Friendship

Lili Kasticher

Lili Kasticher organized afternoon cultural events in the camp in which about twenty women participated.

Lili (Alice) Kasticher was born in 1923 in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia. She was deported from Hungary to Auschwitz at the age of twenty-one after being captured during resistance operations. From Auschwitz she was sent to Camp Oberhohenelbe in the Sudetenland. Once every two weeks on Sundays, the women were given time to tend to their personal hygiene, wash their clothes, and treat their lice. During this time, Lili organized afternoon cultural events in which about twenty women participated. They held a painting, poetry, and short-story writing contest. They made a stage out of some boxes, performed recitations and skits, conducted debates, made sculptures out of potatoes, set their poems to melodies, sang songs, and dreamed about the liberation. The works were numbered in order to conceal their creators’ identity. Lili concealed the pages of poetry and drawings in her blouse. When she immigrated to Israel in 1948, she brought them along. Most of the women survived. Lili died in 1973.

I had only one thing in mind: to encourage the Jewish women there not to give up, not to be let down, not to be pessimistic, and to endure.

Lili (Kasticher) Hirt

Tomorrow Will Come / Vali Garai

…Suddenly I see clearly, more beautifully,
my eyes open and see the wonder
of a new world…

…in this wonderful new world, I see young women,
with pale, black or brown hair, beautiful young women
watching from behind bars, their faces
stricken with sadness, fire burning in their eyes…

…after a moment
the bars disappear!
Joyous girls dancing,
enjoying the new world,
every flower a wonder to them,
in the world they have waited for!

…with raised and joyful eyes they look back
for a moment: no more hate-filled glances
and the people of the new world call them loudly:
girls, hurry, here the world is yours!

“My Mother” / Dukesz Vica

I was an infant, taking
my first steps
my mother always beside me like a guardian angel
in time I also learned to speak
"Mother" was my first word
the first word, the most beautiful word
my dear mother protected me like a treasure
like a flower from the wind she banished
she healed my bruises with her kisses
and slowly taught me prayers
with which I address God silently
praying for her health.
When all your friends hurt, abandon and betray you,
you may count on only one
never to hurt, abandon or betray, she is always with me,
the only such friend in the world, my mother.