My grandma
Today I've been thinking a lot about my grandparents, probably because blueshadows wrote a post about hers. I'm feeling a bit sad because none of my grandparents are still alive. A few years ago I wrote an essay about my grandma Luba, who was a Holocaust survivor. I wanted to post it here as a tribute or something. I guess I just wanted to post it in a place where other people could read it and hear her story. Grandma Luba, you may be gone, but you're not forgotten. Here's to you.
My Grandma Luba
When I think of my grandmother I think of a woman practically parallel to the ground because her arthritis was so bad. I remember a woman with short cropped curly hair styled the same way other grandmothers style their hair. I remember a woman wearing a floral nightgown shuffling to her destination. I remember pink lipstick rubbed off her thin lips. I remember glazed blue eyes and a face that startled me as a young child - the lower half of my grandmother’s skin looked different from the upper half. It looked she was wearing a plastic mask because earlier in life she had a skin transplant. Yet, beneath this exterior held the life story of a survivor with more courage and heartbreak than I could ever imagine. My grandmother was a Holocaust survivor.
She was born outside of Vilna, in what was then Poland on a farm in 1917 as Libele Anolik, which means “little Lieb.” She was named after her father who died before she was born. When my grandmother emigrated to the United States years later her name was changed to Luba.
In September 1939 1.8 million German troops invaded Poland. That same year my grandmother got married. When Vilna was turned into a ghetto in September 1941, my grandmother was sequestered with nine other people, including children, in a ground floor apartment. Libele’s husband of two years was taken away and put in a concentration camp. My grandmother never saw him again.
According to the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia:
The Jews were not allowed out of the ghetto, so they had to rely on food supplied by the Nazis: in Warsaw this was 253 calories per Jew, compared to 669 calories per Pole and 2,613 calories per German. With crowded living conditions, starvation diets, and little sanitation hundreds of thousands of Jews died of disease. (Ghettos)
The people in the apartment had to beg or steal food because non-Jews were not allowed to sell food to Jews. Jewish stores were destroyed and it was hard to get what they needed. The ghetto had guards and a huge wall around a part of the city, separating the Jews from the non-Jews. Children were sent through holes in the ghetto walls to beg for food.
Libele and the others were in the apartment for several months. They heard rumors of people being sent to concentration camps and food was scarce. They were afraid they would die of starvation, so they came up with a plan. They moved a breakfront to block off one of the rooms in the apartment. At night they dug holes through the floor into the ground to eventually get to the sewer system. They stole or found shovels and picks. They dug the whole time they were in the apartment. They eventually hit the sewer system and navigated their way through to the outside. Once they left the ghetto my grandmother and the others ripped off their Jewish-star armbands. My grandmother was pronounced the leader because she had blonde hair, blue eyes and she spoke Polish well. If anyone stopped the group my grandmother would pretend she was Polish.
They weren’t approached.
They decided it would be best if they split up and went in different directions. Since Libele was on her own, she decided to join a Rabbi, his wife, and their baby as she made her escape. They walked to the countryside, which wasn’t very far away, and they went to my great-grandparent’s farm. My great-grandmother told Libele if anything happened to her or the family to come back to the farm and check under the floorboard where she would hide money. When Libele came back to the farm she found the house burnt to the ground. The money was gone. Faced with no other options, Libele and her companions knocked on farmers’ doors, asking them to hide her and her friends, offering to bribe them as an exchange. Nobody would take them in because the farmers were afraid for their lives. Libele knew some of the farmers since her parents lived in the area, and even those she knew would not take her in.
My grandmother and her companions finally found a farmer to hide them. In exchange for shelter, the farmer would go into town to the bank and withdraw money each week from a safe deposit box Libele’s family kept. Libele knew the banker and sent a note with the farmer explaining the situation, and how much to take out each week.
My grandmother, the Rabbi, his wife and their baby hid in the farmer’s potato cellar. They had to stay crouched down during the day so no one would see them. The farmer was so scared he wouldn’t even let them bathe. For months. As a consequence, Libele contracted body lice, and consequently typhus.
