We Are Listening
Delivered at B’nai Jeshurun—Yom Kippur, 5780
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Dear Grandpa Maks,
I want you to know that I’ve been listening. While no one will ever know your story like you do, or like your brother Henry does, or like your parents Albert and Sonia did, your 6 grandchildren have been listening. We know your story, we are living miracles of your story, and we live our lives in gratitude to you. I first heard pieces of your story from you when I was in second grade, and since then you have revealed layers upon layers of details. Less in times devoted to sharing your story — more in bits and pieces, in age appropriate ways as we all grew up. I’ve woven them together to the best of my ability to let you know: I’ve been listening.
This is not a transcription of the interviews you did around your 75th birthday, or for the Jewish Broadcasting service last year. I’m so grateful to have those accounts of your story. To have you telling your story over six hours of video. But the following is your story as I understand it directly from you. One day, the burden and the honor and the responsibility of sharing your story will be mine, and I want you to hear it first.
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Your childhood was easy, until it wasn’t. Born in 1927, in Vilna — Poland or Lithuania depending on the day — you began your life with your parents, welcoming my great uncle Henry three years later.
You attended Jewish day school, your father owned a car dealership, you lived your life. Your father, my great grandfather, was a very generous man, forgiving the debt that some, like cab driver Boleslov Boratinski couldn’t pay. Your father said, ‘You’ll pay me when you can.’
While you had experienced traces of antisemitism, your life took a very dark and scary turn in 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland. You were scared, and your parents were scared, but you still had little sense of what was going to happen.
About two years later, in 1941, your apartment building was bombed and you moved into a family friends’ apartment, which ended up being part of the Vilna Ghetto. You were in the Vilna Ghetto from the first day of its operation. You shared one room between the four of you. You’ve recalled to me — in many different ways — so many details of your time in the ghetto. I remember once wearing leather sandals that you told me “look like the shoes we had to wear in the ghetto.” Needless to say, I got rid of those shoes. I remember once walking with you on the street and you pointed to the gutter. “That’s where we had to walk in the ghetto,” you shared.
I won’t forget all the ways you indicated to me that your dignity was taken away, that you were treated as less than human. I’ve been listening.
You worked outside the ghetto, and so did your father. You remember shoveling snow, and your father worked in a mattress factory. Boleslov, that cab driver who benefitted from your father’s generosity, heard that your father was working outside the ghetto, and so he contacted Albert, saying, “If you need anything, let me know.” Little did anyone know what kind of help would be needed.
Two years into your time in the ghetto, in 1943, your family learned of the upcoming liquidation of the ghetto and the transfer of its inhabitants to forced labor and concentration camps. Your mother and father discussed their possible plans for escaping and hiding. The night before the liquidation of the ghetto, your family had only one more night and one more opportunity to get out. In the middle of the night, after another failed attempt earlier that evening, your parents bribed guards of the ghetto with money or jewelry, and escaped.
You, uncle Henry, and your parents Albert and Sonia Etingin, made your way to Boleslov’s house, hoping for safe hiding. On your way, you got to a bridge guarded by Nazis. You were stuck, with no possibility of crossing without getting caught.
But moments after you arrived at the bridge, the skies opened up. Thunder, lightening, a downpour of rain! The Nazis retreated inside their watchtower — and all of you were able to cross the bridge.
The bridge crossing — one of the many miracles of your story! I’ve been listening.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing once you got to Boleslov’s house. I know you stayed in the attic of his barn for the first few nights, and overheard Boleslov and his wife fighting with his parents. Boleslov’s parents told him and his wife, “This is going to get US killed, AND you killed.” And so, Boleslov, committed to helping our family, dug a hole in his yard just big enough for the four of you. He would come to bring you food each day, and collect the waste. I still can’t understand how your parents found ways to occupy time– but they did–by sharing stories with you of their childhood. Your father was especially encouraging. But lice were everywhere, it wasn’t easy to breathe, and you had no idea how long this life would last. And yet, at times you felt safer in this hole than you did in the ghetto.
You knew you were close to safety when you could hear, through underground, the Soviet Army approaching.
They were getting closer and closer. No less than ten and a half months after you entered the hole, Boleslov came to tell you it was safe to get out. After ten and a half months in the hole, you couldn’t walk, nor could your brother.
In a recent interview you did with Rabbi Marc Gollub for the Jewish Broadcasting Station, each time he mentioned you were in the hole for ten months you corrected him by saying ‘ten and a half months.’ I’ve been listening.
Soon after, you made your way to Lodz for one year. You received your high school diploma, and then with help moved to Sweden. From there, you were the first in your family to receive a student visa to come to the United States, and you landed here — in Brooklyn — to live with an aunt. Your best friend from elementary school, Irving Borofsky, was living with two of his aunts in Bridgeport and invited you to join. You studied at Bridgeport University for a year, before the Jewish Community Center of Bridgeport, sponsored you and other Jewish students who couldn’t afford to go to college. Jewish Community Centers have always been important to you and grandma — the JCC helped you and so many others at such a vulnerable time.
You received your bachelors degree in electrical engineering at Virginia Tech in 1952. That same year your parents received their visas to come to the US, and so you moved back to New York, to 72nd street to live with them, coincidentally on the block where I currently live. Your brother Henry received a visa to go to Montreal, to avoid being drafted after the trauma of the Shoah.
After working with others in real estate, your father started Orsid Realty, buying and managing rental buildings on the Upper West Side. You joined Orsid as it transitioned into co-op management, committing yourself and your company to believing in immigrants as they took refuge in the United States. Uncle Neil, who now runs Orsid, still stands true to these values. You’ve hired people from all over the world who, as you once did, sought to create a new life in New York.
And while you were growing up experiencing the effort to destroy the Jewish people, a young woman by the name of Rochelle Goldzweig was growing up in Israel — a fifth generation Israeli experiencing the struggles and the triumphs of the creation of the State of Israel. After her army service in 1948, she moved to pursue a career in fashion at Parsons in New York City. And thank God for all of that. You were set up with Grandma and immediately smitten — sitting with her on the stoop of her house until the morning on your first date.
Two daughters, six grandchildren, three great grandchildren later…you’ve built an extraordinary life. A life I am grateful to be woven into. Grandpa, we have all been listening, and promise to continue listening and sharing your story all the days of our lives.
Your granddaughter,
Leah
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I’m so grateful to have the opportunity to represent my family in sharing my grandfather’s story today. I’m joined here by my parents, one of my brothers, Ben, and my grandma Rochelle. My grandfather is not well enough to come today, but I’m glad he knows I’m here sharing his story.
I feel grateful to be in a community guided by our Rabbis — Felicia, Roly, Erin and Marcelo, and by our Hazzan Ari, that values the sharing of these stories. And I’m grateful to Myriam Abramowitz for taking on such a project with care and compassion.
Felicia and Dan reached out to see if there are any melodies from my grandfather’s childhood that the musicians could play, and I’m grateful we got an answer right from my grandfather.
Please join me as we listen to Ochi Chornye, a Russian romantic folk song.
G’mar chatima tova.
