Welcome To

was still an idealistic communist, even though his tribulations had shaken the foundations of his beliefs. For him, Jewish traditions were just part of the benighted past. But Malka was determined, and he had to yield. The young couple was so poor that the bride had to borrow a wedding ring om her Polish neighbor Mrs. Engelhardt. The wedding was held on August 5, 1945, a month before the war ended. The next year the Fajermans received permission to repatriate to Poland. As a parting gi, Zhenya's mother gave her a handwritten prayer om the Tanakh, which she keeps to this day. Aer the wedding, the couple decided to travel to Poland to find family. In his native Novo-Rodomsko, Abel Below: Zhenya, Abel, Leo, and Sylvia Fajerman in Paris, 1949. hoped to find at least his sister, but all he could find was an eyewitness to her execution by the Germans. Only his brother Moritz, who served in the Red Army, survived the war. Nothing kept Abel in the war-torn town except sad memories. The young couple decided to settle down in Krakow, but no sooner had they moved to the ancient capital of Polish kings then a wave of bloody pogroms swept the country. Neither Zhenya nor Abel wanted to stay in Poland. Zhenya was pregnant; her only desire was to return to her mother in Russia. But the laws of Stalin's Soviet Union were strict: by marrying a foreigner she had forfeited her citizenship. The West was the only destination available to them. Abel searched for guides to lead them across the border. Somehow he succeeded, and with a large group of other immigrants, Abel and Zhenya were led om Krakow to the Czechoslovakia border. Zhenya was between five and six months pregnant, and was suffering om the chronic malaria she had contracted years before in Samarkand. Under the cover of night, led by their guides, they crossed a swi river. At the border, Czech guides met them, and aer they were safely in Czechoslovakia, Zhenya was hospitalized. Due to her high fever, Zhenya does not remember much of the dangerous trip. She relied completely on Abel and does not remember arriving in Germany by train. In Stuttgart, Abel found out that his one remaining brother, Moritz, who had obtained his discharge om the Red Army, was living in Paris. Abel's other brother and two sisters had been killed in concentration camps in Poland. For Zhenya, the war memories were too esh and painful to give birth to a child in Germany because the baby would automatically become a German citizen. And so the Fajermans decided to go farther west to Paris. They arrived in the French capital in February of 1947. Paris welcomed the new immigrants with a mixture of rain, snow, and howling

• Cover