Waves of Memory

"We were a group of young women forever changed by war.

If you saw us, we had something hellish in our eyes, something haunting in the way we walked, talked, and looked. We were not regular humans. We were empty, hollowed out shells existing. Just existing.

We had nothing. When I mean nothing. I mean no thing. If you were lucky you had a shirt or coat, most of us just had the stripped uniform pajamas from the camps. Some of us were ultra lucky we had cherished items from the past.

Emma was ultra lucky. She had a faded photo of her family she found in the rubble that was once her home. Gittel was lucky too, she had her father's hat he wore every Sabbath , but Freidush was luckiest, she had her mother's candlesticks, engagement ring and pearl necklace. Everyone envied her.

I was lucky too. I had my mother's prayer book. I had no one. My family was gone. My home was gone. The person I was before the war was gone and I had one link left to it all, the prayer book.

I didn't let anyone touch it. I slept with it at night, kept it in my hand the entire day and hid it when I couldn't take it with me. I guarded it with my life.

One day. We were sitting together in the barracks. That was our home. They made a DP camp for all misplaced persons in the barracks. We had nothing to do. Nothing to look forward to. We were just a bunch of broken vessels sitting and waiting for absolutely nothing.

Some of us did have dreams. Some of us dreamed about rebuilding the past. Some of us dreamed about forgetting the past, and some of us dreamed about our future.

I did. I wanted to go to America. The land of the free. The land of opportunity. The land far away from this blood-soaked, cruel land. A land where I can live and forget that a holocaust once happened.

But it was a dream. A faraway, faraway dream nestled somewhere close to the sun where it sat ablaze each day, teasing, mocking , you can't get me.

I wasn't the only one dreaming of America. Many of us were. Some were dreaming about Palestine, other's America and some just for food, water, something warm and something to relieve the agonizing pain trapped inside.

Than that day came. I remember it like yesterday. We sat there together, alone, for hours. On the floor still littered with the after affects of carnage. No one spoke when the official walked in.

"Those of you who applied for a visa to the US head to the office."

We ran. For our lives. We knew what it meant.

Dreams.

Visas.

Life.

I guarded it like my prayer book. I had two things in my entire life that mattered. That prayer book and that visa.

Every night I looked at the date and hid it beneath my clothing so no one would steal it . Those nights were bliss. I'd taste the sweetness of dreams. The sweetness of revival. The sweetness of having something to look forward to. Something to live for.

And then the day came. There wasn't really any goodbyes', just envy. Envious, hungry eyes staring down the thirteen lucky women as they left the barbed wires with small rucksacks on their backs.

I remember vividly the sprawling hills running past the train windows. The grazing cows. Crowded platforms and...children. Children with bows and frilly dresses and red laced shoes.

There were no children in the camps. It was like watching a film. Surreal. Unreal.

At the port there were people with pretty hats and long coats and handbags and lipstick! I had worn lipstick before this war! We huddled together, whispering amongst each other, pointing at the giant ships and the ocean waves and seagulls as if we were aliens from a different world.

Then it was time to board. My spirits fell as we past the section of the large, grandiose ships and my spirit sank lower and lower as we continued walking until we reached the smaller section.

Our boat didn't even have a name. It was old, rusty and the size of two train compartments lined up in back of each other . As soon as we boarded, we realized it was a cargo ship and besides for us, there were four crewman and a captain.

We slept between the containers on cots, always afraid of one falling and pinning us death. Food was canned beans or rotting produce they couldn't sell anymore.

Entertainment. Absolutely none. We past time either dreaming, telling other's about our dreams or looking for a spot where no one would steal our meager possessions.

But none of us complained. This was paradise compared to the hell we had lived before.

Until the storm happened.

It began as slight rocking then abrupt jerking and then careening.

The sky was an angry grey. The wind, a powerful beast. The boat, feeble like a sailboat in a bathtub. Us young women were deeply frightened. Nothing is more terrifying than the ground beneath you being unstable.

We huddled together in basement clawing on the boxes for support as the floor tilted. A crewman came stumbling down. "Everything overboard! Everything overboard!"

We each reached for a container. Desperation allowing two war-torn women to lift an entire container.

"Not those! Idoits! Those!!" He picked up a rucksack. A sharp jerk sent him flying toward the wall, and the rucksack into another. Thirteen women shrieked in terror.

"Let's go! Let's go!" He fought his way through the containers and began grabbing possessions out of our arms."

It's the first time Grandma pauses in her entire story. Her eyes well with tears. Her voices chocks in pain.

"He made us throw our possessions overboard. Our last bit of humanity we still had. The last relics of our past, the last links to the people we truly were."

Grandma pauses again. The wrinkles in her cheek hold the tears cascading down.

"That moment the sky opened, joining the gut-wrenching wailing of thirteen shattered women tossing their few belongings overboard. Oh the screams. The bone-chilling, heart-splintering screams of women being relieved of the things they so loved and cherished."

She covers her eyes. Flinching. Shoulders tight. As if she's there now.

"The boat is thrashing around. I'm holding my prayer book. I promise it weighed nothing. I'm standing in the corner, holding to the railings for dear life. The prayer book stuck beneath my chin. I promise it wouldn't change a thing. He comes. Advances. I hear myself scream and shout. He rips out it of my chin. The prayer book. My mother's prayer book. The mother I no longer have. He throws it. There's agony in my gut. I can't stop shrieking.

Emma. Envied. Envied Emma. Candlesticks. Pearl Necklace. Ring. Overboard.

Gila's coat her sister sewed from scraps of rucksack. Overboard.

Family photos. Overboard.

Sabbath hat. Overboard.

The crewman work quick. Whoever is in the way ,they hit. The noise! The chaos! The cold! The pain searing through my bones... until silence... stability. Deathly deathly silence."

Grandma uncovers her eyes as if waking up from a nightmare. She's stiff. She doesn't talk anymore. I try to understand. I try to understand what it means to have only one belonging. One belonging. And to have that taken away.

I can't.

Grandma's arms are suddenly around me. "Don't think so much. Just appreciate what you've got. Okay?"

I nod. "Okay."

"That's all."

"I will Grandma. I will."