Plunder by Menachem Kaiser (suggested reading txt) 📗

little fuzzy, I know, but my time with Joanna spanned years. Larysa Michalska, too, deserves special mention for helping me so many times with so many tasks. Thank you to the residents of Małachowskiego 12, particularly Bartek Piotrowski and Hanna Dobiecka. Hanna, an unparalleled chronicler of Sosnowiec real estate, and a loving mother and grandmother, passed away in 2018. Thank you to The Killer and Grazyna for their hard work; one day we’ll have that party. And, of course, thank you to the treasure hunters, particularly my fellow members of HUNTER. I hope you find what you’re looking for.

My family grew. Shula, Rafi, Beni, Dorit, Sharon, Osnat, Oren; Albert and Maria; and Alexander, Helga, and Rita (who are family, even if not by blood)—​they welcomed me into their homes, told me their stories, and allowed me to tell Abraham’s. I am forever grateful.

Thank you to the staff of the Gross-Rosen Museum, particularly Dorota Sula, for their research help, and, more generally, for their work in preserving the memory of Abraham Kajzer and the other prisoners of Gross-Rosen.

Justyna Kramarczyk was the absolute best research assistant I could have hoped for.

Michael Bazyler, the preeminent authority on Holocaust restitution, guided me through the intricacies of Polish inheritance law; it was he who alerted me to the fact that there were two different types of death recognition. Thank you, too, to Szymon Gostyński for his exceptional legal advice and insight.

Malwina Tuchendler, Luba Shynder, and Gosia Wieruszewska were my interpreters for some of the longer, more intense interactions with the treasure hunters; these assignments, believe me, were no picnic, but they never faltered.

Lotte Thaa helped immeasurably with German documentation and my trip to Germany. That I had the opportunity to meet Gertrud’s children was only because of her.

Thank you to Denise Grollmus, Dalia Wolfson, and Shoshana Olidort for their superb translation work.

I would need another book to properly thank everyone in Poland who has made my time there so special, but a particular thanks to Anna “Spinyawa” Rozalka and Patrycja Pikul for their long-standing friendship, support, housing, and occasional medical assistance; and to Maria Bilyk for, well, a lot. To Yak and Mechel, yasher koach and jeszcze jeden.

Thank you to those who’ve helped along the way: Elias Altman, Arielle Cohen, Daniel Cowen, Natalia Czarkowska, Maayan Dauber, Lidija Haas, Yonah Krakowsky, Josh Lambert, Agi Legutko, Anthea Malone, Sheila Miller, Judi Powers, Ezra Seligsohn, and Rebecca Wolff. And to the Fulbright Fellowship and Wexner Fellowship for their support, and to my teachers and fellow students at the University of Michigan.

Dana Hammer offered invaluable feedback on the manuscript, and has always been there for me, has always supported me; my life is so much better with her in it. She is in a narrow but nonetheless profound sense my role model.

Jason Francisco is the kindest and most generous person I know, and an incomparable artist, scholar, and photographer; what a blessing to have him with me on those trips, what a blessing to be able to call him my friend. He has reminded me many times what it means to create. Jason, consider yourself shmucheled.

Maia Ipp has been there for me from the beginning, has supported, advised, encouraged, celebrated, edited, chastised me, and always with such love and patience and intelligence. (And it was probably Maia, and not me, who first noticed Andrzej and Joanna saying “Kajzer” that day in the restaurant, thus igniting this whole adventure; that’s how both she and Jason remember it.) At every point in this project, it’s her I’ve turned to, relied upon, leaned on.

Thank you to Janet Silver, without whom I’d have gotten nowhere—​her judgment and guidance have been everything.

Thank you, endlessly, to Deanne Urmy, for her stewardship, for her vision and enthusiasm, for making it all happen. Her support and belief in the project—​and in me—​were unwavering; in my darker moments, when I couldn’t see the point or how it could be done or why it mattered, it was her confidence that gave me mine.

To those who feel that I had no right to broadcast or at least should have been more circumspect about family matters—​I get it. The question weighs on me. There was no easy solution. It is the writer’s curse, to try and tell your story as honestly and fully as possible while minimizing the details others might consider gratuitous or shameful. Perhaps in this regard I failed. I hope, then, that you can forgive me.

Reva, Tehila, Batsheva, Shalom, and Miri—​I love you, and love that we’re stuck with one another.

And finally, thank you to my parents, who give and give and give, and who taught me the value of tradition, what it means to care about your past, to celebrate your yichus, to honor those who came before you.

Notes

This is a book of nonfiction, it’s all true, it all happened, but certain caveats apply. The dialogue is not necessarily verbatim—​I didn’t always take notes or record conversations, especially early on—​and my memory isn’t perfect. Some names were changed in order to preserve anonymity, and “Yechiel” is a composite character.

Chapter 1

Polish names and Polish places have been spelled in Polish, except for the first names of my relatives, which have been transliterated into English. For example, instead of “Mosze” (or “Moszek”)—​which is how my great-grandfather’s name was spelled on the Polish documents—​I use “Moshe.” I made this exception because these names are not in fact Polish, but Hebrew/Yiddish; they were already transliterated, in other words—​the English spelling is just as true, so to speak, as the Polish.

Chapter 13

A few weeks later Joanna and I brought Andrzej to Jacek’s house to try and figure out was what behind the mysterious wall in the cellar. We were unsuccessful. Andrzej, using a cartoonishly long drill bit—​it was at least a meter long—​drilled a hole through the wall, then attempted to coax through a plumbing camera, but he couldn’t get it to go, there was too much debris.

Chapter 14

I did eventually figure out which house Abraham hid in,