One Jew, before the war, knew everything. And even in 1942, with the extermination at its height, Jews would disbelieve living witnesses and refuse to accept the impossible. A man by the name of Rosenthal would manage to send a postcard to the Bochnia ghetto from Belzec, reporting explicitly what befell those who went to Belzec and exposing the true purpose of the transports to “resettle the Jews in the East.” People would doubt him. Suspicions would flicker, fear too. But they would refuse to believe. A letter from the Rabbi of Grabow would be smuggled into the Lodz ghetto, explaining precisely what the Chelmno camp on the Ner River was. People would not believe. At the height of the war, the Aktionen, babies’ heads smashed against walls, still they would not believe that there could be such a thing as death camps, such a thing as gas chambers, such a thing as industrial use of hair, skin and fat. War, people perpetrating horrors on other people, yes. But gas chambers? Incinerators? Not possible.
Zagazowani.
That was what Rosenthal would write from Belzec to the residents of the Bochnia ghetto. The first word that would explain that people were being put to death with gas. (Dad tried to explain the Polish grammar to me, the way the noun gas is inflected as a verb that kills people. Zagazowani.) A word that would be a gateway to the coming years. Secretly, the congregation leaders in the ghetto would pass the postcard from hand to hand. My father, a curious child, playing down among the chair legs, would listen. Above him there would be doubts, suspicions — why would the Germans let someone send a postcard out?
Only one Jew, in 1939, the textile merchant Finkelstein, knew everything, and he wrote a letter to his son. Not a historical or scholarly record, but a practical abstract of thoughts. The textile merchant had no spare time to sit and write at length. What good would writing do? Leave the writing for the intellectuals. All he needed was to explain to his son what would happen, what to watch out for, how much gold to demand from the soldier and where to invest it.
Once I became Old Enough and was allowed to know more, I asked Dad about 1939. That year, just before it all began, when only Finkelstein knew, is more frightening than anything Dad could tell me about “afterwards.” Because 1939 is similar to the years I live in. In 1939, level-headed Jews had moderate opinions. They had worries that could be dismissed by reason. Sensible people made assumptions, felt apprehensive, found solutions. The Jewish newspapers were full of keen, thorough editorials. Everything was so reasonable, so progressive, so modern. In the cemeteries, deceased Jews were led to their eternal rest. Kaddish prayers were whispered. A little before September 1939 they still recited, Let He who makes peace in the heavens grant peace to all of us and to all Israel, and the congregants responded, Amen. The year 1939 is the year I could be living in. Every year could be 1939. Everything around me is so democratic, so reasonable. A world of public statements, petitions, strong protests. Everything could be reversed in the blink of an eye. Sometimes I know that if a totalitarian regime were to be established here, decimating minorities, only time and a few moral convulsions would delay a Jewish incarnation of the Reich. Here too, it could rise. There would be opponents, yes, even in the mainstream. But they too would disappear. Not straight away, but all of them. I recognize around me the types who would construct the new regime. They are all here already: the king of the black market, the collaborator, the informer with eyes torn wide in terror. The chief of police, the loyal soldiers, the implementers of orders. They are here, they are living and multiplying. They are decent citizens concealed by comfortable circumstances. Never (one assumes) will their dark natures be exposed. Throughout their lives, perhaps only a moment or two will touch the core of their souls. Commonplace life produces moderate versions of these people, the outcome of routine and of the flourishing State of Israel. The king of the black market will be no more than a crooked insurance agent. The collaborators will be tailors, policemen, physicians. The chief of police will be an unlikable man, perhaps the manager of a supermarket, that’s all. If the day comes and reality is overturned, Grandpa Yosef will be an intellectual opposing the regime. His skull will be cracked in the public square, crowds will cheer. Or in secret, three thugs will knock on his door in the middle of the night. The car will drive away. Neighbors will murmur sorrowfully. Someone will make a derisive comment about him and a few will nod in agreement. The regime will provide them with material and they will recite it. They will forget.
Yes, it is here, but it will not come to fruition. There is too much good sun, blue skies. But what is important is that it is here, that it threatens my Yariv, that it will want to take my father away again to Plaszow camp, but I won’t let it. That I do not know how I will not let it. I pick Yariv up from kindergarten. We walk down the street and pass by the collaborators, the volunteers, the informants, the black market merchants. People with simple faces. At any moment it is possible. The wind will change, the makeup will scatter, and Yariv and I will stand facing them. It would take even less than a change in the way the wind blows. They could be exposed just like that, simply because they want to be. And my skull too will be smashed on some night-time street in some immaterialized reality in some world which I am mocked for even positing the existence of. Anat too. Why, for God’s sake, don’t they see it?
I raise my Yariv to be strong, to know how to suffer, to survive. Anat takes the seeds out of tomatoes before he eats them. I get annoyed. She does, too. “Yariv belongs to both of us. You can raise your half in Buchenwald, but I’m sending mine to Mira’s Daycare!”
Anything he has not been fully prepared for deters him, afraid, confused. I want him to peel his hard-boiled egg. He refuses. The shell is hot, it scares him. Anat takes it and peels it for him. My father was in the camps. He knows what can happen. But Yariv’s babyish fears don’t bother him. He plays with him, sees how afraid he is of the ball, how he starts crying. He runs to reassure him.
I cannot understand them. Zagazowani.
How good it was then, two little spaceships resting beside Grandpa Lolek, our voyage over, and Grandpa Lolek between us with a camera in his lap. I did not know everything I know today: that you don’t need a Holocaust to have bad Jews. That people like Grandpa Lolek, even if they do steal gold, are not the bad ones. We only knew that that was it, we could breathe easy, Grandpa Lolek was not a bad Jew. The camera on his lap started to glimmer, capturing half and more of our attention, pushing aside letters and dust and bad Jews. We started to take an interest. The price-tag was intriguing; it was a very expensive camera. We looked at Grandpa Lolek full of hope.