Guta Tyrangiel-Benezra, born in 1940

Seized by the Dybbuk

KATARZYNA MELOCH: In 1994 in Śródborów, where the members of the Association of The Children of the Holocaust in Poland meet annually, I listened to the memories of Genia—Guta; some lyrical, others not contained within the verses of a poem. I also looked at her paintings brought to Poland from Canada, where she lived.

I remembered this confession:
I tried my best
to be what they wanted,
time and again,
to measure up, weigh up, equalize…

and I scolded those
whom I never got to know for dying

Translated from the Polish by Katarzyna Szuster-Tardi.

Later, she told me about those “whom she never got to know”, her parents.

GUTA TYRANGIEL-BENEZRA: My mother’s name was Ruchla and my father’s name was Moszek Tyrangiel. I don’t remember my parents. I was two years old when I parted from them. My mother came from Mińsk Mazowiecki. Her family was big and well-off. There were grandfathers brothers, cousins, about a hundred people in Mińsk alone. I found them in the files of the registry office in Mińsk. I was looking for the Kormans (my mother’s maiden name). The whole family had lived there, I don’t know exactly for how many generations.

They were born in Mińsk Mazowiecki and died there—probably for three hundred years. My mother was born in 1917, my father in 1914. Two young people. They got married in 1939, probably a month or two before the German invasion.

After the war, a photographer from Mińsk gave me family photos: the photos of my mother and father, all of us in the ghetto, and my photo, of a little girl in the arms of her cousins.

I was born a day after the formation of the ghetto in Mińsk Mazowiecki: on October 26, 1940. Ruchla was twenty-three years old when I was born, twenty-five years old when she was killed. My parents were young, my sister was born about a year and a half after me. She was six months old when her parents gave her “for safekeeping” to some Polish family near Koluszki, where my father came from.

The only uncle who had saved himself came back from Russia and found me; apparently he was also looking for my sister. He heard three versions: that she was given to the hospital and died there, that she was given to a lady who passed her on to someone else until any trace of her disappeared, and that she was given to the Germans and they killed her…

All these versions remained unconfirmed because no one was making real efforts to find her. Uncle left for Israel, he is alive, trying to forget what he had been through and what happened. When I grew up, I wanted to find my sister. I couldn’t.

I stayed in the same city where my parents had lived, in Mińsk. My “new parents” were supposed to take care of me for a short time. Unfortunately, my mother didn’t manage to get to the hideout prepared earlier, she fell ill with typhus, and later the camp was burned. She died there, at “Copernicus”, burned alive. My father was somewhere else. He’d escaped from the labor camp at the Rudzki factory to the Warsaw Ghetto, where he had some family and died during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Copernicus—a labor camp in Mińsk Mazowiecki located in the former primary school named after Copernicus.

My guardian told me that he was in touch with him until the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. And then he vanished, that is, he was gone.

From the beginning, I called my foster parents “Uncle” and “Aunt”. That was my parents’ wish, although they didn’t know if they would survive… I had an “uncle” and an “aunt” and a birth certificate. It was made by a priest. It was false, but based on probable facts. Aunt Jaszczukowa’s cousin allegedly had an illegitimate child. That’s why my name was Genowefa Filipiak until 1949, then I became Genowefa Jaszczuk, although I was born as Guta Tyrangiel.

They took my “aunt” to prison, but the Germans were bribed and she was released. It was still dangerous. I was hiding with my foster parents for the last two years of the war. “Uncle” adored me. He loved me very much and spoiled me. My “aunt’s” attitude towards me was a little different.

I was adopted by the Jaszczuk family. Uncle Marek, who came back from Russia, my father’s only surviving brother, wanted to take me in 1946. After hiding and fearing Jews, I didn’t want to be Jewish.

Even when they took me to church, I knew I was being pointed at, so I couldn’t be a religious Catholic. I wasn’t baptized, but I had a baptism certificate, it was considered true and that’s why I received First Communion. Because I grew up in Poland. In fact, I’m an atheist; atheism was an easy solution for me in post-war Poland.

