Freedom

The sun is shining brightly on a cold afternoon, wind sweeping past by gently. Instead of the noise of the bombs and the speeding of war planes across the sky, the birds have returned and started to chirp merrily, creating a happy atmosphere in this already broken and gloomy place. Germans seemed to have disappeared from this place, as if those Nazis have never existed. Instead of the German language, I heard a mixture of Russian and Polish languages, tangled together. Instead of Nazis lurking around, I saw the Russian army, driving through the street that is filled with the remains of the bombed out buildings, their Soviet flag waving victoriously against the wind. The Nazi flags that dominated each and every place, seemed to have disappeared. Except for one flag that remained hung on a pole, lonely. The Russian army stopped in front of the pole and one man climbed up the pole, grabbed the flag, through it on the ground and replaced it with a Soviet flag. The other men trampled the Nazi flag, singing joyously their Soviet Anthem

We are free...I said in my head, tears streaming down my cheeks. We are finally free. And I started sobbing, wishing my parents were alive to celebrate this joyous moment.

***

We used to be one happy family. Every one in the city of Warsaw knew who my father was. Dr. Paul Rubinstein. He was a renowned doctor and also a lecturer at the medical school at the University of Warsaw. We had both Polish and Jewish friends and my parents made sure that my sisters and I learned to speak Polish fluently. I someday, dreamed of becoming a doctor, like my father, so I could become the first female doctor in the family.

But that dream, would never happen. The German bombing of Warsaw changed our lives forever.

***

My house, that was located in the wealthy part of Warsaw, remained as it was, like before. It seemed as if the bombs haven't destroyed this place at all. I stared at the house, standing on the street, reminiscing those memories I had at the house. It was a two leveled house. brick layered with an oak front door. I close my eyes, so I could remember the inside. Butter yellow colored walls with paintings hung on the walls, the wooden stairs with banisters, a sitting area with comfortable sofas, a large glass chandelier hung on the ceiling, a Persian rug with intricate design lying in the middle of the living room. Upstairs were our rooms. mine was pink colored walls with a cupboard filled with my favorite porcelain dolls with a dainty patchwork bed quilt my grandmother made for me.

I then let those memories inside the house float through me. My mother playing some Chopin pieces on the grand piano in the living room, my father reading a newspaper or a medical journal in the sitting room, me, playing dolls with my sister Halina and my oldest sister, Katia locked up in the room, trying makeup on her face. The house was filled with laughter and joy.

Then everything changed when Germans came. Jews can't live in these types of houses anymore and had to move into the ghetto. I remembered how my parents, my sisters and I cried in the living room, the day before we were supposed to leave to the ghetto. And we left, those fond memories behind us.

I know a German family lived in this house but of course they must have fled the house. The house now belonged to some Polish man, who came out of the house and yelled at me to leave, without a second thought that actually, he was living in my house.

***

"What are you going to do Minka?" Mrs. Kowalski asked kindly, squeezing my hand.

Kowalskis, my father's Polish friends had been very helpful and kind to me, after my escape from the ghetto. Mr. Kowalski even helped me to locate the whereabouts of my sisters and parents. My parents both died in Treblinka Concentration Camp. Halina had died in Auschwitz. I moaned at their deaths, wishing I had died too and that I was ashamed that I was still alive. Katia, on the other hand had survived and had escaped to Lodz with her daughter Fiona, who also miraculously survived. Katia was planning to join her husband in Italy so they could move to Palestine. And she had sent a telegram, insisting that I should come.

"I don't know," I whispered. Part of me wanted to remain in Poland. After all, Poland is my home. But remaining in Poland would give me bad memories. I do have good memories but the past seven years had give me nothing but nightmares. And if I remained in Poland, I would think about my dead parents and Halina.

"You can join Katia in Italy." Mrs. Kowalski suggested. "Or, you can remain here and we will help you,"

"I don't want to be here," I replied at once, firmly. Tears blinded my eyes as I looked at Mrs. Kowalski. "I...I want to start again, new life,"

Mrs. Kowalski nodded, as if she understood my pain. She hugged me as we both sobbed.

***

It was decided that I would instead go to Stuttgart, Germany, to the displaced person's camp, so that I could get a visa and move to the United States to live with my aunt, whom I was very close to. I even sent a telegram to Katia, explaining my plan to move to America. I heard that America is accepting the Jewish immigrants into their country, though with restrictions and if they had the right sponsor who is an American citizen, the process would be much easier. I didn't really want to go to Germany, but my aunt, in her letter advised that unfortunately, many Jews who want to migrate to America must come to Stuttgart where it was apparently easier.

The Kowalskis saw me off at the train station. The train had other Jews who had survived, who wanted to leave Poland and start new life in another country. Some had plans to move to Palestine, some hoping to move to America or England or France. Some hoping to move to South America.

When the Germans were here, the trains that took the Jews were to their unexpected deaths in a concentration camp. Here, the trains will take us to our freedom.

"You are finally free," Mr. Kowalski said softly.

I smiled. I was leaving Poland with a heavy heart. I promised the Kowalskis that I would keep in touch with them, that I would write to them and if I do get the visa to move to America, I would tell them.

As the train left the station, I sobbed. I wondered if my parents were smiling at me from above, watching me, as I was beginning to start a new life in a new country.