“You’d better cross that out,” said my bossy dormitory mate. After all, she was older than me—nearly twelve—and much more knowledgeable about the etiquette of writing letters home.
And so I crossed out “The kids in the camp tell me I am a Jew,” despite my anxious desire to know if the kids were right. Being a Jew meant trouble, although I didn’t understand why. I didn’t want any trouble, especially during that hot summer of 1986; the summer of the Chernobyl disaster.
In May 1986, the Soviet government decreed that all children under the age of 16 were to be loaded onto buses and evacuated from Kyiv as far as possible. I ended up in a distant pioneer camp somewhere in the south of Ukraine, where I was an odd homesick child in a rowdy crowd of much tougher, more mature streetwise kids. My oddity was instantly noticed and disapproved of; my peers needed to make sense of me to restore a modicum of order to their own lives. As if manifesting the collective subconscious, the word ‘Jew’, ancient and well-tried, came in handy. This single label meant ‘other’, ‘weird’, and ‘lawful prey’. And I, a dutiful Young Pioneer who was always marching in step and singing in tune, suddenly found myself mentally separated from the others. Am I really a Jew? Is something wrong with me?
“No, that black line is not thick enough—your parents could still see what you wrote there,” advised my (only) friend, still looking over my shoulder. And so I drew many fat black lines with my cheap pen, trying to completely obliterate the dangerous words without tearing the paper through. To make sure, I even added teeny-tiny writing on the top: “Please don’t read this.” It was not something we discussed in writing, nor something we discussed out loud. My 11-year-old friend was explaining the rules that were, literally, unwritten.
Some weeks later, after my parents had finally extracted me from the evacuation camp, I did ask them if I was a Jew—or, to be precise, if we were Jews. The answer was awkwardly negative and I returned to my sheltered world being vaguely aware of some unspoken dangers lurking outside. Five years later the Soviet Union finally withered and died; it was then that my mother took out an old red purse, secreted behind the bookcase, with the family documents I’d never seen before. It was then that I learned that my venerated grandmother Bella was Jewish and that my great-grandfather was Hanan, son of Moses, and my great-grandmother was Hannah, daughter of Haim. Throughout their adult lives, however, Hanan and Hannah were known as Naum and Anna, the Russified versions of their names. We are just like you. Don’t hate us.
Bella, Hanan, Hannah. Devoted to God, gracious gift, divine grace. Ancient Hebrew names. Jewish. Jews.
I remembered the kids from the evacuation camp and their message: You are not like us.
They were right. They were wrong. It all made perfect sense and it made no sense at all. Gracious gifts are to be kept secret. I was, after all, secretly Jewish. My mother’s closely-guarded birth certificate clearly stated the ethnicity of her parents: mother (Bella)—Jewish, father (Alexei)—Russian. The ethnicity of the child—Russian. Stamp, signature. Those were the rules of the game: if you can be Russian, be Russian because you have to specify your ethnicity on every piece of official paper throughout your whole life. Because it may decide your future, at every turn, in things big and small. Put the right ethnicity on the birth certificate, swim back to safety, and no-one will call you dirty names. They won’t quietly block your entrance to universities, impede your career, stop you from going abroad. Keep your gracious gift a secret. Don’t tell your children. Don’t look up.
In 2002, I left post-Soviet Ukraine and emigrated to New Zealand. Yet again, I was an odd kid trying to blend in. My accent was my curse, it instantly gave away my other-ness. Locals were very polite; no one called me bad names but the feeling of alienation grew. For many Russian-speaking immigrants, the status of ‘other’ became a subject of pride. The difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’ was gleefully discussed in friendly gatherings of compatriots from the whole of the former USSR. These people needed to reassert their cultural identity and their validity as Russians, or more broadly, post-Soviets. They spoke the same language in more senses than one: they saw the world from the same angle and relied on the same map of cultural landmarks and memory—easy to tread and navigate.
