From the Polish capital, Marcela Hoffer reconstructs the memory of her Jewish family, who had to emigrate to Argentina to save their lives. Available on BajaLibros, you can download it for free
In Panska 28, Marcela Hoffer recovers the stories of ten relatives, giving voice to those who had been hidden by silence after the Second World War.
The door of a building in warsaw, Number 28 Panska Street, still standing. It survives as a silent witness to the history of a Polish Jewish family and as the symbolic center of a book that traces a bridge between past and present. One of the members of that family, Rushke Honey, one day she closed that door to open another one in Paso 200, in the Once neighborhood, in Buenos Aires. And, like her, other members of that family, which, for many years, was united by the silence.
In the book Panska 28 ―edited by Let's read, the imprint of Infobae, and can be downloaded for free from Bookends by click here.― the Argentine-American artist, Marcela Hoffer He reconstructs the footprints of his ancestors and, as he walks, he encounters the shadows and voids inherited from the exile and migrationAnd so begins a personal and literary journey.
hoffer began to investigate that past through a particular object in his own family home. It was during a conversation with his father, in 1982. He showed him a small blue velvet box. What was there? Old documents: two blue-covered Polish passports - that of his grandfather, Pinchas Hoffer, and his Bobe, Rushke - and two letters and a postcard written in dish. These objects became the beginning of his investigation and the return to that door in Panska 28What did time and distance keep silent?
In the book he rescues Ten true stories from his family -Chana Ruchla Goldzak (paternal great-grandmother), Hertz Yitskhok Hoffer (paternal great-grandfather), Pinchas Hoffer (paternal grandfather), Rushke Honig (paternal grandmother), Szmul Leib Hoffer (paternal great-uncle), Raitze Hoffer, Paia Hoffer, Mindl Hoffer, Hoffer mat y Fanny Hoffer (paternal great-aunts) - a Jewish family dismembered by the war. "The Holocaust is in our DNA"It made us stronger and more resilient, but above all, more empathetic in the face of any type of atrocity or violent act," says the author.
From her position as daughter, niece, granddaughter and great-granddaughter, Hoffer reconstructs that past to give the present a new dimension. “There is a gigantic piece of me that is urgently trying to come to light and is located between the before and after of this blue discovery,” says the author in the book.
In dialogue with Infobae, Hoffer reflects: “Panska 28 becomes a concrete family symbol, which endures over time, a real space to which we can return and where the memories that belong to us and to me live. Panska 28 is still standing. Not having been destroyed, it offers us a kind of oasis within the barbarity. It functions – in a way – as a monument to resilience".
"It is through discourse that I am able to weave, integrate and reconstruct fragments of stories from my ancestors that were left suspended and that I now dare to discover and name.”, Hoffer writes in the pages of Panska 28, and continues: “By bringing light to the shadowed spaces, I can imagine their experiences, which in turn illuminate parts of my own identity".
Fragments of memory: the stories behind Panska 28
Number 28 Panska Street was the last address where Marcela Hoffer's paternal family lived before the outbreak of war in 1939. The invasion of Poland marked the beginning of a systematic persecution against the Jewish community, which culminated in the creation of the Warsaw ghetto, where more than 400.000 people were confined in inhumane conditions before being deported to extermination camps such as Treblinka.
In this context of violence and fragmentation, Marcela's family saw their fate divided between those who managed to emigrate and those who remained trapped in Europe.This book is an attempt to recover and recall events that occurred in the distant past., in Poland, more than a hundred years ago. It is a memory that is a bit mine. It is embodied in me. Because it is through discourse that I am able to weave together, integrate and reconstruct fragments of my ancestors' stories that were left suspended and that I now dare to discover and name," he writes in its pages.
The building, which miraculously survived intact from the Nazi bombings, stands as a tangible symbol in his family memory. In the book, Hoffer delves into the symbolic weight of the place and how it is intertwined with his identity: “I can imagine their experiences, which in turn illuminate parts of my own identity.”
“It opened up a new path of searching for me, both towards my ancestral past and towards corners of myself that were in the shadows. Discovering these ancient documents was an invitation to explore aspects of myself,” says the author about the pain, silence and exile of her ancestors that she decided to narrate.
in the pages of Panska 28, Marcela Hoffer reconstructs a mosaic of true stories that emerge from the family scraps preserved between silence and oblivion. With each story is marked by the war, migration as exile.
