Elie Wiesel - Night: book club in a bag

Unknown Also by Elie Wiesel DAWN DAY (previously THE ACCIDENT) THE TOWN BEYOND THE WALL THE GATES OF THE FOREST THE JEWS OF SILENCE LEGENDS OF OUR TIME A BEGGAR IN JERUSALEM ONE GENERATION AFTER SOULS ON FIRE THE OATH ANI MAAMIN (cantata) ZALMEN, OR THE MADNESS OF GOD (play) MESSENGERS OF GOD A JEW TODAY FOUR HASIDIC MASTERS THE TRIAL OF GOD (play) THE TESTAMENT FIVE BIBLICAL PORTRAITS SOMEWHERE A MASTER THE GOLEM (illustrated by Mark Podwal) THE FIFTH SON AGAINST SILENCE (edited by Irving Abrahamson) THE OSLO ADDRESS TWILIGHT THE SIX DAYS OF DESTRUCTION (with Albert Friedlander) A JOURNEY INTO FAITH (conversations with John Cardinal O'Connor) A SONG FOR HOPE (cantata) FROM THE KINGDOM OF MEMORY SAGES AND DREAMERS THE FORGOTTEN A PASSOVER HAGGADAH (illustrated by Mark Podwal) ALL RIVERS RUN TO THE SEA MEMOIR IN TWO VOICES (with Franois Mitterand) KING SOLOMON AND HIS MAGIC RING (illustrated by Mark Podwal) AND THE SEA IS NEVER FULL THE JUDGES CONVERSATIONS WITH ELIE WIESEL (with Richard D. