The Story of a Life (6 page)

Gustav Gotesman was a well-known communist, and he had been arrested on more than one occasion. When he
was arrested, his deputy, also a short man and a communist, would take his place. Were it not for his utter devotion, the institute’s board of governors would have fired him. The respectable tradesmen who sat on the board claimed that Gustav was teaching the children communism, that his influence on them was detrimental, and that when they grew up they would disseminate the poison they were imbibing. However, the more canny tradesmen on the board had no such misgivings; they claimed that it wasn’t important what Gotesman was teaching—what mattered was his complete dedication. They argued that communists who were blind from birth presented no danger; on the contrary, communist dogmas would sound ridiculous in their mouths.

The bickering among the members of the board did not abate. One of the tradesmen, whose contribution amounted to half the institute’s budget, was a religious man. He set two conditions: religious studies and Sabbath observance in the institute. The argument continued for some time. Eventually a compromise was reached: religious studies twice a week, and prayer on the Sabbath eve.

The religious-studies teacher who was brought in to the institute was the son of the Rabbi of Zjadov. He duly came twice a week to teach the children Hebrew and Torah; on Friday night he led the prayers. The children loved his teaching and the prayers. It was not long before the Sabbath-eve prayer became famous throughout the town. People would gather by the railings and listen with wonder.

Gustav Gotesman did not give up. He claimed that the children’s prayer was not prayer but song, and that music, not religious beliefs, directed the course of their lives. He said that the time when religion held sway had long passed, and that now there was only the belief in man, in his capacity to change, to build a just society, and to sacrifice himself for others.
It was this belief that he would drum into the children day and night, and instead of the prayer “Hear, O Israel,” which they should have said every night, he composed a song that was called “Hear, O Man,” in which man was called upon to give of himself to whoever needed him. Like every believer, Gotesman was also a fanatic. He waged his war against the son of the Rabbi of Zjadov using all the means at his disposal. However, there was one thing that he was forbidden to do, and that was to preach that religion was the opiate of the people. Still, although he was indeed prevented from declaring this in public, in private he whispered whatever he whispered.

The struggle came to an end in 1941. Overnight, the Institute for the Blind, which was in the poor area of town, became the very center of the ghetto. Songs were constantly bursting forth from its windows, and the melodies spread out over the ghetto, wafting over its persecuted residents till darkness.

No one knew what the next day would bring, but the blind children apparently knew more than we did. They guessed that the future wasn’t too bright. One of their songs was sung again and again each evening: “Death Should Die.” In time, it became the institute’s anthem. It was a song with a firm rhythm, and it sounded like a defiant elegy.

Gotesman worked day and night with the children. Most of his lessons were in music, but in the intervals he would drum his beliefs into them: the extreme conditions in which we find ourselves must not destroy our belief in people; we must help the weak even if it means sharing our last crust of bread with them; true communism means not only a more equitable division of wealth but also giving with all one’s heart.

On October 13, 1942, the director of the Institute for the Blind was ordered to bring his children to the railway station.
The children dressed in their Sabbath best; each put a book in Braille in his backpack, along with a plate, a mug, a fork, a spoon, and a change of clothes. Gotesman explained to them that the road to the railway station was not a long one, and that they would make five brief stops en route. At these stops they would sing classical songs and Yiddish songs. When they reached the railway station, they would sing their anthem. The children were excited, but not frightened. Their eyes widened with anticipation. They understood that from now on they would be called upon to do things that had not yet been required of them.

The first stop was the Emperor’s Well. It was famous in the town for its excellent water. Orthodox Jews, however, did not use it, since it was used by all the townsfolk, and the owner of the inn and the non-Jewish butcher would draw from it. At this first stop, the children sang songs by Schubert. There was a strong wind near the well, and the children strained to raise their voices. No one was there apart from them, and their song sounded like a prayer. Gotesman was usually careful not to criticize the children outside the confines of the institute. This time, however, he contravened his own rules and said, “The song is sacred, and even under trying conditions, none of its notes should be overlooked.”

