Cursed Be the Child (34 page)

Gypsies wandered the Earth, refused to seek gainful employment and had dark skins, so they were sent to the death camps.

The Gypsies at Auschwitz “…were the best loved prisoners. They loved to play, even at work, which they never took quite seriously. I never saw a scowling, hateful expression on a Gypsy’s face. They would often play their musical instruments or let their children dance…”

This was written by Rudolf Hoess, commandant of Auschwitz, as he awaited his own sentence of death for war crimes. He stated he genuinely liked his Gypsies, and he found it quite painful and difficult to have 16,000 of them killed. He was, he explained, a sensitive man, and what was particularly hard on him was that he “knew almost every one of them individually. They were by nature as trusting as children.”

Stefan Grinzspan did not see any dancing Gypsy children, but he did get to know one little Gypsy, a boy of perhaps six or seven, who was all over the camp foraging for food. The child had brilliantly black eyes, and just once, Stefan would have liked to see him smile. Because Stefan worked in the kitchens, sometimes he could smuggle a rotting black potato or a turnip to the boy.

One day, luck ran out, as it had or would for most of the prisoners of Auschwitz. Stefan Grinzspan slipped the Gypsy boy half a piece of white bread, and then froze at
“Nein!”

SS Lieutenant Hans Kraus, blond and youthful, was new to Auschwitz. A blanched face showed he was not accustomed to the pervasive stink of filth and burning corpses. His contemplative blue eyes, and sad, full mouth made him look as though the world had treated him unjustly.

“Bitte,”
Lieutenant Hans Kraus said, “please, Jew, don’t tell me that I saw you give the boy a piece of bread. I do not want to think ill of you.”

Stefan Grinzspan thought, I am going to be killed.
“Nein,”
he said. But Hans Kraus did not look like a man who could or would kill anyone. There were Germans who surreptitiously found ways to lighten the misery for the prisoners, even to save temporarily a few from the gas chambers. Even in the wickedest place on Earth, not everyone was wicked.

“Good,” Lieutenant Kraus said. He crooked his finger, ordering the Gypsy boy to him. For a moment, it seemed as though the child would take flight, but then he approached the officer. “If the Jew did not give you the bread, little boy, then you must have stolen it.” Lieutenant Kraus smiled conspiratorially, and the boy shrugged with comic assent.

The officer sighed. “This is not an easy time for children or Jews or any of us.” Then he said,
“Ess der brote, klein kind.”
Eat the bread, little child.

In two ravenous gulps, the boy devoured it.

“Was it good?” Lieutenant Kraus asked.

The boy nodded that it was.

“I am glad,” Lieutenant Kraus said. Then he grabbed the child and held him pinned tightly against himself, as he unsnapped the flap of his holster, took out the Luger and chambered a round.

As Stefan Grinzspan watched, the SS officer whirled the child away from him, seized him by the hair, put the pistol to the center of his forehead and fired. A bloody wad of brain hit Stefan Grinzspan on the chin and a hard piece of bone struck him in the ribs.

Stefan Grinzspan survived Auschwitz. Rather, something of Stefan Grinzspan was eventually liberated to come to New York. He had some money, reparations from a Germany forced to pay a pittance to those it had not been able to kill, and so he opened a small haberdashery.

He seldom laughed, and he never cried. He walked as though he were always tired and his feet hurt. Not infrequently, he dreamed of the Gypsy boy, saw him with a crumb of bread on his lip, his head shattered, and heard him accuse, ‘You murdered me.’

The dream was true. He had killed the Gypsy child. Stefan Grinzspan, the Polish Jew, became a devout Jew, an observant Jew, one who prayed at the neighborhood storefront shul morning, afternoon and evening. Daily, he sought forgiveness, and, on
Yom Kippur,
Most Holy Day of Atonement, he begged God for absolution—but did not receive it.

To be forgiven, to atone, to be at one with your fellow man, with yourself, and therefore with God, you must redress your wrongs and attain pardon of the one against whom you have sinned.

The Gypsy child was dead. Stefan Grinzspan was lost. Always he would know the joyless life of an automaton, a human impostor, always carrying the ponderous immensity of his sin. That is what he believed.

But that was not how it worked. He met a woman. Her name was Sarah the way the immigration authorities spelled it, but Sora in Yiddish, in the
mama-loschen,
the mother tongue. Sora understood this man who lived what was, at best, a half-life, because she, too, had a blue number tattooed on her forearm. Neither of them might ever know happiness, but, at least, when the nights were black and endless, he would not be alone and she would not be alone. It was reason enough to marry.

Happy was a word neither might have used, but they did feel as though they belonged together. And there were moments that seemed to sneak up on them, take them utterly by surprise, moments neither of them trusted because they were so nice. Once was kindling Sabbath candles as the ancient, sweet, flickering light engulfed them both. Another time was when Sora spontaneously began singing a silly old Yiddish song, and he sang along, and then they each had a glass of wine, a little Mogen David, and that night they made very nice love.

They had a child, a boy. They named him David or Duvid. The eighth day after the birth, at his son’s
bris,
Stefan Grinzspan got tipsy on schnapps and wept and danced.

He loved the boy. He was surprised by his own ferocious love, its penetrating intensity. He was totally astounded that he could love. But, oh, he loved this gurgling, drooling, baby boy, this David. He loved him. He loved his wife. He had given over unto despair—and now, he was raised up. Now he understood that surely goodness and mercy, as God had promised, were to be his.

