Chapter Six: Family

Four children and a dog; farewell to a Mother; dreams of a distant country

Their life as a couple, which quickly developed into a lively home with children, they began in a rented apartment in the 3rd floor in a new building in a new neighborhood in east Lisbon. Nathan, who worked with his father-in-law, went by bus every morning to the office in the center of the city. Sonia, who also worked at the office, arrived later, until one day Nathan told her that he was earning enough for their living and she didn’t need to work. At that time, women rarely worked in Portugal.

Sonia enjoyed family life, and didn’t know how to cook, except for cooking steaks.  Soon Nathan tired of eating steak every day, and they took on a maid, who cleaned and cooked. Sonia spent the mornings with her Mother or with friends. In the evenings, when Nathan came home, they would read and hear music. In the weekends, we went to the movies. “We didn’t have many friends, we enjoyed our life as a couple, and we never were bored.”

Even if they wanted, they couldn’t be bored. They desired to have children, and planned to have them close together, so they would grow together as close, loving siblings. Within seven years, four children filled the house.

When they found out that Sonia was pregnant, all the family was very happy. She quickly went to buy the book by the American children doctor, Dr. Spock, published seven years earlier and had become a best-seller of all the years. Dr. Spock was the first pediatrician to teach psychology, encouraged and taught parents to follow their natural instincts,

and to relate with each child as a being, and according to its character and needs, and to deal with them with understanding and love. Sonia liked these ideas, and as her Father also did, she searched for more than conventional medicine and the usual methods could offer. Thus, long before the “natural birth” and “birth at home” were trendy, Sonia had bought books that taught her the technique of breathing and relaxing and adopted these techniques for birth without pain.   

When the birth cramps began, Sonia went to the private clinic in the same building in which her parents lived, but the nurse was not impressed by the young woman who did not shout or cry with pain or complain of pains, and said that the doctor would arrive after he would shower and shave. But Sonia suggested that she should check and the nurse was surprised to see that she was in fact ready for birth. When finally the doctor arrived, ready for the birth, it was already too late: the small (2.750kgs) baby had been born, he had only one thing to do – to sew what had been torn as the nurse had pulled the baby from the womb.

Their first-born son, who was born on 12.06.1953, a year and  a week after his parents had married, was named Daniel Samuel – the Portuguese Jews had the habit of naming their boys after the dead grandfathers brought great happiness to the large family. They awaited till the baby put on weight and reached the 3kgs. needed for the Brit Mila. One month after his birth, the Brit took place in the Synagogue, held by his “sandak”, Nathan’s grandfather, Moshe Goldreich, and afterwards followed by a party at the Jewish Centro.

Sonia began the first steps in world of motherhood. “At the beginning it was very difficult, Dany was a small baby who demanded constant attention, and cried all the time, day and night. Nathan, who saw how difficult it was for me, woke up at night and fed the baby. Nathan and I were tired all the time and came to the point of exhaustion, until we decided to add artificial milk to breast-feeding. Nathan would feed the baby at night and also learned how to change cloth napkins with the large pins. Portuguese men at that time, didn’t help to care of babies.”

The hot months of summer, they spent at the summer house of Esther and David Halpern at the fishing town of Setubal, on the northern coast of the river Sado, south east of Lisbon. The house is on a cliff, with stairs leading to the dock, where David’s motorboat was anchored. Sonia and her mother walked around with the baby, and gave him sun baths, turning him from side to side, according to the bible of Dr. Spock, because it was important for the baby to receive vitamin D. Dani was a very sweet and happy baby and got a lot of attention. He suffered of a rash on his face, which he would scratch, so I sewed him a pair of gloves of cotton cloth to use when sleeping.” The young family lived in the basement, which led out on a terrace. The men returned from work in early evening and joined the family. The maid cleaned the house and cooked the meals, so Esther was free to enjoy the baby and also to bake sweet cakes and desserts. Nathan travelled every morning to work with the bus and ferryboat, till they bought their first car – Sonia’s father’s car.

