BEING A MINORITY - Tough Chapter

Near the end of one’s life I imagine that everyone wishes to make sense of their lives and understand how their personal story fits into the grander sweep of history.  My story is part of the larger story of Jews in the world, and specifically in my case in Poland.

In the middle ages, Poland was a feudal country with nobles who owned the land, and peasants who worked the land, never owned anything really, and had to pay rents and taxes to the nobles.  Into this atmosphere of absentee landlords, gallivanting elegantly in Paris, and the poorest peasants living from hand to mouth with many children, came the permission to have Jews start a system of banking.   Although there were Jewish traders coming to Poland from about the year 960, it was Casimir the Great in 1334 who actually invited and welcomed the Jews as a group to handle more “modern” forms of finance as a middle class.  They were very restricted in terms of the places where they could live; they could not own land; they had the job of collecting rent and taxes from the peasants to send to the lords.  For this reason, they were resented and hated by the peasants. In addition, the Church taught the illiterate peasants that Jews killed their Lord and deserved to suffer. Nearly 100 percent of native Poles  were blond, blue-eyed, and Catholic.  Orthodox Jews had dark hair, curled earlocks, and distinctive dress that set them apart and caused additional ridicule. When the peasants got drunk they felt free to abuse the unprotected Jews with insults, stones, and intermittent pogroms.

We skip now to 1920 in the modern era. I was born at a time when many Jews were dressing like everyone else, super patriotic to Poland, having served in the Polish army in World War I, mixing freely in Polish society, and feeling confident of their equal citizenship status.  After Austrians and German lost WWI, Poland, which had been divided between Germany, Austria, and Russia, was again a sovereign nation.  Jews had been protected in Austria by Emperor Franz Joseph, and this caused additional resentment and hatred of Jews in Poland after war was over and Polish nationalism rose.  Still,  Jews were recognized poets, political leaders and advisors, scientists, writers, really functioning at a high level in Polish life.

My father’s family, the Kohns, remained in Vienna, Austria, after WWI, and had a prosperous and elegant life in what was considered the intellectual center of Europe at the time. Jews were prominent in every aspect of life, many very “secular” and assimilated. My mother’s family, however, had a very big building business in Rzeszow, about two hours east of Krakow (today on the border with Ukraine).  It was a large, hardworking, successful, close family... a good life.  Everyone accepted the limitations of being a minority in this Catholic country. As an example:  my friend Janek was the best student in university. Yet he was listed as second; a Polish student had to be first.  That was considered normal.  My father Benjamin "Beno" Kohn had a similar business to my grandfather's with building materials. During the Depression he sold the big wholesale store and most belongings and opened a smaller retail hardware store from the inventory at he could salvage.  I remember two nuns passing by the store and looking at the name on the window:  Benjamin Kohn and Co.  They pointed to the name and said to each other: “This is not one of ours.  There is another store on the next block.  More expensive but one of our people.”  So we were tolerated, but never really considered equal.

My home was a little different.  We did not live in the Jewish quarter of Kazimierz, only in a nearly completely gentile neighborhood near the Park Krakowski, a magic place for all my childhood with swimming, boating, horseback riding, every sport, Italian ice cream, and other wonders.  Yet, my mother insisted that I attend a Jewish school an hour away, at the other end of town in the Jewish Quarter, more like the set of Fiddler on the Roof.  In that school we learned the required Polish subjects, but, in addition, remained an extra few hours a day to learn Hebrew as a modern language (quite an experiment of that day). It was not a religious education, but rather, gave a solid cultural and literary foundation of Judaism.  The professors were way above our heads; they should have been university-level professors, but those doors were closed to them, so they taught on a high school level students who, for the most part, couldn’t appreciate their greatness.

