The Brothers of Auschwitz
MALKA ADLER

One More Chapter

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Originally published in Israel as ‘Itcho and Bernard’ by Yedioth Ahronoth, 2004

First published in the USA as ‘Together Out of the Nazi Inferno’ by eBookPro Publishing, 2019

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019

Copyright © Malka Adler 2004

Translation copyright © Noel Canin 2019

Cover design by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Malka Adler asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This is a biographical novel based on personal memories. Every reasonable attempt to verify the facts against available documentation has been made.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008386122

Ebook Edition © November 2019 ISBN: 9780008386115

Version: 2019-10-31

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

About This Book

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Author’s Note

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

About This Book

This ebook meets all accessibility requirements and standards.

Please be advised this book features the following content warnings and proceed at your own discretion: graphic depictions of violence, child abuse, anti-Semitism and genocide.

This book is dedicated to

Israel, Leora and Avi

Ravit, Yonit and Hadar

In the darkest part of the sky

The light breaks through.

Prologue
Israel, 2001
7:30 in the morning and it’s frrrreezing.

I’m huddled in a heavy black coat on the Beit Yehoshua railway platform. I have a meeting with Dov and Yitzhak in Nahariya. There was a time when Yitzhak was known as Icho and Dov as Bernard. Yitzhak is seventy-five and can still lift a whole calf. Still strong. Dov at seventy-six is bigger than Yitzhak and loves cocoa cookies, television and peace and quiet. They have wives. Yitzhak has Hanna, a goodhearted woman. Dov has Shosh, who is also goodhearted.

The rain stops falling like a scratch. Like pain. At first it falls hard, abundantly, then trickles down. Branches drop to the ground indifferently. Shhhh. The tops of the eucalyptus trees travel from side to side in the wind and already I need to pee again. The loudspeaker announces the next train. The lamp flickers. In two hours’ time I’ll meet with Yitzhak and Dov. Yitzhak no longer pushes forward. And Dov never pushes, not even before. Dov will bring good coffee and cookies with cocoa and raisins.

Pew. Pew. Pew.

A man in a long coat fires at the approaching train. Pew. Pew. Pew. Wearing a beret pulled to one side, he holds a black umbrella and fires. His face is divided in dark lines, forehead, cheeks, chin, even his nose. His face is taut as if someone had slipped underwear elastic under his skin and pulled and pulled, almost tearing it, but no. He takes short hurried steps, flapping his arms hither and thither as if brushing away a swarm of flies or insects, or stinging thoughts, and firing. Raising his umbrella high in the air. Aiming at the eucalyptus trees or the train and shouting, pew-pew. Pew-pew. Pew.

I look the man straight in the eye as he shouts, pew. Pew. Pew. Pew. Pew.

I’m beside him now and he says stop. Stop. Aims and fires, pew-pew. Pew. Pew. Pew, all dead, he says and wipes his hand on old pants. I cough and he frowns, thrusting out his chin and biting his lips as if to say, I told you, didn’t I tell you? You had it coming, sickos. And then he breathes three times on the end of the umbrella, phoo, phoo, phoo, brushes imaginary crumbs from his coat, straightens the beret and returns to the middle of the platform. To and fro. Back and forth and back again, his hands in fighting mode all the time.

The soldiers have grown used to Friday shootings, the great rage that explodes on the platform from seven in the morning.

Everyone knows he comes from Even Yehuda on his bicycle. Winter, summer, he comes on a Friday. A constant presence. The trains pull out and he remains until noon. Firing without resting for a moment. In summer he uses a cane. People say, eat, drink, rest, why tire yourself, go home, too bad, but he’s in his own world. Seven in the morning, Friday, he must be seventy, maybe less, shooting on the platform in dirty clothes with wild, white hair. Every Friday he leaves on his bicycle at twelve-thirty on the dot. The cashier tells everything about him. Eager cashier. Fat cashier with blond bangs and black hair. The man has no watch. There’s a clock on the station wall. But he stands with his back to it. It isn’t important to him to see the time. He knows. He prepares the Sabbath for his dead.

Ah. The Beit Yehoshua platform is the closest thing to the platforms at Auschwitz. This is what the cashier tells us and we fall silent. At Auschwitz he touched his family for the last time. That’s what Yitzhak would say, and he’d raise his hat and shout, why should Jews stand on platforms at all? Are there no buses? Sometimes you have to stand on a bus, well, a taxi then. Taxis are expensive. So what, he refuses to stand on the platforms. Dov would cough if he heard Yitzhak getting mad about something. Then Dov would be silent. I’d pay no attention. I’d look first at Yitzhak, then at Dov and turn on the tape. Yitzhak would say loudly, why do you stand on the platforms, why don’t you take a taxi, too. Yes.

Now the eucalyptus trees are still. And the cashier is telling someone about Yajec. She has to talk fast before the new person shouts at Yajec. Every Friday the cashier protects him. Every Friday there are people who don’t know about him, haven’t heard him despair. The cashier has heard him and tells the older people so they won’t bother him. Leave him alone to kill with his umbrella, pew. Pew. Pew. Pew-pew. Once she told some new people, leave him alone, leave him be. Yajec was a little boy when he grabbed his mother’s dress, crying, yes. He wept incessantly, screamed, don’t leave me, but poor woman, she pushed him towards the group of men, and he ran to her, Mama, take me, but poor woman, she didn’t. Looking at her child, her face white, she screamed in his ear, Yajec you aren’t staying with me, go over there, you hear? And she slapped him and pushed him fiercely. You heard me. Yes. She went with the women and he stayed with strangers who didn’t see him because he was seven or eight, yes.

The train entered the station and stopped. Quiet. Three minutes of quiet. Even the cashier doesn’t speak when the train stops. She doesn’t want people to get confused. Whoever has to, boards the train, whoever has to get off – gets off. The train leaves, and the cashier said that Yajec’s father disappeared too. And his grandfather, grandmother, four sisters, and Aunt Serena and Uncle Abraham.

The face of an Ethiopian woman tugs at my belly. A gentle, fragile face, her mouth stretched outward as if she was about to weep, her eyes dark with sadness, a sadness from another place, distant, a sadness arranged in layers according to height, on her forehead a fresh, upper layer, her face strong. If Yitzhak and Dov were here, that face would probably make them weep. But Yitzhak never visits anyone and no one visits him. If Dov came, he’d probably give her a cookie and juice, tell her to sit down, sit down on a bench and rest a while.

Another train pulls in. The platform empties, only the man in the long coat and the beret are left. The Ethiopian woman boards the train. She knows there’ll be pushing but she gets on. The cashier said she was also a regular on the train. She was going to get a telling-off from the head teacher of the boarding school. That daughter of hers has behavior issues morning and night. She makes the teachers mad; wants to go back to Ethiopia; wants to live among her people; runs off to town on a Friday night, fools around at a Reggae Club. All she wants is to rap. She goes off in a long skirt and a long-sleeved blouse. In her bag she hides a small pair of shorts and a short, colorful blouse that shows her belly. She doesn’t want to be in boarding school, doesn’t want to! Her mother shouts, you are not coming back with me, you’re staying, understand?

Yitzhak would say, she’ll get used to it, in the end she’ll get used to it, and why does her mother get on the train every Friday, once every two or three months is enough, and she can go by taxi, didn’t they tell her? Dov would say, why insist with kids, it never works, best take her home, that’s all, right?

A white sun pushes through a narrow crack. It peeps out from behind the backs of the eucalyptus trees, creating a huge, shining kaleidoscope. The loudspeaker announces: attention, attention. The sun disappears. The train leaves the station.

I’m on my way to Nahariya.

Yitzhak won’t receive me. He might. On the telephone, Yitzhak said – we’ll see. Yitzhak has no patience.

Dov will sit with me. Dov keeps his word. Yitzhak too. But Yitzhak makes no promises. Yitzhak says – call on Thursday and we’ll see.

I call every Thursday, and he says, we’ll see. Finally, he says, yes, you can come.

Dov waits at the station with the car. Dov takes me to Yitzhak.

I’m not certain of anything. Will they agree to talk to me? Come again once or twice and we’ll see. That’s how they talk on the phone.

No “we’ll see”. They must.

Right.

Will you let me tell your story?

We will. We will.

We’ll take it slowly, slowly.

Maybe quickly, in case we regret it, ha. Ha. Ha.

Separately or together?

However it works out, but I have a cow farm to deal with.

So more often with Dov.

Sure. I’m willing to talk to you whenever you want.

Only on rainy days, come when it rains.

Okay, Yitzhak.

I can’t leave the cow farm in the middle of the day.

No need.

I have to feed all the calves, and I also go away sometimes.

I’ll come when it rains.

That would be best, I’m only home when it rains.

So when it rains.

All right.

But call first, and we’ll see.

Chapter 1

I am Yitzhak: The State of Israel gave me the name Yitzhak.

The Nazis gave me the number 55484.

The goyim gave me the name Ichco.

My Jewish people gave me the name Icho.

In Yitzhak’s Living Room

The hardest thing of all was being evicted from our home.

We woke as usual. I got up first and wanted to go with father to the market.

I forgot it was a holiday. Father came back from the synagogue. He was black-haired, medium height. Even with his coat on, he looked thin. Father sat down on a chair. Called us. Leah, come here. Sarah. Avrum. Dov, call Icho as well. We gathered around father.

Father’s face was the color of tin in the sun. Sickly. Our eyes looked for mother.

Father said, we have to pack. We’re leaving the village. We jumped, what? Where are we going, where, don’t know, the Hungarians are sending us away from here. Where, father, where. They didn’t say, we have to be quick, pack some clothes and blankets, he coughed. Leah, a glass of water please, take some cutlery, a few plates, socks, don’t forget socks, father, where are they sending us, where, asked Avrum.

To die! said Dov. Enough, Dov, enough, they’re sending all the Jews in the village somewhere else, to the east, to work in the east. Why are they only sending Jews, asked Sarah. So we’ll die and they’ll finally be rid of us, get us out of their lives once and for all, don’t you understand?

Father covered his face with thick, dark, strong fingers.

I heard the sound of choked weeping. We looked for mother. Mother was tiny with brown hair and a gentle face, like a flower wary of the sun. Mother was chewing on the fingers of both hands. I told her, tell father to explain to us, I don’t understand, tell him, tell him. Mother sat down on a chair. At a distance from father. She was silent. Father rubbed his face as if wanting to peel off his skin and ordered: Enough! And then he got up, stretched, held onto the chair, his fingers white, almost bloodless. He looked at mother, saying hoarsely: Hungarian soldiers came to the synagogue with rifles. They told us to prepare for eviction from the house. They said within the hour. They said only to pack a suitcase with what we need. They said to go to the synagogue. To wait. Orders will come.

We shouted in unison, but father, the war is over, we can hear the Russian cannons in the distance, tell them the war is over. Father said faintly: They know. Avrum shouted, so why are they taking us, father, what do they want to do to us, what?

They want to burn Jews. I heard it on the radio. We’ll all die, said Sarah, almost crying.

That’s exactly what Hitler planned, said Dov, putting an apple in his pocket.

Father stamped his foot, enough. Go to your room, go on, go, we have an hour to pack. Mother said, but we don’t have any suitcases or bags, how can we pack?

Father said, put everything in sheets, or even tablecloths, we’ll make bundles and tie them with rope, Avrum, run and fetch ropes from the storeroom, help the children tie the ropes, Leah, you’re in our room, I’m in the kitchen. Mother fell silent. Motionless, she folded her arms very tightly.

Sarah wept.

She said, I have to wash the dishes left from Passover night, I have to put them away in the cupboard, father shouted, never mind the dishes, they’re not important now.

Mother rose from her chair, stood at the sink, opened the tap full force, grabbed a dirty plate and quickly began to soap it. Father beat his hands against the sides of his pants, as if drawing strength, stood next to mother, turned off the tap. Mother turned round, threw the plate on the floor, drying her hands on her apron, straightened up and said, we’ll go and pack. Sarah bent down and picked the pieces off the floor, crying harder, but the plates will smell by the time we return, they’ll have to be thrown out. Dov said, don’t worry, they’ll make us all smell. Mother lifted Sarah, hugged her, brushing her hair away from her forehead, stroking her head and said, we’re going. Mother and Sarah went into the rooms. Avrum returned with rope. Followed mother. Dov stood at the window. Father collected cutlery in the kitchen.

I put on a woolen hat and went to the door. I grabbed the handle. My legs felt weak.

Father called, Icho, where are you off to?

The cowshed, I have to feed the cows, I’ll get them ready to leave.

Father was alarmed, no, no, that’s impossible, we’re going without the cows, just clothing and blankets, put your clothes in a bundle. Father stood opposite me.

I asked, what about the cows? Who will take care of the cows?

Father gave me a long hard look, said, don’t argue.

I couldn’t leave our cows. The cows lived in our yard.

The cowshed was behind the house. I enjoyed milking cows. We’d talk sometimes, as if we spoke the same language. The calves were born into my hands. I looked at Dov. The curls on his head seemed small. He looked as if he’d just had a shower.

Dov signaled me, drop it, drop it. I said to father, and who will milk our cows, the cows will die without food. Father didn’t know anything, believed the neighbors would take care of them, maybe one of the soldiers with a rifle, he wasn’t sure of anything.

I remembered my cat. I wanted to know what to do with my cat that had caught cold on Passover night. I had a large cat with black and white fur. I went back to father. He stood with his back to me, opening cupboards and he looked like a grandfather. I begged, at least the cat.

I’ll take my cat, it won’t bother us, all right?

Father spoke from inside the cupboard, leave the cat, Icho, don’t go outside. And then he straightened up, gripping his back, went over to the window opposite the road and said, come here. Look out of the window. Do you see the soldiers? They will come in soon and throw us into the street without our bundles, now do you understand?

I felt as if a sickness was spreading through my body and taking away my life. I wanted my cat. The cat that came into my bed with its purrrr purrrring. It loved having its belly tickled and a spray of milk straight from the teat on its fur. Loved licking itself, for hours. Avrum, my older brother stood in the doorway. Avrum was tall, thin and gentle like mother.

He said, come on, I’ll help you, Dov is also waiting for you. Just a minute. I wanted to hug my sick cat. Sarah stood beside me. Took me by the hand. We heard a noise outside. Sarah rushed to the window.

Her bony body leaned out and she called father: Father, father, the neighbors are in our yard, they’re calling you. Sarah was also thin. Father didn’t turn round, said, not now Sarah. Sarah called more urgently, the neighbors are coming to the door, father, go out to them. Dov came into the room, put an apple in his other pocket and then some matzos inside his shirt. He had brown eyes and muscles like a ball in each arm. He’d tossed a sweater on his back.

A knock at the door made me jump.

Father went to the door. I heard our neighbor asking, where are you off to, Strullu? It was Stanku. He always wore a peaked cap; he had a red-tipped wart on his cheek.

Father said, you tell me, maybe they said something to you.

They said nothing to me. It was you they spoke to.

Father fell silent. Stanku straightened up. And the children?

Father said, they’re leaving with us. The old people too.

Stanku took off his cap, you need bread. Father didn’t. He said, we’ve got matzos.

No, Strullu, you need bread and water for the journey. I don’t.

Take cakes, we have large cakes we made for Easter. We’ll give you the cakes. Hide them in your clothing. Who knows what will happen.

Dov said to himself, a tragedy is what will happen. A terrible tragedy.

Father smiled sadly at Stanku. He said quietly, that child is always thinking about tragedies. Don’t know what’s wrong with him. Stanku grabbed father’s hand. His hand trembled. His blue eyes were moist.

Stanku said, we’ll take care of the house, Strullu, we’ll look after the cows, and you’ll be back, you have to come back.

Father and Stanku hugged. I heard thumps on backs. I heard father say brokenly, I don’t think we’ll be back, Stanku, forgive me, I must go in. Father left.

I turned to Stanku, so you’ll look after the house, the cows too, and the cat, and you’ll feed it, yes, and if people come by and want to take it, what will you tell them?

