Out of the Shoebox (8 page)

When
we came back from our hike I quickly checked the memorial website and the
photos again. I wrote to Miri:

"...
This is very strange... Moshe Kramer is certainly my uncle. It is the exact
same photo that I sent you. His sister is Selka Kramer though, not Pepe.
Possibly her nickname was Pepe, but I've never heard it before. Moshe Kramer
had no other sisters except my mother and their sister Selka. There was one
more cousin at home that they had adopted, but she was older than my mother. 
The strange thing is the wording on that web page: “Moshe Kramer, a good friend
of Tonia... Both came from a large wealthy family of which no one
survived." How  could they not know that my mother (Moshe's sister) was
living in Haifa all these years? How could Tonia, who published these photos,
not know that?"

The
following morning Miri's reply was waiting in my inbox:

Tonia
Vermuth née Sternberg lives in a senior living complex in Haifa: Dor
Carmel. She is in full possession of her faculties and you can simply talk to
her. She has two daughters about our age... I will get you her phone number. I
can't find it right now, but you can reach her daughter, Hanna Avni, by
email..."

I
wrote to Hanna that day and asked if it would be possible to ask her mother
some questions about my mother's family, about Moshe, Selka, and whether she
was Pepe. I also asked if Tonka knew what happened to my mother's family. The
next day Hanna responded:

"Hi
Yaron, I just got off the phone with my mother. She remembers the family. Moshe
Kramer was her classmate. I will find out more when I visit her and will let
you know. Best, Hanna."

On
Saturday evening I received another email:

"Hi
Yaron, last night I visited my mother armed with all the material your family
published online. I arrived with mixed feelings, knowing it is emotionally
taxing for her to talk about the past. My mother is the only survivor of a
large, established family, who bravely and heroically survived many hardships
on top of the traumas during the first years of the war when she was still with
her family. Talking about these topics has always made her sad and brings up
emotions that deprive her of sleep for days, so as her family we try to do so
as little as possible. My mother knew your parents, especially your mother, and
what little she told me about them corresponds with what you wrote. She also
said she spent a lot of time at the Kramers' as she was friends with Pepe and
Moshe, who were her age. Her parents also knew your grandparents on your
mother's side. She says they were extraordinary people in their lives, in the
values they lived by and the respect they afforded every man, including of
course adopted family members, and the adopted daughter Pepe. It seems I was
wrong when I wrote that Selka’s nickname was Pepe, so the picture's description
should be amended. The person in the photo is Pepe, a close friend of my
mother's. I quote: “Moshe would come over to our house and to the store every
day. Pepe, the adopted daughter they treated just like their own, was my good
friend and Moshe was also part of this friendship. On holidays they wanted her
to go home and see her poor mother and orphan brothers, but she didn't want to
and only did so because she had no choice.” My mother also says one of the two
families that lived upstairs in the rented flat was the Greenberg family.
Weddings were held in a place called Bristol and your parents probably got
married there. My mother remembers well when your mother came to visit with the
baby. My mother visited her often. She was 16 at the time, and remembers also
when they went back to Palestine. My mother also remembers Zelda, but not Simka
the doctor. The most interesting part of the story she told at the very end of
our conversation: The family hid in a bunker (shelter?) with a door that had to
be closed from the outside and then locked from the inside. Pepe sacrificed
herself for them; she went out to close the door and was then discovered and
killed. That's how those who were inside were also discovered. Moshe was the
one to come and close the door to our bunker. The families were close and each
felt the need to help the other... in the end they were all killed. The Nazis
flooded the bunker and drowned them. My mother wasn't in the bunker, and maybe
that's why she survived. Best to you and your family, Hanna."

Wow.
I did not expect such a letter. A short and concise description of the murder
of my mother's family came from an unexpected source and with very little
effort on my part. Again I felt that no sooner do I think of a missing piece of
information than I promptly receive the answer in a surprising and unforeseen
manner. I had no doubt that this was indeed how my mother's family came to
their end, though a year ago I had different reports that told of the murder of
my grandfather Menachem Mendel Kramer. At that time my sister bought me Marta
Goren's book Voices from the Black Forest, a detailed and chilling account of
the extermination of Chortkow's Jews. In the book I found an account of the
murder of a man named Mendel Kramer:

"On
the night between the 26th and 27th of August 1942 the first evacuation Aktion
took place in Chortkow. In this Aktion Jews were sent by train to the Belzec
death camp. About 2,500 Jews were sent to their death. After the Aktion the
bodies of 500-600  murdered Jews  were strewn in the ghetto and town streets.
When the Aktion was over, a few Jews were selected to gather the corpses. Three
teams were formed, each with two Gestapo soldiers and one Jew... Mendel Kramer,
a 65 year-old Jew, was among those to collect the bodies and pile them in the
market square. Albert Brettschneider, of the Gestapo, ordered him to turn
around and without reason shot him in the head.”

As
far as I know my grandfather was the only Mendel Kramer in Chortkow, but I
could be wrong. So at first, I accepted this account of my grandfather's
murder. That Gestapo officer was tried in Mannheim in 1974 and was sentenced to
20 years in jail, and likely died behind bars. After a more thorough
examination though, the age of the man in the story did not fit my grandfather.
My grandfather was born in 1890, so on the day of the Aktion he would have been
only 52, not 65. I suppose the man who gave his account of the event knew
Mendel Kramer or he wouldn't have mentioned his age, but I could be wrong.
That's why Tonia's account "felt right", true and more reliable. Her
close acquaintance with my family left no doubt in my heart regarding my
mother's family's tragic end.

