Exile, painted by S. Hirszenberg

 A girl with a kettle

                         by           

   Judith Pereg, Rachel Wool

Translated from Hebrew

By Richard A. Siegel

 -You won’t believe what I did today.

– Come on, tell me.

– Do you remember Father’s postcards in the pink album? There was one

of a group of people walking in the snow, right? It was shown yesterday

at a lecture I was attending, and it was said that a painter by the name of

Hirszenberg painted it. I took down his name and googled him today. I found

the painting and printed it out as a souvenir. What do you think about that?

– You didn’t have to look him up on Google – you could have asked me.

– Asked you what?

– I remember that picture very well. It was hung in our home in the living room,

above the sofa. It was a black and white picture, like a print. I was frightened

of it.

– What are you talking about? I don’t remember any picture, either color or black

and white. I only remember the postcard in the album. Which home are you

talking about?

– About our home in Sofia, of course. Father had many objects related to Judaica.

He had a collection of ornamented Haggadot – I already told you about that. He

also had two pictures in the living room, the one you found on Google and another

one, of a Jew putting on tefillin.

– I don’t remember anything at all about our home in Sofia. I was too young. The

second picture that you mention must be by Maurycy Gottleib.

– You think so? I’ll have to check that on Google.

– But why did the picture frighten you? It’s called Exile, by the way.

-I didn’t know that. I once asked Grandma who the people in the picture were, and

she replied that the picture shows the Spanish expulsion.

– No way! It has nothing to do with the Spanish expulsion. It’s a picture of 19th

century Eastern European Jews.

– It doesn’t matter, that’s what Grandma said and it frightened me terribly.

– But why?

– Because I am also Jewish and if the Jews in the picture could be expelled, so

could I.

– In fact, it turned out that your fear was justified. We really were expelled –

from our home in Sofia to provincial villages.

– Do you remember the night they transferred us from one village to another?

– Actually yes, I do remember that. I was already a little bit older. I remember

the cold, the darkness and the atmosphere of fear. I also remember that we

were taken in a covered wagon, harnessed to two black bulls – water buffaloes,

not cows.

– Yes, and making our way to the wagon we trampled in the snow. Say,

is there a girl with a kettle in that picture?

– I think so, let me check. Yes, there is, but she is not the main figure in the

picture. It is the man walking at the head of the column that attracts one’s

attention.

– I have always remembered the girl with the kettle and I suspected that my

fate would be similar to hers.

– Wherever did you get that idea?

– Do you remember that we were told to be quiet, so that we wouldn’t be heard

leaving?

– I don’t remember that we were told that, but I do remember the quiet. No

one spoke.

– It was not completely quiet. Grandma insisted on taking her big alarm clock

with her, and it ticked and ticked. I was so afraid that it would awaken someone

and that we would be forced to walk in the snow – like the people in the picture.

– But we only walked as far as the wagon.

– That’s right, but I was afraid that someone would hear us and that we wouldn’t

be allowed to climb onto the wagon. Do you remember the circumstances under

which we left the house?

– Not really.

– Well, mother carried our baby sister, Father gave you his hand, and I was on my

own. I was afraid that we would be separated so I held on very, very tightly to

Mother’s dress. And then, from out of the stillness, I heard the ticking of the clock

and I thought that at any moment we would be made to walk in the snow. We

would all have to carry some of our own belongings, and I would be given a small

suitcase or a bundle or something, just like the girl with the kettle – so that I

wouldn’t have a free hand to hold onto Mother’s dress and I would simply sink into

the snow.

– Wow, what a story! This is the first time that you’re telling it to me. Have you

already told it to anyone else?

– No.

– You have to! I’ll print out the picture from Google for you in black and white, as you

remember it. It’s on Google in a number of versions, including one in black and white.

But you really must tell the children. It’s part of their heritage. It’s a story that must

not be forgotten. Tell it – do you hear me?

– Maybe …..we’ll see.

           ***

 Rachel summarizes,

 This story relates an event from the past, an event that took place mostly in 1943, when

the Jews of Sofia were expelled from the city to the provinces. My father, who was a

doctor, had been drafted under the civilian mobilization law, already in 1941, and he was

sent to work in his profession in remote villages. Later, when all of the Jews of Sofia were

expelled, we joined him in the village of Pordim (not far from Pleven), and from there we

moved to the even more remote village of Valchitran. The farmers who moved us from

one village to another were good people, and they looked after us. At one point it was said

that a platoon of German soldiers was about to be stationed in the village. Acquaintances

of my father thought that it would be best that the Jewish doctor should leave for a more

remote village, one that was further from the train station – it was not considered likely

that the Germans would go there. They moved us one cold winter’s night on their wagon

that was drawn by Water buffaloes. The story has been communicated as it was perceived

by my older sister, with the understanding and sensitivity of an eight-year-old girl.

In 1944, after we had been transferred to another village, we received our certificates so

we could enter Palestine legally. We arrived there by train, via Turkey.

All of Father’s Judaica objects were lost or stolen, or simply disappeared, along with many

other valuables that were never found. No one ever mentioned them again. My younger

sister and I simply did not know about them. The adults tried to make their way in the

face of the hard life of the new country; they did not speak about what was lost. We were

refugees who were left with nothing, but we were grateful that we had escaped from the

hell of Europe – all of us together, an entire family, with no loss of life – and to hell with

the loss of property!

My older sister, the girl who remembers, kept all of this penned up in her heart all these

years. Perhaps one day she will share her memories, and let’s hope that when she does

so, someone will be there to believe her that all of this really happened.

Rachel Wool

Tl: 03-5407916

e-mail: [email protected]