by Elie Wiesel
Meanwhile, Richard Lander meticulously pursued his work. The deprivations worsened. The occupier’s demands multiplied. Jews no longer had the right to own valuable objects, foreign currencies or jewelry. Communication with the outside was forbidden. Then they were required to enlist in the work brigades. Every morning, they left the ghetto by the hundreds, heading for the various workshops to repair railroad tracks, chop wood in the forest, build barracks and stores, clean kitchens and warehouses, maintain the workrooms and offices of the military personnel. “Our goal is purely educational,” said the governor. “We shall teach you to overcome your laziness. You have been perverted by the Talmud; now you shall become useful at last, doing concrete, necessary and important things!”
During his daily briefings to his colleagues, my father did not try to hide his fears:
“We are trapped. To breathe, to live, we are forced to compromise with the enemy who, we know, will use our efforts to prevent us from living; more precisely: in order to live, we shall help the enemy to kill us better. But …”
The members of the Jewish Council of the Davarowsk Ghetto were accustomed to my father’s ways. They held their breath; there was always a “but.”
“But what if we said ‘no’ right away? What if we answered that in this war, Germans and Jews cannot be on the same side? What if we said plainly and firmly that, at most, we concede the fact of their physical and military superiority over us, but while they can force us to work for them as individuals, they cannot force us to make others work, meaning we shall not detail our brothers to infamous tasks.…”
My father had expressed himself dispassionately, un-emphatically. He had simply articulated the problem. A lively discussion followed. Some extolled refusal and opposition, others advocated feigned temporary submission. The Rabbi had the last word. Stroking his chin as he often did when delivering his sermons, he said: “When our ancestor Jacob prepared to confront his enemy brother Esau, he had three options: bribery, prayer or war. War is always the last measure to consider. Here, today, our lives are not in danger. Forced labor? One doesn’t usually die of it. On the contrary, it will help us gain time, and that is what we need. Tomorrow we shall know more.”
A mocking voice was heard:
“And prayer, Rabbi? What if we tried prayer?”
The council members looked around to identify the insolent speaker. The Rabbi shielded his eyes with his right hand and answered softly:
“Prayer? Yes indeed, why not? Only we don’t have much time.… And our prayers are slow.”
My father insisted on only one tenet, that of equality in the face of danger. At his suggestion, the members of the Jewish Council were the first to volunteer for the harshest of labors. They came home at night exhausted but proud.
“You should have seen us,” Bontchek continued, as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, having swallowed yet another mouthful. “You should have seen us chopping wood. The director of the hospital, the Rabbi, your father: the Germans shook with laughter watching us. I was the youngest and strongest and the best worker, to give you an idea.… It was a joke, but what mattered was to make believe. To play the game. After two or three days we had become experts. What I mean is that there was no gain for the Germans, no practical, concrete gain. Although now that I think of it, they fooled us after all. They didn’t want our work; they wanted to humiliate us. Yes, it was a game. And they were pulling the strings. They had us where they wanted us: pretending, sinking into deception and falsehood.…
“In any case, after one week, the Angel sent the council members back to their official duties. There followed a period, how shall I say, a rather idyllic period. Everybody seemed content. People said: it could be worse. Or else: with a little luck, we’ll live to see the end of the war. I tried to organize a nucleus of resistance among my friends and comrades but found it impossible to convince them. They said: to resist is to endanger the life of the community. There were some, not many, who agreed to help me find routes leading out of the ghetto, out of the country, toward Palestine. Yes, young man, yours truly had succeeded in establishing contact with our friends abroad. And it was yours truly who accompanied the first group to Hungary and from there, to Romania. To the port of Constanza. I still remember the ship: a wreck of a fishing boat. As I remember the captain’s bedraggled mustache, the crafty smile of the watchman whose palm we had greased. The weather was fine: July or August. The morning breeze. The noises of the harbor emerging from darkness. My friends’ departure.
