Translation: Zuzanna Czachowska
In memory of Hersz Tykociński
Łódź appears in my book as a guest, thanks to my visit to this wonderful city, full of contrasts and contradictions, but also sights, tastes, and smells that deeply occupy my soul, as well as because of a walk along the unique Wschodnia Street. I went there to fulfill the wish of my friend from Israel – Cywia, whom here in Poland, in Łódź itself, everyone called Cwieta.
Łódź is exceptional because modernity mixes here with anachronism, tradition, and the past. Unfortunately, the front tenement house at number 50 no longer exists today. There is an empty lot that frightens, sad, stiff, and undefined.
But a trace remains in the form of a photo in Cywia’s album. A photo she looks at with tenderness. She strokes it with her fingers and says: This was my home…
‘Go, ask if any of the old residents still remember Hersz Tykociński, who had horses. Maybe someone still remembers… Ask,’ she pleads, her voice breaking.
I did not ask; there was no one to do so. It’s a pity that neither that house nor those people remain. There are no horses or dogs barking at strangers either. Only an old-looking tree grows there. Maybe it knows something. If only it could speak…
That house stood in that place for 140 years. It was supposedly in poor condition, posing a threat to people’s safety. That’s what those who have nothing else to say claim.
That house and others like it – dismantled, demolished, dug up – were a piece of Polish-Jewish history. How easily people tore it out by the roots. How easily they erased the existence of people along with their family stories. The empty lot stands silently in despair… The empty lot will say nothing anymore…
I talk with Cywia and hear how her energetic voice suddenly slowed and saddened.
Her father Hersz Tykociński has been gone for many years, and so has her mother. The house where she lived until 1957 no longer exists. It stood there quiet, peaceful, safe. It was where she led her carefree life.
Friends appeared: some warm, some less so. She attended a Jewish school where she also learned Polish. Then, like many Polish Jews in those grim times, they too had to leave Poland. They had no choice. They had to find another homeland that would love them as they were.
Together with her sister, they built a life on a foreign soil. Her sister raised horses there, just like their father once did. She loves them too. And Cwieta? She has a horse stud because she is also in love with them. Father surely sees this from above and is very pleased.