Jewels and Ashes (25 page)

On September 16, the Bialystok Aktion was officially declared at an end. A squad of older Nazis remained to root out the few Jews left in hiding. They maintained daily patrols and marched their captives to Krashevski Street prison. When about fifty had been assembled, they would be driven beyond the city to be shot. Others were retained as slaves. They were led out daily to exhume corpses from communal graves in the forests. The bodies were thrown onto pyres and incinerated. As the eastern front edged closer, the Nazi mania for obliterating the traces of their crimes spiralled.

In October, a German firm arrived in Bialystok to transfer Jewish belongings from the ghetto. Everything of value was declared to be property of the Reich and was shipped back to the Fatherland. Nothing was to be wasted. Houses were stripped down to their skeletons. The entire ghetto area was looted.

When their work drew to an end the slaves were led out to be shot. As they approached the pits, they made a sudden break for the forests. Nine of them survived the gauntlet of bullets. Jewish Bialystock, five hundred years of vigorous effort and communal prayer, lay behind them, effectively Judenrein.

Hitler's shadow extends from the grave and darkens lives far removed. It reaches around the globe into a home where a child sees in his father's eyes, beyond the veil, an ocean of regret and bewilderment; and in his mother's eyes, a distant stare of non-recognition. She is a prisoner of inner voices screaming,
‘Raus! Rous! Juden raus!'
And just as she skirts the edges of madness, she reasserts herself, yet again, with relentless work and melodies. She sings for hour upon hour, as she cooks, scrubs, sews, and fights to keep the household afloat, her sanity intact. Her songs are in Yiddish, her repertoire vast, sung in a soprano trained by renowned choirmasters of Bialystok. There are lullabies that speak of white goats setting out on miraculous journeys; ballads about folk heroes and rebels on barricades. She sings worksongs of cobblers and weavers, tales of wonder rabbis and Hasidim on pilgrimage. She sings of families gathered by the Sabbath table and of gypsies gathered in forest clearings:

Play gypsy, play me a song,

On the fiddle all night long.

On the fiddle, green leaves fall.

What once was is beyond recall.

What once was and what will be,

Red is blood and red is wine.

A star falls and then another,

And our hearts reach out to each other.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

‘FROM MOSES UNTO MOSES there had never been such a Moses', the epitaph proclaims. ‘Light of the West, greatest of the generation's wise men': words inscribed on the tomb of Moses Isserles, sixteenth-century scholar and preacher, renowned Rabbi of Krakow. It remains standing to this day in the Rema cemetery, within the grounds of the oldest living synagogue in Poland; and to this day the congregation continues to assemble here. They are arriving now, Shabbes eve, for the service. One stumbles through the gate with the aid of a walking stick; others are wheeled in. They approach singly or in pairs, the heirs of Moses, through the streets of Kazimierz, their childhood playing grounds. Shoulders stooped, frail, they walk slowly, berets perched upon their heads, thick overcoats wrapped around to protect them from the autumn chill.

At the entrance to a crumbling tenement a fat bubka sits on a wooden stool and knits. She gazes at me intently as I pass by, and mutters: ‘
Yiddish? Ich ken etleche vertex Yiddish
.' Yes, as it turns out, she does know a few words of Yiddish; five lines, in fact, which she had picked up in childhood from the Jewish neighbours who had lived within these tenements one generation ago. As I wander the streets of Kazimierz the bubka follows me, reciting her well-rehearsed Yiddish lines as one would intone a verse from the scriptures:

I am not afraid

I have no money

I have no compliments to offer

Kiss me on the behind

Go away you black devil

Bubka's face is circular, and the frames of her spectacles are similarly shaped; two moons within the larger moon. Her eyes glint with a hint of mirth, as if on the verge of cascading into uncontrolled laughter. Moon lady has, it seems, become my self-appointed escort. She follows me through Szeroka Square, muttering her Yiddish lines as we approach the Rema. For over four hundred years it has stood, this inconspicuous greystone building. Weeping willows droop over its walls. Moon lady stops at the arched gate, beyond which she does not venture. Her Yiddish verse trails after me while I enter the courtyard: ‘Go away you black devil'. The words hover in the stillness as Moon lady disappears.

