MOTHER ADELA’S STORY

MOTHER ADELA’S STORY

I was accompanied by Mrs. Rosemary on the train from Warsaw to Israel. She had no worries. Most of the time she wanted to nap, leaning against the folded up curtain that looked like a pillow. I kept looking at her dried up face and thinking of mother Adela who suffered over me. She only had me. One time she got enough courage to say: “Listen to me my dear Estella, (that’s what she sometimes called me) it’s time for us to separate. Perhaps you will feel better if you stay in Warsaw. I must leave for the homeland, Israel. My mother’s grave is there. I don’t want you to follow my Jewish suffering. Our homeland is calling us Jews.”

She paused, looked at me with her sad eyes, and then said: “Israel, my dear Estella, Israel… You are now a Pole… you are educated...”

She then smiled slightly and said: “You have a beautiful face my dear. A beautiful face...”

I opened my passport and read: “Stella Ian Botvinska, born July 22, 1949, in Albania, daughter of Ian and Adela Botvinski.”

I know, mother Adela’s line had ended in Lviv (Lavov) but her suffering continued on day after day… to this day. Mother Adela was a tiny meek person. I have a picture of her being held in the arms of her mother Estella from the time they traveled to Siberia on a freight train destined for camp Varkuti. Her father Moyes was a soldier in the Austro - Hungarian army. She was in captivity because of my poor grandfather Moyes.

From that time on, since she was a child, there was a sickness in mother Adela’s soul… her suffering was engraved in her... But now her modesty and benevolence had made her gentler.

When she became an adult she chose the nursing profession with the need to find fulfillment in her life. She wanted to be full of gratitude and emotion knowing that she was helping people. That is why she chose to help those who were suffering and who were oppressed. She spent her life wearing a white coat in harsh military conditions.

Unfortunately with her anxiety and restless spirit, she was unable to fulfill her dreams and comply with the norms that were required to withdraw to a quiet family life. This is how mother Adela was.

Her marriage failed; part of her family is in Israel. But mother Adela always spoke with pride about her past. She was a participant in the civil war in Spain where she responded to the call to help the disadvantaged and where she joined the ranks of the International Brigades. Mother Adela was a brave woman.

After that she spent time in the camps in France. When she was deported to Israel she joined the anti-fascist coalition forces. Still in uniform she served as a nurse in Israeli units within the British forces on the battlefields of Africa and Europe. And they say that the Israelis are cowards! I am proud of mother Adela.

In 1940 she returned to Poland, the country where she spent her youth. Again working as a nurse… to this day...

In the second photograph I have of her she is squeezing me with all her motherly love. There is a look of fulfillment in her face. Her fear is erased and her suffering has leaked out like a river. I often asked her about my father Ian. One time she said: “Your father was killed in the war. This is Ian, he was your father, he was my comrade... Ian was a handsome man, he was my first love but the war took him… my dear Estella… He was wounded on the head, I looked after him, I cried over him but in the end I was left at the crossroads of Europe. Yes my dear Estella...”

I wanted to know more about my father Ian Botvinski, especially when I was little and when I went to school. There, I watched the fathers of my friends.

They were strong and confident fathers. One of them once said: “Your father must be terrible… not once have I seen him pick you up from school. He must be a drunk, a scoundrel, or did he leave you…?” My mother Adela was everything to me...

As I tried to remember more things about my mother bright lights, hanging on the pillars outside, began to strike at my eyes causing me

discomfort. I looked at Mrs. Rosemary, still snoozing… once in a while showing dissatisfaction by making sour faces, unhappy I guess with what age had done to her corpulent body, now slumped and occupying almost the entire seat.

The next day we arrived at port Akka. Many people had come to the station. Jews were returning from Poland, Hungary, Russia… they were coming from everywhere.

There was no person in the crowd who was not crying. A similar fate had separated them for many years. Now they wept, perhaps out of joy, who knows? Mother Adela, holding a large bouquet of white roses, kept calling and shouting:

“Estella, Estella, I am here! Here I am my beloved, Estella!”