“There I stood on the wharf. I was cold. I was literally shivering with cold. What a fool I was! I could have left with the group; they had begged me to. There was among them a young girl—Hava—on whom I had a crush. Did she suspect it? Did she feel it? As we said good-bye, she drew me close and kissed me on the mouth. I thought my heart would fail, it was pounding so. ‘Are you really not coming?’ she asked. ‘Do you really want to go back?’ I was so stunned I didn’t know what to say. My voice refused to obey; the words wouldn’t leave my throat. And, sure enough, you want to know the truth? I felt like following her, never leaving her. Oh, yes, that’s how I felt. But I was a fool. And naive to boot. I told myself that I was needed back in Davarowsk, that the council counted on me, that your father could not do without me. And then too: I didn’t believe things would turn out so badly. Nobody did. And so, there I was, back in the ghetto, chortling like some drunken hussar, telling your father all about my glorious adventures.”
THE GHETTO of Davarowsk, I know it now. I find my way around easily. My father’s office, the Rabbi’s clandestine shtibel, the official infirmary and the other, underground one, where serious cases and victims of epidemics were treated. The ashen faces of the workers, the empty eyes of the sick, I could describe them all. It’s as though I had lived there.
Bontchek is my inexhaustible guide and teacher. To share his memories with me, he plunges back into them, plucking from them here and there, a strange image, an unreal scene, a fragment of life that will nourish my imagination for nights on end.
I love to listen to his tales as much as he loves to tell them, as much as he likes to drink. In my impatience I sometimes taunt him a little: for example, if he dwells too long on a detail I consider uninteresting or if, on the other hand, he passes too quickly over an episode which I suspect has a mysterious sequel. He then becomes annoyed and mutters: “Who’s telling the story, you or I? Who was there, you or I? Either you let me speak or I’m going.” Never mind, what’s the use? I am at his mercy; I am his prisoner; without him, my imagination will not be fueled.
From him I learn the end, not of the ghetto, but of my father’s presidential career.
“One summer night, it is hot, we are playing with the stars, weaving dreams, basking in soothing nostalgia, as I said, one summer night, suddenly the earth begins to shake: your father summons us to an extraordinary session. Why extraordinary? Because. Your father loved that. For him, in those days, nothing was ordinary. A Jew was beaten and immediately the council was convened. A sick woman fainted in the street and your father immediately recorded the fact in the official chronicles of the ghetto. Your father hated routine. ‘The day we shall treat a human tragedy, of any kind, like an ordinary event will be the day that marks the enemy’s victory.’ That is what your father told us over and over again. In other words, one more extraordinary session should not have startled us unduly. But that particular night, he was right. It was.… Listen carefully:
“A team of workers, some fifty men, had failed to return to the ghetto. Yanek, Avrasha-the-Redhead, the two clerks of the fruit and vegetable merchant Sruelson, a comrade of mine with whom I played cards on the nights I was on duty at the council: all good men who knew how to handle themselves. Had they vanished? Had they merely been delayed on the way? Transferred? It was the first time we faced such a disappearance: why lie to you, my boy, I was in a cold sweat. Somebody suggested sending a scout—but send him where? Into the forest, of course. To the workshop to w
hich that team had been assigned. I had an idea: I knew a blond girl, she could pass for a Pole or a German; she knew the area. She was a member of my Youth Movement. Not beautiful but gifted like a thousand devils or perhaps I should say like a thousand actors. She accepted the mission. She slipped through the barbed wires, disappeared from sight and returned two hours later. She had not seen anyone. By then it was eleven thirty at night. No news was bad news. This business was becoming more than worrisome.
“In the meantime, of course, the families of the missing men had gathered at the council. ‘What is going on? Tell us, what is happening?’ they were asking. And wouldn’t we have liked to be able to tell them. To whom could we turn? Somebody, I believe it was the Joint Committee representative, suddenly remarked: ‘This morning I saw a group of SS. New guys. I wonder whether they could have had something to do with …’ Your father, opposed to anything that could provoke hysteria, interrupted him: ‘What’s the connection? There is none.’ All right, there was no connection. Still, our fifty Jews had disappeared. And we, as members of the council, were supposed to be informed.
