Memoir moves from Holocaust trauma to hope

Holocaust survivor Rita Lurie and her daughter, Leslie Gilbert-Lurie, offer a firsthand account of survival and healing in the memoir “Bending Toward the Sun.” The book explores how the trauma of the Holocaust extends into the lives of second and third generations. Here is an excerpt from chapter one.

Chapter 1: Childhood, Interrupted

I was four years old, in 1941, when I saw my first airplane. On a peaceful, sunny day when the sky was clear blue with cotton-puff clouds, I was flying a kite in our wheat fields while my father gardened. Hearing a noise from up above getting louder, I cranked my neck to look up. I couldn’t take my eyes off the object floating by.

“What is that? What a strange-looking bird.”

“It’s a machine that can fly,” my father said.

“How does it stay up there?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. It’s called an airplane, and it carries people to faraway places.”

I was overwhelmed by feelings of joy and freedom. The world was so full of promise.

My home, in Poland’s southeast region, was part of a small village called Urzejowice (oo-je-VEET-sih). The house itself was painted a sunny yellow with white trim and surrounded by a white picket fence. Our front yard, brimming with plum trees, sunflowers, and sweet pea vines, seemed like a paradise to me. Poland’s winters were harsh, but once spring came, my sister and I loved playing outside in the garden, waiting for our father to return from work. We made houses and pies out of mud, improvised games like tag, and waved to neighbors passing by.

“How old is she again, Sara?” I whispered to my sister one day, as our elderly neighbor floated by on a gurney carried by two of her sons.

“She’s one hundred and two,” Sara said. My five-year-old sister was wholesome looking, with a heart-shaped face, dark, deep-set eyes, and straight brown hair.

“Wow! That’s so old.”

“Tatu says we should all live that long,” she said. Our father’s name

was Isaac, but we called him Tatu, which meant “daddy” in Polish.

“Tatu wants us to be old like that?” I asked.

“Ruchel, it’s an honor to grow that old.” Losing patience with me, Sara looked out into the distance. “There he is!” she shrieked.

“That’s not fair. You always get to see him first,” I said.

“I’m a year older. I can see farther than you.”

Now I, too, saw my father. He was walking proudly, with his shoulders back and his head held high. He and my grandfather and uncles were in business together, selling groceries, clothing, and cows. They bought cows from gentiles and sold them to Jewish slaughterhouses in the big cities, where they would be butchered for kosher meat. As usual, my father was impeccably dressed, in a dark suit and maroon tie that accentuated his straight white teeth and wavy black hair. He was carrying a package wrapped in brown paper. Often, he returned from business trips bearing wonderful surprises. Sara and I raced down the path, vying to be the first to fly into his arms.

“Hi, children,” my father said. As his eyes rested on us, they began to dance, and crinkled at the edges. He tucked the package inside his suit jacket and lifted us into the air one at a time. “What are you up to?”

“We’re waiting for you, Tatu,” I said.

“Where are your mother and brother?”

“They’re in the kitchen, and Mama is cooking soup,” Sara said. “Is that a present for us?” she added as we approached the front door, pointing to the bulge protruding from my father’s jacket.

“Let’s see when we get inside,” he replied. He always seemed to lead the way. He was the peacock in our home, and the ultimate authority.

In the kitchen, my father greeted my mother, Leah, with a kiss and hug. Then he took my two-year-old brother, Nachum, and hoisted him into the air. Nachum squealed with delight. He had pale, Dresden-like skin, pitch-black eyes, and brownish gold hair.

“Now can we open the surprise, Tatu?” I said.

He handed me the package. My sister and I tore it open, revealing yellow silk embroidered fabric that looked like rays of sunshine dancing in our arms. I held it up for my mother to see.

“It’s exquisite,” she said.

“Can we sew dresses from this?” Sara asked. “Or is it too fancy to cut up?”

“We can make special dresses for Shabbos,” my mother said. She was sensitive and kind, and she adored my father. He loved her, too. Isaac Gamss and Leah Weltz had grown up in the same village, and their marriage, in 1935, had been arranged by a matchmaker. He was thirty-two, and she a few years younger.

My mother was attractive and unusual looking, with dark, deep-set eyes, full eyebrows, a patrician nose, long, curly dark brown hair, and beautiful skin. At five foot seven, she was tall for her day. Still, my father was always the bigger, more outgoing personality. The distinguished suit he was wearing that afternoon, alongside my mother’s plain cotton housedress and apron, seemed to accentuate the contrast.