At the second stop, in Labor Square, there was also no one waiting for them. The children sang a song from Bach, and Gotesman was satisfied with their rendering. It was at this square, on the first day of May, that Jewish communists would gather. The assembly never lasted more than a few minutes, for the police would spring out, swinging their clubs at the demonstrators to disperse them. This time, however, there was not a soul in the square, except for some Ukrainian youths who had climbed the trees that surrounded it and threw stones as they shouted, “Jews to the cattle cars!”

At the third stop, women brought the children water and slices of bread spread with oil. The children were happy with this warm reception and sang Yiddish songs. When they finished singing, the women didn’t want to let them go. “We won’t give you our children!” they shouted. Gotesman intervened and said, “We’ll go along with everyone else. We are no different from anyone. Whatever happens to everyone will happen to us as well.” One woman could not restrain herself and yelled, “Communist!”

At the fourth stop, next to the ghetto’s fence, many emotional people were waiting for them and showered them with gifts. One man on a balcony shouted at the top of his voice, “We love you, children, and soon we’ll meet again. We’ll never, ever forget how you sang. You were the angelic choirboys of our ghetto.”

By turns, the children sang classical songs and folk songs. Even part of a Verdi opera. Here, too, women surrounded the children and didn’t allow them to continue on their way. But now they were no longer on their own. The soldiers posted alongside the ghetto’s fence began swinging their clubs, and all at once, the singing ceased.

On the narrow road to the railway station, the children halted and again broke into song. The guards must have been taken by surprise and let them sing at first, but not for long. They immediately set upon the children with their clubs, and the children, who were holding one another’s hands, trembled as one body. “Don’t be afraid, children,” Gotesman whispered, and they managed to overcome their pain. At the railway station, they still managed to sing their anthem in its entirety before being pushed into the cattle cars.

I MET WONDERFUL PEOPLE during the long years of the war. In a way, it was a pity that it went by in such a blur, and that I was only a child. During the war, children were ignored. Children were like the straw on which everyone trod. But there were some remarkable people who, amid the great confusion, comforted an abandoned child, gave him a slice of bread, or threw a coat around him.

On the way to the Ukraine, at a railway station filled with people being deported, I saw a woman taking care of an abandoned child. He must have been about four years old. The child had a full head of hair, and the woman was sitting on some luggage and combing his hair out with long, slow strokes, as if they were in a public park and not a chaotic station. The child’s pale face was full of wonder; he seemed to understand that this was a special act of kindness that happens but once in a lifetime.

In the evening, a large freight train pulled into the station, and the doors gaped open. Ukrainian soldiers were lashing about with their whips, and there was tremendous
confusion. The woman, who must have known what was awaiting us, urged the child to run away. She showed him a passageway under the stairs, but the child clung to her legs and pleaded, “I don’t want to.” When she tried to drag him, he whispered, “I’m afraid.”

“You mustn’t be afraid,” said the woman, raising her voice.

“I’m afraid,” the child repeated, as if asking that she take his words into her heart.

“But you mustn’t be afraid,” she repeated in a sharp voice.

When he heard her tone, the boy’s whole body seemed to shrink.

“I’m angry with you!” The woman stood up, forcibly pulling at the child’s small arms. But the child clung to her ankles without moving.

“If you don’t run away, I’ll give you a thrashing!” she threatened. This only made the child clutch even harder at her ankles.

“Get out of here!
Go!”
She changed her tone, speaking to him as if he weren’t a child but a puppy dog.

The child resisted even more.

“I’ll beat you,” she said, and pulled at one of her legs. But the child’s grasp must have been strong. There were people shoving at the woman from all sides, and she, in sheer despair, raised her voice and shouted, “Take him from me! I can’t stand it any longer!”

No one paid any attention to her or to her shouts. Everyone was being pushed into the the freight cars, which looked too narrow to contain so many people. Eventually someone trod on the child’s body, and he slid off her legs. This must have given the woman some relief, for she lifted up her bundle and was borne off by those pushing straight into an open car. The child was swallowed up by all the legs.

