Chapter 11 Bridge to Montreal

1980

" A ttention, passengers: In 20 minutes we'll be landing at Ben Gurion Airport, Tel Aviv," the flight attendant announced, waking me from my sleep. I looked at my watch and was surprised to see that I had slept during the entire flight. The last thing I remembered was covering my eyes with the coverlet and settling comfortably with it pulled up to my neck. It turned out that I fell into a deep sleep. I put my hand in my bag and checked that the Belgian chocolates and Toblerone chocolates I'd bought at the airport in Brussels were there. I prayed that the children would make it to the airport. Due to Dubi's stay with the National Volleyball Team in Europe, I wasn't sure who was going to pick me up from the airport and take me back to Merhavia.

Heading into the Arrivals Hall, I heard a sharp cry that pierced the space: "Ema!" I immediately saw the blond head of eight-year-old Shafi running towards me; behind him was three-year-old Shahar holding Shani's hand. Hanna'le, Dubi's sister, and Yakov, her husband, had come for me with my three children. Indescribable happiness came over me. This was the first time I'd left the children for so long – 34 consecutive days. We had spoken on the phone only four times. Shahar hung onto my neck and wouldn't let go, kissing and hugging me tightly. He stared at me for a long time and asked, "Mommy, where is your hair?" Shafi settled for a hug and a kiss and asked if I brought him a Lakers jersey. I replied in the affirmative and pointed to my suitcase. He immediately volunteered to drag the luggage to the car that awaited us in the parking lot. I hugged my daughter and asked how she was doing. She gently touched the gold earrings in my pierced ears and said I looked different with my short hair. I also hugged my brother-in-law and sister-in-law and thanked them profusely for coming to take me home. I put Shahar down, and opened the suitcase to take out some delicious chocolate for everyone.

On the way home, I told them all about the flight, the pilot, and what it was like in the plane. Shahar insisted on hearing every detail, his gaze shifting back and forth to the postcard I sent him with a picture of an airplane. He wanted to know where my seat was, what kind of food they served, and how the plane stayed up in the air for so long without falling. What happiness to come home to hugs and kisses from my loved ones!

Another surprise awaited me: Our little house on the kibbutz was decorated, clean, and sparkling. There were flowers and a cake on the table, alongside greeting cards and balloons. We all sat down together in exalted euphoria. I brought out the gifts for the children, and then the ones for Yakov (a bottle of good whiskey) and Hanna'le (face cream). I hugged my eleven-year-old daughter and told her about her new cousins and aunt and uncle, and the third grandmother I'd met. To my great disappointment, I couldn't find the camera in my bag. An irretrievable loss that apparently disappeared somewhere between Belgium and Israel, but I was comforted by Diane's promise that she would send me the pictures she took. We said goodbye to Hanna'le and Yakov, who returned to their home at Kibbutz Beit HaShita.

Shahar asked to sleep in our room that night, while his older siblings preferred to sleep in their beds in the children's home. We all went together to put them to bed. The little one was overjoyed at the privilege of sleeping with me – just the two of us. All the way back home on the kibbutz path, I carried him curled up against me, his arms wrapped around my neck. His breathing matched my heartbeats, his eyes were closed; the heat of his body and his breath gave off the aroma of warm, calming innocence – another happy moment of relaxed connection between mother and son, free of worry, liberating me from the over-zealous vigilance I had grown used to during the entire journey. I was finally home with my precious loved ones.

Sleep didn't come quickly that night. I spent hours replaying the events of the journey in my head, one after the other. The question of what would happen now gnawed at me and prevented me from enjoying an uninterrupted night's sleep. Thankfully, I was able to rest for a few days, as the kibbutz let me take three days off, allowing me to adjust to being back. In the afternoon I invited the two sets of grandparents to our house and we had a good time together. I gave everyone the gifts that Franka had sent; she'd thought of everyone in the family, including Dubi's parents. The children showed off their new clothes and loved their games and the chocolate.

