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Singing Jewish Songs she Once Thought Would Be Lost Forever
Music and song have always been important to Tubia. It was singing that helped her through the difficult days during World War II; it is singing that eases her plight today.
Born in Yasinovka, a shtetl in the Bialystok region of Poland, like thousands of other Polish Jews Tubia found herself fleeing the Nazis by escaping to Russia. After weeks of hiding in a forest and subsisting only on berries, Tubia then found "safety"; she spent the next three years performing hard physical labor as a construction worker in the Ural Mountains. Tubia and 20 other refugees were housed in a heatless barrack and forced to work from dawn until dusk paving roads. For those three years her daily diet consisted of 400 grams of bread, watery soup and lumpy porridge. But a singing group that she helped to form made the hunger, the loneliness and the harshness of labor bearable. "We really started our little group because we were bored and needed something to do," says Tubia. "I never imagined that singing would end up being my salvation. It gave me something to look forward to every day. It made me forget for a moment or two the terrible situation we were in." Today Tubia, 84, suffers from a litany of medical ailments that includes severe arthritis and frequent heart and head spasms. Her family consists of two children, both of whom live far away. Everyone else was killed during the war. And despite her "above average" pension of $130 per month, Tubia struggles to get by every day. Assistance from the JDC-sponsored Hesed Menorah social welfare center of Yekaterinburg provides Tubia with daily hot meals, medical assistance, and what is most important to her — dignity. "There is no government help for the elderly," she says with disgust. "Thank God for Hesed. They are the only ones who care. They are the only ones who treat the elderly with the respect we deserve" As if time has come around full circle, it is music and song that are once again helping Tubia through difficult times. She has formed a vocal group at the local Hesed. The group sings Jewish songs — songs once sung in her childhood, and thought by many never to be heard again. "These are songs that remind us who we once were," says Tubia, adding that she is particularly grateful to be singing with other Jews. "It has given my life meaning. We have little time left, but the time we have is now rich and full." July 2006 |
