Listening well, p.9
Listening Well, page 9
We took two steps inside the room then he stopped. Someone saw him, called out his name and a chorus of “Lale! Lale’s back!” went up around the room. Like an actor onstage at the end of a performance, he bowed deeply with the biggest smile I had ever seen on him. Lale, the playboy, was back.
I was hugely grateful to be swallowed up by dozens of very well-dressed and bejeweled ladies, all talking at once, wanting to know who I was and what I was doing with Lale. As I stumbled to find the words to explain my presence, I looked over at him surrounded by his friends, but he was watching me, making sure that I was OK. As I shook my head at him, half smiling, half scowling, he blew me a kiss and turned away, back to the conversation going on around him.
I looked at the women surrounding me, at the men on the other side of the room. I lowered the mean age of those in attendance by quite a few years. Men and women in their seventies, eighties, and nineties, dressed in beautiful tailored clothes; many of the men in suits with shiny shoes. Waitstaff moved between them all, some carrying trays with drinks, others food. The men were just as loud and animated as the women around me. Such a lovely scene, I felt honored to be part of it. Several times I heard one of the men say, “She not Jewish?” Lale would snap back, “No, I told you, I don’t want someone Jewish writing my book.” The conversations continued, but I could hear them circling back to: “No part of her Jewish, are you sure she isn’t?”
I tried to explain what I was doing there, while slurping wine and dropping crumbs on the floor, always another glass, another pastry held out to me. It seemed important I accept a drink or food from every woman present in order to be connected to them, individually and collectively.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I told them I was spending time with Lale so I could write about his and Gita’s life in Auschwitz-Birkenau. What I got was overwhelming support and encouragement. All of them piled in, wanting to tell me about their friendship with the couple. Each woman I met seemed to be trying to outdo the other, claiming their friendship was the longest, the deepest. I can’t remember how many times I heard the words, “Did you know Gita…”
As all these stories of Lale and Gita were being relayed, shouted at me, I realized I had found my fount of knowledge of all things about Gita through her relationship with her female friends. These were stories Lale either didn’t know or didn’t consider important, as many of them didn’t involve him. They told me what a wonderful cook Gita was. Lale never mentioned her cooking or baking anything. It was lovely to hear how proud she was of her “table” when Shabbat dinner was held at their place. Many of them were envious of the beautiful clothes Gita wore, particularly as she made them herself. I had seen many photos of her looking stunning, in perfectly fitted dresses. “Yes, she made them herself,” I was told. Later, Lale confirmed she made her own clothes, designed them too. When I asked him about her being a good cook, he responded he just ate what he was given and never thought about it. The fact he’d never been interested in food when I mentioned it in the past made sense now.
When I asked the women whether they knew what Gita’s time in Birkenau would have been like for her, they exchanged puzzled looks and shrugged their shoulders. “Of course we know what it was like for her,” they said. “We were there, too.” I felt so small—how could I not have asked this question sooner?
I was amazed at how freely they talked about their experiences during the Holocaust. Lale had told me many times how Gita would never talk about her time in Auschwitz; I had assumed from this that other female Holocaust survivors would not want to talk about it either. Here, I was hearing about it for the first time from a female perspective. What stood out for me was the constant reference to the cold. Lale mentioned the weather but only when referring to it being summer or winter. It seemed the overriding memory these women had was of being so bitterly cold, they didn’t know how they survived.
I listened as one woman would say to another, “How would you know what it was like? You were only there for a week! I was there for years.” Or, “You were not in Auschwitz. We had the worst camp, yours was a holiday camp compared to it.” To me as an outsider it sounded like they were bickering before I realized this was the way they spoke to each other and no one was taking offense at being corrected or criticized. When one woman told me that she had a story like Lale and Gita’s and would I write about it too, I was flooded by requests to “Write my story, tell my story!”
For several hours, I was part of this incredible group of women survivors, listening to anecdotes of enormous personal suffering, peppered with small, joyous moments. There were times when after a woman had told a short anecdote, her friends would say to her, “I didn’t know that, you’ve not told us about that before.” The shrug of shoulders was often followed by, “Well, I didn’t want to talk about it before, now I do and maybe she,” indicating me, “might want to tell my story too.”
I have seen it in movies, read about it in books, but hearing one woman describe being separated from her parents and younger siblings at selection is an entirely different matter. Several women gave her a hug—they clearly knew the story but still responded with physical affection and so I took her hand, looked into her eyes, letting them say all that I couldn’t. With her other hand, she stroked my face and smiled back at me. A small connection between two strangers, remembered by me. The physical pain I felt in my chest stayed with me for quite a while.
When Lale finally wandered over and said he wanted to leave, I didn’t want to go. Names and phone numbers were being scribbled on tissues, pieces of paper found in handbags and thrust at me with a “Call me.” I subsequently met with many of these women on many, many other occasions. I am sure they worked out that I was only going to tell Lale and Gita’s story, but whenever we were together, it was almost as if I was a facilitator, helping them to talk among themselves, compare notes and experiences, to speak openly about the trauma of the past, their guilt and shame at having survived. Under the guise of talking to me, an outsider, they somehow felt they had permission to open up about this terrible time in their lives. I was humbled by this. It was a huge privilege to be included in this tight-knit group with a shared experience and to hear stories they had often not related to anyone before, not even to their own families.
