Out of the Shoebox (14 page)

"You
know, through all the years that I've worked and built a life here I never
thought of Chortkow, neither I nor my wife who survived Auschwitz. Maybe we
didn't have time for memories. But today, and in recent years, I think about it
and remember a lot... so much so that I can't tell if my memories are real or
imagined... I remember people, houses and the smallest details... I sit for
hours and recall things. I remember how it used to be, not what it's like
today. I visited with my son and Miri about five years ago... but the memories
and the images are from the past... when I was a boy and youngster."

***

Flight
PS778 from Tel Aviv to Kiev took about three hours and twenty minutes. I fell
asleep shortly after the plane left the gate and taxied to the runway. I don't
remember it taking off, I was too busy thinking about the trip on which I was
embarking, and those thoughts quickly turned into a dream. I woke up when the
flight attendant announced that we were landing and had to fasten our
seatbelts. I felt as if I’d jumped ahead in time. I like falling asleep on
planes and suddenly finding out the flight is nearly over. When my fellow
passenger, Sergei, asked me for the purpose of my trip, as the plane began its
descent, I answered with a smile: "A sort of family visit... I'm going to
see places, family and friends I don't know yet." Despite Sergei's
perplexed look, I felt my answer had been accurate, it wasn't your typical
“roots trip”. I knew there was no better description for the journey I set out in
the early hours of the morning. I had a few goals and questions I wanted
answered, but mostly I felt it was a journey into the past, unlike other trips
or vacations. I wanted to connect past with present and create new memories of
people and of a time that will never return. The layover in Kiev was short.
Going through emigration control and moving between terminals kept me focused
and cut short my apprehension about the encounter with Chortkow. The first
flight’s passengers had been a mix – many were Israeli, but the flight from
Kiev to Lviv had only Ukrainians aboard. I felt like an alien. The Cyrillic
letters and Slavic language, which sounds so foreign to my ears, increased my
feeling of alienation. So my first meeting with Viktor was accompanied by a
sense of relief.

I
liked his straightforward attitude. "I suggest that we drive to Ternopil
today. It's about a three hour drive, but if we stop at a couple of castles and
palaces it'll take us until late afternoon and we’ll arrive at my place in the
early evening." We loaded my suitcase into the car, I took out my camera
and we were on our way. Traffic was light. When I commented on the good quality
of the roads Viktor laughed and said this was probably the only road in Ukraine
that was up to Western standards, it was paved for the UEFA European
Championship and hasn't had a chance to deteriorate yet. Alongside various
Western cars, I was surprised at the number of Russian Lada cars, fifteen and
twenty years old, some running on gasoline some on natural gas; evidence of a
class gap and social polarization. Viktor, as though reading my mind, explained
that with a $150 a month salary, which is what the average civil servant makes,
it's hard to afford a new car. "All government employees and civil
servants take on a second job, each according to their ability and workplace.
First, you need enough to live on, and only then do you spend money on
luxuries..."

After
about an hour's drive we reached Olesko Castle. For a moment it reminded me of
the familiar landscapes of Germany or France. A large structure situated on top
of a hill, part fortress, part palace. Green fields stretched across the
horizon, and tourists in their Sunday best walked hand in hand up the hill. The
only difference was the language. It was Polish, Viktor confirmed after I’d
recognized my mother's native tongue. The castle was part of a Polish historic
route, a kind of heritage trip for Poles who were forced out of Ukraine, or a
trip tracing the history of Polish Kings for others. The castle, now serving as
a museum, was impressive. It magnificently displayed the 700 years of kingdoms,
wars, natural disasters, ruin and rebuilding that it endured. Today it offers
tourists its architectural charm and prized works of art.

This
was the first time I encountered Ukraine's many beauties: the landscape, the
beautiful houses, the palaces, synagogues, gravestones, women... it was such a
surprise because the last thing I expected to encounter in this trip was
beauty.

Christ - detail of a wood sculpture
at Olesko Castle

Pidhirtsi Castle - view from the
gardens

Our
next stop was an enormous castle – "as though it had been moved intact
from its place along the Rhine..." I chuckled to myself as the thought
crossed my mind; I was associating its beauty with places I know, but perhaps
here were the originals?

This
was Pidhirtsi Castle, built in the mid-17th century. Located about 80 km east
of Lviv, it was most likely designed by an Italian architect influenced by
Muslim, Spanish and North African styles when working on the castle walls. It
is surrounded by pleasant gardens and a breath-taking pastoral landscape. The
castle was used by Polish kings as a palace and withstood many attacks by great
armies who tried to conquer it, such as the Cossacks, the Turks, Austrians,
Russians and Germans. In the last decade the castle and palace have stood
deserted. They are closed to the public, time and neglect eating away at the
walls and buildings till they are in danger of collapse. Viktor explained the
situation in Ukraine, comparing it to a grand palace crumbling with time: 
"Everyone takes for themselves, and no one cares about the whole."