According to the Center for Disease Control website:
Body lice are parasitic insects that live on the body and in the clothing or bedding of infested humans . . . Body lice infestations spread rapidly under crowded conditions where hygiene is poor and there is frequent contact among people. [In the U.S.] body lice are found only in homeless, transient populations who don't have access to changes of clothes or bath. Infestation is unlikely to persist on anyone who bathes regularly and who regularly has access to freshly laundered clothing and bedding.
When a person has typhus they:
experience a high fever that continues for approximately two weeks. Simultaneous symptoms may include severe headaches, bronchial disturbances, and mental confusion. Indeed, typhus is from the Greek word typhos meaning stupor. After approximately six days, red eruptions appear on the torso, hands, feet, and face. Mortality is incredibly high under epidemic conditions, nearing 100%. (Typhus)
When my grandma contracted typhus she really wanted to die. She was convinced her life was over and it was better to leave now than suffer more. The Rabbi and his wife kept her alive. They kept telling her God wanted her to live. She was going to live. She was going to be happy again. She thought they were crazy. She thought they were all going to die.
My grandmother did not die. With no doctor treating her, and still living in those horrible conditions, she survived. After contracting typhus, the rash on her face left scars that never faded. Later she had plastic surgery to cover the scars.
Once my grandmother fell ill, the farmer started letting them bathe. Once a week, at night, the farmer would let them come into the house and wash up. The farmer finally let grandma and the others start bathing after all that time because he wouldn’t know what to do with the bodies if they died.
The farmer also brought them food, a newspaper, and a pail so they could relieve themselves. The farmer came at the end of the day to retrieve the pail. Whenever the farmer went to a party or something at night they my grandmother and the others would sneak upstairs and raid the fridge and bathe.
After 10 months, the money in the bank ran out. My grandmother begged the farmer to let them stay because otherwise they would be killed.
He refused.
She felt a lot of rancor about the situation because years later she heard stories of people who stayed with more sympathetic farmers. She met others who hid during the war who stayed in barns, moved around freely, slept in lofts and played cards.
My grandmother felt she had rotten luck. She felt cheated and was angry at God because her situation was more difficult than others. Other people had more survivors. All of Libele’s aunts, uncles, cousins, parents and siblings were killed. She felt she was dealt a worse hand than other people she knew.
Family meant a lot to my grandmother. She was very close to her relatives. She used to go over to her parents’ house and play cards with her sisters. It was very hard for my grandmother after her two sisters were killed.
When the farmer threw them out, they had nothing to eat. They were wandering in the forest for a couple of days looking for food. A farm boy spotted them. They threatened him with death if he told anyone he saw them. However, Libele and her companions knew they did not instill any fear in this boy, in their emaciated state. They knew he would probably turn them in. So, Libele and her companions decided it would be best if they turned themselves in to one of the Nazi camps around the countryside. They walked up a hill to one of the encampments prepared to die. They turned themselves into the camp but instead of finding Nazis they found Russians. They were saved. The Russians gave them food and shelter. After a few days, they took them to a displacement camp for other rescued Jews.
Once in the displacement camp, Libele worked in a commissary, distributing items to soldiers and selling things like matches and alcohol. Libele started to drink a lot. She would steal the alcohol at night, drink it, and dilute the container with water to cover up what she drank. She sank into a serious depression. Especially when she found out her relatives were dead.
Then Libele found her cousin Ester in the camp. Ester saved my grandmother’s life. She supported Libele, comforted her, and convinced her to stop drinking. Once reunited, Ester and Libele went back to Vilna. At that point Vilna was no longer occupied by the Germans; it was liberated by the Russians.
Back in Vilna Ester worked in a department store while Libele worked in another commissary. Libele discovered her cousin Nissan was still alive. He was working with a group of Jewish rebels to fight against the Nazis. Libele decided he and Ester would be a perfect match. She sent Ester to him with a note Ester was instructed not to read. It went something like this, “Nissan. I don’t have a message for you. I just wanted you and Ester to meet. Don’t tell her.” And as it is with all love stories, Ester and Nissan fell in love and got married after the war.