Stanku cleared his throat. And again, holding his throat. I whispered, I have a small sum saved, I’ll give it to you, Stanku.

Stanku threw up his hands, stamped his foot on the path, said, no, no, no, and don’t worry, Icho, I’m here to take care of everything until you come safely home. We shook hands. I went inside.

Dov jumped out through the window.

I was sure Dov was escaping into the forest. I was glad he’d run away. Glad no one saw. Glad that at least one of our family would stay to take care of the house. Father, mother, Sarah, Avrum and I went to the synagogue with our bundles on our backs. Hungarian soldiers counted us. Someone snitched, said a boy from our family was missing.

Soldiers threatened father, shaking a finger at him: by nightfall. The boy must return by nightfall. Or we’ll stand all of you against the wall, boom boom boom. Understand? Father called Vassily from Dov’s class.

Vassily was Dov’s best friend. Vassily liked going without socks and hat. Winter or summer, the same. Vassily came at a run. He had a coat with one short sleeve and one long one.

Father hugged Vassily’s shoulder, saying, Vassily, bring Dov to us. He’s in the forest. Only you can do this. Vassily looked at father and was sorry, Dov, Dov. Father bent down and whispered to Vassily, tell Dov, remember Shorkodi, the young man from Budapest, he’ll understand.

Dov came back swollen from a beating.

That night he returned with Hungarian soldiers. His face stayed swollen for two days. He had a deep cut from forehead to ear. He had a crust of blood under his hair. He didn’t say a word. I was sorry, pity you came back, Dov, a pity.

Two days later, they took us by train to Ungvár, now Uzhhorod.

In the town of Ungvár they put us in a huge pit like an open mine. There were thousands of Jews there from that area without an outhouse or shower. Just a small tap and pipe. Rain kept falling. The rain washed out the mine. We were drowning in mud and a strong smell. First came the strong smell of people who were going to die. Then came the smell of human excrement. I couldn’t get used to the bad smells. I wanted to vomit even after I finished vomiting.

Our family was given a space the size of a living-room sofa. We slept on planks and wet blankets. We ate a bowl of potato soup after waiting in line for hours. One bowl a day. We were still hungry. We saw peddlers walking around the pit. They made signs at us with their hands. Signs of the cross, signs of slitting throats as if they held a knife in their hands. They grinned toothlessly, hee hee hee. I could have pummeled them with my fists. Mother spoke to me wordlessly. I pummeled myself with my fists until my leg was numb. People with important faces and wet jackets walked among us. They were known as the Judenräte.

They promised, just a matter of days and you’ll be in the east. They spoke of many work places.

We waited for the train that would take us east to many work places. The train didn’t come. People became impatient, at first a little, then increasingly so. After three days they yelled at one another for no reason. If they unintentionally touched an elbow in the line for soup or the tap, they yelled. They argued about where to place their head or feet when going to sleep. Or why they farted right into a baby’s face.

Poor little thing, he choked, a little consideration, Grandpa. They argued about rumors. Yelled, yelled, yelled, a day later, they repeated the rumors and reported new ones. There were no rumors about death, no words about death; about liberation, yes. Many words about imminent or distant liberation. We were ignorant about the news they reported, we just heard and waited. Waited almost a month.

Finally a special cattle train arrived on the track.

We were sure it was a mistake. Soldiers pushed us into the cars. They forcefully pushed entire families. Entire villages. Towns. Cities. I understood. The Hungarians wanted to cleanse the world of Jews. Didn’t want to breathe in a world a Jew had passed through. Wanted to look far into the future, ah, no Jews. None. Clean sky, sun and moon, too.

The journey by train was a nightmare.

We traveled three days without food or water. We traveled in a car with a tin bucket for the needs of a small town. The infant in the arms of the woman with cracked glasses cried ceaselessly. A yellow thread oozed from his ear. My mother cut a strip of fabric from a sheet and tied it around his head. Like mumps. The infant’s crying increased. The woman tried to give him her nipple, but he didn’t want it. He only wanted to cry. After two days the crying stopped and the woman began. At first she wept alone, then another five or six people alongside her began to weep, like a choir. Finally, she covered the infant’s face with a sheet. Refused to give him to the tall man standing beside her. She had a brown spatter on her glasses. I dug my nails into my leg, dug and dug, until there was a small hole.

Dov said, he was saved, the baby died in his mother’s arms. We will die alone.

We stood in line on the platforms at Auschwitz.

Trains were standing the length of the track. Like an enormous, long-tailed serpent.

Babies flew into the air like birds. Pregnant women were thrown onto a truck. One woman’s belly exploded mid-air, everything scattering as if there was a watermelon there, not a baby. Old people who couldn’t walk were smeared on the floor. Whole villages stood on the platform without room to move. In the air, a column of smoke and the sharp smell of burned chickens. That’s what I remember.

First they separated the women from the men.

I never saw mother or Sarah again.

We passed by an officer with a pleasant face, as if he liked us, felt concern. As if he cared about us. With his finger, he signaled, right, left, right, left. We didn’t know his finger was long enough to reach the sky. Then they asked about professions. Dov jumped first. We didn’t have time to part from each other.

The soldiers shouted builders, are there any builders? Avrum and I walked forward together. Father remained to choose another profession. I never saw father again.

They took us to a building where we were to strip.

A long, never-ending line. As if they were handing out candies there. And then they told us quickly, strip quickly. Naked women ran in the direction of a large iron door. The door constantly opened. Naked women were swallowed up into the black opening of the door. Like the large mouth of the sea. Men and boys ran the other side. Bearded rabbis screamed Shema Israel, Shema Israel.

Avrum and I stood trembling opposite the building that had swallowed the most people.

The building had a black door and another one just the same. My brother and I didn’t know where we should run. Naked and confused we ran from one side to the other, treading on legs, pushing with our hands. Around me I saw people spinning with their hands above their heads, beating their chests, pulling their hair from their heads, their genitals. I saw people weeping to their God, telling him, God, hear me, give me a sign, where is the Messiah, Master of the Universe. The was a sound there like a low hummmm, heavy as a snowstorm. Hummm. Hummm.

I called to my brother until my throat was hoarse.

I called, Avrum, Avrum, which door should we run to, Avrum, answer me.

Avrum caught my hand. Avrum sobbed, here, no, there, no, no, Avrum, what do we do, where, where, the first door, no, no, the second, Icho what are you doing, Icho listen to me, wait, liiiiisten. We were inside.

We were inside a huge hall with benches. A huge hall with barbers who shaved hair. Tirelessly, they shaved and shaved. Then they took us to the showers. And then, phishsh. Water. I called, Avrum, it’s water, water, we’re alive, Avrum, we’re still together, Avrum, we’ve been lucky, Avrum. I sobbed during the entire shower.

Chapter 2

I am Dov: The State of Israel gave me the name Arieh-Dov, Dov for short.

The Nazis gave me the number A-4092.

The goyim gave me the name Bernard.

My Jewish people gave me the name Leiber.

In Dov’s Living Room

I was sure they were taking us to die.

Father thought they were sending us to work in distant factories. I thought about death. My death had a shiny red color. Red like the blood oozing from the ear of the man standing beside me in the train to Auschwitz. This man had refused to board the train and the blood refused to stop streaming for three days, perhaps because of the crowdedness and the pressure, everyone was pressed against everyone else. We were like fish in a barrel stinking of fresh death, a new smell that came into my life and didn’t leave me for a long time.

The train to Auschwitz stopped.

The car door opened quite suddenly. Torches like projectors exploded in our eyes. The loudspeaker announced, quickly, quickly, schnell, schnell. Leave belongings on the train. We heard irritability in a voice that was sharp and loud, as if there was nothing but a voice there, no human being, just a voice, schnell, schnell.

On the platforms were soldiers with guns and voices like loudspeakers. Get down, quickly, quickly. They yelled as if they had a loudspeaker installed in their throats. To the side stood piles of striped pajamas, a head and arms sticking out of them. I saw nothing else of them. They stood to one side with bowed and shaven heads. They were more frightening than the orderly soldiers. They looked ill and suffering. The soldiers didn’t. The orchestra was also healthy. They played cheerful marches suitable for a victory parade.

Dogs on leashes barked wildly. Dogs with sharp teeth and runny noses, their hackles up like nails. Soldiers pushed an old bearded grandfather who didn’t understand, who said, excuse me, sir, to the commander, what should … Thwack. The old man fell. Soldiers beat up other frail old people. Smashed shoulders, belly, back. They didn’t let them die on the spot, they left them to sob. And they sobbed with pain. Others wept in worry or because of the orchestra. There was a good orchestra at Auschwitz. I could immediately hear it was good. I almost wept for the beauty of it, but the large pile of striped pajamas stayed in my mind, and I didn’t cry.

On the other side, soldiers were kicking a small child about like a ball; he was maybe three years old. The child hadn’t heard, move, quickly, quickly. The little boy had black curls, a short coat and a heavy diaper in his trousers. A diaper full of poop from the journey. The child had lost his mother and father and all he had left was a brown teddy bear that he held under his arm. The teddy bear was first to fall. The child followed. Another kick. Again he didn’t hear move quickly. It was a little hard to hear because of the music. The child’s head opened slightly. Another kick, and that was it. He remained on the platforms beside his teddy bear like a black stain on the road. The place grew very quiet. For a moment nobody spoke, not a word, just cheerful music.

I was dragged forward and the noise increased. It was a great weeping. The greatest weeping I had ever heard. The weeping of a large ocean, a stormy ocean. Weeping like waves breaking against rocks on the shore, whoosh, whoosh.

Soldiers screamed stand in line, quickly.

Soldiers divided, women to the left, men to the right. Men hugged young children. Children sobbed Mama, Mama, Grandma, where’s my Mama. A grandmother with a scarf hid her mouth behind her hand. She had no teeth. Grandmother made strange sounds, like a life-saver at the beach. A life-saver who shouts into a megaphone, not a big one, in the wind. Waaah, waaah, waaah, waaaaaah.

A grandfather with a cane took the hand of a crying child. Held him firmly, saying, sha, sha, sha, don’t cry, boy, and collapsed to the ground. Thwack. The child fell silent. Soldier seized a baby wrapped in a blanket from a mother’s arms. Soldier ripped the woolen hat from the baby’s head and smashed the bald head against the car door. I heard a scream like a calf being slaughtered in the village, before the knife.

Mother and Sarah grew steadily more distant.

Mother threw her hands up in the air. As if she wanted to chase off spirits and devils. Mother pulled the scarf from her head, pulled at her hair, shrieked: children take care of yourselves. Mother shouted more loudly: My children, take care of yourselves. Do you hear me? Mother’s cry made a wound in my heart. As if someone had put a nail on a nerve and hammered it in. To this day I ache when I remember mother’s tears and her last words.

Mother and Sarah were among the first four. They walked and walked until they vanished in the middle of the platforms.

Soldiers yelled to stand four to a line, quickly, and the orchestra played.

The loudspeaker continued to issue orders. The torches hurt less. People were running about like cockroaches in the dark. They forgot there was light. They were looking for relatives with whom to make a foursome. The noise was immense. An order from the loudspeaker momentarily stopped everyone on the platforms, then everyone began to run, call, Tibor, come closer, Solomon, Yaakov, come, come, we’ll make up a foursome. Shimon, who sold meat with them, came up without his glasses, tried to push in. You aren’t with us, Shandor-with-the-limp was alarmed, move back.

Cross-eyed Yaakov from our village said, that’s enough, we’re four, and you’ll stand behind us. Cross-eyed Yaakov began to walk.

Shandor-with-the-limp grabbed his hand, where are you going, stand next to me, here, one, two, three, four, five? No, no, move, no room, Yaakov, wait, what’s wrong with him, he’s throwing down his hat and pulling down his trousers, Shimon, come here, come back quickly, stand here, here, don’t move, no more room, you will all stand in front of us, so what if you’re cousins, nu, start another foursome.

The platforms loudspeaker changed station. Moved to dance music. We stood there, three boys and father, thin and beardless. Father raised his head, Avrum caught father’s arm, Yitzhak took two steps towards SSman.

Avrum forcefully pulled Yitzhak into the line. Whispered, what d’you think you’re doing.

I stood like a heavy stone thrown into an abyss. Spin, spin, spin, thump.

Like a stone that had crashed on a rock.

Father was silent, pressing my arm like hot pliers.

A calm German officer signaled with his finger, right, left, left, left, left, and right again.

The orchestra changed the dance. The officer had eyes like the crack of a window.

He wore white gloves. He had shiny buttons and a wine-drinking face.

We went right. Whoever went right went to work. Whoever went left, went.

I saw smoke traveling not far from a cloud. I remember it, a black cloud, special. The smoke came out of the chimney of a large building, a huge building, the smoke drew mushroom . I asked father, what’s that?

A steel factory, Dov.

Father, answer me.

It’s a factory, Dov. A steel factory for the war.

This is where they burn Jews, father, that’s the smoke of Jewish flesh.

Father jumped as if he’d trodden on a snake, no. No, of course it isn’t, it’s a factory, that smoke is from machines, Dov.

Soldiers called out, mechanics, any mechanics here?

I shouted, I’m a mechanic, me, me. I jumped out of the line. Jumped alone.

I wanted to run as far away as I could. I wanted to escape the piles of flesh in the smoke to come. Father, Avrum and Yitzhak remained behind me.

I didn’t look back, I wanted forward, far away.

Soldiers in polished shoes and leggings like tarpaulins took me to a two-storey building. They put me on a storey with German political prisoners. German prisoners with blond hair, and one with a mustache. The prisoners had received food packages from home. They sat eating in a group. They had a wooden box at the end of the bed. A box with a lid and a medium sized lock.

I sat on the last bed and observed the mouths of the people in the room. I watched them take a bite with their teeth, gurgle, chew, swallow, chatting, offering to each other, saying thank you, sucking, wiping, burping, scratching, laughing, wrapping left-overs in a napkin, putting them back in the box, locking it and going to sleep. The German prisoners didn’t notice that I’d come, they were oblivious. For them, I was a bit of dirt on the wall.

The smell of food drove me mad. My mouth filled with saliva. I could smell sausage and cakes. Bread and smoked fish. And peanuts and chocolate. I heard sounds in my belly. I smacked my belly. The sound didn’t stop. I took off my shoes and lay down on my back. A Jew from Budapest came in to sleep next to me. A fat, older Jew, about sixty. He had drops of sweat on his cheek. He breathed heavily, like an old train engine. He told me about the enormous farm he’d left behind in Hungary. I was shocked. A Jew with lands? Yes, boy, lands the size of three villages. Really? Yes, boy, and what use is it to me now that I’m dying, dying of hunger. What’s your name, boy?

Bernard, that’s my Christian name. At home my name is Leiber.

How old are you, boy?

Sixteen and a bit.

The man caught hold of my shoulders, shook me firmly, staring at me, one eye healthy the other made of glass, and said: Bernard, look at me, I don’t stand a chance, you do. Steal, kill, live, do you hear me? You’re young, Bernard, you’re a boy with a good chance of coming out of this war, understand?

I made a small movement with my head, understand. The fat man fell back on his bed. We fell asleep in a second. The next day he was gone, in the way of Auschwitz, as I understood in time. One moment you’re talking to someone, the next moment he’s gone.

Chapter 3
Yitzhak

At Auschwitz, in the year 1944, I received a new name.

55484 was sewn onto the side of my trousers and this was my new name. I was given striped clothing. A shirt and trousers from the same fabric, like the pictures we see today. I was given a striped hat and plastic shoes with wooden soles. We stood in the dark, rows and rows of prisoners, everyone the same. Like a convoy of ants with numbers on the chest and side.

We were put in Bloc 12. In the bloc were three-tier beds. Not really beds, more like sleeping benches. We were ordered to stand in a line next to the beds. Avrum and I stood next to each other. Avrum was eighteen and asked where Dov was. I was fifteen and a bit, a year younger than Dov and didn’t know where he was. Avrum was at least a head taller than me. Avrum had broad shoulders and the bristles of a beard. I had room in my shirt at the shoulders and a smooth face with no sign of a beard. In the Bloc were other children my age. They stood among the older prisoners, looking down at the floor. I glanced at my brother, fiercely rubbing the thumb of my left hand. I couldn’t stop rubbing.