Sometimes my mother would cry for no apparent reason. Her own mother had died when she was a young girl. I often wondered whether she was still grieving over that long-ago separation. Or perhaps she was just tired from working so hard. In addition to cooking and caring for three young children, cleaning our home, and washing our clothes in the nearby river, she also helped my father pick fruits and vegetables and tend to our livestock in fields that we leased from a man named Kapetsky, the aristocrat in town. I liked to help milk the cows, although someone first had to lift me onto the milking stool. The only time I saw my mother sitting down during the day was when she shelled peas or snapped green beans.

Back in the kitchen that afternoon, my father had one more surprise. From inside his suit jacket he pulled out another package. With a twinkle in his eye he said, “Hopefully, these will look nice with the dresses.”

My sister and I were so excited. We ripped open the brown wrapping, pulling out two pairs of cream-colored patent leather shoes. Sara grinned from ear to ear. When she smiled, her face lit up. Then she handed me the smaller pair.

“They’re so beautiful.” I sat on the floor to push my bare feet into them.

“Nachum, what are you doing?” I heard my mother ask. I looked over

to see my brother pulling apart the brown wrapping paper and scattering

pieces all around.

“Playing,” my brother said.

Sara and I burst out laughing. My father did, too.

A few days later, the yellow fabric had been transformed into two holiday dresses, by whom I’m not certain. Maybe my maternal step-grandmother, Simma, who lived next door with Grandpa Nuchem, had sewn them. I used to watch her knit while I threw balls of yarn to her cat. Sometimes she also made me rag dolls out of muslin, with painted faces.

Video   Mother, daughter on Holocaust memoir Sept. 2: TODAY’s Amy Robach talks to Holocaust survivor Rita Lurie and her daughter, Leslie Gilbert-Lurie, about their memoir, “Bending Toward the Sun.” Today show

Our home formed the backbone of our spiritual, cozy world. Affixed to the right front doorjamb was a mezuzah — a small, oblong container with verses from the Torah inside — which we kissed whenever we passed through. Also, before bedtime, we said a special prayer and planted a kiss on the mezuzah in the master bedroom. I fell asleep secure in the knowledge that God was watching over us.

In our village, although the Jews worked very hard, they were generally looked down upon by the Christian Poles. On Shabbos, however, the Jews elevated themselves. Shabbos was the highlight of the week for our family. From Friday afternoon to Saturday night, normal life was put on hold. My mother spent Thursdays and Fridays cleaning and cooking in preparation. Dreamy scents of chickens stewing, soup boiling, and cakes baking filled me with a sense of peace and well-being.

The most heavenly aroma was that of challah baking in the oven. My sister and I would stand by our mother’s side, enrapt, as she kneaded the dough, formed it into loaves, and slid the loaves into the oven. When they were ready, my mother would announce, “Girls, come and have a nibble.” Sara and I would scurry back across the kitchen, past the red enamel pots used for milk products to one side and the blue pots, for cooking meat, to the other. My mother would tear off a piece of soft, piping-hot bread from the tiny extra loaf she baked just for us. I would close my eyes and pop a morsel into my mouth. It practically melted on my tongue. I can’t manage to remember ever being kissed or hugged by my mother, although I’m sure that I was, but I do remember feeling her warmth and love whenever her challah was baking.

By sundown each Friday, our home looked beautiful. The wooden table in the kitchen was covered with a white cloth and set with sparkling china and colorful crystal. One Friday, just before Shabbos began, Sara and I were twirling around in our beautiful, newly created yellow dresses when there was a knock at the door. Before my mother answered it, she leaned down and said, “Ruchaleh, bring the package.”

I reached up to the kitchen counter, grasped a container of food, and brought it to her. She was standing in the doorway, dressed elegantly in a bright silk blouse, a black skirt, and a pearl necklace, as she greeted a Jewish man in ragged clothing.

“Good Shabbos,” my mother said.

“Good Shabbos. Do you have any food to spare, or a few zlotys?”

“We have food,” I interjected, pointing to the package in my mother’s

hands.

“God bless you,” he said.

When the man left, my mother looked at me. “Where’s your smile, Ruchaleh? You should feel good. Did you know that charity elevates you in heaven?”

“Mushe, that man makes me sad. Why doesn’t he have his own food?”

“He is an orphan. Square meals do not come so easily for some people.”

My mother led me back to the kitchen table, where my father and sister were waiting. Nachum, my young brother, was already asleep in my parents’ room. Shabbos could not begin until sundown, which meant that in the spring and summer months it began quite late. My mother lit candles, one for each member of our family, and said a prayer. Then she sat beside my father on the wooden bench, across from Sara and me. We were expected to listen politely to the adult conversation, and only to speak when granted permission. Over dessert, however, we joined in to sing traditional songs and chant melodies thanking God for our blessings. Everything felt serene and holy.

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