Henny Lewin | Sisters Forever | Northampton Mainstage 2018

please like And subscribe to our Channel and click the Bell icon to get new video updates the Germans invaded counters the second largest city in Lithuania on June 22nd 1941. I was a year and a half old at the time my cousin shoshana was a mere four days old 40 000 of us were taking into the ghetto that the Nazis set up on the other side of the river in a slum area fit for about 6 000 people and they crammed us into these dilapidated houses three days after the ghetto was sealed they asked for about 500 volunteers men who could translate write letters in German so immediately they got 525 volunteers one of these volunteers was my cousin shoshana's father the Nazis took this group of men and shot them at the seventh Fort right outside the ghetto she was two months old when she lost her dad only two months later they had what they called an Axion a Roundup of the inhabitants of the ghetto they selected who shall live and who shall die who goes to the right and who goes to the left among the people selected were my grandparents my uncles my aunts little cousins and all kinds of relatives and Friends soon we thought that our turn will be coming as well my parents decided that maybe children should be hidden because they heard that in another ghetto they had an Axion for children and they were sure that ours would be the next ghetto to be hit that way what my dad did is he built a fake wall under a staircase between our floor we lived on the first floor and the floor above ours put up a fake wall with some shelves and behind this wall and I played this hiding place was referred to as the Molina which is the islavic word for raspberry and that was the code word in the ghetto for a hiding place I loved playing with shoshana and I called her lalke which means doll because she was so cute she had these lovely black curls that I kept twisting and combing and playing with and we amused ourselves by playing with old newspapers we made things out of them and took them apart and that's how we spent our time in order to smuggle children out of the ghetto you had to come up with some ingenious plan well at that point my mother heard of a Catholic priest the dean of a school for priests his name was father pokesdis and he was willing to find Christian homes for any Jewish children that could be smuggled out of the ghetto he also had a very clever student who was able to make fake birth certificates with names of Christians for these Jewish children so my mother was able to get a job with a women's Brigade on a truck that would leave daily from the ghetto to the Aryan side across the river the job of these women was to go to a warehouse that the Nazis set up in the downtown of counters and the women's job was to sort the clothing and all the belongings my mother decided that was one way that she could smuggle me out but she didn't want to take me to Father Paul's disease because she was afraid and she would never see me again my father had a very good friend Jonas tankevich with whom he had worked before the war and whom he gave his wall paint business to because Jews were not allowed to own businesses when they went into the ghetto had two little girls one was a year older than I one was a year younger and the curvatures were willing to take me as their middle child so one day my father switched jobs with another man who was supposed to drive the truck out of the ghetto my mother sedated me put me into a large suitcase and in order to leave the ghetto she had to bribe the Lithuanian guard she gave him her gold watch and her favorite red leather boots he then wouldn't poke with his bayonet in the bundles would just distract the truck would leave the uh gate on the other side was waiting Gianna stankovic my father's friend and he walked away with a suitcase I had been told by my mother that the whole thing would be pretending it would just be temporary I had to pretend that I was the stankevich's daughter I would have two sisters I would call them mama and papa but as soon as the war would be over my parents would come and take me back but I must promise that I would keep this a secret I wouldn't tell anybody and I did promise she also promised to visit me whenever she could the first time she visited I was asleep and she kissed me I thought I dreamed it another time she visited was during a Christmas party Santa Claus came brought me my beautiful little stuffed Bulldog that I had left behind in the ghetto but when I looked down Santa was wearing my mother's shoes and I almost yelled out but Mrs duncavich quickly put her hand over my mouth I had a very nice stay with the stankovich's they treated me as well as they did their own daughters they ate what they ate I went to church with them on Sundays and holidays I cross myself I knelt and just as I was going to sleep I made a prayer I said a prayer for both sets of parents and for my little cousin shoshana whom I missed shoshana had to be taken to father pastis I remember one time a ride dressed in my Sunday Best in an open horse-drawn carriage Mrs tankevich told me that we will be riding past the barbed wire of the ghetto and that my father would see me I wouldn't see him and I can still see myself waving when the war was over my parents who miraculously survived were able to find me and retrieve me and they decided they didn't want to stay under the Soviets maybe they will not be much better and we need to get out of Lithuania in order to leave Lithuania you have to go somewhere where the Allies had set up some kind of refugee camp they called it displaced persons camps there were camps like that in Germany and in Austria my parents decided we would go to the American Health Zone in Germany but in order to get there you have to go through Poland well they decided they're not going to leave shoshana in Lithuania her father had been killed her mother was sent after a concentration camp they're going to find her which they did and we're gonna leave together my father bought a fake bath passport well the passport belonged to a Polish soldier who had died and so my father glued a picture of us as a family of four and now shoshana and I were sisters on the train in Poland many soldiers and dogs came on board it took several days shoshana and I and my mother was supposed to be completely mute because the only one who spoke polish was my father well eventually we did get through Poland and got through Germany and ended up in a DP camp this place person camp near Frankfurt first thing they did is they took all the children that had arrived at the DP Camp including shoshana and myself into a kinderheim and in this house they tried to fatten us up by giving us all kinds of Rich high calorie foods the one food I remember clearly was hot milk within a few minutes this thin skin would form on top of this milk it looked really disgusting and even the piece of chocolate that they gave us didn't make it taste any better and I hate milk to this day well we did start school in that DP Camp I in first grade and shoshana in kindergarten and we'd lived with my parents as sisters and one day there was a knock on the door mother appeared with a new husband and she told shoshana she was the mother and shoshana said no you're not I don't know you and I said shoshana yes that's your mother I remember her because I'm older and she had to go with them and we both cried well our paths have led in different directions shoshana lives in Israel now and I live in Amherst but we talk on the phone we see each other for all those wonderful celebrations for our children and grandchildren and when we see each other we cry we laugh we hug each other and we jump up and down like little girls I know that because of the Holocaust family configurations have changed but shoshana and I will remain sisters forever thank you [Applause]

Channel: The Moth

Views: 1,435

Keywords: The Moth, The Moth Radio Hour, The Moth Podcast, story, storyteller, storytelling

Id: FkgnIlaNgsc

Length: 13min 16sec (796 seconds)

Published: Wed May 17 2023