Rebbetzin Chana’s Memoirs: A Surprise Package
In this 17th installment of the series, Rebbetzin Chana describes how an young NKVD officer from Dnepropetrovsk illegaly sent them a food package which likely saved their lives.
Our patience begins to run out
The question of what we should do remained as intense as ever. It was impossible for us to discuss this with anyone. We heard unofficial rumors that the government had decided not to release deportees from their exile until the end of the war, and even then to permit them to settle only in places without a large community.
Our reserves of patience began to run out. As it later became clear, my husband was probably already suffering from the illness which would later take his life, for he no longer seemed to possess the same fortitude as before—although that was the time when he needed it more than ever.
“A fragrant spice called Shabbat”
At that time, only those employed by the military, or those fighting at the front, were entitled to send food packages. Somehow we managed to get by each week, obtaining food through various means.
When Friday would come around, and there were no Shabbat candles, or when it was often necessary to queue up on line until quite late before Shabbat to receive “the bread of suffering” to use for the “double loaves of bread” [required on Shabbat], it always adversely affected my husband’s mood on the Shabbat. As I left home to go to the bread line, he would say to me emotionally, “G-d has given us a fragrant spice called Shabbat —we need to prepare ourselves for the Shabbat!”
A surprise package
One Thursday, we received a notice from the post office that we had received a food parcel from a friend who had served as a soldier in the war. It was addressed to me because it was forbidden for a soldier who had served during in the war to have any connection with a “criminal” such as my husband.
On Friday I went to pick up the package. On my walk home, everyone who met me stopped to ask how I had received it. They asked this question enviously—not out of malice, but out of curiosity at what the package might contain. One acquaintance told me I should have concealed it so that no one should see it, because of the hunger pangs everyone was feeling!
When we opened it, we saw that it contained 100% white flour!
The gratifying feeling this aroused is incomprehensible. We had long forgotten the taste and color of baked goods made with white flour.
Besides the flour, the package contained sugar cubes, two pieces of soap, a shirt and a pair of men’s socks—the sender wasn’t allowed to send more than that. Body soap seemed like the greatest possible luxury!
The package was sent by a young man who had lived in Dnepropetrovsk. During the war, he worked in the military division of the NKVD, which was why he had access to such products and was entitled, although not too often, to send them home to his wife and parents. To be entitled to receive them, I “became” his wife’s mother; since his family name differed from mine, I couldn’t be his mother.
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