A Child Al Confino: The True Story of a Jewish Boy and His Mother in Mussolini's Italy (5 page)

I was only six years old. How did Mother expect me to understand such a
mishegas
?

When not visiting relatives, I played on the street with the neighbors' children.

One day a dirty, drunken, shabby, middle-aged man stood some distance from me. “You damn Jew,” he screamed, as he hurled a heavy brick my way.

He may not have been too steady on his feet, but his aim was excellent. The missile sailed through the air. I saw it fly toward me and turned around just in time to save my face, exposing my back to absorb the full force of the impact. Crack! My thin shirt was little protection against that hard brick. In great pain and sobbing, I ran home to tell my grandfather,
Opapa
Moses. “
Opapa
, I wasn't d-d-doing anything to him.”

He held me tightly to his chest while his white beard stroked my face and my freely flowing tears wet his shirt.
“Sha, sha, Kindele. Ikh veis. Got vert im shoin beshtrufen.”
“Quiet, child. I know. God will punish him,” he said. When I asked what that meant, he told me it referred to the punishment that would befall the enemies of God's chosen people.

The next day, to get me off the street, my parents took me for a long walk. We traversed a city park, then climbed up a hill. The gently inclined serpentine road circled several times until the last loop brought us to the peak from which we looked at the town below. I saw people, horses, carriages, and even trolley cars that seemed real but were so small to fit in the palm of my hand. I was baffled. How could that be?

“Where do those small people live?” I asked.

“Down in the city,” Papa replied. “It's called an optical illusion. You can only see them from here.”

When we returned home, I was ready to explode. “
Opapa
, you have never seen people so small,” I exclaimed. Then holding out the palm of my hand, I said, “I could carry them right here. Papa says nobody can get close to them. You can only see them from the mountain. Did you ever see them?”

He shot a questioning look at my parents.

“
Er redt auf di menschen man siht von oiben
,”
Mutti
explained. “He's talking about the people you see from the top of the hill.”

“
Opapa
, please tell me.”

“When you see people from so far away, they just look small. You know when you look at the stars, you just see a small dot? But the stars are very, very large.”

For Passover the following year we again visited Lwow.
Pesach
was a great celebration in my grandparents' home. In Vienna my mother observed the holiday with the traditional Seder and kept our home free from bread and other forbidden items, but in Lwow the tradition had a totally different flavor. Preparations for
Pesach
went on for days. Cleaning every corner of the house, removing all dishes and replacing them with special Passover ones was for me an unknown experience.

“Why are you changing all the dishes?” I asked my grandmother.

“For
Pesach
one must use special kosher dishes,” she replied.

“But I thought your dishes were kosher.”

At that moment my mother entered the kitchen, took me by the hand, and I never heard the rest of my grandmother's answer.

“Why is Grandma changing all the dishes?” I asked my mother.

“Because for
Pesach
religious people must not use the everyday dishes.”

“How come we don't change dishes?”

She placed her hand on my mouth. “I'll tell you later.”

A few days before the first Seder,
Opapa
asked me to recite the traditional four
kasche
. Although I was not surprised, for my father had alerted me, I was very excited. I knew that asking the four questions was a special honor.

The evening of the Seder I was running a high temperature but was not about to give up the momentous privilege that had been bestowed upon me. I argued about wanting to get out of bed so I could do my part at the table. “Please,
Mutti
, I have studied so hard. I know the four
kasche
well. I'll be good and will go to bed right after dinner. Please.” I did not hear an immediate “no” and with my mother that was a good sign. “Are you sure you feel well enough?” she asked.

“I'm fine. I'm really fine.” I was so overjoyed by her question I wanted to jump up and down.

“But back to bed right after dinner!”

Mutti
was so good to me and how I loved her. First she placed her hand, then her lips to my forehead to check my temperature. Then, putting her arms around me, she gave me a strong hug and a kiss. “When you're ready to get dressed, I'll help you.” She always helped me get dressed.

I adored my mother's attention but resented her constant worry that something was wrong with me. Whether I had just come home overheated from running with friends or awoken from a short nap, she always thought she saw the signs of some hidden sickness on my face. “You don't look good. Come here, let me feel your head.” Had I really been ill each time my mother thought that I was, I would not have survived childhood.

Grandpa was a warm, loving, and incredibly tender man. Though modern in some small ways, he was a dedicated Talmudic scholar. The pocketless, floor-length black coat, the round fur hat, the long white beard, the side locks, and
tsetses
completed the portrait of this kind old man. Each morning before breakfast in the sitting room, he'd say his prayers while putting on the phylacteries. I liked watching my grandpa in his white shirt, the left sleeve rolled up, as he wrapped the leather straps around his bare forearm. One turn after the other, he placed one band close to the next, adjusting its distance as he went along, while his lips murmured the Hebrew prayers. He was meticulous and so absorbed in his ritual that I don't think he ever noticed my presence. My father, too, laid
tfilin
every morning, but
Opapa
's concentration and his visible devotion conveyed a more religious image.

Grandmother, by herself, prepared the elaborate Passover meal, while
Opapa
conducted the religious portion of the Seder. Dinner started with gefilte fish, which Grandmother made from scratch, just as my mother did. I would go with her to the fish store to buy a live carp, which we would dump into the filled bathtub as soon as we got home. When Grandma was ready to cook it, we began the difficult job of capturing the lively fish — no easy task for a young boy and an elderly lady. By the time we succeeded, the floor and our clothes were soaked from the many times the slippery fish slid out of our hands and splashed back into the water.