They spent two lovely summers in this house, until Dani learned to walk and the many stairs became a problem. Sonia and Nathan rented summer houses in villages, such as Carcavelos or Oeiras. When Sonia’s parents bought a house close in Sassoeiros, they would come there frequently. This was a very special house with a black thatched roof, resembling a mountain house and a very large garden, where the child could run about, and enjoy the animals: the chicken, and rabbits. Dani loved cars and had a collection of miniature cars; he recognized their makes, and would astonish his parents, by saying “Dodge” when a car passed by, when he hardly talked.

Dani enjoyed two years as being the only child, until when in 9.06.1955, his sister Susana arrived with a bang and entered their family. Sonia followed the “natural painless birth” method, which she practiced with her gynecologist and obstetrician Dr. Cesina Bermudes, who also believed in the method. This doctor taught her special breathing and relaxing during the delivery; she followed Sonia’s delivery and she delivered the baby at her bedroom. Nathan was present at the birth, a most rare happening, as Portuguese men never did this.

“I believed that you don’t have to come to have big pains, and it could be different. Luckily I found a doctor who helped me to do this. Susy was in no hurry, and I remember that the doctor ate her supper sitting in our bedroom, Although the baby was late in coming and took quite some time, I didn’t suffer pains, by following the exercises and breathing the doctor had taught me; the medicine I received to speed up the birth took time till Susy decided to come and breathe the air of the world.”

Susana the baby – Susy, as everybody called her, challenged her parents every day since her birth. “Susy was a very active child, temperamental, and impetuous. She had her own ideas, wishes and was stubborn, and disobedient. Aunt Alice, Helena’s sister, would often tell that whenever she came to visit us, Susy would receive her with kicks on her legs.

Susy somewhat resembles Alice and Helena in her character and their energy. Even though she was younger than Dani, she would hit him and they frequently quarreled, until I taught Dani to ignore her and not pay attention to what she said or did, and behave as if it didn’t matter to him. This somewhat calmed her. When Susy was about a year and a half, she came out of her bed, and walked silently down the stairs and sat near my armchair in the living room. I was astonished when I felt that the little girl was there at my side. Another time, she climbed out of her bed (it was high) and climbed the high chest of drawers, and reached for a bottle of syrup for cough and it broke on the floor. I heard the noise and came running, and found her sitting amid broken glass, her face smeared with syrup. I was very worried and took her to the doctor; he checked her and said that everything was alright.”

The quiet life made it easy to care for the two small children. Sonia took driving lessons and they bought her a small Renault car. They moved from their apartment in Lisbon on the 3rd floor and went to live in a large, two-floor house with a large garden in Santo Amaro de Oeiras, which was 20 minutes away from Lisbon, and about 10 minutes walk from the quiet beach with a natural bay. While still living in Lisbon, Sonia would take her small children every day to the park nearby, the Campo Grande, and in summer at the beach.

“We had a sun shade in the same place every day, and we spent every morning at the beach. The children played in the sand and awaited the coming of two sellers, who attracted them: one, a man with a large red metal box, with a sort of roulette on the top with numbers. The children would turn the wheel and according to the number where it stopped, he would give them “barquilhos” (a kind of waffle of ice cream cones). Dani and Susy loved this game very much, and they awaited this man’s arrival, and also the woman who had a metal box with all kind of very good cakes, and among these ‘pasteis de nata’. I used to bring along a large basket with plastic plates and cutlery, which my parents had given us, and food from home. Sometimes came also gypsies, who made a show of acrobatics, which the children also loved to watch although they were afraid, because the maids told them that gypsies kidnapped children. We went home, tired but happy, for lunch and a nap after it. In the afternoon, the children played in the large garden, in the sand box and the climbing device, which Susy loved specially. She was a very flexible child, and did exercises which nobody else could do.”

Susy also enjoyed playing with Ruthie, her cousin, my sister Ana’s daughter. Ana had studied education in London, and had worked there as teacher, and lived at Aunt Recha’s and with Mrs. Schneersohn. She met Avram Shidlo, an Israeli who worked in London; they married in London and moved to Portugal, where they married religiously in ‘Shaarei Tikvah’ synagogue and then had a big party at the Centro. The two sisters were frequently together, and are close until this day. Ruthie, the eldest daughter of Avram and Ana, was born between Dani and Susy. She and Susy played often together and liked to wash their dolls’ clothes.