At the end of the week, I was already assigned to Saturday duty. Life goes on. Dubi came back the following week, so I also was finally able to inaugurate the nightgown I'd bought with Diane in New York. In the evenings we filled in the gaps from our brief, hurried conversations in Germany. I spent the week of Hanukkah on duty as night guardian at the children's house..

As I promised my parents after our first meeting, I went to their house the first full day back to tell them about Franka. They were anxious to know what I had learned and what had changed in me on my visit abroad. I told them that I chose to open with the crucial question of why she gave me up. "Franka said that I got very sick in the camp and was put in the hospital there. She also got very sick and lay in her room in the DP camp, weak and unable to visit me. Her partner, Yosef, came to the hospital every day to check on me. One morning he couldn't find me there. He said that the Jewish Agency people told him that they had taken me to Israel. Later they said that the ship I was on never made it, that it had sunk on the way. Franka, however, believed that I was alive and she came to Israel to look for me. When I was with her in Montreal, she thanked me for turning out to be the person I am and asked me especially to thank you for that with all her heart."

My parents were silent and then spoke cautiously, trying their best to ignore the sensitive parts of the story. "How did she receive you?" my father asked.

"Is she nice? Is she pretty? Do you look like her? Who else did you meet? Where was she during the war? What about her husband?" My mother continued the sequence of questions.

"Franka is a good-looking, energetic, smart woman," I answered them, "and she received me very nicely. I met her children – my brother Mike and my sister Diane, and Diane's two sons. I look more like Diane than her brother Mike." My parents took in my words with eager curiosity. "She was born in Warsaw. During the war she hid on the Aryan side of the city with a fake ID and was constantly afraid that she would be found out. She worked as a housekeeper for wealthy Polish women, frequently changing places of residence and managing to survive. At the end of the war she went to the Bergen-Belsen DP camp, hoping to find relatives who might still be alive. That's where I was born. She also told me that Diane and I are from the same father."

"Nanchik, how do you feel after the visit? What do you say about all this?" my father gently asked, focusing the conversation on me and not on Franka's story.

"What do you mean?"

"You know, meeting a woman you don't know... who gave birth to you, meddling in her life story and everything…"

"There were moments when I felt that she was a stranger. I listened to her stories with great curiosity and found contradictions in them. Do I want to continue the relationship? I will certainly continue to hear from her and she will hear from me, but my home is here and hers is there. She said she wants to visit very soon to see where I live, to meet the grandchildren and you. It's important for me to know how you feel about that. Would you be willing to meet her?"

I didn't get an answer.

"What do you say, Dad?" I asked again.

"If she wants to visit, I don't see any reason why she shouldn't come to meet us," he finally said.

"What about you, Mom? I want your honest opinion," I said as I turned to my mother.

"I don't know how I'll feel when I meet her, but if it's important to you, then it's fine with me. I don't need to go anywhere; she'll come to me, not me to her." I went over to her and hugged her.

"You know we'll do whatever is best for you," continued my mother. "You're the mother of three children, and it may be important for them to know who the mother who gave birth to you is. The day that I realized that it was so burning inside you, I immediately told you the name that I had kept secret all those years." My father added, "True, there was no point in keeping it from you anymore. After so many years, we realized that it was tormenting you. I remember your telling me about the book you read and about that mother's conscience regarding the hereditary genome. I'm happy for you that you found her." he added.

"I knew that you'd react like this. It's really important for me to have an open, candid relationship with you, especially in anticipation of Franka's possible visit, if she decides to come. Thank you. I'm really grateful to you," I told them excitedly.

Since I've been back, I've felt a change in me. Dubi's felt it, too. I was more relaxed and freer to analyze what I'd gone through on the trip to North America. For me, the spotlight on the basic event was split into two separate aspects that were related to each other: emotional involvement in the lives of two families. I'm the daughter of two "mothers" – Franka the biological mother, and Huldah and Eliezer, the parents. I thought about the two concepts of belonging: motherhood and parenthood. Franka is my mother, but not my parent; Huldah is both parent and mother. But does the definition also dictate an emotional advantage? This question had recently arisen in me. It hadn't existed until my visit to Canada, and as long as Franka was just a figment of my imagination. Now, after meeting her, and when questions were asked and answers given (many of which raised additional, unresolved questions), I continued to process a blurry connection, tentatively groping and checking: Who is this "new" mother whom I so resemble, and what are my feelings towards her?

