Nisan 5703:
Kosciesza, Bogumil
Thirty-six years ago a group of Polish Gentiles, helpless to minyan of goyim in front of "Kleryk",and "Inzynier"-their provide any assistance, stood outside the burning Warsaw ...
...And again: YISGADAL V'YISKADASH...
...Am I nine, or all of you say: Amen...
...Don't run...
...Did I see a gallows -corpses still hanging-set against the Shouts: "It's Leon and his mother...
...May it off...
...Police like lice all around leaning to each other...
...A spring day before the war...
...Go out into sewed up in fabric...
...Telephone shy, sad perhaps...
...The steady the author...
...Little heads from Mirek...
...Blessed is His Holy kingbe Bar Mitzvah when "They"herded you into the ghetto...
...Collides with the maid...
...We pool resources...
...Tlomackie Square Synagogue its twin to the right...
...Fist hitting an open palm, fist hitting a table...
...The ghetto is burning...
...You blessed for ever and ever...
...You point at the gesticulating, another nightmare, of another time...
...A heartLeon...
...Think of Pessah three years ago...
...Panic again...
...And all of you say: Amen...
...Palm Sunday and my birthday...
...I feel hot-almost burning...
...The halting, sometimes disapthem down...
...You take us to the roof...
...A rear apartment, hard by the Roma Pull off the sweaters...
...They took my little Leon...
...In front of us the Wailing Wall of Warsaw's Jewry...
...never know if you made it, Levi ben Solomon...
...with the crowd...
...Your governess talking to my from the rightful wrath of our fathers...
...The panic recedes...
...A Megillah of flames...
...Aytz Chaim, the rod that supports this sky blackening scroll on My father leaning over a Hebrew text...
...We sell again...
...No cantor like Sirota to chant El Mole Rachamim-just a...
...The evening he looks old...
...With the profits of our first sales I buy Half pull on the coat...
...Zygmunt runs to open it...
...Buy a few candles...
...BORUCH SHEM caught...
...Thirty-six years ago a group of Polish Gentiles, helpless to minyan of goyim in front of "Kleryk",and "Inzynier"-their provide any assistance, stood outside the burning Warsaw backs against a pillar on the left...
...consolations said in the world...
...Let the Great Name of God be magnified BOGUMIL KOSCIESZA and sanctified all over the world He by His will created...
...I have the longest around me...
...You leave...
...Your fame could have spared you...
...We all scream at the man round the corner...
...This will keep prying eyes and ghetto and recited the Mourner's Kaddish, the Hebrew ears away from them...
...children need me," you said, and you chose to go...
...Do I yet hanging klocki on unsuspecting strangers...
...So what else is new...
...My birthday party...
...We have heard you on the We were still together then...
...My father in the loft, ready to throw off any incendiaries...
...between, the fighters and the meek, sopherim all, copiers of Shouting...
...Dive into the cover of an apartment house gateway...
...Men push me into another gateway...
...A bag of fried noodles...
...Or is it fear...
...You and Leon have background of a church on the right...
...I rip off my coat...
...even soon...
...And all of you say: Amen...
...And April 18th, eons ago...
...Leon and my brother Zygmunt radio...
...Ribbing from the boys...
...The Nazis have started saturation bombing of Warsaw...
...V'IMRU OMAYN...
...We hear him say: "For you, sir, only a streetcar line...
...May there be great on the armband with the Star of David...
...I remember the time you mother...
...Going to see their of Masses, the morning of rumors, the morning of Warsaw from its tallest building...
...Or is it a specter of brought a gift of mandel bread...
...Jump more, from a man growing old away from his country...
...Excited voices...
...agree...
...Mind numb, blurt out: "For her and for Leon...
...bribe...
...I see you I. Four boys: two Jews, two Gentiles...
...Reb Szmul and Reb the left...
...Neither you nor Zygmunt could ever stay out of shaped box of candy...
...and four bon-bons each...
...Rush out into the street...
...Jump on...
...legs, can run the fastest...
...All afternoon the rumors multiply...
...The days of the Holy Week come and go...
...herring bones on the back of your Rabbi, and, as always, got SH'MA YISROEL ELOHENU ADONOI EHOD...
...Your mother forever trying to protect the two of you over...
...Strangely soft look in his eyescomes, evening of the First Seder, Leyl Shimurim...
...The voices of women praying-saying their rosaries louder and louder as the bombs start falling closer...
...Stary Doktor" -the Old The Wall...
...Blessed Is He, Whose sional organization, has written for the Washington Post and other glory is greater than all the blessings, songs, praises, and publications...
...Walk...
...The party is trouble...
...You tried to pin understand your answer: "Because He Is...
...I remember the time How old was I, Reb Abraham, when I asked you why you you learned from Zygmunt the Ash Wednesday prank of are always so happy, why do you sing all the time...
...Almost one of the children...
...YISBORAH V'YISHTABAH...
...They" do allow the shouting men, and laugh to my mother: "It's all right, they still people to watch...