“Someone suggested to your father that he contact the authorities, more specifically, the Angel. At this late hour? Why not; surely this was an extraordinarily urgent situation. Your father agreed. He lifted the receiver, dialed the number and introduced himself: This is Dr. Reuven Tamiroff, president of the Jewish Council, who wishes to speak to … he did not complete his sentence: at the other end someone had simply hung up. Impassive, he redialed. An officious voice instructed him not to disturb the Kommandantur so late; that he could, if he so wished, call the next day. Someone asked whether by chance your father knew the Angel’s private number. No, he did not. What to do? Wait. All night? And the next day, if need be. Nobody went home. Instead, our wives and children came to join us. Together we spent the night contemplating a thousand hypotheses, some optimistic, some pessimistic; together we scanned the darkness outside. The sky was starry and beautiful, so beautiful that one, no, that I was moved to consecrate a prayer to it. Why is the sky so blue, so deep, every time a tragedy is in the making?
“The stars went out at random, in groups, and then, wearily, one by one. Then it became dark, darker than before, darker than ever before, and then came sunrise more reddish and golden than ever before. The ghetto emerged from night almost reluctantly: what would this new day, heavy with foreboding, bring? Would we find the strength, the necessary incentive to live through the hours that were already recorded in an invisible registry, the one God uses to separate the living from the dead?
“Sitting with his head cupped in his hands, Rabbi Aharon-Asher recites in a broken voice the Bible passage that describes in detail the punishments and maledictions our people will endure if it succumbs to the temptation of transgressing the Law. ‘At night, thou shalt pray for the morning to come and in the morning for night to fall …’ Here is morning; it bears the seal of fate. Red turns into purple, the gold crumbles and becomes dust. Your father telephones the German authorities of the Kommandantur: ‘Not here yet.’ The governor takes his time; we wait. He won’t be long. But he is delayed. ‘Call back.’ A few Jewish councillors rush to the ghetto gate. We question the people leaving: Yesterday, did they see anything? Anything unusual? Anything suspicious? Yesterday, did they happen to meet any of the missing workers? Not a single one? No. Some hours drag; others rush by nervously. At last, your father decides not to wait for the telephone. He has a permit to circulate in town; he presents it to the guards who return it to him without a word and motion him outside the gate.
“Once he is on the other side, he accelerates his pace, runs to the Kommandantur. The guards are expecting him; they accompany him to the governor’s office. The Angel welcomes him graciously, invites him to sit down, apologizes for not having known that he was trying to reach him the previous evening: his act is perfect but your father is not in an appreciative mood. He is forced to do something he has never done before and which may cost him dearly. He cuts the Angel short: ‘Fifty men have vanished as if swallowed by the earth; are the German authorities aware of that fact?’ The governor, arms crossed over his chest, smiles amiably: ‘But, of course, we are aware of it, it is our duty to know everything.’ He uncrosses his arms and rests them on the desk: Oh, he is so sorry, the military governor is so sorry not to have thought of informing the president of the Jewish Council to reassure him. What a shame, but of course it is an omission, an oversight, he was going to do it, but the work, dear Mr. President, you know what that is like, the daily worries, the new problems, the war, you understand.… Your father requests information: where are they, these fifty men? Can they be reached? When will they be back? Are there any sick, any wounded among them?