The children didn't express any particular interest in the new grandmother in our lives. Everything returned to a familiar, well-worn routine. I was busy rehearsing the school children for the Passover performances, Dubi continued as the CTO at the Plassim factory, and the days were long and full. After work, and especially in the evenings and on weekends, we were engrossed in feverish preparations for moving to our new home in the "Lego" housing complex, a new neighborhood built for our age group at the eastern end of the kibbutz, adjacent to Moshav Merhavia. We received a 40 square meter apartment, which had a living room attached to the kitchen, a dining area, a bedroom, and a bath/shower room. In the narrow passage between the bedroom and the shower, Dubi installed a folding wooden ladder to climb up to the attic, which would be a room for the children. Happily, the apartment was ready to move into a week before Passover.

The connection between Franka and me was via occasional phone calls and letters, in which my birth mother expressed her longing for me from the day I left, and she constantly reminded me how lucky she was. She also wrote that she had a strong love for me and the four souls dear to her and shared with me her great pain that all her children lived far away from her and she felt isolated. In one letter, she expressed the wish that all her children would live happy, healthy, prosperous lives, and said that at the end of February she was going to New York with Yosef to look after the grandchildren while Diane vacationed in Florida. In another letter, she said that she was seriously thinking of coming to Israel in the spring for a month-long visit. In response, I invited her to stay at our house, but she said no because she believed that the accommodation would be difficult for us and that "the kibbutz would go wild from the situation." "Ha-ha," she added sarcastically and wrote that she realized that a kibbutz is a small community where everyone knows everything about everyone else. She repeated her complaint that when she calls the kibbutz secretariat phone, there is no answer. "Maybe they're on strike?" she asked.

At the beginning of March, Franka wrote that she and Yosef would be coming at the end of April or the beginning of May, and asked me what to bring for everyone. I wrote that we didn't need anything, but that the kids would love sneakers. I didn't know how to translate the shoe sizes into American sizes, so I attached three drawings of their feet to the letter.

At the end of March, I received exciting news: She and Yosef would land in Israel on May 1st, and stay with us for four weeks. Joy mixed with worry filled me. I was very glad that we had been able to move into the new house before they came, and planned to have then stay in our bedroom and we would sleep in the attic. However, I was afraid that our tiny apartment and the rural kibbutz – without streets and shops – would be depressing for her and make her feel stifled. Mainly, I thought about the long hours they would be forced to spend by themselves when Dubi and I were working from morning until late afternoon. I excitedly got ready for the visit. I called my relatives from Givat Nesher, Haifa, Herzliya, Ashdod, and Jaffa, and informed them of their arrival. We arranged for trips for them around the country, including a whole day dedicated to a visit to Jerusalem that would include meeting Margola and Danny Rubinstein at their home.

I imagined what Franka and Yosef's "triumphal march" into the kibbutz dining room would be like when the kibbutz members learned the details of my adoption story. A quick check of her letter showed that they were arriving on a Thursday morning, so their "debut" would coincide with the "welcoming" of Shabbat ritual on Friday evening, when all the Haverim (members), their friends and families gathered for a festive meal around tables covered with white tablecloths and decorated with flowers. The Friday night dinner would be served after a short artistic performance and singing, a perfect welcome befitting a first encounter with the kibbutz community.

I spoke with my parents and asked if they would be interested in getting them together with their close Polish-speaking friends, and they had no intention of organizing a meeting for Franka with their friends, unless it happened by chance. We signed up for a car for the dates of the trips we planned and I asked for several days off to be with them during their first few days in Israel. We prepared the children so that everything would go on as usual in the after-hours when they come from the children's homes to be with us; we also told them that communication will be in English and that we'd translate for them.

