I Remember - Ich denke an .... Tanya Josefowitz

and wobbly from use, and dark brown wooden benches. What I loved best was the smell of the candles. I was fascinated by these candles. They were braided and interwoven, some in soft ivory colors, and some mixed with light blues and pinks. The synagogue was lit by these candles and there were no electric lights.

      After school hours, we were allowed to play in the cemetery of the synagogue. It was safe. There were old graves overgrown by soft green moss and bushes, and a worn-down stone wall surrounded our school, the synagogue and the graveyard. This was our playground where we played hide and seek and other games and where we felt totally protected. One of the streets that led to our Jewish School was called the Judengasse²¹ – Jew Street. On this narrow, cobbled lane there was an old building with an indentation in its wall. It was said that a young, pregnant Jewish woman had walked this narrow street when one day a horse and carriage came along at great speed. It would have crushed her, but, by a miracle, the wall “gave in” and she was saved. I loved this story and believed it to be true.²²

      In school, we had to learn to read and write Hebrew. My brother was a very good student. But I hated the classes. Whenever the teacher would ask me a question, I looked up on the ceiling and shrugged my shoulders. Then he would scold me and say: “No use looking up – you will not find the answer written up there.”

      Later, tucked in my warm bed in East Orange, New Jersey, these painful memories popped up, and the more I thought of them, the happier I felt to have escaped it all and to be free and safe with my whole family in the United States.