“Are you a priest?” he asked.
Daniel said to him, “Have no doubt about that, Brother, for more than 30 years. Do you not believe me?”
He opened his briefcase and took out his monk’s scapular.
“Now do you believe me? I also have a cross, though not as large as yours,” he said smiling. Fyodor did not smile back. He was wearing an extremely large wooden pectoral cross.
We walked through the gates of the park, turned left through the old cemetery, and began climbing the mountain. We left the famous Qumran caves behind us to our right and walked for quite a long time to the end of the path. Fyodor told us we would now need to keep close behind him, put our feet were he did, and hold on with our hands to the ledges he would cling to.
It was nothing short of rock climbing. Some rocks crumbled beneath our feet while others were firm. He knew them all and it was clear he often climbed up here. We dragged ourselves to a small flat area situated not on the summit but slightly to one side and in the shade, at least in the morning. During the day everything here was a sun trap. There was a narrow crevice into the cave. Daniel could barely squeeze through. I wanted to look in but Fyodor would not allow it. I saw only that an oil lamp was burning in there.
Daniel and Fyodor agreed on how they would conduct the funeral service, who would recite what. Fyodor asked Daniel to conduct the liturgy over the dead body as if over the relics of a saint. Daniel nodded. He put on his cross and prayed. He went into the cave with Fyodor behind him. There was no room for me so I stood outside. If chanting was needed I would join in, if it was something I knew.
The view was barren but it took your breath away. The Dead Sea gleamed below like mercury. Jordan was invisible behind the haze. How could anyone have lived here in isolation for so many years? Eighty, according to Fyodor, but that was impossible. Fyodor asked Daniel to conduct the service in Arabic. He had celebrated it together with Brother Roman many times but had asked me to bring the text. I passed it to him in the cave and looked in. On the bare rock lay a mummy wrapped from head to foot in a white sheet. A lamp was burning on the rock and Daniel was kneeling before the rock because it was impossible to stand up, even for him. Fyodor was to one side bent double. I could only have crawled in on all fours. Daniel told me to read the Gospel according to Matthew. I stood outside and began quietly.
I suddenly felt a chill the like of which I have never before experienced. It was almost noon, the heat was 40 degrees, but my teeth were chattering. I suddenly felt so ill, and I could tell that Daniel, too, was unwell. I had a water bottle with me and wanted to pass it to him, but Fyodor would not turn around. I took a mouthful, in that kind of temperature you need to keep drinking. I tried again to pass Daniel the bottle but Fyodor would not take it. There on the ledge the sun was beating down as if a fire were blazing nearby, but the sense of chill really did not pass.
I began reading again, finished Matthew and started on Mark. From the cave I heard Arab prayers and Church Slavonic reading. I read as if unconscious, but in fact I was fully conscious only in some abominable state. Something happened to time. It no longer extended but was rolled into a ball and hung immobile around me. Then it was all over. First Fyodor emerged and then Daniel behind him. I noticed there was a pile of rocks by the entrance to the cave and Fyodor began heaping them up until the cave became a tomb. Daniel and I were going to help but he shook his head. We waited for him to block it then made our way down. It was even more difficult going down than climbing up. I didn’t remember the way well and would never have found it by myself.
We went back to the car and Daniel invited Fyodor to come with us but he said he had to go back. As we drove away we saw him running full pelt toward the hill. We drove some 40 kilometers in silence before I finally asked, “What was that all about?”
Daniel said, “I don’t know, but the cave was seething with snakes. Or did I imagine it?”
28. July 1992, Berkeley
L
ETTER FROM
E
WA
M
ANUKYAN TO
E
STHER
G
ANTMAN
Dear Esther,
Amazingly enough everything works out splendidly. I fly to Boston on Friday evening, we can spend Saturday together and I will help you pack. On Sunday morning we fly to Frankfurt and change for Minsk. We have a three-hour wait for the flight, but that is not only the most straightforward but the only option. There are two planes from Frankfurt to Minsk each week, and any other route would involve two transfers.
In Minsk we spend the night in a hotel, and in the morning go by special bus to Emsk. I swear no geographical point on earth has evoked so much emotion as this godforsaken town of Emsk. Unfortunately, Paweł Koci
Lots of love. I won’t write to you again. See you soon.
29. September 1992, Haifa
W
ALL NEWSPAPER IN THE PARISH HOUSE
RUVIM LAKHISH’S REPORT ON THE TRIP
The trip to Emsk on 9 August 1992 was made by 44 survivors who nowadays live in nine different countries. In 1942, precisely 50 years ago, they escaped from the Emsk ghetto. Of the 300 who escaped at that time, 124 survived until the end of the war. Many have since died.
Nevertheless, 44 survivors came to Emsk to mark this event and we all give thanks to the Lord that he saved our lives and grieve for those who died in dreadful agony at the hands of the Fascists. Among us was the man to whom we owe our lives. He organized the escape at the risk of his own life. That is our brother, Daniel Stein, who is now a priest of the Roman Catholic Church.
We arrived in Emsk at noon on 9 August and immediately walked around the town. The castle is still half ruined, as it was when we were moved there at the end of 1941. Local townspeople came out, but there are very few left who remember those events. Young people, we found, know nothing about what happened here 50 years ago.
One meeting did touch us very deeply. Among the visitors was Esther Gantman from America. Before the war she worked in Emsk as a dentist and, after the escape, in a partisan unit helping her husband, Isaak, perform surgery. Isaak has died, may he rest in peace. An old man, a local Belorussian, came over to Esther and asked whether she remembered him. It turned out that since before the war he has been wearing teeth which she made for him. Three of his front teeth had been knocked out in a fight, and she made such good replacements that, although all his other teeth have since fallen out, he still has those three.
Everybody was very sad. Some had their parents and relatives killed here, all lost friends and neighbors. The inhabitants of the ghetto were shot not in the castle but in a ravine two kilometers from the town. We went there. Workers were already erecting the stone we had brought. It is not a satisfactory site, being overgrown with weeds. We did not, however, feel we could erect a memorial in Emsk Castle because, in the first place, there are none of our people buried there, and in the second place the authorities may need the castle in the future and throw our stone out. At least nobody is going to build over a ravine.
In the evening our main hero, Daniel Stein, arrived. He flew via Moscow and arrived by train. German journalists and film crews arrived, too. They swarmed around Daniel and his assistant, a German woman, and sat till late evening in the foyer of the hotel asking him questions.