I felt very Polish, very involved in Polish life, and had a happy childhood with a tutor for languages, good schooling, dancing and  music classes after school, vacation at the ocean during the summer, skiing in Zakopane in winter,etc.  When Hitler crossed into Poland in 1939 my whole life stopped.  I describe the  events of those years of horror and loss in the book my daughter wrote - “From Miracle to Miracle: A Story of Survival.”  For about three years, I lived as a Catholic with false papers as Maria Zylinska.  I heard people talking in front of me in a way they wouldn’t had they known I was Jewish. These were people, who liked and respected me for who I was, for my work, my talents, my personality,had no idea about my true identity.  One Christmas, a university professor’s daughter, who worked with me at a job I had, knew I was alone and invited me for Christmas dinner at her home. I was basically hungry all the time, so this was a treat.  I sat at a lovely table, elegantly spread.  During the dinner with these intellectual, upper-class people, talk turned to the Jews.  When I heard their hateful, anti-Semitic comments, I couldn’t swallow; I felt like crying. This is what they really think about Jewish people? I was invited because of friendship; I was the same person... but if they found out I was Jewish, I would be in danger and probably turned in, and marked for death.

Nika as Maria Zylinska after liberation from POW camp
in Oberlangen, Germany 1945

In 1946, when I arrived in America, this rich country, I expected the cities to be beautiful.  I had come from Krakow, one of the most beautiful cities in the world.  Everything in the USA was 100 percent different from what I was used to.  People in general did their own shopping and cooking without household help.  There were slums and poor people in the streets.  I couldn’t understand how this could be permitted. However, there were great differences that were also very admirable.

I learned slowly to trust policemen, who are here to protect you. In Poland, contact with a policeman would be trouble, and anyone in uniform during the war was to be avoided!

I had never seen black people and it took a while to get used to the mixture of all kinds of people. Everyone in America was some kind of minority and an immigrant from some other country.

My husband took me to Bear Mountain to show me the lovely scenic views where all the “refugees” (Jewish immigrants who got stuck during the World’s Fair in 1939 and couldn’t return to Germany,  Poland, etc.) had gone on brief vacations during the war. They had formed a group of close friendships, including Alfred Fleissig, who was now my husband, and wanted to show me places he had visited.

On this occasion he took me to a club where he had not visited before. We entered somehow from the back of the shooting club, part of the larger complex.  As we exited later from the front of the building, I was in shock: a big sign over the entrance read “No Jews or Dogs Allowed.”  For this I survived the Holocaust? To see such discrimination in the Land of the Free? I learned that there were restricted clubs, and neighborhoods where Jews were not permitted.  Once again, I was aware of being a minority, and couldn’t bear to see such hatred. 

Should we leave?  But where to go?  My husband was building up his business and we were creating a family and having children.  We chose a lovely place to live in the suburbs of NY, White Plains, across the street from a Reform synagogue.  I figured there we would have Jewish friends and find good schools for our children. 

I met many couples in America who were inter-married.  I saw that some Jews wanted to get away from the horrible history of Jewish suffering, and felt that with a non-Jewish mate their children would avoid suffering.  Under Hitler, even people who had one Jewish grandparent were judged as vermin to be executed.  People need to know their history and have pride in who they are... to know who they are. In a free society, it is less important to confront being a minority; but in tough times, discrimination rears up again, as I experienced.

I come from Cohanim, ancient tribe of Priests.  Centuries ago, when Jews lived in the Ancient Land of Israel, the Cohanim served as the spiritual leaders for the people. Down through the generations, a vestige of this honored position remained.  In traditional congregations, a Cohen is called up for the first honor of the reading from the Torah. There are still special restrictions on whom a Cohen can marry.  I never thought about it, until my beloved daughter informed me that she is studying to become a Rabbi.  So it went full cycle, and she emerged with a strong desire to help, teach, and bring Jewish tradition to the next generation.   

I feel personally that I have arranged my life in a positive way, and have traveled all over the world; I'm glad to be greeted with “Welcome Home” when returning to American soil. I don’t have to look behind me and be scared about who might see me or know who I am.  I have great friendships and close family.  All things considered, I feel that this country of America allows a shoemaker’s son to rise to any level.  There is still more freedom here than in other places in the world.

I solved it my own way but I wonder what the future will bring for the coming generations.

I want to write about the subject of “survival”  but right now I need to clear my head and take a walk around the marina in Wellfleet, Cape Cod, where I spend four months each summer .

I told you this would be a tough subject.  Not every chapter of my blog can be lighthearted and humorous.