Once the war ended, Libele discovered she had other relatives still alive: her first cousins Sonia and Leah, and her cousin by marriage Tanchum. Ninety percent of Poland’s population of 3 million Jews was killed in the war (History). These were some of the 10 percent who survived.
Once the American allies freed Tanchum from his concentration camp, he came to the same area as my grandmother. He had a plan to save up money and immigrant to the United States. He thought the fastest way to earn money was to steal. So he did. Fur coats, alcohol, whatever would fetch a good price. My grandmother gave him the fur coats she sold at the commissary and Tanchum sold them on the black market by hopping on freight trains, traveling to nearby places.
When Tanchum had enough money to buy a ticket to the U.S. he asked Libele to marry him. He told her she had 24 hours to let him know her decision. She stayed up all night with Sonia, Leah and Ester. They thought it was a good idea. So, the next day she told him yes. They got married in Vilna the next day. Libele got pregnant almost immediately, which was a shock to her. A doctor told her after her bout of Typhus she was probably sterile so she was amazed when she got pregnant.
By the time the ship left for the U.S. she was 5 months pregnant. She wasn’t allowed on the boat because she was visibly pregnant. She and Tanchum had to wait until the baby, my uncle Chaim, was born before they could board. One month after he was born they finally boarded a ship to take them to the United States. Once in the United States they settled in Brooklyn, N.Y. where they owned a men’s clothing store and raised two children: Chaim and my mother Diane.
Works Cited
“Division of Parasitic Diseases.” Center for Disease Control.
<http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasites/lice/factsht_body_lice.htm>
“Ghettos in Occupied Europe.” Wikipedia.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghettos_in_occupied_Europe_1939_-_1944>
“History of Jews in Poland.” Wikipedia.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland>
“Vilna.” Holocaust Encyclopedia.
“Invasion.” The History of Poland: The Second World War.
<http://www.kasprzyk.demon.co.uk/www/WW2.html>
“September 16, 1941 in history.” Brainy History.
<http://www.brainyhistory.com/events/1941/september_16_1941_100201.html>
“Typhus Disease Profile.”
My Grandma Luba
When I think of my grandmother I think of a woman practically parallel to the ground because her arthritis was so bad. I remember a woman with short cropped curly hair styled the same way other grandmothers style their hair. I remember a woman wearing a floral nightgown shuffling to her destination. I remember pink lipstick rubbed off her thin lips. I remember glazed blue eyes and a face that startled me as a young child - the lower half of my grandmother’s skin looked different from the upper half. It looked she was wearing a plastic mask because earlier in life she had a skin transplant. Yet, beneath this exterior held the life story of a survivor with more courage and heartbreak than I could ever imagine. My grandmother was a Holocaust survivor.
She was born outside of Vilna, in what was then Poland on a farm in 1917 as Libele Anolik, which means “little Lieb.” She was named after her father who died before she was born. When my grandmother emigrated to the United States years later her name was changed to Luba.
In September 1939 1.8 million German troops invaded Poland. That same year my grandmother got married. When Vilna was turned into a ghetto in September 1941, my grandmother was sequestered with nine other people, including children, in a ground floor apartment. Libele’s husband of two years was taken away and put in a concentration camp. My grandmother never saw him again.
According to the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia:
The Jews were not allowed out of the ghetto, so they had to rely on food supplied by the Nazis: in Warsaw this was 253 calories per Jew, compared to 669 calories per Pole and 2,613 calories per German. With crowded living conditions, starvation diets, and little sanitation hundreds of thousands of Jews died of disease. (Ghettos)
The people in the apartment had to beg or steal food because non-Jews were not allowed to sell food to Jews. Jewish stores were destroyed and it was hard to get what they needed. The ghetto had guards and a huge wall around a part of the city, separating the Jews from the non-Jews. Children were sent through holes in the ghetto walls to beg for food.