One day, a big moving truck stopped at the house next to mine and I discovered that I had acquired new neighbours. They were Russians—recent arrivals—and were very happy that the people next door belonged to their world. As a gesture of goodwill, my new neighbour lent me a book, which, according to him, would explain everything and open my eyes to the terrible world of conspiracy: “It will blow your mind! It will transform your whole world!” Reverently, like a holy relic or the sword Excalibur, he handed me a large solid book with yellowish pages. It looked like a volume of magic spells.
Curiously, I opened the book in the middle and saw the title—Sayings of Russian people about Jews—and my mind was indeed blown. There I stood, petrified; slowly, oh so slowly, realizing what I was holding in my hands. My naked, unprotected, ungloved hands. I held onto that unspoken, sometimes only whispered, warning set in print: Jews are trouble. Beware the Jews. Beware the creatures of the Netherworld, for they are conspiring against everything that is pure and wholesome. Beware them, for they are inherently evil, the slimy monsters from the black pit.
Bella. Hanan. Hannah. Devoted to God, gracious gift, divine grace.
I have avoided the neighbour ever since and never told him that I was, essentially, an evil Jew. I gave up trying to blend in with my compatriots, always aware of that book with yellowish pages. I reverted to my mother’s strategy and kept the gracious gift of my ancestry secret. Bella, Hanan, Hannah.
Bella.
The gentle grandmother I never met.
Born in the early 1920s, Bella didn’t have an easy childhood. Very few kids of that generation did, especially Jewish kids on the outskirts of the great empire transforming itself into the Soviet Union. For many generations, Bella’s family lived in the small town Pavlograd in the east of Ukraine, an area included in the Pale of Settlement. In the Russian Empire, it was the parcel of land where Jewish people were allowed to live permanently—on the western edges, in far-flung provinces, nowhere near Moscow or St Petersburg. Jews started to settle in Pavlograd in the 18th century—soon after the town was founded—and by the 19th century the Jewish community was both prominent and prosperous. It must have been uphill work but eventually Pavlograd’s synagogue and Jewish school came to be tolerated and even respected by local Christian communities. The provincial Ukrainian town became home to many of Bella’s ancestors who, generation after generation, came to rest in the local Jewish cemetery.
This fragile peace was shattered at the beginning of the 20th century. The ancient poison of anti-Semitism threw Pavlograd into the chaos of pogroms—organised massacres of Jewish people. The fact that the word ‘pogrom’, which originates from the Russian language, is specific to the Russian Empire and does not translate into other languages, speaks for itself. Only years before Bella’s birth, in 1918 the local Jewish population was depleted by a major Pavlograd pogrom. Men, women, children; desecrated homes, schools, synagogues. Streets strewn with bodies. Screams ending in silence. A hell-scape.
Yet Bella’s family survived. A baby girl, the beloved daughter of Hanan and Hannah, devoted to God, was born several years later. She did not know what kind of world she was entering.
There were good things, too, of course. The smell of hay and yellowish grass coming from the Ukrainian steppes, and apple trees laden with fruit in the autumn. The leafy elms and chestnut trees elegantly framing the main boulevard of Pavlograd. The distant rolling hills and the weeping willows along the meandering rivers and streams, so clean and cool for swimming in the summer. Picking wild berries. Helping Hannah to make tasty preserves for the winter. Foraging for mushrooms. Listening to her mother’s and grandmother’s stories. All those small, unremarkable routine things that make up our childhood memories, and to which we cling in times of disaster and chaos.
