The Girl in the Red Coat
Roma Ligocka
Language: English
Pages: 304
ISBN: 038533740X
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
As a child in German-occupied Poland, Roma Ligocka was known for the bright strawberry-red coat she wore against a tide of gathering darkness. Fifty years later, Roma, an artist living in Germany, attended a screening of Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, and instantly knew that “the girl in the red coat”—the only splash of color in the film—was her. Thus began a harrowing journey into the past, as Roma Ligocka sought to reclaim her life and put together the pieces of a shattered childhood.
The result is this remarkable memoir, a fifty-year chronicle of survival and its aftermath. With brutal honesty, Ligocka recollects a childhood at the heart of evil: the flashing black boots, the sudden executions, her mother weeping, her father vanished…then her own harrowing escape and the strange twists of fate that allowed her to live on into the haunted years after the war. Powerful, lyrical, and unique among Holocaust memoirs, The Girl in the Red Coat eloquently explores the power of evil to twist our lives long after we have survived it. It is a story for anyone who has ever known the darkness of an unbearable past—and searched for the courage to move forward into the light.
outside … I don’t want to think of that. “Mama,” I beg her, “please tell me a story.” * * * The Café Maurizio on the Kraków Market Square served the best cassata, the best ice cream in the city. They also had chocolates decorated with nuts and marzipan, jars filled with bright colored candies, and cakes and pastries in all shapes and colors. You sat at small round tables in softly upholstered armchairs and talked in low voices while quick, polite waiters in long starched aprons served you.
you’re still on the street after six. And if people can’t manage to get home in time, they spend the night with friends, or knock on some stranger’s door. Once Tadeusz and the actors slept on the living room floor here when their playacting went on too long. That was very nice. Tadeusz told me fairy tales till late into the night. After curfew a ghostly stillness sets in. I can make out the shadows of two uniformed men on the corner. Just as I’m about to turn away from the window to go to the
father saying, “It’s Bernhard’s ring.” I remember how his voice sounded—heavy and far away, as though coming out of a deep well. But I can’t picture his face anymore. I only know that he had dark eyes, like me. Ella stays only a short while. She says my father gave her the ring while he was still with the Płaszów construction gang. But she doesn’t know where he is now. After Ella has left, Mrs. Kiernikowa asks, “How could she have known that you’re staying with us?” She doesn’t seem glad that
dancing, and because my father is carrying me, I’m safe. “The war is over!” people yell. “The war is over!” They toss their hats into the air and scream and shout nonstop. The crowd below me surges back and forth, celebrating, singing, happy. I’m amazed that people can be so boisterous and so happy. But suddenly I am laughing and singing and shouting along with them. “The war is over!” I yell too, even though I don’t know just what that means. Hours later, we’re back in our apartment,
mother. “For you, Mama! From Nehru himself!” I know she loves roses. Why isn’t she happy? She sniffs them, then puts them in a big vase and places them in the center of the table. Their fragrance spreads throughout the apartment. Even Marynia is impressed by their splendor when she comes home with her almost-empty market basket. My mother strokes my hair. “Thank you,” she says softly. But I have the feeling that she isn’t very proud of me. * * * Every day the radio carries reports of