The big day arrived. Dubi and I got up and drove to the airport to pick them up. The meeting was full of emotion. Yosef was a bit restrained and Franka looked happy. On our way to the Jezreel Valley, she kept looking out the window trying to recognize familiar places, but with no success. To try to reset her orientation, Franka asked in which direction Haifa was. She was helped by the names of towns that she remembered, such as Nazareth and Afula, and she tried to link landmarks that emerged from the recesses of her memory. Towards 11:00 we arrived at the kibbutz. I showed them the room, and they went in to freshen up in the shower. In the meantime, I prepared a table of delicacies that I know they'd like, remembering from when we dined in Montreal – herring, a plate of cut-up vegetables, fresh bread and butter, cheeses, and soda. Franka was uncomfortable with the fact that we had given them our bedroom, as she had only seen one bedroom in the apartment.

"Where will you sleep?"

"In the attic. We were able to move into the apartment exactly a month ago and we're happy that we finally have two bedrooms," I answered.

Franka wasn't satisfied with just my answer and insisted on going up to see the attic with her own eyes. She climbed the wooden ladder with Dubi behind her. "It's the size of a pantry, not a bedroom," she said, surprised.

"For us, this apartment is a significant improvement. Our previous apartment had one room, a living room and a pull-out bed in the passage to the bathroom," I said, putting things in proper perspective.

Franka walked out on the porch and marveled at the view of the valley that stretched from the foothills of the Gilboa Mountains that rose several kilometers to the southeast, and all the way to Givat Hamoreh to the northeast.

Yosef sat at the table and smiled when he saw his favorite foods. "You set the table so nicely," he praised me. "To tell you the truth? I'm really hungry. The food on the plane wasn't very good."

"How wonderful this is," Franka added. "Besides the fact that we're sitting around your table, it's like we are sitting down to a light lunch at home in Chomedey," she said after looking around our small living room and seeing the decorations hanging on the walls. "I love your nice, cozy home. I feel so good to be here together with you."

"Have you thought about which relatives you want to see in Israel?" I asked.

"Of course. First of all, Avraham and Topka in Givat Nesher, Hania from Herzliya, Rachel from Haifa, Doba from Herzliya, Ada and Margalit from Jaffa, and Tova Gujski from Ashdod," she replied, mentioning all the relatives I had spoken with ahead of time.

"Your cousins Avraham, Topka, and Hania and her husband will be here this coming Saturday. We'll also arrange another get-together in Herzliya. Doba and Tova from Ashdod will be there and we'll see who else. We'll go to see Rachel in Haifa because she can't get around," I told her. Franka's eyes sparkled with joy.

"It's important for us to know where you would like to go in Israel in the coming month, besides meeting with family," Dubi said, joining the conversation. "We've prepared an outline. Let's see what suits you. On Sunday we'll order a car for the days of the trip," he concluded.

"What does it mean to ‘order a car?'" Franka asked.

"We don't have our own car. The kibbutz has a fleet of cars, and you have to reserve one in advance for a certain date to make sure that one will be available. They're in great demand and it's first-come, first-serve," said Dubi. Franka and Yosef had surprised looks on their faces.

When they went to take a short nap, I went to get Shahar from his preschool; his brother and sister came later. We sat outside and waited for Franka and Yosef to wake up.

Just as I finished getting the "four o'clock snack" ready in the kitchen – coffee and pastries – Franka came out of the bedroom. "Who's outside?" she asked me curiously. She peeked through the window and hurried to get the bag with the gifts so as not to meet her grandson empty-handed. We went out on the porch and Franka sat next to me. After first asking me how to say "grandma" in Hebrew, she said to her young grandson, "Hello, I'm Franka – Savta Franka." He was shy and embarrassed and clung to me. He looked at her and asked, "Is that Grandma Franka? Is she also your mother?"

"Yes, I have two mothers. Grandma Huldah, who raised me here in the kibbutz, and Grandma Franka, who gave birth to me and lives in a far-away country," I answered.

"Why didn't I ever see her before?" he continued.

