Shattered Crystals by Mia Amalia Kanner (no david read aloud .txt) 📕

family, Gradually, I got used to being different, but I still had a picture of my mother and father in my mind. The day the Desiree docked was hot and sunny and I wore the blue dress. Ruth and I met Tante Hannah and her husband at the Hudson River pier. My aunt spotted them first. For a brief moment I didn’t recognize them. They were so much smaller than I remembered, but the greater shock was my mother. Her beautiful wavy hair, that had been a deep auburn, was still wavy but had turned snow white.

It took a few more months before we were really reunited. Until an apartment became available in Brooklyn, my parents and Lea lived in Kew Gardens with Hannah, where I visited often. The day after we all moved to our own apartment, I went into my school’s office and told the secretary I had moved. Barely looking up from her work, she gave me a card on which to write my new address,. After five years in America, this was the first time I wrote my address without the words “care of” after my name. School friends who knew nothing of my history accepted my move from Washington Heights to Brooklyn without question.

It took a while until we adjusted to each other. I relearned German but spoke it forever after not only ungrammatically, but with an American accent. My parents and Lea learned English even faster. So communication became easier and more relaxed as well, as we adjusted to each other as a family.

My sisters and I married, raised families and enjoyed success in our chosen professions. Five grandchildren and one great grandchild brought my parents great pleasure. My parents, sisters and I were a rare quintet, an entire nuclear family who survived the Holocaust intact. But the lost years during which we were apart, years that included vital time during which we were growing up, could never be retrieved. It is a loss that was felt not only by us children, but also by our mother and father.

Glossary

aliya: call to reading of Torah scroll in Synagogue

Appell: roll call of prisoners

bar mitzvah: coming of age (13) for Jewish boys

Baruch Hashem: “thank God”

becher: wine goblet

bentch: to bless

bentch licht: blessing over candles

berachah: blessing

besomim: sweet smelling spices

besomim halter: container for spices

Boche: derogatory term for Germans

chad gayah: song traditionally sung at Seder

chametz: leaven; bread

chalutzim: pioneers

charoses: paste of apples, nuts and wine for Seder

chasid: adherent to pious Jewish movement

cheder: Torah school for children

Chumash: five books of Moses

chuppah: bridal canopy

chutzpah: audacity

daven, davening: to pray

eretz Yisrael: land of Israel

ersatz: substitute

fleishig: food containing meat

frum: observant

gendarme: French policeman

Gemara: another word for Talmud

goy, goyim, goyish: non-Jew, non-Jewish

Gute Reise: good journey

halachah: Jewish law

Hallel: special prayer of praise

Hamotzi: blessing over bread at start of meal

Hashem: name of the Lord

Havdalah: concluding ritual of Sabbath

Juden Verboten: Jews forbidden

Judenrein: free of Jews

kasher: to make kosher

kibbutz: collective Israeli settlement

Kiddush: ceremonial wine blessing

ki leolam chasdo: His grace is forever

kneidlech: matzoh balls

Kol Nidre: opening Yom Kippur prayer

Kosher: permitted under Jewish law

Kotel: Western temple wall, Jerusalem, sacred to Jews

leichters: candlesticks

Ma Nishtanah: the Four Questions asked at the Pesach seder

machzor: prayer books for high holidays and festivals

make aliyah: immigrate to Israel

marror: bitter herbs

matzoh: unleavened bread

Mazel Tov: congratulations

mechitzah: partition in synagogue

melamed, meladim [pl.]: teacher

menorah: candelabra

milchig: dairy

minyan: quorum of ten men for prayers

mishpachah: family

mitzvah: commandment

Moshiach: Messiah

musette: knapsack

naches: gratification

Opa: grandfather

OSE: organization that saved Jewish children

payos: earlocks

Pesach: Jewish festival of Passover

Rebbetzin: wife of rabbi

Rosh Hashanah: New Year

Schule: school

Seder: Passover feast

Sefer Torah: Torah scroll

seudah: meal

Shabbos: the Sabbath

Shalom Aleichem: peace upon you, a greeting

Shas: works of the Talmud

Shema Yisrael: Hear, oh Israel

shevah berachos: the seven nuptial blessings

shir hamalos: song of praise after meal

shivah: seven-day period of mourning

shochet: ritual slaughterer

shomer Shabbos: Sabbath observers

shtiebel: Chasidic synagogue

shul: synagogue

siddur, siddurim [pl.]: prayer

shtetl: village in Eastern Europe

succah: booth

Succos: festival of booths, one of main Jewish festivals

taharah: purification of dead body

tallis: prayer shawl

Talmud: fundamental code of Jewish law, see also Gemara

tefillin: phylacteries

tzimmes: carrot dish

yahrzeit: anniversary of death

yeshivah: Torah school

Yiddishkeit: Jewishness

Yom Hashoah: Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust

Yom Kippur: Day of Atonement

Yom Tov: festival

Zei gesunt: be well