...Long poles for your lances...
...Let the name of the BOGUMIL KOSCIESZA, a chemist and editor with a national profes- Holy One be exalted and honored...
...The memories are still vivid," writes reaches the outside rank of their human rampart...
...The bombing is continuous now...
...Kleryk," "Inzynier"-their undergound ers...
...merchant, a newspaper editor, and a descendant of old You cry out to me: "Bogus...
...You give us a tour of our city, getting into trouble...
...A group of fifth graders outside Receiving Communion at Our Savior's...
...Get shoulder: "Remember me to your parents...
...We both turn red...
...I hava a plan...
...The legends, the relics...
...He tells a few childishly off-color jokes and leads us in singing Warsaw "street songs...
...May He bring about His kingdom during the days of our N"We do not build monuments for the life, and during the life of all the House of Israel, quickly, just, their work is their memorial...
...Did you tell stories to your orphans on your last journey, Now we know Kleryk" wants to talk...
...peace in the heavens give peace to us and to all Israel...
...You were preparing to Lord our God, the Lord is One...
...Hear, 0 Israel: the in your philacteries, rocking in prayer...
...We relax a little...
...A quick kiss...
...At the Law Courts...
...But I also remember you in your living room, wrapped K'VOD MALCHUSO L'OLOM VOED...
...old churches and palaces...
...But "My letting the people watch...
...We have read your books...
...Here on the roof you seem not much taller than your listenLeszno Street...
...nobility-three crazy men who thought it unpatriotic to hoard Don't attract attention...
...Your gift, Alinka...
...I am getting more and more scared...
...It's cold outside...
...charge the Kara Mustafa's tent, and your mother's beautiful cheval glass falls victim to your warfare...
...First winter of the occupation...
...that has candles on sale...
...Some women around you: "Quiet, at the outbreak of war...
...A Law and Order more merchandise...
...Safe on the other side, jump off again and weave We take some candles home...
...Have you heard...
...Forefingers pointing, stabbing the text...
...Let the Great • .. OSE SHOLOM BIMROMOV...
...Small beard...
...May His great Name be level your weapons and smash a crystal chandelier...
...Off with the arm band...
...INETEEN FORTY-THREE...
...Whispers...
...Not rumors now...
...Y'HAY SH'MAY RABO...
...I think of Leon...
...Their fathers a rich in the street-a slight woman, stooped and suddenly aged...
...For the memory of all of you, some already faceless A streetcar into the ghetto-one of the last before "They" shadows, some whose names I do not even remember any stopped them...
...Commonweal: 240 September 1939...
...Close to youngest, Zygmunt...
...With our profits we buy bread through the streets...
...The terrifying shriek of Stuka bombers answered by the wailing of the children huddled up to their parents...
...A man in an overcoat-to us whispers...
...Time to leave...
...May he who created Name of God be magnified and sanctified...
...May His great Name be and smoke is unrolled over the city: Powslzki cemeteries one blessed for ever and ever...
...Two of us going into the hall...
...Home-potatoes still in my pockets...
...The morning the "Skyscraper" on Napoleon Square...
...Leon, Jgdrek, Zygmunt and Is it just the extra sweaters I am wearing...
...A hand on my names-Zygmunt, Mirek-I don't know the others...
...Hand all to the men Marszalkowska Street to peddle our wares...
...Another . . . " and then give away the candles below our purchase price...
...at the door...
...And all of you say: Amen...
...I'll dom forever...
...So long before the war...
...Leon's mother which until now we thought we knew...
...Y'HAY SH'LOMO RABO...
...Panic...
...You are the last to leave...
...In Isaac...
...A Jewish shopkeeper-more a peddler reallystarts relating the comical adventures he has had trying to sell ice cream in summer and hot barley soup in winter at his booth in the Koszyki Market...
...The faint sound of their whispers barely prayers for the dead...
...A banknote into the conductor's hand...
...Doctor...
...am I ten...
...This is the first time that I have been able to write drone of "Inzynier's" voice...
...Slip out and mingle peace from Him and life for us and for all Israel...
...A ring the Torah, "writing this song for themselves" with their lives...
...You...
...Remove long sausages of flour mother Cinema...
...Y'HAY SH'MAY RABO...
...pearing murmur of "Kleryk": YISGADAL V'YSKADASH sH'MAY RABO...
...A moment of recognition...
...The Nazis are Janusz Korczak...
...27 April 1979: 241...
...from the Turkish armies...
...Will you join...
...I help you with your two played King John Sobieski's Hussars defending Vienna coat...
...Pull be my Mitzvah...
...All the occupants of the apartment house crowd into the ground-floor inside hallway, some on the basement steps, some in the basement hall...
...wiping her tears: no word from Reb Solomon since he left for "The Golden Duck," Vars and Sava, Zagloba's attack, the the Soviet side...
...higher up on the steps...
...I find a place on Nowogrodzka Street Sarah...
Vol. 106 • April 1979 • No. 8
