Luke and Rachel met in The Warsaw Ghetto when both were fourteen. She was bored out of her mind one cloudy afternoon; she heard singing below her window, Die Moritat von Mackie Messer, or Mack The Knife. Luke sang to make money to feed his mother and little brother.
Luke was born in San Francisco. He told Rachel many stories about California, how wonderful it was, how he would return one day. Slowly over the months, they watched as death took their relatives and friends one by one. Luke promised Rachel in fifty years they would return to remember the dead. Rachel thought he was mad.
For fourteen months Luke and Rachel battled cold, starvation, being hunted as two of the wild children of Warsaw; their only comfort was physical intimacy and talk of the happy future they deserved.
The inevitable happened, Luke was arrested and sent to Sobibor; he witnessed murder on an industrial scale. Rachel fought in The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. She never saw it as heroic, only as the death of her happy childhood memories. Her connection with Irene Sendler saved her life.
In October, 1943 Luke escaped. When the two were reunited, Luke told Rachel he was leaving. He had enough of war and wanted to go home. Rachel agreed to go with him.
They traveled on a train shipping ammunition from Warsaw to Rome. They hid in Vatican City for six months. Rachel was three months pregnant when the Allies liberated Rome.
They gave their son away to a couple headed for Palestine. Luke joined the army and was sent to Germany; Rachel worked with the Jewish Agency and eventually went to San Francisco, California to raise money for ships to carry Jews, in secret, home.
Luke and Rachel met again in January 1946; they fell inlove, married, built a life for themselves and lived happily everafter; they named their four children born in the United States in honor of the dead. Luke headed a successful shipping company. He never spoke of the war again; Rachel headed the Jewish Federation, giving lectures on general life in the Ghetto and the Uprising. She never spoke of her shared experiences with Luke. It was something that was theirs, they refused to share.
One day they were united with their first child. He grew up knowing about them.
In 1992 Luke and Rachel traveled with their five children back to Warsaw. They went to the street where she grew up, it had changed. In her heart Rachel could see her old house, hear the voices of her parents and her siblings all long dead. She shared her fondest memories of them, spoke of how wonderful they were.
Then they went to Leszno Street, and found the very spot where they first met. Luke held Rachel as she wept. He began singing, Die Moritat von Mackie Messer; and, for a moment, they were two orphan children returning home, like he promised all those years ago.
Bio
Catherine Cahill was born in East Hartford, Connecticut. She worked for the State of Connecticut for thirty-one years, retiring in 2017, moving to Florida. Since then, she has devoted her time to training in Mixed Martial Arts and writing stories.
Comentários