Associations have their own peculiar way. A smell, a sudden resemblance, a voice, a passage in the book  bring memories of long forgotten things or events, and now they are on the foreground, pronounced and clear like decades ago...

I just posted a difficult post. God, Where Were You in The Time of Holocaust? - I Was In Your Heart... How many times have I asked that question? How many times the mere existence of God was unthinkable because of Holocaust...

I was a post war child, oblivious to the magic of all the stars lining up for me to have the chance to be in this world, the chance that many others did not get... For us it was normal that there were few men in the families, and living in a fatherless household was more of a norm. I did not know better... But I was the lucky one, I got my chance to breathe, to play, to laugh, to cry... So many didn't.

Of all men born in the Soviet Union in 1924 only 4 out of 100 were still alive on May 9, 1945, the great victory day, a joyful day with tears in the eyes, as in a popular Russian song. Mostly wounded and crippled… 1924 was the first year drafted after the war broke up. They were 17-18, poorly trained... and only 4 out of 100 made it. 96 of every 100 were the fathers of those millions unborn kids, who did not sit with me at the desk in the classroom, and who did not pass me a ball on a soccer field...

It was difficult to live through writing the blog. It is like reliving the lives of others, and feeling a pinch of their pain, though just a miniscule pinch, an echo of the faded yesterday. Or before yesterday.

As I was writing about Irena, another Irena came to mind. Her correct name is Irina, like Irena, just a Russian variant. Irina Semyonovna Mishanina, my English teacher. A typical Russian last name, and typical Russian middle name, but hey, we were in the middle of Russia...

I was an inquisitive 5th grader, and she was fresh out of our local University. She was everything you would want in a teacher. Fair, passionate, very involved, genuinely interested in us, a bunch of unruly bastards most of the time. I loved her lessons, she brought the best out of me and others, and it was fabulous. Of the dreadful school years, I remember her as the brightest star.

Anyway, she was my teacher, she knew my mom as a parent, met her a couple of times, exchanged a few words, hardly more. My mom was a chief child psychiatrist in the region, had to fly on emergencies, and we had a luxury of having a telephone. One day in winter it rang. My teacher called my mom, and shortly after walked in crying, all in tears. I was terrified.  If I made her cry like that, a lot of leather could follow...

But it was not about me. My teacher was crying and my mom was hugging her... and she was smiling... What the heck?

My teacher was getting married. Her parents lived an hour drive by a bus in a small town nearby. She went to visit them and make some arrangements with the wedding, and they asked her to sit and listen to what they had to say. They kept it secret from her for many years, but now that she was going to start her own family, they broke the silence.

She was not their daughter.

… It was 1941. Nazi occupied a small provincial town where they lived. And one Sunday morning they saw a column of Jews escorted by the Nazi. Families, old and young, men and women, children of all ages, they were taken to the outskirts to a ravine, from where they could hear the echo of machine gun fire...

As many other residents they walked outside and lined the street and sadly watched this slowly moving procession. A young woman with a little girl in her arms looked at them in desperation and caught something in their eyes, something that gave her a glimpse of hope, and she chose a moment when the guard did not see her, and pushed the girl aside... and they grabbed her, and were overwhelmed… and horrified. It was a death sentence. They could easily end up in the same ravine, the punishment for saving or hiding a Jew was death, and it was posted on all electric poles and on the doors of houses.

They did not know who the mother was, nothing... just that name was Irina, that’s  all the girl could tell them. They left the town and went to the place where nobody would question them about the child, as they were afraid to stay and be given up by somebody for a bottle of vodka. In a small town everybody knows everybody, and it was not easy to explain the appearance of a child especially when the child had dark eyes and black hair.

They did for Irina what they would have done for their own children... if they had them... and they hadn't. They loved her, they brought her up, they worked hard to give her the chance to study, and they were proud of her. She was not their daughter, but she became one. And she loved them dearly. If they knew that she was not their biological daughter, she did not have a clue. And the news came so unexpectedly, she was so unprepared...

She returned to Saransk, but she needed someone to confide in, and to be comforted. There were quite few Jews in Saransk, and the only one she knew were me and my mom. That evening there was a knot tied between my mom and my teacher. They were not close, but kept in touch all these years and way beyond my stay in school. My teacher had a good family, she lived not far from my mom, and while I was in the Arctic, they were seeing each other time from time, and kept that... not friendship, really, just some connection.

I saw her last time 20 years after graduation, in 1988, at my mom's funeral. 

Now, after the tribute to Irena Sendler, I understand and accept that God was in Irina Russian parents' hearts as well.