Sunrise West

by Jacob G. Rosenberg

  This might strike the reader as a sad joke, but it’s not. As it turned out, Zakhor lived, while the little doctor unexpectedly passed on. Survivors harboured an inherent dislike for doctors: there were many cases where, in order to gain favours for themselves, camp doctors had reported their patients to the authorities — which was as good as a ticket to the gas chambers.

  One day we went to a public baths in a nearby town. As we undressed I noticed that three toes were missing from Zakhor’s left foot. ‘I lost them in Gross-Rosen, during roadmaking,’ he explained apologetically. ‘For days I had to stand barefoot in freezing mud, and though it was almost spring it wouldn’t stop snowing. As you can see, nature is quite indifferent to human suffering.’

  I nodded, looking away, but Moshe was not finished yet. ‘I believe,’ he resumed, ‘that Vincent Van Gogh understood nature’s indifference to pain better than any other painter. You just need to look at his nervous landscapes, his flowers. Perhaps, in a way, he was also an inmate, a condemned ghetto-dweller — which made him rebel, in the face of the human anguish within him and all around him, not only against collaborating with the prettiness of nature, but against its very apathy and silence.’

  Pinocchio

  Time had eaten up much of May; most of the former prisoners were preparing to leave, or had already left, for their respective national homes. At dusk we sat around watching the embers of our smouldering youth. Moshe whispered, ‘Where to, Zakhor, where to?’ Perhaps to feed his depressed mood, he began to mouth the words of a Polish miners’ song — one which our former German masters had forbidden on pain of death:

  We will never see the sun again,

  God’s luminous feast;

  We are condemned to die far away

  From our homeland in the east.

  But before long we heard that illegal emigration to Palestine was being organized. It was time to leave Austria. At the start of June we boarded a goods train for Italy and headed south.

  It was early on this journey that I met up with Majer Ceprow, my sister Ida’s husband, a short man with a talent for acting. Moshe Zakhor, who had once been Maximilian Zacharski, was not overjoyed. ‘A brother-in-law,’ he maintained, ‘is just that, a brother-in-law.’

  ‘Meaning?’ I asked.

  ‘Meaning that if your sibling is dead, the “in-law” does not apply.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘but at a time when all your dear ones lie murdered, he is not just family but a real link to the past.’

  The goods train that ferried us across the border was welcomed by scores of Italians. At Bolzano there were orchestras, choirs and speeches, but no food: things were in perfect disarray. Oddly, however, commerce had not stopped thriving. In June the days are beautiful in the north of Italy, but the nights are brutally cold — and were especially so for our two hundred or so travelling camp survivors.

  As we pushed deeper into the country our hunger became unbearable, but we had no money to buy food and no commodities to trade. My leather belt, which I had ‘organized’ in Mozart’s city, Salzburg, during our brief stopover there — camp inmates were terrific organizers — fetched a loaf of bread, but that didn’t last more than an hour. Majer came up with a brilliant idea. ‘I’ll exchange my woollen trousers for some cotton shorts,’ he said (shorts were quite fashionable during the warm Italian months), ‘and for the balance, we’ll purchase some provisions.’ Moshe and I agreed wholeheartedly to Majer’s offer and I was delegated to conclude the deal.

  So on our next stop, early in the morning, while Majer waited sheepishly in a dim corner of the carriage in his underpants, I took the merchandise and set off for the local market. After making a number of time-consuming enquiries, wandering from stall to stall, I learnt that such precious wares were handled exclusively by a man known as Pinocchio — not for the length of his nose but, as I was to discover later, because of its instinct for sniffing out a shady deal. After a thorough inspection of my garment he offered 2500 lire plus a pair of white linen shorts. It sounded auspicious, so I promptly agreed.

  In the afternoon, radiant with happy anticipation, I finally ran back to my friends to tell them of my unbelievable achievement. But I was in for a shock. The white shorts turned out to be a pair of underpants. On top of that, when we opened the packet of 100-lire bills we discovered that only the top one was genuine!

