The Fugu Plan

by Marvin Tokayer

  PROCLAMATION CONCERNING RESTRICTIONS OF RESIDENCE AND BUSINESS OF STATELESS REFUGEES:

  I Due to military necessity, places of residence and business of the stateless refugees in the Shanghai area shall hereafter be restricted to the undermentioned area in the International Settlement: east of the line connecting Chaoufoong Road, Muirhead Road and Dent Road; west of the Yangtzepoo Creek; north of the line connecting East Seward Road and Wayside Road; and south of the boundary of the International Settlement.

  II The stateless refugees at present residing and/or carrying on business in the district other than the above area shall remove their place of residence and/or business into the area designated above by May 18, 1943.

  III Persons other than the stateless refugees shall not remove into the area mentioned in Article I without the permisson of the Japanese authorities.

  IV Persons who will have violated this proclamation or obstructed its reenforcement shall be liable to severe punishment. Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Japanese Army in the Shanghai Area.

  Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy in the Shanghai Area.

  February 18, 1943.

  As people stood motionless near the wall, other people hurried by Jews, Chinese, Japanese, even some Gentile Europeans, lived in this slum section of Shanghai or came to it to take advantage of its cheaper prices. Few even glanced at the poster: it wasn't news any more. Yesterday, Thursday, February 18, it had been news horrifying, totally unexpected, suddenly leaping out at them from official broadsides like this one, or radio broadcasts, or four-column headlines on the front page of every newspaper in Shanghai (and in smaller type in papers in Tokyo, Peking, Manila and Harbin). But already by Friday, the nineteenth, the "stateless refugees" had begun coping, in their minds if not yet their lives, with the prospect of a ghetto. Only Getzel, it seemed, could not get beyond the paper on the wall.

  He spread open his hands in his trouser pockets, trying to warm them against his thighs. Protected only by thin cotton pants, his legs had little heat to give. Nothing about Getzel had very much more to give. He had tried - God, he really had tried. After they had moved into the fourth-floor room and Dovid started school, his life seemed to be returning to some slight degree of normality. He seemed almost about to shake off the dybbuk of fear that had been in his heart since that afternoon in Moscow. He went out every morning, rain or shine, to beg from one tailoring shop to the next - not for a handout, but for the opportunity to do a little work for a little pay. Some days he was lucky: he'd work a few hours, maybe even the full day, often for a Chinese who made him take a place near the window so every passerby could see that in this shop the whiteman was the worker. On those days, even with the Chinaman, he'd feel almost human again. The pay was only a few hundred dollars ... a few hundred! In Alexandrov, a few hundred of any denomination made a man wealthy! But here, two hundred dollars now barely bought a loaf of wormy bread. But with even this paltry sum in his pocket, he was a mensch. He'd head for home, maybe buy something nice for his family - a little ersatz coffee, a couple of rolls, maybe even a packet of sugar. He'd felt such a part of things on those days. Now there would be no more of those days. Oh, of course, if he had a regular job, he might be allowed to leave the "designated area" during working hours. At least that's what the papers said. And he'd heard that some of the leaders were protesting that the Polish Jews weren't "stateless" at all, because there was a recognized Polish government in exile that stood one hundred percent behind their citizenship. But a ghetto for Jews was a ghetto for Jews no matter how often the Japanese referred to it as a "designated area for stateless refugees." It was another step toward extermination.

  Getzel tried to remember his life - Alexandrov, its familiar dusty streets, his own tiny house, the shul full of old men and their endless discussions. All dead now. His own survival still puzzled him. Alexandrov to Vilna; Vilna to Moscow, to Vladivostok, to Kobe; and Kobe to Shanghai. For four years, he had managed to stay half a step ahead of utter catastrophe. And here, in this totally alien corner of the world, in China, he had tried, with the utmost of his shattered abilities, to start life again. But even in the whale's belly, the worthy prophet Jonah couldn't escape the wrath of God, so how could a poor schlemiel like himself hope to escape just by fleeing to an unheard-of land? The catastrophe had leap-frogged seven thousand miles and caught up with him. Getzel wouldn't even have to move to be shut up in the ghetto: he was already living in the very center of the slum that was to be the "designated area."

