Trap (9781476793177) (6 page)

Time to do a little trolling, he thought happily as he signed onto Facebook from one of his many aliases—a pretty young woman named Brenda with a photograph he'd downloaded from another internet site—and began searching for a post to comment on. He solicited social media “friends” the way some people collected baseball memorabilia, though not for social purposes. What he enjoyed was causing pain and suffering by inserting himself into the lives of strangers in ways they did not expect.

After a minute, he located a comment from a young woman in Georgia who was describing the events of her bridal shower. He smiled and began to type. “Honey, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but your fiancé is cheating on you.”

A few moments passed when there was a reply. “Who is this? Why are you saying this?”

The young man giggled. “You don't know me, but your fiancé does. Let's just say I know what I'm talking about.”

“You're lying,” the other woman replied. “He's right here and says he's never seen you before.”

“Of course he would,” the young man typed back. “Ask him about the fraternity party last fall.” He'd, of course, looked at his victim's photographs and noticed they included her with a young man standing outside a University of Georgia fraternity house.

A couple of minutes passed this time and the young man laughed, thinking about the conversation the woman and her fiancé were having. He decided to add fuel to the fire. “Don't worry about it, sweetie. I don't want him back. He's okay in bed but nothing special.”

The reply came quickly. “This is Tom. I don't know who you are or why you're doing this, but if I find you, I'll kick your ass.”

“You mean instead of spanking it when you're calling me ‘baby'? I don't think so, lover,” the young man typed. “You two have a good night and enjoy your honeymoon. But I do hope you get that little ‘medical issue' cleared up before then; all it takes is a shot of penicillin.”

Laughing, the young man signed out of that Facebook alias and was about to sign on to another when the computer notified him that he had a new email message. He didn't get many messages, so he quickly switched over to his email. What he saw made him even happier than tormenting a young engaged couple.

There was no name to indicate who it was from, just “No-Reply” and a computer-generated number. The subject line gave a date and time, and said “Meet me at the usual place.” He knew there would be no other message in the body of the email, so he didn't bother to look.
So the boss wants to see me
. The thought made him happy. That meant there was a job, and he did enjoy his work.

“Y
OU DON
'
T HAVE TO WAIT
for me,” Zak said to Moishe as the others disappeared into the synagogue.

“I'm not ready to go in,” the old man said. “And it's been a long time since we've talked.”

“I saw you Sunday at the bakery,” Zak reminded him.

“Ah yes, your father and his passion for my cherry cheese coffeecake.”

“He says it's the best in the five boroughs and that means the whole world.”

Moishe laughed. “He is too kind. But it was a busy morning; you and I had no chance to catch up.” They were both silent for a moment, then the old man cleared his throat as he looked up at the golden reflection of the setting sun on the windows of Midtown skyscrapers. “So your father tells me that you're thinking that you might not go through with your bar mitzvah.”

Zak tensed at the question but then quickly relaxed. He'd known the old man since childhood and he was more like a favorite uncle than just a family friend. “I don't see the point.” He shrugged. “I'm seventeen. If I was going to do it I should have done it years ago.”

“I've known old men who bar mitzvah,” Moishe said with a shrug. “I didn't go through with it until I was in my twenties and after I had immigrated to America.”

Zak looked over with interest. He'd heard some of the stories about Moishe—the escape from the Sobibor death camp, his time fighting the Germans as a partisan living in the woods. Those were his kind of stories. “I didn't know that,” he said. “Why did you wait?”

Moishe sighed and shook his head. “At first, I had no choice,” he said. “The Germans had invaded the Netherlands, where I was from, and were rounding up Jews to send to the death camps. We went into hiding, and it was too dangerous to have a bar mitzvah when I turned thirteen. After my family and I were sent to Sobibor it was not possible; most rabbis never made it past the first day of their arrival.”

The old man bowed his head. “Even if it had been possible, to be honest, I wanted no part of God or being Jewish in a religious sense. After all, look where being Jewish got my family and six million others. Persecuted. Murdered. Simply because of who we were.”

