The bell rang for dismissal, and I barreled down the steps, laughing with friends as we headed home after a long day of school. There she was, sitting on the couch in the lobby, hands folded over her pocketbook. Her face lit up as she greeted me with her signature, heavily accented “Hi mamele!” She would be there often, sometimes three times a week, and the routine was always the same; Babineni waiting in the lobby, walking down Avenue M and stopping for pizza and ice cream before reaching her house where I would spend the next few hours and often the night. We would repeat this routine throughout elementary school, and it is upon this ritual that my bond with my great-grandmother was formed. Ours was not a relationship of weekly visits, yomim tovim spent together, and yearly birthday cards. It was a relationship of two people who were inextricably connected; the only word I can use was one I heard my mother say during shiva: we were “ungibinden,” completely and totally intertwined. Anytime she would begin to express her feelings, Babineni would interrupt herself saying, “Words are cheap, mamele sheine, my mother used to say they should put a price on them. You know what I feel – it’s a two-way street.”
As I try to convey the essence of the person who has influenced my life in the most profound way, I hear her voice echoing in my head. Words are cheap, Babineni; can they actually be used to give you the kavod you so richly deserve but always ran from? So I am not going to attempt to present my great-grandmother in her entirety, because that task would be impossible, and could never do her justice. I can only be mechabed the person that I knew, the person that I loved, and the person that I so desperately miss.
“Mrs. Golda Katz,” “Arunka,” “Tante Golda,” “Mommy,” “Babi” – she had many names and was many things to many people, but to me she was just Babineni. As her oldest great-grandchild and the only one for sixteen years, I grew up in her home, spending more time with Babineni than some spend with their siblings. From my first day in playgroup around the corner from her home, until my elementary school graduation, I would spend many afternoons and nights with her, the beneficiary of her seemingly endless capacity to give.
Watching her, I was struck by her beauty; her carriage and grace belying her ninety years. Her elegantly simple style reflected her innate grace. While some completely reject aestheticism and others are subject to its passing fads, Babineni was a unique blend of both worlds. With a clear sense of ikar and tafel, her arrow-straight priorities never expressed themselves in austerity or self-righteousness; Babineni’s joie de vivre was her defining quality, and people of all ages and walks of life were drawn to her infectious and deeply engrained simchas hachaim. Fiercely independent, she took the greatest pleasure in making her signature Shabbos dishes for everyone, laughing as I butchered the pronunciation of their Hungarian names. Time spent with Babineni was relaxed and light hearted; her warm, easygoing personality obscured the trauma she experienced during the first part of her life.
Born in 1916 to Reb Shlomo HaCohen a”h and Rivka Gottdiener a”h in Hajdunanas, Hungary, Babineni was one of ten children, six of whom survived the war. Together with her husband, Reb Dovid Katz a”h, and her mother, Babineni survived due to a series of nissim. Babineni avoided the ghetto by feigning illness and entering a maternity home, where she gave birth to her older daughter, Judi, my grandmother. After being arrested, jailed, and then, inexplicably, freed, they were briefly protected by Swedish “schutzpasses” granted them by Raoul Wallenberg. When the immunity of the schutzpasses was violated, Babineni was left to wander Budapest’s streets at night, alone in the dead of winter with only a flimsy cotton dress, no food, and an infant to feed.
Lined up with others along the Danube to be shot, Babineni experienced yet another nes and escaped into the throng of onlookers. The family then sought refuge in a nunnery where they remained until the fear of discovery propelled them to leave. When the Russians liberated Budapest in January 1945, Babineni, her mother, husband and daughter were amongst the survivors. In December 1948 they escaped to DP camps in Hallein and Ebelsberg, Austria; their second child, Evelyn, was born two years later in Vienna. In March 1953, the family settled in Crown Heights, where they lived for twenty-four years, before moving to Flatbush.
The last two and half years of Babineni’s life were the ones I thought would never come. Months spent in the hospital, with our small family taking shifts around the clock; we entered a parallel universe of doctors, a seemingly endless stream of medical crises, and all of it without the one person who could have made me smile amidst all the insanity. Hashem knew our family was not prepared to lose our foundation. There are too many to enumerate, but the nissim we experienced were open reminders that no doctor would tell us whether Babineni would come home, which she miraculously did as she returned to her position as matriarch of the family.
Babineni’s petirah was a few weeks before my college graduation. Two days prior, my mother said, “Babi, Miryam is graduating in a few weeks, do you want to come to the graduation?” The woman who had been at every play, recital, and school function squeezed my hand, looked me directly in the eye, and said, “Mamele, if I won’t be there, my neshama will.” For a woman of supreme optimism, this was a staggering response. In the last few weeks of her life, Babineni spoke in ways we had never heard before. I would catch her deep in thought and she would say, “Oy Miryam, I have such a moreh of the din!” Before I could respond, she smiled and changed the topic; this quick shift for our sake. Babineni saw how desperately we wanted to spend time happily together and allowed herself to be distracted, never indulging in more than a moment of self-focus.
Once, in a rare display of sadness, Babineni squeezed my hand, and with a twinge of desperation in her voice, said fiercely, “But I want to be there to see it!” She didn’t have to say anymore for me to know she was referring to my wedding. Forcing a smile, while clenching my jaw and willing myself not to break down, I attempted to distract her from the pain of her fears and said lightly, “Babi, iy”H, of course you will.” I said these words as a matter of course, not because she needed to hear it, but because I needed to believe it; because the alternative did not exist in my mind. Four years later, and that alternative still does not exist. I picture my wedding – Babineni puts her hands on my face and gives me the knowing smile that we shared millions of times. The smile that seemed to share a secret, the smile that said, “We have something special you and I, so let’s not cheapen it with words.” I see myself walking up her front steps, letting my children into the house, watching as they become the beneficiaries of the love that had been showered on me. I hear her voice at family gatherings, anticipating what she would have said, and I mentally reach for the phone to share news, both the small happenings of daily life, as well as the large milestones. Life has not gone back to normal. Dynamics have shifted and a seat at the head of the table sits empty. Babineni remains a figure in our family, spoken about by three-year-old great-grandchildren who never met her, and her voice heard, mostly in Yiddish, in the frequent “Babiisms” that pepper our conversations. The idea that my children will not know the person who has made one of the most significant impacts on my life is completely inconceivable, yet pictures and stories will never adequately bring her to life. So I live with the pain and gratitude that my children will know Babineni. They will know her because I am the person I am, and will be the mother that I will become, because I am her great-granddaughter. I can only daven that we will lead lives that will allow her to shep nachas from the people that she built.
L’illui nishmas Golda bas Reb Shlomo HaKohen Katz on her 4th yahrzeit, Chaf Vav Nissan.