THE URN
Chapter 20,
Written and illustrated by Elaine Troisi
4 Rue du Tresor
Paris
April 19 to October 3,
1943
Hannah and Jacob sat huddled by the radio, their faces etched with worry as they listened to the tortured broadcasts about the Warsaw Ghetto. The words painted a devastating picture – the ghetto on fire, families torn apart, and the sound of gunfire echoing through the streets as the Jewish forces fought on.
Max, Moishe, their friends in the Resistance were risking their own lives as they struggled to gather information, but there was nothing – no news of Jacob's parents, no word of Hannah's family. The silence was deafening.
As the days turned into weeks, the weight of the uncertainty crushed them like a vise. The uprising raged on, a desperate cry for freedom, but it seemed the Nazis would stop at nothing to extinguish it. The numbers were staggering – 20,000 lives lost, 36,000 deported to the death camps of Treblinka and Majdanek. Still, Hannah and Jacob clung to the endless crackling of the radio, praying for a miracle.
One morning, as Hannah sat by the radio with tears streaming down her face, Rachel climbed onto her lap, her big brown eyes filled with concern. She kissed her mother's tears, just as Hannah had done for her countless times before.
"Mama, why are you sad? Always so sad," she whispered, her tiny voice trembling, her little lips turned down. "Mama, it hurts me right here," she said, touching her heart.
Hannah and Jacob exchanged a gut-wrenching glance. Their little girl, innocent and fragile, was bearing the weight of their pain. They knew they had to find a way to shield her, to preserve the light in her eyes, no matter what darkness surrounded them.
After that, both families listened to the radio only after Rachel was asleep in her bed. They couldn't shield her from the tragedy gripping them, but they could love her and play with her, anything to preserve her innocence.
So, Golde sat Rachel on her lap daily and taught her children’s songs. Rachel’s favorites were ‘Frere Jacques’ and ‘Alouette.’Her sweet voice could reach the rafters as she sang out with delight.
Moishe made time for Rachel as he invented lively interactive tales of life in the countryside.
And Max played with her, building bridges and castles with blocks. Rachel loved making up adventures of princes and princesses. She was the beautiful Princess, of course, and Max was the bravest of princes. Handsome and tall.
Jacob loved to play hide and seek with her and practice the alphabet song on his typewriter. Clickety clack was the tune.
Hannah and Rachel played, making paper dolls on sticks to amaze her stuffed animals, inventing tales of the woods.
Rachel was loved, and it showed in her lively spirit. The two families were determined to keep the war away from her, and it was working.
One day, Hannah showed Rachel a photo of her parents, Lieb and Reba Rabinowicz. She traced them with her finger. Later that day Rachel used crayon bits to draw Hannah as a little girl with her mama and papa, just like in the photo. Hannah and Jacob couldn't believe it. They were so proud of their little girl. Given the choice, Rachel decided she wanted the drawing to hang on the bunker wall for all to enjoy.
But the war intruded in family life every day. News of the aftermath of the Jewish uprising was in the air they breathed. Even after the failure of the heroic Jews who fought to their deaths, Hannah and Jacob prayed that their parents had managed to hide or escape. But each day dampened their prayers, until nearly all hope was gone.
Two months later, Rachel got word through a Polish Resistaance worker that her mother was in Majdanek as a forced laborer, but she was alive.
All Hannah heard was “Your mother is alive!” She ignored the fact that she was in Majdanek where life was uncertain.
She threw her arms around Max who had delivered the news. Then she ran off to tell Jacob the blessing. He embraced her and kissed her deeply. Then he held her back. “Is there any news of my parents?”
Hannah’s euphoria dissipated in a breath. The dark cloud blanketed her once again. “Oh, Jacob! I'm so sorry.” His face fell.
Not knowing what horrors befell Jacob’s parents, the two decided to light a Yahrzeit candle for them. At the same time the Soneberg’s had decided to light a Yahrzeit candle for all the brave Jewish troops who died in the ghetto, along with the innocents who were deported to death camps.
The candles lit up the night in remembrance of those who died at the hand of the Nazis and the cowards who supported them.
After a sleepless night, they spent the following day in prayer and telling stories about loved ones and friends gone missing.
Rachel entertained them with singing, dancing, and drawing. She used her stuffed critters to assist her in story telling of her own invention.
At sunset the two Yahrzeit candles burned down with the dying sun, ending the mourning. A new day was beginning.
Max and Jacob relived the horror of war nightly as they wrote Combat. Every night, Jacob repeated the same refrain to Max, “Safe journey. Fear no one.” He hugged him tightly, “ Come back alive.” Then Max was gone by 1:00 a.m. to deliver the newspaper to Resistance HQ in changing locations throughout Paris. And Max always replied, “Don't worry Jacob, I'm wearing my invisible cloak.” And he was gone into the night of a sleeping city. But he knew there was danger in the shadows.
By the time autumn leaves fell that year, it was time for Sukkot, thee celebration of the harvest. Rachel was ecstatic. She wanted to celebrate harvesting, though she had never seen anything growing, except Bubbe’s aloe plant.
