“Is it possible to describe such a deathly nightmare? Worse than working in the trenches of Ravensbrück. Endless. The routine was disturbed only by the occasional shot — another stumbler giving in to his body. Usually there were no shots. The stumblers did their best not to stumble. The guards did their best to kick, whip, and arouse in the prisoner, if not energy, at least the fear of death. They whipped and whipped until he would start walking again. Only seldom did they shoot. And for us, how can I put this aptly, the shots were a slight reprieve from routine. One’s mind, unwillingly, created a sort of anticipation of the shots. One side of your soul urges you to feel nothing, hear nothing, see nothing, think nothing — only march. The other side, secretly, with an inexplicable perversion, waits for the sound of the shot. Your head is stupefied and your body marches on, waiting. The shot rings out.
“We walked back and forth in straight lines. Every day we passed a wretched group of young Russian POWS, who for some reason had the letter ‘T’ imprinted on their foreheads. They were forced to march in a circle, handcuffed to one another in pairs, from morning to night. They did not march to wear in boots — only to die. They marched in an endless circle from which only one fate could remove them. Why did the Germans torture them so? Why not shoot them and be done with it? No way to know. German logic. But those poor wretches, they all met the same fate, and it was slow and hopeless. We never saw the same prisoner twice. And why only the Russians? Why did we walk in straight lines with army boots, people of many nations, Jews and non-Jews? German logic.
“Day after day I marched, and in Sachsenhausen too there were beatings, abuse, hunger, death. As we marched, at first our brains were in a daze. One could not think, could not do anything. We were forbidden to talk. Punishable by death. Later, just a little, I found myself thinking of Adler and his orphaned research. And wondrously, I found myself gaining strength from these thoughts, from the Jewish pirates on their glorious ships. I practiced my future, coming up with adventures for the pirates, inventing things from my soul, and also contemplating the halakhic problems posed by their profession. After all, this was no simple matter, the pirates and the 613 commandments! Every day I found myself embroiled in complex thoughts that reached dead-ends. It was beyond my Talmudic knowledge to solve such intricate issues. Not giving in, I scanned every aspect of a pirate’s life, identified the problems, debated them with myself until all possibilities were exhausted, and then made notes of what I would ask the rabbis once I was free. At night in bed, exhausted and hungry, I forced myself to stick with the pirates, divvying up their loot according to the laws of Gemara, muddling through the thicket of laws concerning hostages and the allowance of trade in the fruits of plunder. I was excited to realize that I was asking questions, and they were not small. These were large questions!
“My questions were large, but life, diminished life, did not arise in their wake. Adler’s theory was all well and good, but without food, without rest for one’s body, life had no chance. And Adler had not only empowered the spirit, he had also added the nightly portion of soup. Without the soup, what good were thoughts? The soul, you should know, needs a body. Wise men philosophize, they separate the spirit from the body, aspire to do away with the corporeal for the sake of the spiritual. But those who know hunger have no questions. A person needs a body.
“In the meantime, in Sachsenhausen, I sensed death approaching in my bones. The dysentery was back. There were days when I ate no more than a turnip leaf from morning to night. And my feet began to refuse to move. They swelled and cracked. I was growing weak. Day after day, Asmodeus came to claim what was his. I knew I would not last long. At night, I exchanged not a single word with my neighbors to the left or the right, and did not know who they were. Our bodies were so shattered, our souls so crushed. Every so often, a neighbor disappeared. Died, shot, replaced. A new one was thrown onto the cot and I remained indifferent, not knowing who he was, not wanting to know, even though he was my brother in this trouble and his suffering was a brother to my own suffering. But there was emptiness. The soul was empty, everything was empty. Death was so close. In the twilight of life, memories invaded, overcoming Adler’s prohibition, and my thoughts turned to the past. Even memories were too weak to go very far — the Lodz ghetto seemed as if it had happened many years ago. I could barely remember Bochnia. Only occasionally did childhood memories emerge, with the cheder, the tutor, and the stones we threw in the afternoon into the little Babica brook that flowed beneath the bridge.
“And where, you might ask, was Feiga in all of this? I did not have in me enough Yosef to contain Feiga. At the edge of the very edge, Yosef Ingberg ended. My soul made a decision: Tomorrow I will not get up from this cot. They may whip me to death, but I will not rise.
“That night, two of my neighbors died suddenly, one from beatings, taken from bed to be punished and never returned, and the other from exhaustion. The one who died of exhaustion would be removed in the morning with all the dead, but in place of the one who was beaten to death they tossed in a new neighbor, a diminutive Jew. And this Jew, as if he did not see how miserable my condition was, as if neither bothered by the body that separated us, nor deterred by the death sentence awarded to those who whispered in their cots, immediately began trying to get acquainted, asking questions, telling me about himself. I, in the twilight of death, was somewhat taken aback. It seemed strange that this little Jew was unafraid of Adler’s command, talking freely about his past, his history. When morning came, I got up from the cot despite myself, rising to a new day of death, and I knew my Jewish neighbor’s entire story by heart.
“Until the war started my new neighbor had been a tramp and a beggar. He ate in soup kitchens and at rich people’s houses. In summers he played the violin at weddings, and in winters he was hungry for bread. He stole. A dangerous sort of Jew, he was. And indeed, I feared him, but I was also drawn to his companionship. How can I put it? I sensed that with him I might survive. When he told me his name, Rothschild, I did not know if he was joking or truthful. I dared not ask. I soon discovered that my intuition about Rothschild was correct. He always knew where they were secretly giving out another portion, where they were selling something, which work group was better off. I tell you this without shame: I put my trust in Rothschild. Incredibly, he put his in me. One day he caught me in the latrine, or, forgive me, the crapper, which served as a general market in the camps, and he stood up close to me. Whispering, he proposed a deal. He would keep me going, look out for me, and I would pray for him. He had seen me praying for Adler and he wanted me to pray for him too, so his sins would not be counted against him. I was taken aback. Such a deal, nu. But he shoved a piece of cooked potato into my hand and I quickly stuffed it in my mouth. We had a deal.
“From that day on, Rothschild really did take care of me. He was cunning and seemed to be without conscience. He stole and tricked and cheated and lied. And he brought me half of his earnings, or so he assured me. Everything gained through his wheeling and dealing, I swallowed up; my body wanted it. Every evening he came to me and asked pragmatically, ‘Have you prayed for me yet today, Rabbi?’ As if we had not a general agreement, but a detailed contract.
“He insisted on calling me ‘Rabbi.’ No matter how many times I told him I was not a rabbi, Rothschild explained that for him I was. In any case, he said, he had seen the rabbi of his town being dragged through the snow by his beard. His entire congregation had already died in the crematoria. Only he was left. So he was a congregation, and I — a rabbi.