RE: [Cz-L] Transnitria, my last installment.

Dear Arthur,
This story is so
terrible and so moving. It is also so paradigmatic of this period where the line between life and death relied mostly on hazards or baseless
choices .
Thank you for having shared it with us
Hag sameah
Florence

----------------------------------------
> Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2010 18:30:12 -0400
> To: Czernowitz-L_at_cornell.edu
> From: vonczernowitz_at_yahoo.com
> Subject: [Cz-L] Transnitria, my last installment.
>
> Transnitria, my last installment.
>
> I saved my life a second time, but this time it was possibly a premonition.
> My young brain was filled with memories and
> images of terror and death. I was too young and
> afraid to think about tomorrow.
> In the end of fall in 1943, a rumor started, that
> whoever has the right amount of money, could buy
> a train ticket which will take young children to
> Palestine. I was 5 or 6 years old.
> My father had no money, but he had a few gold
> teeth. He had those teeth extracted, sold them
> and had enough money for my ticket to Palestine.
> The day arrived; I remember it like it was
> yesterday, it was cold, overcast with a light
> mist.
> My father hired a peasant with a horse and wagon
> to take us to the train station. Near the train
> were hundreds of kids with their parents. My
> father looked for a boy of 10 or 11 who he knew
> and told him to look after me. I was given my
> last instructions for the hundred times: remember
> who you are, I want you to grow up to be a Mench,
> your name is Arthur Rindner, your mother's name
> was Eva Rindner and my name is Jacob Rindner.
> Then he gave me a small silver mirror in the
> shape of a pear which belonged to my mother, he
> told me to look after it and not to lose it.
> This little mirror was the last possession of my
> mother.
> As I boarded the train I started to cry and told
> my father that I do not want to go. He said
> don't you want to go to Palestine and save
> yourself from the life which we have here? I
> told him that I do not care, what will happen
> will happen as long as we are together and not
> separated.
> The train left and we returned to our hut in Bershad.
> Years later after the war, my father visited Iasi
> a city in the Moldavia region of Romania and meet
> the little boy of 11 who was supposed to have
> looked after me. He asked him, how come he is
> not in Palestine?
> He told him, that the train stopped in several
> more places to pick up more kids and when the
> train was full with kids it stopped near a forest
> and the kids were told to disembark. They were
> shot, massacred right there in that forest, the
> boy played death and escaped.
> The Nazi's used deception as a tool; it was so
> easy to come up with a story to save the
> children. Those Jews are going to fall for this.
> They needed Arbeitskräfte (work force) but der
> Nachwuchs (offspring's) were always in the way.
> The Nazi's, by using deception was a way of
> getting rid of the children and cheat the Jews
> out of their money which they possibly hid.
>
> I escaped death, did lady luck looked after me the second time? I believe so.
>
> My mother's small silver mirror is still in my possession.
>
> Arthur
>
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Received on 2010-09-29 06:08:33