“One evening there was a commotion. We were crowded into the Appellplatz for a special roll-call. The officers surrounded us, there was shouting, dogs barking, something bad had happened. For a long time all we heard were paralyzing shouts. We were counted, then counted again, and the roll-call went on into the night and it was not clear what had happened, but we knew in our hearts that it would not end well. We slowly began to understand that we were being accused of stealing twenty candied apples. Twenty candied apples! They had been prepared in the kitchen for the birthday celebration of one of the senior SS men, and lo and behold, the apples were gone.
“We were left to freeze in the snow, tormented, and the SS did nothing, only walked among us shouting and threatening. It became evident that they would not be satisfied with killing someone. They needed the apples. They were frightened themselves — what would they do without the apples? They waited for someone to open his mouth and confess, or to turn in someone else. And we stood there, stupefied from cold and fear. But there was joy hiding in our hearts. Twenty candied apples! If it had been one apple, or one rotting potato, we would have been jealous, our empty stomachs would have demanded the kartoshka. We would have suspected one another, even hoped that a few would be shot, including the one who had stolen the apple, because then maybe later we would find the apple in his cot. But twenty candied apples! We had to whisper explanations to the villagers among us, stressing that this was not just an apple with sugar, but an apple dipped in boiling syrup bubbling in a cauldron, and the syrup is sweet like honey and it coats the apple and hardens like red glass. First the excess syrup drips down the apple, then the drops freeze as if ordered to stop and decorate the head of the apple like snow on a hilltop. Twenty such apples!
“Late at night the SS men gave up. This truly was a mystery, the thief was never discovered, even the informants couldn’t say. The roll-call commander ordered his officers to take out every fifth man and shoot him. A rustle of terror stirred among us. Our bodies began to awaken from the cold, the nausea of fear crept inside us. An SS officer walked among the rows, pushing aside certain men with his whip, instructing them to join the condemned. He walked in front of me and his whip touched me. Yes, the whip touched me. And the sergeant marching behind him motioned at me with his head to leave the row. But to my right Rothschild jumped out. The sergeant glanced at this exchange for an instant. He didn’t care, as long as the number added up nicely. I froze in my place without moving, and Rothschild was already standing at the edge of the condemned group. From the end of the line he gestured at me with his hands, mimicking a prayer stance, to remind me that I should continue to pray for him.
“They walked them to a clearing in the woods where the SS liked to execute people. As he passed me, with a real grin on his murderous face, Rothschild dared to call out loud to me, ‘I am Leibel Rothschild. If you have a son, call him Leibel!’
“And the group was swallowed up in the darkness. I remained among the living, owing my life to another man. How did my legs plant me down at that moment of the switch? How did I allow it to happen? Why did I allow…nu…
“They shot Rothschild. Gone. That’s all I can tell you. I don’t remember much of the days that followed. A long period, months, and the memories are gone. I probably continued to work with the dead wagons, since I was not dead myself. I was not taken to work at the quarry. And what else did I do? I believe I was entirely submerged in the future. I imagined it beautifully, and my aim was not bad. The present was not all that agreeable to me, so I turned my thoughts to the future, where things were good. I made aliya with Feiga to Palestine, to build a new life. And even if I never imagined my home in Kiryat Haim, and Ben Gurion, still, I did picture Palestine. Feiga and I were most certainly alive. We sat on the beach at Jaff a, gobbling down oranges in the sunshine, our feet reaching out to touch the convoys of camels, the local Arabs admiring our culture, our religion. I did not envision wars and conflicts, not like this. But in dark Buchenwald we definitely gobbled down oranges and tangerines.
“I recall only one moment of the present. I leaned against a rod or a wagon shaft for a brief moment of contemplation. I suddenly thought about my journey with Ahasuerus. It was, after all, a journey to rescue Feiga, and I believed that the Kadosh Baruch Hu had given me this journey and the black car. I suddenly realized that I had not achieved a thing. Not Feiga, not anything. And in that moment, which memory is kind enough to illuminate to this day, I was filled with great desperation and confusion. I leaned hard against the wagon shaft. I remember the shaft well.
“At the end of 1944 the Germans decided it was time for me to move on again, to Gross-Rosen camp. At that time, all the camp Jews were being sent west, mass transports going with the Germans as they retreated from the Russians. But for some reason, I was sent east. To Gross-Rosen.
“At Gross-Rosen I received the usual welcome. A shower in the nude, pushing, shouting, a long roll-call in the snow. The Germans wore fur coats, protecting their bodies from the wind, while we stood naked. Night came, the cold took its victims, and the Germans too were tired of the roll-calls. It was cold. We were taken into huts, a hundred people shoved into a space big enough for ten.
“At Gross-Rosen there was no work. They kept us in huts and took us out to be counted or punished. Then back to the hut. I do not remember many people dying in the daily routine of Gross-Rosen; not like at Sachsenhausen, not like at Buchenwald. But those who did die stand out in my memory. After Rothschild’s death, I was lucidly aware of each and every subsequent man shot dead. To this day I think not only about Rothschild, who was not successful in all of his schemes and who ultimately died. I think about everyone who was executed in front of my eyes. In Ravensbrück, in Sachsenhausen, in Buchenwald, in Gross-Rosen. All those anonymous people drawn out from the end of their rows so a dog could tear through their flesh or they could be whipped to death. In their own eyes, these people were the whole wide world. They alone perceived the miracle of their salvation up until that moment, and at the instant before their death they surely thought in terror, ‘I have been marked, God help me,’ and they hoped for life, for one more miracle. They looked at our impenetrable faces, hoping salvation might come from us. Until the very last second they hoped, in their dying convulsions, in their memories, between the teeth of a dog, and could not imagine a world without themselves. Do you understand? They could not imagine a world without themselves in it. Every such person who knelt down to get a bullet in the back of his neck was a whole wide world. And not only because that is what the Scriptures say. Simply a whole wide world. Each man with his memories, his loves, his history. Just like me. And I am living, here, and they…