Colby Magazine Volume 90 Issue 4 Fall 2001 Article 10 October 2001 Indomitable Subtext Stephen Collins Colby College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/colbymagazine Part of the Peace and Conflict Studies Commons Recommended Citation Collins, Stephen (2001) "Indomitable Subtext," Colby Magazine: Vol. 90 : Iss. 4 , Article 10. Available at: https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/colbymagazine/vol90/iss4/10 This Contents is brought to you for free and open access by the Colby College Archives at Digital Commons @ Colby. It has been accepted for inclusion in Colby Magazine by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ Colby. Though no one ,,·ho knows her ,,·ould Roisman, arriYed from Israel. Her research and other]ews. But my fa mer could not talk describe Professor of Classics Hanna Rois­ and writing have fo cused on motivation-on about it at all, fo r it pained him too much." man as com·entional, her life has all the what makes classical characters tick. "\Vhat For bom parents it was a second mar­ trappings of normalcy and success in turn­ is unsaid is often more important than what riage. Eugenia Zaphir was born in me of-the-century America. Granted, reYie,,·s of is said," she said. Ukraine and Leon Maslowski in me Silesia her latest book suggest the way she is inter­ \\'hat fe w colleagues and students know region of Poland. Each had a fa mily before preting the classics is extraordinary. Her is Roisman's own subtext: her exu·aordinary ·world Wa r II. ex-pectations in the classroom seem tougher fa mily history. Much of the tragedy, oppres­ \i\Then the azis came to round up than aYerage. And her penchant fo r bridging sion and betrayal is unspoken because of the Jews in me Ukrainian town of Yanov, her modesty and profes­ where Roisman's mother uved, Eugenia sionalism. Some is simply and her infant daughter-Hanna's half-sister, unspeakable. Shoshana-were away trying to get milk fo r In an office she is using me child. They managed to hide in the woods as a visiting scholar at Cor­ fo r days and men headed fo r Krakow, Poland. nell niversity during a Roisman's fa tl1er was captured as a POvV sabbatical, and later in the early in me war and spent five years in comfort of a sumptuous concentration camps and working as a slave rented house nearby in laborer fo r tl1e Germans. For a whjle he Ithaca, she agreed to sit was in Auschvvitz-Birkenau. "He must have down and talk about her been a strong man to be fo r five years in me years growing up in post­ various camps and not sent to be gassed," war Poland, her immigra­ Roisman said. tion to Israel and her life as But while they sill\rived, both of Roisman's a child of Holocaust sw•ri­ parents lost fa mily. Her mother's first hus­ vors. Nluch of her story was band, who had joined me resistance, was shot told matter-of-factly. Occa­ when 1 azis fo und his bwlker in the woods. sionally memories would Roisman's grandmomer Ham1a Schlager was gush out, evoking smiles gassed in me deatl1 camps. and laughter; at otl1er times Of her fa mer's fa nuly, h·e alone survived her quavering voice trailed the war. His firstwif e and tl1eir fo ur chil­ off, sentences unfinished, dren-Roisman's half-bromers and -sisters, memories inex'j)ressible. ages 3 to 14--were all killed in tl1e Nazi In I'J-5-:'. hortf, · l}(:filf'e thr�, - l'llli!£rrltedfimn Poland to "You have to remember deam camps. "I would love to know. I had lsml'!. /(oislllfln ri!!h t tmsed ll'illi lwr l/([(rsister Slwslwna mat I am not a survivor of fo ur siblings. I tluJLk: it was bom ways: he ' ru11/ lwr 11/ntlll l l.n!!l'llia. in fimll '!f t!w e.q1ansire IIC'II' tl1e Holocaust, but a child didn't want to talk to protect me, and to ,.,,/tnrul 1·r·ntr•r ul II ursrur. /)urin!! II odd II ar /1 DI!!C'IIia of tl1e Holocaust, a child talk about children who were killed-I don't und "/ws!tru/11 11'1'1'1' si'Jillf'lltl'd. hut t/11�1 - both surrired t/1(' of surYivors," she began. know-I can't-" Her voice broke. !lnlrlf'ullst ([fl(/ trr•n• r•n•utuuf�,- f'f'llllited. "There are many Israelis "Sometimes you can find in me ancient cLw,icJI Jin.:rature and popular culrure ha� and jews around the world who are the chi!