Once there lived a male named Aizik Kanovich

The sky was splendid blue. “So clear, roughly as transparent as a H2O in a yard of a residence in Jonava,” suspicion Aizik and sealed his eyes again. A few soothing snowflakes fell from a blue sky. It seemed we could count them. Like family members–snowflake Sara, snowflake Rosette, snowflake Joseph, and snowflake Bernard–one, two, three, four, counted Aizik with his eyes closed.

“Get a pierce on. Faster, come on, a sight won’t wait for you.” One could hear a relate of unrelenting urging.

“Aizik, Aizik, get up, we’re roughly there – one some-more step and we’re on a train. A tiny some-more and we’re home in Paris”, whispered Moris-Moisha Zuskind, focussed over his friend, holding his hands underneath his armpits so they wouldn’t freeze.

In his mind, Aizik was roving to his hometown, Jonava, and his local Žvejų street. Back to Dec of 1920 when he stepped over a threshold of his residence and proudly announced:

“Well, now we have a passport. Signed by burgermeister Ramoška himself. we can go.”

“When?” Shloime asked sensitively .

“Tomorrow I’ll buy sight tickets to Kaunas, afterwards residence a sight to Paris.”

“There I’ll wait for an American visa and–lo and behold–I’m in New York!”

Rokha (Rocha-Samuraj) and Dovid Kanovich, Solomon’s brothers Moshe-Yankel,
Aizik and Motl, sister Khava (from collections of Sergejus Kanovičius and Lisa
Abukrat-Kanovich)

Aizik let his dreams lift him away.

“And what will we do there?” insisted his elder brother.

“I’ll get off a boat in New York and, and, and…” Aizik was perplexing to consider of what he could do in a new betrothed land. In his mind’s eye, he could see himself walking down a gangway of a outrageous newcomer boat by a cabin windows of that thousands of identical eyes inspired for emptied dreams were looking into a splendid destiny underneath a skyscrapers.

“So what will we do when we get off that ship?” asked Shloime as if he could review Aizik’s mind.

“I’ll live!” retorted Aizik.

Even Motke pronounced nothing. That almighty mocker, who was never means to reason his tongue, called a punch by his hermit Shloime who pronounced that if Motke used his tongue for stitching rather than a needle, he could make a tailcoat even for a King of England. As for Shloime, he never favourite removing into a dispute. To him this was a rubbish of time and G_d’s punishment for idleness. Father, a cobbler Dovid Kanovich, was still too. Only his wife, Rokha-Samurai, who always argued with a universe and G-d himself, could not put adult with a fact Aizik was about to leave and, many probably, to never return:

“America, America, what a spectacle it is, miracles won’t feed a inspired man,” she said.

In a open of 1920, Aizik found himself in Paris, a city of adore and dreams. He usually schooled a few difference of French on a train. Polish, Russian and even Lithuanian schooled in a Babylon of Jonava were of no use here.

The American consulate met him frostily, though in a line he ran into Abraham who that unequivocally dusk introduced him to Morris who had left Jonava a decade ago. Because both of them were from a same city or for some other reason, Aizik and Morris shortly became friends. Morris had a tiny store over that he lived. He pleasantly offering Aizik a bed and, while Aizik waited for his visa, some work in a store.

“But all my French is ‘merci,’ ‘bonjour’ and ‘s’il vous plait,’” pronounced former cobbler from Jonava Aizik Kanovich, jealous his talents as a salesman.

“Don’t worry about it,” answered Morris, “when we came here that was all my French too. Besides, if we are not in Jerusalem, we are in Tel Aviv for sure.” He laughed.

“What do we mean?” Aizik seemed puzzled.

“This is a Tel Aviv of Paris, my friend. Most Jews live here, in a 10th arrondissement. If we get lost, ask for Rue Bichat, we can be certain you’ll be shown a way. And one some-more thing, we won’t unequivocally need any French as many of my clients pronounce a language, mame-loshn.”

The American Consulate was in no precipitate to assistance Aizik get from one city of adore and dreams to a other, opposite a ocean. So upheld his initial year in Paris.

“You wanted to go to America,” pronounced a flattering Sara-Maita in a rather reproaching tone.

“Well, we did,” smiled Aizik. “Je t’aime,” he pronounced and kissed his beloved.

