All Rivers Run to the Sea: Memoirs (20 page)

Now we had to reinvent ourselves mentally, reconstructing a system of values so as to understand a Talmudic Law that is permeated with a poignant humanism: If the High Priest happens on an anonymous corpse in a public place, he must drop all other obligations and bury it immediately, even if he is on his way to the Temple. Respecting
the dignity of the dead takes priority even over services on the holiest day of the year.

In the camp we were all future anonymous corpses, walking cadavers. Even when a friend or relative died, you didn’t cry, didn’t mourn, didn’t rend your clothes or smear your forehead with ashes. You didn’t show your grief. You did nothing to mark the event. You couldn’t.

I recall a boy from my region, very tall and thin, who thought he was already dead. “No one will ever convince me that the Germans let even a single Jew escape alive,” he used to say. Granted, he ate and drank, but as he pointed out, “Perhaps the dead, too, eat and drink as we do.” A constant smile hovered about his lips because he firmly believed that the dead were smiling at him. He therefore returned the favor, out of politeness. In my notebook I gave him a nickname: the dead man.

Where did he get that gentleness? Were all the dead like him?

One evening we were chatting under a tree, and he shared his happiness with me. Yes, that was the word he used: happiness. “I’m happy because I’m not afraid anymore,” he said. “I’m not afraid to die, because I’m already dead.”

He is still alive as I write these lines, living in Brooklyn with his wife and children. Those who know him say he believes he’s in heaven.

After a few weeks in Écouis, we moved. The leaders of the OSE decided to divide the four hundred “children” into two groups: the observant Jews and the nonobservant Jews. The first group—there were about a hundred of us—was transferred to the Château d’Ambloy, in Vaucelles.

We said goodbye to a third group, the lucky ones who were leaving for Palestine. Among them were Naftali Lau-Lavi (future adviser to Moshe Dayan) and his brother Israel Meir Lau (future chief rabbi of Israel), then eight years old and nicknamed Lolek. Forty years later, during a commemoration ceremony in Birkenau, he mentioned that it was I who taught him to say Kaddish by heart.

I had signed up to go to Palestine too, but the British bureaucrats who issued immigration “certificates” denied my application. The Lau brothers had family in Palestine, while I did not. Who knows if that is why my request was refused?

There was some good news: Niny was to accompany us to Ambloy,
and two nice young women, Judith and Mireille, both observant, were put in charge of the new home.

It was an unforgettable summer. Vacation was in the air. Our counselors had no trouble getting the “children” to respect the community, and normal life began. Several minyanim gathered each morning, and study circles and sports clubs were formed. A group of religious Jewish intellectuals, Yeshurun, often came to spend Shabbat with us. Though I sat in on these highbrow meetings, I felt left out, since I couldn’t understand their French. Among the participants were Marc Breuer, son and grandson of rabbis; Théo Dreyfus, author of a work on the Maharal of Prague, later director of the Maimonides School before emigrating to Palestine; Benno Gross, another pupil of André Neher, who would later teach at Bar-Ilan University; and Lucien Lazare, who would write important works on the Jewish Resistance and Righteous Gentiles in France.

At night we lit campfires, which the romantic in me loved. They took me back to Fantana, the mountain village near Borsha where we used to spend our vacations. The crackling of the logs, the spray of the sparks, and the solemn, nostalgic songs made us feel close to one another. It was an atmosphere of healthy intimacy, a complete harmony of voice and silence, of the presence of the living and the dead, of memory and what it harbors. If the shadows were too close, they were not menacing. If the stars were too high or their light too cold, nothing frightened us—not so long as the flames bore our songs and voices to heaven. Little by little, cliques had formed. I spent a lot of time with Nicolas. Kalman, Binem, and I studied with Menashe, the most accomplished resident Talmudist. Kalman often surprised me with the rigor of his logic; it was clear that he would become a scientist.

Niny didn’t know it, but Kalman and I wrote impassioned, mediocre Yiddish poems to her glory. Our attraction to her, innocent and platonic as it was, seems natural to me today. We lived among boys, and were inevitably conquered by Niny’s affectionate, feminine presence. My heart pounded whenever she came within sight.

Judith and Mireille had fiancés and were therefore untouchable. But Niny was alone, and so theoretically open to being loved. Kalman loved her, and so did I. In fact, we all did, though none dared admit it, for we were so sincerely devoted to religious practice that we feared being lured into sin. What is sensuality, we reasoned, if not an invitation to physical pleasure? And what is physical pleasure if not the road to the forbidden and to eventual punishment?

Niny decided it would be instructive for us to meet some of the French “children” (sons and daughters of deportees) who lived in other OSE homes. She therefore invited Kalman and me, along with a third boy, Moshe Kunitz, who was from a village near Sighet, to spend a few days with her at a home called Les Hirondelles not far from Lyons. There I met André Neher, whose sister, Aya Samuel, was director of the home. I was immediately struck by his warmth and thoughtfulness, and by the depth of his knowledge. We conversed in Hebrew. Neher quoted the Midrash and Maimonides, while I simply listened, impressed by the clarity of his ideas. After morning Shabbat services I attended a lecture of his entitled “Transcendence and Immanence,” listening intently though failing to understand a word. Neher was kind enough to explain it to me that afternoon, as we walked in the garden. It was in part thanks to him that I turned to philosophy, and he remained a source of light and fervor to me. He introduced me to his future wife, Renée, whose charm and grace were equaled by her erudition and gifts as a historian. Our friendship ended only with his premature death in Jerusalem in 1988.

I also met a girl, Régine, dark-haired, shy, and sentimental. She played the piano. It was the first time I heard a piece by Schumann. I thought of teaching her a Hasidic tune, but she preferred Kalman’s company. Such is life.

One evening, during services, a strange man was pointed out to me. Dressed like a vagabond, a tiny hat perched on his enormous head, he stood in a corner, lost in his thoughts. Someone told me his name was Shushani and that he was a genius. “A madman,” someone else countered, while a third observer offered a compromise: “A mad genius.” As it happens, I was wary of geniuses and drawn to madmen, so I wasn’t sure whether to approach him. As I hesitated, he vanished. Too bad, but our paths would cross again.

French lessons were organized for us, but I attended them only sporadically. I didn’t see the point. I had better things to do than to puzzle over the conjugation of irregular verbs and the intricacies of the agreement of tenses. There were drawing lessons too, but perspective held no interest for me compared to the Midrash. I managed to get hold of some Hasidic works and treatises on mysticism. I was determined to continue the quest the Germans had interrupted, which I considered more important and exciting than anything in the real world. After all, I reasoned, the events we experience here below are consequences of what is decided on high, are they not? Granted, these
were turbulent times: the signing of the United Nations Charter in San Francisco, the four-power occupation of Germany, the Potsdam Conference, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan’s surrender, Churchill’s defeat in the 1946 elections, De Gaulle’s resignation. But it was God who governed the actions of men, and if we failed to understand Him, perhaps it was because we were too shortsighted to see what our ancestors would have noticed immediately.

In time, though, our instructors managed to interest us in current events. The Nuremberg trials and philosophy of justice: were retroactive laws legitimate? The Iron Curtain, of which Churchill had spoken at a small college in Fulton, Missouri: were we now to fear our former allies? There was also Jewish terrorism and clandestine immigration to Palestine. We were told of acts of sabotage committed by the Irgun and the Stern Gang, such as the bombing of the General Headquarters of the British Army at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. Many were killed, many more wounded. Still, the Irgun was said to have warned the British authorities, a local newspaper, and a foreign consulate ahead of time. Why hadn’t an immediate evacuation been ordered? Was it just another instance of British arrogance? We debated these questions at length. Would another resistance movement have acted similarly? More debate. Was there any such thing as a specifically Jewish morality? But there were distractions too. We were told that the French and world press were full of talk of a new phenomenon called the “bikini.”

It was in Ambloy that we celebrated the first High Holidays since liberation, and during Yizkor, the service devoted to the memory of the dead, the floodgates finally opened. All assembled wept tears of submission to God, of contrition and remorse, incomprehension and despair. I tried to remember the last Yizkor I had attended. Was it with my grandfather at the home of the Borsher Rebbe in Sighet, or with my father on the Appelplatz in Auschwitz? It all seemed so distant now, part of another universe and another history, as though time were no longer counted in years.

I recited the grave, solemn prayers with more concentration than ever. Never had I prayed with such intensity. I saw my father and grandfather as they had stood beside me at services, and I prayed for them. I wept for them.

Questions about divine justice and charity weighed upon me, but they had not yet taken shape. I acted as though my faith in God and His Laws and attributes were still whole and intact, even
strengthened, as though my relation to God were untarnished, un-shattered.

Today I remember Ambloy with tenderness and melancholy, the more so since our stay there was brief. The OSE soon moved us to Taverny, in the Paris suburbs. I was glad because it meant I could see Hilda more often.

Niny, Judith, and Mireille came with us, probably to reassure us, but they told us it was time to start thinking about the future. The “children” had choices to make. They could leave for Palestine (illegally if necessary), emigrate to America (or to Canada, Colombia, or Australia, if they had family there), or remain in France. But if they stayed, they would do well to learn a trade or to take some special courses before enrolling in the Lycée Maimonides in Boulogne. Many opted for Palestine. Others managed to come up with an uncle in Baltimore, a cousin in Melbourne, or an aunt in Johannesburg. Kalman and I decided to stay in France—for the moment. “Fine,” they said, “but in that case you must learn French,” which was fair enough. I liked the language, found it musical. But the agreement of tenses was still a source of immense irritation.

Fortunately, in 1947 the OSE arranged for a young teacher, François Wahl, to give me private lessons. Tall and slender, with delicate features, slightly distracted, his head always tilted, François was to play a significant role in my life. He was an excellent teacher, as intuitive as he was erudite, endowed with a vivid imagination. He initiated me into the field most beloved of French teachers: the explication of texts. It was thanks to him that I learned to savor the suggestive power of Racine’s poetry and the subtleties of Pascal’s thought. He took me to the Comédie-Française and to concerts and guided me through the Latin Quarter. It is to him I owe my passion for classical literature and French culture.

But not everything went smoothly at first. I could have happily forgone the endless, point-by-point analysis of Phaedra’s mood swings. Likewise for the Cid and Monsieur Jourdain, and as for Racine’s Esther, however much I respected her, I preferred the original. But François refused to give up. For him the beauty of a text was timeless; to turn one’s back on it was to renounce a great source of knowledge. “You sound like a Hasid,” I told him. He asked what that was, and I explained it to him. From then on we also talked of things Jewish.

At the time I didn’t know that François’s father had been deported
to Auschwitz and never returned. “I didn’t know anything about you,” François explained years later. “I didn’t speak of it because you never talked about the camps.” Though only two years my senior, he seemed much older. I cannot define the nature of the bond between us, except to say that it was deep and true.

Our lessons were held at his mother’s apartment, which he shared. She was a physician. I can see her now: distinguished and gracious, with a sober beauty. One day, completely out of the blue, François asked her, “Why do you think I am so taken by Jewish subjects?” Her answer, which reflected her own passionate commitment to Jewish causes, surely affected his future. In 1947, as the underground war raged in Palestine, François performed important secret tasks for a Jewish resistance group. The following year our paths diverged. Later, much later, they would cross again.

It was in 1947 that Shushani, the mysterious Talmudic scholar, reappeared in my life. For two or three years he taught me unforgettable lessons about the limits of language and reason, about the behavior of sages and madmen, about the obscure paths of thought as it wends its way across centuries and cultures. But I learned nothing of the secret in which he enveloped himself.

I remember our decisive encounter. It took place on a Friday, on the train taking me back to Taverny from François’s. Still somewhat preoccupied by the conflict between Racine and Corneille, I plunged into the Book of Job, only because I was scheduled to give a talk the next day, after the service and before the Sabbath meal, on the problems it raised.

That was our custom. Each week someone gave a presentation on a subject of his choice, preferably biblical. My very first address was entitled “The Ghetto: Salutary or Destructive Experience for the Jewish People?” Kalman and I worked on it together. I made the presentation and he answered questions. Niny and André, one of our best counselors, helped me prepare the “outline.” I had no trouble finding sources, for I knew all about ghettos. But for the talk on Job I hadn’t had time to write out anything. That didn’t worry me: I would simply read passages and comment, line by line. I felt confident that I knew the subject.