Earlier than expected – the third pregnancy, not planned, but welcomed with happiness – Silvia joined the family in 16.12.1956. Sonia again gave birth at the private Clinic, which was in the building where her parents lived. “I asked to return home as soon as possible. “I had left at home two very small children, and I didn’t want that they should feel abandoned. Maybe my anxiety was somewhat exaggerated.”

Silvia was born during the night and at midday I was home already. Silvia was a very sweet and easy baby, who was always very considerate with me – she let me sleep at night. When she woke up to eat at night, it was Nathan who would always feed her.”

Four years later, Rafi (Rafael, and Moshe, in memory of the grandfather Goldreich, Helena’s, Nathan’s mother, father) was born, in 30.09.1960 the 4th and last child of the family.

This time Sonia was more intelligent, and stayed at the Clinic a week to rest, before she returned to her full home. Dani, when he heard the news, went outside and shouted: “I have a brother!” Rafi was also a very contented and easy baby, and like his brother, loved to play with cars.

“Even though the children were born close together, it was not difficult for me. I always enjoyed being with them. I built with cubes and drew together with them – Susy always enjoyed very much drawing. When they played ‘hide and seek’ in the garden, I also played with them. When Rafi grew, I ordered a two-storied bed for him and Dani. The two boys had the same room, and the two girls also had their own room. In the evenings, before sleep, I would read them stories, sometimes all together, other times separately. I taught Rafi ‘Shemah Israel’ and would sing to him some songs in Yiddish, which I knew from my Mother.”

“Silvia loved the stories of Dr. Seuss very much. She was a very sensitive child; on Friday evenings, she would not fall asleep before Nathan and I would return home; we had dinner at our parent’s homes. When she saw, between the shutters, that we were arriving, she would go to her bed and fall asleep.  In the mornings, the children would ride their bicycles around the house. On Saturdays I drove Susy and Silvia to drawing lessons in Lisbon, not far from the Museum of Ancient Art. In the afternoons, I took the three older children to the ‘Centro’, where they would sing Israeli songs, and would hear about Eretz Israel, especially with the Rav Diesendruck.”

To all this bustle, there was always included a dog as well, an integral part of the family, and sometimes there were other animals also. Susy and Silvia raised white mice. Dani and Silvia organized a small hospital for bugs, and this helped them learn biology in their own way, for example the pulling out of the bugs’ legs. The healing process was very slow and limited. Dani built a running track at home, which included the stairs till the veranda outside of the kitchen. They competed with their cousins, Ana’s children. The victor would receive, Dani decided, a yellow t-shirt, like the one in the ‘Tour de France’. He always watched what Silvia did. “She was always very delicate” he said, “and I feared that she could fall. I felt responsible for her.” In quieter moments, Milu our maid, would have Silvia and Rafi sit near her and each one would have a bowl of green peas to split the pods.

There were two gates that led to the house: a small gate for pedestrians, and the larger one for cars. Dani remembers the day that a plane flew very low above our house and he was afraid that the plane would crash into our gates and the house. Susy solved the situation in the way known to her: she climbed one of the trees.

Life with four children and a dog went by with surprises and challenges, as matter of course. Rafi was already a year and a half when the dog overturned the chair where he in the stairs sat, and the small child fell and wounded his mouth, making it very difficult for him to eat. Dani was wounded when going outside, the door of the kitchen closed upon his hand, cutting the upper part of his finger; Sonia drove him very quickly to the family doctor, who was also a surgeon. He sewed back his finger. When they drove to the airport to receive Nathan, on his return from a business trip, we arranged a holder for the hand of the same color as his shirt, so his father would not notice something had happened to his hand. Dani was hurt when the family went on a ski vacation in south Spain, when someone crashed into him. Silvia joined the list of family wounded, when the large wooden upper part that held the swing in our garden fell on her head. Nathan’s parents were with us (it was Sunday) and his Father and Nathan took Silvia to a hospital nearby. There, they sewed her wound – it’s still possible to see the stitches on her head.

