“One morning something happened. It became known in the ghetto that the Admor of Tipow had escaped. To where, or how he did it, was not clear. But that morning his disciples awoke orphaned. Imagine to yourself what a betrayal that was, without warning, without a hint. The Admor had simply fled with his family. The disciples were not given much time to mourn. Rumkowski’s people immediately saw their chance to nullify agreements, break up power, send the poor men off to work groups and deportation lists. They took the Admor’s cronies out of the best places in the hospitals, out of the comfortable factories. All at once their privileges were revoked and given to those who found favor with the Judenrat. But worst of all was Hirsch. The Admor of Tipow had disappeared, and Hirsch’s dismantled soul, which had been held together by the power of his authority, shattered into smithereens. Why go into detail? In short, nu, he completely lost his mind. From the moment the Admor abandoned them, not only did Hirsch’s mind weaken, and not only did the Tipowik group’s power fall apart, but all its secrets blossomed and spread through the ghetto, including the story of Hirsch. Only then did I learn of the fire that had been eating away at his heart. I was regretful — perhaps I could have offered him some consolation.
“One week later, Hirsch was taken away. I thought he was killed, but as you know, he was not lost in the camps; he is here with us in Eretz Yisrael. And it was the Admor of Tipow, may the memory of this tzaddik be a blessing, who did not survive. He was caught and taken with all his loved ones, may God avenge their blood, to Treblinka. He was captured near the town of Shedlitz, and instead of Chelmno, where the Lodz ghetto inhabitants were sent, he went to the gas chambers in Treblinka.”
(Treblinka. Untersturmführer Kurt Franz, Doll.)
Grandpa Yosef seems to read my mind. “Yes, that was where that ‘Doll’ was, Lalka, but what difference does it make, one way or the other. Hirsch went, as did many others. And I too, just as I was getting used to life in the Lodz ghetto, I was grouped with some Jews sent to slave labor in a camp near Poznan. Someone dared put my name on the list and kick the chief agent out of the ghetto. And I, Yosef Ingberg, not an agent and not a chief, found myself leaving the Lodz ghetto forever. I cannot recall the name of the camp. How could I? As soon as we arrived, battered from our ride in a truck, after they whipped me and pulled out two teeth, and after two men were shot in front of my eyes (Why? No way to know), my gaze fell briefly on the camp personnel standing in the distance, and I saw the figure of Ahasuerus.
“There he stood, next to the camp commandant, and he seemed to be tutoring him, teaching the inexperienced commandant. I stared. I must have stood out from the distance — a Jew looking straight at death. Suddenly his eyes met mine. I saw him give the commandant an instruction and then all the personnel came up to us. Terror fell upon our group. All around me people sensed the shadow of death approaching. Only rarely did the senior officers interfere with the Jews’ lives. They left that job for junior officers, sergeants, the Ukrainians and the volunteers, damn them.
“I whispered to the Jews, ‘Do not worry, he is a decent man.’ They looked at me as if I had lost my mind. They could not have imagined the storm raging in my heart as a thought that was all but forgotten began to reappear: Feiga. We must set off on the road again. Here, the Kadosh Baruch Hu was renewing my voyage! I had no doubt of Ahasuerus’s intentions. He might not have remembered me at all, but simply been astonished at this Jew staring at him. And yet he might have recognized me, only to wonder how I had not been killed in the Sperre as planned. Still, I was certain he would not kill me.
“Ahasuerus came closer. He stopped some six steps away from us. The personnel stood behind him. In front of him the Ukrainians and the sergeants, they too were frozen. They had ceased kicking us, cowed by the presence of authority. What did the general want? They did not know of my Feiga. Perhaps they did not conceive of his Little Lover either. We stood there, everyone around us completely unaware of the true significance of the situation, only Ahasuerus and myself in the center as he stared at me with steely eyes. A brief moment of human expression flitted over his face, a wrinkle that perhaps came from the heart, and an instant later there was nothing but frozen wilderness. He turned back and disappeared into the distance, and with him, like the wings of a crow, went the personnel. Silence lingered in the air for a moment, then all erupted. The whips began again. The shouts picked up. We were pushed, whipped. We were rushed into flimsy wooden huts without windows. We knew neither the name of the camp, nor what they would do with us.