  Italy

  The days grew brighter. The Jewish Brigade, attached to the British army and made up of Jews from Palestine, took over our passage and all at once there was food, laughter, songs in Yiddish and Hebrew, even in Polish and Russian. On one of our stops we were transferred from the goods train into open trucks escorted by British motorized units. I watched in amazement how hungrily our convoy swallowed up Mussolini’s excellent highways. What still puzzles me is that amid the songs and happy squabbling, no one spoke of the past — it was as if there had never been a past.

  From my camp experience I could perhaps venture to say, with Pascal, that the mind has a soul of its own, and the soul has a mind of its own, and they protect each other. The mind protects the soul from shutting down and the soul protects the mind from going mad. To reminisce, to long for the past when on the threshold of a new life, is a heart-wrenching and dangerous exercise — one that almost forestalled our forefathers’ biblical Exodus from reaching the promised land. Our own exodus from the jaws of hell was no different. Fate had deprived us of our youth, so instead of harking back we sang rebelliously against our lot.

  Moshe became greatly excited when we were told we would be stopping for the night in Shakespeare’s city of love and discord, the land of Montagues and Capulets. He pointed out that Verona was the home of the thirteenth-century Talmudic scholar Eliezer ben Samuel, grandfather of the philosopher and physician Hillel ben Samuel; and home also to my namesake Levi ben Gershon, who had produced the great Midrashic collection, Tanhuma. Even the poet Immanuel ben Solomon of Rome, who introduced the sonnet into Hebrew poetry, was believed to have sojourned in Verona. I was astonished by Moshe’s knowledge and his marvellous memory!

  As we pulled into that illustrious city, my friend’s face was shining. ‘Listen,’ he implored me. ‘Can you not almost hear Romeo’s lovestruck voice? Or Mercutio’s challenge to Tybalt, and then the bloody clash of swords...?’

  At daybreak, after a hefty slice of corn-bread and a mug of hot coffee, we resumed our journey towards the southeast. And although I had not been brought up in the spirit of Zion, the songs and their stirring melodies — sung by a few hundred Jews who had been miraculously saved from the gas chambers — enthused me nevertheless with hopes of a new beginning, a new life in Palestine. But no sooner had we begun to move than our escorts let us know that we were being shadowed by a motorized squad of the NKVD, the Soviet security police. Our songs froze on our lips. The leader of our transport, an officer of the Jewish Brigade, was undaunted. Placing himself at the head of our cavalcade, he ordered the drivers to stop their vehicles. Our pursuers soon drew level with us. Quietly but confidently — after all, Italy was not Soviet territory — he approached the Russians, saluted smartly, and asked why they were following us.

  ‘We suspect,’ came the reply, ‘that the people you are ferrying down to the sea are being kidnapped.’

  ‘Well,’ said the officer, ‘you’re at liberty to interrogate each and every one of them. If you find any individuals who wish to return to the land of their birth, they will be free to do so without hindrance.’

  The Russians dismounted from their motorcycles and began to inspect the convoy. When they reached our vehicle, a young Yiddish-speaking Russian woman, apparently the leader of the mission, began to question Zakhor. ‘Why are you running away from the place where your ancestors dwelt for a thousand years?’ she asked him.

  ‘Why? Because nobody waits for me back there,’ Moshe answered nervously. ‘All my family, my friends, teachers, neighbours, acquaintances — all are dead. Murdered.’

  ‘Yes, I know, I know,’ the petit
e blonde shot back in Yiddish. ‘But your earth is still there!’

  Moshe nodded sadly. ‘Our earth? — our earth was the word. For two thousand years we Jews have dwelt in the word. And when they destroyed our word, we withdrew into the crevices of our letters. And when they melted down our letters, we retreated into a dot — yes, a dot... You, of all your comrades, should understand the meaning of pintele Yid, the Jewish spark.’

  ‘I think I do,’ said the woman from the NKVD, clearly moved and suddenly subdued. ‘But let me tell you. Where you’re going, there will be no room for your kind of word, no room at all.’

