Night (8 page)

soup stains on his face, the only victim. The cauldrons were car- ried back to the kitchen. The SS were back at their posts in the watchtowers, behind their machine guns. Intermission was over. An hour later, we saw the Kommandos returning, in step as al- ways. Happily, I caught sight of my father. “Several buildings were flattened,” he said, “but the depot was not touched…” In the afternoon, we cheerfully went to clear the ruins. ONE WEEK LATER, as we returned from work, there, in the middle of the camp, in the Appelplatz, stood a black gallows. We learned that soup would be distributed only after roll call, which lasted longer than usual. The orders were given more harshly than on other days, and there were strange vibrations in the air. “Caps off!” the Lagerälteste suddenly shouted. Ten thousand caps came off at once. “Cover your heads!” Ten thousand caps were back on our heads, at lightning speed. The camp gate opened. An SS unit appeared and encircled us: one SS every three paces. The machine guns on the watchtowers were pointed toward the Appelplatz. “They're expecting trouble,” whispered Juliek. Two SS were headed toward the solitary confinement cell. They came back, the condemned man between them. He was a young boy from Warsaw. An inmate with three years in concentra- tion camps behind him. He was tall and strong, a giant compared to me. His back was to the gallows, his face turned toward his judge, the head of the camp. He was pale but seemed more solemn than 61

frightened. His manacled hands did not tremble. His eyes were coolly assessing the hundreds of SS guards, the thousands of pris- oners surrounding him. The Lagerälteste began to read the verdict, emphasizing every word: “In the name of Reichsführer Himmler…prisoner number … stole during the air raid…according to the law…prisoner number…is condemned to death. Let this be a warning and an example to all prisoners.” Nobody moved. I heard the pounding of my heart. The thousands of people who died daily in Auschwitz and Birkenau, in the crematoria, no longer troubled me. But this boy, leaning against his gallows, up- set me deeply. “This ceremony, will it be over soon? I'm hungry…” whis- pered Juliek. At a sign of the Lagerälteste, the Lagerkapo stepped up to the condemned youth. He was assisted by two prisoners. In exchange for two bowls of soup. The Kapo wanted to blindfold the youth, but he refused. After what seemed like a long moment, the hangman put the rope around his neck. He was about to signal his aides to pull the chair from under the young man's feet when the latter shouted, in a strong and calm voice: “Long live liberty! My curse on Germany! My curse! My—” The executioner had completed his work. Like a sword, the order cut through the air: “Caps off!” Ten thousand prisoners paid their respects. “Cover your heads!” Then the entire camp, block after block, filed past the hanged 62

boy and stared at his extinguished eyes, the tongue hanging from his gaping mouth. The Kapos forced everyone to look him squarely in the face. Afterward, we were given permission to go back to our block and have our meal. I remember that on that evening, the soup tasted better than ever… I WATCHED other hangings. I never saw a single victim weep. These withered bodies had long forgotten the bitter taste of tears. Except once. The Oberkapo of the Fifty-second Cable Kom- mando was a Dutchman: a giant of a man, well over six feet. He had some seven hundred prisoners under his command, and they all loved him like a brother. Nobody had ever endured a blow or even an insult from him. In his “service” was a young boy, a pipel, as they were called. This one had a delicate and beautiful face—an incredible sight in this camp. (In Buna, the pipe- were hated; they often displayed greater cruelty than their elders. I once saw one of them, a boy of thir- teen, beat his father for not making his bed properly. As the old man quietly wept, the boy was yelling: “If you don't stop crying instantly, I will no longer bring you bread. Understood?” But the Dutchman's little servant was beloved by all. His was the face of an angel in distress.) One day the power failed at the central electric plant in Buna. The Gestapo, summoned to inspect the damage, concluded that it was sabotage. They found a trail. It led to the block of the Dutch Oberkapo. And after a search, they found a significant quan- tity of weapons. 63