Each family story that unfolds in the book does so as a fragment of memory intertwined with pain and resilienceFor example, Pinchas Hoffer, trapped in the night, carried an internal weight that immobilized him, while Raitze, after long hours of sewing, contemplated an unattainable world from her window.
Mindl, with a sadness that never left her smile, took refuge in the care of others. Paia, faced with fear and the certainty of death, broke down upon hearing a military melody that announced the inevitable. In that scene of departures, Szmul left behind a suitcase as the only link to an uncertain future.
Other names carry the weight of silence: Rushke Honig, who closed the door of Panska 28 to cross the ocean to Argentina, leaving behind a home that would become an absence. Hertz Yitskhok Hoffer, torn between his faith and his earthly duties, sought balance in contradiction.
Figures such as Chana Ruchla Goldzak, Estera and Fanny Hoffer barely survive in family stories, shrouded in mystery and the shadow of a destiny marked by war. Through these stories, Hoffer weaves a narrative where individual memory gives voice to those who were unable to tell it.
The narrative, fragmented and evocative, is enriched with collages of Martina Charaf, and with silence as a common thread. “The silence appears as a state of mind, both before and after these goodbyes without return. Silence also, in many of the stories, hides crying and screams. I wanted to find that connection with what the silence was precisely containing and covering up,” Hoffer says.
Resilience and the legacy of migrant objects
Among the most astonishing finds, Hoffer talks about prayer objects that crossed the ocean and what they represent. “It’s interesting to think about what objects those who leave their countries forever choose to take with them, and the significance and symbolism they have,” he says.
In the case of his family, Polish passports and texts in dish They are more than documents; they are a bridge to lost identity in the diaspora.
“They all had to keep quiet a part of their identity in order to survive. They left their country, their families and had to adopt a new culture and a new language. Part of their lives died with exile,” writes Marcela in the book.
And she adds what she found most surprising: “The most shocking thing for me has to do with the lack of information about the fate of several relatives. When the war broke out in 1939, all communication was cut off and we don’t know what happened to my paternal great-grandparents. Just as we don’t know the fate of my grandfather’s older sisters. I only found silence.”
La Total disconnection between Europe and Argentina During the war, it left a lasting mark on family relationships, leaving wounds that transcend generations. For Hoffer, writing this book was a path to understanding that impact: “I was able to connect with the family breakups that occurred when all types of communication between Europe and Argentina were cut off when the war broke out and also with the emotional consequences that such a breakup entails.
And he adds: “Another interesting aspect is the transgenerational “that continues to pulsate in my own life, bringing to light all those unprocessed traumas of my ancestors.”
In that reconstruction process, her grandfather's example emerges as a symbol of strength and cultural roots. “There is something that I find wonderful and that I admire about my grandfather as an immigrant,” she says in the dialogue. What is it that surprises Marcela?
As he explains, "he left Poland, but was able to stay connected to his roots in Buenos Aires, he did so by being very active in the IWO Foundation, collaborating from the board of directors, and above all creating a literary prize for writers in dish, a prize that he awarded together with his partner Leib until the time of his death and beyond.”
On this legacy, Hoffer reflects: “He was able to not only continue with his cultural and linguistic roots, but to harvest and create from that. I am very impressed and admired by him. Especially from my own search, from the place of an immigrant.”
“Now I know, at the end of the process, that it was the enunciation and its healing potential that allowed me to reconstruct those stories that save them and save me,” says the author. That is why she writes.
*Photos: Courtesy Marcela Hoffer
Source: INFOBAE
Although this is the most common example of how to reconstruct, honour and cope with the tragic past of the descendants of relatives of Jews who escaped or were killed in the Shoah, I have found cases with other ways of remembering and coping with the past, such as that of the young Argentine youtuber from the channel “Un topo por el mundo”, left-wing or communist, who although he is not one of the most famous youtubers by any means, that is, he does not have enough subscribers to say that he is one of the outstanding ones, but still a few years ago he published a video of his visit to Poland looking for his relatives’ house, a house where a Polish Catholic family now lives. Despite the fact that the youtuber went with the sole intention of remembering his family’s past, these Polish Catholics did not want to know anything about the matter and treated him badly, without any sensitivity or with very bad education, somewhat out of place. But soon he returned to Poland again, this time with his mother, and apparently the authorities of the town or small city had found out what had happened or that he was a YouTuber with a certain number of subscribers or that he had appeared briefly on television, and then they treated them almost as if it were the official visit of a prime minister, although nobody is bitter about a sweet treat, it was also somewhat out of place, in the opposite sense. El Topo apparently does not hold any grudge or hatred against the Poles, although he does towards the Germans and Austrians.