I lost Mrs. Rosemary but now I was with my beloved mother, whom I had not seen for two years, since she said to me: “Listen to me my dear Estella; it’s time for us to separate. Perhaps you will feel better if you stay in Warsaw. I must leave for the homeland, Israel. My mother’s grave is there. I don’t want you to follow my Jewish suffering. Our homeland is calling us Jews…and you Estella are from Warsaw… finish your studies… you are young, maybe you will marry someday…”

I spent the evening with my mother Adele but she was upset, her joy soon turned to pain. I thought she was exhausted from the long hours visiting with me. She said:

“Oh my dear Estella, it was 1949 in Durres, Albania. It was night. We were waiting for the Polish ship “Mickiewicz” to load refugees from the Elbasan and Burreli camps. They arrived like a flooded river, helpless, frightened, holding a few insignificant things that they took hastily with them but did not want to give them up. They even brought various domestic animals with them... The youngest traveler in the group was an unnamed two month old baby. A bony old woman was clutching it in her arms, with barely a diaper on it. I seem to remember her name was Iana. She could not climb the makeshift ladder. A sailor took the baby and brought it to sickbay. When the ship’s doctor examined it he reprimanded the sailor. He

said: “Why did you take the baby? Could you not see that it was half dead? Leave it here now but know that two days from now we will have to throw it into the sea…”

Wondering what she was trying to tell me, I asked: “And you mother Adela, where were you?” She looked me in the eyes and continued: “I was there, on board. The ship was full of old and sick people and they resembled each other. We spoke to them in Polish and they spoke back to us in Macedonian… yelling for help. When I saw the little baby I was stunned. I took it in my arms… it was almost dead. I put my finger in its mouth… it had the strength to suckle. I happily yelled out ‘Doctor the baby will live! It will come to life!’ And then he said to me: ‘Then let this baby be your corcern… You are now personally responsible for it Adela, and don’t forget that in this ship you are still a soldier’…”

She then, with tears in her eyes, looked at me and said: “That baby was you my dear Estella…”

After the doctor allowed me to look after you I was overjoyed. But you were on the verge of death. Your hair was messed up and in knots and your diaper was glued to your skin. I felt really sorry for you my dear Estella. I soaked you in fish oil; that’s all I had available. I then wrapped you in clean white sheets. I fed you with injections because you had no strength to suckle. I gave you many injections, one every hour… and everywhere on your little cold boby; on your legs, after that on your stomach, neck… everywhere where I could find a healthy place to stick a needle. My dear Estella, you brought out in me all my maternal instincts but I had no milk in me to feed you.

I cut a rubber glove, made a pacifier out of it and fed you to my maternal satisfaction. You responded with some babbling and then smiled. I felt waves of joy overtake me with the love I had for you… then I felt great pain… especially when the ship arrived at the port of Gdansk and the passengers began to disembark. I very much wanted to find the old woman but was unable to… she was gone. You were still sick and you needed to go with the sick to the health shelters. I later found out that old woman left with the group that went to Hungary.

It was war time my dear Estella. The harsh rules applied to everyone...

You were nameless, pale, and sick and you needed further treatment. I was worried about you so I took you to a hospital and spent a long time there with you. But I had no peace and poverty reigned everywhere...

So I took you from the hospital, brought you to my humble home where I was happy and looked forward to being with my dear Estella.

Then one day they called on me to go on a new journey.

‘And the child...?’ I asked.

‘What child?!’ asked the captain.

‘My child, which I found on the ship!’ I replied. ‘And who, Adela Botvinska, gave you permission to have a child?’ the captain sternly rebuked.

‘Do the other women working here need to have your approval to have children?’ I snapped back in the same tone of voice. ‘Is it a bad thing to be a mother…?’ I added.

Looking a bit perturbed the captain said: ‘There are many other children out there who are waiting for us, Adele!’

At that time I received a letter from Israel. They informed me that my mother Estella had died. I felt pain and sorrow because I could not go to her funeral… but I wanted to keep the memory of my mother alive. You, my dear Estella, now carry her name.

I brought you up, I gave you true love; I wanted to pay it forward to my mother. But my joy began to obscure my thoughts that one day I needed to tell you the truth. I was torn between reason and feelings.

I was afraid, my dear Estella, that something might happen and I would lose you...

You are not a Jew, nor a Pole. From the old woman I learned that you are Macedonian, somewhere from Kostur Region.”

She stopped talking for a moment, thinking of something, something important missing from her memory. She then said:

“The woman who gave birth to you was left in Albania because she suffered from typhoid and was near death. Your father was a soldier...”

Her face was pale and she looked sick. She stared at the white roses. Her soul trembled like a violin. Her words were unable to come out of her throat. She gathered her strength for a few moments then barely audibly murmured:

“I… I am not... I am not your mother Estella…”

“No!” I screamed. Mother Adela looked at me stunned and wept over the white roses. She only had the strength to hand me a letter from the Red Cross, which said that my parents in Skopje, Macedonia, were looking for me.