“So why did you eventually go through with it?” Zak asked.

Moishe turned to study the boy's face with his clear blue eyes. “That's a very good question,” he said. “In that camp I lost my family, my friends, and my faith in God. I believed that we had been forsaken, that God had abandoned his supposedly ‘chosen people.' As you know, when a young man is bar mitzvah he makes a pact with God to follow the commandments and behave ethically according to Jewish law, and yet where was God when ‘His' people were forced from their homes onto cattle cars to be taken to camps set up specifically for the purpose of murder. Then upon arrival to be herded into gas chambers or lined up and shot; their bodies thrown into pits or burned to ash in the crematoria. It did not seem to me that God was holding up his end of the deal. I was angry with God; I cursed him.”

“I've wondered that myself about the Holocaust,” Zak said.

“Well, you should because the answer lies at the very heart of Judaism,” Moishe replied. “Only after I came to America and the horror and sadness of the preceding years faded somewhat was I able to reflect on it. Only then was I able to look at the evil men who had persecuted us and compared them to the many good men and women and children who were their victims. It was then I realized that those men were gone, defeated, banished, and reviled as the monsters they had been, and yet we were still here—God's chosen people. Those others tried to exterminate us, subjected us to unspeakable horrors, but we survived, not them. Suddenly, I was proud to be a Jew: not just a Jewish partisan fighting in the forest, but part of a heritage that for thousands of years has stayed faithful to the concept of one God, one law, one people, and that no matter what cruel fates history and other people had thrown at us, we had outlasted all of them with our identity intact. That's when I decided to seek my bar mitzvah and seal my end of that pact with God and our people.”

Zak thought about what Moishe said before replying. “I understand how you would make that decision after everything you had been through. But I don't feel that same connection; I guess I just don't feel Jewish.”

Moishe turned his face away from a cold, stiff breeze that found its way down Third Avenue. “No one can, or should, force you to ‘feel Jewish,' or go forward with the bar mitzvah,” Moishe said. “I think all of our young men should ask themselves before their bar mitzvah if they ‘feel Jewish' instead of just going through the motions because that's what their parents expect.” He patted Zak on his shoulder. “You know, I'm glad you are giving this so much thought; you're not like all those thirteen-year-olds who are mostly looking forward to the party and getting money from their relatives and friends of their parents. If you don't feel Jewish in your heart and soul, then you should not go through with it.”

Zak smiled slightly and nodded. “Thanks, Moishe. I knew you'd understand. I just don't want to disappoint my dad. When Giancarlo and I first talked about it, he wondered why we were doing it. But then he started teaching classes at the synagogue and I think it got him to think more about being Jewish. I think he got into the whole thing, maybe more than me and Giancarlo.”

“Your father wants what's best for you,” Moishe assured him. “He is a good man who, perhaps, has grown in his own relationship with God by examining his subjects—really, discussions about ethics and morality—for the classes he taught. I think you will have to trust that whatever decision you reach, he will stand with you. Now, I need to go in before my friend Rose begins her talk. You're a good man, too. Now, walk with me to the synagogue.”

When they reached the door, Zak opened it and let Moishe walk through. But he hesitated to come in. “Maybe I'll just wait for my dad and brother out here.”

“It is too cold,” Moishe replied. “And I think the speaker is someone you should hear. It's not going to be the rabbi talking your ear off; she is the wife of my oldest and dearest friend, Simon Lubinsky. Humor an old man and sit with me to listen to her story. I think you might get something out of it that could help you with your decision.”

Zak tilted his head and laughed. “You're very clever, Moishe. But okay, I think I owe you that much.”

The pair entered the synagogue and made their way to where males were seated and took their places next to Karp and Giancarlo. “There's Simon,” Moishe said, pointing to another old man sitting in the front row.

Zak spotted Goldie seated in the front row of the women's section next to his mother, Marlene, and a gray-haired woman. He knew she was Rose Lubinsky not because of her connection to the Jewish community but from photographs of her in the newspaper and stories about her work with charter schools.

