Christian by Disguise: A Story of Survival

Copyright © 2014 by Erna Kamerman Perry

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Published by:

ComteQ Publishing

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101 N. Washington Ave. Suite 1Β

Margate, New Jersey 08402

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Email: publisher@ComteQpublishing.com

Website: www.ComteQpublishing.com

ISBN# 9781935232810

Book and cover design by Rob Huberman

Printed in the United States of America

In memory of my cousin, Gino Berlin, the eldest son of my uncle Majer, who had taken over much of my upbringing in the absence of my father. Gino passed away suddenly, much too soon, much too young, and before he could translate this book into Italian so that his extended family would know about the past.

Author’s Introduction

For nearly all of the sixty-odd years since the end of World War II, I hardly mentioned the Holocaust or my experiences in it.

And yet, this period covered the first ten years of my life and has had a dramatic and traumatic effect on me. Life kept me busy and I buried the memory of that time fairly deep. My mother, my uncle, friends and acquaintances familiar with my past―or those who shared in it―occasionally would remark on an episode. For the most part, however, we were mute on the subject. Neither my husband nor my children knew much about it, just a single event mentioned in passing and made to sound irrelevant.

But years have passed and those who have experienced the Holocaust are disappearing. Death is no longer something far on the horizon but a frequent visitor to many around me. And so, it seems that I must take the chance of telling my story, a story that was a part of the horror my people experienced.

I have no illusions that another thread in the weave of the narratives about the Holocaust will make any difference: the deniers of it will keep denying, the haters will keep hating, genocides will keep occurring. I only want my children, my (few) relatives, my friends, and those readers interested in the historical horrors of the twentieth century to know that once there was a little girl who, through no fault of her own, had to lie and pretend so she could live to see another day.

This book, then, is dedicated to my husband, who knew my many irrational fears and my need for a father figure, and never ceased to treat me as a princess; to my children, Adria and Jeff, who did not even notice that I spoke English with a bit of an accent until their friends mentioned it; to my relatives spread around the globe, in Australia, Israel, and Italy, who always wanted me to write about my life; and to the many friends, old and new, who motivated me to write and supported me in the endeavor. Thanks so much Sharon, Yvonne, Robbie, and a special thanks to Alice Kemper, who suggested the title.

Erna Kamerman Perry, aka Danusia Kruczewska

CHRISTIAN BY DISGUISE

A Story of Survival

We walked and ran, ran and walked, for an eternity. Once in a while, out of breath, we stopped by a haystack and drank in the sweet smell of the hay while our hearts lessened their racing. Fear was stronger than fatigue, however, and we dared not stop or linger for long. I was a small girl, barely five years old, and I had not eaten anything of substance in several days. Mother was dragging me by my hand but I was numb with fear and fatigue, and was not making her progress any easier.

Night had been approaching when we had started to run. Now the sky was very black, and out here in the country the stars stood out like silver coins on black velvet. A full moon illuminated the stacks of hay. I had never been outside at night in the country and the shapes I thought I saw in every direction added to my fear. I determined to stop thinking about our current situation. In fact, I thought, it would be better not to think about anything, and just focus on running. But I could not control my thoughts.

Stories I had heard kept going through my mind, stories from my previous life. What I was seeing now, for instance, reminded me of a book Mother had read to me, about Africa. In the book there was a picture of an African village. The haystacks in the fields we were crossing now looked just like those African huts, and they shone like gold in the moonlight. Gold made me think of another fairy tale, about an old man who was able to turn hay into gold. I couldn't remember the details of the tale, nor its entire plot, but only the fact that at least in fairy tales, hay could be turned into gold. These thoughts kept me busy so that I was able to continue running, in spite of being exhausted. It also made me forget—for a moment—the terrible danger we were in.

Out of breath, gulping for air, we were finally nearing our goal: the train station of Drohobycz, the town we were desperately trying to get away from unnoticed. Drohobycz was Mother's native town, and many people knew her there and would easily recognize her. Though she had many friends there, of all religions, this time she wouldn't be greeted as a friend. She would be pointed out as a Jew, walking outside the ghetto minus her armband. This was our reality now: we were no longer normal people, living normal lives, walking normal streets, in the cities and villages of Poland. No, we were being hunted and killed, on the streets by violence and gunfire, or in slave labor camps by violence and starvation. This was how Mother and Dad had explained to me the horrific events of the recent past, and the constant need to hide, to flee, to dissemble, if we were to survive. But I did not understand why.

