Encyclopedia
Carol Ungar
Auschwitz— where my mother spent
nearly a year from spring 1944 until sometime in 1945.Her age? —nineteen and no,
no number on her arm. “By the time I got there, they stopped giving them ”.
. My niece claims that my mother had her numbers removed
surgically. them surgically removed. I don’t know if that’s true. Though she had a booming voice and could talk endlessly she
never spoke about Auschwitz –at least not to me.
As a teenager, I was depressed and hugely self-absorbed. Instead of
sending me to a therapist, my mother said I was “too busy with myself.” Her
solution? Work Arbeit macht frei..
Also, Australia where my mother flew alone in her late seventies to visit her friend Edith whom she knew from Auschwitz.
B Blue My mother’s eyes, pale translucent
blue like water, twinkling, laughing eyes
like a child’s eyes. When dementia kicked in they became dead, lost eyes.
C. Carolka-my mother’s
nickname which transformed my quintessential American fifties name into
something foreign. I hated it.
D. Dementia, Parkinson's
related. How my mother’s razor-sharp brain with its command
of countless facts and eight languages melted
away. On my final visit, she asked her
aide if I was a “cousin.”
E. Eva my mother’s first name. Her Hungarian
friends and later on her Hungarian aides called her Evikeh pronounced Avikeh. She was named for her grandmother Lena
who had died the year before her birth. It
seems that my grandmother Tzirel after whom I am named (Carol is an anglicization
of Tzirel) didn’t like Lena. Too old
fashioned? I don’t know. All I know is that Lena
morphed into Evelina which morphed into Eva.
F. fahrputzed (alternative pronunciation favored by my
mother whose Yiddish was Hungarian Galician style is fahrpitzed) One of my mother’s favorite Yiddish words. Her
speech was sprinkled with fancy English words she picked up from the New York
Times and pungent evocative Yiddishisms. This one means dressed up to the nines
Though she could also be a shlump, , my mother
recognized elegance, all parts working together in perfect harmony. She
searched for it in her beloved Loehmans and she loved special occasions when she and
the rest of the family looked our best, aka were properly fahrputzed.
G. Gelt and Gold . In her last “good
years,” when she still worked, rode the subway, and read the New York Times my
mother became obsessed with money, gelt in Yiddish . Gelt became a god, Gelt
which could solve all problems. . “If
only we would have had some during the war,” she’d say longingly. As if she could have bribed the
nazis to free her. She admired the rich
‘monied people,” she called them unconscious of the pretension in the phrase
and she took pride own fortune especially in the gold bars she and my father
had hidden under the floorboards in their walk in closet.—yes this really
happened. When she told me about them , I
laughed. To me the whole think sounded ridiculous. She grew furious. In the end I never got that gold —.my brother dug it out and
kept it .
H.Hungarian. My mother’s
mother tongue, the language of our house. A language that was screamed rather
than spoken. ‘Would you please speak
English,” I’d yell and my parents would stop for a moment but then quickly
return Hungarian.
When my mother hired an aide she chose a Hungarian—as her body
failed her she needed her mother tongue.
When my brother and sister in law took charge of her care they
replaced the Hungarian aide with an English speaker.That was when .my mother
lost her grip on reality.
Hadassah. Once a year my mother got dressed up “fahrputzed”
to attend Manhattan Hadassah’s annual luncheon.. With her heavy accent and holocaust
trauma, my mother stood out among the American born wives of successful professionals
and business leaders. I don’t know how comfortable she felt in their company but
she went—being at that luncheon meant that she had arrived.
I. Israel. Where I moved there my mother cried.
She loved Israel, visited, donated to the UJA but she wanted me to remain in the
US marry a professional and join her at the Hadassah luncheon.
J. Jewelry. My father was
a jeweler and my mother sold his pieces it out of a run down fifth-floor factory loft.
On 47th Street which we called ‘the shop.” Draped on her heavy breasts, was an ever-changing display of long beaded necklaces,--for the customers—to show them the line. Even after the shop was gone I don’t remember
ever seeing her buy a piece of jewelry .
In those early post-war years my mother had
studied French Literature Major at the Sorbonne, Like so much else in
her life jewelry happened to her.
K Klapper, Erika, My mother’s Liz Taylor look-alike best her fun
friend, her only unaccented friend. the Lucille Ball to my mother’s Ethel Mertz.