A
cynic might say that I could choose for myself one tragic end or the other, and
I chose to believe the reliable information I received in that most unexpected
way.

I
completed the puzzle using the new information I gathered and other bits and
pieces to fill in the blanks; first with regards to Pepe, the new character who
was now part of my family. Pepe was supposedly twelve years younger than my
mother. Seeing as my mother first left Chortkow in 1934, and seeing as Pepe
would have been about eleven at the time, it is likely that my mother didn't
know her well and did not think of her as an integral part of the family. Maybe
that's the reason she never mentioned Pepe in her family stories. To the best
of my knowledge, Mother’s parents' home gradually emptied during the '30s and
her parents, following family tradition, decided to adopt "a new
daughter". I suppose that Pepe had lost her father, or that her poor
family could not afford her school tuition, which would have been exceedingly
expensive at the time so it is possible that my mother's parents decided to act
as they had done before, and provide the girl with a new life, an education and
financial stability. I believe Pepe came from Yazlovets near Buchach, where my
grandfather's family was originally from. I am certain that the mere fact that
Tonia remembered my parents' visit in Chortkow in 1939 shows that the two
girls, 16 year-old Pepe and Tonia, enjoyed playing with my sister Ilana, the
baby who came to Chortkow from Palestine and must have been a bit of an
“attraction”. Tonia also remembers parting with my parents, after which the
world turned upside down. The memorial webpage for Tonia Sternberg's family was
like a window allowing me a peek into the past. The photos told a story of a
different life, friendship among girls rowing a boat down the Seret River, or
proudly posing for the camera in sweaters they had just finished knitting.

Tonia Sternberg (right) and Pepe Kramer
(left) on the Seret River

Once
I was able to absorb the new information and form a narrative that I thought
made sense, I quickly responded to Hanna's email:

"I
am replying this late only because of the time difference, I am currently in
the US. Many thanks for your letter, I was deeply touched. Please send my
thanks to your mother as well. I am sure that bringing up these difficult
memories is not easy for her or for yourself. I admire the people who were able
to survive that hell, and build a new life and new families. It makes any
difficulties we experience in our lives seem trivial by comparison. The
information your mother provided sheds some light on the "black hole"
that is my family history. My mother is about 12 years older than your mother.
When my mother first left Chortkow for Palestine in 1934, her younger brother
Moshe was about 12, approximately the same age as your mother and Pepe. From
the stories I've heard over the years there were probably more orphans in the
Kramer household, just as there were at the Finkelman household, my father's
family. Most likely Pepe Kramer arrived at the house after my mother left for
Palestine in 1934. Chances are she came from a place called Yazlovets
(Jazłowiec in Polish). Yazlovets was close to Buchach and about 50km from
Chortkow. I know that's where the Kramers were from originally and that they
had relatives in Yazlovets. If your mother remembers the name of the town Pepe
came from or where she went on holidays (against her wishes) that mystery would
be solved. I know for a fact that, during the Soviet occupation, the Kramers
moved from, or were forced out of, their large house on Sobieskiego St. to a
house at 10 Szkolna St. They may have moved a few more times in the following
years. I was able to deduce that much from the return-address on the postcards
they sent my mother after the Soviet occupation. The Greenberg family you
mentioned in your email, may have lived in the Kramer’s first house or one of
the others. As for how my mother's family met their end, this is completely new
information to me. I was vaguely aware of hidden bunkers and tunnels, from
stories that Zelda Finkelman-Liebling told me, but I had never heard such a
stark description of the end of the Kramer family. It is both horrifying and
moving. It is incredible to think that your mother, Pepe and Moshe had a normal
life as teenagers and I am every bit as curious about their everyday normal
life as I am about the war, its horrors and devastation. I wish I had that
information. My mother and her family lost touch in 1940 when the letters and
postcards stopped. So we have nothing about the family after the war broke out
in 1939 and my parents left with my sister for Palestine. In fact, we have no
information about the day-to-day life of the Kramer family from 1934 to 1939.
Mother told us nothing. It's possible that she herself didn't know. My mother,
who loved her little brother Moshe dearly, never forgave herself for not taking
him along when they fled back to Palestine. These thoughts haunted her till the
last days when I was still able to communicate with her. This month she'll turn
101, but I'm afraid she no longer responds, so I can’t converse with her. All
her life Mother felt guilty for surviving while her whole family died. Hanna, I
thank you for this important, fascinating and touching information. Best of health
to your mother, and comfort from her family. I think I sound like someone who
had a proper Chortkowic upbringing. I would be delighted with any additional
scrap of information. And of course a special thanks to Miri – she deserves all
the credit for this riddle. Yaron"

The
next morning I got another reply from Hanna. This time her email contained
files of memoirs written by her mother, Tonia. The content was horrific, it
shed light on that dark period of persecution and extermination of the Jews of
Chortkow as experienced by a nineteen-year-old girl. Tonia's accounts and
memories were a stark contrast to the pastoral peace of the photos. A contrast
that only heightened the tragedy.

Within
Tonia's memoirs, I found the horrifying description of her brother's murder. I
might not have included this account, but I found two contradicting details
referring to the same events. In one account, Tonia's sister appears to be the
one who helps to bury her brother's body, but at other points she tells her
family that her close friend, probably Pepe, is the one who helped. I chose to
include this account, without any additional attempt to confirm who helped
Tonia, for it’s clear to me that even if Pepe was not there in person, she was
there in spirit, her closest friend, sharing everything Tonia went through.
They were good friends and shared this terrible tragedy. Tonia wrote: