Like Birds In Black and White by Miriam Raz-Zunszajn

Author:Miriam Raz-Zunszajn [Raz-Zunszajn, Miriam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Moreshet-The Mordechai Anelevich Memorial Holocaust Study and Research Center
Published: 2014-03-03T00:00:00+00:00

Meeting the Liberators

On the day after the liberation, on the twenty-third of July, I awake very early and want to go outside again. I can’t get enough of the outside. I want to see if this freedom is real and not just a fantasy. I don’t have the patience to wait for the whole family to wake up. I want to see the sunrise. I want to see the forest and the fields, the summer flowers opening at dawn. I want to just run, I very much want to be a little girl again. For two long years I could never walk a distance longer than between the walls of the house. And I had completely forgotten what it feels like to run. After all, I was a little girl who loved to run about and play outside all day long. I get dressed quickly and am ready to go out, but Irene stops me. Outside there is still danger from the local people and she asks me to wait until others in the house get up. I’m disappointed, but accept what she says.

When everyone gets up, Irene tells us that she plans to invite the Russian soldiers in the area to a welcoming party today and she expects us all to help her. She wants us to celebrate the victory over the Germans with the Russians and to express the family’s gratitude and support of our Russian liberators. Irene also wants to show me to them, the little Jewish girl that she saved from the Germans. Saving her Jewish husband is an obvious duty, but to save a strange girl is something else. I am to dress in proper clothes and not appear before them in the rags I’ve been wearing up to now. We’ll set a table fit for a king, considering the poverty of those days: we’ll serve home made vodka called “Samogonka”, home made Polish sausage, smoked ham and fresh home-baked black bread. Izy dresses festively and wears shoes for the first time in two years. I, too, am wearing a skirt and a blouse for the first time in a long while. Although I’m bald and bare-foot, and still have sores on my neck, I feel festive and curious about the meeting. I had seen Polish soldiers before, and German soldiers too, but I had never seen liberating soldiers. I imagined these liberators as Titans, and not just ordinary human beings. If they succeeded in overcoming the Germans, they are capable of anything. They are probably very special, big and strong, good and beautiful, perfect in every way. When they arrive, I’m very surprised. They look like any other ordinary people, like myself. They’re not particularly big or strong, nor are they especially beautiful. It was a great wonder to me that they truly succeeded in defeating the Germans. Irene introduces all of us to them and we toast a drink to our liberation. It’s quite easy for me to understand the Russian language because of its similarity to Polish, so that we are able to communicate quite well.

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