The mother I wished for instead of my own. Also, Kosher the dietary laws which my mother kept. When she learned that her Hungarian speaking
aid had messed up the kitchen she threw everything out and starting fresh Angy
as she was with G-d she wanted to keep kosher.
L Lager, my mother’s word for concentration
camp . She never used this word with me.
M Motherhood. My mother married
late, at thirty-one but she desperately wanted to be a mother. Still not
pregnant after a year of marriage she had her tubes blown, and after that, I came
into the world. I never once doubted her love for me.
N Nazis I don’t think my mother ever fully
believed that they had been defeated.
Also Nuts, ground, walnuts
or hazelnuts which my mother used as the basis for cakes—she never baked with
flour and her egg and nut tortes were kosher for Passover all year long.
O opal also tiger eye, jade, and lapis lazuly, the semi-precious stones
she bought for my father to craft into necklaces and pins.
P potatoes, -- boiled and
slathered with sour cream or mashed together with golden brown fried onions. Potato
kugels and potato salad with mayonnaise and mustard on Shabbos. Also Pogacha,
the Hungarian Jewish answer to
scones, my mother’s favorite pastry, slightly sweet, rich buttery and best eaten
with a cup of coffee. Sold at Lichtman’s the now-defunct Hungarian Jewish
bakery on 86th street.
Also Parkinson's disease the cause of my mother’s wheelchair-bound
diaper-clad demented old age.
Q .Quincy Cotton the trusts and
estates lawyer who handles the money I
inherited from my mother, the only money I’ve got.
R Ruth Becker, first a neighbor and then my
mother’s best friend, American born, a retired school teacher and all-around
wise and wonderful person. On their final visit Ruth was deaf and my mother’s
voice almost inaudible They sat side by side in their wheelchairs in Ruth’s West End Avenue living
room wheelchairs silently clasping hands.
S Stuie my younger brother. To
my mother, we were Carolka and Stuieleh. And even though the cloud of her
dementia she sensed that we were fighting
through our lawyers —over money. Also Satmar,
the name of my mother’s hometown. My mother spearheaded the writing and
printing of the Satmar Memorial Book. Also Sylvania as in Sylvania Jewelry, the
business my parents owned together with my uncle named after their place of
origin, T Transylvania Why did my parents come from the country of Dracula?
. Why couldn’t they have been born someplace normal like Brooklyn or Philadelphia
or Belgium?
Also Tanti the wife of my
one and only uncle Zoli and my
one and only aunt, an anorexic wannabe
ballerina and concert singer. I liked her
because unlike my mother who shopped at Alexanders she bought me clothes at Saks and Best and
Company that weren’t from the sale rack.
My mother said that Tanti was crazy. Sadly, she was right.
United States of America The land my mother
loved. Where she began a new life, became rich and where she is buried—she didn’t
want her body to be brought to Israel even though that means skipping the pain
of rolling underground to Jerusalem after the Messiah comes. . Also, the country
that denied my grandfather legal entry—he arrived in 1930 as an illegal alien. Because
of restrictive US immigration laws he couldnt get visas for my mother or
grandmother. In 1944 they were deported to Auschwitz –only my mother survived.
Vermin. the collective term for the lice and
mites which crawled on my mother's body and scalp in Auschwitz. Not a subject of
conversation in our home.
W water as in oceans, lakes, and beaches. my mother’s favorite vacation
destinations, Nice, Tel Aviv, Long Beach.
My mother never played any sports but she loved the water
Also Williamsburg, the Hassidic part
of Brooklyn where she and I shlepped by subway to attend the weddings of her
cousin’s children. We weren’t Hassidic—and certainly not Satmar the most right
wing Hassidic groups but a cousin was a
cousin, especially cousin Goldie with whom
she had survived the war.
X x rays. I don’t know how many my mother took for the implants she got to
replace her teeth. Her plan was to go into old age with fully functioning body-- teeth included. Man plans and G-d laughs.
Y Yidel’s juvenile furniture. When,
her first grandchild was born my mother traveled to Yidel’s juvenile furniture
in faraway Brooklyn –a discounter of course to buy a solid maple crib
and a changing table and a MacLaren stroller, the best, and shipped them to Israel. Once she got
over the shock of my move she was unfailingly generous.visiting twice a year, her suitcases swollen with gifts, housewares, and mostly clothing for everyone. I think she believed that without her we’d go
naked, Maybe she was right.
Z Zoltan. Uncle Zolly. My father’s
brother, business partner, and my mother’s best friend. I am amazed that my
father was never jealous.