  Why did they bother to avoid the word ghetto, Getzel wondered idly, watching an emaciated cat disappear down an alley. Why "stateless refugees" instead of "Jews"? The Nazis used the words freely enough each time they proudly announced shutting people up in the Warsaw Jewish ghetto, the Vilna Jewish ghetto, the Riga, Shavli, Berdischev, Bialystok, Minsk Jewish ghettos. . . . Moishe, that gawky adolescent, brought home news of all of it. "From where?" he'd once asked. The boy wouldn't say. Just from "someone" who had a radio, who had hidden it before the Japanese confiscated all the long-range receivers. Through Moishe, when the little ones were out of hearing, he and Cheya received a periodic supply of grisly stories about the formation of ghettos, firing of ghettos, calculated starvation in ghettos. Recently, just a few weeks ago, from Warsaw, there was even word of a rare, brief uprising within a ghetto. But uprisings inevitably failed and inexorably brought down still greater terrors upon the heads of those trapped helplessly inside. That was the thing about a ghetto, Getzel thought: it was just a prison with a little extra distance between the walls.

  Getzel was shivering compulsively now - but too despondent to care. He knew he'd feel even worse later, after they'd built their gates and strung up their barbed wire. Colder, hungrier, sicker. And more hopeless. There was nothing more he could do - nothing any of them could do - to escape the destruction that God seemed to have chosen for His chosen people. "I will die in this strange, unheard-ofland,"he thought, more sure of it now than ever before, "and be buried far away from the graves of my father and my grandfather."

  There arose before his eyes the gentle faces of those two old men. Getzel stood motionless on a street in Shanghai, filling his heart with the warm smiling faces of his father and grandfather.

  Moishe trudged up the three flights of rickety stairs, glad to be home in plenty of time to prepare for the Sabbath. Friday was only a four-hour day at the Organization for Rehabilitation and Training School on Jansen Road. In the spring of 1941, an ORT professional had arrived in Shanghai to help some of the uprooted refugees make the change from shtetl life to the careers demanded by the twentieth century: electrical work, locksmithing, automobile driving, engine repair. . . . For teenagers, like Moishe, who were too old for the Kadoorie School, a full-time program was set up in a former Chinese knitting factory - practical technical training in the morning, book-learning in the afternoon. By the end of even the short Friday schedule, Moishe was glad for the exercise of walking home. But it was a long trip, particularly on a cold day. Passing through the built-up area of Hongkew, he could smell Sabbath meals being prepared on the tiny flower-pot shaped devices that served as stoves for the poorer refugees. Coal was expensive, wood unattainable. But the little stoves burned a homemade concoction of coal dust, sand, cinders, ashes and straw, pressed into cakes and dried. Along with billows of smoke, enough heat was produced for cooking; and starting shortly after breakfast on Friday, Jewish women begin the preparation of the Sabbath meal for their families.

  Moishe paused briefly to rest on the middle landing. Mrs. Syrkin and Sophie, and probably Dovid, would be all involved with that now, no doubt, not in the room - the smoke there made cooking impossible - but down in the courtyard. Moishe was of half a mind to join them - it would be warmer there than in the unheated room. But he was already halfway upstairs; he went on up and opened the door.

  His hand never left the metal latch. He stood absolutely still, willing himself not to scream out loud.

  "My God! Oh, my
God!" he whispered. The body of Getzel Syrkin, a leather belt around its neck, hung lifeless from a hook in the wall.

  Moishe released Gctzel's old body from its unnatural pose, laid it out on the floor under a sheet and stumbled down the stairs to break the news to Cheya. As always on a Friday noon the courtyard was full. No sooner had Moishe spoken the words - God knows which words, he could never remember afterward - than other women were crowding round, holding Cheya, crying for her loss, consoling her with words and prayers. Clutching Dovid, who was too stunned to cry, Cheya made her way back up the stairs to the miserable room. Sophie, sensibly went to fetch people from the burial society.

  After their arrival, within minutes of Sophie's summons, Moishe, himself, was sent out to call the Amshenover rebbe at his apartment in the former French Concession.