Sonia and Nathan always gave freedom to their children, and in 1964, sent Dani who was 11 years old to a Jewish youth summer camp at Grenoble, France. “My parents though that this experience would strengthen me,” Dani says, I cried from tension as I boarded the plane.  In Paris, my aunt Miriam awaited me, and I met my cousin Pedro. From there I traveled by night train to Grenoble in a carriage full of children who spoke French. I was supposed to stay there two weeks, but when playing football, I jumped to reach the ball with my head, and then the next image that I remember, was lying in a clinic. I had a shock and had lost conscientiousness. On my return home, my lovable sisters and brother, who worried very much about me, awaited me, and had prepared a theatrical sketch. Susy decided as usual, on the roles: she was the queen, Lior, Gila and Isaac’s eldest, was visiting us, was the prince, and Silvia was the witch. The parents and me had to clap.”

Their Mother was the dominant figure in the home. She educated the children; they learned not to rise from the table before their parents had risen, and not to interrupt the conversation of the adults. The four children knew that below the somewhat strict woman, there was a soft-hearted person who would always stand by them. Dani remembers her touch when she held his hand, when she accompanied him for the entry exams to the lyceum. And also when he was fighting with another boy, near their house, his mother stood on the veranda and cried: “Give him, give him!” and threw a shoe that hit the boy.

Their Father came home late from work. Sometimes, they would wait outside for him, till they heard the honking of his car from the street on the other side of the ‘river’, and sometimes, he came when they were already in bed, and would only have time to give them a goodnight kiss. The family business continued to grow and extended to Porto and Madrid.  Ana and Avram, who joined as a partner, moved with his family to Madrid, where he directed the business.

David retired, leaving all his business in the good hands of Nathan. “Nathan had a l brilliant head: he would make accounts quicker than a computer, he had an exceptional memory and knowledge. He also was a wonderful father, who loved to run with the children in the garden, play with them games of words, and teach to ride the bicycles.

During the week, the children ate at the round red table in the playroom. During the weekends, they would eat with us at the dining room; the children liked very much the ‘green soup’, which was made with the leaves of a special tall cabbage, cut very thin, and with ‘choriço’ for flavour. In Israel, they tried to make the ‘green soup’, but it was not the same. Friday evenings, we (without the children) would alternate and eat at our parents’  home: one week at Helena and Salomon Mucznik, and the other, at Esther and David Halpern’s.  On Saturdays and Sundays, the grandparents would come to Oeiras. In summer, they drank coffee in the garden, and in winter, near the fireside. Silvia still remembers the warm hugs of Grandma (Vóvó) Esther when she put them to sleep. Sometimes, Sonia and Nathan would take the children to Lisbon, to see a film or the circus. At the circus, Silvia, as her Mother, was afraid of the acrobats’ acts: that they should fall. In the summer, they enjoyed the open-air cinema, in the village where they lived.

During the summer holidays, the family would go camping in the mountains, near a river. Nathan, who was a bit spoiled, did not enjoy the cooking on the small gas fire and sleeping in a tent, but the children loved every moment, the parents’ playing with them, the swimming in the river—and were delighted. The experience of taking the holiday at a hotel, was a fiasco; the children were too noisy for the Portuguese, who liked silence.
Despite the good life they led, they knew that beyond the sea, their true homeland awaited them. Sonia and Nathan, following their parents, insisted that their children learn English very well. Dani, the eldest, was the only who studied at a Portuguese school, at D. Isabel, who taught 8 children from kindergarten through elementary in her living room. The school children told stories about her – one was that she smuggled bottles of wine and kept them in her cellar. Dani then passed to the public lyceum.
His sisters and brother went to ‘St. Julian’s School’ in Carcavelos, the nearby village.
Sonia would drive them to school and back, until they were grown and could go by train. When they arrived, Susy and Silvia would race down home, because they were afraid of the parrot, which cursed loudly from the wine shop on the way. “One day, when Silvia was about 10 years old, on their way home, Susy didn’t let her get on the train, and she walked all the way home. She told me she that she walked parallel to the railway. Two other Jewish girls also studied in their school: Lena and Vera Zagury, and after school, they played together at one of their homes.”
In contrast to their mother, the children didn’t like their school and its strictness; the teachers still punished the children, by hitting them with a ruler on their hands, or on their bottoms. “Rafi cried every day, when I led him to Kindergarten, and sometimes, Silvia stayed with him, until he would calm down. Finally, we passed him to a Portuguese school.” Susy who always adapted quickly, and loved the school, especially because of the wide outer spaces around it, the tennis courts, and the pine trees, from which the school children collected the pine cones which fell, and the pine nuts. Last Autumn, Rafi took Sonia and his family to visit ‘St. Julian’s, and she was surprised that nothing seemed to have changed all these years.