By the time we approached the station the sky had begun to gray. There was no suggestion of dawn yet, none of that lovely pink on the horizon that I had observed when I would wake early, the sun beginning to peek out from behind the clouds, waking from its sleep as well. It was simply no longer pitch black. And the stars were beginning to fade.

We could see the lights of the station, although they were rather dim, not at all as sharp as they had looked before the war. Still, they were the first lights we had seen in a long time, and their brilliance hurt my eyes—a knife splitting the darkness of the night.

We stopped to shake out our dresses and attempt to construct the image of just another middle-class Polish lady and her daughter, dressed for a trip to visit relatives. Pieces of hay had stuck to our hair, and we did our best to compose ourselves. I was so tired that I wanted to sit down, right there on the sidewalk. Mother wouldn't let me, of course, but continued to primp.

Mother had a beautiful face, perfectly oval, with large dark eyes and shiny coal black hair wound around her head in a braid. But now her beauty was veiled with worry, with uncertainty, and mostly with unadulterated fear. I thought she looked a bit scary, as she did when we were playing and she pretended to be Baba Jaga, the witch. I was always somewhat afraid of her when we played that game, not sure who she really was at the moment. I knew that she was my mother, but I was also afraid that some transformation could have occurred, some magic could have happened, and that she really had become a witch. She looked like this now, but now it was she who was afraid.

She pulled out a scarf from the one small bag we had managed to bring with us and put it around her neck, not on her head like the peasant women wore. She adjusted the collar on my dress and pulled out the necklace I wore with pride. It was a silver crucifix with the figure of Jesus on a silver chain, and it had slipped underneath: Danusia, she said, You must remember that this is your name now.

I know, I know.

This is very important. If you make a mistake, they will arrest us, or shoot us right here on sight, or we'll end up in a camp, and they will separate us, and who knows what will...

You don't have to tell me. I know everything. I don't want to die. I just want to find Daddy... I was about to cry. I loved my tatus, perhaps more than my mother. She was the disciplinarian, and had become very impatient and short-tempered since the war. The reason for her behavior was clear, but I was only a little girl, and I simply thought that she had turned mean. Perhaps she had stopped loving me, for some reason. I got along better with my dad.

Dad was the one who would talk to me and answer my questions, who taught me how to tell time, who taught me the alphabet, who complimented me about how smart I was. He often told the story to whomever was there to hear it of the dream he had when I was born. In the dream, he saw a large book and within it my name was inscribed in gold letters (I was named after his mother and the dream might have had some special meaning for him). Some day, you will be someone important. Perhaps a writer, since your name appeared in a book. I overheard him tell Mother that he was not superstitious and did not believe in dreams, that this dream was only an expression of his hope for me, and not a prophesy about my future. For me, it was still a nice vision—that book with my name in gold. It was meant to have me feel special.

I knew that Dad was our protector. I feared that without him we would perish, and now he was gone.

Mother stopped me: No time for crying now. Put on a smile, and let's see if we can get out of here, where everyone knows who I am. And I'm sure we'll find Daddy when this horror is over.

We had reached the entrance to the train station. Stepping in we were confronted by a vision of utter chaos. This area was supposed to be a waiting room, and indeed there were people waiting, hundreds of them, stretched out on the ground, sitting on suitcases, on bundles, on newspapers. The original seats were totally invisible as the people sitting on them were covered by children on their laps or leaning against them, or by bundles of clothes and food. Because the seats were arranged on an upgrade, as in a theater, it looked as if there were people sitting on other people's heads. It was almost comical; later, when I thought about the scene, it would remind me of some of Brueghel's paintings, the ones with the dancing and celebrating farmers, with a large number of figures helter-skelter on the canvas. Perhaps Chagall had it right, putting cows and people floating in the sky.

The stench that hit us was more characteristic of a barn than of a train station waiting room. But what froze us with fear was the sight, at the opposite end of the room, of a group of Polish policemen, and inside a room, visible through a glass partition, the gray-blue-green uniforms we knew only too well: German officers, mostly the SS.

We continued walking in and found a seat on the floor, in a corner. I knew that Mother was trying to be inconspicuous, so I too made myself small, putting my legs under me and my head on Mother's lap. I was so tired, I would have gladly fallen asleep, except that I was also hungry and I eyed enviously the thick black bread spread with butter that a woman near us was handing to her child. We, of course, had nothing, and had eaten nothing for two days, since the men had not come to bring us food, as they had every day until this day.

Suddenly, there was a commotion to our right. I saw an old peasant woman—I knew she was a peasant because of what she wore: a long skirt of an indefinite color, a blouse with red and blue embroidery in a cross stitch, some kind of heavy shawl, and a babushka on her head in garish colors of red and green. I was a child,