How much children of survivors know of their parents’ experiences seems to vary greatly. I have met children who know every detail of their parents’ time during the Holocaust, but the majority of children of survivors tell me they know very little of this time. Many say it is because their mother or father told them in no uncertain terms that they did not want to talk about it. Others told me they were too afraid to ask, anxious about causing upset and worried how they themselves would cope with the knowledge of the horror and evil their beloved parent had experienced. I have been asked countless times for advice on how to get a survivor to talk to their children and if I would be prepared to meet them and listen to their story. If there is one thing I have learned from speaking to survivors, it is that they will only ever tell you something they want you to know, you cannot force them to talk. I have suggested finding someone who has no emotional connection to the survivor for them to talk to may help them to open up, but there is no guarantee.
* * *
As our friendship deepened, Lale invited me into his world more and more often. Sometimes he took me to a smaller coffee catch-up with his male friends. Several of these men would talk to me about their Holocaust experiences, acknowledging that they were survivors, but never at an emotional level, mostly saying nothing, just nodding their heads in a knowing, “I was there” way. I met one of Lale’s closest friends several times, went to his home, met his wife. Tuli was only seventeen when he was taken away. He was also from Slovakia, from Bardejov, a small town I have visited—the same town Cilka Klein came from. He was only in Birkenau a few months before being sent to another work camp, but he did tell me of the extreme hunger he suffered while there. This appears to be his overriding memory: starvation.
A quietly spoken man, Tuli seemed the opposite to Lale in personality. Where Lale would say the first thing that came to mind, Tuli was reserved and considered in everything he said in my company. In the company of his male friends, Lale loved to tell them about me and my family—and yes, my daughter in particular. This would generate conversation among the men, all wanting to know more about who I was, where I came from—I really loved the fact that Lale seemed proud to have me as a friend.
I felt so safe opening up and talking about who I was, telling stories of my life growing up in rural New Zealand, and they seemed genuinely interested. And I came to realize that it was when I talked at a personal level about myself that the men would be more forthcoming about themselves and their families, both their immediate families in Australia but also, gradually, those they had lost. It was clear the loss of their families during the Holocaust was the most significant thing they wanted to tell me. It was as if what evil and horror they had seen and had inflicted on them paled in comparison to the deaths of members of their family. Was this survivor guilt being expressed? What I do know is what I heard. No pain inflicted on them compared to the pain of living full lives when their parents, siblings, had perished.
When I think about my time with Lale and listening to him, several stories jump out at me as being emotionally draining for him to tell and for me to hear. One in particular I remember so vividly and still get upset thinking about it. This was the day he told me about returning to his home town of Krompachy and finding his sister Goldie alive. The mixed emotion of finding one surviving family member and learning that the rest of his family had been taken and probably wouldn’t be returning was visceral, physically painful for him, even when talking about it six decades later. Hearing it, I felt the same way. I asked the men if it helped that they had married and had children of their own, formed their own families. Everyone to whom I asked this question told me it didn’t help at all: the two things were separate, one could not balance out the other, replace the other.
I started this chapter asking if listening was simple. I do believe it can be. You won’t always feel you got it right, or that a conversation went well—I certainly don’t. Tell yourself that as long as you did your best, on the day, given whatever circumstances were conspiring against you or supporting you, then that was good enough. There are, however, a few steps to making it simple. Being an active listener is not something you have to remind yourself to do. Whether talking to your nearest and dearest, your elders, children, the process is the same. Like all things in life, we don’t always follow the processes needed for the outcome we desire. It all comes down to making the decision to be vulnerable and letting others see that. Why should someone trust you with their hopes and fears, their past and dreams for the future, if they don’t feel it will be reciprocated? The answer is simple: they won’t. I listened with apprehension and joy to my children “telling tales” about me to Lale. They didn’t hold back. The first day they met him, he gathered them into his circle, shared with them aspects of his past. He made himself vulnerable to them, they responded, secure in the knowledge that what they said about their mother would be respected and enjoyed. They gave him ammunition to fire back at me when he was in a playful mood, which was often. By letting Lale into my family, we created a world for me to listen and him to tell me a story he was desperate to share.
The day after Lale died, my family joined me in attending his funeral service and burial and that evening, we entered a synagogue for the first time in order to say farewell to him. He was gone now to be with Gita, but he will never be forgotten by any of us.
