Gefilte Fish

Gefilte Fish

By Helen Schamroth

‘Gefilte Fish’ was first published in Mixed Blessings: New Zealand Children of Holocaust Survivors Remember, ed. Deborah Knowles, 2003.

This is one of a series of fictionalised short stories inspired by the lives of Helen Schamroth’s parents, Martha and Feliks Ash. Martha grew up in Zloczow, Feliks in Warsaw. Each had been previously married but lost all immediate family member during the Holocaust. Martha and Feliks married in 1944, a month after they met. Helen was born in Crakow in 1945.

The family left Poland in 1946, arriving in Belgium via Czechoslovakia and France in 1947. After living in Brussels for two years they emigrated to Australia in 1949 and lived in Melbourne. Helen’s sister was born in Melbourne.

Starting with nothing except his eternal optimism, Feliks established a clothing factory that provided a haven for new immigrants. He employed up to 350 people at one time. Martha helped Feliks establish the business, then became well known in her own right as an artist. Helen moved to New Zealand, newly married to a New Zealander, in 1968.

Martha and Feliks died in 1996 and 1985 respectively.

Brussels 1946

Steam wafted from the cooking pots and the fishy smell made Genia feel light-headed. More than six years had passed since she had seen so much food in a kitchen. Six years of nightmares. No, not just nightmares: six years of vicious reality. Six years of war, of hell. Loss, pain and so much hunger. Then months of trying to get away from it all.

Magda tried to remove the slippery fish heads from a deep pot without burning herself. 

“Genia, please help me,” she called in French. 

Genia obliged. The eyes of the cooling carp clouded over and jelly started to form on the plate.  She ran her finger over the edge of the dish as she always did as a child, and licked it. The taste was not quite right. 

The voices of the women seemed to float over her as she remembered the kitchen of her childhood. 

Zloczow, 1925

Genia is nine years old and is cooking with her mother, who is holding a ball of minced fish as she tries to wipe her brow with the back of her hand. 

“Genushka, please find my handkerchief and wipe the fish off my nose for me. I will smell of carp forever if I leave it.” 

Genia digs deep into her mother’s pocket and finds the tiny starched embroidered square Zosia always keeps there. Solemnly she pats her mother’s face, trying not to laugh at the sight of her elegant mother with a lump of fish perched like a big pimple on the end of her nose. How beautiful her mother is, thinks Genia. Even with fish on her nose.

The food is for Pesach. The first night is always spent with her mother’s family and Genia knows that anyone who has nowhere to go for the Pesach meal will eat with them on the second night. Being a widow with only a little money earned in her millinery shop never stops her mother from being kind and generous. Somehow all the lonely Jews in Zloczow will find their way to Zosia’s home. It’s like having a big family for one night of the year.

Zosia starts early in the day, mincing fish with boiled eggs, raw eggs, onions and crumbled matza into a huge bowl, adding what seems like an enormous amount of salt and white pepper. Genia is allowed to mix it all with her hands before rolling enough oval fish balls to feed a very large number of people. Then they are boiled in fish stock that is sweet and salty at the same time. Genia’s last job is to decorate each boiled ball with a piece of cooked carrot before it is cold and the jelly has formed over it. 

Then Zosia insists that they take some food to the local orphanage. It’s what they do before every major Jewish holiday and every birthday. For Genia that is normal.

Brussels 1946

But what was normal now? Was it normal not to have her mother cooking with her? Was it normal to live in a house of bickering women who couldn’t make a single domestic decision without a screaming match? Why did they stop arguing and stare at her when she came into the room? She felt worlds apart from these women.

Today’s argument was over seasoning the fish stock. Sonja dipped a spoon into the liquid, trying to decide whether it was ready for the fish balls. 

“I don’t know, it needs something,” she muttered in Yiddish as she slurped from the spoon. 

“Salt,” called Magda, “you never put enough salt!”

Sonja turned to her, eyes blazing. “What do you know about anything!”

“You know nothing!” retorted Magda. “You want it to have no taste?”

Genia listened, bemused by these ridiculous women making so much fuss about so little. She remembered how it was always so calm and quiet in her mother’s kitchen, often with just Dusia, the maid. They were such good cooks. 

Zloczow 1941

Kind, kind Dusia, who has worked for Zosia since Genia was a baby, but who, after more than twenty years finally chooses to look after herself. Dusia who spends patient hours with the infant Genia while Zosia makes and sells hats to fussy customers; Dusia who rolls pastry and lets Genia play with the scraps; Dusia who in 1940 flings herself in front of a small boy and challenges the gun-toting hooligan to kill her, but leave this defenceless child alone. She suffers for this. Zosia nurses her maid back to health and Dusia declares her gratitude, often. 

But the maid is nowhere to be seen during the morning when Zosia, beaten and bloodied, is led away by the Gestapo.  

Genia, who is hiding within earshot at the critical moment, doesn’t know what to do when her mother calls out, “Stay where you are”.  Dusia has gone out – who knows where. Maybe someone in the street has talked to her about what has been going on. The maid returns briefly and Genia hears her helping herself to some of Zosia’s possessions. She hears her mother’s treasures bundled into a bag and feels helpless.  She knows that Dusia could betray her to the authorities if she chose to. Later Genia learns that Dusia has left the embattled town and gone to the mountains. They never see each other again.

Brussels 1946

Genia tried to shut down her memories. She didn’t want to remember how totally alone she had been when the maid left, nor how few valuables were left to trade for food.  

The argument in the kitchen was in Yiddish, most of which escaped Genia, but she could guess what was being said. She waited for a pause, then volunteered in French, “The way my mother made gefilte fish she …”  

The startled looks made her pause. 

A moment later she continued. “She used to make it sweet, like everyone in Galicia. Maybe you make it the Warsaw way, more salty. That is how Mietek had it when he was a boy.”

Silence.

Magda moved towards her, eyes pricked with tears. Genia looked puzzled. What had she said?

“I’m sorry,” Magda sobbed, “do you know how wrong we were? I am so ashamed.”  She flung her arms around Genia’s neck.

“For what?”

“We were sure that our cousin Mietek had married a shikse. He has no other family to worry for him anymore. And when he came to Brussels with a blonde blue-eyed wife who spoke such educated Polish, we were sure you couldn’t be Jewish. Not you, nor your baby Lusia. It seemed so sad. I am so, so sorry.”

The women abandoned their cooking and crowded around Genia, hugging her and smearing their wet tears on her cheeks. 

“How could we know?” said Lilka. “Look at you, with your aristocratic nose and your Polish style. And you don’t speak Yiddish.” 

“That’s what saved me,” said Genia. 

“We assumed …” 

“We will teach you to speak Yiddish,” insisted Magda. “No more will you be outside the family”.

Genia submitted to their embraces. It was better to have this family than none at all. She would learn to speak their way and to cook their way. What else could she do?