By March the weather had warmed up and roofing work was getting underway. I signed on with a small company run by a man named Shenker. He had a shop near to the HIAS building on Third Avenue and his jobs were mainly on the Lower East Side, laying new roofs on older walkup buildings.
That week something wonderful happened when my old bunker buddy, Sroel the tailor, turned up on my doorstep. What a miracle! He had left our old bunker camp days before it was discovered, but later captured and held by a group of Banderovtsy. They had kept him with them in the forest, sewing clothes for the rebel fighters, but now he had escaped.
I told him that Tateh and Lonye were both away with the army, and that I was living here with the Peckers. Since Sroel had no place else to go, I invited him to join our living arrangement.
The old Jewish community center, the Beth Am, is still standing, nowadays serving some other purpose. Gone is my family’s apartment block, and others nearby, replaced by new construction. Down the way, on the other side, I see a familiar basement door with worn steps leading down from the street. It is painted blue now but I immediately recognize it as the entry to the basement shop where my father had plied his trade as a tinsmith, a blecher as we said in Yiddish.
Max points to a freshly painted, stately old building, explaining it had been the house of Rabbi Judah Drimmer, the last rabbi of Skala. After the Nazi takeover in July, 1941, the rabbi’s home became the headquarters of the Judenrat, the council of Jewish community elders set up by the Germans.
As we wrote out the lessons, the melamed walked around and watched over our shoulders. He was known a tough disciplinarian. If you made mistakes or worked too slowly you could expect a jab in the ribs from his bony fingers or, worse, a rap across the knuckles with the ruler he carried.
This time as he made his rounds of the classroom, he stopped behind me, leaned in close and whispered, “Stay inside today during the afternoon break. We are going to have a talk about your attitude.”
Gulp! I was in for it now.