Though
by now it had sunk-in that Ukraine had many more beauties to offer than I
expected, I was still surprised to see the next place we visited Zolochiv
Castle. The palace, spectacular in its character and architectural finesse,
replaced the images of the crumbling castle we’d left just an hour earlier. The
palace seemed as though it had just been completed yesterday. Its earthy red
color suited its delicate shape, and, its position within an open garden, gave
it perfect proportions. Undoubtedly, the castle and palace were a surprising
aesthetic experience after the neglect we had witnessed at the previous castle.
This marvelous castle was built in the 1630s, and the palace added decades
later. The castle was conquered by the Turks in the latter half of that
century, and came back under Polish rule in the early 18th century. In the
19
th century
it was sold to the Austrian Empire. The picturesque castle was converted into a
hospital, and later a jail. As I walked through the gorgeous gardens at the
front, I noticed a sign by the entry gate. In shock, with chills down my spine,
I read the sign commemorating 14,000 local Jews who were murdered in the
holocaust and 2000 Jewish victims who were murdered in a pogrom by Ukrainian
peasants two days after the Germans conquered the region. The Jews murdered on
July 4th, 1941 were buried in a mass grave on the castle grounds, right under
my feet. It was my first encounter with death in Ukraine. A chilling and
unexpected experience in one of the most beautiful and serene places I have
ever seen. It was an inconceivable juxtaposition of architecture, culture and
art above ground, and thousands of Jewish victims in a mass grave below. A kind
of dissonance that couldn't be bridged, a mixture of heaven and hell all in one
place. I couldn't contain the contradiction and tears came to my eyes.

Zolochiv Castle

For
a long time I was restless. I knew that probably every piece of land in
Ukraine, especially in Galicia, bore the scars of hundreds of mass graves. That
I could be standing over such a grave, in this pastoral setting, was shocking
to me. Neglect and dereliction were what I associated with death. This beauty
and aesthetics created an intolerable contradiction.

We
continued on our way to Ternopil. At first we were silent, but after a few
minutes we began to talk. I told Viktor that I was done for the day; I had no
energy, need, or wish to see anything else along the road. I asked that we stop
by a liquor store so we could pick up some cold beers for dinner. I was amazed
by the selection of beers and vodka found in a local liquor store, dozens, all
for the same price as pop. Clearly, I would sleep well that night. We agreed
that, over dinner, I would tell him and his wife Tania why I decided to visit
Ukraine. I thought that if I shared the story of the lot and all the events of
the past two years it would help Viktor better understand what this trip was
all about. Viktor smiled and asked if it was a sad story, I replied that it was
both happy and sad. "I think my aim here is to connect to a memory I don't
yet have, something I want to discover and experience here."

Viktor
took advantage of the last few minutes before we reached his home to be open
with me: "Tania might be sad… we lost our baby about two months ago... we
came back from Ireland so we could have the baby here and he died after fifteen
days." Heavy stuff indeed, and it added to the dark atmosphere that
surrounded us since we left Zolochiv Castle. I was apprehensive about meeting
Tania, but my fears evaporated as soon as I saw her beautiful smiling face.
Tania was happy to see me. I felt welcome. We enjoyed delicious pasta and cold
beer, and the conversation flowed. I told them of the lot, and how events
unfolded as though guided by a hidden hand just for me. Viktor asked many
questions so as to better understand the order of events and the various family
relations. He had a hard time understanding the religious and cultural
differences between my mother's and father's families; for him all Jews from
that period, of which he learned from photos, were the same. I did not find
anything offensive in his words, his questions were completely innocent. He was
of a generation that learned of local history through the filters of a
communist government, to whom religion was superfluous and harmful, and Jewish
or any other ethnic history was dangerous. After Ukraine broke away from the
USSR it chose not to deal with the horrific memory of the extermination of
Jews, in which its residents had taken an active part. Viktor lives in a
country where the grand vestiges of Jewish culture are crumbling, synagogues
and cemeteries are disappearing and there is no local or national policy to
preserve them. What little Viktor knew was from reading and meeting Jewish
tourists while guiding them on their roots-tracing tours. But I was the first
whose family came from Chortkow; my family's homes were near his home, the
story I told took place in his hometown. It wasn't a distant story, it took
place right here under his feet, in the air that he breathed. And it raised questions.
I think the most difficult issue to deal with was the erasure of memories – the
victim doesn't want to remember, so as not to awaken old demons and relive the
trauma, and the murderer is too ashamed to tell the story. And so, absurdly,
the silence is preserved.

The
story I tell sounds like a mystery, or historical romance, where the
protagonists fall in love, get separated, reunite, escape from hell, start a
family in a faraway land, their families are murdered and their son goes back
to the   scene of the murder to look for memories – this story creates a kind
of shared experience, empathy, something one can identify with. The story
builds a bridge and suddenly we are all part of it. You could feel it in the
air, in our words, in our looks and even in the way the beer tasted.