I also know snow in menacing dawns when we were breathless in case our vapor would reach the dogs searching for us.

PresentationSarit Shatz

DOMINO - Vera's story

Vera Meisels, Poet, Sculptor and Translator.Mother of daughter and son, was born in Czechoslovakia on June 11, 1936. At the age of eight, she was taken to the Theresienstadt ghetto. In 1949 she immigrated to Israel.She studied sculpture at the Avni Institute.Her poems were published in Iton 77, Ma'ariv, Ravkol and theSlovakian translation in Romboid- Bratislava and Elan- Prague. Books: Israel, 1997 "Searching for Relatives"(Hebrew) published by GevanimPrague, 2001 "Svetluska v Terezine" in Czech language published by G&GPrague 2001 "Terezin's Firefly " English. translated by Riva Rubin. published by G&GBratislava 2005 "Moje vytrhnute korene" in Slovak language, published by SNM

Beit-Terezin

THERESIENSTADT

photo Viera Kamenicka

My mother tongue is unknownto youmy father's isn't spoken heremy birth tongue is not longerwith meI dream in tongues, my rootsare torn.

It's not clear it's all getting blurredI'm assailed by searches and proofs.They tell me "Go, it'll close a circle",while for me it's all parallel lineslike railroad tracks into the distance; remembering myself in the boxcar clattering over them.A scrap of barred sky overhead,looking for a lost doll, the moon racing eye to eye with me in the aperture,as if it was crossed out by a barbed-wire X.

RETURN TO THERESIENSTADT

And now, I arrive at the ghetto again,standing opposite the "kinderheim"I see a house with arched ceilings,walls, surviving layers of whitewashand try to find a scratch, a bit of my name.I search for a familiar little cornerand there's the "high" knob of the heavy gateI could never reach to proveIt was locked.

I touch and caress it in my gnarled handand the knob seems to shrivel in my fist.

Vera's drawing in the ghetto

The trees no longer give shadeagainst the scorching sun,looking somehow thin, their leaveshave fallen into windswept piles.

The firefly pushes through the leaves,often covered completely, its glowhidden to near extinction.It seems that even if someone cared,they couldn't get it out unharmed.

And I remember being broucek- Little Firefly-In the play based on Jan Karafiat's book.

On the Terezin ghetto stage, I dancedbefore the packed hall and the terrifying officersin the front row and dreading the end becauseof the skull on their caps.

Afterwards I learned they just wanted to provethat culture distracts the mind from hunger.

FIREFLY

I imaginehim again,

the scar this timedeeper in his forehead.

His face flows purpleas though he is the saintof a Byzantine icon.

The eyes regard mein constant apology

for not taking me in timeto the Luna Park.

MY FATHER

I saw youlooking out at me from the screenI heard you telling about the eighty lashesyou withstood without a soband about the eighty-first blow, their disbelief,that landed on youafter the liberation from the campsafter your woundshad scabbed on your body,that was the hardest of all.

So close to you, I looked at youwanting to touch your body scars and the otherstrying to caress you through the glass screen,to take you to my bosom.

And you were exposed to the whole House of Israeltuned to the national channel, unable to knowthat one, watching you,was lashing herself again and againwithout counting.

DOCUMENTARY FILM: THE 81st BLOW

The poem appeared in the "Journal of Genocide Research" in New York

To Michael Goldman-the boy

I tied a ropeto an empty shoeboxto pullmy lost doll.

MY LIBERATION DAY MAY 8 1945

And once again I had"toys", played "shop"I scraped a brick from a ruinto make "paprika" wrapped ina scrap of newspaper announcingRelatives Sought.

I made myself a weathervaneto check how the wind blew,to find my direction.

Like an animal trainedto hide in a burrowsilently lest it be discovered,so she stifles her cries

has sentenced herselfto silenceshumiliating adaptationsand measured steps.

Like a trained animalthat knows its corner,has learnt its worth

that bows its headcollapsesas if it must again finda hidingplace

HIDINGPLACE

Awakened by indeterminate stressI open my eyes a thin crackthrough which I continue to seethe images I’ve been dreaming.

Still dark. The lampshade lawn green, a beam of light on my hotel bed, me in it paleas the one in Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson.