An SSman entered the bloc. He stood straight with legs apart and a hat on his head. He stood with one hand on his hip and the other playing on his thigh. He pursed his lips as if whistling and slowly passed from one prisoner to another. Advanced. Stopped. Went back. Stopped at a boy of maybe thirteen, maybe less.

The thirteen-year-old puffed out his chest and belly, made himself taller and taller and taller.

SSman beckoned with his finger.

Boy stepped out of the line. Boy cried quietly. Boy trembled.

SSman hit him on his thigh. Thwack. Boy fell silent.

SSman scratched his neck with the long nail of his little finger. Slowly scratched his bristles. I heard the scratch of sandpaper on a board. He scratched, scratched, scratched, stopped.

I stopped breathing.

SSman pursed his lips. Began to scan us again.

A boy opposite me pinched himself on the arms. I saw him stand on tiptoe. Fall. Stand. Fall. A boy beside me pulled his shirt away from his trousers, as if he’d grown fatter since standing in the line. Someone at the end of the line fell. They dragged him to the boy standing on the side.

SSman took three children and the one who’d fallen and they left.

I didn’t know the crematorium. But I did know I mustn’t go outside with SSman. I understood everything through the crack in his eyelids. I was fifteen and a bit, thin as a match, and it was my great good luck not to go out with them. That was my first stroke of luck. And there was a second stroke of luck. Two brothers from my village saved me. They were in the bloc, two beds away from me. Two large brothers, with swollen muscles in their arms, and bull like necks. The brothers lifted me onto the third tier of the bed.

Covered me with a straw mattress, saying, when there’s appel – counting – you don’t come down, understand, Icho? I stayed on the third tier for four days. SSman came to our bloc every day or two, took small thin prisoners. Avrum gave me bread. Avrum whispered the situation to me from below.

After a week they announced over the loudspeaker: Going to work, not counting. The two brothers from my village didn’t believe the loudspeaker. They told the group, they’re taking us to the crematorium. The two brothers climbed onto the bed and help me to get down. I get down from the third tier and feel my legs fold by themselves. As if they’d been filled with margarine. I held onto the wall and looked at my brother. Avrum grabbed me by the hips and stuck out his tongue. Dragged me to the door. We were the last to leave and I glanced at the fence. An electric, barbed-wire fence at least four meters high. I saw a sign with the drawing of a skull and several words.

Someone behind me whispered, careful, death hazard. I thought, a long time ago, ordinary people walked to and fro behind the fence. What happened to them, are they alive or dead, I had no answer.

SSman shouted, left, right, left, right, in the direction of the train tracks.

Again the crowding in the car. I calculated, if I kill the one in front of me, and the one behind me, and if I kill those to the side, how much room will I have, maybe the length of a ruler on each side, no more. I looked for my brother. I saw there was no point in calling him. He was pressed between two tall people. Pale. I saw his eyelids jumping like a broken automaton.

We traveled for several days. A quarter of bread per day, no water. People around me died without a murmur. They died a purple color, their mouths closed. They had purple under their fingernails. Like iodine poured on a wound. Someone died and we immediately searched him for food. Then we laid him down, while he was still warm, and took turns sitting on him.

There wasn’t enough air in the car for everyone.

Sour sweat dampened our clothing. We stood pressed against one another with our mouths open, we shouted, air, air. We beat on the door. Screamed for an hour. I lost my voice. Finally they opened a narrow strip above. We climbed over the dead and the frail in order to breathe. We climbed on them as if they were our staircase to life.

Through the window I saw we had reached Weimar. There was a prominent sign there. From Weimar they took us to Camp Buchenwald. I knew it from the sign.

We arrived at Bloc 55. The first thing a prisoner with a wounded hand said to me was: careful, they’re looking for children, and in a moment I threw myself onto the third tier of the bunks. The barracks door would open, and I was on top, just as I did at Auschwitz. My brother Avrum told me when to come down. After two days the loudspeaker called my brother Avrum to report. We knew by the number they called.

Avrum came to say goodbye but in the end he said nothing. He looked at me and trembled. His face was white as a sheet. I fell upon him, oy, oy, oy, it’s a mistake, they mistook the number, don’t go, Avrum, don’t leave me alone. Tears wet Avrum’s shirt. The trembling of his chin increased. His mouth stretched up and to the sides as if he was telling me many important things. He was breathing very fast, and his nose ran like a tap. The loudspeaker called Avrum’s number again. I was afraid. Avrum jumped and hugged me hard. I wept into his ear, I want to stay with you, what do we do, Avrum, let’s go together. Avrum refused. I felt as if both our ribs were breaking, and then he pushed me, breathing in and out, dried my face so I’d see him more clearly, left. I ran after him to the door. The guard at the entrance wouldn’t allow me to leave. He gestured, go back to your place or you’ll get it. He had a baton in his hands. A baton with an iron knob at the end. I wanted to shout, Avrum, Avrum, wait for me. I opened my mouth wide. Closed it. Went back to my place on the third tier.

I felt myself falling, falling, as if into a bottomless pit. As if they’d tied me to a heavy weight and thrown me into a dark place among strangers. I lay on my bunk and cried for an hour, until they brought a new prisoner to Avrum’s bunk. I immediately turned my back. Couldn’t bear to see someone else beside me. I got down. I knew I was angry enough to kill that prisoner. Two hours had passed and I still couldn’t calm down. A German from another Bloc came into the barracks. I didn’t have time to climb up.

We were ordered: Line up, don’t move. The German half-closed his eyes and scanned us slowly. Back and forth. Back and forth. He had a crooked smile and puffiness under his chin. Like a pocket full of food. His eyebrows were joined like a fence and he had a pointed belly under his belt. He held white gloves in one hand, tapping them against his other hand. As if the gloves were helping him to think. Back and forth, back and forth. I stopped breathing. The German put on his gloves and took me and four other children. I followed him, oblivious to anything.

Outside, the late-afternoon sun was warm, the beginning of summer. Bright light filled the spaces between the blocs. I searched for Avrum in that bright light. Examined the parade grounds. I saw trucks with tarpaulins. I didn’t know if there were prisoners inside or if they were empty. I never saw Avrum again, never saw him again.

The German with the white gloves took us to Bloc 8. Things were good for us in Bloc 8. Food on time. Lights out. A shower every day. Beds with blankets, clean sheets. A place with discipline and the color white. Fifty or sixty children with Baba – Uncle Volodya in charge. A fat man with a fat nose and a fat voice, and a large handkerchief in his hand. He liked to travel with his handkerchief on his bald head, pat-pat-pat-pat, but also to wipe children’s tears with it. It was mainly at night that he wiped and fondled everywhere. I was quiet, almost unmoving, when he wiped and fondled. I barely breathed and my mouth was closed.

A doctor came into the bloc every morning.

Doctor had alert ears like an antenna. Doctor said hello, how are you, children. Doctor laughed with white teeth, and I saw the slight tremor of the antenna. Doctor would choose a child and leave.

In the meantime, Baba Volodya fondled children. Baba Volodya pinched cheeks and sent kisses to the ceiling. Children jumped on Baba. Children hugged Baba. Children said thank you, Baba, thank you. Thank you for the good food. The clean sheets. The shower and hot water.

And I saw method: children who went with doctor didn’t return to the bloc. Their beds remained empty. I didn’t understand. Healthy children leave with doctor. Plump children leave the bloc. Children with color in their cheeks don’t come back to sleep in the bloc.

I hung onto Baba Volodya’s shoulder, asking him, where do the children go, Baba, and why don’t they come back to the bloc to sleep, what’s going on here, Baba, huh? Baba didn’t respond. I felt knives in my belly. I felt I had no air left at the open window. Every time the doctor came in I would catch Baba Volodya’s eye. Catch his eye and hold it. As if I were hanging onto his shoulder from a distance, as if telling him, you’re my father, you’re my father, and you won’t leave me alone like my first father, d’you hear me? Only when the doctor left did I leave Baba Volodya and breathe in from the deepest place possible.

I started wandering around, asking questions.

I walked the length of the bloc. And back again. I walked back and forth, counting. I asked, where do the children go, where, and got no answer. I went over to stand near the older prisoners. I knew they were old-timers by the numbers on their clothing and their silence. They neither asked nor answered, just stood there staring nowhere. I said, tell me, where do the doctor and the children go, where is that building?

One said, there’s a special place for experiments on young ones and a place for experiments on grownups. Doctor and child go to a place for experiments on young ones.

I said, experiments, what are experiments, what do you mean, tell me, I don’t understand. He had an eye infection that leaked like a slug.

He looked at me without seeing me, as if thinking about me, then, finally, he said, go away, boy. My blood pounded fast in my veins, tam-tam, tam-tam. Someone else with a swollen belly who had heard me stuck to me. My blood pounded even faster.

My new friend said, be careful. I don’t go anywhere near that place. Every child goes into a pot with gas, they close the lid on his head, like with soup. There are other cases. They examine some children according to a clock: how long can they live without air. Some last for a long time, others not at all. They die the minute the clock is set.

I stamped my foot and ran back to the bloc. I grabbed a freckled boy by the neck, calling agitatedly, boy, wait. What does it mean when the doctor leaves with a boy and returns without. Tell me, is it true they cook him in a pot? Cut him?

The boy said, don’t know, and ran away as if I were holding a butcher’s knife. I didn’t give up. I ran outside. I caught a short prisoner with saliva on his chin.

Asked, what are experiments, and why do healthy children leave beds empty, huh?

He asked, where.

I muttered, in Bloc 8.

He sat down, are you in that bloc?

I hit him on the shoulder. Shouted, tell me, now, what’s going on in my bloc.

He rolled his tongue and said, they inject a needle with a substance into the boy’s vein, but first they talk to him nicely. Then they measure how long it takes for the substance to reach the heart. For some it takes three minutes. For others one minute. For some even less. But you should know it doesn’t hurt to die like that. They die well there, without a nasty smell.

I asked who talks such nonsense, the one who dies?

The man said, no. Not the one who dies, and he wanted to go.

I tugged at his shirt, the doctor says so?

No.

So who says it doesn’t hurt, who? The prisoner turned and walked off.

I decided to escape from Bloc 8.

I heard they were looking for a cook for the women’s camp. I told Baba Volodya I’m a very good cook. Get me out of here into the women’s camp. Get me out, Baba, please. As if I were your boy now. Baba Volodya stuck a match between his teeth and pressed hard. I didn’t move from him. Volodya wrote down my name.

Volodya said, wait. I waited. I watched him from wherever I stood. I pursued him and waited.

Achtung. Achtung. 55484, report.

My heart stopped. I didn’t know where they were sending me, to the gas chamber of the Jews, the experiments’ pot, or to cook in the women’s camp. Gas. Kitchen. Pot. Gas. Kitchen. Pot. Kitchen. Kitchen. My tongue went dry in moment. I felt a strong pain in my backside. I went out.

Soldiers took me to a petrol station. Soldiers put me on a train car. I moved from Buchenwald to Camp Zeiss. An entire day on a cattle train.

Chapter 4

Dov: Do you remember when they took us from home to Ungvár,

we sat in open cattle cars and heard train whistles?

Yitzhak: Remember.

Dov: Do you remember our rabbi saying, when the Messiah

comes, you’ll hear a shofar?

Yitzhak: Nu?

Dov: When I heard the whistle, I thought,

maybe our rabbi was right, maybe the Messiah did come.

Yitzhak: Nobody came to save us. Nobody.

Dov

At Auschwitz, in 1944, a number was tattooed on my arm, A-4092.

“A” signified a transport from Hungary. The next day they made us stand to attention for eight hours on the parade ground. The rain didn’t stop falling. I was cold. Cold. Cold. I had gooseflesh like pinheads on my skin. I felt as if they’d stuck a board in my back. In my shoulders. My legs trembled rapidly, rapidly, slowly. Rapidly, rapidly, snap. The muscle jumped. I was sure everyone could see.

SSman yelled, Do Not Move. Do Not Sit. I grabbed my trousers and pushed the fabric forward.

Anyone who fell did not get up.

Prisoners usually fell quietly. Sometimes they’d cheep like chicks in a nest. Sometimes I’d hear a blow, thwack, and that was that. Prisoners with a function had stripes and a ribbon on the arm and they’d drag the fallen out of the row. I focused my gaze on the nearest wall. I saw black circles running along the parade ground. The circles brought prickles to the temples and shoulders, two-three minutes and the prickles settled in the legs. Suddenly, hot. Hotter. And that was that. I couldn’t feel my legs. Like paralysis. In my shoulders and neck as well.

They announced numbers over the loudspeaker. The voice over the loudspeaker was cheerful. As if he had a few chores to finish before going home, la-la-la. A prisoner next to me, an older man, began to cry quietly.

I heard him say Sh’ma Yisra-el Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad – Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One and immediately fall. He had white foam on his lips. He made the mewling sound of a cat kicked by a boot. Within seconds he was dragged out. Vanished. Poor man, poor man, God didn’t hear him. I wanted to scream, where are you. God didn’t answer. He cut me off too. I gave myself an order, stand straight, Dov, don’t move, huh. I heard my number over the loudspeaker. I went with other prisoners. They sent us to work at Camp “Canada,” named for the belongings left on the platforms by prisoners from the trains. They called us “Canada” Commando. They put me in a huge storeroom and told me to sort out clothes. There was a huge pile in the storeroom. Like a colorful hill of sand. There were suitcases. Many many suitcases with a number, or a name, or a label tied on with string. Sometimes, just a small ribbon on a handle, a red or green ribbon, like the ones used to arrange little girls’ hair.

I divided the clothes into piles. Men’s suits to the right. Dresses, skirts, and women’s blouses, to the left. Coats, apart on the right. Children’s clothing, behind me. Best of all was touching children’s clothing. They were stained and worn at the edges. Sometimes a patch or a tiny pocket, and another pocket stretched out of shape, sometimes embroidery with bright thread, a flower. Butterfly. Clown. Ah. The clothes had the smell of a regular home. The smell of soap and moth balls. Among the clothes I found some mama’s apron. A blue apron with a large pocket. I thrust trembling fingers into the pocket. I don’t know what I was looking for, but I found nothing. The apron smelled of fried pancakes and sausage. My mouth watered. I wanted to take the apron, hide it under my shirt. I didn’t dare because of the tall SSman who stood behind me, keeping an eye on my pace.

For hours, I ran among the piles, without stopping to rest. My legs ached but I didn’t even stop for a second. The SSman stuck to my back. Out of the corner of my eye I could see a hand and a gun. I knew he’d put a bullet in me where it prickled. In the hollow of my neck. Ever since I’ve felt a prickling in that hollow whenever autumn comes. Once I saw his face and there were nails there instead of pupils.

Daily routine at Auschwitz was consistent.

We got up early, in the dark. We straightened blankets, ran to the holes in the latrines to clean up, ten minutes to pee or shit, crowded together in a suffocating stink, then splash the face with a little water, the line for thin, tasteless coffee, parade – and then we were divided up for work. Groups upon groups of prisoners with dry faces, shaved heads, dirty and quiet.

We worked for twelve hours a day on a shrieking belly with pains in our muscles. Again the line for a bowl of soup. Again roll call in the bloc, and the evening parade, on the parade ground. Count. Mistakes. From the beginning. They hit a prisoner on the head with a baton. Thwack. Thwack. Scream into the loudspeakers for hours. I wanted to sleep. I so badly wanted to get to my bunk in the bloc, fall onto the board, sleep. I’d fall asleep in a second.

