THE POETIC HILL
D Based in part on oral history, Nora Jean and Michael H. Levin’s “A Border Town in Poland” tells the story of Hirsch Bieler’s life.
of provinces on the border of Russia and Poland. It was here, in 1900, in the Polish town of Grajewo, that Hirsch Bieler was born. The stories he later told of his eventful life echoed those of many of his lost generation. Now, more than a century later, his daughter and her husband have “pick[ed] up the baton,” compiling his “painstakingly detailed tales” into a book that serves both as a memorial to him and a testament to the times he lived through. “A Border Town in Poland: A 20th Century Memoir,” as told to Nora Jean and Michael H. Levin, is the story of Bieler’s life, from his upbringing in Grajewo to his immigration to America just prior to World War II. And what stories he has to tell! Some of the most vivid involve Zelde, the ugly but clever crone who ran the town’s smuggling operation. Working as her courier helped him survive the poverty of his childhood—but also resulted in some hair-raisingly narrow escapes. After WWI, he became “a man without a country.” He fled to Germany, where a kindly family saved him from deportation by adopting him and helping set him up in the fur business. When that failed, he survived by selling oil to farmers. Unfortunately, the rise of Nazism eventually took its toll. People he’d known for years turned on him and his cit-
izenship was revoked. Thankfully, a contact in the oil business helped to get him a US visa and Bieler—now with a wife and young daughter— was able to come to America. Throughout his life, Bieler supported his extended family, but when Europe fell to the Nazis, he was unable to get them out. The final section of the book reprints their heartbreaking letters pleading for help, and his desperate but ultimately doomed attempts to provide it. None of his relatives in former Poland survived the war. The story of Bieler’s long life is one of displacement, resilience, loss, and hope. As the Levins write, “He shared his tales to make sure they would not be lost. He believed that through his telling, those lives would live on.” Thanks to them, they now do. The Levins are also the authors of “Two Pianos: Playing for Life,” a documentary about female Jewish musicians who performed during the Third Reich. www. twopianosplayingforlife.org u
by Karen Lyon
ana Gittings is a DC-area poet whose forthcoming collection, “The Dark Dance,” explores how a shared thread of compulsivity can, through the vehicle of writing, link alcohol consumption, intimacy, and the almost manic process of healing. Her poetry has been featured in “Abridged,” “Under the Basho,” and “Avatar,” the literary magazine of St. Mary’s College of Maryland, as well as in “INK BLOTS, Vol. 1,” an anthology from the DC Poetry Collective. As for her poetic inspiration, she says, “I write to find the final line. I write to feel in the dark for power.” Learn more at www.danagittings.com.
Searching We rise and fall to fill the incessant tick, tick of the silence, struggle all night against the weight of it crushing into the depths of the ocean between us. We dig in the sheets for a toehold, weather the seclusion of our private thoughts, rip our starving hearts wide open as the moonlight scooping crescents in our backs. We sail our gaze deep into the eyes for steady seas, keep watch until morning as the ship swells with the tides of our bodies, pulled side to side in probing hands. We search between trick and trap of our shifting angles to find each other, gaining ground with every glance over the shoulder. We don’t breathe out until the sun comes up, retreat to our distant cabins, two continents.
If you would like to have your poem considered for publication, please send it to klyon@literaryhillbookfest.org. (There is no remuneration.) u
December 2021 H 107