In Spain, for example, there is the case of Cristina Calandre Hoenigsfeld, a Spanish Jew descended from a Polish family. She is now a prominent activist for the republican cause who denounces crimes against humanity and the numerous atrocities committed by the Spanish fascists, especially against Jews, crimes that remain totally unpunished in Spain, not to say that they are unknown by the vast majority of Spaniards, or only the communist parties are responsible for ensuring that they are not forgotten. For example, she led a petition to strip Fraga and Serrano Súñer of the medals of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences. Calandre requested that the name of Manuel Fraga Iribarne be removed from one of the chambers of the Lower House, and in 2012 she tried the same in the Senate but her request was not attended to. Calandre proposes that Fraga and Serrano Súñer, both now deceased, should be stripped of the medals awarded to members of that institution because he considers it an “ignominy” that two former ministers of Franco who are “fascists”, “anti-Semites” and “racists” should be part of it.
Manuel Fraga was a prominent Falangist minister during Franco's fascist dictatorship, and is linked to a case of state terrorism during the Transition. He was later the leader of the current major right-wing party, the Partido Popular, formerly Alianza Popular, and is a very prominent figure in this party and, in general, in current Spanish democracy.
Serrano Suñer, Franco's brother-in-law, was the pro-Nazi Falangist minister who acted as a bridge between the Franco regime and Nazi Germany. He is also accused of collaborating with the Gestapo in the persecution of Jews who took refuge in Spain. With Hitler's defeat, he ordered the destruction of all official documents that linked him or the fascist regime with Nazi Germany, although the few serious historians that can be found in Spain still have some copies that were not destroyed, which were kept by the very meticulous German Nazis. Despite everything, Serrano Suñer is another Spanish fascist who shortly after the defeat of Nazi Germany became an innocent Spaniard who knew nothing.
Cristina Calandre Hoenigsfeld is the granddaughter of the famous Spanish cardiologist Luis Calandre, or at least he should be very famous, and not only in Spain. With the arrival of the Spanish fascists, almost all scientists emigrated to other countries and those who stayed were discriminated against, naturally only those who were not fascists or pro-Nazis, as was the case of the cardiologist Luis Calandre Ibáñez, and one of his sons married a Jewish woman of Polish origin. Luis Calandre was a famous cardiologist throughout the world, with democratic republican ideals, and also a member of the prestigious Institución Libre de Enseñanza, the project of a group of Spanish intellectuals for quality public education and some culture for the most disadvantaged classes, since Spain was the most backward country in Europe, practically medieval, with the highest illiteracy rate in the West, while the current educational system was elitist, always in the hands of the Spanish Catholic Church. But since the ideals of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza were also close to Freemasonry, the project was therefore dismantled when the fascists staged the coup, its members and teachers were also persecuted, imprisoned or killed, since they were practically mistaken for Freemasons, or for Jews, which would be equivalent. During the Civil War and the fascist dictatorship, the fascists purged the professions of careers such as medicine and pharmacy of Judeo-Masons, coincidentally the ones most associated with Jews. The fascists also purged them of Jews, not only Freemasons, for example by ordering the Official Medical Colleges to give information about those who were Judeo-Masons. These Colleges are a kind of regional trade associations where all Spanish women with any Spanish university degree sign up. In the end, it is estimated that they accused up to 70.000-80.000 Republicans of being Jewish Masons, when in reality there were around 5.000 Masons in total in Spain, of whom around 2.500 were murdered because they were unable to escape or because they remained on the side of the fascists, the exact number of Masons they murdered being unknown.
Cristina Calandre Hoenigsfeld has published an article about the members of her Polish family who perished in the Shoah, including some doctors, such as her great-aunt Cesia Obersztern, who worked as a dentist in one of the Warsaw ghetto hospitals and was eventually transferred to the Sobibor extermination camp. Her great-aunt, Dr. Regina Hoenigsfeld, lost her life with her daughter in the Pawiak prison in Warsaw. Her great-uncle, Dr. Benjamin Hoenigsfeld, a communist activist, tried his luck in what was then Palestine in 1934, returned to Poland, and was eventually exterminated by the Nazis, along with his wife and daughter. Her great-uncle-in-law, Dr. Salomon Dawidson, who escaped to the east, was killed in Soviet territory when the German advance occurred.