It is cool and quiet in the walled courtyard, protected from the winds. We sit on benches awaiting the Sabbath. One by one they pass beneath the arched entrance, the minyan gradually assembling in the waning light. ‘You come from Australia?', an old man sitting beside me asks. ‘So why didn't you do something? Why didn't you tell the world what was happening?'

‘How could I do anything?', I reply. ‘I was not even alive at the time.' But my words do not seem to have registered. ‘Why didn't you do anything? Eh? Why didn't you scream? Why didn't you let the world know what was happening to us?' Only when we have entered the prayer-hall does he cease, for a while, to pursue his obsession.

There is no longer a rabbi in Krakow, and no cantor to lead the prayers. Members of the kehilla take turns at the pulpit. Of the fifteen assembled, several sit in the back row reading newspapers, others hold whispered conversations, while half a dozen or so concentrate on the prayers. Yet a sense of intimacy pervades the hall, and from time to time we unite in a common chorus of amens.

Some way into the service a young man enters the hall. He is tall, lean, his physique sharp and angular, his face pale and tense. He reaches into a pocket for a black skull cap, and hovers behind the back row of lacquered pews, scanning the congregation. He observes the proceedings from the fringes, like a stranger who wants to come out of the cold and close to the fire.

After the service the narrow foyer inside the entrance of the shul is thick with the din and hubbub of quick introductions, cries of
‘Shabbat Shalom'
, and rapid-fire exchanges of the latest communal gossip. The young man remains on the perimeter hesitantly, as if looking for an opening, a polite way of entering the animated circle of well-wishers.

When I approach and introduce myself he is visibly relieved at having made some contact. We converse in English, although it is not his mother tongue. He seems reluctant to reveal where he is from, and constantly deflects the conversation away from the issue. He is in Krakow for a quick visit, he informs me. He has arrived today from nearby Auschwitz. He will return on Monday to continue work as a volunteer in the camp museum. There is a small group who do so every year, for several weeks at a time. They sift through archival material, help assemble exhibits, clean and dust, and do whatever is needed. The facilities are undermanned. Workers are urgently required to maintain the camp for the many thousands who come on pilgrimage from all parts of the globe.

It is obvious where he is from, and it has been from the beginning. Now he confesses, with embarrassment. He was born in Germany, soon after the War. His story tumbles out quickly, in staccato-like whispers, as if he wants to tell it before I can judge him. I have to strain to hear him. His father had been a soldier during the War. ‘What did you do, father, during the War?' And year after year, the same answer. ‘I was a soldier. I did my duty. There is no more to be said.' But the son had stumbled upon clues, documents, photos. He had made enquiries, talked to family acquaintances, and had pieced it together. Father had been an SS man. He had served in Poland. He had worked in Auschwitz. ‘What did you do, father?' The questions became more insistent. The answers were always the same. ‘I did my duty. I was a soldier. I had orders.'

‘If only he would have admitted it. That would have been at least something. And mother. Always a hausfrau. She had seen nothing, known nothing. Merely maintained a household while her husband was away on duty, for the Fatherland. I grew up in a house of denials and secrets.'

The son atones for the father. He goes on a journey to Israel. He lives in Jerusalem for two years and works among the elderly, as a nurse's aide. Since then, for several years now, he has journeyed to Auschwitz with a group he has formed — the sons and daughters of former SS men. Together they make the annual pilgrimage to atone for the crimes of their elders: ‘I cannot comprehend how an Auschwitz could have existed. It eludes me, constantly. But I will continue to work there. We must maintain it for everyone to see what our elders once did.'

We keep talking in the courtyard, long after the others have gone. Feigl Wasserman, the caretaker of the Rema, has turned off the lights and is locking the synagogue doors. ‘I cannot comprehend how they could have committed such deeds', Werner muses, as if conducting aloud an inner dialogue he has pursued for years. ‘But in the work, in my travels throughout Poland, I escape my father's cold silence, my mother's pursed lips and, for a while at least, I am free of the shadow that has clung to me since birth.'

Feigl Wasserman ushers us through the arched gate into Szeroka Square. I shake hands with Werner, and he disappears into the darkness. From Moses unto Moses, there had never been such a Moses; and his shrine, within the walls of the Rema, stands enveloped in silence, mute witness to the shadows flitting through the crumbling tenements of Kazimierz and beyond, not so many miles from here, in a town called Oswiecim.