In addition to their school hours, the children also had private lessons in Portuguese, but Susy and Silvia found creative ways to escape from these lessons. Once they opened the cage where they kept white mice, and the teacher fled frightened. And on another occasion, when the teacher went to the toilet, they moved the time in her watch, which she had left behind, and thus shortened their lesson.

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The Zionist bug that had been inside Sonia ever since Cuba, grew in her, and she succeeded to have Nathan think and feel the same as she did, but he knew that in the small and poor country he would not be able to sell diamonds, and was afraid of how he would be able to support his family, but in fact, found how.

In 1960, when Sonia was pregnant with Rafi, she and Nathan went on their first visit to Eretz Israel. Isaac, who had come after he had completed his studies in Switzerland, was living in Givataim with his wife Guila, and their eldest son, Lior. Sonia and Nathan stayed at their house, and traveled all over Eretz Israel, they visited a kibbutz and the Kinneret. Nathan examined the possibilities of opening a business in Eretz Israel and made some early contacts. “I remember in special, the heavy heat, which astonished me, because you can feel it already in the early hours of the morning. We liked very much what we saw, and we were impressed by the good feeling of living here, but also realised that there were economic difficulties, and we would not be able to lead the same life as we had been used to, and would not be able to keep a maid at home.”

Seven years passed until their next visit to Eretz Israel. Sonia could not leave her Mother, for of the three daughters, she was the only one who lived in Portugal. Ana and Avram had moved with their children to Madrid. Miriam and her husband Carlos Veiga Pereira were living in exile in Paris. Carlos, who was a well-known journalist, was involved in an attempt to topple the dictator Salazar. When someone betrayed them, the secret police arrested Carlos, and demanded high bail for his release, not an amount people use to hold at home. In order to release Carlos that same afternoon, as the banks were already closed, my father and Nathan asked a client and good friend, to lend them the money needed for the bail, and managed to free Carlos. Eventually, a few months later, because of a different political involvement, Carlos had to leave Portugal to London, and then to Paris, where Miriam came to join him. Their small son, Pedro, stayed at their grandparents, Esther and David, until their parents took him to Paris. Carlos worked for a French institute supporting exiles and later for the French press agency while completing his master degree. Miriam joined him and studied History and Economy at the Sorbonne, and completed her PhD in Economic History of Portugal in the 19th century, with a French government scholarship, and then worked as a researcher. In October 1972, Miriam and Carlos returned to Lisbon with their children, Pedro and Muriel, who had been born in the meantime. In Lisbon, Carlos worked as a well-known journalist, and Miriam began teaching at the University, and published several books.

Esther Halpern passed away in January 1964. “It was very difficult for me to accept my Mother’s death, but I can’t cry. My Uncle Jo, Aunt Brania’s husband asked me during the week of the ‘shiva’: ‘why don’t you cry? It would help you. I told him that it was always difficult for me to cry. Everything stayed inside me.”

“I told my Father that he needn’t live alone – he was welcome to come and live with us. But he was wiser than I and answered: ‘it’s true that I will be alone, but it would not be right that if I came to live with you, and would not agree with something in the way you educate the children, and this could lead to a disagreement between us. I prefer to live alone.’ Today I know how wise my Father was. He was a very assertive man, and he would undoubtedly interfere in our life, and we would have unnecessary disagreements.”

Anyway, David’s loneliness didn’t last long — about a year after Esther’s death, he married another Esther, Esther Castel, whom we called Madrinha, because she was Sonia’s godmother. They married in New York, where Esther lived, and then they returned to Portugal together. Sonia learned to like David’s new wife.