  The rebbe had been spending his early Friday afternoon as usual, organizing his mind and his wardrobe for the Sabbath that would begin at sunset. His long black satin jacket, with frayed cuffs and dangerously thin at the elbows, was already waiting, hanging softly around the back of a wooden chair. One brightly brushed black shoe sat on the floor beside it. Humming a rhythmic, wordless little niggun, the rebbe was buffing the other to a matching shine. As he would have dressed to greet a queen, so he dressed to greet the Sabbath. A day of rest, a day of holiness, but more than that, shabbos was a day-long intimation of the world to come - a weekly preview of the peace, the satisfying wholeness of the life that would open for a Jew after God had brought this life to a close.

  His wife knocked gently at the door and came in. There had been a phone call, she told him, not good news: in Hongkew, Getzel Syrkin had died.

  The Sabbath-eve pleasure faded from the rebbe's eyes.

  But it was still worse, his wife went on. Getzel Syrkin had not waited for God to bring his life to a close. The representatives of the burial society were with the body now, she said; but they did not know what to do.

  The rebbe put down the shoe and reached for his small, wellworn Hebrew psalm book.

  "Tell them to do nothing until I get there," he said. "And if anyone else is looking for me, tell him I will see him in shul at 5:43."

  With that, he hurried out to the street. If humanly possible, the burial question would have to be settled and the body laid in the ground by sundown. Otherwise, it would have to wait until Sunday morning - an unnecessary hardship on everyone concerned. The Amshenover rebbe did not like riding in rickshaws, as a principle, he objected to causing some poor man to act as a draught animal solely for his benefit. That, and his desire for speed, persuaded him, in spite of the cost, to flag down a passing taxi.

  Getzel Syrkin's body lay, still untouched, on the floor of the room. Cheya sat in one corner with Dovid and Sophie, both of them sobbing softly. The four men from the burial society stood, unsure and ill-at-ease on the opposite side of the room near the window. The neighbors, as custom required, waited outside. Panting from the effort of climbing four flights of stairs, the Amshenover rebbe paused at the open door. Cheya looked up at him, beseechingly, but said nothing. One of the four men from the society hurried out into the hall. Anxiously but quietly, so that Cheya would not hear, one of the four began speaking.

  "It was not a natural death, rebbe! It was a suicide. We cannot bury a man who takes his own. . . ."

  "I am well acquainted with Talmud, Mr. Lewin," the rebbe cut him off as gently as possible. "The person who takes his own life denies the partnership of God in that life. By denying God His role, the person implies that God does not exist. And in denying the existence of God, a Jew denies his fellowship in the Covenant with God."

  "Well, can we bury such a man in a Jewish cemetery?" Mr. Lewin demanded, speaking more loudly than he had intended.

  In her corner of the room, Cheya heard the question. He was not "such a man," her heart silently cried out. He was a good man. He was a good Jew; a good husband. Getzel never was a strong man, but he did all he could. How can they now refuse him the honor and peace of a proper burial? How can they refuse it, even in the face of his son?

  Almost unnoticed, Moishe joined the group of men in the hallway. The prompt arrival of the rebbe had taken a burden from his shoulders.

  In response to Lewin's outburst, the rebbe put his finger to his lips to remind them all of the importance, the simple decency, of not troubling the widow with this discussion.

  "It is not a matter of law only. It is also a matter of interpretation. A man who takes his own life surely is committing a crime," the rebbe said in almost a whisper. "But to be held responsible for a crime - any crime - the person committing it must be conscious of the reality of what he is doing. Is that not so? If he is too ill, or too upset, or too despondent to realize what he is doing, how could we hold such a man guilty? Now, I have seen Getzel only occasionally in the past several months. But would you say he was fully conscious of the reality of the world around him?"

  "I would say he was not, rebbe," one of the other men replied after a short pause. "He tried, but ... he was not entirely here."

  The rebbe gestured with his hands. "So?"

  Mr. Lewin, however, was not entirely convinced. "Won't it set a poor example, if we allow a proper burial in this case?" he whispered. "Life is hard for all of us here. Getzel was not the only one to be discouraged. If people begin to feel that there is no shame, no dishonor to committing suicide. . . ."

