I am a Tear of Joy and Sorrow

The memories of the past are a part of me. A part of who I am. Sometimes they appear before me as images from a peaceful time long ago, of growing up in a loving, stable home. Other times, as visions from a childhood abruptly cut short, of a collapsed society in a world shattered without warning. But I always return to the good of the present, to all of you, to life with my family, here, in this land. In the winter of 2006, I joined my dear grandson Yoad and his entire grade on 2 their school trip to Poland for the March for the Living . For eight days we were there. For eight wintry days I searched my country of birth for the sights and sounds that made up the backdrop of my childhood; for any traces I might have left there. Through the windows of the bus I could see frozen lakes, soaring trees, wild geese tearing through the skies, and white snow stretching as far as the eye can see. The bus passed by countless signs of villages and towns I knew from my past. I knew Jews used to live in them long ago. My thoughts took me to my hometown of Kamin-Kashyrskyi in the Volyn Oblast, which no force in the world could ever erase from my memory. Seeing the glare of the bright, white snow, I remembered the slippery hills, the small wooden slide with which I used to go down the slopes, and the sounds of laughter and joy which punctuated that time of my life. For a moment, I even thought I could hear someone calling my name… Mashinka… Mashinka… But no. Poland of today is a completely foreign land to me. There is nothing on its soil which I hold dear, nothing I miss, not a trace of the countless images I carry within me from the Poland of yore. The only thing left from it is my will to tell my story