In June 1966, Dani, the eldest son, and the eldest grandson of both the Halpern and Mucznik families, celebrated his Bar Mitzva in the Synagogue “Shaarei Tikva”, and he surprised the community when he sang his ‘aftara’ — the elders of the community said that his nice voice reminded them that of Shmuel Mucznik, the grandfather of Nathan, who had emigrated to Eretz Israel. The large party that followed took place at the ‘Centro’.

 About a year later, in April 1960, Sonia and Nathan left their children in the care of the Mucznik grandparents. Helena liked very much to play games with them, and Salomon would tell them a story which never ended at their meal times. They travelled again to Israel and began searching for an apartment: in the area near the new hospital Ichilov and in Kiriat Onu, where Gila and Isaac lived. Finally, they bought a large apartment in a new building, still not ready in the 11th floor in Yehuda Hanassi, 36, with sand dunes all around, and a few buildings nearby. The builder told them that they would not need air conditioning, because the breeze from the sea would be enough, but a few months later they saw that it was important to have air conditioning, and Sonia and Nathan put the first air conditioning in the building.

Sonia returned very happy to Portugal, excited by the new life ahead of them, and even the arrows that her mother-in-law sent, by telling her that the children had behaved much better with them than with their parents at home didn’t succeed in dampening her enthusiasm. In Israel, Gila and Isaac bought beds for them, tables and chairs to help Sonia and Nathan’s ‘aliya”. But in the meantime, the Sixth Day War broke out and we had to wait for a while, until we could leave for our land. “There were not many Jews from Portugal who emigrated to Israel. In the meanwhile, a good friend of Ana, who married in Israel, and they always laughed, saying that Portuguese girls found husbands in Israel. Everyone wondered how we were leaving with our four children for Israel, a country that was at war.  At that time, Portugal had many conflicts in Africa, and military service was required. Wile they were planning their ‘aliya’, a Jewish Portuguese young man, serving in Angola, who had left his camp without permission, to phone his wife on their anniversary, had been punished by being sent to the front lines, and had been killed. This had made a very deep impression on me and had strengthened our decision, because Nathan and myself were afraid that Dani would be drafted in a few years and sent to Africa., and we asked ourselves, why fight for a country, which was not our own.”

“We only suffered anti-Semitism very exceptionally. While Dani was studying in the lyceum, one of his teachers began telling an anecdote about rich Jews who lent money with high interest. Dani stood up and said that he was a Jew and wanted to leave the class, because he didn’t want to hear the joke. The teacher refused to let him leave. I told the story to Nathan and said that this was an example of how Portuguese Christians didn’t like Jews. Nathan didn’t give such importance as I did. Two maids working at our house, asked me whether we are Jewish, and when I answered yes, one said: ‘Jews have horns and tail, and are wicked, but you are normal and good people, but we don’t want to work at a Jewish house.’ The priest had told them that the Jews had killed Jesus, and the Christians believed this.” Some people were not upset by this, I was!”

It is still difficult to understand why a woman who has everything good in life – a nice house, a large family, a warm community, an easy and comfortable life – chooses to leave everything behind, and was ready to start anew in a small, war-ridden country in the Middle East. Sonia, at her age, doesn’t understand how she took that decision, which she never regretted, not even for a minute.

“I cannot explain the great desire I had to live in Eretz Israel. In Portugal I always felt that we were strangers, that we didn’t belong, although nobody ever gave us that impression. It was my interior sentiment. I felt it was not my home: we never celebrated their holidays, and they didn’t celebrate our holidays. Maybe I didn’t grasp all the good that we had.

“I wasn’t afraid of the difficulties of life in Israel, not knowing Hebrew, nor was it difficult to leave Portugal; after all, I never had many friends. I thought that every thing would be alright, that it would take time, but we would manage. I was optimistic, and I was also young, only 38. I remember the first Shabbat in Israel: I stood on the terrace of our new apartment, and I said in my heart: ‘how quiet it is here on ‘Erev Shabbat’. How good I feel in my soul to be part of this and belong here. This feeling has been with me ever since. It has always been good to be here.”