  The rebbe looked at him in wonder. Does the man really believe people cling to their lives out of fear of shame? he thought. Then softly he said, "You are right, Mr. Lewin. It would be best not to make a great to-do over the suicide aspects of this. A man died. That alone is unfortunate enough. Getzel Syrkin was a Jew: he will be buried as a Jew with all respect in our cemetery."

  Persuaded by the rebbe's authority if not his argument, Lewin gave in. The men of the burial society began preparing the body. Cheya had not heard the final exchange of words, but she understood the meaning of the activity.

  "Thank you, rebbe," she said to the man who approached her. "He was a good man, such a good one."

  He looked down at her with gentle pity. "His suffering is over now, Mrs. Syrkin. God is with him. There is time yet to bury the body today. Is someone making the shroud?"

  "I took a sheet to Mrs. Ershowsky downstairs," Moishe said. In accordance with the law. Getzel's body would be dressed simply in a loose fitting cotton shroud, and a yarmulka. His prayer shawl, one of four fringes cut off, would be wrapped around the body before it was placed in a plain wood coffin.

  "Rebbe, though he was not my father, I would like to say kaddish for Mr. Syrkin." Moishe's tone of voice questioned the propriety of this as much as it stated his desire.

  The rebbe looked approvingly at him. "Dovid is not yet bar mitzvah, is he?" he asked.

  "He is only ten," Cheya answered, shaking her head.

  But I know the kaddish, rebbe," Dovid spoke up. "I know it, and I will say it for the rest of my life," he vowed miserably.

  "Every day for eleven months, will be sufficient to honor your father," the rebbe said gently. "He was a fine man, Dovid. You must do his memory honor by also being a fine man."

  Tears again running down his cheeks, Dovid could not respond. There was so much he had never been able to talk to his father about, so much that he had been putting off until things got a little better, until his father really seemed to be here with them, completely. Now all he could do was put his arms around his mother's shoulders and cry out at the unfairness of it.

  The rebbe went to him, putting his hand on the boy's small head, saying nothing, merely being there for a few minutes.

  "If you just go with him every morning," he said when he turned back to Moishe, "it would be a mitzvah. I'm sure it would be appreciated by everyone."

  Moishe nodded, grateful for the rebbe, grateful for the burial society that took care of the coffin, the cemetery plot, all the mechanical details. What this poor family would do later, with no one earning any money at all, he didn't kno
w. Somehow, they would manage; they always had. Except Mr. Syrkin. Poor, unhappy, lost Mr. Syrkin. But in his own way, Moishe supposed, Mr. Syrkin had managed too.

  For seven days, Cheya and Dovid sat shiva on low stools in the small room, receiving visitors who came to offer condolences and gifts of food. Sophie took care of the daily chores. Moishe went with Dovid to shul every morning and otherwise just sat with Cheya, listening to her reminiscences. At the end of the shiva, Eastjewcom was informed that the family of Getzel Syrkin had become "widow, three dependents." Beginning the following Sunday Cheya received a weekly cash allowance, meager, but sufficient to feed the four of them. The rebbe, moreover, spoke to several of the Russian Jews, suggesting that it would be a particular mitzvah to offer Mrs. Syrkin whatever occasional work they might have. The children kept a sharp lookout for the few part-time, odd jobs available.

  Getzel's response to the proclamation of the ghetto was not unique, but it was rare. For the most part the refugees were deeply frustrated that the structures of their lives, which they had struggled so hard to build were to be so summarily demolished. But there was no alternative, and so the German and Austrian Jews, the overwhelming majority of the seventeen thousand affected, resigned themselves with characteristic discipline to make the move. Equally characteristically, the Polish Jews began protesting the injustice.

  As Getzel had foreseen, their first reasoned argument had had no effect whatsoever on the Japanese decision. The manifestos that followed were less restrained: ". . . why do you compel us to be stateless. . . . We are not and we will not be stateless! The whole world will know that you have compelled us! We informed from this to the Swiss Consulate and to the International Red Cross! Better for you and for us give us a red belt [armbands worn by "enemy nationals") and take us to the [internment camp] . . . The war is not finish and you can not know! We are and remain Polish citizens till our die!"