- literature cases in which you can understand gorren ">Omerem,trL tble auention. But as drcn of T lolocaust sur\·ivors, and it has an the rage I fe el when I read about the Holo­ a te;Jcher, scholar, '' riter, mother and '' ife, impact on all of us. The horror of our par­ caust. Because what I fe el is rage. The world ROJ.,man "'' model of success, balancing ent�' e\pcricncc� is always lurking in the stood there watching." L1 m1h life 11 1th an academ1c career based on background, 11 hethcr they talked about it or After their narrow escape in the Ukraine, her pa .,ion fo r classical hterarure. not. In m� case it 11·a� my momer, Eugenia Roisman's mother managed to get fa lse doc­ ROJ.,nun h'" uught at Colb� '>IliCe I<)<)(), Z,tphir, "ho thought it ll'as important that f uments in Poland that said that she and 11 hu1 ,he .m d her hu,h;lnd, Profe.,.,orJo .,eph .,hould kno11 11 hat happened ro her, my fa ther Shoshana were Aryan, and fo r three years 18 A they survived the German occupation and the woman and sent her packing. the Holocaust. "The odyssey of her survival, "At the time-I was only six-my imprisonment, escaping from prison is mother didn't think she could worthy of many hours of story telling," Rois­ explain why my beloved narmy man said. Eventually mother and daughter was fired, and I raged against were separated when Eugenia had to give her with all a child's sense of Shoshana up to hide her from the Nazis. She outrage and hau·ed. \Nhen I was was placed with a Polish-German nanny-a old enough to learn whatmy Catholic woman who was inso·ucted to raise nanny had done, it was a terrible the blond-haired, green-eyed girl to pass as shock," Roisman said. Aryan and Christian. At the end of the war, vVhat the woman had done a only after an intensive search, the mother decade earlier was only revealed and daughter were reunited. to Roisman's parents in the mid- It was during the search fo r surviving 1950s. They learnedthat, rather fa mily members that Roisman's parents met. than protecting Roisman's half­ They were married, and in 1948, before sister during the war, the nanny Ham1a was born, they tried to emigrate from , Is a young girl in posl-ll"ar Poland. Rois111a11 had tried to turn Shoshana over Poland to the newly fo unded Jewish home­ learnedclassica! tnytholog\ -ji·om her be/aced Po/is!t­ to the Gestapo. Only the girl's land of lsrael. But they were denied. CemJCl/1 nan11_1: ll"ho also told Ca tholic stories that fa ir hair and green eyes had saved The climate for Jews in Poland remained 111igftt !telp thP liffle girl pass as Cltristian �/ onot!ter her. Finally the true explanation purge of t he ./e11·s II'Pre to occur. as 111an l fe ared. It threatening. Those who survived the Holo­ of why Shoshana had gone to live IC011ld later be rercoled t!tat It er caretaker betrr�)·ed caust were the subject of state-supported with people in the moumains had prejudice and harassment, and Jewish fa m­ been repeated. But fo r a 6-year­ ilies fe ared that another Holocaust could nanny, and she had only a child's com­ old it was incomprehensible. happen at any time. When Hanna was born prehension of the politics and hatred that In 1957 the fa mily finallywas permitted her parents had her baptized as a Christian, still existed. It was this nanny, beloved and to go to Israel as part of a wave of immi­ and the same nanny that had taken her half­ trusted, who introduced Roisman to the acts gration sparked by more government-backed sister during the war was engaged to care of heroism and betrayal in classical mythol­ anti-Semitism in Poland. That and subse- fo r the new infant and to teach her Catholic ogy. "She, to a large extent, was the one quent waves ofJe ws fleeing tl1ecountr y culture. Against the possibility of another who imbued me with these stories. She also during the 1960s have left only a tiny Jewish attempt to exterminate the Jews, the two had terrific religious stories-Catholic sto­ population in Poland today. fa ir-haired sisters were given the cultural ries," Roisman recalls. "There were few kids Before they departed, Roisman's mother backgrounds to pass as non-Jews. who knew names like Achilles and Odys­ organized a fa mjly pilgrimage to Auschwitz Roisman spent her early years in Poland, seus, but I did." to show her children that fa ce of the Holo­ much of that time in the company of her Then one day her mother abruptly fired caust.