Max

by Sarah Cohen-Scali

  But I’m not the only one in this position. One day, to my surprise, I find out that Lukas has been promoted too. He went from level eight to level nine. Him! The Pole, the…(Sometimes I don’t dare utter the word, even in my head, in case someone hears me.) Despite his…what shall I say?…handicap, he too is considered a gifted child. He’s coping. He’s coping perfectly well.

  But how? I’d like to know, but I’d have to be able to see him, speak with him. And that can’t happen. Although other older brothers visit their younger brothers in the afternoon, often during the hour set aside for looking after our personal effects, or during the free time before bed, not him. Nothing. Nichts. He never visits me. He never even sends me a note. So ungrateful! Sometimes I glimpse him at the end of the dining hall or when he’s leaving for drills with his group. He’s changed a lot. He’s got bigger and more muscly. His blond hair, in a crew cut, is now golden. He has a glowing complexion and his eyes—no more dark circles or the wild stare that gave him wrinkles around his eyelids—are a mesmerising blue. He carries himself even more proudly and is handsome in his uniform. Handsome when he salutes, his arm as straight as a truncheon. Handsome when he clicks his heels. Handsome when he calls out loudly Heil Hitler! And he knows it. And he plays on it. You’d think, through his promotion, he was out to make a whole generation of faggots!

  He’s made himself some friends, two in particular, with whom he trains all the time. They’re the sons of officers holding important jobs in the government. The tough guys. Lukas, Gunter and Herman are always as thick as thieves, and are now nicknamed the Three Musketeers. They strut around, laughing, making fun of the others. Or worse. The other day they had a go at a guy in the study hall: they ripped up his notebooks, beat the hell out of him, yelling insults that he was an intellectual. Incidents like this are dreaded in the Napola. They’re feared far more than the teachers’ punishments. Precisely because the teachers approve of them, claiming they contribute to ‘self-selection’, ‘self-purification’. That way the weakest are eliminated.

  I know about the incident because Herman has a brother in my class—whom he looks after. He comes to see him at least twice a week. He even dared to call me Skullface in front of my buddies. No need to ask where he got that from. I had a fight with him and ended up in quarantine: I was forbidden from talking; I had to eat by myself in the dining hall; and the rest of the time I had to stay in the dorm. All because of Lukas.

  I don’t get it. He seems to be in his element at the Napola. And yet…

  How? I’m obsessed by the question. How does Lukas cope, when…

  In class this morning, we were a bit worried about meeting our new German teacher, just back from the front after nine months. (The previous one, with whom we started the year, took his turn to head off there.) He made a solemn entrance and saluted the class. There was no indication of his being exhausted from combat, except that he was thinner—you could see around the neck and waist. Relieved to be back in the cocoon of the Napola, he didn’t want to start off with a grammar class, or a text commentary, so he announced that, as he was happy with our progress as reported by his predecessor, he wanted to reward our efforts by starting the day with something relaxing. We could close our exercise books. We were going to sing. He handed out song sheets and wrote the chorus on the blackboard in his beautiful Gothic script:

  The Jews cross the wide dry sea,

  They sink beneath the waves,

  The world is at peace and raises a prayer.

  How does Lukas cope, when…

  We do the knife-throwing exercise. Instead of a disc with concentric circles painted on it, our teacher produces a special target, so we can be motivated and have fun at the same time. It’s the silhouette of a life-size man. A Jew. An old Jew with a hooked nose, wearing filthy black rags and with fingers like claws. His belly is deformed and, instead of a heart, there’s a big gold coin. Obviously, we have to hit the coin to be successful.

  The teacher places the target ten metres away and the exercise begins. We take it in turns to throw our knives. Once we’ve all had a go, we gather round to assess our accuracy. The Jew has a knife in each eye, one in an ear, his upper lip is split and his hat is shredded. Not bad. But some knives, thrown by the less able, only reached his belly, legs and fingers. Not one knife hit the gold coin. So the teacher tells us we’re all hopeless and threatens us with a collective punishment if our second try is not better. In order to get us going, he makes us all chant one of the many Napola slogans:

  It’s only once Jewish blood is splashing off our swords that we’ll be truly happy! We’ll keep up our progress, we’ll turn everything upside down. Today Germany belongs to us, tomorrow we’ll own the whole world!