And then, there was war. The era of the Holocaust. When Hitler invaded Poland, Bella was a teenager. In 1939, Pavlograd became a safe haven for Polish Jews escaping the German policy of extermination. In whispers, they shared stories of terror that had deeply shaken Bella and the whole Jewish community of this small Ukrainian town. The Soviet government reassured its people the war would not reach their homeland. Until June 22, 1941, when—surprise!—it did. Overnight, the world changed. The Nazi army poured across the border like a river breaking a dam. It advanced into Ukraine so swiftly and violently that people had to flee at a few hours' notice. Some wouldn’t have even been granted that long: communications were disrupted, precious time was lost. The frontline moved east with disastrous speed. Yesterday, the war was hundreds of kilometres away (our army is strong!—it will quash the enemy!—we have nothing to fear!) and today it is at your threshold, the booming artillery drawing closer and closer. A panicked neighbour would bang on your door bringing the news—“Go, go now!”—and here you are, a couple of items hastily thrown in a bag, on your way to...where? Anywhere, away, now, into complete uncertainty and chaos. The survival instinct screaming: run, run, run! Every second counts—go, go now—catch a train, any train, freight, passenger; any truck, any bus, anything going east, away from the advancing German horror. As you run, you pray to any god who listens that the bombs and shrapnel won’t get you. Faster, faster, faster...holding onto train doors, clinging to the roof—as the explosions grow nearer and nearer and the ground shakes. People squeezed into overcrowded carriages without knowing their destination. Because the memory of the pogroms was still very fresh. Because for many of them, Jews in particular, Nazi occupation meant extermination. And there were a lot of Jewish people with a good memory in Ukraine; the Imperial Pale of Settlement cast a very long shadow.
The Nazis entered Pavlograd in early October 1941. It took them less than four months to make their way from Poland to eastern Ukraine, over a thousand kilometres inland. Bella and her parents heard rumours about the swift German advancement—there were a lot of rumours in those days!—but the definitive, urgent message to flee came almost too late. The pride of the town, Pavlograd’s railway station, was the major hub for the news. Every day, the town’s residents met trains laden with refugees, and every day the reports were grimmer and grimmer. More and more often, the skies would darken, roar and rain down bombs. Yet, where would a Jewish family go? Generations and generations of their ancestors had lived and died here. It was their land. And, as they learnt from the Polish refugees, exile would be tough. Everywhere, resources were stretched to the limit. Then, in late September, an urgent warning arrived: the Nazis would be here in days, maybe hours. Pavlograd was doomed. “We can’t run any farther,” said an old Jewish man from Poland. “It’s no use, come what may.”
In November, nearly seven hundred Polish Jews were executed in an industrial Pavlograd suburb in a newly-created concentration camp. More executions followed. The nights were frosty, the ground was hard. The leafless, blackened elm and chestnut trees were no longer elegant. They covertly watched Pavlograd’s boulevards like twisted ghouls.
Bella, Hanan and Hannah escaped. They abandoned their home and with barely a suitcase between them, jumped onto a train with an unknown destination. The alternative was either the concentration camp known as Dulag 111 or the Jewish ghetto, where residents were forced to sew yellow Stars of David onto their sleeves. Bella’s family was lucky: pursued by relentless bombing, they clung to the overcrowded train, hungry and cold but still alive. During that time, the Polish refugees’ tales must have come to their minds often. The nightmarish journey stretched on for weeks until they reached faraway Kazakhstan. A tiny Asian town, thousands and thousands of kilometres away from home. Ust-Kamenogorsk couldn’t offer much: shared lodgings, food stamps, a brick factory, a copper smeltery and beyond, boundless steppes where the endless quiet was interrupted by the arrival of more and more evacuees. Yet after their journey, it was almost a luxury, if one didn’t think of friends and relatives left behind—or scattered over the enormous bulk of the war-torn country.
Among many Soviet organisations evacuated to Ust-Kamenogorsk was a hospital for wounded soldiers. It was perhaps inevitable that the young Bella would meet and fall in love with one of them. He was very young, too: an earnest Russian boy called Alexei who spoke with the distinct accent of the Volga region. The winter of 1942 was bleak and merciless but their whirlwind romance blossomed, despite all the hardships and despair. They married in a stark registry office during the coldest month of that hungry winter. They signed their names on a thin piece of official paper, feeling confused but deliriously happy. Only one month later, in the uncertain spring of 1943, Alexei was ordered to return to the frontline.
Bella never saw him again; he was recorded as “Missing in Action”. She received the official ‘pokhoronka’—military notice of death—when the quick Kazakh spring was turning to scorching summer. The day was hot and still. The words were clearly printed on the sheet of greyish official paper folded in two. Bella stared at the paper in her hands. She was with child. It was a recent discovery. Now Alexei would never know. How do you face such loss? The droughty summer slowly turned into a grey, cheerless autumn. Bella’s only child—my mother—was born in November. Her birth certificate proclaimed that she was “Russian”. She was given the Russian name Galina and was raised by Bella, Hanan and Hannah.
In 1944, the family prepared for their return trip with anticipation and fear. Pavlograd was safe again and they wanted to be home. After a long journey, the train finally pulled up at Pavlograd train station; they were lucky, so lucky—and then they saw what had been done to their hometown. Scars of shrapnel. Ruins everywhere. The abandoned concentration camp, one of the largest in Ukraine, gaped like an open wound. The spectre of its horrors loomed over the town. In another suburb, they saw the remnants of the Jewish ghetto. Pavlograd retained only a fraction of its Jewish population and most of those were returning evacuees. So many friends and relatives gone forever. So few coming home. And what a home...the town was a place of ghosts.
Yet, Pavlograd was home. Bella, Hanan and Hannah started rebuilding their lives. Besides, they now had a little girl, a toddler. Her name in Greek meant ‘light’.
One summer, not long after her return to Pavlograd, Bella took her young daughter to a small town on the Azov Sea. Traditionally, the train with holidaymakers was met by prospective landladies offering rooms for rent. A lovely Ukrainian lady offered Bella a room in her house near the sea. She kindly helped Bella to put her sick child—my mother—on her own bicycle and picked up one of Bella’s heavy suitcases. As they walked together down the street, the lady said, “I am so relieved I met you!” She leaned in confidentially to whisper, “People say there are so many Jews around...”
Bella could have followed her survival instinct (Don’t look up! Stay safe!) but she had had enough. The charred remains of the concentration camp and the ghetto still scarred her hometown. She stopped the bicycle and trying not to sound apologetic, said, “Then perhaps we’d better go back to the station. I am Jewish.”
I am not afraid.
The Ukrainian lady nearly fainted with embarrassment: you see, my grandmother didn’t look Jewish! The lady thought that Jews looked quite different from normal people. In fact, the lady wasn’t sure that she had ever seen a real Jew but they were definitely everywhere. Everyone knew that. They were evil and ugly, the creatures of the Netherworld. Besides, she had heard people saying that the war started because of the Jews: they were to blame for all our hardships and suffering. (“If we had fewer Jews, then maybe Hitler would have left us alone. The Germans wouldn’t have invaded if not for the Jews!”). It was rarely said out loud. It had been often implied, in semi-whispered conversations—or loudly proclaimed at drunken parties that usually ended up in violent fights.
The Ukrainian lady kept babbling, trying to explain herself and digging herself into a deeper hole. The Jews like Bella were fine. The Jews like those evil slimy creatures who kept conspiring against us—us!—were not fine. One must beware of them. But Bella was fine, really fine, she was a good Jew, she was one of us...
Looking into the woman’s desperate eyes, Bella saw that the tears of embarrassment were real. Bella’s child was getting drowsy, leaning heavier and heavier on the bicycle’s handlebars. They had come a long way and they were tired. The landlady, still clutching Bella’s suitcase, continued to apologise and implore, “Please, come and stay in my house! I will be delighted! Honestly...”
And so Bella came and stayed in the house of a kind Ukrainian lady who was absolutely terrified of imaginary Jews.
“But you don’t look Jewish! You’re not one of them”. The ancient poison that used to feed pogroms kept finding its way into people’s minds: even the horrors of the Holocaust didn’t stop it.
