“I know I’ll find a job here”, he said. “It may take some time, but in this country, there is plenty of work for everyone”.
Despite Papa’s efforts, Manhattan failed to yield employment, so he extended his search to the outer boroughs, and after three weeks, he was successful.
“We won’t be living on charity any longer”, he announced with a smile. “I’ve found a job and a small apartment in Astoria, Queens”.
My first apartment. I bounded up the three flights of stairs to our new rooms in Astoria, across the East River from Manhattan. I loved the place. Even if I had to sleep on the couch. What luxury — our own kitchen, bathroom, radio and even curtains!
At last, my formal education could begin. The first days in school were upsetting because I only spoke a few words of English. The principal and Mama decided that I should start in the fourth grade, and I was placed in a class with children two years younger than me. I felt humiliated, but I was determined to progress through the grades as quickly as possible to catch up with my English-speaking peers.
At the same time, although I only spoke Yiddish, Mama insisted that I begin my Jewish education, too. She handed me a slip of paper and told me that I was expected at a Sunday school in Manhattan. She wasn’t going to take me. I had to make my own way there. Initially, I was daunted, but then my old independent spirit kicked in, and I told myself that if Mama had enough faith in me, I could do it. So I took the piece of paper and entered the New York subway system alone for the first time.
I showed the address to women I encountered along the way and they all pointed me in the right direction, helping me to navigate the various lines and the complicated subway map. I switched trains several times but arrived safely.
Mr. Gupkin, the Yiddish-speaking principal, welcomed me warmly and introduced me to seven or eight classmates. The class was learning Yiddish, but the instructions were in English. After a while, the bell rang. Everybody disappeared and I was left alone in class, bewildered. Then one of the boys returned. He had very dark eyes and a full head of black hair.
“They all went to lunch. Did you bring any?” he asked, in perfect Yiddish.
I didn’t understand the question, even though it was in Yiddish, because I didn’t know what the word “lunch” meant. The boy took me by the hand and led me to the nearest drugstore with a food counter. I didn’t say a word and neither did he. He ordered a cheese-and-lettuce sandwich and gave it to me. I was touched by his warmth and kindness. His Yiddish was immaculate, as he talked to his grandparents every day. At the age of eleven, I made my first friend in America. Maier Friedman, the man I would marry.
That summer, while my parents worked long hours on a factory production line, I never left the apartment in Astoria, so that I could memorize the picture dictionary from A to Z, although I still couldn’t properly string together sentences in English.
At the beginning of the new school year, the teacher made me feel like an outsider. She told me to never discuss the war as it upset people. Once, when I showed my tattoo to a curious classmate, she called me into her office and admonished me.
“Tola, you will never fit in unless you forget all that. It makes people uncomfortable, and we really don’t want to hear it. The best thing would be to cut your braids, wear long sleeves and change your name to Susan”.
So, I did all three. I cut my hair short to look and feel less European and more American, as the teacher suggested. But I only remained Susan for a few weeks because remembering my new name was a challenge. People addressed this person called Susan and I didn’t realize they were talking to me. And then I thought more deeply about what the teacher was trying to make me do. Asking me to be Susan meant forgetting my past and my identity. I thought about the young tattooist from Auschwitz who had given me small-sized numbers and also told me to cover my arm to spare myself any embarrassment.
Why should I feel shame? I wondered.
I came to the conclusion that only an unkind world would pressure me to cover up the war crime against me. My number was now inextricably part of me; it showed what had been done to me, and that I was lucky to be alive. I compromised by giving up Susan, going back to my real name, but never talking to my classmates about the war again. That did not stop the other children from shunning me, however.
And it wasn’t just at school that people were unfriendly. In our neighborhood, our predominantly Italian neighbors were standoffish to the point of hostility, which puzzled me, as they seemed so kind and loving toward their own children.
I was envious of the Italians’ large families. I wished I had a little brother or sister to make me feel less lonely, but Mama felt that this world wasn’t meant for children. For her, it was too cruel and destructive for small, innocent beings. Papa and I were the center of her life, but beyond us, Mama rarely experienced joy. Society had failed her and stolen 150 members of her family.
Mama struggled with her faith, and although she never rejected God entirely, she questioned a deity that would tolerate its most faithful being cut down. She found it impossible to look forward with any optimism and mainly dwelled in the past.
I acknowledged that I was destined to be an only child and made my peace with that reality. Education was my refuge. Constant study offered an escape and a way of coping with loneliness. Lively voices on American radio kept me company while I buried my head in books. Gradually, my English improved and I caught up with my class. To my parents’ surprise and delight, I graduated the eighth grade with honors.
After a year in Astoria, Mama and Papa could no longer bear the district’s latent anti-Semitism. Very soon we were on the move again.
Chapter Nineteen. Transition
Brooklyn was a significant upgrade on Astoria. The borough had a substantial Jewish population as well as over 1.5 million people from other immigrant backgrounds. To me, as a teenager, impatient to formulate a new, meaningful life, 1950s cosmopolitan Brooklyn was hugely exciting, vibrating with the energy of 2 million strangers committed to achieving their version of the American Dream. It was impossible not to be infected by their enthusiasm. New York’s most populous borough was, for me, a potential springboard to create a new existence and leave the traumas of war behind.
Our new apartment in east New York was basic, but for the first time in my life, I had my own room, and it became my sanctuary. I could close the door behind me whenever I got tired, shut out the city, lie on my narrow bed and, without interruption, read to my heart’s content. My small window opened onto a dark alley populated by battalions of feral cats. During steamy, airless New York summers, my consumption of literature and poetry was accompanied by a soundtrack of feline fighting and flirting and tomcats doing what tomcats like to do.
After years of deprivation, books provided me with a passport to explore the world in my imagination. I was especially grateful to the English teachers who instilled in me a love of poetry and drama. I gravitated toward poets whose wordscapes painted images of journeys full of discovery and adventure. Walt Whitman, America’s great writer, was my favorite.
In Leaves of Grass, Whitman offered an escape from my urban existence with his reflections on the vastness of my new homeland’s landscape.
See, pastures and forests in my poems — see, animals wild and tame — see, beyond the Kaw, countless herds of buffalo feeding on short curly grass,