Lydia

My Mom

When I think of my Mom, I see such beauty. Her beautiful face, her smiling eyes, her soft, soft skin, her warm embrace. The hug that she would greet us all with when we’d see each other after being apart would encircle us and bring us in to the one place in her arms that meant everything.

We always called her the young and beautiful, warm, and generous Mom. She always seemed so young. Even in her 90’s she was full of such energy and spirit, such glamour and charm. She was like the very best, kindest version of Zsa Zsa Gabor — with an elegance and personality that filled the room. Everything was exciting and vivid and rich when she was there.

When she was little, her own Mom Frania used to call her “goodie goodie.” She was a great student, especially in biochemistry, and graduated second in her class in Warsaw’s best school. But she got into a lot of mischief on the side. She had four close friends — two Jewish like her and two Catholic — and the five together were inseparable and just a little bit naughty, a quality my Mom kept all her life. Her friend, also Lydia [Vesosaky], became one of Poland’s great actresses on stage and screen. They were reunited many years after the war when she my parents went to see her perform on stage in Chicago. It was a joyous occasion.

The other friend was named Irene and she was killed in the war. My parents named me after her, a name that means peace, Shalom.

On Sundays, my Mom would go to her grandmother’s apartment in Warsaw. Over lunch and tea, her grandmother would give her French lessons. Then they would go for a ride in her Grandmother’s horse and carriage. At home, her mother arranged for English lessons. My Mom would run and hide under the bed when her English teacher came. Years later, when she was liberated by American soldiers, she was so grateful to her Mom that she was able to communicate with them. They greeted her and her friend with freedom, warmth, and chocolate, and she could speak with them in English.

My mother’s Dad Joseph was a banker in Warsaw. He was tall and very handsome, and my Mom was always proud to walk by his side. He was the soft one of her parents and would always say to his wife: “Come Frania. What will it hurt if we let Lydia do this or that, this one time.”

My Mom and Dad met in Warsaw and fell in love. Toben drew their wedding in a graphic novel he made for his Bar Mitzvah. The Nazis had already invaded, so the Rabbi had to perform the ceremony by candlelight. In his comic, Toben drew his great-grandfather Joseph watching proudly, as his wife Frania cried gently by his side. After the ceremony, the whole family, including my father’s parents Max and Cesia [Checha], his brother Maurice, his twin sister Edwarda, her husband Szxmon and their little daughter Misia all called out Mazel Tov and celebrated their union — a union that would last through a Holocaust and 63 years of marriage.

My Mom always seemed larger than life to me and she always will. She was a Survivor and a hero. She saved my Dad’s leg when she took off her yellow star to find a Gentile doctor to come into the ghetto. She was brave and clever enough during the selection in the Vilna Ghetto to save Dr Kalmanowicz’s mother from certain death.

But the story that to me captures the essence of my Mom happened at the end of the war. She and her friend Anna were on a forced march from the camp in Magdeburg. The Americans were coming and the Germans just wanted to kill as many Jews as they could. They were being guarded with soldiers carrying machine guns. My Mom knew they were going to their death and told Anna that they should run. Even if they were shot, she said, at least they would try to get away. They held hand and at a certain moment my Mom whispered, “Run!” When they ran, everyone ran, and many got away. They ran into town and came across a courtyard with a basement laundry room. There they hid behind the laundry kettle, waiting for the Nazis to stop searching. Hours later when it was quiet, they came out from behind the kettles. My Mom saw a woolen dress hanging to dry. It was warm and elegant and “just my color,” she said. Just then a German woman from the apartment came down and saw them. “Juden. Juden,” she cried and yelled at the guard to kill them. He was an old Vermacht soldier, who had seen enough killing. He told the woman to go back to her apartment and he would take care of them. But to my Mom he said to run to the other side of the bridge, where the Americans were. My Mom and Anna were sure he would shoot them in the back, but he shot in the air and they reached the other side of the bridge. There, my Mom looked up and saw the smiling welcoming faces of the American soldiers.

When he was in the camps, my Dad bartered five rations of bread to buy my Mom pearls from the Persian Gulf. He asked Mendel the shoemaker to hide them in his shoes and dreamt of the necklace gleaming around her neck as they danced.

After the war, my Dad traveled all through Europe looking for my Mom, the only one in either of their families who could have survived. But for all his efforts, it was finally her who found him. While she was working for UNRRA in Hildesheim, she wrote a letter to the Tracing Office in Munich. When my Dad received the letter, he put a welcome note in the tree in front of his apartment, then drove through the foggy night to Hildesheim. They were reunited in the morning and had their first argument that night about how much of her stuff they could bring back with them without breaking down the car.

When I was born in Munich, my Mom was terrified that the Nazis would try to steal me and replace me with another baby. But anyone who ever saw my Mom and I together ever doubted that I was my mother’s daughter. But it is my brother Michael who is most like her in other ways. He inherited, especially, our Mom’s extraordinarily profound bravery, caring and compassion.

When we came over on the boat to America, my father told me I would never leave my Mom’s side. He would have to distract me to let her even go to the bathroom. We were like two peas in a pod all the years I was growing up and it was so rich and so much fun. My Mom loved to have a good time and made sure we always did.

One Saturday night years later when I was at New Trier, I went to the Teatro del Lago with my girlfriend and my Mom. After the movie, a group of boys tried to pick us up. They were stunned when they got up real close and realized that my Mom was not a high school babe.

[Even earlier, I remember coming home from school, and there was a big commotion as all the kids were leaning over each other to look out the bus window at a beautiful woman walking by. I bent over to look at who it was, and it was my Mom.