The wallpaper encircles me in lines etchedto look like iron bars, spinning my head,keeping me stuck.I don’t know how or where to put down my foot.“A change of scene,” my well-wishers said,“will do you a world of good.”

VACATION NIGHTMARES

Whittled wooden boardscorched and warpedrough and unpolished.

Everything has fallen from youthat could pad a bone,you are not easy on the eyeor to touch, butI loved the waythe wood flakes fellthrough my fingersuntil you were revealed to me.

You are close to me,years I've waitedto take you from the drawerof my darkness, as if till nowyour existence was justbetween us.

MY MUSSELMAN STATUE

Vera's statue is in the Yad Va'shem Museum in Jerusalem

On the cork notice boardin the kitchenopposite morning coffeenotes are affixedby colored pins.

The sight is like a collectionof butterflies on displayor drawings of my childhoodbehind walls.

The butterflies!

I never saw themdesperately flutteringafter pollen,but their lifespan was also short.

on my boardthe dates march on till

REMINDERS

Still a few days tillHolocaust daythe date marked on the calendarin a different color, generally greybut not a holiday- business is as usual,public transport flows,government offices are openone can even renew a passportget a visa to America for a visitor immigrationthe Embassy is openunlike the daywhen a refugee from the infernohad no address other than the Gates of"ARBEIT MACHT FREI"where he came without a passportprior appointment or reservations.

HOLOCAUST DAY

my neighbor has expressed the wishthat when the time comeshis tombstone will be inscribedno. A 93278

Reflexes were checked, in spite ofstupors and temporary catatoniathe stethoscope circled on a bowed back,bumped into almost exposed ribs,as for pressure, blood- pressure was measured.

Eyes remembered numbers at the optical check.They weighed the limbs contained within pallor,they couldn't handle emotions.

AFTER THE LIBERATION

Cecilia Biagini

Vera six months after the liberation

Once I was protectedin my childhood serenity.Padded with endearmentssome I gave to my teddy bearand my doll who was then stillable to keep her eyes open.

When the strangers came to hangon me a number written on cardboard,they wouldn't give me a little cardboardfor my teddy bear and my doll.I didn't want to leave them, so I askedvery nicely, but the strangers were furiousand ripped my doll from mebecause I was holding it tight –so I was left with my doll's torn-off arm.

At least my teddy bear stayed whole.

We stood outside for a long timeand I wasn't allowed to talk or ask questions.I was very cold and I only wanted to say thatmy teddy bear was luckythat they didn't want to give him a number.

TEDDY BEAR UNDER AN EIDERDOWN

From my father's legacyI have a Czechoslovakian crystal ashtray.

He bore his life in mortifying smokeburying deepblocked sightsmiserly in sharing his suffering.

The ashtray in front of mefills with the stubs of my life.

FROM MY FATHER’S LEGACY

On my palmsI count my lifelines

branching off as if each crack hada continuation

almost hypnotized,hands outstretchedas for charity.

And when I get tiredI lift themto shield my eyesthe way my grandmother blessedthe Shabbat candles –the candlesticks have disappeared, too.

SHABBAT

Marc Chagall

Of all people, she, the anonymous onewho has folded her past inside herself,where nobody can get through to it,comes every morning to open her storeroomof secondhand clothes and objects.Her smile cheers everyone bringingcrammed boxes and plastic bags.

Slowly she pulls out each unwanted item. Carefully, caressingly she smoothes and folds it.

She, of all people, is folding againas she did over there, in the barracks where she stood beforea heap of personal belongings —destined by kind fate to be a sorterin the Canada Block*

THE FOLDER

*Canada was the ironic name for the hard labor unit in Auschwitz whose task was to collect the belongings ofvictims in the “shower rooms” – the gas chambers – and other places under the stern supervision of the SS, so that they could be sent to enrich the Third Reich.

She, of all people, goes on folding.Now near the end of her days, she carries on without bitterness,attentively stacking parcel after parcelsecurely tied to arrive intactfor refugees left destitutejust as she was, in those days.She, of all people.

Elgar Cello Concerto in E Minor

My E-mailveruska@013.net

Translated from Hebrew by Riva Rubin

24.1.07