“Tina!” A child’s voice could suddenly be heard, distinct from all the others.

“What do you want?” The woman raised her voice so that it would be heard.

“Tina!” the child repeated, with unmistakable pleading.

The woman threw away the bundle. With an abrupt movement she managed to extricate herself from the press of people pushing and shoving and to return to the spot from which she had been pushed.

“Where are you?” she called, searching for the child on the ground.

Finally, she found him. He was lying on the ground, bleeding. She bent down and pulled him into a corner that was somewhat sheltered from the whipping and lashing.

She bent down to him, wiped his bleeding face with her dress, and said in a whisper, “What did you do?” The child opened his eyes wide. “I have to go. What can I do? You have to understand this.”

The pressure and the noise intensified, and the woman made one final attempt, shouting out her instructions. “Go right to the passageway under the stairs. It will take you from the platform straight out to the fields. Don’t tell anyone that you’re Jewish. You hear? Get up, now—do you hear me?”

One could see that the child had understood, but apparently he didn’t have the strength to move.

“Run! Get out of here!” she urged him.

But there was no reaction from the child, so she took hold of him and lifted him up. In a voice that did not seem to be her own, the woman shouted, “Clear the way, there’s an injured child here!”

The pressure was great, and no one paid any attention to her, but, overcome by a force far greater than her own, the woman was pushed straight into one of the freight cars and was immediately swallowed up.

MORE THAN FIFTY YEARS have passed since the end of the war. I have forgotten much, even things that were very close to me—places in particular, dates, and the names of people—and yet I can still sense those days in every part of my body. Whenever it rains, it’s cold, or a fierce wind is blowing, I am taken back to the ghetto, to the camp, or to the forests where I spent many days. Memory, it seems, has deep roots in the body. Sometimes just the smell of rotting straw, or the sharp call of a bird, is enough to take me back, piercing me deep inside.

I say inside, although I still haven’t found the words to give voice to those intense scars on my memory. Over the years I tried, on more than one occasion, to go back and touch the planks on which we slept in the camp, and to taste the watery soup that was doled out there. But all this effort yielded no more than jumbled phrases, incorrect words, disjointed rhythm, weak or exaggerated characters. Profound experience, I’ve already learned, is easily distorted. This time,
too, I won’t attempt to put my hand into this fire. It’s not what happened in the camp that I’ll be recounting, but what happened to those who escaped from it, as I did in the autumn of 1942, when I was ten years old.

I don’t remember entering the forest, but I do remember the moment when I stood before a tree laden with red apples. I was so astonished that I took a few steps back. More than my conscious mind does, my body seems to remember those steps backward. If ever I make a wrong movement, or unexpectedly stumble backward, I see the tree with the red apples. It had been two days since any food had passed my lips, and here was a tree full of apples. I could have put out my hand and picked them, but I just stood in wonderment, and the longer I stood there, the deeper the silence that took root in me.

Finally, I sat down and ate a small apple that was on the ground and was partially rotten. After I had eaten it, I must have fallen asleep. When I awoke, the sky had already turned dusky. I didn’t know what to do, so I got up on my knees. This position, too, on my knees, I feel to this very day. Any time I’m kneeling, I remember the sunset that was glowing through the trees and I feel happy.

It was only on the following day that I picked an apple from the tree. It was hard and sour, and biting it hurt my teeth, but I kept on chewing, and the pulp went down my constricted throat.

After a few days without food, one’s hunger becomes dulled. I didn’t stir from that place. It seemed to me that I shouldn’t leave the apple tree or the ditch alongside it. But thirst drove me on, and I went to look for water. For an entire day I searched, and only toward evening did I find a stream. I knelt down and drank. The water opened my eyes, and I saw my mother, whom I hadn’t been able to visualize for many days. First I saw her standing by the window and gazing out of
it, as she used to. But then she suddenly turned to me, wondering how I came to be alone in the forest. I walked toward her, but I immediately understood that if I went too far I’d lose sight of the stream, and so I stopped. I returned to the stream and looked into the same beam of light through which Mother had been revealed to me, but it was closed.