“A whole day and night passed. We were not sent to work. Twice we were brought some disgusting soup, and once we were allowed to use the latrine. Then, from the edge of the window, I saw the car. It had a new hood ornament, a statue of an eagle with its talons digging into the flesh of the car, its bird-legs lifting up behind. And as my heart had foreseen, we were quickly forced out of the hut for a roll-call. The reason for the roll-call was me. A sergeant took hold of me and removed me from the group. They washed me again. And again the bridegroom’s clothes. They put me in a closed room.
“Ahasuerus had tormented himself for a whole day and night. All those months, while I was in the Lodz ghetto, he had managed with great effort to banish the Little Lover from his heart, to devote himself to his duties, damn him, and now here I was. He agonized for a whole day and night but was unable to put out the fire kindled by the sight of me, and early the next morning we set off again. This time it was winter. Cold. Ahasuerus’s face was strained. Who knew what obligations he had abandoned hastily, and what his punishment would be, how determined he was to be swallowed up in the black abyss of this unrequited love? For four months, more than a third of a year, we had not seen each other. I wondered, should I report anything? He had deposited me in the ghetto and the deposit had been returned. I should say something, should I not? But reality quickly reminded me who I was, and who he was. The months of hunger in the ghetto had mistreated my body and he, the king of evil, now had a higher rank, and it seemed he had also grown taller. He did not talk to me, my existence did not bother him at all. I was an object, like a comb found at the bottom of the sheets, bringing up forgotten emotions. We were driving to his Little Lover, or so he believed. Storing up energy for a decisive conversation with her. Perhaps he would beg. The devil would kneel before the she-devil and weep. He did not know who Feiga was, for whom he was urging his heart, straining his eyes, squeezing out the power from his car. I permitted myself a pause for thought. Leaning back in my seat, I asked myself like a merchant, should I give him back his money? I had spent almost none of it. But that nonsensical thought soon disappeared.
“What more can I say? For two days we drove. The routine of the journey was much like the previous one, but there were no break-downs, no chance for a word to be uttered. Two people driving. Thus far we had accumulated only one spoken sentence, uttered by Ahasuerus before he closed his eyes to sleep. The landscape changed. Flat lakes, black trees. The sky drizzled constantly. We crossed huge rivers and one massive Tigris, which in retrospect I believe was the Wisla, that same Wisla that crossed through Krakow, on to Warsaw, and all the way to Danzig on the North Sea. I was afraid — was Feiga here? In this terrible cold? Here, in such a barren landscape? The car drove on and on as if Ahasuerus could not interfere with its maneuvers. She knew her way, the car. Bilaam’s donkey.
“We stopped at a camp. It was entirely black. Black trees and black fences, and all the huts were black, dipped in freezing cold and puddles. The gates opened for us, the camp guards practically danced around in fear. We made a strong impression on them. The camp personnel hurried to welcome Ahasuerus, and I, knowing my role, stayed in the car. I was left in a large square beside the command house. My eyes were glued to the hunched, black images walking to and fro. Jews rotting away from cold and torture, while I sat in a royal car and fine clothing, looking for lovers. I dared not get out and ask the Jews about Feiga. I reprimanded myself — after all, that was what I had come for — but caution held me back. Slowly my silhouette became apparent to the inmates, and Jewish faces began to stare at me. From afar I saw them, but sensed them coming closer. I did not dare get out, and they dared not approach. There was terror in the air, I could sense it. Their caution taught me caution. Ukrainian guards in black uniforms, similar to the SS uniform, walked around the camp arrogantly. They passed by the car, pretending not to notice me. Darkness fell. Calls were heard in the distance. Many footsteps. My body had been freezing for two hours in the car. Inside, Ahasuerus was still meeting with the officers. They were probably presenting their fine achievements to him, boasting of impressive killing quotas, damn them. And then a Jew tapped on the car window. I could tell immediately that it was a Jew. I was horrified by his skeletal face, his body wrapped in rags, but I knew it was a Jew. Afraid, I opened the window a crack.