Then, when David was four, Sora caught cold. She got tired with a tiredness that would not go away. From diagnosis to death, her acute leukemia required three and a half months.

The child could not be comforted. He cried ceaselessly; he could not understand why his mother was gone.

But Stefan Grinzspan understood. Happiness or any thought of it was cruelly taunting illusion. It was not meant for him nor for his son while upon his head and his soul was blood sin. He was damned and damnation descended even unto the seventh generation.

Then salvation presented itself, although he did not at first realize it.

A family of Gypsies, with the Hungarian name Hovarth, moved into the store across the street from Stefan Grinzspan’s haberdashery. The storefront became
ofisa,
a fortune telling parlor with living quarters in the rear. Signs proclaimed that “Madame Tona Hovarth, Psychic Adviser to European Royalty and Hollywood Stars” was giving consultations. On the streets for blocks around, Hovarth children, aged six to 12, passed out handbills and panhandled.

Every day, from his store, Stefan spied on the Gypsies. At first, he tried to tell himself he hated them because they made him hate himself even more than he had thought possible.

 
Then one day, Stefan saw the Gypsy man lounging with a cigarette at the
ofisa
entrance-way. That seemed to be his sole occupation. Loafers and thieves, Stefan forced himself to think.

The Gypsy was barrel-chested and barrel-gutted, swarthy, perhaps 50; he had a gray and black walrus mustache and wore a hat, a comic, droopy brimmed Panama. He was an unremarkable enough Gypsy, not differing greatly from many you might find in numerous American cities, but on this fair, warm day the sleeves of the man’s none too clean white shirt were rolled up to the elbow, and Stefan noted the blue numbers on the man’s heavy forearm.

Stefan Grinzspan closed his store and crossed the street. He stood in front of the Gypsy. The Gypsy smoked a Lucky Strike and said nothing.

Stefan rolled up his own sleeve.

The Gypsy nodded. “Hitlari bastards,” he said. ““In your name and in mine, for all the innocent who suffered, I call down an
armaya.
” His tone as reverential as he pronounced the Romany curse. “May the brains of the hitlari burst and their blood pour out of their ears and their eyes, and may even their shadows know pain and cast a stink in the nostrils of good people.”

The Gypsy flicked the butt of his cigarette onto the sidewalk. “You a Jew?”

Stefan said, “Yes.”

“Jews are okay,” the Gypsy said. He pointed to Stefan’s ever present yarmulke. “Jews got sense about important things. Like us Gypsies. You know you keep your head covered to show God you got respect for Him.”

The Gypsy held out his hand. “I guess we want to be friends, okay?” Stefan Grinzspan told the Gypsy his name and learned that Big Hovarth was as good a name as any for the big man. Because, Big Hovarth said, it was what friends do, they went into the
ofisa,
the women hurrying to serve them brandy and then hurrying out of the way so as not to annoy the men. In the back, they sat and they talked.

Many days they talked like this. The more Stefan got to know Big Hovarth, the more sure he was that God in His mercy had granted him the opportunity of redemption. At last, he had a chance to atone, to set right the balance of his personal universe.

There was no question that Big Hovarth and the Hovarth clan were good people. There was no question that Big Hovarth loved his sons and his daughters. That was the Romany way. “We Gypsies love our kids and we honor our old people. Maybe that’s why we don’t always get along with the Gaje, heh?”

“I, too, love my son David very much,” Stefan Grinzspan said. “And I worry about him. I have to do what is right for him, you see?”

Not fully understanding, Big Hovarth still nodded solemnly. Doing what is right was how a Rom was obliged to live.

“I want my son to be cared for. I want him to be with people who love children, people who will be kind to him and teach him to live properly.”

“That is what all good men wish for their sons,” Big Hovarth said.

“But I must do more than wish,” Stefan said. “I must insure that this will be his fate, for you see, my friend, I will soon be dead.”

Big Hovarth stroked his mustache for a time, then said, “You are going to die soon?”

“Yes.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“I will regret it,” Big Hovarth said. “I will light candles in memory of you.”

“I must ask more than that of you, Big Hovarth,” Stefan Grinzspan said. “I want you to take my David and raise him as your own.”

Once more, the Gypsy took a long time to respond. “Is this what you truly want?”

Stefan Grinzspan thought, My son is dearer to me than my own life. I must give him up, for his sake and mine. Atonement. “Yes,” he said. “I have money. I will give you money.”

“You have asked a favor of me. I am your friend. Whatever a friend requests is a Rom’s obligation and his honor.” Big Hovarth nodded. “Three days, the Hovarth
kumpania
moves on. Detroit, maybe. Chicago. Your son will be with us.”

That night, Stefan tried to explain this to David. He told the boy that, like Mama had had to go away forever, soon Papa must go as well.

Hysterical, arms around Stefan’s neck, his tears soaking his neck and cheek, the boy screamed, “No, I love you! You cannot leave me!”

“I must,” Stefan said. “You will be taken care of. My good friend, Big Hovarth, and his family will look after you. You will be a son of their family, a Gypsy boy.”

As I have taken a child from the Gypsies, now I restore one!

“You will see, David, they will love you. You will love them.”

David jerked away from his father. “I loved Mama and she left me! I love you and you are going to leave me! It hurts here and it hurts here.” He drummed his fists against his chest and belly. “It hurts too much. Too much!” He beat himself harder. “No! I won’t ever love anyone again. You hurt too much when they…”