Our guest today: Morris Greisas (my oupa)

 

"Welcome" in both Lithuanian and Yiddish (or so we hope!)

These 550+ days of lockdown has me obsessed about a few things:

One of them is Making do

The other is thanking Gary Sussman a million times

And lastly, to keep on looking for the spaces in between, the grey areas, the places where darkness and light might exist in the same spot. Places where the stereotype might be turned on its head. 

 

Making do: This Heritage Weekend we visited The Farm again. Yes, that one. The one our friends left behind when they emigrated to England. We keep on thinking that it is our farm, a humble farm with something like eight sheep and a small patch of mielies and a brick dam next to a decaying kraal muur.  A make-do farm for a make-do travel through food club. 

Last time we were there, there wasn’t any hot water, and we braved the outside shower. This time we made do. We stayed dirty. 

 

We stayed dirty like our guest today stayed dirty when he fled Lithuania as a young boy. The only difference was that he might have stayed dirty for months and not a weekend. We wanted to know everything about my Oupa Maurice's life, but he didn’t like to talk about those days, and he said that it made him sad. What we did know about his life as a young child, was repeated by the adults in the same way:

 

That Oupa Maurice was about 11 years old when his parents received news of yet another pogrom in Lithuania. More and more organized massacres of Jews took place in the towns surrounding their own. 

"The children must get away, get a better life..." said his father.

And his mother gathered the children around. She sewed the money for their boat ride into the sleeves of their jackets. 

The children set off on foot. 

Through the forests.

Through the many nights. 

Through their nightmares and the childhood they missed. 

How they got to England and on a boat, is a mystery. 

 

My oupa arrived in South Africa around 1910. (This makes his entry just a couple of years too early to apply for a Lithuanian passport. We will have to make do in SA instead) He slept at the train station. Under newspapers the story goes, till a butcher took him in. 

"If you deliver meat, you can stay in the back room for free." And so my grandpa started delivering meat on a bicycle in Cape Town. 

Then there was a huge gap in the story. And much later he ended up outside of Vryburg, as a smous. He married my Christian Ouma Ella Potgieter (making do) who gave me my Potgieter Stampers (legs like tree stumps!)

Helen, Hannes and Zen have visited Lithuania. They said that Lithuanian bread, cut like this and lathered in butter and garlic is served in every pub. And this is how we started our day... On the stoep. Talking about family and travel, and the streets of Vilnius. 

I remember visiting Ouma Ella once, and she showed me the pictures that go with this wonderful story: Once, a traveler from Brazil rocked up on the outskirts of Vryburg, to look for his own family. My oupa took him in, and the traveler stayed for a night or two. After a couple of late nights, the traveler said that he thought that he knew my oupa’s brother in Sao Paulo. And so it was, that after about 40+ years, my grandfather travelled to Brazil, met up with his now Portuguese speaking brother and cried for a week. Apparently they had to speak ito each other in broken Yiddish.

I remember visiting Ouma Ella once, and she showed me the pictures that go with this wonderful story: Once, a traveler from Brazil rocked up on the outskirts of Vryburg, to look for his own family. My oupa took him in, and the traveler stayed for a night or two. After a couple of late nights, the traveler said that he thought that he knew my oupa’s brother in Sao Paulo. And so it was, that after about 40+ years, my grandfather travelled to Brazil, met up with his now Portuguese speaking brother and cried for a week. Apparently they had to speak ito each other in broken Yiddish.

The visa that was granted to visit Brazil, thank you Gary Sussman

And then the story ends. Oupa Maurice died in 1981. I was eight. I remember him as my oupa. Nothing more and nothing less.  I remember his cat Fanta and his dog Ceaser. I remember that he loved to eat fish and drink Fanta Orange. His glasses were as thick as mine would have been if it weren’t for technology. I know that he always carried sweets in his pocket. 

Helen made us some chunky bjorst,  (Beetroot soup) which was one of Oupa's favourites. 