To be a Jew
Antisemites would say, “Jews cheat.” When someone didn’t believe me, it made me sick. Even today, when someone doesn’t trust me, it makes me sick. Memories of contempt come back then. They said that Jews would go to Palestine anyway and leave those who sacrificed themselves for them.

When I was naughty, my aunt would say: “Either way, you’ll run, you’ll leave us behind, Jews are ungrateful.”

To be a Jew was hell, something horrendous, stigmatizing… To be a Jew… death, fear, terror, hunger, lice and disease; running away and hiding in basements, wardrobes, distrust and fear of strangers. Every time I wanted to talk about it, the fear would crop up.

I always knew I was Jewish, a child of murdered Jews, of people about whom Poles would say: “A Jew, but decent.” The attitude of Polish society towards them after the war was negative, unfair, I felt it intuitively. I had no clear idea what it meant “to be a Jew”. I hadn’t heard anything positive about Jews until I was in France.

I had no idea about the Jewish religion. Hostility and superstition made me dislike my own Jewishness, which meant that I couldn’t even be proud of my own father; I thought, “He was no hero.” I had a picture with a Judenrat hat on my head. Maybe my father’s hat? When I learned Hebrew, I read in “Yskor Book”  that the people in the Mińsk Judenrat were the most respected in the city’s community. The members of the Zionist group were there, so was my father. They had contacts with partisans and the “Żegota”, and they didn’t give up until the end. My father finally won his daughter’s respect.

Yskor Book—the Book of Memory.

Jewishness was an unbearable heritage. I set off into the world and met my distant Jewish family—they were not smart or beautiful, sensible or just… And that was what I had expected of them, so that I could accept myself as a Jewish woman… I had to do some soul searching: decide that the Jewish people are similar to other nations, with the same good and bad qualities. I understood that Jewish wisdom is about spirituality, that it passes throughout centuries and allows those Jews who are exceptional to be outstanding people. The only thing I took with me from Poland was this respect for wise Jewishness.

I had extreme views on Jewishness: positive and negative, it was difficult to live with that. My thoughts and feelings were ambiguous, unclear… My sense of Jewish belonging, so important to me, had to break through the prejudices and conflicting opinions around me. When I lived in Israel for ten years, I met actual Jews every day. It convinced me that most of them were the same conformists as Poles, the French and Canadians, among whom I had lived before.

In France, Canada or Israel, where I lived after leaving Poland, I searched for an answer to the question of what Jewishness meant to me, how I could convey it to my children in a social and internal sense. Since I was unable to embrace religion or Jewishness, in a social sense, I had to find some personal way to let this Jewishness live in me, but in my own way. I had already been too much of an individualist to accept collective ideas.

To return to yourself
In my childhood, and later, silence was the only way out for me. After the war, my grandfather’s house in Mińsk was still there. I knew about it, but I avoided the traces of the past and the people who knew my parents. Rekindling memories was too difficult.

I didn’t have enough information about my family history, and in any case, I shied away from it for fear of a Jewish identity. I focused on what my children were passionate about: dance, song, sport, fashion… The Jewish past was too hard to bear. It seemed to me that the path to the past led to hell. What happened here in Poland with my family, with Jews… I had always steered clear of those events. At the same time, I wanted to get closer to it and it seemed to me that if I stepped into it, this abyss would swallow me. I didn’t trust myself to be able to get out of it. Let me say it one more time: a trip to the past was too difficult. It took me, or could take me, away from my everyday routine. The road to those emotions was probably the longest road in my life.

I decided that I wanted to return to myself, that I wouldn’t hide from anyone anymore. But I still had a lot of secrets from myself.

I didn’t know the names of my aunts or cousins, I didn’t know exactly what happened to them. My new friends had to understand that I knew nothing about Jews. I wanted them to forgive me. I found myself in France as an adult, a student, in an environment where Jewishness was something almost unambiguously positive. It was helpful to contact the Jewish municipality in Strasbourg. I met “Jewish Jews”, their sense of identity was so natural! I identified with them as if it had always been my world. I clung to the new environment. When I met my future husband in France, I had already been well integrated with the Jewish student community. I even lived in Strasbourg in the so-called “Jewish Women’s Residence Hall”.

I went on my first trip to Israel in 1964. There I met my compatriots from Mińsk Mazowiecki. They had survived the war primarily in the Soviet Union. Their stories didn’t resonate with me. There was no line of communication between us, maybe because my experiences were different.

Do I or don’t I know?
I already know what happened to the Jews in Mińsk Mazowiecki, but I don’t know the exact history of my own parents.

I know a lot from my early childhood, from what I listened to and what I didn’t hear. I lived with my aunt and uncle in a small town. In the kitchen, I sat between my aunt and uncle. And I was around when they talked about what was happening in the city. I have a lot of information, though I can’t say that these are memories. Some information even comes from my dreams. I remember I had nightmares. The things I dreamed about were related to what I had really experienced. A lot of specific images: hiding in forests, wells, towers. Recently, I’ve read the testimony of a Jew saved from Mińsk Mazowiecki. He witnessed the extermination of the “Copernicus” camp, he was there before the camp was burned. Apparently, they tried to save several children from there, and ultimately only three girls survived. Most of the children taken from “Copernicus” were given to the Germans, and were murdered.

In my uncle and aunt’s apartment, a child who spoke Yiddish was hiding for several days. I remember my aunt giving me a beating: “You can’t speak this language or you’ll die!” And I did understand it. Because if they were putting me in the basement with cockroaches and rats crawling all over, I understood I was in grave danger…

They would stick me in a wardrobe full of clothes or in the attic—I remember those moments. I was two and a half or three years old. The threat wasn’t over when there were no more Jews in Mińsk Mazowiecki.

I’m not a poor orphan
I’ve  learned  to  believe  in  myself.  I’ve  had  a  lot  of  difficulty  in  life. I approached it completely unaware, but once it was there, I had no choice but to deal with it. I went to Israel, I didn’t know the language, I had to make a living, so I did. Nobody gave me anything. Divorced, I was responsible for the children. I had no family for most of my life. Except for my “uncle”, who gave me sweets when I was a child, and when he came to France in 1963, he worked in a factory so that I could finish my studies. Until the end of his life, until 1971, he worked in a Jewish factory as a worker. He wanted to be where I was…

When I was little, a lot of people came to the Jaszczukis’ and stroked my head, probably saying “poor orphan”… So I imagine… At one point, I decided that I didn’t want to be a “poor orphan”. I got brave. In class, I fought with boys, whoever teased me got a beating. Small or large… Anyway, one of those who got a beating from me still remembers it. I didn’t turn on the weak. To this day, I only take on the strong ones. I decided early on that nobody would feel sorry for me, nobody would pity me. But the problem remained. I was different inside. A child who’d seen too much…

I’ve realized recently that I’d been in a water tower. We probably were hiding there with my father or mother, because I had horrible nightmares about this tower. After the action, we had to flee so that the Germans wouldn’t catch us, because children were killed first. So, mother and father were hiding somewhere with their two little kids. I don’t exactly remember it, but I have strong emotions associated with this period. Now they come to the fore in poems and paintings. Whoever looks at my paintings, or even the photographs of my paintings, immediately asks what tragedy had happened to me.

It wasn’t until I started painting two years ago that I began talking about orphanhood. Because it is present in my paintings, in my poems… I opened up to my friends. For the first time, they asked me questions. A friend from Mińsk Mazowiecki, who’s known me for fifty-three years, is two years older than me, was surprised to hear that I had a sister. Apparently, I’d never mentioned it.

During my studies in France, it seemed to me that everyone pitied me. And—apparently—it was quite the opposite.

“Nobody pitied you, you had so many talents and so much confidence.”

“You didn’t know I was an orphan?” I asked recently…

“Of course not! You had an uncle, he came from Poland to you, you talked about him like he was your father…”

Now I don’t know if I was an orphan. I was and I wasn’t. I had foster parents. They looked after me, but I always felt different. Their mentality, their dreams, were alien to me.