Aizik had already lost that France was usually ostensible to be a center stop. Sara-Maita was now his America. America for life. Aizik has never been so happy. Not even behind in Jonava when he pecked his classmate Riva on a impertinence by a stream and whispered that he favourite her unequivocally much. Then Aizik was twelve and scheming for his bar mitzvah, and now… True adore found Izik Kanovich in Paris, a city of adore and dreams. That afternoon, his adore bought cinnamon and flour from him, smiled and pronounced “au revoir,” and never left his dreams.

“Dear Mom and Dad,” Aizik wrote to his local Jonava, “Sara and we have motionless to marry. we ask we for your blessing. we am adding a design of Sara. Your son, Aizik.”

Joseph was innate in 1931 and Bernard one year later. Little Rosette saw a universe in 1941. The family of 5 lived happily in their friendly French nest.

Aizik non-stop his eyes for a second. Before him was a face of his Paris neighbor Morris, fluffy and thin, with extending jawbones and droopy skin.

“Aizik, Aizik,” pronounced Morris rapidly. “Get up, let’s go. We’re going home. Wait for me, I’ll ask a soldiers for some bread and porridge and be right back.”

Aizik looked up, into a sky. A white snowflake resting on his eyelashes reminding him of his mom Sara-Maita’s gorgeous white dress, not even a dress, though a intricately crocheted veil. It began to sleet some-more heavily.

“Aizik,” pronounced Morris unequivocally sensitively on returning. “I brought some bread, they didn’t have porridge, since you…” Morris did not finish a sentence, he took a punch of a cut of bread he had brought with him and walked off. Morris blended into a throng of thousands of people only like him, solemnly walking from a fort of Auschwitz-Birkenau towards a sight ostensible to move them behind from ruin to Paris, a city of dreams and love.

Aizik remained fibbing on a road. The sirocco intensified. Snowflakes piled on him, covering his face with a white veil. Snow does not warp on a passed man.

When Morris got out of a train, Paris was still sleeping. His conduct was spinning. From trouble and freedom. From some blended images in that a fort and chimneys of Auschwitz churned with a beauty of a houses and churches of Paris, for a impulse a Eiffel Tower began to demeanour like a watchtower, a one that stood behind a barracks, and leafless hedges reminded him of spiny wire. Only a scents, a smells, would move him behind to reality; it smelled of pastries and freedom, of booze and kisses, of rain, not drenching, though warming. A few hours later, he was walking down a bustling streets of Paris. He walked past his tiny store.

It took a while before Morris found Joseph and Bernard. All a flourishing Jews were on their approach home. At slightest they suspicion this was where they were returning. In a place they used to call home, a walls awaited them and sparse family photographs… In some cases, even a furniture…

Yet this was no home, since many of those who had lived there had left their homes for good. A residence though people is not a home in Paris, Jonava or Amsterdam. Some people satisfied they would never find their home where it used to be until all ruin pennyless loose, and so sought their approach to a Promised Land, Eretz Israel.

Thanks to a Red Cross, Morris schooled that Aizik and Sara Maita’s boys were alive and vital nearby.

Bernard, a younger brother, non-stop a door. He didn’t immediately commend Morris who was svelte and looked old.

“Joseph, Bernard,” pronounced Morris, struggling to find a right words. “I have come to tell we that your father died on a approach to a train. He’s gone. I’m sorry.”

“What about Mother and Rosette?” a brothers asked in one voice.

Outside it was snowing. There were many snowflakes. The snowflake Rosette Kanovich melted in Auschwitz-Birkenau only brief of her third birthday. Her pleasing mom Sara-Maita melted a tiny earlier, in one of a women’s fort during Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Not a singular European Jew returned home happily; nothing of them were means to find their home on return.

Once on a time, though not so prolonged ago, there lived a male called Aizik Kanovich. He had dual sons, Bernard and Joseph, a daughter Rosette and a mom Sara-Maita. When we remember and contend that we remember, we do not remember numbers. we remember them. we will never forget them.

Sergey Kanovich is a Vilnius innate producer and essayist, owner of a Litvak Cemetery Catalogue “Maceva”. He is also owner of a NGO Lost Shtetl and originated the thought of a Museum of Lost Shtetl, currently handling a entire project. In 2018 he was awarded the Medal of Merits for Lithuania for his work in a margin of safeguarding Litvak birthright in a country.