Feigl Wasserman guides me from the synagogue. The moon is bloated, approaching its fullness, and in its light can be seen the names of streets glued to tenement walls on wooden plaques: Jakuba, Isaaka, Jozefa, Miodowa, Krakowska, legendary streets of Kazimierz, Jewish quarters since the fourteenth century; and at this hour, after the Shabbes service, families would have been assembling in their homes, about to eat the Shabbes meal.

We enter an apartment block and ascend several flights of stairs. On the first- floor landing, on guard in front of an apartment, an emaciated dog barks and howls. His fury echoes along the corridors as we ascend to the higher floors. There are three sets of locks on Feigl's apartment door. When it is finally opened, the Sabbath candles can be seen burning upon a table which stands just inside the entrance. We are home at last:
Shabbat Shalom
.

The royal city of Krakow is veiled in mist and rain, a steady downpour which persists for many hours. The streets of Kazimierz are overflowing. The gates to the Krakow Jewish cemetery are locked. Nearby stands a three-storey brick building. I climb the stairs to the first landing. Windows overlook the graveyard. Ivies, creepers, wild grass, and tombstones seem entangled in a single dripping mass.

Ascending the stairs is an old man. His face is yellowed, the pallor of parchment, his bullish neck sunken between the shoulders. His eyes are squinting as he draws closer, scrutinising me with suspicion. My Yiddish greeting reassures him somewhat, although he keeps his distance as we talk.

I am never quite sure, during this first encounter, whether he is playing a game of some sort, or if he is indeed, as he claims, the caretaker of this burial ground. ‘My name is not important', he insists. ‘It is enough that I am alive. In my life I have had more luck than joy! He is an enigmatic creature, the old man with the waxen face, and reveals only carefully chosen glimpses of himself. Suddenly he grabs my hand and pulls it to his cheeks. ‘Here! Over the left eye! Can you feel the empty space? Beneath the skin? There are no bones there. And here, at the back of my jaw, there are pieces missing. In my life I have had more luck than joy.'

After indicating that he lives in an apartment on this floor, the old man leads me downstairs to a back door which opens directly onto the cemetery. I offer to share my umbrella. ‘It's not necessary', he says scornfully. ‘I am an old soldier. I was for many years in the Soviet army. We fought in mud, snow, and bitter frosts. I don't need umbrellas. The heavens are merely spitting on us.'

On the ground floor there is a large hall in which bodies are prepared for burial. Passages from the scriptures circle the upper reaches of the walls. ‘This is where we all come when all is said and done', mutters the old soldier. ‘Our bodies are stripped, cleaned, tidied up, carried through the door and, so, it is over; we become mere memory. The memory fades and is transformed into history. In time the history is distorted, denied, impossible to believe, and we are reduced to absolutely nothing, zero, not even a figment of the imagination.'

The caretaker leads me over mud-splattered paths to a segment of the cemetery wall. On it can be seen an extensive mosaic, pieced together by survivors from fragments of marble and granite, with cracked names and epitaphs — the remains of desecrated tombs which the Nazis had intended to use in building roads. ‘On this wall you see the whole meshugas', claims the old soldier. ‘We spend our lives breaking each other's bones; then we try to patch up the mess. I too was patched up. I left Krakow in 1939, fled to Russia, joined the army, drove tanks, struck a mine, and awoke on an operating table in Moscow. The best doctors worked on me. They assembled the bones, a piece here, a piece there. I am like this mosaic. Yet I was the lucky one. I left Krakow a community of 69 000 Yidn, returned six years later with half a face, and was greeted by one huge burial ground. In my life I have had more luck than joy.'

Oblivious to the rain, the old soldier continues to spin tales spiced with sarcasm and spite, although as he talks a tinge of warmth, a fatherly tone, creeps into his voice. Yet he remains guarded about his name. ‘I am a mosaic', he says. ‘Take a letter here, another there, and you have my name. If you wish, you can call me “der vant”. And what can one do with a wall? It provides protection, and to your enemies you can say, “Go beat your head against the wall!”‘