Night (4 page)

By eight o'clock in the morning, weariness had settled into our veins, our limbs, our brains, like molten lead. I was in the midst of prayer when suddenly there was shouting in the streets. I quickly unwound my phylacteries and ran to the window. Hungarian po- lice had entered the ghetto and were yelling in the street nearby. “All Jews, outside! Hurry!” They were followed by Jewish police, who, their voices break- ing, told us: “The time has come…you must leave all this…” The Hungarian police used their rifle butts, their clubs to in- discriminately strike old men and women, children and cripples. One by one, the houses emptied and the streets filled with peo- ple carrying bundles. By ten o'clock, everyone was outside. The police were taking roll calls, once, twice, twenty times. The heat was oppressive. Sweat streamed from people's faces and bodies. Children were crying for water. Water! There was water close by inside the houses, the back- yards, but it was forbidden to break rank. “Water, Mother, I am thirsty!” Some of the Jewish police surreptitiously went to fill a few jugs. My sisters and I were still allowed to move about, as we were destined for the last convoy, and so we helped as best we could. AT LAST, at one o'clock in the afternoon came the signal to leave. There was joy, yes, joy. People must have thought there could be no greater torment in God's hell than that of being stranded here, on the sidewalk, among the bundles, in the middle of the street under a blazing sun. Anything seemed preferable to that. They began to walk without another glance at the abandoned streets, the dead, empty houses, the gardens, the tombstones… 16

On everyone's back, there was a sack. In everyone's eyes, tears and distress. Slowly, heavily, the procession advanced toward the gate of the ghetto. And there I was, on the sidewalk, watching them file past, un- able to move. Here came the Chief Rabbi, hunched over, his face strange looking without a beard, a bundle on his back. His very presence in the procession was enough to make the scene seem surreal. It was like a page torn from a book, a historical novel, per- haps, dealing with the captivity in Babylon or the Spanish Inqui- sition. They passed me by, one after the other, my teachers, my friends, the others, some of whom I had once feared, some of whom I had found ridiculous, all those whose lives I had shared for years. There they went, defeated, their bundles, their lives in tow, having left behind their homes, their childhood. They passed me by, like beaten dogs, with never a glance in my direction. They must have envied me. The procession disappeared around the corner. A few steps more and they were beyond the ghetto walls. The street resembled fairgrounds deserted in haste. There was a little of everything: suitcases, briefcases, bags, knives, dishes, banknotes, papers, faded portraits. All the things one planned to take along and finally left behind. They had ceased to matter. Open rooms everywhere. Gaping doors and windows looked out into the void. It all belonged to everyone since it no longer belonged to anyone. It was there for the taking. An open tomb. A summer sun. WE HAD SPENT the day without food. But we were not really hun- gry. We were exhausted. 17

My father had accompanied the deportees as far as the ghetto's gate. They first had been herded through the main syna- gogue, where they were thoroughly searched to make sure they were not carrying away gold, silver, or any other valuables. There had been incidents of hysteria and harsh blows. “When will it be our turn?” I asked my father. “The day after tomorrow. Unless…things work out. A mira- cle, perhaps…” Where were the people being taken? Did anyone know yet? No, the secret was well kept. Night had fallen. That evening, we went to bed early. My fa- ther said: “Sleep peacefully, children. Nothing will happen until the day after tomorrow, Tuesday.” Monday went by like a small summer cloud, like a dream in the first hours of dawn. Intent on preparing our backpacks, on baking breads and cakes, we no longer thought about anything. The verdict had been delivered. That evening, our mother made us go to bed early. To con- serve our strength, she said. It was to be the last night spent in our house. I was up at dawn. I wanted to have time to pray before leaving. My father had risen before all of us, to seek information in town. He returned around eight o'clock. Good news: we were not leaving town today; we were only moving to the small ghetto. That is where we were to wait for the last transport. We would be the last to leave. At nine o'clock, the previous Sunday's scenes were repeated. Policemen wielding clubs were shouting: “All Jews outside!” 18