Libele and the others were in the apartment for several months. They heard rumors of people being sent to concentration camps and food was scarce. They were afraid they would die of starvation, so they came up with a plan. They moved a breakfront to block off one of the rooms in the apartment. At night they dug holes through the floor into the ground to eventually get to the sewer system. They stole or found shovels and picks. They dug the whole time they were in the apartment. They eventually hit the sewer system and navigated their way through to the outside. Once they left the ghetto my grandmother and the others ripped off their Jewish-star armbands. My grandmother was pronounced the leader because she had blonde hair, blue eyes and she spoke Polish well. If anyone stopped the group my grandmother would pretend she was Polish.
They weren’t approached.
They decided it would be best if they split up and went in different directions. Since Libele was on her own, she decided to join a Rabbi, his wife, and their baby as she made her escape. They walked to the countryside, which wasn’t very far away, and they went to my great-grandparent’s farm. My great-grandmother told Libele if anything happened to her or the family to come back to the farm and check under the floorboard where she would hide money. When Libele came back to the farm she found the house burnt to the ground. The money was gone. Faced with no other options, Libele and her companions knocked on farmers’ doors, asking them to hide her and her friends, offering to bribe them as an exchange. Nobody would take them in because the farmers were afraid for their lives. Libele knew some of the farmers since her parents lived in the area, and even those she knew would not take her in.
My grandmother and her companions finally found a farmer to hide them. In exchange for shelter, the farmer would go into town to the bank and withdraw money each week from a safe deposit box Libele’s family kept. Libele knew the banker and sent a note with the farmer explaining the situation, and how much to take out each week.
My grandmother, the Rabbi, his wife and their baby hid in the farmer’s potato cellar. They had to stay crouched down during the day so no one would see them. The farmer was so scared he wouldn’t even let them bathe. For months. As a consequence, Libele contracted body lice, and consequently typhus.
According to the Center for Disease Control website:
Body lice are parasitic insects that live on the body and in the clothing or bedding of infested humans . . . Body lice infestations spread rapidly under crowded conditions where hygiene is poor and there is frequent contact among people. [In the U.S.] body lice are found only in homeless, transient populations who don't have access to changes of clothes or bath. Infestation is unlikely to persist on anyone who bathes regularly and who regularly has access to freshly laundered clothing and bedding.
When a person has typhus they:
experience a high fever that continues for approximately two weeks. Simultaneous symptoms may include severe headaches, bronchial disturbances, and mental confusion. Indeed, typhus is from the Greek word typhos meaning stupor. After approximately six days, red eruptions appear on the torso, hands, feet, and face. Mortality is incredibly high under epidemic conditions, nearing 100%. (Typhus)
When my grandma contracted typhus she really wanted to die. She was convinced her life was over and it was better to leave now than suffer more. The Rabbi and his wife kept her alive. They kept telling her God wanted her to live. She was going to live. She was going to be happy again. She thought they were crazy. She thought they were all going to die.
My grandmother did not die. With no doctor treating her, and still living in those horrible conditions, she survived. After contracting typhus, the rash on her face left scars that never faded. Later she had plastic surgery to cover the scars.
Once my grandmother fell ill, the farmer started letting them bathe. Once a week, at night, the farmer would let them come into the house and wash up. The farmer finally let grandma and the others start bathing after all that time because he wouldn’t know what to do with the bodies if they died.
The farmer also brought them food, a newspaper, and a pail so they could relieve themselves. The farmer came at the end of the day to retrieve the pail. Whenever the farmer went to a party or something at night they my grandmother and the others would sneak upstairs and raid the fridge and bathe.
After 10 months, the money in the bank ran out. My grandmother begged the farmer to let them stay because otherwise they would be killed.
He refused.
She felt a lot of rancor about the situation because years later she heard stories of people who stayed with more sympathetic farmers. She met others who hid during the war who stayed in barns, moved around freely, slept in lofts and played cards.
My grandmother felt she had rotten luck. She felt cheated and was angry at God because her situation was more difficult than others. Other people had more survivors. All of Libele’s aunts, uncles, cousins, parents and siblings were killed. She felt she was dealt a worse hand than other people she knew.