One Saturday night years later when I was at New Trier, I went to the Teatro del Lago with my girlfriend and my Mom. After the movie, a group of boys tried to pick us up. They were stunned when they got up real close and realized that my Mom was not a high school babe].

My Mom’s greatest quality was her humanity. When she was working in a lab in Wilmette, she became good friends with an African­American man who worked with her there. One day they sat on the bus together after work and people started making a fuss. My mother, furious and indignant, started to get up to tell the passengers what she thought of their racist attitude, and her friend asked her to please sit down — it would only make things worse. When the Dean of Women called my Mom years later to say that her daughter was suspended for a week because I had broken every curfew to leave school for Washington in support of Martin Luther King’s march from Selma to Montgomery, my Mom told her that was just fine. My parents brought me up to believe in justice, tolerance, and equal rights, and she supported me completely. A few years later, when a young Senator from Illinois first started his campaign for the presidency, my Mom, who was always active in the democratic party, put all her energy in educating and convincing others that he would soon be not only the first Black president, but a great one as well.

My Mom fought against every kind of injustice. With a few new friends she helped build WilPower, a grass roots family organization created to provide safe and secure homes for people with mental illnesses in their own communities. Later she suggested that Abbey and I could make a documentary about WilPower, which Toben named Unbreakable Minds. The film is still being used worldwide to break down the stigma against people with mental illness.

When my brother Mike was born, he added another whole element into her life, and she threw herself into it completely. Mike was not only a great athlete with exceptional hands and talent himself; he was also a great sports fan - especially of his beloved Chicago team. My Mom would enthusiastically pile Mike and all his friends in the car and take them to see the games. Afterwards she would stay with them as they collected autographs.

As similar as Mike is to my Mom, in many ways I really married another version of my mother in the form of my husband Abbey. If anyone was alike, they were, and they were always in cahoots against me. They loved each other and I am sure that many of the ways my Mom tortured me will live on relentlessly in Abbey. He will always be a beautiful reminder of so many aspects of her.

Some of the great times we had together after my Dad died were when we went on cruises with Toben, Abbey, and Abbey’s Mom Sally. My Mom came to breakfast all ready to go. She had already poured over the events of the day and was ready for anything. Every day was a blast for all of us, and every evening a relaxed and elegant family affair. Like many wonderful times with my Mom, they were some of the best times of our lives.

Renata is the angel that flew into my Mom’s life when she needed some help. What a blessing she has been. My Mom and I actually knew right away that Renata was the one to be with her — she was a partner for my Mom in glamour and life and fun, and the two of them had fun every day. At the end of dinner, they would sit over a cup of tea. My mother would give them both some chocolate and they would talk for an hour or more about everything under the sun. Like a second daughter, Renata cried an ocean of tears with me for my Mom.

The last few weeks were hard, and I could not have managed them without Maxi, Renee and Lil, Rhoda, and Mike. Maxi was there for her and for me in every way large and small. We were rewarded with precious unforgettable moments with my Mom. She was full of life and love and mischief to her last moments. She would cock her head to the side and smile her adorable, mischievous smile. [She was just. so cute].

My most joyful memories were when all the family was together once Tohen was born. My mother and Toben were an exuberant pair. She loved just being together — talking and laughing, seeing him play with Nortush, our dog, going out to dinner or taking him shopping (finally someone who shared this pursuit enthusiastically with her). She would always tell Toben how handsome he is and how much he reminded her of her father. She loved walking beside him and Toben always treated her with gentle, caring love. She was his beautiful, fun, and funny, Grandma, who spoiled and loved him with all her heart. And I know she is looking over him now.

My Mom, like many of our parents who are Survivors, wanted Mike and I to live a happy life, filled with family, even though our families were killed in the war. When she and my Dad came to Chicago, she met all the people who became their dearest friends in the Ezra Club. They all began their lives anew here and lived life to the fullest — with parties on Saturday night and picnics on Sundays. All the Moms would go to Wisconsin in the summer with the children and the husbands would come up for weekends and vacation. It was heaven.

Back in town, the ladies used to meet every Tuesday for lunch because that was the day Maxi’s mother Paula had off work. They are still doing it now, SO years later, and it was one of my Mom’s greatest joys. I will come sit in my Mom’s place with all the Tuesday Girls I love so much every time I am here. I know how much you will miss her.

We met for lunch every time with Sylvia and Lilian, too. For my Mom and I these lunches were a highlight of every visit.

One of the great gifts my Mom left us is the Family Reunion. Like the others in our group, I always longed for the family I’d lost and didn’t recognize that our parents had created a new family — with aunts and uncles and cousins — that was just as wonderful as any family could be. Last summer my mother had the idea that it was time to celebrate this family with a party — Czas Na Zabawe [Chaz Na Zabavoum]. And all the longing we all felt was totally transformed into a celebration of the family we had become. This was indeed a great gift she gave us, not only for our generation, but I hope for generations to come.

Now, Mom, you are in the embrace of all those you love who passed before you: Dad, Joseph and Frania, your grandparents and uncle, Dad’s family, all your friends — Lydia, Irene, Angela, Eva and all the others, too.

All your family and friends here will miss you, Mom. You have left us a place where it no longer makes sense that the sun still shines. For me, Mom, I will always see your enchanting, exhilarating, mischievous smile, and I will always feel your sweet embrace — that warm, safe place in your arms and the softness of your skin. I will remember them always, and long for them still.

Now finally, it is my turn to say the blessings for you, Mom.

God Bless you.
God keep you.
God save you.

We love you! We love you!! We Love you!!!

Irene Lilienheim Angelico, Glencoe, March 18, 2010