In the 5th grade my mom transferred me to a new school, which was darn far from where we lived. We did not have school buses, and I simply walked to school, which took me about 45 minutes. But soon we moved a little closer.
The reason was that this school was the only special school in town with the emphasis on the English language. I lived too far from it, and they only took me because my brother graduated from it a year before.
It was the first year of the school becoming a special school, there were no textbooks, nothing. Each class was divided into 3 groups, to make it more efficient to study English. We head a galaxy of English teachers flooding the school. They were right out of our University. All very young, enthusiastic, ambitious…
My teacher kept such a fast pace that I am surprised we could even handle it. It was incredible how much we could do in that one class hour…
She was the ideal teacher. She actually is my ideal teacher even today. It has not faded…
My teacher was from a nice Russian family, her parents lived in a neighboring city, and she would visit them on weekends. Her life was settled; she had a perfect Russian family, everything was as fine as it could be in those lean but nonetheless happy early 60s in the Soviet Union.
One evening our doorbell rang. It was my teacher. She was overwhelmed by anxiety, I never saw her this way. She wanted to see my mom. It was probably first time that my teacher and my mom met each other. They sat in the kitchen with tea and crackers and spent several hours talking, crying, and hugging each other.
She left feeling relaxed, determined. My mom made me promise that I would not tell this to anyone.
My teacher went to visit her parents. They told her they had something very important to tell her. They were not young, and felt that they could no longer hide it from her.
She was not their biological daughter.
My teacher was born probably in 1940. When Nazi came to a small town where her parents lived, they rounded all Jews, and the column marched along the main street, while other residents were standing on both sides of the road.
There were old and young, men and women, a lot of children. They knew they were going to be executed in a ravine just past the town…
A Jewish woman chose a moment when soldiers did not see her and pushed the little girl aside. The girl was lucky, the soldiers did not see it happening.
This is how the girl found her new parents. They did not know her name, did not know anything about her biological parents. And the girl was too litlle to remember anything.
My teacher was shocked. First that people she called mom and dad were not her biological parents, but also that she was born a Jew… It was overwhelming. She needed to talk to someone…
The only Jews my teacher knew were us. So she came to confide into my mom.
In Russia being a Jew was in certain way meant being inferior. We adjusted, we were used to it. It could affect your career, acceptance in the society, your friendships, other things... For an ethnic Russian to wake up one day as a Jew would have been a shock in itself...
She did not know how to break it to her husband; she did not know how he and his family could react to that. She needed to make peace with the revelation…
We never discussed this with my mom again, I never heard my teacher telling this story to anyone. I know that her family was fine, it seemed not to have rattled her life. HOwever, I do not even know that she told her famiy about it. Maybe she wanted to keep the status quo and kept it secret.
A few days ago I was told that My Teacher had passed away a few months ago. Her husband died several years ago, so this story would not disturb anyone, even if it somehow reaches those who knew my English teacher.
Now I can tell this story.
Image via Flickr.com/creativecommons by
Comments(9)