  We scream it once, twice, three, ten, one hundred times. Louder and louder, until our throats are sore. And then, swiftly, while we’re in the swing of it, while the echo of our screams is floating in the air, we aim and let our knives fly.

  Bravo. Most of the blades land right on the gold coin. When we take the knives out of the target, right where the heart is, there’s a big hole.

  How does Lukas cope, when…

  The whole school is gathered in the dining hall, standing to attention. The meal has been served, but we aren’t allowed to sit down and eat yet. Today, for the reading of texts, the section leaders are off the hook: the Heimführer himself does it once a fortnight.

  The dining hall is one of the most beautiful rooms in the school. The decor is particularly attractive: the walls are covered in pictures of the Viking heroes and scenes from Germanic mythology. The high ceiling is decorated with hundreds of swastikas, scattered like flaming stars in the sky. Halfway up the wall, the Heimführer takes his place on a little wooden balcony, which he reaches via a staircase, like a priest who climbs into the pulpit to give his sermon. In this case, it’s not a sermon but a reading, with a microphone, of extracts from Mein Kampf, our Führer’s book, done in total, religious silence. We have to keep our eyes glued on the Heimführer and must under no circumstances lower our eyes or let them wander. No throat-clearing, no coughing, and definitely no yawning—all seen as disrespectful and punishable offences.

  The Jew…was never a nomad, but only and always a parasite in the body of other peoples. That he sometimes left his previous living space has nothing to do with his own purpose, but results from the fact that from time to time he was thrown out by the host nations he had abused.

  The Heimführer raises his head and surveys the audience. This is the signal for us to applaud.

  His spreading is a typical phenomenon for all parasites; he always seeks a new feeding ground for his race.

  This, however, has nothing to do with nomadism, for the reason that a Jew never thinks of leaving a territory that he has occupied, but remains where he is, and he sits so fast that even by force it is very hard to drive him out…He is and remains the typical parasite, a sponger who like a noxious bacillus keeps spreading as soon as a favourable medium invites him. And the effect of his existence is also like that of spongers; wherever he appears, the host people dies out after a shorter or longer period.*

  A salvo of applause erupts, not triggered by the Heimführer this time, but by the Jungmannen, the oldest students. Some of the younger students didn’t understand everything. What does ‘sponger’ mean? And ‘bacillus’? But they copy the others and clap like crazy anyway. The Heimführer smiles at such enthusiasm, then, before continuing, commands silence with a gesture of his hand.

  Consequently, this people has always formed a state within states. It is one of the most ingenious tricks ever devised, to make this state sail under the flag of ‘religion’, thus assuring it of the tolerance which the Aryan is always ready to accord a religious creed. For actually the Mosaic religion is nothing other than a doctrine for the preservation of the Jewish race.**

  A new salvo of clapping. With these acoustics the ratatatat of the applause sounds like a machine gun.

  ‘Bon appétit!’ says the H
eimführer.

  At ease. We can sit down and eat.

  On the menu today: vegetable soup, bread, cheese topped with artificial honey, tea. I dip my spoon in the soup, but it’s cold now. I can’t tell what the vegetables are, because everything is mashed up and diluted in a huge amount of water. But, as I stir, I can make out a few beans that have escaped the crush and rise to the surface.

  I’m not hungry anymore. Before the Heimführer’s lecture, I was ravenous. I could have eaten everything on the table. My belly was growling so loudly I was frightened it could be heard, which would not have gone down well.

  Now the soup is cold. Cold soup is disgusting.

  And the Heimführer’s words are swimming in my head, like the beans in the soup. Parasite. Bacillus.