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We were ready. I went out first. I did not want to look at my parents' faces. I did not want to break into tears. We remained sit- ting in the middle of the street, like the others two days earlier. The same hellish sun. The same thirst. Only there was no one left to bring us water. I looked at my house in which I had spent years seeking my God, fasting to hasten the coming of the Messiah, imagining what my life would be like later. Yet I felt little sadness. My mind was empty. “Get up! Roll call!” We stood. We were counted. We sat down. We got up again. Over and over. We waited impatiently to be taken away. What were they waiting for? Finally, the order came: “Forward! March!” My father was crying. It was the first time I saw him cry. I had never thought it possible. As for my mother, she was walking, her face a mask, without a word, deep in thought. I looked at my lit- tle sister, Tzipora, her blond hair neatly combed, her red coat over her arm: a little girl of seven. On her back a bag too heavy for her. She was clenching her teeth; she already knew it was useless to complain. Here and there, the police were lashing out with their clubs: “Faster!” I had no strength left. The journey had just be- gun and I already felt so weak… “Faster! Faster! Move, you lazy good-for-nothings!” the Hun- garian police were screaming. That was when I began to hate them, and my hatred remains our only link today. They were our first oppressors. They were the first faces of hell and death. They ordered us to run. We began to run. Who would have thought that we were so strong? From behind their windows, from behind their shutters, our fellow citizens watched as we passed. 19

We finally arrived at our destination. Throwing down our bun- dles, we dropped to the ground: “Oh God, Master of the Universe, in your infinite compassion, have mercy o n us…” THE SMALL GHETTO. Only three days ago, people were living here. People who owned the things we were using now. They had been expelled. And we had already forgotten all about them. The chaos was even greater here than in the large ghetto. Its inhabitants evidently had been caught by surprise. I visited the rooms that had been occupied by my Uncle Mendel's family. On the table, a half-finished bowl of soup. A platter of dough waiting to be baked. Everywhere on the floor there were books. Had my uncle meant to take them along? We settled in. (What a word!) I went looking for wood, my sisters lit a fire. Despite her fatigue, my mother began to prepare a meal. We cannot give up, we cannot give up, she kept repeating. People's morale was not so bad: we were beginning to get used to the situation. There were those who even voiced optimism. The Germans were running out of time to expel us, they argued… Tragically for those who had already been deported, it would be too late. As for us, chances were that we would be allowed to go on with our miserable little lives until the end of the war. The ghetto was not guarded. One could enter and leave as one pleased. Maria, our former maid, came to see us. Sobbing, she begged us to come with her to her village where she had prepared a safe shelter. My father wouldn't hear of it. He told me and my big sisters, "If you wish, go there. I shall stay here with your mother and the little one… Naturally, we refused to be separated. 20

NIGHT. No one was praying for the night to pass quickly. The stars were but sparks of the immense conflagration that was con- suming us. Were this conflagration to be extinguished one day, nothing would be left in the sky but extinct stars and unseeing eyes. There was nothing else to do but to go to bed, in the beds of those who had moved on. We needed to rest, to gather our strength. At daybreak, the gloom had lifted. The mood was more confi- dent. There were those who said: “Who knows, they may be sending us away for our own good. The front is getting closer, we shall soon hear the guns. And then surely the civilian population will be evacuated…” “They worry lest we join the partisans…” “As far as I'm concerned, this whole business of deportation is nothing but a big farce. Don't laugh. They just want to steal our valuables and jewelry. They know that it has all been buried and that they will have to dig to find it; so much easier to do when the owners are on vacation…” On vacation! This kind of talk that nobody believed helped pass the time. The few days we spent here went by pleasantly enough, in rela- tive calm. People rather got along. There no longer was any dis- tinction between rich and poor, notables and the others; we were all people condemned to the same fate—still unknown. SATURDAY, the day of rest, was the day chosen for our expulsion. The night before, we had sat down to the traditional Friday night meal. We had said the customary blessings over the bread 21

