A mysterious request leads the Canadian-born son of a Holocaust survivor back to the old country.
By Robert Eli Rubinstein in Mosaic Magazine“There’s someone here to see you.”
“Who is it?”

“Her
name is Magda Zelenka,” replied my receptionist. “She says she has
something important to discuss with you, but she doesn’t have an
appointment.”
It took me a moment to recall Magda. Decades
earlier, my late father Bill had hired her and her husband Ferenc as
superintendents of an apartment building in the Toronto suburb of
Etobicoke. Despite his own shattered life back in Hungary, my father was
remarkably free of vindictiveness, hiring Germans, Austrians,
Ukrainians, Croats—even Hungarians—as long as they were the best
qualified candidates for a job.
The Zelenkas proved excellent
employees: hard-working, courteous, beloved by tenants. After long years
of service, Ferenc suffered a series of heart attacks followed by a
fatal stroke. Although Magda hoped to continue managing the building on
her own, the challenge had proved overwhelming. She was no youngster,
and hardly in the best of health herself. Nor, in spite of her lengthy
residence in Canada, had she ever really mastered the English language,
which made it difficult for her to communicate. With deep regret, she
submitted her resignation, asking only that she be allowed to rent an
apartment in one of our buildings.
By then, my father had retired
and I had come into the business. I agreed to her request without
hesitation, assuming she would wish to remain in her old neighborhood
among other expatriate Hungarians. To my surprise, she specifically
asked for a building with a large number of Jewish residents, in a
predominantly Jewish area.
And now, years later, here she was.
Intrigued, I ushered her into my office and in the seldom-used language
of my childhood asked after her health: “Hogy tetszik lenni?” Her eyes
lit up as, in her habitually formal style of address, she prepared to
answer.
“I am not doing very well, sorry to say. I just came home
from a long stay at the Jewish hospital”—she meant Mount Sinai, in
downtown Toronto—“where I had difficult surgery. I am only here today
because the excellent Jewish doctors saved my life. I have always known
that your people are not only talented and successful, but also
kind-hearted. That is why I am here to see you.”
Your people—the compliment made me uncomfortable in a way she surely didn’t intend. I wondered whether I was overreacting.
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