I do not look Jewish
Palant, Paula
THE LAST WORD I DO NOT LOOK JEWISH Paula Palant Recently, my wife and I attended a bar mitz-vah. We sat next to a couple who, upon hear-ing that I come from Lvov, Poland, told us abou t a cousin...
...With pleas-ure I will answer your questions...
...My parents dressed in secular European style and spoke Yiddish to each other...
...There was even a rabbi in the family...
...People steal from each other, they cheat, and there is always anti-Semitism...
...I pray to God with all my heart...
...God is one for Jews, Christians, and for all who believe in him...
...One would not have thought that this could still be possible...
...Why are they so hated...
...How could I know...
...This is my happiness and gives me hope that after my death I will meet my dear ones...
...I enclose all the best to you, dear sir, your wife, and your entire family...
...This is our order's main house and monastic life begins here...
...a cousin in Israel...
...Maybe God wants us as a witness and purifies us as gold in the fire...
...Again, I don't know...
...In 19471 asked to be admitted to the convent, and two years later I was invited to become a part of the family...
...My grandparents on both sides were religious Orthodox Jews...
...On the contrary, they forgave me and are keeping in touch...
...My parents encouraged me to run away to Krakow...
...I do not know...
...They do not want any contact with me...
...Are they more guilty than other people...
...There are about seventy nuns who live in this house and we are one big family...
...You possibly felt that reticence in my previous letter...
...Why did I join the convent and be-come a nun...
...Immediately after this hell I found myself in this cloister, able to finish high school in an atmosphere of life, goodness, and love, without concern as to where I came from...
...This hurts, and for this reason I am careful about making contact...
...Sister Paula Palant p.s...
...This is all...
...I am sorry that I do not know English and was happy you wrote in Polish...
...I do know that I fervently believe that God is just and he loves us all...
...I do not know...
...What do the sisters think of me...
...They are my people, so how could it not hurt me...
...This faith is strength-ened by the sisters...
...I am sure they know my background...
...I wanted to understand why the sisters were so kind, and why they lived in such a way...
...I completed studies in physics, and until this day I teach this subject...
...I was taken in by a good Catholic family and they made it easy for me to finish middle school, and in 1946-471 studied with the sisters in Niepokalanaka and passed my high school exam...
...How could I live without this belief...
...We range in all ages, the oldest being ninety-seven years old...
...I love these people...
...I was born in Lvov in 1925 into a family that was partly as-similated...
...We have to forgive each other, and only prayers can change our hearts...
...Are you reading the Bible, the most beautiful book about God and hu-mans...
...What follows is from the second letter I re-ceived back...
...I do not know...
...I have to straighten out one misun-derstanding, as you may possibly not have understood my Polish: I never was sorry and still am not sorry that I accepted Catholicism...
...We children-a sister and brother and I-went to Polish school, but the fami-ly observed religious holidays...
...Not one of them survived the war, nor did any of my rel-atives, except for an old aunt, my moth-er's sister, who lives in Venezuela...
...How do I look upon what happened to the Jews in Poland...
...They never arrived...
...Many are middle-aged but the majori-ty are young...
...We sat next to a couple who, upon hear-ing that I come from Lvov, Poland, told us abou t a cousin from the same town who, after World War II, became a nun...
...and one in New York...
...I survived because I do not look typi-cally Jewish...
...Jews are no worse than other people: They do not sin more than others...
...Twenty years ago by accident I found some members of my family, and when I wrote to them, my mother's family did not disown me...
...This is my biggest heartache...
...Maybe we sinned to a point where the innocent must suffer...
...Leon W. Wells [author of Shattered Faith, Kentucky University Press], Closter, New Jersey Thank you for your letter...
...I want to begin by briefly describing my background...
...We have schools for all ages and also teach religion in cities and villages...
...My father's fami-ly was silent...
...That was the reason that I came to be a believer...
...Father prayed every day, attended synagogue each holiday, and mother lit candles every Friday evening...
...They said that "as a child she was taken in by a Polish Christian family and...
...I have been here as a sister nearly fifty years...
...I made the translation from the Polish and it is reprinted with permission...
...the rest of the family was to follow later, using "Aryan papers...
...Suffering is a heart-breaking thing, and we must endure it even if we do not comprehend it...
...Even now people murder each other as in the old times-for reasons of religion...
...I was arrested but did not admit to being Jewish, and from September 1942 to the end of the war I was in jail as well as in Auschwitz and Ravensbriick...
...How do religious people look on what happened to the Jews during the Holo-caust...
...When I returned to Poland, there was no one left and I was all alone...
...No one who did not expe-rience Auschwitz is able to understand what kind of hell it was...
...after the war joined a cloister...
...I always knew that there was a God but only now I also believe in Christ...
...I never hid it, but neither do I discuss it...
...They denied me...
...But one must begin with oneself...
...I got her name and the address of the convent near Warsaw, and I wrote to her...
Vol. 124 • February 1997 • No. 4