and the wine and swallowed the food in silence. We sensed that we were gathered around the familial table for the last time. I spent that night going over memories and ideas and was unable to fall asleep. At dawn, we were in the street, ready to leave. This time, there were no Hungarian police. It had been agreed that the Jew- ish Council would handle everything by itself. Our convoy headed toward the main synagogue. The town seemed deserted. But behind the shutters, our friends of yester- day were probably waiting for the moment when they could loot our homes. The synagogue resembled a large railroad station: baggage and tears. The altar was shattered, the wall coverings shredded, the walls themselves bare. There were so many of us, we could hardly breathe. The twenty-four hours we spent there were horrendous. The men were downstairs, the women upstairs. It was Saturday— the Sabbath—and it was as though we were there to attend ser- vices. Forbidden to go outside, people relieved themselves in a corner. The next morning, we walked toward the station, where a convoy of cattle cars was waiting. The Hungarian police made us climb into the cars, eighty persons in each one. They handed us some bread, a few pails of water. They checked the bars on the windows to make sure they would not come loose. The cars were sealed. One person was placed in charge of every car: if someone managed to escape, that person would be shot. Two Gestapo officers strolled down the length of the platform. They were all smiles; all things considered, it had gone very smoothly. A prolonged whistle pierced the air. The wheels began to grind. We were on our way. L YING DOWN was not an option, nor could we all sit down. We decided to take turns sitting. There was little air. The lucky ones found themselves near a window; they could watch the blooming countryside flit by. After two days of travel, thirst became intolerable, as did the heat. Freed of normal constraints, some of the young let go of their inhibitions and, under cover of darkness, caressed one another, without any thought of others, alone in the world. The others pre- tended not to notice. There was still some food left. But we never ate enough to satisfy our hunger. Our principle was to economize, to save for tomorrow. Tomorrow could be worse yet. The train stopped in Kaschau, a small town on the Czechoslo- vakian border. We realized then that we were not staying in Hun- gary. Our eyes opened. Too late. The door of the car slid aside. A German officer stepped in accompanied by a Hungarian lieutenant, acting as his interpreter. "From this moment on, you are under the authority of the 22

L YING DOWN was not an option, nor could we all sit down. We decided to take turns sitting. There was little air. The lucky ones found themselves near a window; they could watch the blooming countryside flit by. After two days of travel, thirst became intolerable, as did the heat. Freed of normal constraints, some of the young let go of their inhibitions and, under cover of darkness, caressed one another, without any thought of others, alone in the world. The others pre- tended not to notice. There was still some food left. But we never ate enough to satisfy our hunger. Our principle was to economize, to save for tomorrow. Tomorrow could be worse yet. The train stopped in Kaschau, a small town on the Czechoslo- vakian border. We realized then that we were not staying in Hun- gary. Our eyes opened. Too late. The door of the car slid aside. A German officer stepped in accompanied by a Hungarian lieutenant, acting as his interpreter. "From this moment on, you are under the authority of the 23

German Army. Anyone who still owns gold, silver, or watches must hand them over now. Anyone who will be found to have kept any of these will be shot on the spot. Secondly, anyone who is ill should report to the hospital car. That's all.“ The Hungarian lieutenant went around with a basket and re- trieved the last possessions from those who chose not to go on tasting the bitterness of fear. ”There are eighty of you in the car,“ the German officer added. ”If anyone goes missing, you will all be shot, like dogs.“ The two disappeared. The doors clanked shut. We had fallen into the trap, up to our necks. The doors were nailed, the way back irrevocably cut off. The world had become a hermetically sealed cattle car. THERE WAS A WOMAN among us, a certain Mrs. Schächter. She was in her fifties and her ten-year-old son was with her, crouched in a corner. Her husband and two older sons had been deported with the first transport, by mistake. The separation had totally shattered her. I knew her well. A quiet, tense woman with piercing eyes, she had been a frequent guest in our house. Her husband was a pious man who spent most of his days and nights in the house of study. It was she who supported the family. Mrs. Schächter had lost her mind. On the first day of the jour- ney, she had already begun to moan. She kept asking why she had been separated from her family. Later, her sobs and screams be- came hysterical. On the third night, as we were sleeping, some of us sitting, huddled against each other, some of us standing, a piercing cry broke the silence: ”Fire! I see a fire! I see a fire!" 24

