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37
10thFebruary 1983
Melbourne, Australia
Istep out of the car and open the back door to help Mama from her seat.I’m fifty-seven years old and Mama is on the cusp of turning eighty.Both of us have grey in our hair, although I still have a lot less than she does.But we feel the aches and pains of ageing, and sometimes I wonder how Mama stays as young as she does, given all she’s been through.She’s wearing her best burgundy dress with the sash around her waist.
When Tata died, she seemed to shrink a little bit.But she forged on, determined to keep living for her grandchildren, for us.She missed Jadzia and Danuta at first.They stayed behind in Poland, and we’d only see them once every few years.Nathan arrived here before we did and has been a source of great comfort for Mama since his father’s death.
Since then, Jadzia and her family made the journey down under as well, but we still long to see Danuta’s face more frequently.Mama does too.I can tell by the way she lingers over phone conversations with her or gazes out the window at the horizon whenever the sun turns pink in the afternoon.
I still think of Danuta often myself and wonder how our lives might’ve been if we’d stayed behind in the Warsaw I used to love.
So much time has passed since those days when I sprinted through the ghetto carrying a backpack full of supplies to the people who needed them.But I’m thinking of those times now, since we’re finally here at the ceremony.
Nerves flutter in the pit of my stomach as Nacha takes my arm.I walk with both Nacha and Mama through the crowds and into the conference centre.The auditorium is full, and I wonder what else people have come to see because surely they couldn’t all be here for me and Mama.
Andrew, Mark and George came in a separate car, and they hurry through the crowd now to where Mama, Nacha and I have found reserved seating in the front row with our names on them.Mark is my half brother, but only a few years older than my own children.He acts more like a cousin to them than an uncle.He wears the solemn eyes of a war refugee combined with the larrikin spirit of an Australian in a way I never will.
He is too young to know any of the troubles we faced then, and we bear the blame of not telling him more about his past.Sometimes the pain is better left behind.But there’s a healing in the telling, something I’m only learning now.
Jadzia, her husband and family are there already there.Her children are grown.They, along with Nathan and his wife and family, take up an entire row.A band plays soft, lilting music on the stage.Bright lights illuminate the auditorium, and people chatter loudly as they find their place in the stadium seating that faces the stage.
Journalists stand with microphones held at their sides on either end of the stage.Cameras with camera operators focus their large lenses on the journalists, who fix their hair or speak to their producer with one finger to an earpiece.
Everything is in place, and I can feel the sweat streaming down the centre of my spine.Facing off with the Gestapo didn’t bother me as much as this does.
A speaker strides onto the stage.He has a brown moustache and brown wavy hair brushed back from his face.It touches his collar.A thick blue tie is tight around his neck, and a pale blue shirt is tucked into tartan pants.
The ceremony begins when he clears his throat and steps up to the microphone.
“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to this special celebration.Today Yad Vashem recognises Waltrina Wierzbicka-Kostanska and her son Janek Kostanski as Righteous Among the Nations for their inspiring work smuggling food and supplies into the Warsaw ghetto over many years during the Second World War.”
He continues speaking, eyes firmly fixed on me and Mama, with a smile plastered to his face beneath that twitching moustache.It’s as though he’s talking about someone else.
I’ve tried to push many of the memories of that time from my mind, to bury them beneath far happier ones—our wedding, the day each of the boys was born, their first steps, the morning we got the letter about our refugee visas to Australia.
Innumerable happy times now bully the trauma into submission and keep it well below the surface of my conscious thoughts.But this ceremony is dragging every single recollection back to the surface like fingernails on a blackboard.
Every now and then, the man pauses for effect in the narrative, and the audience applauds and cheers.Mama and I aren’t used to this kind of recognition.We’ve had none for so long, and we never thought we deserved any.I feel tears pricking the corners of my eyes.Mama reaches for my hand and squeezes it.We exchange a look that says,Can you believe this?
Nacha holds tight to my other hand.I’m infinitely glad they’re both here.I’m not sure how I would’ve managed to get through the ceremony if they weren’t here to ground me in the reality of this moment rather than diving headlong into the past.
Andrew and George are adults now.They sit beside me, straight backed, as they listen to the strange retelling of my own life story while I yet live and breathe.I watch them both for a moment.They’re transfixed.They haven’t heard many of these stories.Only a few.And even then, they didn’t pay much attention, since it was Dad doing the telling.They couldn’t take it in, couldn’t understand what it must’ve been like.We’re so far removed from that now and their lives are so different to what mine was in an infinite number of ways.
After his speech, it’s time for me and Mama to go up onto the stage.We climb the stairs together, her hand in mine as I steady her ascent.We walk together to the microphone.The man is smiling at us both, urging us forward.We face the audience, and I feel a lump fill my throat.
If only you knew, I think as I stare out at them.If only they knew what it felt like to reach into my soul and pull out the truest form of love a person can find—the love of one person willing to risk it all for the sake of another.
The greatest love of all is when someone will lay down their life for their friend.And I was ready to do it day after day because love is what drives me, and love is the one thing worth dying for.
I carry that love still, in the memories that line the deepest recesses of my heart, in the twinkle of my wife’s eye, and the sincerity in my sons’ smiles.It was worth it, I want to say.And I would do it all over again for a love like that.
But I can’t find the words.They don’t roll off my tongue in this language the way I’d like them to.So instead, my speech is brief, stilted, as the English words tangle in my throat.
Mama says a few words as well, and her voice is clear and strong.But she finds the language as hard as I do.So we wave and smile with tears in our eyes as the entire auditorium stands to their feet in one sudden movement and cheers.I’m overwhelmed.
How can it be that so much hate existed in the same world as this love?