  ‘Maybe so, and it will make me very sad. But let me tell you what a wise man called Voltaire once said: In order to think, one must first of all live.’

  Dina

  Our next port of call was Cinecittà in Rome, the Italian equivalent of Hollywood. All the studios were standing empty, so our escorts thought it a convenient place to stop for a respite from our journey. We arrived at midday and were welcomed once again by the NKVD — the same squad we had encountered previously; evidently they had overtaken us. This time its spokesman was a beefy, imposing colonel. He was bandy-legged, and his broad chest was adorned with many gold buttons. Like the blond young woman on the earlier meeting, he walked up and down to inspect the trucks. In the process he delivered a peripatetic speech, which concluded with an absurd question.

  ‘Men!’ he shouted passionately. ‘Thanks to Stalin, our father, you’ve made it through the war. We know what you’re up to — Palestine — and we cannot stop you by law from betraying the land of your birth. But before we can let you go on, there is a serious matter we need to resolve. We have to know if any of you ever belonged to the Nazi Party, the SS, or any other antisemitic movement.’

  Majer Ceprow, who had never before revealed himself as a quick-witted man, responded quietly in Yiddish: ‘Maestro will next ask us if there are any Catholic Protestants among us, or God-worshipping atheists, or maybe Christian Jews!’

  ‘Colonel,’ our transport leader intervened, ‘these men are Jewish, and they are all former inmates of concentration camps.’

  ‘That does not answer my question!’ came the curt reply.

  While this was going on, I had caught sight of the Yiddish-speaking Russian blonde, who had been relegated to the back of the detachment, and my eyes were now focused on her pretty face. I had the uncanny feeling that a battle was raging within her, a struggle perhaps between duty and defiance.

  We moved out by moonlight, after being transferred to a goods train once again. The night was warm and the shutters of our carriage were left wide open. We rushed through a pastoral world unknown to me, pushing relentlessly further, further, towards the heel of the Apennine Peninsula. Lying on a heap of straw, lulled by the rhythmic clatter of the wheels, I dozed off. I dreamed that I suddenly felt a touch on my shoulder. It was the young Russian woman. ‘I must speak to you before it’s too late,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve heard your singing — it’s good, it keeps the devil at bay. But I’ve also heard your silence, a bottled-up message on the sea of slaughtered time, seeking a shore to uncork its great lament.

  ‘My name is Dina,’ she went on, ‘daughter of Jacob the shepherd and sister to twelve brothers. One day I walked out into the fields to meet with the local maidens, and among them was a young Komsomol member, Vanya, builder of a new world. He swore eternal love, but then without warning threw me to the ground and defiled my innocence. I was devastated, yet my father advised caution. This is the land where only wrong is right, he said. For three days my enraged brothers refused to break bread. I expected something vile to happen. Then war came, and they went off to defend our motherland. When their corpses were brought back, our father died of a broken heart. I was left alone, and pregnant, with an old and ailing mother. Before long she too passed on. Because of my knowledge of languages I was conscripted to do what I am doing.

  ‘As you can see,’ Dina continued in my dream, ‘on the way to building a better world, mankind destroys everything that is good. I don’t know how this will ever end. But when you enter the promised land, don’t forget me. And should I ever come to you, embrace me, please, because this will be a time of loving. And teach me to restore, because this will be a time of restoring. Then we can all run back to our old father Jacob, and tell him: Your favourite son Joseph is very much alive, and so too is his noble legacy.’

  Light

  From the railway platform of a town outside of Rome I spotted my old school friend, Mendel Goldman. He was on a train that was about to move off in the opposite direction. When I waved he jumped out of his carriage and came running, and we fell into each other’s arms. ‘Are you by yourself?’ he asked.

  ‘No, I’m with Zakhor.’ I introduced them. Mendel and I sat down on a bench together.

  ‘You look like a ghost,’ he said. ‘Are you sick?’

  ‘I’m not too well.’

