The Pianist of Willesden Lane

Tags

Kindertransport, Lisa Jura, Mona Golabek

Several years ago I read the book of that title written by Mona Golabek about the experiences of her mother, Lisa Jura, first in Vienna and then in London. She had been sent there at the age of fourteen in the framework of the Kindertransport, the undertaking that saved twenty thousand Jewish children from certain death in the Holocaust.

The book spoke to me on several levels. First of all, the pivotal role played by music in the life of the young girl who eventually became a concert pianist, and secondly, the location of the hostel for refugee children, Willesden Lane, not far from where I grew up, in Kilburn. Incidentally, Willesden Lane is no country lane, as its name implies, but rather a busy thoroughfare in a residential area of north-west London. Even Riffel Road, which is mentioned several times, featured in my childhood, as it was there that my mother’s cousin, our Auntie Fraenze, lived. But most importantly, the hostel itself was a concept that featured largely in my life. As a newly-married couple, my parents worked for several years as house-parents at a similar hostel, the Sunshine Hostel in Hampstead, and it was there, in fact, that I first saw the light of day.

Over the course of recent years I read that the author, Mona Golabek, was appearing with great success in America, and later London, with a dramatized version of the story, and it intrigued me greatly. In fact, I went so far as to contact her by email to suggest that she bring the performance to Israel. I received a polite reply from her assistant saying that at present Miss Golabek had no plans to come to Israel, but that it was a possibility to be considered in the future.

And so I jumped as if bitten last week when I saw an ad in the newspaper stating that the play would be given at the Cameri Theatre in Tel-Aviv in a few days’ time. The tickets were quickly ordered (by then the main auditorium was already completely sold out, and the only seats left were on the balcony), and on the appointed evening we made our way to the metropolis.

Mona Golabek is the sole performer, and what a talented individual she is! She walks onto the empty, darkened stage alone, plays passages from Grieg’s piano concerto and other pieces from the classical repertoire and reenacts the story of her mother, first as a child in Vienna, and then as a teenager in London during the Blitz. Images illustrating the various incidents in her life are projected onto screens behind her, but the main focus of attention is on Mona at the piano.

Simply being able to play that demanding piano concerto would be quite a feat in itself, but Mona does much more than that. She sits at the piano, plays and talks (sometimes simultaneously) and seems to revive her mother’s life, to such an extent that we identify the two as one individual. She also has an actor’s talent for mimicking the voices of other characters – her gruff piano teacher in Vienna, the young French resistance fighter who courts her mother, and some of the other children in the hostel.

But for me the most moving moment came at the end. After tumultuous applause from the audience, Mona came to the front of the stage and spoke, visibly moved, about her lifelong ambition to present her story in Israel, “the best country in the world” (her words), and how much it meant to her to be here. She also mentioned having visited Yad Vashem with her father, and for a moment I thought ‘that’s impossible,’ but of course she was speaking as Mona, not as Lisa, the persona she had inhabited for the preceding hour and a half.

Sadly, only one or two performances were given in Israel, and it is to be hoped that Miss Golabek will find the time to come back in the future, to enable more people to benefit from her moving story and unbounded talent.

London and Jerusalem

Tags

AJR Journal, Assad, Brent Cross, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Kindertransport, Lebanon, occupied territories, Oxford Street, Palestinians, Syria

One of the readers of the AJR Journal (Association of Jewish Refugees), published in London, to which I contribute a monthly column entitled ‘Letter from Israel,’ sent an irate letter to the editor complaining about what I write.  “Why doesn’t Mrs. Shefer-Vanson write about the real issues that beset Israel instead of her bland pieces describing life as if she were living in North West London,” they said, or words to that effect.

I don’t usually reply to the letters referring to my column that the editor of that august journal occasionally prints. Some of them are positive, some negative, but as long as my name is spelt correctly, that’s all I require. Besides, there seems little point getting into arguments with readers, as these could well drag on over several months and end in nothing of any great significance. There is the additional consideration that many of the readers are quite advanced in age (refugees from Europe who left in the 1930s and 1940s, or who came as children in the framework of the Kindertransports), and it might appear disrespectful on my part to enter into an argument with them.

I make a point of not (or hardly ever) bringing politics into my column, partly because I have to send my article to the editor about six weeks before it actually appears, and the situation in Israel and the Middle East in general often changes radically within that period of time, so that what may be correct and relevant when I write it is passé by the time it appears. Apart from that, if it’s up-to-date news that people want to read, there are many other places where that can be obtained, and I doubt whether the AJR Journal is where one should be looking for it.

But as for the jibe about me living the life of someone who lives in North West London, I’m tempted to reply that in some ways there are definite similarities, albeit with a far better climate. After all, like someone living in North West London, I’m surrounded by Jews, there are Arabs in the vicinity, my relatives are not far away and the cultural and musical life is not inferior to what is available in London (apart from the theatre, of course).

Granted, we don’t have Brent Cross, or even Oxford Street, but we have quite reasonable substitutes, shopping malls keep popping up all over the place and downtown Jerusalem has even become reasonably quiet and unpolluted since the light railway began operating.

But then the political situation raises its ugly head, and there is no getting away from the fact that while life inside Israel continues on its even tenor, events in the region are volatile in the extreme. On our northern border Syrians are killing one another with unprecedented ferocity (not unprecedented, actually, vide Assad père). To the south of us the Egyptian populace, with the aid of the army, has just succeeded in toppling its democratically elected president, and there’s no knowing what lies ahead for that benighted country.

Yes, there are Occupied Territories, with their Palestinian population. The situation does not bode well, but there is very little I can do to change the state of affairs. I don’t support the settlers, I vote for the parties of the Left, but at the moment there are not enough people who think as I do to change the political situation under Israel’s democratic process.

The peoples of the surrounding countries may well take the lesson of the events in Egypt to heart, and who’s to say that similar occurrences won’t follow in Jordan, Lebanon, and even Iran? Anything’s possible in this day and age of instant messaging, facebook, etc. The main reason preventing people from going out and demonstrating en masse in those countries till now has presumably been fear of even greater violence on the part of the ruling echelon, and of course, the army which it controls. But if the army decides to side with the demonstrators, anything can happen.

So it seems wiser to keep out of the political morass and stick to describing the very pleasant life I lead here in Israel, with endless sunshine, caring people, and a rich cultural life. If anything, North West London comes a very poor second to what I – and many others – enjoy here.