"She couldn't come before. Now she's here with us."

He looked directly at Franka, who put the gifts on the table and handed him his. Franka looked at him for a long time. "He looks so much like you!" she said in amazement. "The top part of his face, the forehead, and the swirl of hair on the right side – they're all from you!"

The bigger kids arrived. Franka hugged them and spoke to them in English. Embarrassed as she handed them the gifts, they thanked her and quickly went inside. I suggested they join us for a short time and then we'd take a short tour of the kibbutz. Shahar got on a tricycle, his brother on a bicycle, and together we all went along the path that surrounds the farm. After a short time, Shani went back to the children's house. Yosef and Franka were very impressed by the serene, pastoral landscape of the Jezreel Valley.

In the evening, after we put the children to bed in the children's homes, Dubi went back home and I went by my parents' house to ask how they were and find out how they felt, knowing that the time to meet had come.

"Has she seen the children yet?" my mother asked as soon as I went into the room.

"Nanchik, how do you feel about having her in your house?" my father asked, almost at the same time.

"It's strange and somewhat stressful. I hope they'll be all right with the lack of room and manage with things they'll have to get used to. They live in a big house, there's a shopping center within walking distance, and they live comfortably. The meeting with the children was subdued, but what else could we expect?"

"What are you going to do with them while they're here this month?" asked my father.

"Basically – visiting her cousins and trips to important sites in the country. I'll need your help on long working days when we'll get home only in the evening. We'll also coordinate with Nehemiah and Miriam. We won't be taking the children with us on all the trips."

"No problem! It'll be a great pleasure for us," they answered in unison.

"She really wants to meet you. I think that tomorrow we'll have lunch with them at our house and I thought that maybe afterwards we could come to your place for coffee and cake with the children." My father had a smile on his face and immediately agreed.

"I don't know what to say. The situation seems to be a bit strange to me," my mother mused aloud.

"You can just speak to them in Polish or Yiddish," I hastened to respond.

"I think there's no other way anyway. We don't speak English, and they don't speak Hebrew."

"Right," I confirmed.

I breathed a sigh of relief and I felt so proud of them. I understood that they had crossed the barrier of apprehension and uncertainty that had plagued them all these years, from the moment they gave me Franka's name. My mother's feelings today mainly reflected overexcitement rather than anxiety. For the first time, I clearly separated in my mind the word "mother" – full of emotion and love – and "the mother," which to me became an expression solely of a biological relationship. I had no doubt that Huldah understood her advantage over Franka, whom she was about to meet face to face for the first time. It was strange to think about how the conversation between Franka and my mother Hulda would go the first time she met with a foreign woman who is "the mother."

Zero hour was approaching. Franka wore her favorite blue suit, put on makeup, and organized the gifts she brought for my parents. Yosef wore a gray jacket and matching tie, ready to go. Our older children arrived from the children's home and together we all walked to my parents' house, five minutes away. My father greeted us at the front door and my mother invited Franka and Yosef to sit in the living room. I saw that Father was very excited. I was familiar with his habitual taking short breaths between sentences when he welcomes guests. My mother had apparently taken a pill to relax her, as she seemed quiet and unemotional. She often uses pills in stressful situations, and under their influence her look becomes a little frozen and glassy and her reaction time is slow during a conversation. I gave her a hug and whispered, "Everything will be fine."

Franka and Yosef sat down on the armchairs opposite my parents on the sofa, a table of treats between them. My father bragged about his homemade wine and poured a glass for each of us. He gave alcohol-free grape juice to the children, which he'd also made. The atmosphere was festive, and soon we began to relax a bit. The conversation flowed among them in Polish; an active dialogue between Franka and my father understood without difficulty. Yosef was silent most of the time, enjoying my mother's chocolate nut cake, and even praising her and the wine. My mother didn't talk much and served tea and coffee. The children were treated to their favorite milk chocolate bars.