  ‘Here, take this, take it all!’ he ordered amicably, thrusting a suitcase into my hand. ‘It contains a hundred thousand lire.’ This was then the equivalent of perhaps a hundred American dollars. ‘You’ve got to eat. And if you run short of money — here, sell this!’ And he dropped his silver-plated watch into my lap. ‘I’ll catch up with you some time.’ He squeezed my shoulder and darted to board his train, which had begun to move. Stunned, I peered into the suitcase. As well as the money, it contained a silky white shirt.

  Zakhor came up to sit beside me. ‘What a marvellous friend!’ he said. ‘What a fellow! How long have you known each other?’

  ‘Ever since school — we were in the same class for a year, and our friendship continued in the ghetto.’

  ‘He certainly seems a generous, caring man.’

  ‘He is. He was never a top student, but he was always a top human being.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ Moshe agreed. ‘Some people believe the mind can accommodate only so much intellect and so much nobility, and that to seek a large measure of both in a single person is a futile exercise.’

  He paused to reflect while I took this in. ‘Genius,’ he resumed, ‘is seldom noble. You only need to think, in our own tradition, of the thirty-six righteous men of each generation, without whom the world could not be sustained. It is said that they are mostly simple, unlearned folk — cobblers, tailors, carpenters, dreamers — whose charity and compassion have filled out every inch of their being.’

  Our odyssey would soon be coming to a close. The last leg of the journey would bring us to our destination, a DP (displaced persons’) camp that had been established at Santa Maria di Bagno. This was a tiny coastal village on the heel of the Italian boot, and had formerly been a summer retreat for Mussolini’s Fascist elite. The countryside sped past, and I cannot recall too many details of the landscape. But what still nestles vividly in my memory is the locomotive’s surreal whistle at sunset, and earlier, the thick dusky fog that had come in from the Adriatic, reducing visibility to nil.

  We had been travelling for hours. And then suddenly — heavily, lazily — the train rumbled to a stop.

  ‘We have run out of rail,’ the engine-driver announced, illustrating our position with vivid pointings and gesticulations. ‘If I go further I drive into the sea. They said you will be picked up here, but maybe they have forgotten you.’

  At this point something happened that could almost be described as a pantomime. Our transport leader, Aron Sokolowicz, a Yiddish-speaking Talmudist, went over to the engine-driver and, with a mixture of gestures and broken words, managed to explain that he was responsible for us and that God would never forgive him if he left us here, out in the open. The middle-aged Italian was close to tears. ‘What do you want from me?’ he pleaded, raising his heavy, soot-black palms. ‘I have a wife and a piccolo bambino. I have to go home.’

  For a few tense moments the two men stood facing one another. Aron understood the driver’s problem, and the driver understood Aron’s predicament. Then all at once, without any further discussion, the Ita
lian jumped back into his cab and called out, ‘Andiamo, amici!’ and with a joyful whistle the train began to reverse, its locomotive now pushing the wagons back north instead of pulling them south.

  ‘This could only happen in Italy,’ Zakhor told me.

  We had travelled like this for some twenty minutes when, out of the darkness beside the tracks, there appeared a cluster of lights, bobbing and weaving in an eerie formation. As we drew closer it became clear that the lights were in fact large electric torches carried by a group of men: our reception committee, obviously overlooked by the driver on our way down. The train came to an abrupt halt. We heard warm greetings — ‘Shalom! Shalom!’ — from all around us. A short while later, outlined in the torchlight, two hundred silent men marched off to their new place of sojourn.

  Santa Maria

  The house in which we lived at Santa Maria di Bagno stood in a near-semicircle of houses facing the Gulf of Taranto and its raging waters. Our only close neighbour was the fisherman Giuseppe, who could always tell precisely the time of day, and could accurately forecast the weather by glancing at the sky. ‘This sea,’ he said, pointing at the nervous white foam, ‘is eager to invade our land, but it will never ever happen, never ever. And do you know why? Because this mad treacherous sea has great respect for our holy little white church which we built on the hill. Listen on Sunday morning to its lovely bell, and you will understand.’