After three weeks they sent us on foot from Auschwitz to Birkenau, a distance of three or more kilometers. I dragged my feet in a convoy of uniform stripes. I could barely walk. I raised my head and saw a yellowish brown color, like the moment before a storm. Smoke coming out of a chimney. Dense, thick smoke without holes. Without spaces. There was a sweet smell outside. The smell of good meat cooked over a fire. I wanted to vomit. Thick saliva rose in me, disgusting. In the distance I saw a row of barracks with walls built of rough logs. I couldn’t see any windows.

Again I sorted through the piles of belongings emptied out of the suitcases. Shoes to shoes. Coats to coats. Bags to bags. Piles as high as a mountain inside the huge storerooms. I knew. The hands that had packed the suitcases were now pressed into a black smudge rising upward.

At Birkenau I lived in a barracks.

The barracks that finished off the most people. Between five and eight hundred people. The barracks had cubicles of three tiers. I slept on the third tier. Six prisoners to a cubicle. Every morning new prisoners would arrive and there was always space for them to sleep instead of the dead they’d dragged outside. Prisoners would take hold of the thin legs of the dead and pull them down from the cubicle to the floor. Sometimes I’d hear thump. Thump. Thump. The head would knock on the board, as if coming down steps. Thump. Thump. Thump-thump. Sometimes they stripped off their clothes there in the passageway, sometimes not. It depended on the smell of the dead from the night. Dead that smelled were left in their clothes.

Every morning I saw different faces beside me. Faces with hunger and certain death in them. Every morning I heard questions, as if I had answers. The cubicle stank like father’s cow shed. I hadn’t seen a shower in two months. The lice were in rows on my skin, as if SSman had given the order. I scratched until I drew blood. A lot of blood. I wanted to bite myself.

The head of the bloc, a giant with a triangular head, wore a striped vest. On his chest was a green triangle. The head of the bloc screamed, struck with a baton he always held in his hand like a long finger with a knob. The prisoners in the bloc whispered, they barely spoke. They reminisced about people they’d known back home. Reminisced about food. Asked one another how to erase spots that grew on the skin. Rashes, small sores, odd singes, signs of burns, scaly skin, infections here and there. They were alarmed by skin problems and by the doctor who’d examine naked prisoners and send them to Selektion. Between Selektion they’d argue about the chances of winning the war, or about a door that was left open to the cold. I didn’t interfere in anything. Whispers didn’t interest me. I’d put my head down on the wood and fall asleep.

One morning the loudspeaker played my number: Achtung, Achtung, A-4092 report outside. I was sure they’d throw me into the oven, that it was my turn for the Garden of Eden. I told myself, say goodbye to the world, Dov. Say goodbye to the sun. Say goodbye to the blue number on the arm. Say goodbye to the rags you’re wearing. Goodbye to the stinking cubicle. Goodbye to the lice smeared all over you, damn them. You and the lice into the fire together, but first the gas, because there is order.

I came out of the barracks like a boy with dignity.

I looked for the sun. I couldn’t find it and trembled as if they’d put ice in my trousers. Three more left the bloc with me. The large prisoner beside me didn’t stop crying. I walked upright, didn’t interfere. What could I say to him? I knew the Germans took strong guys for labor and it didn’t always help. What determined it was what they needed: If they did or didn’t need laborers for work. If things were held up at the crematorium or not. There were cases when whole transports were sent to the chimney, they didn’t even look at them on the platforms. And there were strong young men among them, each shoulder a shoulder, not just any hands, but hands that could carry a heavy calf without a problem. And there were cases they took so-so young men to the crematorium and then, right at the crematorium they told them to return to the barracks, why? The Sonderkommando hadn’t finished emptying out the previous transport. I was a boy and I knew I didn’t stand a chance.

On the side was an open truck of prisoners in striped pajamas. SSman, baton in hand, signaled us to climb into the truck on the double, to move in close. Beside him stood two guards with guns. We ran to the truck. Another SSman was waiting for us with a leg in the air. A strong kick in the backside and we were off. I didn’t know where they were taking us, and I didn’t ask. I thought, maybe to the forest to meet with a machine gun, a mass grave in a field, maybe to work? I didn’t dare ask the guards, didn’t want to talk with prisoners.

The truck stopped at a labor camp: Jaworzno.

Israel, 2001
14:18 boarding a suburban train on the Nahariya platform.

Because of the sea I stick to a window, wait for it to bring a few waves to Nahariya. Blue sea and cellphone ringtones. A cheerful Turkish march fails to wake the phone’s soldier. Stops. A message. On the left, Khachaturian’s Sabres attack and at the end of the carriage another tune and a message. Blah. Blah. Blah. A slight, pin-like pain digs sharply into my head, releases. Yitzhak would say, what do you want with a headache in a carriage, better you take a taxi. Dov would say, best to use headphones, you wouldn’t even hear the Auschwitz orchestra, would you?

I’d look at Dov, swallow saliva and remain silent. Finally I’d say, I just can’t wear headphones, can’t wear them, Dov, I have so much noise in my head, I need an opening. And then Yitzhak would ask, what noise do you have, huh? And I’d tell him, never mind.

If I told Yitzhak and Dov the truth, if I told them that between 15.5.44 and 8.7.44, they transported 501,507 Jews from Hungary, most of them to Auschwitz, Dov would say, I’m no good at math. They took us away before we learned such big numbers. And Yitzhak would say, what do you mean, immediately pouring vodka into a glass of grapefruit juice, and his wife, Hannah, would say, what do you need that for, and he’d say, for life, Hannah, and then I’d focus on Dov, and he wouldn’t believe a single word for five minutes. Then he’d clap his hands loudly, how did they manage that, wanting me to say: How did they manage it in two months, transport five hundred and one thousand and another five hundred and seven Jews out of Hungary, huh?

Less than two months, Yitzhak would correct. Less than two months, Dov.

Are you sure, Dov would ask me. Yes, yes, I’d say, I saw it on television, and then Dov would ask, what program, I know all the programs, and I’d say, Channel 8, maybe, or maybe Channel 23, and then Dov would say, boring, with a gesture as if brushing away a fly. Is there a crematorium on your channel? We can’t describe a crematorium standing there without smoke and smell. We can’t imagine the smell of flesh not coming out of the television.

The train stopped just as the nausea from the smell of flesh began. The end of the track. Impossible, Dov would say, possible, possible, Yitzhak would say, the Germans were good with large numbers, and then Dov would say, break. Bring juice for everyone, and I’d throw off my shoes, roll up my sleeves as high as possible, and look for a shutter to open, and Yitzhak would say, what’s the matter with you, and I’d say, hot flashes, it’s the age, pay no attention.

Chapter 5

Yitzhak: How come I only studied up to third grade?

Dov: You didn’t want to study after third grade.

Only I studied all the time.

Yitzhak: Do you want to know the month of my birth in 1929?

When they took compost out to the field and planted cabbage.

The month of November.

11.11.1929. Dov was also born in November. One year before.

Dov: I was a year old when they sent me away from home.

Dov

We were born Czechoslovakians. Sent to die Hungarians.

In 1944, my family was taken to a concentration camp. Father Israel was forty-nine. Mother Leah was forty-two. The children were between fifteen and twenty.

We lived in the village of Tur’i Remety in the Carpathian Mountains, near the town of Perechyn. A small place, maybe six hundred families. Maybe thirty Jewish families. Our village was known for horse racing.

People from the area would come to us with their beautiful racehorses. I didn’t buy a ticket to the races. I had no money. I sat on a platform near the mountain. Ate an apple, played my harmonica with a phoo phoo phoo. Phoooo. Phoo. Phoo. Phoo. Phoooo. Phooah. That’s what came out and in the meantime I speculated on the horses’ chances. The races were in the time of the Czechs. The Hungarians put a stop to the races. War was already raging in Europe but they didn’t talk about it in the village, we were far away in the mountains.

The goyim – Jews – in our village were farmers. The Jews were merchants. Butchers, grocery, bakery, a flour mill, things like that. Jews always had money in their pockets.

In the village we’d gather in the evenings to peel corn with the goyim. Let’s say the corn in the Korol family’s corn field was ripe. The Korol family cuts the corn. The Korol family brings the corn to the storeroom. The village youngsters gather together in the evening to peel the corn.

The youngsters work, sing, eat hot corn. Sometimes two youngsters, a boy and a girl, yes, would peel the corn with a scrap of shirt, or trousers; and, unintentionally, yes, we’d soon start throwing peels at them, lots and lots of peels with hairs at the end, like a blanket, so they shouldn’t get cold, God forbid. By morning we were in vecherkas, as we called the gatherings with the goyim. The next day we’d go to another farmer and start the vecherkas and the fun all over again. Everything ended when soldiers came to the mountains and forced us to wear yellow patches.

Father Israel was a butcher.

We had a butcher shop next to our house. Father was also an animal trader and away from home three nights a week. We had a cow shed in the yard and we had geese and chickens. Mother raised the children. Mother milked the cows, helped in the store, ran the home, mother was an expert baker, her cakes tasted like the Garden of Eden. Mother worked and worked, didn’t rest for a moment. When we were hungry we took food for ourselves. We only sat down to eat a meal together on the Sabbath. When I was a year old my brother Yitzhak was born and I was sent away from home. My sister Sarah was five. My brother Avrum was three. Mother couldn’t take care of everyone at once. I was sent to Grandmother and Grandfather. They lived in another village, maybe thirty kilometers from my village. When I was three they brought me back home. My sister Sarah said I didn’t stop crying.

Our village was near a huge forest in the Carpathian Mountains.

What I loved most was walking in the forest. Always with a stick, because of the wolves. I loved swinging from branches and climbing trees. I would climb almost to the top of the tree and look out over fields, over houses. I only ever felt safe in trees. I knew no one would find me up there. I had my own private hiding place in the forest. I hung up a hammock made from a blanket I took from home and I ate fruit from a hoard I collected, all according to season. In the forest I knew where to find pears, mushrooms, berries and nuts. I was the first to know when the fruit was ready to eat.

In winter I suffered.

In winter I waited for the snow to melt so I could throw off my shoes and run barefoot to my forest. Mother embarrassed me. She’d run after me, shoes in hand. She’d call my name aloud in front of the neighbors, worried that I’d catch cold, shouting Avrum, Avrum, Avrum, to help her with me, but he’d go off with father. I’d hear, Sarah, Sarah, leave your book for a moment, nu, and go and look for your brother, put his shoes on and bring him home.

Sometimes I’d come back with Yitzhak, shoes in hand. Sometimes with Sarah. I liked feeling the cold earth. It was a nice tickling feeling in my back, right up to the hollow in my neck. Maybe that’s why my feet didn’t hurt when I walked in the camp with paper-thin soles.

Yitzhak and I went together to cheder – a traditional elementary school teaching Judaism and the Hebrew language. We started there at the age of four. We left home every day at five-thirty in the morning. In winter the temperature was twenty-five below zero. We’d hold hands and walk in the dark. We wore a coat, a hat, a scarf and gloves and woolen socks with shoes. Despite this my face hurt, like an iron stuck fast to my skin. I couldn’t feel my feet in that frost. Our legs were like planks bent in the middle. Our ear-locks were like barbed wire. We didn’t talk so our tongues wouldn’t fall out and stick to the snow.

We’d study for two hours in cheder and then go home. At the age of six, after cheder, we went to the Czech elementary school. We studied until 13:00 and went back to cheder in the afternoon. For at least another two or three hours.

A city rabbi would come to bless the village on two fixed occasions twice a year. The city rabbi was an important and respected man. He had a black coat, a hat, and a thick beard like steel wool. The rabbi would comb his beard with two fingers, stopping only to spit into a handkerchief. The rabbi didn’t say they’re throwing Jews into the Dnieper. The rabbi didn’t say they’re throwing Jews into the Dniester. The rabbi didn’t say they’re shooting Jews in forests. People in the village asked him as they had always done over the years, rabbi, what should we do. What should we do, rabbi, on the radio they speak against Jews, there are rumors, rabbi. They send families far away, where is far away, rabbi, what do they do to us there, does it hurt? And there have been whispers, rabbi, passing by word of mouth, whispers about mass graves of hundreds, thousands, danger is coming, rabbi, what is waiting for us, rabbi, tell us what is waiting for us, is this the end?

The rabbi would think and think, and in the meantime a woman with an enormous belly pushed two Jews with beards and hats who stood in the aisle, and approach the rabbi from the side, punching him, boom! in the middle of his back and the rabbi jumped and the two Jews with beards and hats fell on the woman and she rolled about like a full barrel, shouting, hooligans, leave me alone, and they wouldn’t leave her alone, but rolled her out of the synagogue, and three old women with covered heads would call out in unison, she’s crazy, she’s from a goy family and she’s crazy, and the rabbi would arrange his hat, pull his coat and bend down to us with raised eyebrows, asking the nearest man, tell me, Jew, do you light candles at home?

Yes, we light candles, and you, tell me, have you checked your Mezuzahs?

I’ve checked them, and you, Jew, do you remember to put on tefillin, we remember rabbi, we don’t forget a single day.

And then the rabbi would say, nu, good. There’s a God in the heavens, open the Siddur, say Shema Israel and the Messiah will come.

The village people said, very well, and looked down at the ground. The rabbi requested a chair. The rabbi took off his hat and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. The rabbi put his hand in his pocket and played with coins. Chink. Chink. Chink. People stole glances at one another but refused to buy the rabbi’s medications. A few minutes later they continued to badger, what should we do, rabbi. Should we run away, answer us, rabbi. They had the voice of a hungry chick. Many chicks that weep and weep.

The rabbi would frown, saying: Certainly not, Jews. Forbidden! Forbidden to leave the village!

People said, very well, but immediately longed for Eretz-Israel, rabbi, Palestine, you know, the Jews are studying Torah there, maybe we’ll escape to Palestine?

The rabbi shouted: Forbidden! A boycott on anyone who goes to Palestine. Boycott! Boycott! Boycott! We must wait for the Messiah!

The people said very well, but until he comes, rabbi, what must we do?

We have a strong God, He will help, shouted the rabbi banging his hand on the Ark.

The people said very well. Men and heavy coats, and women with head coverings and handkerchiefs in their hands, crowded in front of the synagogue Ark, weeping and shouting in unison, help us, our Lord. Save us from Hitler, damn him, bring the Messiah, and then they went home. On the way, if they saw a priest or a white horse, or a chimney cleaner in black clothes and a black hat, they’d grab a button on their clothing, against the evil eye, not letting go until they reached home, believing that this would help them get through Hitler. Some kissed the Torah morning, noon and night, some wept. Small children rushed around the synagogue yard with sticks in their hands. They cursed Hitler and beat the ground.

The rabbi wanted to go back to his city. They lined up the children to say goodbye and shake his hand.

I didn’t like the rabbi and didn’t want him to ask me a question about the Torah or about Jews. I didn’t want him to speak to me about anything. I was ashamed when people laughed because I didn’t understand a thing about what I studied in cheder. I was most ashamed at farting in my trousers from the stress, because in cheder we read Hebrew letters that looked to me like sticks with a lot of mosquitoes, the rabbi translated the sticks with mosquitoes into Yiddish, and I knew Yiddish from home, but I couldn’t remember the Hebrew letters, not even one. I had no head for letters. My brother Yitzhak had even less of a head for letters. Yitzhak escaped from life in cheder. I suffered more. Every day I farted on the way to cheder. I squeezed tight but they got out, phut. Phut. Phut. I’d often whistle so my friends wouldn’t hear and, hopefully, wouldn’t smell before I had time to reach the hole in the shithouse. I’d sit above the hole in the plank to pass the time, I’d whistle melodies quietly. I’d play my harmonica in my mind, or draw on the wall with a piece of chalky stone I had in my pocket. I was an expert on butterflies with huge wings. I made enough room on the wings for me and my brother Yitzhak in case we decided to fly far away.