Years went by. Lots of longing to know him. Lots of romantisising of his story. And I always imagined that his real surname was Grasonovich. For years I wrote poems under this name. 

Nothing happened. We never learnt more. He stayed dead and his memory grew thinner and thinner. 

We always had to imagine. Who was he? What were the names of his parents? What made him tick? Were there any clues to his life?

 

And then Gary Sussman came along... His story arrived in my inbox out of the blue. (Or sort of, my late dad's brother got hold of him and asked him to look into Maurice Grace's life) Gary lives in Israel, but he grew up in Vryburg. And during lockdown he did a similar kind of thing to what we are doing. 

He thought of something to stay sane.

Instead of traveling through food, he traveled back in time. He traveled to all the Jewish families who grew up in Vryburg, including his own. He became the most admirable genealogist. He found the most wonderful 

stories

and pictures. 

He found my grandparents' names. (Josel and Liebe!)

Gary even found the real spelling of my grandfather's name and surname:

Morris Greisas... 

I rolled it on my tongue like a sweet. 

He found the visa my oupa used, when he  traveled to Brazil.

He found a myriad of donations my oupa made

Pictures... documents, story telling....

The possibility of a brother in Ecuador and Uruguay... 

He even found the names of my cousins in Brazil..

And then Gary invited me, who was brought up Christian, to have cheese and wine with him and some of the other children/ grandchildren of the Vryburg Jews. 

We had wine and cheese and olives and pita. 

We told stories from long ago. We laughed at our shared past. We remembered how naughty we were and shared a memory of a shared space and time... 

I even found out that the boy I had the biggest crush on, is gay and now I feel less rejected! 

Thank you Gary Sussman. Thank you a million times. 

Oupa's favourite was FISH. Any fish. My mother always made him sole and roll mops when he came to visit. But we got hold of the freshest Lesotho trout, and I knew oupa would have loved it. We also got him some roll-mops and matzo to go with it. 

And now those grey areas: What is heritage? Does being one thing and not another thing make you less of who you should be? What would I be in this country if I didn’t hang out in Fordsburg and Cyrildene and Comissioner Street? Am I my ancestors? Do I have to be like them to celebrate my heritage? Do I have to copy their X Y or Z to stay true to the tribe I am from? Or am I me, Merle. Merle Griesas? 

 

Latkes served with a yoghurt and lime dressing. Did my grandmother ever make this for her children? 

We carry so much with us from our past, but I don’t want to be glued to something just because my heritage says so. 

I want to be stuck to kindness and making mistakes. I want to be glued to travel, even though it’s only through food. I want to be able to say I’m sorry.  I want to keep people together, and include more people. And I want to celebrate the Moon Festival in the East as much as I want to celebrate the Passover and Christmas. 

 

Zen's chocolate salami dessert ended a wonderful day of memories on the farm.. 

And  maybe one day I can strive to be a Mensch.

Hannes, Helen and Rebecca at the photo Booth! 

Thank you Helen Hannes and Rebecca, Zen and Mauritz  for letting me write all about myself when it is actually all about us. I could see no other way. 

Zen and I in the photo booth! 

As always the extras:

• Read about Gary Sussman's research here...
• Candice Breitz, one hell of an artist, was at the Venice Bienalle the year I was there. She shook me to the core. On empathy. On belonging. On being heard...To me it's also about how to learn the heritage of listening to others 
• Eating is Believing turned ONE! Read my previous post on:

Carlos Ruiz Zafon (My hart se punt! Author of The Shadow of the Wind)

Pekka Kuusisto (A story on Finland, a red dress, a violin and a wolf)

Like Water for Chocolate (Probably my favourite. Fuck hurtful traditions)

Aysa Safal (Mauritz's inspiration)

Gaston le Roux (On the ghost that lives in the opera house, and baby twins...)

Nico Tortorella (The one the teenagers invited...)

Kahlil Gibran (Poet, painter, influencer, from Lebanon.)