All conversations stopped when Rabbi Michael Hamilburg, a much-loved spiritual leader known for his kindness and the gentle way he had of dealing with his flock, walked to the front and greeted them. “Shalom, welcome, friends. We are gathered here on this cold evening to listen to a message I think we will all find moving and thought-provoking. We all know Simon and Rose Lubinsky as fellow worshippers, but tonight I've asked Rose to share her story with you, although it is a difficult one for her to tell. As you all know, she has written a book about her life called
The Lost Children of the Holocaust
. Without further ado, Rose Lubinsky.”

With all eyes on her, the gray-haired woman bowed her head and appeared as if she was unsure of what she was about to do. Then Goldie stood and offered her hand, which her friend took and allowed herself to be led to stand in front of the congregation. Goldie kissed her hand and made the sign language symbol of encouragement, then took her seat.

Rose's face was pale but then she cleared her throat and began. “Shalom, my friends, and thank you for coming,” she said, her voice quiet, uncertain. “I've asked to speak tonight as a step in a long road toward unburdening myself of the guilt that I have carried for many years and to help me keep a promise.”

Many in the crowd frowned, or looked confused. They had known her for many years and could not imagine that she carried some dark secret. “Like any long road, this one starts with a first step, so I will begin like this. I am originally from Lublin, Poland, where my people had lived since the seventeenth century. My father, Shmuel Kuratowski, was a bookkeeper for a gentile farming cooperative outside the city, and a
gabbai
who assisted the rabbi at our local synagogue. I can hardly picture his face before the war, but I remember like it was yesterday his deep, rich voice reading the Torah. My mother, Zofia, was a good woman, who took great care of her husband and her children, and loved God . . . or so I was told. I have no memories of my siblings—I was the youngest of six—and precious few of my mother and father.”

As she spoke, Rose's voice began to grow stronger, though all who heard her realized that tears were welling just beneath the surface. “I was five years old in 1939 when the war in Europe broke out. And seven in 1941, when the Germans created the Lublin Ghetto where Jews and many Roma, whom we call gypsies, were forced to live. In 1942, our oppressors began herding the inhabitants of the Lublin Ghetto onto cattle cars to be taken to the death camps to be exterminated, my family among them.”

Rose's voice caught and she struggled for a moment before going on. “Although I have few recollections of this, and most of what I know was later told to me by others, my father had somehow managed to save quite a bit of money. When rumors began to fly that we were going to be sent to the camps, my father was able to persuade one of the gentile farmers, Piotr Stanislaw, and his wife, Anka, with whom he'd had a good relationship, to spirit me out of the ghetto. He gave the Stanislaws every cent he had, but there wasn't enough money for my brothers and sister, just me.”

Rose took a deep breath and wiped at a tear that trickled down one cheek. “One of my only memories of my mother is the face of a woman crying as she held me one last time. I remember her saying it will be okay.
‘We will find you again someday.'
Then my father pried me away from her and handed me to Piotr.
‘Remember who you are, Rose; remember your family,'
he said.
‘Tak, ojciec,'
yes, Papa, I promised. And then they were gone.”

More than seventy years later, Rose bowed her head at the memory. “Simple enough instructions. Remember who you are. Remember your family.” She looked up at the faces of her listeners, many of whom had tears in their eyes. “I failed at both, but I was just a little girl, and so perhaps can be forgiven for that at least.”

Rose continued with her story about how the Stanislaws took her in, telling their neighbors that she was the child of Piotr's brother who'd served in the Polish army and died during the Nazi invasion. “I was lucky to be blond-haired and blue-eyed, and I did not ‘look Jewish.' ”

The Stanislaws, she said, did everything to allay any suspicion that their “adopted daughter” was a Jew. They hung a gold cross around her neck, had her baptized, and took her to Catholic mass. “They even gave me a new name, Krystiana, ‘follower of Christ,' and forbade me ever using my real name, ‘Rose,' even in the privacy of their home.”