One day I was sitting in the shithouse and saw one of our boys approaching. I think it was Menachem, the shoemaker’s son. The boy pulled down his pants and sat down next to my ass. He and I begin to shove asses. Shove, shove, bursting with laughter. In the meantime the rabbi the melamed – teacher – arrived with a scarf around his neck and a smell of cigarettes. The rabbi, the melamed had a belt in his hand. The belt was five centimeters wide and at the tips of his fingers was orange colored fire. And then he threw back his hand and thwack, he brought the strap down on us. And thwack. Thwack. Thwack. The boy and I race away from the shithouse with our trousers down. On the way we step on our trousers and boom, we fall to the floor. The rabbi didn’t stop yelling and each time thwack on the ass. On the back. On the head. Left us in pain for a week with red stripes on the skin, each stripe five centimeters wide.

Our rabbi the melamed had another arrangement.

He would start the week with a game. He’d stand in front of us, one hand on his hip, the other scratching his head. Soon I’d see a shower of dandruff falling to his shoulders. He’d frown and ask, who knows which tree we can break on the Sabbath, eh? And I was an expert on trees. I was a professor on trees. There wasn’t a boy in the village who knew the forest like I did. I said to myself, I’ll find him a tree and impress him. I forgot it’s forbidden to break trees on the Sabbath. Nu! He broke my bones and I ran away from the cheder and sat in a ditch by the road. For two weeks I lived in the ditch. I brought planks to the ditch and I made myself a room without a roof. I brought a large stone and a blanket and water to drink, and cookies, and a catapult and I was content. I saw boys and girls walking along the road together, arms around each other’s waists, whispering into each other’s ears, laughing. As if they had no Hitler on the radio.

I frequently counted wagons of hay returning from the field. Wagons with humps of hay. Sitting on top were the farmers. They were usually tired and sleepy. Sometimes I’d flick a stone at them with my catapult. They’d jump in fright, raising their whip and looking behind. Then they’d fall asleep. I saw women on the road, dragging heavy baskets of apples. At noon, they’d return with baskets, cursing the bad day and bad luck brought by black cats.

One day my rabbi the melamed came to my room in the ditch. The rabbi held a hat in his hand. He stood above me, calling me. I didn’t answer.

What are you doing here?

Looking.

Aren’t you bored?

Interested, actually.

Children in cheder are asking about you.

What do they care?

They don’t understand where you disappeared to.

I like living next to the road.

I want you to return to cheder.

Not coming back.

Your parents want you to return.

I caught sand falling from the wall of the ditch.

Come back to cheder and you can have this hat as a gift, want it?

I went back, did I have a choice?

I put on a woolen hat with a small peak, a new hat.

Are you coming?

Coming.

I go into the room. See three children turn to the wall making a sound like chah. Chah. Quietly. As if they had a pile of mucus to throw up. The rabbi puts his handkerchief into his pocket and sticks his thumb under the belt of his trousers. He towers over me, tells me, read a verse from the book, and my throat constricts.

The children all look at me. At least two make faces at me from behind the book. I look down. The book is open in front of me, a salad of letters on the page. Silence in the room. I keep half an eye on the rabbi. His cheeks flush pinkish blue up to his neck, most of all at the ends of his ears. His hand rises and I go cold. Smack. He hits me with his belt. Smack. Smack. Smack. Tired, he left the room to smoke a cigarette. The children in the room jump on their chairs, call, na. Na. Na. Na. Na. Na. Some make vomiting noises, only one sits quietly, sticks his finger in his nose and then in his mouth, one slaps two next to him on the head, as if they were drums, they grab him by the trousers and pull hard, he shouts, stop, stop, bending forward, the two pay him back with a fast drumming on his back, he grabs their legs and bang. A heap of children rolling on the floor, the boy with his finger in his nose at the bottom.

I sat in the corner swallowing tears of shame and prayed to God that my rabbi the melamed would go blind. That my rabbi the melamed would limp and have a permanent stutter. No, no, may his tongue fall into the snow and stick there for eternity, I wish, I wish, that he’d come into the room, open his mouth wide, want to say Leiber, read from the book, and all that would come out would be mmmm. Mmmm. I wish, I wish. I know the rabbi decided I’d rebel against him. That I deliberately didn’t want to read, to make him mad. But I didn’t. I couldn’t remember the Hebrew letters.

I also got it from rabbi the melamed because of the Sabbath.

My brother Yitzhak and I agreed to bathe in the Tur’i Remety River on the Sabbath for a few candies. Older children said, if you go in the river on the Sabbath, we’ll give you all the candies we have in our pockets, want to? They showed us the nice candies in their pockets. We stripped quickly and waded into the river. We got no candies. One of them immediately ran to call our rabbi. The rabbi arrived in his Sabbath clothes and large hat. My brother and I decided to dive. We held hands, took a deep breath, and hop. Down we sank. One, two, three, four, five, we ran out of air. We raised our heads. Ah, the rabbi was waiting for us at the river. He shook his head, and I saw a belt hovering over me.

At home I complained about the rabbi.

I said, the rabbi hits me with his belt. Father, it hurts.

Father said, Leiber, you study hard, d’you hear, and off he went.

I went to mother, mother, help me, it hurts. Mother was silent.

My sister, Sarah, put her book aside and said, Leiber is right, father needs to do something, mother, you tell him.

Mother took a candy from the drawer, gave it to me and said, the rabbi knows what’s good for you. The rabbi decides, Leiber, and you have to listen to him, understand? I was silent. Throwing off my shoes, I jumped outside and ran barefoot to the forest. I heard mother shouting, Leiber, Leiber, come back. I didn’t go back. I only went back when it got dark and I was hungry.

A few days later, the Czechs recruited the rabbi. Soldiers on horses were dragging a cannon. The rabbi sat on one of the horses. I sat in the ditch and he rode past me. His face was a whitish gray color, his body had shrunk, and under my woolen hat I felt happy, I called out, there is a God, there is. Because I didn’t want him to speak to me. I never saw him again.

Then the Hungarians came and life in the village was turned upside down. The Hungarians sacked the Czech teachers. Replacement teachers arrived from Hungary. Anti-Semitic teachers. They immediately separated Jewish and Christian children. Mainly for sports lessons. Christian children were given wooden weapons to train with before being recruited to the army. The children trained in the yard, right-turn, left-turn. They were known as Levente. They turned us Jews into servants. We had to cut firewood. In the meantime, the village was full of rumors.

The shoemaker whispered in the synagogue that they were taking Jews and burning them. Shooting them at enormous pits, spreading lime, firing, then another layer. The grocer said the Germans were putting Jews in cars, closing the door tightly and pouring poison inside. Then they throw them to the dogs. At home, around the table with a glass of tea, mother said God would help and Hitler would burn like a candle. Father said, Hitler will burn up like a feeble tree. The bald neighbor came in and said first they should pull out his teeth, one by one, with rusty pliers. Then the childless neighbor came in and said, the British will come soon, they’ll hang Hitler on a rope, damn him. They always killed Hitler at the table. Rabbis even came from the city, two I didn’t know, one plump, one short and not so fat, they said, Jews, there is nothing to worry about. The plump one said, we have a powerful God. He will take care of us. The short one wiped away the white crumbs at the corners of his mouth and said, very true, trust in God alone. But I was very worried and stuck to Shorkodi.

A handsome young man, he was from the Jewish Forced Labor Battalion. The Hungarians brought them from Budapest to cut wood for the Germans. Shorkodi ate supper with us on the Sabbath. Shorkodi said, listen Leiber, I have a large perfume store. When the war is over you’ll come with me to Budapest. I’ll teach you to work in the store. I didn’t know what perfume was but I waited for the day. Every day I waited. Even when they killed my best friend, Shorkodi, because he took the train to Budapest without permission. He wanted to visit his parents and return. I waited even after the men from Budapest disappeared. I waited even when I knew the end was coming for the Jews.

And we had a chance.

In 1943, a shaliach – messenger, came from Israel to our village. A young Betar man with velvety hair and shoulders a meter wide. He had a low thick voice, and he spoke as if Hitler was standing behind the door. He said he’d come to save Jewish youth from Hungary. He came into the synagogue and begged to take at least the youngsters to Israel.

Give me the children, the children. I approached the Betar shaliach, don’t know why, but I wanted to hang onto his hand and not let go. He smiled at me and put out a large, sunburned, scratched hand. I wanted to shake his hand.

Father stood between us. Father said, Leiber, go home. I ran home. I didn’t know what Israel was but I thought, first of all, we’re getting out of here. I banged the door and fell upon mother.

Mother, mother, I want to go to Israel. I want to go with the shaliach.

Mother pulled at her apron and pinched my cheek. Hard.

Mother said, is that what the rabbi taught you, huh? We go to Israel only when the Messiah comes.

I stayed. I knew we’d missed our chance.

I waited for the Messiah. First I sat with my left leg crossed over my right, an hour later I changed legs, crossing my right over my left, for twice as long, and changed. I sat on the steps behind the house. I opened my shirt, showed him my entire chest, I wanted to open my heart to him, I put my palm, fingers stretched, over my heart, I heard it beat, tuk-tuk. Tuk-tuk. I seized the beats in my fist, threw my hand forcefully over my head, then I opened my mouth and called him, come Messiah, come, come to me.

In the meantime I listened to the radio.

I heard Hitler on the radio. His voice was like the barking of the big dog in the neighbor’s yard. I heard heil, heil. I heard Juden, and Juden like cursing. I heard incredible singing from thousands of throats. I felt as if the enthusiastic singing on the radio wanted to fix me to the wall and squash me like a mosquito.

I was certain the story would end badly for Jews. As bad as it could be. Even though I didn’t understand the reason and I wasn’t yet fifteen.

Chapter 6

Yitzhak: Maybe we deserved it, we were cheats and liars.

Dov: Don’t say that.

Yitzhak: Man-eaters. The Jew in the diaspora wasn’t honest.

Dov: Not true, don’t say that, it’s how traders are, it’s impossible

to buy for a lira and sell for half a lira.

Yitzhak: An ordinary goy was honest. A Jew looked for

ways to earn, make a living.

Yitzhak

I liked wandering round the market.

The noisiest place in town. I didn’t want to study. Didn’t want to sit on my ass the entire day in front of my teacher’s mouth. I liked wandering about the market, traveling to places I didn’t know with my father. I liked meeting the man with the vegetable stall. He’d say to me, Yitzhak, you’ve grown, grown, want an apple? I liked meeting the man with a general store. He had burners, lamps, a nut-grinder, a small saw with a special handle, a bird-cage, and work tools. He had an interesting story for me. Sometimes I’d sit apart on the stairs and learn how to buy and sell goods.

I’d see and couldn’t believe my eyes. Goy soldiers would come to buy a horse from a Jew. The horse is lame. The Jew hits the horse on the second leg and hammers a nail into the hoof of the healthy leg, the horse looks healthy. The soldiers pay good money for the horse, the Jew spins around them like a happy top, offering cookies and tea, chatting away as if to friends. The goy soldiers say goodbye, goodbye, set off on their way, and then, boom. The horse falls. The goy soldiers curse the Jew. The goy soldiers kick a stone, seize a stick and break it on the back of the poor horse. The soldiers say, we’ll kill you, dirty Jew, we’ll hang you from the highest tree, filth. Ah. Holding my head, I ran away. That evening I told father and he nodded his head and said nothing.

Goy comes to a Jew in our village. Goy asks, lend me ten agorot – cents – for a bit of tobacco. A Jew lends it to him. How many bits does he return? He returns a lot. Or, instead, a Jew says to a goy, give me some beans, potatoes, cabbage. Goy brings more and more and the Jew isn’t satisfied. Sometimes Goy went to market, wanted to buy a nanny goat. He has no money. He came to a Jew and asked for money. How would he give it back? He’d return two nanny goats. That’s how a Jew exploited the goy. Goy didn’t understand trading. Jew ran the market. Goy looked after the goods. Jew paid Goy at the end of the day. But the goy waited for evening. Yes, yes. He waited for the Jew on his way home. With friends. Five. They hid behind a hill with sticks, knives and an iron rod in their hands. Yaakov approaches in his cart. He has small, red ears and ginger hair. There are two other Jews on the cart. One an uncle, the other a neighbor. One snores loudly, another farts. Yaakov is happy. His bag is filled with money. He hid it under the hay. On the hay he placed a sack of flour, over the sack a blanket. In his pocket he has a little money. Suddenly, a fire in the middle of the road. A small fire, just a small one. The horse stops. Three goys jump on Yaakov, one catches the horse’s bridle. The fifth jumps on the uncle and the neighbor. They had no time to wake up. The money was gone.

Then there was lame Friedman. He brought a mill to thresh goy farmers’ wheat in the village. He’d make a noise throughout the entire village, turrrr turrr turrr. Half the village worked around Friedman’s mill. Farmers would bring their wheat, thresh it, and how would they pay Friedman? It was divided up – one third to him, two thirds to the farmer. Friedman wasn’t a cheat. Friedman had bought the machine, prepared it for the month of May, fixed it, threshed the wheat, he justifiably took percentages. But Jews also had a mill. The goy would bring a ton of wheat to the mill. The goy would go home with two hundred kilos of flour. Isn’t that thieving? A little.

The Jew was smart. The Jew lived at the goy’s expense. Jews always had money in their pockets, they bought a hat, boots, a good coat, fresh fruit, like this, as open as my hand. Maybe that’s why the goys hated Jews. They always called us, dirty Jew, go to Palestine, there’s nothing for you in our country.

We were an ordinary family. We weren’t rich. Father was a trader and a butcher. There was no scarcity of food, but life was hard. They didn’t always buy father’s goods. Sometimes father would go to market with a cow and return two days later with the same cow. And if he did manage to sell it, he didn’t return home alone because of the robbers. Father always walked around town with a brother, an uncle or a friend. He traveled in a group. Sometimes he traveled in an old taxi with five or six people. The taxi barely went thirty kilometers an hour, they’d crank up the car more and more, sometimes they’d spend half a day cranking it. In the meantime, they’d drink coffee, play some cards, and they stuck together. Because of the robbers. Jews were uneasy everywhere. A Jew either existed or not, depending on the desire of the goys.

Chapter 7
Dov

The goys always said: It’s the nature of the Jew to cheat the Christian.

And I tell you: The Jew had no choice. He had no land. He had to be a trader. The goy had land. The goy always had food in his hands. The goy grew pigs in the yard, cows, geese, he had vegetables in the garden, trees full of apples, a field of wheat and cabbage and corn. The Jew had no land, how was he supposed to live? The goy needed sugar, flour, oil, kerosene, clothing, so the Jew opened a grocery, a bakery, and a clothing store. Sometimes, in order to buy at the store, the goy sold a cow to the Jew. They’d negotiate, but not for business. The goy sold the cow to take products home.

The goys needed the Jews to advance in life. Without the Jews’ money they couldn’t have bought a cow or a horse, they couldn’t have bought a plow to plow the field, or wheat seed for bread. The Jews’ money rolled business forward, so what, did it help us? The Germans also needed the Jews for their business, before they decided to throw them into the oven.

Israel, 2001
14:18 at Nahariya Train Station.

I’m on the interurban to Binyamina. On the seaside. The change to the suburban train is in an hour and seven minutes. I look at the window and see a round face in the glass, a silly smile. Maybe because of the Arak in the grapefruit juice. Arak and grapefruit juice goes well with meatballs said Yitzhak and filled my glass for the second time. Dov smiled, saying, very true, drink, drink, let’s make a toast. To the life of the State of Israel. L’chaim. L’chaim. To life. To life.

Beyond the window high risers pass, country homes, a date avenue, a fierce green in tiny plots, diagonal furrows, and sea, sea, sea, sea. The froth on the waves is the color of mud. The Mosque and wall are a soft cream color. And again housing units, again the sea. The air-conditioning on the train is pleasant.

Opposite me sits an old man covered in age spots. One across half his cheek. He’s wearing an Australian cap with the design of a duck. Beside him is a curly-headed little girl with a ponytail tied with a blue band. She’s licking a record-sized candy on a stick with her red tongue. The old man points to a picture in the book and says, kangaroo, that’s an Australian kangaroo, and he swallows a yawn. The little girl puts the book aside. The old man pulls his cap down to the end of his nose, falls asleep.

