Travel Tips

The Lucky OnesThe Story of My In-Laws' Last Minute Escape from Poland

Aron caught his first glimpse of Mala when she was 14. Aron, 23, the son of a well-to-do Jewish family in Kolo, Poland, was studying medicine, rabbinics and philosophy in Berlin. Mala had come to Kolo to stay with relatives, who took her along to a family wedding. She had a new dress on, in a beautiful shade of blue. Aron was there with his parents. Mala caught his eye. “Who is that pretty girl?” he asked. As she sat shyly in the corner, he came over and asked her to dance.

Four years later, they met again. By this time, Aron was a doctor and the talk of town as a respected and very eligible bachelor. They met on the bridge in Kolo, walking with their families. That same day, Aron went to a cousin who knew Mala’s family and asked to be introduced. He invited Mala to an elegant social gathering at the home of a friend, where she committed an unpardonable sin in those days: She rose from her seat when introduced to the hostess. A woman does not get up for a woman, the hostess told her in a whispered aside.

Mala and Aron spent six days together, meeting every day. They went rowing on the River Varta. They hired a motorbike and drove to Chelmno, then a pretty farming village, where they bought pints of sweet cream to drink. But again they were forced to part. Aron had settled in Palestine and was teaching at a school in Jerusalem. They met in the summers and corresponded for close to three years.

In the summer of 1939, Aron returned to Poland to ask for Mala’s hand in marriage. Her father had died when she was four, and her only memory of him was seeing him lying on the floor. He died of tetanus, for which there was no cure at the time. Aron went to her hometown, Przedecz, and met with her older brother, Haim Aurbach, who was like a father to her. The wedding was set for August 23.

To provide for the family, Mala’s widowed mother ran a fabric shop facing the town square. They lived in the back room. With her mother busy at work all day, Aron’s sister-in-law took Mala shopping in Lodz. They bought a fur coat, feather comforters and linens, and had several outfits made by a dressmaker. In those days, no money or jewelry could be taken out of the country. The town rabbi performed the ceremony. It was a small affair. Twenty or so guests gathered at the home of the rabbi and celebrated the marriage with cake and wine.

When they returned to Przedecz that evening, the maid, Chava, four years older than Mala, greeted them at the door. The next morning, the newlyweds awoke to shouting and crying in the streets. Soldiers were knocking on the doors with call-up notices for all able-bodied young men, Jews and non-Jews.

Aron had to get back to his teaching job by September, when schools opened. But Mala needed papers to leave Poland and time was short. Before traveling to Warsaw, where Aron was waiting, her mother Sara took her to the cemetery to visit her father’s grave. Sara wept and begged him to watch over their daughter.

Mala and Aron arrived at the consul’s office in Warsaw just as it was closing. Tension was running high. The British administration in Palestine had strict visa regulations and the lines were long. Aron stuck his foot in the door and managed to secure the required documents (not before Mala angered the consul by using a Polish word for “yes” that was considered overly familiar).

They returned to Lodz to pack up their things and say goodbye, never imagining that it was goodbye forever.

Mala and Aron boarded the train for Rumania on August 31, just as the doors were sliding shut. On September 1, 1939, as they set sail for Istanbul and then Jaffa, they heard the news: The Germans had invaded Poland. The world plunged into a hellish war that snuffed out the lives of millions. Those millions are not faceless. Among them were the families of Aron and Mala.