“Again I believed he would kill me. But he did not. And what did he do with me? I will tell you the truth. All the horrors of the Shoah that I saw, everything that is best forgotten, lives on lucidly in my memory. The memories are clear and transparent, like a beautiful landscape. But the end of Ahasuerus is dim. When did we part ways? I vaguely remember someone walking me down a path of wet gravel. That was probably no longer Ahasuerus, but an officer, I think. And then the memory is swallowed up. Rain drenches the world and I am in a suffocating space. Figures around me, prisoners. I too am a prisoner. I awake in the men’s camp of Ravensbrück. A merciful figure comes up to me, shoves at me some sort of thing which I shall call a blanket, although that is not what it was. A hard, cold sheet. It was barely flexible enough to be placed on one’s body, it was useless for heat. The memories return. I am completely frozen, a cut on my head and a deep gash from ankle to knee. The merciful man, the head of the hut, whose name is Adler, whispers in my ear that I will feel better by morning. Although I had not yet been a prisoner in any camp, only ghettos and strange journeys, my voyage with Ahasuerus had taught me plenty about camp life. I would not feel better in the morning. In the morning there would be slave labor. I would starve. They would beat me ceaselessly. They would rob me of my bread, the other inmates too. It would not be better in the morning.
“Do you know what they called the camp system there, in the north? Vernichtung durch Arbeit. Extermination through work.”
(He finds strange pleasure in rolling the German words off his tongue, tasting them on his lips. Vernichtung durch Arbeit.)
“But this man, Adler, tries to lift my sprits. From somewhere they bring hot soup, as if a restaurant is open not far away. The soup is a bland concoction, but I sip it, inhale the broth, and sense that without this Adler I will have no life.
“And indeed, I was right. Adler was one of the saints. My days of Ravensbrück had begun. Vernichtung durch Arbeit. Extermination through work. In the morning, still dark, roll-calls that last for hours. Shouting, beating, physical punishments. People murdered right beside you. The living go off to work. A moribund mass of prisoners sets off shoulder to shoulder. The work is exhausting, our brains dizzied from fear. The German supervisors do not spare the rod. One of them had fit a silver knob on the end of his whip. Everyone knew that all that whip needed was one thrash. Prisoners were murdered over mistakes, over nothing, over boredom that took hold of a German. The Ukrainian guards were not allowed to kill. Only the Germans had that right, and there was much jealousy. We, the prisoners, worked. All we did was work. At lunch there was a hard hunk of bread and soup. A stench rose from it, but the prisoners fought over one more spoonful and stole each other’s slices of bread. Simple people, everyday Jews, became murderous and loathsome. They would rip a piece of bread away from you and laugh in your face, crazed. There are no depths of hell lower than that. And in the midst of it all was Adler.
“This man, Adler, revealed himself from the first as a sort of Judah the Maccabi. A courageous Jew, he did not fear the prisoners, and even found courage in front of the SS. He knew his limitations and exercised caution, but he guarded the prisoners like a Hasmonean. His work was exhausting. There was no shortage of villains among the prisoners, and even those who were not villainous had been driven mad by hunger and were capable of anything. Even in the heart of suffering, on the brink of death, the power-hungry still lust for power, the traitorous still hand over their brethren, and the informants still collaborate.
“Among all these, with infinite dedication, stood Adler. He pronounced verdicts like King Solomon, separated the Jewish hawks from one another like Moses, and brandished a sword like David. He was as kind as — to whom can I compare his kindness? It was infinite. Incredibly, before the war he was a Doctor of Humanities at the university of Lvov. A scholar, a researcher of history, an author of books on theories of the soul. A Jew who had forgotten his Judaism, wrapped up in the world of the goyim, and that was how he liked it. He researched Jewish history too, but in the way that a geologist studies rocks or a geographer the patterns of streams. It was in the camp that his Jewish soul was revealed. By the time I, Yosef Ingberg, arrived at Ravensbrück men’s camp, which was attached to the infamous women’s camp, Adler was already positioned as a leader of the people, one to guide them through the desert for forty years. Nu, I am exaggerating a little…”
Grandpa Yosef stops. He breathes heavily, clearly searching for the right words. He wants to paint me an accurate picture of Adler, as great as the man himself, but not ordinarily great like memorial statues.
“The head of the prisoners in the camp was called Farkelstein. Adler, on his part, stayed away from him. He could easily have become head of the prisoners, but he avoided that role. The SS themselves, damn them, although they did not appoint Adler to Farkelstein’s position, used to come to him, recognizing his authority over the prisoners. They let Farkelstein bear the official title, a sort of badge of respect invented in the camps, but much to Farkelstein’s chagrin, they ignored him and his title. Farkelstein could have designated Adler for the hard jobs, the more injurious ones, or handed him over to the Germans with a wink, but more than he hated Adler, he feared him, and more than he feared him, he was trapped in a superstitious conviction that without Adler there would be no Farkelstein. Where did this belief come from? What was the logic? But then, where did places like Ravensbrück come from; what logic was behind them? There was none. Farkelstein dealt every day with his hatred and his envy and his fears. And it was into this river of flames that I slid. Because for some reason, Farkelstein immediately began to hate me and harass me. And harassment by the head of the prisoners was tantamount to a death sentence.
“A few days had passed since I arrived in the camps, and already I was half-dead. The work was grueling. My body, sensing death, suffered from dysentery. Inside the rags of my trousers the excrement dribbled over my body. The end was nearing. I no longer had the strength to work. There were moments, my mind dizzied, when I was drawn to the whip, especially the one with the silver knob. To offer my head, to kiss the whip. Shut off the whole world, no strength, no desires, only the whip, that whip, sharp and clear. That silver knob was like a rimon—like the finial that decorates a Torah scroll.
“How did I not die?
“Adler.
“Was there any other way?
“During work he protected me. When food was distributed he looked out for me. He got hold of clean clothing for me. At night, in the hut, he fed me the secret soup which a few prisoners cooked up somewhere in the distance every night. Only a few were lucky enough to get a few drops of it.
“Strange. So many were dying. Vernichtung durch Arbeit. Extermination through work. On every bed, every night, a Jew fought for his life. No justice and no mercy. Here died the son of a rabbi, there a tailor, a father of ten. Here was a boy dying, no one knew his name, there an elderly man — who knew how he had survived that long? Jews were dying everywhere and yet Adler took pity on me, visiting my bedside as if I alone were a patient among vacationers. A spoiled tourist with a bad stomach on a pleasure cruise, and the captain making himself personally responsible for his health, embarrassed by the regretful mishap. Because of such a trivial problem, the traveler might miss the best of the itinerary.