I need the toilet. Don’t want to get up. I stand. My bladder is bothering me. Taking my bag, I look for the toilet. The cubicle is at the end of the carriage, near the steps. I peep in, it’s like a plane toilet, a large roll of paper under a plastic lid, a tiny sink, a box of hand wipes, it looks clean.

I don’t move.

Well, get a move on, go in. Wait. I check the door. Mentally take the lock to pieces, turn it to the left, turn it to the right, an ordinary lock. I go into the cubicle and am afraid to close the door in case I get stuck going out. And if I shout for help, will they hear me? No one will. If Yitzhak was on the train, he’d say, worst case scenario, you could jump, with a little luck you’d get to a hospital, most important of all, no one dies from that, and in any case, I’ve already said, taxi, taxi. Dov would say, you only die once, best to hold it in.

The nightmare doesn’t end: The toilet door doesn’t open. In a cinema, for instance. The movie ends. The audience leaves the hall, the lights are switched off, I’m inside. A faded, peeling door, behind a gas station. No one around. An office block, top floor, middle floor, the worst is a basement floor, never happened to me? It’s happened, it’s happened. The walls were like a sealed room. Two minutes and your blouse is wet.

If Yitzhak was there, he’d say, at least you’ve got paper to wipe yourself, we had no paper. And there was nothing to wipe. Dov would say, what paper, we had nothing, we’d cut small pieces from the stripes on the trousers and shirt to wipe. In secret. Sometimes we didn’t even have that. We’d walk in a line, with a stinking, sticky drip down our trousers, don’t even want to think about it. Do you have any idea of what it’s like to walk along a road and feel a disgusting drip into your shoes, better you never know. And now, coffee.

Chapter 8

Dov: Remember Mermelstein? Tall, with a beard,

recruited by the Czechs in 1939? He was a

gunner, rode a horse, six horses pulled a cannon.

Yitzhak: One of the boys from that family was with you.

Dov: Yes, but we lost each other along the way.

Yitzhak: We lost ourselves along the way,

Dov, look what happened to us. We lost everything.

Dov

I went by truck from Auschwitz to Camp Jaworzno.

It was the middle of summer. Hot. We traveled standing up. Crowded and stinking. I was finished. Two adults fell on me simultaneously. One died close to my eye, one on my shoulder. I carried them both until Jaworzno. The old pain in my groin came back. The place that would swell up and turn blue when I dragged heavy logs to the train track in the village. At night, I’d drag them with father and my brothers.

We got down from the train. Even hotter. Saw rows and rows of brown wooden barracks with thick, white smoke above them, like sand. SSman, two meters tall with a cap and a loudspeaker in his hand yelled, strip, you’re going to shower. I didn’t believe him. I was certain they were taking us to the gas. In my pocket I had a piece of bread. I hid it in my shoe. I thought, if I get out of the shower alive, a piece of bread will be waiting for me. Naked and thin we went into the shower. Tall men, short men. All ugly, disgusting, just like the goys always said about us. Everyone had white skin, sores and a smell. They’d press on their skin and there’d be a hole in the flesh, as if their skin was old. Their bald heads were brown like mud. A thin layer of bristles. Their nails were bitten to the quick. I thought, maybe it’s easier to kill people who look like this. I was sure I looked like that, too, maybe I was also disgusting, ugh, stinking. I started looking for a mirror, didn’t find one. I smelled my skin, it smelled like spoiled cheese.

We stood stinking and crowded under the taps and I didn’t know if they’d give us water and then gas, maybe gas and water together, maybe they didn’t have enough water in that camp and we’d have to wait like we did in the train car, and maybe we’d just stand there until we died.

The air became smellier. Someone near me pooped standing up. Two others in front of me did the same. Maybe out of fear. Silently I asked myself, if they’d put naked Christians in here instead of Jews, no, no, if they’d put naked Germans in here, say, the tall, blond men I saw in the newspaper, the ones who always looked as if they’d just had a good shave. Would they also be as ugly as us after two months in Auschwitz? I had an answer. Yes. It would be easy to kill them, because of the sores and the smell.

Some of them began to call Shema Israel, Shema Israel and to weep. The weeping spread like fire in cotton wool. I also wept. We all wept to someone about someone. They began to move back and forth, as if they had a beard and were in a synagogue, moving in shoes and coat and hat. And suddenly water.

A flow of boiling water hit us on the head. Water without a smell. We couldn’t escape the burning. Nonetheless we screamed water, water, and in a flash, the tap was turned off. We were saved. The men’s weeping turned to roars of laughter. The tears remained. For the first time since leaving home I saw Jewish men laughing. I knew a piece of bread was waiting for me in my shoe. I started to hug someone next to me. We wept together. In the meantime they opened the door. At once we shut up so the Germans wouldn’t change their minds. They gave us clean clothes that didn’t smell. The black stripes looked darker. They put us in a dark bloc with three-tiered bunks. I couldn’t see any windows. The walls were brown. The light bulbs were faint. I managed to get a place farthest away from the floor. I ate my bread lying down; I was happy that day in Camp Jaworzno, higher up than Auschwitz.

The next day we returned to the morning and evening parades. We stood for hours on our feet, sometimes just because of a mistake in the numbers. Those who fell on parade, fell and that was that. Didn’t get up. A disgusting smell grew in the camp that increasingly consumed our minds and clogged up our asses.

At Jaworzno I worked in construction. Dangerous work. Because I was small. We helped build a factory for supplying electricity. The professionals were Germans.

We worked in excavation and construction. I was lowered in a basket into a six-meter-deep pit. I descended slowly into the darkness. I dug with a spade at the bottom of the pit. I sent the sand up in the basket. It was dark in there, suffocating. The earth was cold and my body full of water. I dug for about six hours straight. After a food break, another six hours, down in the pit. The Germans didn’t reinforce the sides of the pit. Grains fell into my eyes all the time. I put my fingers in my eyes, it didn’t help. I tried to wipe them with the striped pajamas, that was worse. I remembered that someone had died from an eye infection, but not only from that, he had other diseases. I tortured myself with thoughts of the coming collapse. I knew there was a big chance of a collapse. I knew that only the depth of the pits interested the Germans, I didn’t count. I knew I could be replaced by a whole transport. It was clear that I could be buried alive in a heap and that the sand would cover me and get into my ears, nose and mouth, and that I’d have to breathe sand in through my nose until death. I dug as slowly as I could. For months. Other small prisoners like me were digging in the pits next to me. Many died in the sand that fell on them. Don’t know how I stayed alive.

And then came winter.

All we had was the same striped on the clothing. No coat. No socks, vest or underwear. The frost was terrible. I couldn’t feel my palms. The same for the soles of my feet, and it was only a matter of time before my fingers fell off. I was certain that tomorrow, the next week, following month, I’d find three fingers on each hand, or three toes on a foot, or I’d come out of the pit in the basket without a thumb. I dreamed of fire. One day, on the lunch-break, I found a few planks. In my pocket I had paper and matches. I went behind a wall, and I lit a fire.

The work manager came up to me.

The work manager was a young Pole of twenty-five. He had huge hands. He had a neck as thick as a bull. He stood the prisoners in a line, dragged me in front of them and ordered: Bend down. I bent down. Waited for a bullet in the head. The work manager took a large plank in both hands and struck me with the plank in the middle of my backside. Thwack. I felt I was falling to pieces. Thwack. Jew lights a little fire, warms his hands and the Pole, damn him, crushes. Yes. Thwack. I counted five blows. There was no flesh on me. I was skin and bone. I felt as if even my bones couldn’t hold up under the skin. They were like nuts knocking about inside a towel. Thwack thwack thwack thwack thwack. I didn’t open my mouth so my bones wouldn’t spill out.

For a month I couldn’t sit down. During breaks I stayed on my feet. Leaning first on my right leg and then on my left. At night I couldn’t sleep. I lay on my belly and didn’t know if my ass was open or leaking. I felt a tingling in my backside and was sure worms had got into the wound and were now eating me alive. Every few minutes I carefully felt the place around the wound. It was wet there. Then it was wet and smelled. Then it began to get hard there with a scab. Finally it was dry but really hurt. It hurt for two months.

The bombing of Jaworzno by the Russians almost killed us all. Noon. It was a food break. I was waiting in line for a bowl of hot soup.

I knew I had no chance of getting anything from the bottom of the pot because I was small. Every time I’d stay away from tall prisoners who approached me, an elbow ready. I already knew those elbows. They were like a snake. Thwack. And quiet. The guards saw nothing.

Suddenly a rising-falling siren. Bombs fell close to us. The distance of my house from the road. I ran zigzag to the bunker. A concrete structure dug deep underground. At the opening to the bunker were sacks of sand. Prisoners were stepping on one another because of the narrow opening. I fell on the prisoner in front of me. We both fell on the floor. His pants were wet. I managed to get by him and crawl into the bunker. Frightening darkness. I advanced along the ditch with small steps. Prisoners’ shouts in the distance behind me grew fainter. And the whining of airplanes. A few minutes went by, and then a short siren. I knew, they were calling us to come out.

I wanted to get out quickly.

I couldn’t see anything. I felt the walls and they were rough and cold. I dragged my feet, I felt as if I were walking through mud. I turned left, I passed another wall, a strange silence, I didn’t understand where all the prisoners were, where they’d gone. My heart began to beat frantically, I went back, pressing my hands on the concrete wall and changed direction again. I walked on, straight I think, and couldn’t find the way out. After a few steps I stood still. The same. Darkness, silent as a graveyard. I realized I was stuck alone in that shitty bunker. A hot needle pricked my ribs, entered the heart, dropped to the belly, settling in my backside. I felt my backside getting warm, swelling. My legs began to tremble. I grabbed the walls, shouting help, help me get out, I can’t get out on my own, where are you, help.

I began to run through the ditches like a blind man with an open ass.

I held fast to my ass so my wound wouldn’t open up anymore. I ran from side to side, to no avail. I hit walls, got a blow to the head, got up, continued running. My clothes were wet with sweat. My mind screamed, you’re lost, lost, this will be your grave. You will crumble in the darkness, and no one will know. I stopped. My breaths sounded like a running herd, lost. I closed my mouth, pressed my nose. Stretched my neck. I heard the sound of sirens. Without people. I didn’t understand what had changed. Had the bombs maybe killed the prisoners and guards and I was the only one left? No. I stuck to the wall. Slid down until I was sitting. My forehead was burning. I covered my face with the palms of my hands and waited to die.

I felt a tickling warmth in my fingers.

I opened my fingers a crack. A large blotch of light hit my brain. Right in front of me stood my mother. She had on a scarf and a dress with an apron. Mother smiled at me as if from out of a picture. I wept, Mama, Mama, I’m going to die. The weeping increased, I called louder, Mama, help me to get out, Mama. Mother smiled and then German voices disturbed us. Irritated voices that weren’t far away from me.

The light disappeared. I jumped to my feet. I heard Germans running, shouting. And then I saw light. The way out was right in front of me. I hid my face under my arm and left the bunker. Prisoners were standing in two rows opposite the opening to the bunker. My place in the row was empty. I approached them with bent knees.

A Kapo thug fell on me.

A large, fat Kapo hit me in the face with his fists, kicked my leaking ass. I fell. I ate earth mixed with blood. The Kapo didn’t stop. He kicked me in the belly, ribs, head and back. I lay there without moving. I stopped breathing. The Kapo stopped. Kicked me again in the pelvis, turned and walked off. The Kapo’s kicks paralyzed the right side of my body. I got up slowly, couldn’t straighten up. I saw through a mist of blood. I ran crookedly to my place in the line. Don’t know how I survived. I was young, I was strong. Stronger than Hitler.

Chapter 9
Yitzhak

The transition from Camp Buchenwald to Camp Zeiss was difficult.

Winter. Rain. Lightning. Storms. When I was in Buchenwald in Bloc 8, I ate well. I slept in a bed with sheets, I showered, there was light at the window.

At Zeiss I lived the life of a rat. There was darkness and damp. I wrapped pipes with steel wire for twelve hour shifts, at least three or four meters deep. Every day. I had no gloves. My hands were full of cracks. Every crack broad as a ditch. After a few weeks my skin was as hard as the sole of a shoe.

For the first few weeks I ran the distance from the camp to the factory. I still had strength in my body from Bloc 8. Then I stopped running. Barely managed to walk. Hard work didn’t scare me, it was the hunger that was scary. In the morning they gave us hot water that tasted like coffee. At noon soup with bits in it I didn’t know, but I still ate it. In the evening a piece of bread with cheese or margarine. That’s it. I was sixteen and I could easily have finished off a calf for lunch, but I finished off a little water with a few tough bits from the top. I felt the hunger was devouring me from inside. My hunger was full of eyes like the angel of death. Sometimes when my body ached I could see it in the darkness of the factory.

At Zeiss there were aerial bombings, mainly when they were handing out water with tough bits.

We just got out of the earth and the planes came, boom. Boom. Boom-boom. They made a terrible noise. The poured down on us everything they carried in the belly and disappeared. The Germans made us go into a huge, open pit. In this way we lost even the little water with the few bits and ran to a pit full of pipes and steel. The guards entered after us. The bombs hit six-inch pipes. Pieces of steel flew up, circled above our heads and boom landed on the ground. Like an enormous cannon shooting spears. Steel pieces split open a prisoner’s head next to me. He fell without a sound. Jets of blood mixed with mud and soot sprayed us black. The SSmen also got sprayed. I saw SSman collapse with a huge hole in his belly. There was nowhere to run. I contracted my body to the size of a pin and lowered my head as much as I could. I heard the terrible weeping of wounded prisoners. There was no one to save them. The planes threw more and more bombs at us. I saw my end coming. I refused to die with a piece of steel in my head. Beside me was a young prisoner, maybe twenty years old. His ears stuck out and there was a bulge in the middle of his nose. I shouted into his ear, I’m getting out of here, want to come.

We ran into the open field. The field was colored white. My face burned from the cold and the wind. My nose dripped and dripped. I stuck a striped sleeve to my nose so it wouldn’t fall. I beat on my legs. The earth was as hard as asphalt and I couldn’t hear a sound, just waves coming and going in my ears. I was hungry. I got on my knees and scraped at a layer of ice. I prayed, maybe something was growing there, maybe. I dug with my hand. I found cabbage roots deep in the earth. The boy who came with me also got down on his knees. We began to dig like madmen. We found more roots. We collected a large pile. They were frozen. I began to shout, you want to kill us with hunger, but we will live, we will live. I wiped my face. We found a tin. The boy had matches in his pocket. We looked at each other and together pulled down our trousers. Peed into the tin. We put the roots inside and warmed them with matches from below. We ate roots in hot urine. We ate the entire pile. It tasted as good as mother’s food. I felt full and whispered thank you to the sky. It was black, evil. The planes disappeared. My eyelids were heavy. I wanted to sleep standing up. As if I was resting in my village after a meal. As if I was fixing something in the yard and in a minute I’d be going inside. I see my family. Father Israel would talk about the market, about a rather good deal. Mother would ask, did you bring my buttons? And she’d take a heavy pot from the fire. Avrum would want to know a little more about the business. Sarah would be writing in her book. Dov would help mother with the dishes, and I? I don’t remember anything about me. As if there were no war in the world and no trains to the crematorium, as if the world were alive without Hitler.

After a while we went back to wrapping pipes in the ground.

The next morning began with bad signs. A prisoner two bunks from me ran to the fence and tzzzzt, finished.

Burned in a second. Looked like a striped shirt that fell off the washing line, it all happened even before we stood in line, even before the dawn. I took a good look at the dead man and then two prisoners next to me left us and ran to the same place. Together, the two of them, like a couple, one tall, one with a bent back, they both ran fast and tzzzzt tzzzzt. As if they’d fallen off the washing line. I couldn’t separate myself from the little heap of the dead. I’d also had enough, but then the scream of the SSman reached my ears, stand in a row, quickly, forward march. We filed off. Men as thin and dirty as stained paper. Paper connected to shoes dragging along the asphalt.

