Ludmila's ESL Composition: What I Did This Week-end September 15, 1952

September 15, 1952

What I Did This Week-end

     The week-end is the unhappiest time of whole week for me, because I have much work at home to do.

     Friday afternoon at half past two the bell rang informing that the school is over.  Several minutes later the school yard was crowded with the pupils that ran, jumped, bumped at one another hastening to get speedier home.  My friend and I desided to take a walk home.  We were seduced by the sun which shone in full strength.  But when we had walked few blocks we saw that the weather is very torrid and the air is humid.  We did not want to ride in the suffocating troleycar, so we kept walking.  As the weather was very hot, we were going tardyly.  And when we had rambled home at last, it was half past three instead of three o'clock.  My parents must return from their work over one and a half an hour, so I must hurry to put in order and to clean our apartment.  I grasped the dustrag and began to rub out the dust from the windows, chairs, furniture and so on from everywhere it can be.  Then I swept the floor.  Only I had done all this work, as my parents entered the apartment.  When my mother finished to cook and we ate our dinner, I ironed the linen then went to bed.

     At Saturday I arose at eight o'clock.  When I put myself in order and ended my breakfast I started to wash the floor and then the linen.  After hanging it to firm I went on the market to by the food for the next week.  With my return from the market I found the linen dry, so I could to press it immediately.  I terminated to iron at seven o'clock.  It was the time to go to church.  The worship ended at nine o'clock.  When I went home I ate my supper.  There upon I took a bath and at eleven o'clock I was already fallen asleep.

     Sunday morning I got up at eight o'clock in order to be ready to church in time.  I did not eat my breakfast, because the orthodox people do not eat before the worship at Sundays and other holydays.  After a long worship that ended, as usually, at noonday, I went home and ate my lunch.  I just was preparing to study my lessons when my friend came to me.  She asked me to help her in mathematics.  I spended the time with her till five o'clock.  Then I started on my lessons.  At twelve o'clock I finished them and went to sleep.

     So ended my week-end- my "repose".



  

Ludmila's ESL composition: The Flower Show March 30, 1952

Some of the things Ludmila loved:  gardening, nature, the sun

     I'm not sure how long Ludmila had been in the US when she wrote this.  I will find out and post later.  Speaking as an ESL teacher or just as your average reader, the depth of thought and vocabulary choice is surprising.  I am transcribing it exactly as written.

Ludmila Koslow (abusive stepfather's name she later legally removed from her name)
English Class
March 30, 1952

The Flower Show

     On Friday, March 28th, our class went on the "Flower Show".  "The Flower Show" was in the Commercial Museum at 34th below Spruce.  It is the sole place in Philadelphia where you can be sensible of the summer earlier on two months.
  
     When we entered the museum, hundreds of the scents of different flowers met us.  I stopped to smell them.  We went on.  And then we saw the flowers of all seasons.  There were autumnal roses of different colors and shades, september asters, gardenias, summer annuals, orchids, lilies, carnations, narcissus and many other flowers and plants.  The flowers were wery bright and motley.

     The entire big hall was divided on the premiseses, that were turn into the tiny parks and flower gardens with miniature fountains and basins, with carpets out of the lawns.  Except this there were eight country gardens with two country broadside markets among them, and farmyard with the barn, load of the hay, goat, pigeons and duck pond.

     To visit the flower show exhibit and to look how such miniature gardens are arranged, is a good lesson for all those, who live in the suburs and have before the house a little piece of the ground which can be converted in the flower garden, that will gladden the eye during the summer.

     Many people tramped on the flower show, gathering the catalogues of the gardeners, buying the packets with the grains, sacks with the manure and etc.  Lengthwise of the right side stood the tables, where were selling all this is necessary for the gardener:  the all kinds of the scissors, instruments, boxes for the conservation of the seeds.

     After two hours of the walk at the exhibition in my hands were suddenly present several pockets with the manure for my plants, catalogues, and the bundles with the sperms, that I shall plant, when I  shall have my own villa...How much time will go till I shall set my plants I don't know, but I hope they will not ruin, because the grains that were found in the tombs of the Pharaons gave the germs at last.


---I think Ludmila probably did not have any place to plant her seeds and make a garden when she first came to live in Philadelphia.  They were poor.  But it seems in this composition she is hoping her seeds will last for how ever long it takes to get her own garden,  just as the seeds discovered in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs were still able to sprout after thousands of years.  This dream did come true for Ludmila.  Gardening was her life long passion.  Ludmila designed an addition to my house, and her side of the yard was blooming from first spring until even a little after the first frost (due to a hardy red rose that I don't know the name of).  Neighbors would come to take pictures of her garden, it was so beautiful.  It really did gladden the heart of Ludmila and all who saw her creation.


  

Background on the Holocaust reparations program

Copy/paste this link to get some background on the Holocaust reparations program:

http://www.iom.int/jahia/webdav/shared/shared/mainsite/about_iom/en/council/83/MCINF248.pdf

From the above:

"...By accepting to be a partner organization of the German Foundation and one of the 

implementing organizations of the Swiss Banks Settlement Agreement, IOM has put itself at the 

service of groups of elderly, vulnerable people, all of whom have been victims of the Nazi 

regime, and most of whom have been hoping for this gesture of recognition for over 50 years. 

They are first and foremost human beings, with feelings, memories, emotions, and expectations. 

IOM has to strike the right balance between two poles:  the human aspect and the prescribed 

parameters for the programmes establishing criteria, categories and ceilings.  The fact that there 

are hundreds of thousands of claimants who are spread all over the world and that, given their 

age, time is of the essence, adds to the challenge."

Well done, IOM.
Information on how the IOM decided who was entitled to reparations:

http://www.redress.org/downloads/Assessment_of_harm_in_German_forced_labor.pdf

Reparations information from IOM- category for being a victim of medical experiments, which Ludmila qualified for

Getting Reparations

     Back in I guess the summer of 2001 I saw an article in the paper saying that Holocaust survivors could apply for reparations.   They were required to write up their experience with enough detail and any supporting documentation so that they could in effect prove they were victims.  My mom decided to do it and did receive money  (several thousand US dollars).  She said that the important thing was the writing she had to do.  She said it helped to get it out on paper.  And I guess it was a kind of validation of what she had been through given that certain people close to her didn't believe her stories.  The note from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which was handling reparations, said that my mom's claims were "resolved on the following basis:  R- EVI ("the claim was resolved on the basis of evidence provided by you in your claim"), R-ITS ("The claim was resolved on the basis of evidence that IOM obtained from the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen, Germany").

     Of the copies of the IOM letters with attached checks my mother kept, I have the following information:

1.  "Award for Forced Labour for a Company/Public Authority"
2.  "Award for Forced Labour/Slave Labour" (not sure of the difference between numbers 1 and 2)
3.  "Award for Other Personal Injury/ Category 1...Claim resolved in the following category: R - MED ("Medical Experiments")

I am scanning in the papers from the IOM that my mother kept.  We are still looking for the reparations story she wrote out.  When we find it, I will type it up here.  If we don't find it, I sure hope the IOM archived these stories somewhere.  If they didn't, it would be a moral outrage.