The War
For Us, the War Ends
There was a mixture of Poles and Germans in Bitom, but millions of Germans from that area had left for what later became East Germany. 2 In Bitom, I heard that Jewish organizations from Eretz Yisrael were offering shelter to Jewish orphans and would eventually bring them to a permanent home in Israel. One day, when I was out in the market, I came across someone who told me about such a group. I went to visit them and made up my mind that I was going to join this organization and go to Israel. I had already decided that I did not want to live in the Diaspora any longer, and that I wanted to go to Israel, to a Jewish state where I could defend myself and no longer be easy prey for others. I had always been brought up as a Zionist, so the idea of going to Israel was not foreign to me. My entire family, — my uncle, my aunt, and my cousins, — made up their minds to go to the United States, and I realized that this meant that we would have to part. I am sometimes surprised that I had the courage to make such a bold and independent decision, considering that my feet were in poor shape and I was giving up the umbrella of protection I enjoyed while living with my uncle, who was such a capable and able man; my aunt, who was such a nice woman; and their sons. But my de- sire to go to Israel was so strong that I decided that no matter what else happened, even if they did not want to, I had to go to Israel. Apparently, some of the Edelmans also considered going to Israel. Boris has said that when the war finally ended, he, too, want - ed to go to Israel but the people gathering refugees for Palestine were only taking orphans at that time. My aunt and uncle were very sad about my decision, but they did not stand in my way. They said that if I felt so strongly about not living in the Diaspora anymore, they would not object. They loved me as if I were their own child. Many years later, when my uncle died, he said in his will that whatever he had must be “equal- ly divided between my nephew and my two sons.” I was like a son to them, and they were like parents to me.
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