Icchokas Meras about The Yellow Patch and friendship with Ona Šimaitė
<...> In 1957-1958, when I was already finishing the Polytechnic Institute, I started writing my first book Geltonas lopas (The Yellow Patch). The short stories, a short story collection, the main character of which was featured from beginning to end. Beniukas, a little Jewish boy called Beniukas. More or less an autobiographical book. That book (it was published in 1960) was sent to Ona Šimaitė by somebody. <...> She was a very enlightened person, who I did not know personally, though afterwards for a long time we wrote to one another.
<...> Šimaitė read The Yellow Patch, wrote to someone about the book, I wrote her a letter, and that was how our correspondence started. She started to tell me what happened in the Vilnius Ghetto. From the very beginning Ona Šimaitė told me and reiterated that I was precisely the person who must write about the everyday heroism of Jews in the ghetto. <...>
Šimaitė has been gone for many years, but her memory is alive, and I should thank her that I wrote the novel Lygiosios trunka akimirką (Stalemate) (From Violeta Kelertienė‘s interview with Icchokas Meras on 8 September 1995 at the Santara-Šviesa Conference. The sound recording is kept in the museum).
Ona Šimaitė about The Yellow Patch and the book’s author, Icchokas Meras
I read that book twice. It moved me to tears. I am looking at the picture of a young author unknown to me, I bow to him, warmly congratulating him, that a new talented Jewish writer has been born. How wonderful that he borrowed Mieželaitis’ words, the cry: “Don’t kill a human!” This small book greatly attested to this. I believe that it was an autobiographical novella. It spoke only about the experiences of one boy. But in them one feels the catastrophe experienced by the Jewish nation not long ago in all this horror. On page 51, it is as if the author is repeating my lived-out and written words a number of times: I am sad and ashamed. Shame for those who herded them. The shame of not being a Jew. “Where were they herded to? For what reason?” I often ask myself and now I still ask myself.
It is hard to even believe how it really could have been. The book should be read not just by young adults but everyone should read it many times, even learn it by heart, it gives rise to so many thought, it awakens a desire to fight, so it would never happen again. That is just a small sketch of an endless ocean of suffering, the persecutions of the Jewish nation. Everyone was sick of Hitlerism, but above all especially the Jewish nation. I would also like to say to the young author that like in the ghetto, each Jew behind the ghetto walls was the biggest hero due to his way of life. He has huge writing talents and I would like to wish him that he would continue writing about the nation’s pain, wisdom, endurance, hope and charity. More so than any other nation, the Jews are characterised by their thankfulness to those who helped at least a little during those times of distress, starting from Julian the Apostate. Aulinukai (Knee-boots), Ąžuolas ir ąžuoliukas (The Oak and the Oakling) – I do not know of any more beautiful acknowledgements of thanks in world literature to non-Jews, who helped Jews. <...> I am very happy that there is such a book written in Lithuanian. <...>
Literary scholar Dalia Striogaitė
Icchokas Meras is a very exceptional author in Lithuanian literature. The destiny of his life is remarkable. There are two identities, two cultures (Jewish and Lithuanian) intertwined in his personality and work. The tragedy and pain of his works is extraordinary.
He was the first in Lithuania to write a work about the catastrophe of the Jewish nation during World War I. Based on the topical events of that time and experiences of his childhood, in the collection of novellas The Yellow Patch (1960, republished in 2005) he showed the killing of Jews in 1941, and revealed the horror experienced by a child, humiliation of a person, killing of his family, despair of an orphan, his lucky rescue by a family of goodwill people, constant hiding and fear until the very end of the war, until finally he says: “Now I am like everyone else”. Each novella is a staggering event and picture that sticks deep in the conscious. And Jewish boy Beniukas, very traumatised, a suffering soul, is the thread joining the novellas together. This is authentic, almost an autobiographical tale, strong emotional tension, lively and striking types of people, an individual intonation, a spare, but expressive language; this is, a feat of high literary culture at best. Such important, exacting detail for the novella genre (a loaf of bread with mud), the spectacular developing of a multi-meaning picture Mėlynasis vežimėlis (The Blue Pram), Aulinukai (The KneeBoots), more than once there is speaking without words – the horrible events are recorded with a subtle ear and vision. And how important are the movements of caressing, nestling, taking one’s hand! The mark of a good novelist is an effective ending, taking the action to a spiritual level, opening up the inner depth of a problem. That, which is intimate, is felt physically and experienced spiritually, aptly summed up here: marked with yellow stars, people who are in no way guilty, scorned and driven to death – an appalling crime for humaneness... the bitter tears of a helpless child fall into the hearts and conscious of all of us... in fact, this is not only Beniukas’ story...