  I’m more intelligent than my buddies, I know what that means. Parasites are germs, filthy microscopic bugs that creep into your body and make you sick. ‘Bacillus’ is what you call a synonym, and, guess what, I’ve got another one: ‘bacterium’. As for ‘sponger’, that’s the person who steals food off your plate, deprives you of nourishment, starves you and makes you sick. What I’m not sure of is the shape of the bacillus-parasite-bacterium. Perhaps it looks like the beans floating in my soup?

  I’m starting to get a stomach-ache. (It’s been a while.) As if I can feel a bacillus-parasite-bacterium beginning to gnaw at my intestines.

  The Heimführer’s words are on a loop in my head. The Jews are parasites-bacilli. They contaminate everything, they make you sick.

  I keep stirring my soup mechanically. Now that I think about it, parasites have a similar shape to beans. Jews are like beans. The beans have contaminated my soup. There are Jews in my soup! So many miniature Jews scowling and sneering. And Lukas is among them. Lukas, the bean—both literally and figuratively—hiding the fact that he’s Jewish, and performing with such zeal in front of his superiors, along with his two idiot mates. There, I can see him, like a tiny evil being, diving into the liquid when the back of my spoon touches him, then resurfacing immediately.

  It’s impossible to eat soup with Lukases in it. I give my serving to my neighbour.

  I raise my head and try to catch Lukas’s eye. The real, life-size Lukas, not the bean splashing around in my soup. Is he managing to eat? Did he clap earlier? After the Heimführer’s reading, did he have his say about ‘Jewish contamination’?

  I can’t make him out among the mass of blond heads bent over their plates. The dining room is too huge; I’d have to go over there, but it’s forbidden.

  How does Lukas cope, when…

  In my History class the teacher outlines our Führer’s denouncement of the iniquities of the Treaty of Versailles and explains to us how the Polish people, with the help of the Jews, attacked socialist Germany in September 1939. (I was only three then, still at Steinhöring, but I remember the event. In the Home, didn’t we celebrate the German attack? Same deal at Poznan.) The teacher continues with an analysis of the lightning victory of our troops and the necessity of defeating the inferior Polish race.

  So what happens in Lukas’s class? Does Lukas take notes? Does he manage to write down the teacher’s words? When he has to do his homework sitting at the table, a crude, brainless thug on either side, copying his work, does he elaborate the teacher’s theory in eloquent prose?

  And how does he cope during the politics class, when it’s drummed into us that we are the elite, that tomorrow we will rule the country and occupy the top positions?

  I don’t know how Lukas manages. I still haven’t spoken to him alone. But, when I think about it, my mind races. Just like with the leech things in the soup. Lukas seems so much at home at the Napola that, once he’s finished his education, after all the months and years, he could become a government minister, couldn’t he? Then why not the successor to the Führer? What will he do then? Will he still hide the fact that he’s Jewish? Will someone end up finding out and denouncing me, because I didn’t denounce him? Or what about the other scenario for Lukas, with his full powers, wreaking vengeance by throwing the whole German population into concentration camps?

  My head is spinning. I ask special permission to leave during the politics class and, because I’m an excellent member of the class, the teacher grants it, with a warning that it mustn’t happen again; but as I leave the room, running as if I was going to wet my pants, my buddies are making fun of me.

  How does Lukas cope, when…

  Here the calendar revolves around festivals celebrating National Socialism. We don’t respect Christian festivals, apart from Christmas.

  Today is the 29th of January. Tomorrow, the 30th, is a holiday, celebrating the Führer’s assumption of power in 1933. As we don’t have classes tomorrow, we’re allowed more free time before bed and, to make the evening a bit more fun, the teachers have planned a book burning. In other words, it’s party time!

  During the day, it’s all my buddies can talk about. They can’t wait for tonight. For some, it won’t be the first time; they’ve already attended book burnings in their home towns. Others, like me, are novices. Instead of the regular afternoon physical training, we unload truckloads of books, which have come from all over the place, private libraries in Germany or the occupied countries. We form an assembly line to ferry the boxes from the trucks to the middle of the courtyard. They’re heavy! Our muscles are getting a workout. We’re all bare-chested, but our exertions soon make us forget the glacial temperature. The mood is relaxed and we’re allowed to talk and laugh among ourselves.

