ribbon. Then she puts my pink knit cap on my head.
“Now, go see your mama and tatte (papa) and eat breakfast,” she says.
I run out of the living room, where Hela and I sleep, and into the kitchen.
On this special September morning, Chana Chojnacka, our other maid, who is Jewish like us, is stirring the porridge at the stove. Two-year-old Josek—my middle brother—sits on the floor, banging the lids on some pots and pans and making a racket. Four-year-old Idek is eating toast with cranberry jam at the kitchen table. Hela is on her way to school, hugging Tatte goodbye, and Mama is nursing three-month-old Beniek.
She holds out her right arm to hug me, understanding my excitement. She smiles and says, “Kum aher, Gitla, meine sheine meydle.” Come here, Gitla, my pretty little girl.
Mama always speaks Yiddish to me, but more and more I am speaking Polish to Krysia and my friends.
My mama is already elegantly dressed and ready to go to work. Soon she will leave the baby with Chana and walk the few blocks to Zamurowa Street to open our kosher butcher shop. Idek and Josek will stay home with Krysia, without me to play with them for the first time in their lives.
“It’s my first day of real school, Mamashi,” I say, hopping up and down in my brand-new black patent-leather Mary Janes. “Can I walk alone?”
The school is only one block away and I have been walking by myself to visit friends since I was very little. The streets are so safe. There are no strangers, no streetcars, only the occasional horse cart.
Mama smiles at me and says proudly, “Of course you may. You are such a big girl now.”
I am excited to go all by myself, and I know that my parents can’t take me anyway. They are much too busy. They both work very hard running the business and our apartment building, and there are so many of us to take care of when they come home.
The only time all of our family gathers together is for dinner each day at two p.m., except for Friday evening when we eat after Tatte comes home from shul (synagogue). Even then, our mouths share food but few words, apart from practical matters. Hela gabs about her friends and clothes and whatever she wants our parents to buy her. My little brothers Idek and Josek only talk nonsense and Beniek, the baby, just babbles.
I feel so different from all of them. I am burning with questions. There is so much I want to understand. I want to know why people have to die. What are other countries like? Why are some people kind and others cruel?
But though I am hungry for attention from my mama and tatte, I don’t want to bother them with my questions and demands.
The answers, I know, are in books. When I was little, I thought people were just teasing me, pretending that the mysterious marks and squiggles in newspapers and the letters Tatte brought home from the post office really meant something. But now I have figured out that in school I will learn to read. A teacher will be there to explain everything and answer my questions. And then I will know the world!
Mama kisses me goodbye one more time and I leave the apartment. When I get outside, Rozia Nissenson, who lives in the apartment next to ours, and Sala Grinzspan, whose father owns the apartment building next door, run to catch up with me.
It is a crisp, almost-autumn day. The leaves on the linden trees are just beginning to turn yellow. Their fragrant white blossoms are drying up and falling like snow.
I am very proud of my beautiful new clothes—a navy blue pleated skirt and a matching blue top with a starched bright white sailor collar. My skirt and top are made of soft merino wool and Mama says the deep blue of the dress is very becoming to my amber-colored eyes. I am happy that it isn’t too cold, so I don’t have to hide my beautiful outfit under a bulky coat.
On my head I have a little pink cap that Bubbe Gomolinska—my father’s mother—crocheted for me.
I have never worn my new shoes outside before, although I tried them on many times when Hela wasn’t looking.
My only disappointment on this glorious day is that there are no heavy blond braids falling straight down my back.
I am glad I haven’t eaten breakfast—just two sips of tea with milk and honey—because my stomach is quivering with excitement and dread.
Will the teacher like me? What if I am not a good student? Will I know any of the other students besides Rozia and Sala? Will I make any friends? Will I be the youngest? Will I be the shortest? Will it be as disappointing and as awful as the kindergarten I was forced to go to when I was four?
Finally, we get to the door of the beautiful brick school. Through the side gate I can see a lovely flower garden in the back. It is an extremely small school. There is only one classroom with the first, second, and third grades all together, but I know it is a prestigious private school for Jewish students from all over Piotrków Trybunalski, our town in central Poland.
Most of the students are already in the classroom, sitting in their newly assigned seats. There are two tables, each with a bench for two children, on one side of an aisle, and two tables and two benches on the other side. The tables and benches go back five rows. Most of the forty students are girls but there are some boys, too. The teacher is sitting behind her desk. It is on a small raised platform in front of a big blackboard. She is turned toward the door and holds a paper with all of our names.
My turn comes and my voice trembles a little as I announce, “Sura Gitla Gomolinska.”
The teacher seems very nice. She is tall and thin and is wearing a gray dress with black dots. Her hair is light brown and she has it tied in a tight bun at the back of her head. She has small, round gold earrings dangling from her ears and a gold crucifix hanging from a chain around her neck. Her eyes are almost as gray as her dress.
She smiles at me and then she looks at the list. “Excuse me, could you say your name again slowly?” she asks gently.
I repeat my three names as clearly as I can and she looks at the list again.
“I am sorry, Sura Gitla, but I cannot find your name on the list. There is no record of your registration.”
A feeling of horror comes over me, and for a moment I can’t breathe. I realize, with my stomach sinking down to my shiny black Mary Janes, that my devoted father, who works so hard to take care of us, who never says no, and who would do anything to make us happy, has forgotten to register me for school.
I try to explain that my father has probably just overlooked this small detail of registration. My tatte has so many important things to worry about—our meat business and apartment building and large household.