“Zeda,” she asked Moishe, “ can I help you and papa build the sukkah hut? Please, please, please!” Her spirit of adventure could not be contained, war or not. It just bubbled out.
Moishe picked her up and swung her in a circle, “Of course of course!” he said, his joy matching hers. He and Jacob had a plan to build the hut in the dining room of their house next door, since it was barely furnished. For obvious reasons, it could not be built outside again this year. “One day soon, my tiny human child.” It was a promise.
Golde found old table cloths for the roof of the harvest hut, and Hannah and Rachel began putting leaves and acorns and gourds everywhere around the tent-like ‘hut’ they fashioned .
Hannah took Max aside, “ How on earth did you collect these gourds and acorns?” she asked.
“Pretty easy actually. On my routine nightly run through the city, I collected as much as I could.” He paused. “ I'm not sure how or where, but tomorrow Mama and Papa are going ‘shopping’ for things to fill the holiday sukkah and for food to make homishkes, kreplach, and sweet kugle!” He paused. His mouth was starting to water at the mere mention of his favorite foods. His nose twitched remembering the aromas of the bright, warm kitchen of his youth.”I'm sure they will have to walk into the countryside to find markets with meat, cabbages, beets, and pumpkins.”
Rachel piped up, eagerness pouring forth, “Ooh, ooh, can I go outside with Bubbe and Zeda. Please ! Please!” She always expressed herself in twos.
Hannah didn't know how to let her daughter down without crushing her joy. It was the tragedy of living in a time and place where Jews weren't wanted. Where they were systematically being erased across Europe. How can you explain that to a child?
Jacob left his typewriter and rushed to the rescue. He swooped up his daughter. “Let's write a story on my big typewriter. I'll show you how,” he said. “You love doing the alphabet there!”
“Mama, Mama, can I go play with papa on the big story machine? May I! May I?”
With a sigh of relief and a loving glance at her husband, she said, “Of course you can, my sweet girl!”
Rachel sat down with a heavy “umph.” Max sat beside her. Their relief was shared, as they watched Rachel on her papa’s lap, banging away on the typewriter. “That was close,” he said.
“It's not fair,” Rachel said after a minute. “In a right world, Rachel could shop with Golde and Moishe. She could play outside. Build the sukkah hut in the back yard. Oh, my God, she could play with other children, not just us!” Tears were flowing now.
Max reached out and took her hand. “This upside down world won't last forever, Hannah. Not if our work here means anything!” He squeezed her hand tightly.
The next day, Wednesday, October 3, 1943, Moishe and Golde left at sunrise to shop for cabbages, noodles, beets, pumpkins, and meat outside the city. They were dressed as Germans and carried forged papers to prove it.
Sunset came, the start of Sukkot. Moishe and Golde did not return.
Max, Jacob, and Hannah sat up all night. Max paced back and forth, hour after hour, praying for his parents to return. At two in the morning, grabbing his coat, he finally a. spoke,“I'm going to find them. Perhaps they are wounded, lying at the side of the road.”
Jacob stood, taking his arm. He spoke with a hardness that was foreign to his nature, “Stop! Think what you are doing, Max!” He searched for words. “Say you go out there? Do you even know where to look? The roads they took?” Jacob looked directly into his friend’s wild eyes. “Sit down, man. Let’s come up with a plan.”
Just then the sound of a siren passing near made them jump! They could not devise a plan. There was no Sukkot harvest celebration for Rachel that night. No parents bursting through the door, arms laden with produce and meat. Just the endless waiting and the ticking of the old clock becoming louder with each passing minute.
Jewish Lexicon and history:
Sukkot :
The Jews wandered the desert for 40 years until they reached the land of Milk and Honey ( Canaan). Sukkot is the celebration of gratitude and joy for reaching Canaan. For Sukkot each family builds a sukkah (hut) from twigs and decorate it with fruits and vegetables of the harvest season. They are to live there for 7 days, eating, giving thanks, and praying. Lots of activities for children, including the building of the sukkah and decorating iit with things of the harvest like pumpkins and gourds.
Food is always part of any celebration. In this case meat and rice are rolled into cabbage leaves ( holishkes), challah (braided bread), beet soup (borscht), savory or sweet kugle (a baked casserole of egg noodles, cottage cheese, sour cream etc).
Bubbe is grand mother and Zed is grandfather
Yahrzeit Candle - it is lit for the first t24 hours following the death of a loved or revered person
Sorry that I was unable to illustrate this chapter. There was just no time ! I held my annual holiday party. I'm handicapped and 80, so it's not an easy task but I just love entertaining. I prepared the food over days, as well as holiday decorating, though I had help. Thank you Kristy, Beth, Becky, Carla and Sharon ♥️ And to those who brought the delicious hors d'oeuvres! Despite its lack of art, I'm very happy with Chapter 20, and I hope you enjoy it, too.
See you again on January 2, 2026!
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