Having published his book The Yellow Patch with difficulty (the theme itself in Soviet literature was not particularly welcome), Icchokas Meras prepared himself to write further on the same theme. He undertook to writing about the thousands that were killed and talk about those who would never speak. It was complicated to print his works, but their artistic quality more than once defended itself. The Holocaust tragedy became the great theme of Icchokas Meras’ work, with various variations interspersed in his novels and short stories. Like the disclosure of fascism, the crimes of the sadistic Nazis and their helpers. The exaltation of the great spirituality of people doomed to death. The making of poetry of Life, Humaneness and Good. The author was not only morose in the past, but the contemporary themes in his written works talk about the horrifically tragic 20th century and its lessons, along with contemplating on man in a quickly changing world. A vivid sense of human affinity, striving for sweeping universality, is an inherent feature in Icchokas Meras’ prose; the books are original, powerfully suggestive and relevant.
What is interesting is that the silhouette of the Ona Šimaitė, a noble woman who has suffered much, shines faintly and modestly behind Icchokas Meras’ early books. A librarian, a person of polished culture and books, deep humanist, she was heroically saving Jews of the Vilnius Ghetto during the German years, and for these efforts she ended up in a concentration camp. This extraordinary woman, rescuer of all the miserable ones, was the embodiment of kindness and love. Having felt the power of the talent of The Yellow Patch’s author, and for her such a close oneness of his biography and spiritual experiences, she not only became one of the most attentive readers of Icchokas Meras’ books, but on her own initiative, not asked, not obliged, began to take care of the young writer, she made sure that his books circulated around the world, that they would get in the most important libraries, that they would be translated into foreign languages, reviewed, be heard. (She accomplished much because while living in France, in the free world, she had more possibilities than a Soviet writer, fenced in by the Iron Curtain.) How much a kind word, moral support meant to a young author! But the most important was that Ona Šimaitė had a great desire that Icchokas Meras would begin writing about the life of Jews in the Vilnius Ghetto, which she knew well, she had seen the suffering of locked-up people and at the same time the silent heroism and spiritual strength. She always regretted not being a writer, not able to vividly convey herself, what she had experienced, which is why in her letters to Icchokas Meras she told a lot and fervently believed that he was the one that could write about it. With the encouragement of Ona Šimaitė, Meras wrote Stalemate (1963), one of the most artistic and popular novels, which was translated into many languages and received many and kind responses (and today it is still read all over the world). Later, in respect to people like Ona Šimaitė and Lithuanian women like her, thanking them for their kindness of heart and shelter of unfortunate children not of their own, the writer created a novel-ballad Ant ko laikosi pasaulis (What the World Rests On) (1965), and in it a poetically generalised picture of the Mother Saviour, an apotheosis of the beauty and meaning of a person’s life on earth.
Yes, a child saved is a world saved. And a talent saved is such a wonderful force, which illuminates the world, makes its present and past crystal clear and captivates people’s hearts and minds with gripping images (The first time Icchokas Meras wrote about his story of being rescued was in his autobiographical short story collection The Yellow Patch (They Took Me In) in 1960. The Stalemate, the novel that made Icchokas Meras especially famous, appeared in 1963. So far Icchokas Meras has written a number of books, including novels and short story collections. His books have been translated into more than 20 languages. For more information on Icchokas Meras, please see ICCHOKAS MERAS. Žinomas ir nežinomas meistras. (Known and Unknown Master) – Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas (Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore), Vilnius, 2005, 159 p. (Compiler and editor’s note)).
From the 4th book Hands Bringing Life and Bread
The Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum
