You Saved Me, Too: What a Holocaust Survivor Taught Me about Living, Dying, Fighting, Loving, and Swearing in Yiddish by Susan Kushner Resnick Read Free Book Online
Authors: Susan Kushner Resnick
reading something tantalizing to you. I can see if the book I grabbed on the way out of the house has some dirty parts. If the word
vagina
doesn’t wake you up, things aren’t looking good.
But you’ve always hated when I try to introduce activities. Not long after you moved into the nursing home, I noticed the pile of games and playing cards stacked on some shelves across from the chair you’ve colonized. They were the type of things usually found in bed-and-breakfasts or beach rentals. They looked old, as if no one ever touched them, sort of like the building’s residents. So one day, I figured instead of just sitting there talking about your blood pressure or dead people during our visit, we could pass the time with some recreation. You told me you’d played cards back in Zychlin. Remember—that kid cheated you out of your winnings, the one who later died of some kind of brain injury after his father beat him over the head?
“Hey!” I said. “Wanna play cards?”
“Cards?” you asked, with a face full of revulsion. “Are you drunk today?”
Fine. I guess that meant puzzles were out of the question, too. It also proved that we aren’t a pleasant-pastime type of couple. That’s too balanced for us. We’re both extremists when it comes to conversation—give us something good or be quiet because you’re boring us.
“Did you ever wish you weren’t Jewish?” I asked.
You looked at me as if I was crazy—or still drunk—but then you jumped right into the pool with me.
“I did once,” you said. “When I worked at the deli. I told a man and he started yelling at me.”
I will not yell at you today. I will not ask if you want to play cards. I won’t even read to myself.
F ALL 2008
Teach us Yiddish words!
We were in the nursing home courtyard. Max was almost a teenager. He was getting bigger as you got smaller. We couldn’t fill a visit with him sitting on your lap and eating borscht anymore, like we did when he was a toddler. At twelve,
you
have to entertain
them
. And I needed you to get fun quick. He was bouncing a ball, which meant he was bored already.
At first you seemed to think my request for Yiddish vocabulary lessons was
meshugge
. 1
“Come on,” I said. “How would you tell someone off?”
“Ich hobn fant du
.” (I don’t like you.)
That sounded kind of mild to me.
“What else?”
“
Gai in drerd arayn
.” (Go to hell.)
The bouncing stopped. The boy grinned.
Better.
“What other swears do you have?” I said.
Shmeggegge
. 2
“That’s not a swear.”
I wanted the real stuff. Shithead. 3 Asshole. 4 Something a boy could use.
But you’re too much of a gentleman.
“
Ikh hob dikh lieb
.”
What’s that mean?
“I love you.”
Oh, dude—same.
C OPYRIGHT 1974
This is not your first appearance in a book. The other one, published when I was eleven years old, is called
The Memorial Book of Zychlin
, or
Sefer Zychlin
in some language I should know. After years of research, I know this about the book:
It’s a collection of stories about and memories of your hometown, written by any and all survivors who cared to contribute. Such books were often compiled after the war and are referred to as
Yizkor
books.
Yizkor
means memory.
It contains black-and-white pictures, some simple portraits of citizens, such as the one depicting an old man in a long coat smoking a very long pipe, but most are group shots: angry gray-haired men holding up a piece of paper and scowling, dapper young men (the same ones during better times?) gathered around a table and demonstrating the props of a meeting: ledger, document, cigarette; a mixed-gender group with little rectangles of paper stuck to their lapels and dress fronts; a sports team wearing striped jerseys, which, had they been allowed time to pack, could have saved the Nazis some cash; soldiers with rifles posing next to horse-drawn carts full of people and bundles; three skinny men standing in the snow wearing nothing except what
vagina
doesn’t wake you up, things aren’t looking good.
But you’ve always hated when I try to introduce activities. Not long after you moved into the nursing home, I noticed the pile of games and playing cards stacked on some shelves across from the chair you’ve colonized. They were the type of things usually found in bed-and-breakfasts or beach rentals. They looked old, as if no one ever touched them, sort of like the building’s residents. So one day, I figured instead of just sitting there talking about your blood pressure or dead people during our visit, we could pass the time with some recreation. You told me you’d played cards back in Zychlin. Remember—that kid cheated you out of your winnings, the one who later died of some kind of brain injury after his father beat him over the head?
“Hey!” I said. “Wanna play cards?”
“Cards?” you asked, with a face full of revulsion. “Are you drunk today?”
Fine. I guess that meant puzzles were out of the question, too. It also proved that we aren’t a pleasant-pastime type of couple. That’s too balanced for us. We’re both extremists when it comes to conversation—give us something good or be quiet because you’re boring us.
“Did you ever wish you weren’t Jewish?” I asked.
You looked at me as if I was crazy—or still drunk—but then you jumped right into the pool with me.
“I did once,” you said. “When I worked at the deli. I told a man and he started yelling at me.”
I will not yell at you today. I will not ask if you want to play cards. I won’t even read to myself.
F ALL 2008
Teach us Yiddish words!
We were in the nursing home courtyard. Max was almost a teenager. He was getting bigger as you got smaller. We couldn’t fill a visit with him sitting on your lap and eating borscht anymore, like we did when he was a toddler. At twelve,
you
have to entertain
them
. And I needed you to get fun quick. He was bouncing a ball, which meant he was bored already.
At first you seemed to think my request for Yiddish vocabulary lessons was
meshugge
. 1
“Come on,” I said. “How would you tell someone off?”
“Ich hobn fant du
.” (I don’t like you.)
That sounded kind of mild to me.
“What else?”
“
Gai in drerd arayn
.” (Go to hell.)
The bouncing stopped. The boy grinned.
Better.
“What other swears do you have?” I said.
Shmeggegge
. 2
“That’s not a swear.”
I wanted the real stuff. Shithead. 3 Asshole. 4 Something a boy could use.
But you’re too much of a gentleman.
“
Ikh hob dikh lieb
.”
What’s that mean?
“I love you.”
Oh, dude—same.
C OPYRIGHT 1974
This is not your first appearance in a book. The other one, published when I was eleven years old, is called
The Memorial Book of Zychlin
, or
Sefer Zychlin
in some language I should know. After years of research, I know this about the book:
It’s a collection of stories about and memories of your hometown, written by any and all survivors who cared to contribute. Such books were often compiled after the war and are referred to as
Yizkor
books.
Yizkor
means memory.
It contains black-and-white pictures, some simple portraits of citizens, such as the one depicting an old man in a long coat smoking a very long pipe, but most are group shots: angry gray-haired men holding up a piece of paper and scowling, dapper young men (the same ones during better times?) gathered around a table and demonstrating the props of a meeting: ledger, document, cigarette; a mixed-gender group with little rectangles of paper stuck to their lapels and dress fronts; a sports team wearing striped jerseys, which, had they been allowed time to pack, could have saved the Nazis some cash; soldiers with rifles posing next to horse-drawn carts full of people and bundles; three skinny men standing in the snow wearing nothing except what
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