“Don’t forget, this is only the first phase of the ordeal: the enemy still wears many masks and we are gullible, we want to believe. When the Angel plays the part of benevolent protector, of defender of the Jewish worker ‘who contributes as best he can to the war effort of the Third Reich,’ we fall for it. And he is pulling out all the stops. He brings to bear his charm, his powers of persuasion to reassure your father. ‘You mustn’t worry, dear President,’ he tells him, ‘your Jews have been transferred, temporarily, I swear to you, entirely temporarily, to a new Baustelle, an important construction site where they will perform an urgent and rather secret task, you understand.… So don’t worry. As soon as the project has been completed, they will return, I promise you, have I ever lied to you? They will be reunited with their families. Come now, Mr. President, stop frowning, they’ll be home in a matter of days.…’
“Your father is not fooled; he senses that something is very wrong but he knows, too, that it is better not to let it show; he knows that above all one must never unmask a tyrant who believes he is a good liar, it is much too dangerous; as soon as he realizes he has been exposed, as soon as he knows that he is no longer believable, he becomes ferocious, cruel, deadly. ‘Thank you, thank you very much,’ says your father. He takes his leave and returns to the council. We hang on his every word: Well? What is going on? He is in no rush, your father. He can’t make up his mind. He hasn’t come to any conclusions. What will tomorrow be like? And the rest of us nervously, feverishly, try to read him, try to measure the density and significance of his silence.
“ ‘Come on, tell us …’ Imperceptibly, he lowers his head as if to hide his gaze. ‘Nothing,’ he says, ‘nothing precise, except …’ We jump on him: ‘What are you hiding from us?’ Some get angry. ‘I am at a loss,’ he says. ‘The Angel is friendly; he maintains that the fifty men are well, that they will come back, that we are imagining things.… But … I … have an odd premonition that troubles me.’ We howl like madmen: ‘Premonitions, you? Since when are you superstitious?’ We bombard him with endless questions. Poor man, all he can do is shake his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he says.… ‘I only know one thing: I have a strange premonition.…’
“In the meantime, life goes on, it must. The work crews leave, the children go to school. Another ordinary day goes by. Two. Three. We think about the missing men but we no longer talk about them: such is the unwritten law of the ghetto. One does not discuss subjects that risk upsetting the balance; one does not mention anything capable of tearing down the veil of the future. Within a few hours we have settled into new habits. The missing men? Surely they will reappear one beautiful morning. Undoubtedly they are staying in another ghetto, possibly Kolomey or Kamenetz-Bokrotay; they will finish their work and be sent home. Patience. And above all: no panic. Only you see, my boy, things that are meant to happen, happen; it is not by looking the other way that we can change their course: if they must befall us, it is senseless to look away.…
“One night we learn the news and it is tragic, horrible: the fifty lost men have been found. On the other side of the woods. In a ravine. Shot. A bullet in the neck. A comrade of mine, a woodcutter, was the one who noticed something amiss. Close to the spot where he was working the soil had been disturbed; he wen
t closer to investigate and slipped. The earth cracked open and when he fell, he found himself among the corpses. By chance, he was alone and therefore there was no panic. He came to see me that evening trembling like a leaf. ‘You caught a cold,’ I said. He didn’t answer, he just kept looking at me, staring straight at me. We were in the office and people were beginning to watch us. ‘Let’s go out,’ I said. My comrade followed me into the street. In the commotion outside, no one paid attention; one could talk. And he told me everything. I felt nausea well up inside me. I wanted to throw up. ‘Are you sure you didn’t dream this?’ I asked. He was sure. ‘You didn’t invent any of it?’ He hadn’t. If I didn’t believe him, he was ready to lead me to the site. ‘No,’ I told him, ‘that is not necessary, not yet. Let’s go back to the council.’ I took your father aside, I told him that he would do well to call one of his extraordinary sessions. Your father does not ask useless questions, he knows me; I don’t speak lightly. And then, he is not averse to these sessions, I told you that. Besides, it wasn’t difficult to call a meeting; the council members were always available, except for the Rabbi who sometimes went away to study, pray or teach; but everyone knew where he was and in less than a minute he was informed. Anyhow there we were in the meeting hall. Your father gave me the floor. I mumbled: ‘I’d like to introduce a comrade of mine; listen to him.’ We listened. Since Moses no Jew ever had such an attentive audience. Eyes filled with tears, faces twisted, fell apart, turned to stone.