Going the Extra Mile
“I’ve run out of clean knickers,” I told my publisher in London from my hotel room in Johannesburg, where I was doing publicity for my novels The Tattooist of Auschwitz and Cilka’s Journey. I was due to return home in two days’ time, but I had made the phone call that would change everything. The phone call to Rehovot, Israel, where I had spoken to a ninety-two-year-old lady named Livia. Listened as she told me the story of being taken from Slovakia in March 1942, along with her eldest sister. Listened as she told me she remembered Lale Sokolov making the number on her left arm as she entered Auschwitz-Birkenau. Listened as she told me she and her two sisters moved to Israel after the war. Listened as she asked me to come to Israel to see her, to hear her story. I then spoke to her son, whose email had kept me awake a few days earlier: “I think my mum and her sisters have a story you might like to hear,” he had written. He was right.
“Buy some new knickers,” I was told. My publisher sensed what I was sensing. This was a story worth going that extra mile for—five thousand miles in fact.
I checked the address Livia had given me—Rehovot was a town just inland from Tel Aviv—and went looking for accommodation nearby. From what I could see, it was a satellite town of Tel Aviv; hotel accommodation was in short supply. I checked with airlines to determine if it was possible to fly from Johannesburg to Tel Aviv. Yes, it was. I phoned home and asked my family how they felt about me staying away another week, as I had somewhere I needed to go. Then go you must, I was told—they didn’t ask for more details.
Two hours after I was due to fly from Johannesburg to Melbourne, I flew to Tel Aviv. An overnight flight that had me land early in the morning, alone in a country I had never visited before, where I did not speak the language, but with new knickers in my bag. I hadn’t obtained any local currency but hey, credit cards work everywhere, don’t they? I had managed to make a booking at the nearest hotel to where Livia lived and asked the taxi driver to take me there. We skirted around the city of Tel Aviv and made our way to Rehovot. It was the middle of summer and even early in the morning, a heat haze rose from the ground and bounced off the buildings as I passed by.
Pulling up outside the hotel, I handed over my card.
“No card, only cash,” came a firm rebuke.
When I explained, or tried to explain, that I had just arrived in the country and hadn’t got any cash, the driver took off, away from the hotel, with me still prisoner in his back seat. Mild panic as I calmly asked where we were going. It would appear the letters ATM are used in many languages and I understood I was being taken to one, where I would get cash, and only then would I be returned to the hotel.
At an ATM, freestanding on the side of a dirt road, no obvious connection to any building, let alone a bank, I grudgingly left the taxi, my bags still inside, and handed over my card to a machine whose written instructions for use I could not read. With no idea of the exchange rate, having been told how many shekels were required, I guessed which buttons to push and doubled the amount I was being asked to pay the taxi driver.
My card was spat back out at me, shekels followed.
When I had booked the hotel room, I paid for an extra day so I could get into a room early in the morning. A shower was sorely needed. I had been told by Livia’s son to come to their address as soon as I could. Within the hour, I was back in a taxi. I offered my card, ever hopeful, only to be told cash-only. One step ahead of this taxi driver, I offered up the cash. The note I handed over was thrust back at me as being too big—the driver wanted the correct amount or something close to it. My explanation that the ATM only gave me large notes wasn’t accepted. I was then told I would be driven to a shop where I could buy something and get some small change.
Welcome to Israel.
The taxi eventually left me outside an apartment building. As I got out, I looked up to see Livia, her son and daughter-in-law waving from the first-floor balcony. As I made it to the building entrance, the door opened and Livia’s son greeted me with the warmest hug and ushered me upstairs to the waiting arms of his mother and wife. What a welcome! This was the introduction to Israel I will remember.
“You must be hungry. Sit down, we have breakfast ready for you, and coffee, surely you must need coffee?”
It was not yet 9 a.m.
I spent two days with Livia, meeting other members of her family, listening to them tell the story of the three sisters from Slovakia who’d survived Auschwitz-Birkenau. No one held back—they wanted me to hear as much as they could get out in the brief time I had in Israel. Knowing I would not have the time I’d had with Lale to hear Livia’s story, and knowing once again I did not want the distraction of writing notes, I asked Livia’s daughter-in-law if she would make notes for me. And as I had done so often in my life, and as I had done especially with my dear friend Lale, I sat and listened. And drank strong Turkish coffee and ate something new every hour, on the hour. This time, however, the coffee was wonderful—I was going back for seconds!
In the initial email I received from Livia’s son and daughter-in-law, they had told me that Livia came from the same town as Gita. They told me her number was 4559, three after Gita’s. Livia had not slept, they reported, as she read The Tattooist of Auschwitz—she was astounded and couldn’t believe how accurate my writing was. They also told me Livia remembered incidents with Gita as she was with her often and would like to provide me with details in support of some of the parts of my book that had received criticism. Livia had an incredible memory, they said, and wanted to set the record straight, face-to-face.
The phone call that followed two days after that first email was extremely emotional, with all of us crying at certain moments. Livia’s son told me how, when his mother saw the Australian book jacket (which shows two numbered arms), she simply said, “That must be about Lale and Gita.” Wow, what a thing to hear! It was while talking to Livia, when she said very clearly that she wanted to see me, not talk over the phone, that I knew I had to go to her—I too prefer to talk face-to-face.