I would not stay in the kitchen to watch my grandmother kill the fish but came back in time to see her slit it open and clean the inside. The thin outer skin she placed to one side. The bones she discarded, while the flesh she mixed with vegetables and passed through a hand grinder. After cooking it, she put it back into the fish's skin. I looked in awe as she recreated the fish she had killed and taken apart.

But that was only a small part of the Seder. Grandma also prepared matzo balls for the chicken soup, boiled chicken, and boiled flanken with horseradish, vegetables, and desserts.

Before enjoying the Seder meal, we had to observe the religious traditions. First we washed our hands, then said the prayers, ate bitter herbs, and rinsed our hands once more. All this while my stomach rumbled and grumbled from hunger.

Soon my turn came. My knees were shaking. I was not quite seven. Rising in place at the table, I recited the traditional four questions in fluent Hebrew. “
Mah Nishtanah
… Why is this night …” begins the traditional prayer. Not one error. Not a hesitation. My knees were still trembling, clapping against one another, but I was beaming from ear to ear. I had done it! My parents' faces glowed. They were proud of me, I could tell.

Then
Opapa
called me to his side. In his hand he held a small tissue-wrapped package. His eyes had a warm glimmer and in a voice like a soft caress, he said, “Here! This is for you.” I ripped the paper, lifted the lid of the small white box and there it was, shining brightly a silver pocket watch.

After overcoming my surprise, I flung myself at him almost knocking him off the chair. “Oh,
Opapa
! I've always wanted a pocket watch.”

With a gentleness all his own, he placed one hand on the back of my head and held me against his face while I buried mine into his beard. How I loved my
Opapa
! I loved him so much that even kissing his coarse beard did not feel coarse to me at all.

“You did great credit to your parents. I'm proud of you,” he said in Yiddish. The tone of his voice made me realize how much my recital meant to him.

Holding up the watch, I asked, “Is it silver?”

“Of course it's silver. Here!” With his hand he motioned for the watch. His smile radiated through the thick gray beard. “You see this? This is all engraved by hand.”

I got the impression he had done the engraving himself. “Did you do it?” I asked.

His quiet laughter slid through the air. “No, no! But I know the man who did it. He is one of the finest in our community. Now, look here.” He pushed the small button on the crown and the cover popped open. “Read this.”

Engraved in Hebrew on the inside cover was my Jewish name and the date: “To David Mendel — Pesach 5697.” From the corner of my eye I could see
Mutti
, Papa, and Grandmother quietly enjoying the scene.

As I had promised my mother, right after dessert I went to my room. That night I wanted to sleep with my new gift.

“You can't sleep with it,” my father said. “You'll break it if you roll on it. Why not hang it on the wall?”

That was a good suggestion, I thought. Papa brought a hammer and a long nail and helped me hang the watch over the headboard. Three times I took it off the wall before falling asleep. For four days the watch remained on the wall while I stayed in bed waiting to shake off whatever was ailing me.

Milan

N
early a year after that celebration in Lwow, my precious silver watch was gone, abandoned in Vienna with Teddy and almost everything else I owned. The morning of our arrival in Milan was bleak, the air saturated by fog so dense it was hard to see anything. Our tenminute ride from the train station passed in total silence. The only details visible through the darkened air were some neon signs and the hazy form of the policemen directing traffic. The taxi dropped us off at an address written on a small piece of paper that my father had handed the driver.

Only after we got out of the cab did I dare say something. “Did you see the funny hats the policemen were wearing?”

Inside the building, where the driver had placed our two suitcases, we looked to see what to do next when
il portinaio
peeked his head from behind a door and asked us what we wanted:
“Cosa desidera?”
Papa handed the man the wrinkled piece of paper.

“
Un momento,
” the janitor said, then lifted a receiver and pushed one of the many buttons on the instrument. When he hung up, he turned to us. “
Piano secondo
,” he said, which would have meant nothing to me had he not shown two fingers and pointed up. The man helped place the suitcases in the small elevator, inserted a coin in the coin box, slid the gate closed, and sent the elevator up with Papa in it.
Mutti
and I were left to climb the stairs.

Standing on the landing we found Signora Rina Gigli wearing a full-length housecoat, slippers, and more makeup than I had seen on any face before. A gray cat rested in her arms. With a big smile lighting up her face, our new landlady welcomed us to her home. “
Buon giorno e benvenuti!
”

I did not understand a word of the melodic sounds, but in the first few moments the warmth of her voice introduced me to the romantic Italian language and to a new friend, her cat. Soon I was in love with the cat and infatuated with the landlady.

Eric holding Rina's cat on the balcony in Milan, Italy, 1938.

With enthusiasm we settled into our new home, a single bedroom with limited kitchen use. Gone were the Nazi soldiers, gone were the menacing sounds coming from the radio, gone was Millie with her change of heart. The first days I spent making the acquaintance of Rina's pets, the gray cat and a cute mutt that kept running from room to room. The events that had frightened me only days before seemed far away.

I was not old enough to understand how all the pieces had fallen into place — the slip of paper with the address, Signora Gigli waiting for us. It had all been prearranged. That was the beginning of what my parents called “the Jewish underground.”

“What is the Jewish ‘under something’?” I asked.

My mother tried to explain. “There are many good, decent people out there who try to help people like us, who have been forced to leave their homes and go to live in a foreign land. Don't forget, Erich, one day, when you get to be a man, you may be called upon to help someone less fortunate. I want you to remember what total strangers are doing for us now.”