Excerpts from "An Old, Jewish Woman" (church, experience)

[Djamila]

Excerpts from "An Old, Jewish Woman"
BY: SARA ISAKOVIC

"The Jewish faith was something that, from a very young age, I associated with calmness. It did not seem to matter where our religion brought us, be it down the hill to the Synagogue or up the hill to my Aunt's spacious home, it was calm. There was quite a contrast between our religious observance and that of our neighbors.

The Catholics had their confirmation ceremonies and for an entire afternoon there would be a parade of 17-year-old girls in flowing white gowns walking up and down the street, from one house to the next, to a glorious and noisy climax at the Church. The Orthodox Christians had their separate Easter and Christmas celebrations, which could not pass without some loud, festive celebrations. And the Muslims. My life has taken me far beyond the city walls of Sarajevo and I can say, in all my experience, I have yet to witness a people who can throw a party quite like the Muslims did when I was a little girl. By their tens of thousands, they made even the most insignificant religious day of note pass in a more grand fashion than even the most sacred holidays of the others.

And then there was us, with our silent candles and whispered prayers. Our religious holidays came and went unnoticed save a warm greeting from the dearest friends."

"I was different from the other girls and I lamented this a great deal as a child. Girls can be quite cruel to one another, whether intentionally or not, and the days I spent at school were days spent in what I thought at the time was misery. As we grew older and our conversations changed from toys and games to boys and marraige, I alone grew more and more unhappy. Though my mother insisted I was the most beautiful little girl in the world, I taught myself that I was unattractive. I convinced myself that because my body was not as tall and slender as the Muslim girls, my hair not as soft and shiny as the Christian ones, I was not the type of woman any man would marry.

When I was 15 years old, Samra Vrancic married. In our class, which felt for all the world like the only sphere in which life existed, Samra was Queen. She was, and remains immortalized in my memory of her, the very definition of beautiful. When she walked, her hair moved in such a way I believed there were little, Muslim angels holding each strand and waving it with every step she took. As with everyone Samra said or did, the other Muslim girls soon followed. Every Saturday afternoon brought a new wedding procession through the streets, and every Monday morning another desk sat empty."

"It is a strange fact the mind envies death and becomes tired of life. Today, I look back with considerable envy directed towards those Jews murdered during the first years of the Shoah. I even view with some jealousy those who got off a train and waited for the showers to start at Auschwitz and Birkenau. For them, death came quite unexpectedly and they never truly knew the magnitude of what had befallen them.

That luxury was not afford to us. By the time the first German soldier stepped inside Sarajevo's city walls in April of 1941, we were already painfully aware of everything that had happened elsewhere and would soon happen to us. We knew. It is impossible for a human being who has never experienced such a hopeless existence to understand how it truly feels.

The young and strong joined the army. The old and weak stubbornly accepted their fate. The rest of us fled, both physically and emotionally, in circles. On September 2, 1941, the uncle of Samra Vrancic burst into our home with a frantic expression on his face. Without a word my father threw his jacket across my shoulders and my mother clumsily pressed a load of bread and some money into my hands. Samra's uncle tore me from my mother's embrace and led me out into the street.

The Muslim women, who normally walked with a refined elegance, were running. As strange as it might sound, I had never seen a Muslim woman run and the sight of it terrified me. I heard doors locking, windows shutting, and then there was silence. There was no sound but our footsteps and excited breaths. Years later I made Samra's uncle tell me what had happened to my family. A group of three soldiers went to my house and shot my father the moment he answered the door. My mother was stripped naked, raped, and dragged out into the street. She was kicked and beaten with the rifle butts until they bored of their little game and shot her dead. While I with Samra's uncle drinking coffee, and admiring a beautiful toy doll. I think I even smiled."

More later!