Franka took advantage of a moment of silence and opened with a dignified and moving speech. At the beginning, she took out a long, rectangular gift box and handed it to my mother, who was surprised to see that it contained a fancy wristwatch. She gave my father a light blue silk tie. Franka chose to speak English so that both Dubi and I would understand, and asked me to translate for my parents. I sat Shahar on my lap and asked his older siblings to pay attention to her words. Her voice was trembling and she looked directly into the eyes of my mother and father:

"I thank you both for raising Elana so wonderfully. It's very easy to see that you've given her a great deal of love and raised her with good values. As I was able to see in less than two days, I know that your love for her has no limit, and I can only regret that I wasn't the one who got to raise her. I have no words to thank you. I'm lucky that Elana was able to find me, and thanks to this we've reached this moment when we meet in the place where Elana grew up and today is raising her own children. I have been blessed with the best and most wonderful family one could ask for. You deserve much more than the symbolic gifts we've given you. I hope we continue to keep in touch."

Her voice broke towards the end. I translated into Hebrew; my father's eyes filled with tears, and my mother smiled slightly and thanked Franka for the kind words.

It was Dubi who responded to Franka: "I'm very happy with what we achieved in our long, difficult search. It wasn't easy. Several years have passed since the first piece of information fell into our hands. Seeing you here with us shows me that we succeeded. We followed a loose trail of facts, investigations, and retrieval of documents from the past that led to today, to this moment when we're all sitting here together. We're glad you're with us, and with Elana's parents."

I translated Dubi's words for my parents. Now it was my turn. I chose to speak Hebrew: "Years of wondering and questions, inquiries and searches, could not have ended better than what is happening here right now: Both sets of my parents are alive and well, sitting with their three grandchildren. This scene could not have taken place without Dubi, who uncovered the first link and urged me to keep on searching at times when I almost gave up. My parents gave me endless support, amazing and unbelievable. They encouraged me and supported me with a clear statement: ‘What is good for you is good for us too. Do what your heart tells you. We won't stop you from choosing your path.' For that I thank you and respect you so very much. I know that a lot of who I am today is thanks to you and the environment I lived in here on the kibbutz. Yes, I had some tough years as a teenager ? I was rebellious and made things hard for you. I wasn't approachable, and it was difficult for you to communicate with me. I didn't always behave towards you with patience and respect, and for that I apologize. I had many unresolved questions that angered me. Today I look back and am able to admit this clearly, as a mother of my own children. I can also understand Franka's conscience and sorrow in her life, and the longing to one day find me, that was no less than my longing to know who I belonged to and from where I came. So let's raise a toast in honor of our children and grandchildren, who now have a third set of grandparents, a special gift of its own!" I finished on a solemn note.

My father was already completely broken up and went to the bathroom to calm down. My mother thanked me. I preferred not to intensify the emotional scene with hugs that might leave anyone of them in an awkward position of priority and I immediately began translating what I had said for Franka and Yosef. My mother joined my father in the kitchen. When I finished, Franka hugged me and said, "I have always waited for this moment!"

We allowed the two pairs of grandparents to talk to each other in Yiddish and went out to play with the children on the grass in front of my parents' house. We went to Friday night dinner as an extended family of three generations: six adults and three children. I walked behind the rest of the family with Shahar and asked him, "How many grandfathers do you have?"

"Two," he said.

"Who else isn't here that's waiting for us in the dining room?" I continued.

"Miriam and Nehemiah," he replied.

"Who else is walking ahead of you?"

"The uncles," he answered.

"What are their names? Do you remember?"

"Franka and Yosef," he answered.

"What is Franka to me?"

"Mom, too," he said.

"What is she to you?" I made it difficult.

"I don't know," the boy answered honestly. I hugged and kissed him and said, "I still don't know what she is for me either, even though she's the mother who gave birth to me."

At the top of the spiral stairs leading from the ground floor to the dining hall, Miriam and Nehemiah were waiting for us, leaning against the railing watching us coming up. Our young son ran to Nehemiah, who picked him up while excitedly shaking the hands of the invited guests with his free hand. We walked together to the east wing, which was filled with those who come early for dinner. We pushed three tables together and made it one large family table as we all took our places around the Sabbath evening tables set with white tablecloths and flowers. The dining room began to fill up. Lots of people approached us with a "Shabbat Shalom" greeting and expressed their excitement on the special status of the united family.

