[page 341]

We all remember him, our dear teacher Nahum Okser. We met him in the twenties, at the Jewish Community School on Koznowski Street (opposite the Catholic Church). The Austrian Monarchy had fallen apart, and our town Brody, in the north of Galicia on the previous Russian border, had become a Polish city after 150 years of subjugation. But the city atmosphere was from the old days, and we felt this at school. Our first teachers, Wildholz and Okser, still clung to German culture, and their lessons were in that language.

Other teachers, such as Arnold Moscisker and his wife, and the school Headmaster, Philip Ashkenazi, already preferred Polish and even forbade [us] quite firmly to speak Yiddish.

The first to captivate our hearts was Mr. Nahum Okser--an elderly person, short, fattish, but with a beautiful face, pink cheeks with a little white pointed beard. Behind his gold-rimmed spectacles were his good, merry, smiling eyes. Such was our teacher for Scriptures and Hebrew (Loshen Kodesh). He used to start his lesson with a literal translation (from Hebrew to German) from Genesis: "In the beginning God -- Elohim -- created -- bara' -- heaven -- ha'shamaim -- and earth -- ha'aretz -- " and we, his little pupils, repeated after him word for word. In teaching Hebrew he also had a special method, with questions and answers, such as: "I am standing. What am I doing?" "You are standing." This was followed by exercises in grammar, such as: "My book, your book," etc. And indeed, the two basic subjects we learned from Mr. Okser were the Pentateuch and the Hebrew language.

Among the city's public institutions such as the Jewish community school, the people's kitchen, the old-age home, and the hospital, the Orphan Home was the most prominent. This was due to the management of its Director, Mr. Nahum Okser. For Mr. Okser was not only a teacher at the local school. His main activity was the Orphan Home at 25 Goldhaber Street. At noon, when school lessons ended, Okser would assemble his pupils and, just as he had brought them to school in the morning, he would take them back to the Orphan Home, at which he was both Director and educator.

I remember the Yiddishes Weisenhaus [Jewish Orphan Home] of Brody: A large building with a kitchen, a spacious dining-hall, two separate sleeping halls--one for the boys and one for the girls--the management office, and the living quarters of Mrs. Okser and the lovely Ms. Sarah Ehrenkranz. Sarah had grown up in that very same Home and remained as economic manager. Eventually, she married Mr. Okser when his first wife passed away. Although there was a great difference in age between them, they managed an exemplary family life and together were dedicated to their common goal, namely the education of the orphans, for whom they cared with much love just like the love parents give their own children.

[page 346]

   My small window
   Is my whole world here
   Through the window I will look
   and see the cherry blossom.

   The world is bright with color.
   Flowers fall from the tree
   Becoming white.  Green
   the small blackberry bush.

   In the morning the nightingale will sing
   And towards my window he will cry
   Oh, I'm sad, sad am I
   About your sad and painful life.

   The locust, the musician of May
   On the glass will burst into song
   Oh, my child, it will buzz,
   The time of your youth has passed.

[page 350]

Fanya Zorne:

The Polish woman with whom I hid told me about an "Aktsia" (Action) against children aged 3-5 in Radziwilov (near Brody). All the children were thrown in sacks and the Germans shot into the sacks, after which they were buried in the ground. The ground continued to move for a while thereafter.

   Alas, German Mothers
   Who so love their children
   They give not a sword
   But bread with butter.
   They fill their bellies
   While our children die--
   Not even a slice of bread
   Like cats sick with hunger,
   In ditches, in ghettos of death
   to fill quotas.
   With no excitement
   You hear this news,
   No twinge in your heart.

   If were taken from you
   Your beloved children
   Your blonde-headed children . . .

   Apparently, here have returned
   The days of the Tartars!
   If you could hear the screams go up
   And then see the piles of bodies;
   If you could feel the pain of the mothers
   Torn from their babies--
   Would that in strange lands,
   In camps, in ghettos
   Burning with longing
   You'd die at forced labor
   In poverty, misery.

   Alas, German mothers,
   You cannot feel.
   Your hearts are stone.

         April, 1943

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