“Where would we be without Israel?”

By Monica Goodwin, Israel Advocacy Committee member

These words, “Where would we be without Israel?” were uttered to me by Eta Gluzband, showing how important Israel is to so many who had nowhere else to go.

From Volodymyr Volinsk (Ludmir), in hiding, to Kibbutz Dror Revivim to Lodz to Leipheim to Marseilles to Palestine on the “Exodus,” turned back to Hamburg to Palestine to Boston and now Marco Island.

In recent years, the history of the Jews of Ludmir has become the topic of reports. German and Ukrainian helpers murdered Ludmir’s Jews in three stages, 22,000 Jews in all. Three-quarters of the victims were women and children.

There was also the horror and mass shooting at nearby Piatydni, where 25,000 Jews were shot and put in a mass grave they had been forced to dig. Some were buried alive — a tribute monument has been erected in Israel.

On its retreat, the German army left no ghetto or labor camp behind and no Jews alive, so it was an honor and privilege to meet and interview Gluzband. And what a life! Born in Voldymyr Volinsky, Poland on Dec. 7, 1933, Gluzband was one of the few in that town to survive.

Monica Goodwin and Eta Gluzband

Ludmir was one of the oldest towns in Ukraine, with the Jewish community dating back to 1171. The area was known throughout the Jewish world for its rabbis and brilliant scholars. Its history is very interesting and Ukrainian and Polish attacks on the Jews were well known.

Gluzband’s father, Jacov Waisman, was a butcher. Her mother, Miriam Pilch, was a homemaker and, according to Gluzband, a wonderful cook. Her maternal grandparents, Malka and Haim Pilch, owned a carpentry shop. She had a sister, Have, who was four years older. All the aunts and uncles lived around them, and life was good until…

The town was occupied by the Soviets on Sept. 19, 1939, and by the Germans on June 23, 1941. It was then that her father said, “Time to go to Palestine.” However, the Germans started systematic roundups and shootings of the Jews.

When it started, the family hid in the attic. Gluzband’s father was shot when he stole down to get water for them. The Germans established two ghettos and, later, a third. The Living Ghetto was for Jews who had professions and could be useful to the Germans. The others were for those to be murdered. Her grandparents were amongst those shot. Gluzband’s aunt gave her mother a certificate indicating she was a seamstress, which allowed them to survive.

One cannot imagine the horrors a 5-year-old witnessed. Gluzband would ask if she could sleep in her dress as it made her feel more secure. In December 1943, when there was a largescale shooting, they were told to hide. Many people hid in bunkers but, by the morning, many had run away. Her uncle went to a Ukrainian family and was hidden under their house. When Gluzband went with her mother and sister, they were told there was only room for one more. Her mother chose her, and she was hidden in a barn for two weeks. However, she missed her mother terribly and ran back to the bunker. When the situation worsened, all three made their way back to the house in the middle of the night and the farmer’s wife allowed them to stay.

They hid under the house for seven months, until July 1944, when the Russians came and liberated them. When they emerged, the Russians exclaimed, “We did not know skeletons could walk.” Gluzband considered herself free.

Until that time, she had no schooling. She was 10 when she entered 1st grade in a Russian school. Her mother worked in a bakery, making rolls and selling them in the market until they moved to Lodz. It was there that she attended Kibbutz Dror Revivim. To help the Zionist movement, JDC financed a framework of Kibbutzim. One of the largest Kibbutz movements was in Poland and it prepared people for the pioneering life in Israel (to them, it was not Palestine).

It was touching to hear Gluzband state, “The Kibbutz was very good. It taught me to be a human being.”

They were then sent to Dror Revivim, a DP camp on the site of an airfield in the American-occupied zone, one of the 185,000 DP camps in Germany. It had a religious school and Jewish life was reborn.

In July 1947, they were trucked to Marseille, where they were to board the President Garfield, “The Chesapeake steamship that helped create Israel.” Destined for the junkyard, it was purchased by the Hagana to bring displaced Europeans to Palestine. Gluzband talks about the bunk beds and the oppressive heat in the hull where they were put. They were among 4,544 Jews on the ship, which set sail on July 11. Its new name, Exodus 1947, was unveiled at the time.

On July 18, the British attempted to board the vessel, boring holes in the sides and throwing in smoke bombs. Gluzband was overcome by the fumes. The boat was rammed repeatedly and eventually tugged to Haifa, where all the people on board were taken off the boat and sent back to Germany. Gluzband’s sister had gone ahead and was in an English prisoner of war camp in Cyprus.

The symbolism — Holocaust survivors, who were beaten, killed and denied sanctuary, helped spur support for the Jewish state.

Put on a Greek luxury vessel and smuggled back to Israel, Gluzband and her mother had to hide because Palestine was still under a British mandate. Later, they lived in tents in Carmel until they were given a one bedroom apartment in Haifa. Gluzband worked in the fields and was never so happy. She met her husband, Eliahu, a welder, when she was 14 and they married on May 24, 1951. They had two children, Yehezkiel (1959) and Rivka (1963).

“The happiest days of my life were in Israel,” said Gluzband.

Her husband wanted to emigrate to the States. He moved to Boston in 1967 and the family followed in 1968. Her mother and sister remained in Israel.

Gluzband went to beauty school in Boston and opened a salon. She now resides with her daughter and son-inlaw, Rivka Gluzband Mascoop and Elliott Mascoop.

It was in talking of Israel that Gluzband’s face lit up.

“I loved Israel. I loved everything about it – what’s not to love?” she said.

And when asked what she learned in life, she replied, “the lesson would be: thank God, thank God, we have a Jewish country.”

Eta Gluzband’s story drives home the importance of a homeland for Jews.

To that end, I hope our readers will circle the date of Nov. 16, when we have Lyn Julius talking about another aspect of Israel about which so little is known.