Flight by Bobby Pearl
Bronze, 18" x 10" x 8"
In the early 1900's in Russia, my grandmother was the young mother of two
daughters and pregnant with a third, my mother. She was the proprietor of a
small inn on a busy way station. During a particularly dangerous period for
Jews, she refused to serve two Cossacks who made anti-Semitic remarks to
her. Enraged, the Cossacks threw her against the wall and beat her in front
of her mother, who pleaded for her pregnant daughter's life. The Cossacks
finally left, threatening to return and kill her. Neighbors hid my
grandmother under a feather mattress until the immediate danger was past.
After the birth of my mother, as soon as she was able to travel, my
grandmother began her flight to the New World, her two toddlers under her
cloak, and the baby wrapped in her petticoat to muffle its cry.
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