The teacher says she understands. She expresses her regrets. “I am so sorry,” she says, and she seems sincere. “You will just have to wait for next year, because we have absolutely no extra room, no room at all in the class. All the seats have been assigned. Come back next summer and have your father register you then.”
And, as she gives me what seems like a death sentence, she smiles kindly and gently pats me on my head.
For the first time in my life I feel my heart break. It takes all my strength to hold back my tears as I somehow make my way home. As soon as I get there the tears burst out of me like a flood, racking my entire body with the sorrow and misery and helplessness I feel. And the anger and outrage at the injustice of it.
I want so badly to curl up in Mama’s arms. Knowing I have to wait until she comes home at two o’clock is torture. I tear off my new clothes, put on an old smock, throw my favorite rubber ball in its net sling over my shoulder, and run out to the backyard to climb our old apple tree near the gazebo, my favorite private thinking spot.
I’ve had that rubber ball as long as I can remember. All the children I know have one. Mine is pink, green, and white, about the size of a soccer ball. We carry them in a crocheted sling over our shoulders (my sling is pink) and then, when we are ready to play, we each take out our ball and throw it against the walls and play games with each other. I know that I am not to take my ball to school. I am too old to play with a rubber ball there. But now it is comforting and, sitting in the apple tree, looking down at the gazebo, I keep slinging the ball in its strap against the branches of my old apple tree. I go over and over every painful detail of what has happened. And each time I start to cry again. I cling to the hope that Mama and Tatte will know how to fix this.
Finally, Mama comes home. I rush into her arms, sobbing, telling her my tragic story. She hugs me tightly and tries to calm me down. Soon Tatte comes home and Mama leads him to their bedroom to talk. When they come out, the look of pity I see on her face gives me a sick feeling.
“Bubbeleh,” she says to me, “if the teacher says there are no more places for now, there is nothing we can do. Your tatte will register you to start school next year. When you start next year you will be one year older and smarter and able to be a much better student. I know you’re disappointed now, but when you’re grown up it won’t even matter.”
Not matter? How can she think that? What will I do for one whole year? With all my friends in school I’ll have no one to play with. I turned six on May 15 of this year; next year I will be seven, and then I will be one year behind everyone else forever, always feeling stupid and ashamed.
The idea of just giving up makes me want to explode. I feel so alone. And I see clearly that I have to fight for myself.
Standing there before Mama and Tatte I make a decision and say, “I’m going back to school tomorrow to beg the teacher to let me in.”
Tatte says, “No, you must not argue with the teacher. It would be disrespectful.”
But Mama looks at me not with pity, but with pride. She turns to Tatte and says, “Itzak, let her go.”
And as always, when it comes to the children, Tatte agrees with what Mama thinks.
So the next day, in my shiny Mary Jane shoes with my blue pleated skirt and blue sailor top and pink crocheted cap and wispy blond hair down my back, tied with a blue ribbon, I walk by myself to the school and present myself to the teacher.
The words burst out of me. “My name is Sura Gitla Gomolinska and I am here to learn. I cannot wait for another year. I cannot wait even for one more day. Please, please let me come to school.”
The teacher gets a strange look on her face: displeasure, surprise, respect? She calmly shows me that there is no empty space on any bench, and how can I learn with no place to sit or write? She tells me that I cannot come to school. I must wait for next year. I am not registered and there is no place for me.
With tears in my eyes, again I walk slowly home and climb my apple tree.
“It is not fair. I want to learn. I will not give up,” I say to the tree.
And so, I go back to school the next day, in my less-shiny Mary Jane shoes with my wrinkled blue pleated skirt and blue sailor top and pink crocheted cap and my thin hair down my back tied with a blue ribbon. And again I beg and again the teacher gently says no. But I do not give up. I return the next day and the next day and the next day and the next. Each time she says no and each day I go back. Week after week, every day but Saturday and Sunday, I go to school and plead with all my heart, fail in my efforts, and return the next day.
Do I just wear the teacher down? Does she feel pity for me after so many weeks of begging? Does she truly admire my perseverance, my stubbornness, my sense of justice, my deep, passionate desire for learning? I don’t know. But one magical late-fall day, she finally gives in. She finds a little stool for me and places it in a corner of the room. After that, she allows my father to pay for the registration.
There is still no room, so I have to sit on the stool with my back to the blackboard, facing the other students, with no table to write on. I listen to everything the teacher says and try my best each day to learn as much as I can. The other students stare at me. My stubborn insistence to be admitted to school is unheard of. It would be too disrespectful for them to laugh or tease me openly, but I can feel their silent mockery as I sit at the front of the room, on that little stool, facing them. I feel like an outcast, though lucky to be there at all. Soon the staring stops.
Then one day in late November, the teacher comes to me and says, “Gucia, sometimes one person’s misfortune is another’s good luck. I have just learned that Voicek Pavinsky has polio and will not be coming back to school this year. There is a seat for you on the bench at the front table. Go sit.”
I know I should feel bad for Voicek, but all I can feel is amazement that what I have given up even daring to hope for, to be a regular student with my own place like everyone else, has come to pass. I feel warm and glowing inside, triumphant. My standing up for myself has been rewarded. And just like that, my nightmare is over.
It is my first lesson in learning to think for myself and fight for what I believe is right—a lesson that will one day help give me the determination to fight for my life.
Copyright © 2018 by Planaria Price and Helen Reichmann West
