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would bring prospective bridegrooms to our
neighborsto single women of marriageable age.
I always managed to be there to observe this
drama, which allowed me to test my youthful
analytic skills as to whether a particular meeting
would be successful. At some point during
these meetings, I would always say to myselfsince
no one else was interested in soliciting my
opinion in these matters, "This is going to click,"
or "This one won't work."
The serving of the tea was my infallible clue
to the success or failure of the match. I was informed
early on by an uncle of mine that if the
prospective groom's parents said, "That's very
good tea," or "The cookies are delicious," then
things were going well. The absence of any flattering
comments about the refreshments was a
sure sign, on the other hand,that things were not
going to work out.
Above all these thoughts, the image that stays
in my mind's eye is the scene at the station, the
day of our departure for America, with the whole
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town turned out to wish us farewell. My friends,
with whom I had played soccer, who gave me
gifts as I gave gifts in return, along with all the
rest of the Jews in our town, young and old,
walked the several miles to the station with us. I
remember my uncle's last admonition to me, to
recite the Kaddish for my father.
They left us with cries of goodbye and good
wishesthe last image I have of the Jews of
Libivne. And it is in that moment of life that they
are held fast for me, in my mind's eye, frozen in
memory from which no evil can take them.
Aaron Ziegelman, a New York businessman,
is vice-chairman of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical
College's board of governors. He, his
mother and sister immigrated to America in 1938
from Libivne, most of whose 8,000 Jews were shot
by the Germans Oct. 1, 1942. This article was first
published in 1985 in the Reconstructionist magazine,
and was subsequently reprinted in the Hartford
Courant and New York's Jewish Week.
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Farewell portrait of friends and family at the Luboml railroa'd station, taken on the occasion of the Zygielman
family's departure for America, 1938.