Bella and her family lived all their lives surrounded by that poison, never knowing where or how it would hurt them. Being used to it. They were not in any physical danger but there were still thousands of different harms: denial of a dream education, profession, career; a casual hurtful remark on the street.
It wasn’t uncommon for Jewish children to discover their ethnicity in the playground from their peers—not at home—because other kids would hurl an abusive version of ‘Jew’ at them. At home, such things were not discussed, as if it was something not quite proper. My mother was lucky: she had a Russian name and a document to confirm that she was Russian. She could blend in and as long as she didn’t mention the surnames and first names of her extended family, she was safe, keeping her two daughters—me and my sister—safe, too. Until that hot summer of the Chernobyl evacuation—“The kids in the camp tell me I am a Jew”. Until the unearthing of the red purse with my mother’s birth certificate. We are not like them. Don’t look up.
Hanan became Naum and Hannah became Anna. In a way, they were also lucky—a handsome couple with fair hair and grey-blue eyes. The much-coveted classic Slavonic looks. They kept adapting, just like their ancestors before them. At least the sky didn’t rain bombs anymore and they didn’t have to cling to the outsides of overcrowded trains to escape concentration camps. Yet, the hell of the 1940s still visited them in their dreams: the sense of impending colossal disaster; the unbearable loss, the mortal fear; the running; the visions of immense landscapes burnt and mutilated by bombings, with dirty streams and the black corpses of weeping willows; watching the last train disappearing into the distance, accompanied by the deafening, chilling wail of the air sirens.
Until the end of her life, my grandmother Bella was haunted by nightmares about German bombings. Even on her deathbed, she relived the horrors of that evacuation: take cover, run, hide. Finally, she was laid to rest in the quiet old cemetery, next to her Jewish ancestors.
The cursed wheel of history never stands still. Many decades after Bella’s death, another war came. When I first saw the footage of the air sirens over the main square of my native Kyiv, the Maidan, with the majestic marble columns of its famous music academy—my mother’s alma mater—I thought, this is just a dream. Merely a Second World War nightmare—I’ve watched too many movies! I must wake up. Wake up, now! But I couldn’t. I still can’t.
Suddenly, all those thousands of kilometres that separate Ukraine from New Zealand vanished. Ukraine was here, right here. I could hear every explosion and feel the ground shake every time yet another missile hit yet another target. I could see the beautiful Byzantine churches and cathedrals lying in dust, the angels and gargoyles from their Baroque façades broken; smashed to pieces, too tired to get up. I could see the grey-faced evacuees flooding the train stations, their homes bombed and the frontline fast approaching.
The lush lands of eastern Ukraine have been turned into hellscapes with muddy streams crookedly framed by the burnt corpses of weeping willows, poplars, elms, oaks. They grotesquely stick out from the mud and one can’t tell the difference between them anymore. Bodies of people—soldiers, civilians, men, women, children—those who did not run fast enough, those who missed their train. Those who were drafted into the army on both sides. The world so carefully rebuilt and refilled with hope and love by Bella, Hanan and Hannah has been yet again swallowed by the bloodthirsty god of war who keeps turning the wheel of history.
Today, Bella’s ancestral Pavlograd no longer has its old railway station. It was destroyed in the summer of 2022. The bombs continue to rain from the sky and the wail of air sirens seldom stops.
Some months ago, that quiet old Jewish cemetery—the resting place of Bella, Hanan, Hannah and their ancestors—was destroyed in a bombing.
I never met my gentle grandmother and my great-grandparents. I really wish I had. People who survived it all: the air raid sirens, concentration camps, unspeakable terror, profound loss, crippling grief, and persistent nightmares. People who had an enormous capacity to heal, to love, and to hope.
Every day, I wish for the strength of my Jewish ancestors. What do you do when the sky falls? I ask them. How do you glue back the broken pieces? How do you even find the pieces when the universe explodes? How do you face hell and then rise from the ashes?
Bella. Hanan. Hannah. Devoted to God, gracious gift, divine grace.
Teach us.