The Ones Who Remember by Rita Benn

Author:Rita Benn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: City Point Press
Published: 2021-11-16T20:14:57+00:00

And then I wrote “Goodbye,” since I was flying home the next day.

As I began to read it aloud to him, I started sobbing. Chaim tearfully begged me to stop crying. I am not sure I got through all that I wrote. He held me, kissed me, and told me he loved me.

I regret that this affectionate connection didn’t last long. Neither of us handled showing or seeing emotion very well. Nonetheless, it is a moment that I cherish. This turned out to be one of the last times I would see him.

• • •

Piecing my father’s story together has taken a long time. In 2004, I found the Generations After group at Temple Beth Emeth in Ann Arbor. Being a seeker of sorts, I had joined many groups in my effort to understand myself. Over many discussions and good food, my self-mocking acceptance of my ignorance of my father’s past gradually turned to curiosity, a drive to know the history and gain an understanding of its implications for me. One of the gems I found in my search was the book Kaddishel: A Life Reborn, by Aharon Golub, one of the only witnesses to the massacre of Ludvipol’s Jews in 1942. Aharon was a few years younger than my father.

I also listened to video testimony by Chaim’s cousin, Steve Golden, who grew up across the Jewish courtyard from my father in Ludvipol and survived the war in the Soviet Union, arriving at Tante Libby’s home in Detroit. Then, while writing this chapter, I found out by accident about an interview my father did at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, where the interviewer had coaxed out many of the missing details of my father’s history from the years 1941–1948.

Rayberg Passover Seder 1988. Photo taken at the home of grandparents Rachel and David Bleicher. Top row (left to right): Phillip Barr, Julie Barr, Dario Cabib, Lana Cabib-Zin. Middle row: Delilah Raybee, Adina Cabib, Miriam Rayberg, Gila Rayberg, Harold Chaim Rayberg, Shuli Rayberg, Reuven Rayberg. Front row: Elizabeth Raybee, Amethyst Frech, David Barr, Maya Barr, Iris Cabib

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