Usurped identity
I spent years among people I didn’t belong with. In Poland, I was a “Jewish child”. I was an orphan and a survivor. I was different and adapted to it. My otherness wasn’t only because my foster parents were simple people, and I wanted to stand out. I also wanted to distance myself from the small-town mentality, so my independence wasn’t connected to social acceptance at all.

Otherness, or maybe internal alienation—I even felt it towards my friends. It came from my tragedy; from Jewishness that was pointed at; the transition from another world. I saw myself as a usurper of other people’s identities. They treated me as different too, although I tried to do what children like to do most, that’s what I learned. I knew I had to do better than others. To be more royal than the king, as the French say.

Student at the University of Physical Education
In Poland, I was very busy with sports. First, I was a school champion, I played volleyball in the winning team. The legend of Genia Jaszczukówna is still alive in the Mińsk school. I was a member of the national athletics team. For several years, I was the academic champion of youngsters and juniors, I was a shot putter, competed in the pentathlon.

I studied at the University of Physical Education in Warsaw. Until I got tired of learning new skills and felt that I didn’t need these studies to advance in sports. I stopped liking the UPE. I couldn’t swim but I was forced to do it. I had neither the body nor desire to do acrobatic gymnastics. So I took the entry exam for the law school. When I was a schoolgirl, they called me the advocate for lost causes. I couldn’t “keep my mouth shut” when something bad was happening in the classroom. I defended whoever needed it—even physically, and I reacted to every injustice. Someone once said: “Only a lawyer can express themself so clearly,” which led to the conclusion that I should study law. Choosing law… was I driven by the desire to defend the weak, the victim, an instinct for kindness towards people? I wouldn’t flatter myself so much.

I had to become a chameleon
To be a chameleon means to constantly adapt to the situation. A maximum effort to not differ from others. Keeping my inner separateness, for many years I had the need to excel in the environment where I lived.

In Poland, when I decided to forget about the unhappy child I was carrying inside me, I began to behave like a typical Pole. Because I was twelve, I wanted to be the best athlete to impress my friends. And not only them. I stopped being “Guta”, the crying child, and I became an admired sportswoman. People forgot that I was that “poor Jewish child”. The “Polish champion”—this title allowed me to forget or suppress… the former unhappy Guta.

I didn’t belong to any group
I didn’t leave Poland with any group, I didn’t go to the West when they were expelling people or inviting them. I went to France in 1961. Since here sports weren’t appreciated in the student community and intellect was, I became an “intellectual”. I graduated with honors, although I didn’t speak any French at the beginning. A voice inside me kept saying, “If you’re not admired, you won’t make it!” As if it was still a matter of life and death, I’ve always approached this matter with great intensity and seriousness. I’ve learned to live like this.

I went to Canada with my husband in 1968, and there were different challenges, different values. I adapted to them, but not as much as before. I already had a stronger personality. I became an academic and I still work as a law professor in Ottawa.

When I lived in Israel, I worked as a lawyer for ten years. I had to become a businesswoman. It was hard for me, but I behaved similarly to my colleagues at work. I dealt with specific matters. I wasn’t quite myself. Now, I don’t feel threatened and there is no problem whether I’m “the best” or “the worst”. I stopped being a chameleon all the time…

Seized by the dybbuk
After the war, we were starving. The Jaszczuk family was poor. We lived in Mińsk Mazowiecki, in a small town, so, of course, I had to dream… I imagined a different life.

The figure of my mother haunted me. She is present in my paintings. I think I always end up painting my mother. I feel part of her and she’s part of me. I paint myself too. And I paint her probably the way I know her from the photos, or maybe I remember what stuck with me: her eyes, hair, the whole figure. In Canada two years ago a friend happened to get me to go with her to painting classes. I went along. I didn’t have brushes in the first class, nor in the second.

Immediately after returning from a trip to Poland, where I was invited to give lectures on international commercial law, I decided to buy brushes and paints. And I went to the third class (for the group it was already the sixth one).