I was almost last and didn’t move on the asphalt. SSman gave me a blow on my back with the butt of a rifle. Thwack. I shut my mouth and he screamed into my ear, forward, in line, dirty Jew.

Walk, quickly. Quickly, thwack. Another one, on the pelvis. I paid no attention, let him hit me, kill me, didn’t matter. I already knew that soon they’d take all of us to die in the crematorium. We all knew the method at Zeiss. The method: No food, no water, no place to breathe, no shower, no coat, no medication, just work, work fast, until death comes. It takes about three months to come. In the meantime they bring a fresh, healthy consignment and the old-timers get on a train to the nearest available crematorium. Yes. Three months was enough for the Germans to turn healthy young men into a pile of disgusting rags. Rags should be burned, I thought.

Tomorrow I’m on the fence. Yes, tomorrow. Another moonless night, enough. Was there a moon?

The thought of the fence gave me some strength. Maybe the three gave me the strength to think about the fence. I strode forward and made up the space in the file. And, oops, I unintentionally stepped on the shoe of the prisoner in front of me. He made a cheeping sound and fell. SSman approached us. I grabbed the prisoner’s shirt and pulled him up. He pushed with his hands and rose. I saw he was missing a finger and a half on his right hand. He rocked, rocked, stood. I passed him and began to walk with great strides, like the beginning, when I had the strength of Bloc 8. I passed at least eight prisoners and got back in line.

The first morning light began to cover the fields. We approached a German village. Regular houses with chimneys. A low fence and a yard. A few trees, more flowers, and thin ice on the water, but mainly cold that could bury you standing up. Heavy clouds stood on the roofs of distant houses. Mingled with normal smoke, white smoke, a little gray. I knew German farmers were warm in their houses with their stove and chimney, and their woolen socks.

I jeered at them because of the fence I was planning on, tzzzzt. And that was that. Silver drops spread over the grass at the side of the road. A rotting bird lay with its feet in the air. Tomorrow I’ll be dead. Yes, tomorrow.

Two figures stood by the side of the road just as the morning sun pushed a cloud. One was tall. The other shorter. I remember women’s scarves. The tall one wore a dress. The little one wore trousers. As we approached I saw a woman and a girl looking at us. Holding hands. What do the two of them want, what. Want a show, about wretched people, people who weep without tears, well, here we are. Until that morning I’d barely seen any people, I barely remembered there were any in the world. I knew they were hiding in their houses, I knew. I sensed their glances from behind a curtain, behind a sheet on the line. The children were as far away as possible, maybe they hid them under a bed, so their sweet children would sleep well at night. If I had a mirror to see myself, I knew I’d scream with shock. I didn’t need a mirror, I looked at other prisoners. I understood the village people. By chance the road near the village led to Zeiss. Twice a day a huge file of wretched, stinking, disintegrating people passed by.

The two women at the side of the road looked only at me.

They looked like mother and daughter. The little girl wanted to stick her head in my face. She pointed at me. Whispered in her mother’s ear. The mother nodded, yes, yes. The mother turned to a tall, particularly good-looking SSman. The SSman signaled, halt! We halted. Everyone’s heads were looking down. The mother spoke in SSman’s ear. She whispered in German and pointed at me. The SSman agreed and she gave him a package.

The SSman approached me.

The SSman gave me a package. Ordered: Open it. The whole line was on top of me. My whole body shivered, my hands trembled, I didn’t understand what they all wanted from me, why especially me. I wanted one of the adults to tell me what I should do now and if it was all right to open the package. The adults were breathing heavily with faces like a predatory animal about to jump. Slowly I opened the paper. There was a cooked potato inside. Hot. SSman signaled to me: Eat. I swallowed the potato in a flash. The mother and daughter went towards the village.

The SSman called, march. March.

I strode, fell. Got up. From excitement. My legs tripped over each other. In my head there was a flood. What was this, what.

The prisoners almost killed me with their eyes, and he? He said eat, and didn’t move away from me. I felt I was going mad, that’s it. I was pulling off the stripes on the pajamas, the tracks of the trains and life. In the meantime I scraped my nail against my tongue and found a few crumbs. My belly started making strange sounds, I didn’t know what to do with myself, and why are they confusing me with good deeds.

That night I felt so good and full I couldn’t sleep.

It drove me mad, all that goodness. My heart understood that maybe the little girl saw something the Germans didn’t have time to see. Maybe she saw that I was also a child, that all the men had black bristles on their cheeks and I didn’t. I’d pass my hand over my face, and it was smooth. And maybe she thought they were big and I was little.

Those two stuck in my mind like a silent movie. I saw them waiting in the distance, I approach, closer, closer, the two are looking at me, looking, looking, looking, and hop, I have a package in my hands. I eat. And back again. Closer, closer, closer, they give me a package, and hop, I’m eating, and eating, and eating. I couldn’t stop crying. I missed mother. I missed father. I missed my brothers and sister. Particularly Dov. I wanted to tell him what had happened to me. I wanted to give him half my potato. I barely slept that night.

Morning. I’m the first outside.

From the corner of my eye I see someone running towards the fence. I know him. He slept in my bunk. His brother had watched him for two days. I saw his brother running after him. Talking. I even heard, Nathan, stop, stop, Nathan. Wait. What are you doing, stop. Caught hold of his garment. Wanted to pull him away from the electricity in the fence. Nathan was the first to fall on the fence. His brother who tried to fall back was caught in the fence and was finished. He didn’t really want to die.

In a second, I turned my back on the fence. Didn’t want to see, not that morning. I wanted to go out to work, quickly. Wanted to get to the road in front of the village. Maybe, maybe, again, and maybe not.

Pains started in my belly. I remember as if it was happening now. Pains started in my pelvis, my head. I wanted to run. The file progressed slowly, slowly. A cold wind cut into the flesh. A prisoner with a swollen foot halted. His body rocked in the wind. He slightly widened his bent knees, stuck his heels into the road. Prisoners behind him halted, waiting for him without moving. SSman picked up a stone and threw it at him. It hit him on the leg. The prisoner sighed and continued to walk. The gap remained. We passed a bend in the road, another one, the village was in front of us, aaah. The two were standing there. The tall one and the little one. The little one in a fire-red coat. They stood there, like yesterday. Aligned with a water tower on which hung a rope ladder.

It took all my strength not to step out of the line, not to make any sign. I made an effort to walk slowly like everyone else but inside, my body was jumping, bloomp, bloomp. As I approach them my heart beats like a sledge-hammer. I cough. Want to scratch myself and don’t move my hand. Another small step and the little girl points at me. Aaah. We stop. I hear myself crying like a baby, Mama, Mama. Aaah. The mother approaches the SSman from yesterday, smiles at him. He responds with a smile. She speaks to him in German. She says, the girl wants to give, ja. She speaks long and fast. I understand a bit. I understand she’s a widow, the wife of Officer Michael Schroder, yes. She was alone, waiting for the train to the city, ja. The SSman pinches the little girl’s cheek; the little girl wipes her cheek afterwards. The mother and the SSman laugh, ja. Ja. Ja. Mother gives SSman a package. SSman approaches me. God, God, God. SSman signals to me, open it. I glance at the prisoners. They have huge eyes and ears and they have a large mouth, a black mouth. Four prisoners close in on me. I am paralyzed. SSman raises his rifle. SSman signals the prisoners, back off, immediately. Prisoners take a step back. I hear them breathing fast. I feel as if my hands are on fire. I open the package and can’t believe my eyes. I am holding a sausage sandwich. A whole sandwich with sausage, for me. Two thick pieces of bread, and a fat slice of sausage. Two prisoners jump at me. They have yellow saliva on the chin. SSman fires a single bullet into the air. They halt. I swallow the sandwich all at once and feel as if there is a bone stuck in my throat, I swallow saliva, more saliva, and more, and the sandwich goes down slowly, slowly, hurting my esophagus. I am overjoyed. SSman shouts, march, march.

I stride on, my head turning backwards.

She has blue eyes that are looking at me. She has two light braids. One shorter. Her face is full of brown freckles and she smiles at me, and blushes. It took all I had to hold back a scream. Queen, my queen, beautiful queen. I pinch my leg, my ear too. I have a sharp prickling in my ear. Impossible, I’m dreaming. I’m asleep in the barracks and there’s a movie in my mind. I bite my tongue, it’s hot and it hurts. Another bite and I see the SSman bowing to the two. They nod and say thank you. Mother winks at the SSman. She comes to stand with the girl who has no scarf on her head. Her long hair swells like a gold ball. The SSman laughs, his cheeks reddening. The blue in his eyes glitters.

The file progresses. The wind increases, the cold even more. The trees bend to one side, the prisoners pull their shirts over their ears, it doesn’t help. I glance back. The distance between me and the red coat increases. The prisoner behind me hits me with a sharp elbow. He is tall. I am small. Don’t care. I want to call out to the girl, wave to her, throw my hat off, kick an imaginary, explosive goal between posts, doesn’t matter what posts, even the gate posts of the camp, I want to call to the sun to chase off the wind and clouds and warm the girl’s path to the house, I want to find a field of flowers, make her a huge bunch of flowers, want to run hand in hand with her through the fields, her braids flying from side to side, one shorter, one longer, find a white horse in the meadow, toss her up on the horse, sit behind her, hold her hips, reach the forest, scream, gallop, horse, gallop, laugh wildly, I’m alive, I’m alive, Mama, where am I, Mamaaa.

The Kapo’s screams made me jump. Two days had gone by and it was morning. The Kapo screams, get up, get up, outside, get in line. I don’t get up. Stay with the picture from the dream. I am kicked to my feet. And c-c-c-cold, so cold.

On the path, near the village, there she was again. A girl with braids, her mother beside her. I choked. The little girl pointed to me. Mother approached the regular SSman. They smile and play in German. SSman bends to hear the mother more clearly. The mother catches him by the arm, turns towards the village and shows him a house. He doesn’t see well. She gives him a package, he says, a moment please, gives me the package and walks off with the mother to see better. The girl looks at the mother and the SSman. Eight prisoners jump on me. I hold tightly to the package and feel fingers sticking in my ears, nose, neck, belly, I can’t see a thing, and then came the burst of fire, Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta. Am I dead? No, I was completely alive. In front of me stood SSman with a rifle in his hands and beside me, smeared on the asphalt were three prisoners in pools of blood. I looked down at myself and saw that I was alive. Looked at them – and they were dead.

I got up with the package in my hands. The tall SSman approached at a run, the mother after him. The SSman shooter pointed at us irritably. That is, at me and the newly dead. The SSman shooter walked away shouting, kicking at nothing. The regular SSman glared at me with an evil face. The girl came up, and he immediately signaled to her to halt. He was ashamed in front of the mother. As if saying to her, what can I do, they’re animals. Then he said to me, eat now. Eat. He had a low and hateful voice. And I didn’t want the mother to agree to marry him. I was mainly worried about the girl with the braids.

Inside the damp paper was a cooked carrot. I swallowed it, heard march. March.

They waited for me with food every day or two until the first snows fell. I ate sandwiches, cooked vegetables, fruit, and cake, sometimes they gave me an uncooked potato. I’d hide it in my pocket and wait for the moment they’d send me to fix things for the work manager. I had a tin box there. I would pour steam on the gas and cook a potato for myself. For long weeks they waited for me, the mother and the girl, and there was also the regular SSman who laughed with the mother. He didn’t kill me in the evenings at the camp. He didn’t throw me into another group. The regular SSman guarded me from other prisoners with the rifle and it turned out that a German girl saved my life.

I didn’t stop thinking about her for many years. I wanted to meet her after the war. I wanted to pull stars down from the sky for her. Make her a queen. I wanted, wanted. But I didn’t ask her name. I didn’t know that one day, one more day, I’d walk through the snow and no one would be standing there.

Three months went by. We were willing to die in the gas, body and soul.

Israel, 2001
7:35 at the Beit Yehoshua Train Station.

The muzzle of a rifle aimed at me. Yes, aimed at the pelvis. The rifle of a sergeant in the armored corps, by the color and design of the cap on the shoulder. The sergeant’s face is sunburned and he sleeps with his back to a pole, a distance of about four-five meters from me. He looks like coffee on the stove. I miss hot chocolate. Sunburn fattens his lips, a broad jaw, impressive, looks like Kirk Douglas without the dimple in his chin. His hair is cut short, short, and the rifle is pointing straight at me, the magazine inside, ugh. I don’t have the energy for a rifle so early in the morning. Because of the rifles in the morning news I want to change my newspaper. I’m tired of reading it with the first coffee.

No rain, just the smell and fat clouds that hadn’t thinned for an hour. The eucalyptus trees stand tall as if on parade.

I take a small step back.

My ass is cold and I’m on my way to Nahariya. Yitzhak would say, what are you worried about, people have to walk around today with a rifle, hard times in Israel, and he’d laugh, say he was sorry, and get up to make a call about work. Dov would say, trust the soldier, he knows what a rifle is, he’s had training, he can sleep with an automatic in his hand, don’t worry and, in the meantime, why didn’t you go in for a drink. A small espresso?

If he’d asked, I’d have said, there isn’t even a kiosk, and I can’t stop worrying, each day and its own tragedy, and Dov would jump up, not even a tiny kiosk? No, Dov. Yitzhak would say, Beit Yehoshua isn’t important, come and see ours in Nahariya. There we’ve an organized buffet with wafer cookies and juice and sandwiches freshly prepared by the woman every morning, yes. But Yitzhak, how come you know what a train buffet has, you don’t travel by train.

If Yitzhak had heard Dov he’d scratch his neck and say, right. Can’t bear ramps, can’t bear them.

Ramps are a bad place for Jews.

A fast train cuts the wind in the opposite direction. A brief whoosh, and it’s gone. On the opposite platform is a young man in a good suit with a laptop on his knees. His eyes are alerted by a young woman who appears to be successful, judging by her jacket, small mini, nylon stockings and high heels. A cute woman. She notices him, straightens up, sticks out. He stares at her and immediately returns to his computer. Idiot. The cute woman with the mini drops her purse, waits. The laptop closes. The young man gets up, bends down to pick it up and points to the bench. They both sit down. He’s silent. She thinks. He opens the laptop and explains something to her. She has no patience. She pulls a mobile phone out of her bag and taps in a number. He blushes. A female soldier arrives with her rifle and stands to one side. Glances at the computer. She has a question. He’s glad. The soldier peers at the computer, and he explains. The cute woman with the mini closes her phone, glances briefly at the soldier, crosses her legs with an expansive gesture, and then the laptop falls. The young man jumps first and then the soldier. They pick up the computer together, not noticing how pretty the cute woman is when she’s smiling into nowhere.

The train enters the station opposite and the sunburned soldier’s rifle muzzle is still pointing at people in the station. I get up quickly, straighten dark glasses and check the clock. Eight. Where is the train to Nahariya, why should I wait for the sergeant to come in my direction. I just hope he doesn’t fire by mistake like the report in this morning’s newspaper. No reason. Someone was walking along and unintentionally shot someone else.

The train crawled into the station. Everyone pushes forward, I’m dragged forward and smell a sharp after-shave mixed with sweat. His gun presses into my arm, I feel its pressure against my coat. I move my arm, trying to push the gun away, but people are pushing from behind. He sticks to me like Velcro. The door to the carriage is closed. That’s it, I can no longer bear the press. I pull back forcibly, and the sergeant is pressed to a young girl who was standing beside me in a sheep wool coat, and the rifle disappears in the wool.

The door to the carriage opens with a sigh and I wait for people to enter before me. Enter last. The seats are taken. I quickly pass through a second carriage, a third, fourth, fifth, stop. An elderly man snores, beside him is an empty seat. About to sit down, I notice a revolver stuck in the belt under his gray battledress.

Lady, sit down.

Lady, sit down please. Nu, sit down. Tickets please.

Don’t want to sit down. A state like a weapon depot. Yitzhak would say, better that way, if I’d had a rifle during the war, I’d have killed a few Germans, and maybe I’d have killed myself. Dov would say, you don’t know what it’s like being small in a camp of adults. I wish I’d had a gun, I wish I had.