The Oberkapo was arrested on the spot. He was tortured for weeks on end, in vain. He gave no names. He was transferred to Auschwitz. And never heard from again. But his young pipel remained behind, in solitary confinement. He too was tortured, but he too remained silent. The SS then condemned him to death, him and two other inmates who had been found to possess arms. One day, as we returned from work, we saw three gallows, three black ravens, erected on the Appelplatz. Roll call. The SS surrounding us, machine guns aimed at us: the usual ritual. Three prisoners in chains—and, among them, the little pipel, the sad- eyed angel. The SS seemed more preoccupied, more worried, than usual. To hang a child in front of thousands of onlookers was not a small matter. The head of the camp read the verdict. All eyes were on the child. He was pale, almost calm, but he was biting his lips as he stood in the shadow of the gallows. This time, the Lagerkapo refused to act as executioner. Three SS took his place. The three condemned prisoners together stepped onto the chairs. In unison, the nooses were placed around their necks. “Long live liberty!” shouted the two men. But the boy was silent. “Where is merciful God, where is He?” someone behind me was asking. At the signal, the three chairs were tipped over. Total silence in the camp. On the horizon, the sun was setting. “Caps off!” screamed the Lagerälteste. His voice quivered. As for the rest of us, we were weeping. “Cover your heads!” Then came the march past the victims. The two men were no longer alive. Their tongues were hanging out, swollen and bluish. 64

But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing… And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering be- tween life and death, writhing before our eyes. And we were forced to look at him at close range. He was still alive when I passed him. His tongue was still red, his eyes not yet extin- guished. Behind me, I heard the same man asking: “For God's sake, where is God?” And from within me, I heard a voice answer: “Where He is? This is where—hanging here from this gal- lows…” That night, the soup tasted of corpses. 65

T HE SUMMER was coming to an end. The Jewish year was almost over. On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the last day of that cursed year, the entire camp was agitated and every one of us felt the tension. After all, this was a day unlike all others. The last day of the year. The word “last” had an odd ring to it. What if it really were the last day? The evening meal was distributed, an especially thick soup, but nobody touched it. We wanted to wait until after prayer. On the Appelplatz, surrounded by electrified barbed wire, thousands of Jews, anguish on their faces, gathered in silence. Night was falling rapidly. And more and more prisoners kept coming, from every block, suddenly able to overcome time and space, to will both into submission. What are You, my God? I thought angrily. How do You com- pare to this stricken mass gathered to affirm to You their faith, their anger, their defiance? What does Your grandeur mean, Mas- ter of the Universe, in the face of all this cowardice, this decay, and this misery? Why do you go on troubling these poor people's wounded minds, their ailing bodies? 66

SOME TEN THOUSAND MEN had come to participate in a solemn service, including the Blockälteste, the Kapos, all bureaucrats in the service of Death. “Blessed be the Almighty…” The voice of the officiating inmate had just become audible. At first I thought it was the wind. “Blessed be God's name…” Thousands of lips repeated the benediction, bent over like trees in a storm. Blessed be God's name? Why, but why would I bless Him? Every fiber in me rebelled. Because He caused thousands of children to burn in His mass graves? Because He kept six crematoria working day and night, including Sabbath and the Holy Days? Because in His great might, He had created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many other factories of death? How could I say to Him: Blessed be Thou, Almighty, Master of the Universe, who chose us among all nations to be tortured day and night, to watch as our fathers, our mothers, our brothers end up in the furnaces? Praised be Thy Holy Name, for having chosen us to be slaughtered on Thine altar? I listened as the inmate's voice rose; it was powerful yet bro- ken, amid the weeping, the sobbing, the sighing of the entire “congregation”: “All the earth and universe are God's!” He kept pausing, as though he lacked the strength to uncover the meaning beneath the text. The melody was stifled in his throat. And I, the former mystic, was thinking: Yes, man is stronger, greater than God. When Adam and Eve deceived You, You chased 67

them from paradise. When You were displeased by Noah's gener- ation, You brought down the Flood. When Sodom lost Your favor, You caused the heavens to rain down fire and damnation. But look at these men whom You have betrayed, allowing them to be tor- tured, slaughtered, gassed, and burned, what do they do? They pray before You! They praise Your name! “All of creation bears witness to the Greatness of God!” In days gone by, Rosh Hashanah had dominated my life. I knew that my sins grieved the Almighty and so I pleaded for for- giveness. In those days, I fully believed that the salvation of the world depended on every one of my deeds, on every one of my prayers. But now, I no longer pleaded for anything. I was no longer able to lament. On the contrary, I felt very strong. I was the ac- cuser, God the accused. My eyes had opened and I was alone, ter- ribly alone in a world without God, without man. Without love or mercy. I was nothing but ashes now, but I felt myself to be stronger than this Almighty to whom my life had been bound for so long. In the midst of these men assembled for prayer, I felt like an observer, a stranger. The service ended with Kaddish. Each of us recited Kaddish for his parents, for his children, and for himself. We remained standing in the Appelplatz for a long time, unable to detach ourselves from this surreal moment. Then came the time to go to sleep, and slowly the inmates returned to their blocks. I thought I heard them wishing each other a Happy New Year! I ran to look for my father. At the same time I was afraid of having to wish him a happy year in which I no longer believed. He was leaning against the wall, bent shoulders sagging as if un- der a heavy load. I went up to him, took his hand and kissed it. I felt a tear on my hand. Whose was it? Mine? His? I said nothing. 68