My specialty, commercial law, is specific and pragmatic. I was sure that I wouldn’t be able to say anything about it in Polish. I don’t know how it happened, but Polish words arranged themselves in the material that I’d learned in French and English. Polish came out although I knew the legal problems and terminology in completely different languages. After one day only, I didn’t need an interpreter. I could share my knowledge with the audience in their native language. It was quite obvious that I had to translate not only the language, but also the values so they were understandable in the local context. My listeners were overwhelmed. I felt almost all-powerful.

It was a return to my language, as if I had renewed myself in my own past: the Polish language, Polish school and Polish friends. I’ve been much closer to Poland since then.

In a painting class in Canada, my third lesson, you had to make a copy of a photograph. Looking at a photograph, I painted sunflowers, but my sunflowers were different, radiant with life. The sun came to me and opened the source of flame, touched on a place that had remained shut since childhood.

The instructor was amazed because in the previous class, I only doodled, and now I painted a watercolor that could enter a competition. It was then that I realized to what extent I had been unable to use my hands.

What I’d been doing up to that moment was intellectual, came from the head, it was double-checked, read, precisely uttered. Again, a brave spirit entered me. As if someone told me: stop pretending, you can do it, you can do anything. And finally something came out of my hands. I was surprised and delighted with my hand capable of painting a picture. So, to check myself (again, distrust of what I do and what I am), I started painting pictures after returning home.

It was a crazy night at home. And when I saw arms, legs, eyes on my canvases, I was intrigued by my Jungian adventure. Symbols appeared: a face on the tracks, a girl against two shadows and a window… I remembered that when I was a child, my adoptive parents would find me crying on the windowsill. Nightmares were with me then. I sat and cried, I wanted to go out the window… as if I was looking for someone, trying to follow something. A girl, a child. I had flashbacks to the years when I used to go mushroom picking—to be alone… All by myself, a seven- year-old, I walked through the woods.

Birds spoke to me in the woods. I had imagination! But at some point, it was extinguished. And it came to life again when I started painting. I saw birds in my paintings, some menacing, others friendly. They took me to another dimension. The crazy night went on.

It was strange, a person who had no idea about watercolor, painted with runny paints such expressive forms and these eyes… After two days, when I’d painted ten or fifteen paintings, I realized that I’d been seized by the dybbuk or maybe a Maggid. It entered me so that I could express the past that hurt so much.

I realized that I’d reached into my childhood memories and images. They’d never been been given a vent; forgotten, they hadn’t passed through consciousness; they stayed in the subconscious mind, but my eyes remembered… Hence, so many gazing eyes… Sesame opened for me.

These were the first images of a scared child: trains, mother’s face floating above them. I painted with a sure hand.

I finally understood the point of human desires or struggles with oneself. I wanted to understand how people could make a child go through what I went through. I could also comprehend the degree to which this child was able to overcome various difficulties, which someone else wouldn’t have coped with.

That first painting night, my daughter was studying for an exam. She saw what I was doing. She kept saying: don’t paint monsters. And monsters really did appear within a minute, because the watercolor painted “by itself”, I had no control over what I was painting.

My daughter was horrified. I told her that what I was painting was important, but I didn’t want to talk about the past. She wasn’t ready yet. She was afraid that I was falling into depression. And I thought that I was doing what was necessary, because all previous attempts to reconstruct the past using psychoanalysis or therapy were unsuccessful. I always felt that the person I was talking to didn’t get me at all.

Painting and what’s next?
When I started painting, for months I didn’t know what to do with it. My normal duties had nothing to do with it. I was afraid to show my paintings to my friends or people who knew painting. I understood that something extraordinary was happening in my life.

You ask, how others see these paintings?
A real estate agent, who had nothing to do with art or the era of the Holocaust, stood in front of the paintings and cried out, “This chills me to the bone!” She looked at the portrait of a child with huge blue eyes. She stood there and said, “This painting is pulling me into the abyss.”

I see my life as a gift. And at the same time, I think that I survived by accident. A mystical case. I feel like I have to fulfill something in this life, so that I can speak for the other people who weren’t so lucky and weren’t saved; so that I can look with their eyes.

Interview with Katarzyna Meloch.
The first edition was published in the book “Voices of the Past”, Ottawa 1994 (multilingual edition).