Some of the founders of the kibbutz who came over to greet Franka and Yosef were born in Poland. Each of them announced his place of birth: Sejny, Rzeszów, Brody, Sambir, Drohovich, Sosnovich, Jaroslavl, Lviv, and Krakow. A special aura of excitement arose around the table when Wanda, the mother of Yoel, one of my classmates, introduced herself as a Warsaw native. Franka got up from her chair and hugged her warmly. The conversation between them went smoothly in Polish and they made arrangements to see each other on Saturday night.

When the announcement was made for quiet and for everyone to sit down, I stood next to Uchma the accompanist and got ready to sing the Sabbath song "Yarda Ha'Shabbat." I held the microphone in my hand and went over all the words in my head to be certain I wouldn't make a mistake. My youngest son stood next to me, I patted his head and asked him to stay quiet until I finished singing. The piano introduction got the audience's attention and finally there was silence. Two lines in this song, written by Yehoshua Rabinov, particularly moved me that evening: "And girls go out into the evening / singing psalms of longing." I thought of the two mothers sitting there listening to me, their daughter. I also thought about my own daughter, who completed the three-generation female lineage. When I returned to the table, Franka stood up and hugged me happily and proudly.

The first baptism of fire in the dining room went smoothly. The "house did not catch on fire." Close friends of my parents came to shake Franka's hand and have a short conversation with her in Polish, as if they were meeting a familiar city girl from days gone by. If I were part of the soundtrack running backwards in their minds, I reflected to myself, I would surely have met each and every one of them at the same intersection they left, the moment they saw their families there for the last time, before the Holocaust slaughter on Polish soil. Today none of them wants to return to visit there.

On Saturday, after a leisurely breakfast in the arbor in front of our house, we went to the children's farm, a route we particularly like. We continued to the "big" yard where the first stone houses on the kibbutz were built in 1911. Franka was impressed by the buildings and the story about the hardships of the pioneers. Her ears perked up when I mentioned Golda Meir, a figure she admired. Golda was one of the pioneers in that first group and I tried to expand on the conversation about her. We returned home via the children's homes. We all went into our older son's children's home, and he gave us a tour. He proudly showed us the bedrooms and the adjoining classroom and said that he really liked being there in the company of other children and his classmates, who were his best friends. We hurried home to get ready to greet the guests who would be arriving in the afternoon. It was a meeting filled with laughter and tears, with Avraham, Franka's beloved cousin, and his wife Tova, from Givat Nesher.

At the end of the visit, I took Franka to see Wanda – who was also from Warsaw – and Kalman's house. When we got back, she excitedly told me Wanda's story and what they had in common with their strength to survive in Warsaw during those terrible years. Wanda was born there; her family lived in a prestigious area among gentiles (her mother was a well-known physician). When the Jews were rounded up, the family moved into the ghetto. Wanda's father was murdered and she was sent to Majdanek and from there to Auschwitz. Twice she was saved from the furnaces and managed to survive with four of her friends. They were sent to a transit camp in Austria and from there they made it to Israel.

Franka was silent for a moment and looked at me pensively. "During the years that I pretended to be a goya, a gentile," she added, "I worked for those wealthy ladies and I was very familiar with the prestigious Aryan area that Wanda came from. Every time I meet someone from there, it seems to me that we were in the same place where the fear of death was always with us. People just disappear, and death is never satisfied. Our ability to stay alive is the magic of survival," she said as she put her hand in mine. "The choice of the immediate over what we expect to happen, the intuition to instinctively choose the present moment over the unknown, is why we choose life over worrying about future problems because of the path we choose. All of these decided my fate, as well as Wanda's, in those nightmarish moments of fear."

It was a defining moment that reflected a profound insight into her character; her understanding of what life is about deserves to be instilled in future generations.