Chapter 10
Yitzhak

At Camp Zeiss they prepared us for death by gas.

Three months of hard labor. In the middle, snow fell and everything was covered in white. The girl and the mother no longer stood anywhere. I’d walk to the factory feeling as if I was sinking into bottomless mud. My skin itched and bled and I had sores on my legs. The sores stuck to the shoe didn’t hurt. My mind was empty. I was like an automaton. They said walk, I walked. They said stop. I stopped. They said ten minutes for your needs, I sat over the hole and nothing came out. I felt my body was as thin as dirty glass. I looked at other prisoners and knew how I looked. Yellow and thin like a disease, the mouth falling inward, the chin without flesh. Everyone’s pajamas were all a uniform color, mustard brown like baby’s poop. We were on the ramp, waiting to be replaced, standing crowded in the fresh snow. We waited for the train to Auschwitz.

There were rumors of a change. The dogs of the SSmen barked halfheartedly. The SSmen irritably tapped their boots on the snow. For hours we stood on our feet and there was no pity and no chariots of angels.

A cattle train with large lights and a face like a hyena slowly, slowly approached us, I heard wheezing and whistles like suffering, Choo. Choo. Choo. Choo-oo. I remember thinking, the train doesn’t have any strength either. Prisoners saw the train and slowly began to move back, slowly, like a dark oily stain that doesn’t spread out. A prisoner near me began to tremble where he stood, said, the Germans have gone mad, they don’t know what to do with the stuff for the fire. Another prisoner with one eye closed, said, who knows if the train can take the whole ramp to Auschwitz. I knew that the fresh transport had already taken over our barracks, and I said, don’t worry, they don’t lack a thing, trains either, damn them.

Prisoners began to call out to God, to Mama, Papa, three fainted together, hop, hop, hop, they fell like dominoes. After them, two more intentionally fell to the floor. I heard whimpers, don’t want to die, don’t want to go to the cattle car, Mamaaa, Mamaaa. Rifle blows brought us quiet. Some tried to escape, jumping from the ramp, skipping over the track, running in a zigzag, I heard shouts, and a series of shots then silence and immediately God. Oy-vey God. God save us, save us, and Shema Israel, and weeping like a stormy sea, hummm hummm. And curses, a lot of curses in German.

The car door opened with a loud boom. I couldn’t climb up. Prisoners pushed me from behind. The Germans’ blows helped us advance, fast, fast. Prisoners grabbed one another’s clothing, grabbed the door, rifle butts beating their fingers, I heard terrible weeping, don’t want to, leave me alone, don’t want to, I fell on the floor of the car. I barely managed to crawl to the wall and stand up. The eyelids of a nearby prisoner were trembling, his head fell forward, dragging his shoulders, and he vanished. At the door they continued to force people in. I felt a trembling below. The door to the car slammed shut. The train didn’t move.

I couldn’t breathe. A large broad prisoner stood with his back to me. I saw his hand going into the pocket of another prisoner. He waited a moment, removed his hand, put it in his mouth. Swallowed potato peels. Then he pulled down the prisoner’s trousers, grabbed his ass, and rubbed and rubbed, rubbed, more and more. The prisoner in front of him didn’t move. I wanted to die.

We stood shut up in the car for maybe two hours. The train didn’t move. It was suffocating. People were screaming. Vomiting. Shitting in their pants. I heard the whine of airplanes above us. Planes dropped bombs and disappeared. I prayed that a bomb would reach the roof of my car, and that would be that. I prayed for machine gun bullets right to the middle of my face. Leave this life of garbage with one blow, but it didn’t happen.

The door to the car opened. The loudspeaker called, get down. Fast. Get down. Fast. We saw that the track to Auschwitz had been broken in the bombing and I realized we weren’t going to Auschwitz. We stood on the ramp for an hour or two. We stood stuck together, shivering. We breathed the stink that passed from mouth to mouth. We didn’t warm up. Snow fell as if they hadn’t bombed the place. I was sure my teeth were breaking in my mouth, I felt with my tongue, didn’t find any spaces. Meanwhile the Germans were running about, shouting, and I was afraid, maybe they’d take us to Auschwitz in motor cars, and maybe they’d take us on foot to some forest and we’d have to dig a deep pit with plenty of space for this whole ramp.

Finally they put us on a side train with open cars. I realized that the Germans were looking for an alternative crematorium. We were good for nothing but gas and burning.

The ice consumed us in the open car, sticking us to the floor. We lay on one another like a pile of wet rags. The clothes I was wearing disintegrated at the seams. The shoes too. I pulled some string out of my pocket and tied the sole to my foot, even though I knew the shoe wouldn’t fall off because it was stuck to my foot by the scabs of my sores. Snow fell and fell, mixing with snot, vomit, and blood, it was colorful and shiny, like decorations in the sukkah our neighbor made every year for her and her husband because the children had gone to America and they were left alone and wretched. Those neighbors from the farm had also been on the ramp for a long time, also on the floor of the cars, yes, yes.

We traveled from Zeiss as if in a clean, white sheet, it was only disgusting and stank inside.

The train slowly slowly entered Schwandorf.

Again came the whining of planes and boom, a bombing. The Germans jumped down to find shelter. Some of the prisoners jumped after them, me among them. We rushed about like hungry mice in a burning house. We looked for food. We ran from door to door. Building to building. We didn’t find anything. We came to the window of a rather dark cellar the size of a largish room. The cellar floor was filled with closed suitcases. The window was narrow and barred. I stood next to the window with a group as finished as I was, but of all of them I was the smallest and thinnest. Prisoners standing next to me looked at me. At the suitcases. At me. At the suitcases. I understood. I was most afraid of death by gas, least afraid of dying from bullets or bombs. I grasped the bars and put my leg inside. Slid my body in. Passed in my other leg and hung in the air. One two, boom, I jumped. I landed on a full, brown suitcase. I opened it quickly. Shook out clothes, threw aside silver dishes, books, pictures, dolls, sweaters, glasses, slippers, shoe-laces, toiletries, didn’t find any food. I opened another suitcase. Looked in coat pockets, dug into the sides, found nothing. Tossed everything out of a third suitcase. Fourth. Fifth. The prisoners guarded me from above. Didn’t make a sound. I turned out tens of suitcases, nothing.

I wanted to get out.

The distance from the cellar floor to the window looked scary. A prisoner above called to me, put one suitcase on another and climb up. The prisoner’s voice was like my father’s. The voice of someone who knows things. I threw clothes into several suitcases, shut them quickly and stood one on top the other like a tower. I climbed up onto the pile. The suitcases sank under my feet. I fell down. The prisoner yelled to me, the bombing is over, hurry, hurry. I felt a dryness in my throat. I felt my legs melting like butter in the sun. I looked for solid objects among the belongings. I shoved books and silver objects on top of the clothes. I made a taller pile. Climbed up carefully. My body rocked, my legs trembled, I straightened up very slowly, raised my head. I heard my father’s voice, Yitzhak, jump, jump. Thin pale hands slid in through the bars. Skinny fingers signaled to me to come, to jump. Slowly, slowly, I raised my hands. I was far from them. The prisoner called in alarm, jump, jump. I jumped. Fell to the floor.

The sharp siren of a train paralyzed my entire body. I wanted to get up. My body was as heavy as a sack of flour. I knew, if I couldn’t get up, I’d die like a miserable rat in that cellar. I raised my head and screamed to the prisoners above me, I can’t die here like this, noooo! Help me to get out, I have to get out of here. The prisoners above knocked on the bars. I saw white fingers pressing on the bars. I leaned against a suitcase and pulled myself up. The cellar door was in front of me at the top of stairs. I ran to the door and pressed the handle. Locked. I’d forgotten, we’d tried to open it from above. I banged on my head like a madman, shouted, Yitzhak, think, think, otherwise you’ll rot here among the suitcases of the dead. Father’s voice called to me: Go back to the suitcases. Try, quickly, SSman coming. I’m waiting for you.

I felt stronger.

I took a deep breath. Wiped my wet hands on my shirt. Looked for the largest suitcases in the pile. Stood one on top of the other in a straight line. Climbed carefully, slowly straightening up, slowly. I barely moved. From above I heard, Yitzhak, jump, jump. I bent my knees slightly. Gathered momentum and jumped in the direction of the bars. Two hands held me fast, God, where did he get the strength, I heard Father’s voice breathing heavily from above, hold fast, hold, I’m pulling you out, hold, several more hands grasped me, and pulled, and pulled, I pushed my feet against the wall, I felt my arms were ripping from my body, my head fell back and I didn’t have a chance.

The prisoners didn’t let go. I reached the bars, got out and heard another siren and heavy wheezing from the direction of the train engine. SSman with a rifle approached the window and found nothing. The prisoners dispersed like hay in the wind.

I ran to the nearest car.

I managed to climb up. The open train left the station as the snow stopped falling. A cold wind whistled in my ears, I was hot. I gathered a fistful of snow from the floor and wiped my face. Until Buchenwald I vomited stomach juices. Until Buchenwald my knees shook and I heard that father’s voice, Yitzhak, jump. During all the days in the camps I’d hear, Yitzhak, jump. To this day I still hear it in my ears, Yitzhak, jump, jump.

Chapter 11

Dov: Many people wanted me to tell them

what happened but I didn’t want to.

I only want to tell good things.

No one will believe the bad things

I went through; no one will believe me

because it isn’t normal.

Yitzhak: I don’t even want to remember.

Dov

The hunger at Camp Jaworzno ate me up from inside. I felt the end coming.

The food they gave us didn’t help. In the morning we were given coffee and nothing else. At noon, soup with worms. In the evening, a piece of bread, with a bit of margarine or cheese. That’s it. I felt like a creased sack with all the air punched out of it – Pachchch. I saw prisoners scratching the wall and eating filth. I saw people eating dust. They opened and closed their mouths as if they were chewing something. I did the same and thick saliva began to leak, like snot. One prisoner ran to the end of the bloc, stuck to the door and began to devour the wood. A blow to his head saved the door.

There were prisoners who didn’t get up for morning parade. They were gone before evening. There were prisoners who jumped on the fence. Some laid their bodies on the fence as if it were a bed, their faces to the stars. There were those who tied a rope around their necks and hanged themselves like clean washing from a beam. Not one prisoner in the bloc attempted to stop them. I didn’t know where they got the strength to commit suicide. I continued to stand on parade because I couldn’t think of another plan. I was a boy. I was a head shorter than most of the prisoners. I had sores on my hands, knee, and neck. The bones of my ass hurt, the lice were relentless, settled in a red mark full of scratches, and I continued to walk in the convoys.

One day we were standing in line before darkness fell. I was the last in the line to go back to the camp. A white sun disappeared behind clouds with swollen bumps like pointed stones in cotton wool. It was cold and stinking. Everyone dragged their feet from the trenches to the convoy. They left blurred, crooked tracks under their feet. Their shoulders slumped forward, almost falling apart at the arms. Everyone was silent, their faces on the ground. We’d barely started out in the direction of the camp when three were left on the road. Those who were leaking from behind were finished off first.

My back hurt, mostly in the hollow of the hip and behind the thigh. I felt a thick bulge in the thigh and a muscle pulling down to the ankle. I stamped my foot on the ground. The pain didn’t go away. I felt my stomach dehydrating, disappearing. I was certain, in the end my stomach would come out of my ass. I don’t know what reminded me of my friend Vassily. I felt the urge to say aloud, Vassily, Vassily. I opened my mouth wide, let the air out, and no voice came out. And then I felt the urge to laugh. I stretched my lips sideways, laughed in my mind, a sour smell came out of my mouth. I was certain, this is it, this is how people go mad.

The distance between me and the prisoner in front lengthened. I wanted to close the distance, I bent forward, dragging myself, I was like a log stuck in the ground. I could barely take a step, another step, and another. I felt as if my legs were separating from me and walking on by themselves.

Raising my head, I saw a bent old woman.

She came out of the forest in the direction of the convoy. She had a purple kerchief on her head, a black dress and a small basket in her hand. I didn’t understand where’d she’d come from. I approached her. She looked in my direction and craned her neck as if waiting for an opportunity. I saw she had one very large nostril and the other was small. An ugly scar ran down from the edge of her nose, raising one nostril and part of the upper lip. She looked as if she was smiling crookedly even when she was sad.

The distance between me and the prisoner in front of me grew by at least ten steps, and I reached her. She gave me a piercing look as if to say, stay with me, stay. She took a package from her basket, lifted her arm and hop, she threw it. I was sure she was throwing a stone at me. I bent down, and managed to catch the package. She gestured to me to eat, turned round and vanished into the forest.

I felt as if my heart was falling into my stomach.

The nearest SSman was about twenty meters from me and I prayed he wouldn’t turn round and rage at me. I hid the package in my shirt and began to run in my mind. Somehow I managed to catch up.

I put a hand inside my shirt and felt the paper. It was oily and rough. Carefully I opened it. A sharp smell of sausage tickled my nose. I thrust my trembling fingers inside the paper, bread. God, under my shirt I have two thick slices of bread and a slice of sausage. My entire body trembled. My knees buckled, I shouted in my heart, don’t fall, walk carefully and look for birds in the sky. I pursed my lips, tried to whistle but only something faint came out fff. Fff. Fff. Ffff. Meanwhile, it got darker. I put my hand under my shirt and tore off a bit of the sandwich. I swallowed it without chewing. Another bit, and another. I only chewed the last bit slowly, slowly. I was so sorry the sandwich was finished. I licked my fingers, looked for crumbs in the paper, I wanted to take a bite of the paper because of the smell. I licked the paper from top to bottom then, hop, swallowed it as well.

I felt good.

My stomach immediately became alert. There were sounds like hiccups with a closed mouth. I almost started to laugh because of those sounds but I didn’t want trouble from my neighbor, so I increased my stride and patted my belly. I felt like shitting. Put a hand on my ass and pressed hard.

From that day on I tried to come back last in line. I looked for the woman with the basket. I didn’t see her again. That sandwich gave me strength. A little. I often think about the old woman. A woman throws away a sandwich once and I remember her for the rest of my life.

Israel, 2001
14:26 stopping at Acre. I’m on the train from Nahariya to Binyamina.

I dig around in my bag and find a chocolate bar in a crumpled wrapper. Three squares of chocolate restore me to life. Four squares. I lean my head against the window of the train and see that according to the headlines on the first page of the newspaper, any hope for a bit of quiet is at risk.

If we were sitting in Dov’s living room, he’d say, what will be with us, will we always be afraid? Then Yitzhak would tug at his nose and say, that’s how it is with Jews, even if we do have a state and our children have a father and a mother, and our grandchildren have a grandmother and a grandfather, we’re not in a normal situation. And then Dov would say, I’d never have believed we’d ever be in such a situation, what will be? Yitzhak would put up a hand and push his chin towards the ceiling, without knowing what would be. This is why we’d stay silent without coffee and sandwiches and cocoa cookies. We’d just sit there, and then Dov would grab the TV remote and turn on Channel Two, yawn at the talk, on Channel One, they’re arguing, only on National Geographic would he calm down and say, see how simple it is with animals. They don’t just kill, they kill to live.

I wouldn’t leave the armchair opposite Dov and Yitzhak, I’d look directly at them, and Dov would say, I see you’re not in a good mood, can’t have that, and then he’d pull a bottle of Slivovitz out of his sideboard so that every few minutes he could make a toast. After the third or fourth glass I’d feel a pleasant warmth in my feet and say, wait, slow down, I’m dizzy.

But Yitzhak would hurry to ask for a fifth and sixth round of toasts, so we’d never get thirsty, and Dov would say, to the State of Israel.

Instead of dessert, we’d drink strong coffee with cookies, and I wouldn’t open my notebook or the tape because in some situations there‘s no strength for other people’s troubles. Maybe I’d say, sometimes we have to drop everything and just look at each other, and smile with our eyes like a good hug and that’s enough.

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