  ‘Filthy books produced by Jewish vermin!’

  ‘Bertolt Brecht, Sigmund Freud, Heinrich Mann, Karl Marx, Stefan Zweig. So many typical German names. And yet!’

  ‘The Führer is right, the Jewish parasite knows how to hide behind a veil!’

  To brighten up the festive afternoon, once the unloading is finished, they serve us tea and slices of bread—normally our physical activity is never rewarded with snacks. After the break, we tackle the boxes, tipping their contents out unceremoniously, as if it was all rubbish. It is rubbish and that’s exactly why we have to burn it. It’s fun seeing the books falling to pieces as they land. It’s fun jumping in the big pile, trampling on them, breaking the spines, ripping off covers, tearing out pages and scrunching them into balls and throwing them at each other, yelling out, just like a snowball fight. Some of the boys even crouch down and pretend to wipe their bums with the pages: ‘It’s so soft! Like a kiss!’ Everyone roars with laughter at their performance. It’s a wonderful afternoon; everyone is in a good mood.

  At zero hour, we’re all gathered, teachers and students, showered and scrubbed, clean as a whistle, dressed in full uniform. The section leaders, two steps ahead of the others, carry the flags of the Reich. With our right arms raised straight, we encircle the pyramid of books piled on top of each other. Four Jungmannen are given the task of pouring petrol from large cans, before they take it in turns to strike a match and throw it on the pile. The flames begin at the base of the pyramid, cheered on by the songs we’re chanting. Songs to the glory of our Führer, of the Reich and its thousand-year reign, freed from Judaism and Bolshevism. The fire is slow at first, just a few timid flames running around the base of the paper pyramid, far from the summit, which seems to call down mockingly: ‘I’m far too high! You’ll never reach me! I represent centuries of knowledge and erudition! You can’t reduce that to nothing in a few moments!’

  But we sing louder and louder, pounding out the rhythm on the ground with our boots. We stagger into a sort of dance around the blaze. As if we had invoked it through our incantations, the wind rises, blowing strong gusts that fan the fire. And the fire gets bigger and bigger, and the covers of the books blacken, shrivel, twist; the paper burns, the flames crackle and soon reach as high as the first floor of the building next to us. The flames are reflected in every window, creating as many sources of light. It’s night, but we can see as clearly as in broad daylight. The weather is cold, but the fire is keeping us warm.
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  I’m singing along, too. And dancing around the inferno. And, once again, I try to glimpse Lukas, through the flames. To see how he’s singing, dancing…I’d like to know if he remembers the words he said to me, in the Kalish infirmary, when he told me the story of his parents. When he told me about his mother who ran a bookshop. ‘Hey, Skullface!’ he said. ‘Do you know what books are for? Books are for reading, not for burning like your mates do, yelling like barbarians.’

  I sing and hurl books, just like my mates, the barbarians. But that doesn’t stop me thinking, or stop my imagination from running riot. After the Jewish beans in the soup, after the vision of Lukas as Führer, my imagination reveals not a simple pyramid of burning books, but a whole bookshop, the bookshop run by Lukas’s mother. And his mother is inside, being burned alive. The air is filled with smoke and the smell of charred paper, charred leather, charred flesh.

  I want to be sick.

  Where is Lukas? I can only see flashes of him, behind the flames, swept up in the surging Jungmannen group. Of course, he’s flanked by Gunter and Herman, those two idiots, who are shouting louder—and charging round the fire faster—than anyone else. It looks like they’re drunk; they must have been drinking schnapps—some Jungmannen get hold of it on the sly. What with the heat and my nausea, I can just imagine them throwing themselves into the fire to turn the whole scene into something even more spectacular, and to prove their Draufgängertum. And they’ve dragged Lukas along with them.

  How does Lukas cope, when…

  Biology class, one of our favourite subjects. Why? Because the classroom is decorated with funny pictures—our drawings, as well as those of the art teacher, who often works with the biology teacher. Our artworks are practical assignments to illustrate the theme of the lessons: ‘Characteristic and distinguishing signs of the Jew.’