Family meant a lot to my grandmother. She was very close to her relatives. She used to go over to her parents’ house and play cards with her sisters. It was very hard for my grandmother after her two sisters were killed.
When the farmer threw them out, they had nothing to eat. They were wandering in the forest for a couple of days looking for food. A farm boy spotted them. They threatened him with death if he told anyone he saw them. However, Libele and her companions knew they did not instill any fear in this boy, in their emaciated state. They knew he would probably turn them in. So, Libele and her companions decided it would be best if they turned themselves in to one of the Nazi camps around the countryside. They walked up a hill to one of the encampments prepared to die. They turned themselves into the camp but instead of finding Nazis they found Russians. They were saved. The Russians gave them food and shelter. After a few days, they took them to a displacement camp for other rescued Jews.
Once in the displacement camp, Libele worked in a commissary, distributing items to soldiers and selling things like matches and alcohol. Libele started to drink a lot. She would steal the alcohol at night, drink it, and dilute the container with water to cover up what she drank. She sank into a serious depression. Especially when she found out her relatives were dead.
Then Libele found her cousin Ester in the camp. Ester saved my grandmother’s life. She supported Libele, comforted her, and convinced her to stop drinking. Once reunited, Ester and Libele went back to Vilna. At that point Vilna was no longer occupied by the Germans; it was liberated by the Russians.
Back in Vilna Ester worked in a department store while Libele worked in another commissary. Libele discovered her cousin Nissan was still alive. He was working with a group of Jewish rebels to fight against the Nazis. Libele decided he and Ester would be a perfect match. She sent Ester to him with a note Ester was instructed not to read. It went something like this, “Nissan. I don’t have a message for you. I just wanted you and Ester to meet. Don’t tell her.” And as it is with all love stories, Ester and Nissan fell in love and got married after the war.
Once the war ended, Libele discovered she had other relatives still alive: her first cousins Sonia and Leah, and her cousin by marriage Tanchum. Ninety percent of Poland’s population of 3 million Jews was killed in the war (History). These were some of the 10 percent who survived.
Once the American allies freed Tanchum from his concentration camp, he came to the same area as my grandmother. He had a plan to save up money and immigrant to the United States. He thought the fastest way to earn money was to steal. So he did. Fur coats, alcohol, whatever would fetch a good price. My grandmother gave him the fur coats she sold at the commissary and Tanchum sold them on the black market by hopping on freight trains, traveling to nearby places.
When Tanchum had enough money to buy a ticket to the U.S. he asked Libele to marry him. He told her she had 24 hours to let him know her decision. She stayed up all night with Sonia, Leah and Ester. They thought it was a good idea. So, the next day she told him yes. They got married in Vilna the next day. Libele got pregnant almost immediately, which was a shock to her. A doctor told her after her bout of Typhus she was probably sterile so she was amazed when she got pregnant.
By the time the ship left for the U.S. she was 5 months pregnant. She wasn’t allowed on the boat because she was visibly pregnant. She and Tanchum had to wait until the baby, my uncle Chaim, was born before they could board. One month after he was born they finally boarded a ship to take them to the United States. Once in the United States they settled in Brooklyn, N.Y. where they owned a men’s clothing store and raised two children: Chaim and my mother Diane.
Works Cited
“Division of Parasitic Diseases.” Center for Disease Control.
<http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasites/lice/factsht_body_lice.htm>
“Ghettos in Occupied Europe.” Wikipedia.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghettos_in_occupied_Europe_1939_-_1944>
“History of Jews in Poland.” Wikipedia.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland>
“Vilna.” Holocaust Encyclopedia.
“Invasion.” The History of Poland: The Second World War.
<http://www.kasprzyk.demon.co.uk/www/WW2.html>
“September 16, 1941 in history.” Brainy History.
<http://www.brainyhistory.com/events/1941/september_16_1941_100201.html>
“Typhus Disease Profile.”