There was a moment of panic. Who had screamed? It was Mrs. Schächter. Standing in the middle of the car, in the faint light fil- tering through the windows, she looked like a withered tree in a field of wheat. She was howling, pointing through the window: “Look! Look at this fire! This terrible fire! Have mercy on me!” Some pressed against the bars to see. There was nothing. Only the darkness of night. It took us a long time to recover from this harsh awakening. We were still trembling, and with every screech of the wheels, we felt the abyss opening beneath us. Unable to still our anguish, we tried to reassure each other: “She is mad, poor woman…” Someone had placed a damp rag on her forehead. But she nev- ertheless continued to scream: “Fire! I see a fire!” Her little boy was crying, clinging to her skirt, trying to hold her hand: “It's nothing, Mother! There's nothing there…Please sit down…” He pained me even more than did his mother's cries. Some of the women tried to calm her: “You'll see, you'll find your husband and sons again…In a few days…” She continued to scream and sob fitfully. “Jews, listen to me,” she cried. “I see a fire! I see flames, huge flames!” It was as though she were possessed by some evil spirit. We tried to reason with her, more to calm ourselves, to catch our breath, than to soothe her: “She is hallucinating because she is thirsty, poor woman… That's why she speaks of flames devouring her…” But it was all in vain. Our terror could no longer be contained. 25

Our nerves had reached a breaking point. Our very skin was aching. It was as though madness had infected all of us. We gave up. A few young men forced her to sit down, then bound and gagged her. Silence fell again. The small boy sat next to his mother, crying. I started to breathe normally again as I listened to the rhythmic pounding of the wheels on the tracks as the train raced through the night. We could begin to doze again, to rest, to dream… And so an hour or two passed. Another scream jolted us. The woman had broken free of her bonds and was shouting louder than before: “Look at the fire! Look at the flames! Flames everywhere…” Once again, the young men bound and gagged her. When they actually struck her, people shouted their approval: “Keep her quiet! Make that madwoman shut up. She's not the only one here…” She received several blows to the head, blows that could have been lethal. Her son was clinging desperately to her, not uttering a word. He was no longer crying. The night seemed endless. By daybreak, Mrs. Schächter had settled down. Crouching in her corner, her blank gaze fixed on some faraway place, she no longer saw us. She remained like that all day, mute, absent, alone in the midst of us. Toward evening she began to shout again: “The fire, over there!” She was pointing somewhere in the distance, always the same place. No one felt like beating her anymore. The heat, the thirst, the stench, the lack of air, were suffocating us. Yet all that was nothing compared to her screams, which tore us apart. A few more days and all of us would have started to scream. 26

But we were pulling into a station. Someone near a window read to us: “Auschwitz.” Nobody had ever heard that name. THE TRAIN did not move again. The afternoon went by slowly. Then the doors of the wagon slid open. Two men were given per- mission to fetch water. When they came back, they told us that they had learned, in exchange for a gold watch, that this was the final destination. We were to leave the train here. There was a labor camp on the site. The conditions were good. Families would not be separated. Only the young would work in the factories. The old and the sick would find work in the fields. Confidence soared. Suddenly we felt free of the previous nights' terror. We gave thanks to God. Mrs. Schächter remained huddled in her corner, mute, un- touched by the optimism around her. Her little one was stroking her hand. Dusk began to fill the wagon. We ate what was left of our food. At ten o'clock in the evening, we were all trying to find a position for a quick nap and soon we were dozing. Suddenly: “Look at the fire! Look at the flames! Over there!” With a start, we awoke and rushed to the window yet again. We had believed her, if only for an instant. But there was nothing outside but darkness. We returned to our places, shame in our souls but fear gnawing at us nevertheless. As she went on howl- ing, she was struck again. Only with great difficulty did we suc- ceed in quieting her down. The man in charge of our wagon called out to a German officer 27