Nor did he. Never before had we understood each other so clearly. The sound of the bell brought us back to reality. We had to go to bed. We came back from very far away, I looked up at my fa- ther's face, trying to glimpse a smile or something like it on his stricken face. But there was nothing. Not the shadow of an ex- pression. Defeat. YOM KIPPUR. The Day of Atonement. Should we fast? The ques- tion was hotly debated. To fast could mean a more certain, more rapid death. In this place, we were always fasting. It was Yom Kip- pur year-round. But there were those who said we should fast, precisely because it was dangerous to do so. We needed to show God that even here, locked in hell, we were capable of singing His praises. I did not fast. First of all, to please my father who had forbid- den me to do so. And then, there was no longer any reason for me to fast. I no longer accepted God's silence. As I swallowed my ra- tion of soup, I turned that act into a symbol of rebellion, of protest against Him. And I nibbled on my crust of bread. Deep inside me, I felt a great void opening. THE SS OFFERED us a beautiful present for the new year. We had just returned from work. As soon as we passed the camp's entrance, we sensed something out of the ordinary in the air. The roll call was shorter than usual. The evening soup was distributed at great speed, swallowed as quickly. We were anxious. I was no longer in the same block as my father. They had 69

transferred me to another Kommando, the construction one, where twelve hours a day I hauled heavy slabs of stone. The head of my new block was a German Jew, small with piercing eyes. That evening he announced to us that henceforth no one was al- lowed to leave the block after the evening soup. A terrible word began to circulate soon thereafter: selection. We knew what it meant. An SS would examine us. Whenever he found someone extremely frail—a “Muselman” was what we called those inmates—he would write down his number: good for the crematorium. After the soup, we gathered between the bunks. The veterans told us: “You're lucky to have been brought here so late. Today, this is paradise compared to what the camp was two years ago. Back then, Buna was a veritable hell. No water, no blankets, less soup and bread. At night, we slept almost naked and the temper- ature was thirty below. We were collecting corpses by the hun- dreds every day. Work was very hard. Today, this is a little paradise. The Kapos back then had orders to kill a certain number of prisoners every day. And every week, selection. A merciless selection…Yes, you are lucky.” “Enough! Be quiet!” I begged them. “Tell your stories tomor- row, or some other day.” They burst out laughing. They were not veterans for nothing. “Are you scared? We too were scared. And, at that time, for good reason.” The old men stayed in their corner, silent, motionless, hunted-down creatures. Some were praying. One more hour. Then we would know the verdict: death or reprieve. And my father? I first thought of him now. How would he pass selection? He had aged so much… Our Blockälteste had not been outside a concentration camp 70

since 1933. He had already been through all the slaughterhouses, all the factories of death. Around nine o'clock, he came to stand in our midst: “Achtung!” There was instant silence. “Listen carefully to what I am about to tell you.” For the first time, his voice quivered. “In a few moments, selection will take place. You will have to undress completely. Then you will go, one by one, before the SS doctors. I hope you will all pass. But you must try to increase your chances. Before you go into the next room, try to move your limbs, give yourself some color. Don't walk slowly, run! Run as if you had the devil at your heels! Don't look at the SS. Run, straight in front of you!” He paused and then added: “And most important, don't be afraid!” That was a piece of advice we would have loved to be able to follow. I undressed, leaving my clothes on my cot. Tonight, there was no danger that they would be stolen. Tibi and Yossi, who had changed Kommandos at the same time I did, came to urge me: “Let's stay together. It will make us stronger.” Yossi was mumbling something. He probably was praying. I had never suspected that Yossi was religious. In fact, I had always believed the opposite. Tibi was silent and very pale. All the block inmates stood naked between the rows of bunks. This must be how one stands for the Last Judgment. “They are coming!” Three SS officers surrounded the notorious Dr. Mengele, the very same who had received us in Birkenau. The Blockälteste at- tempted a smile. He asked us: “Ready?” 71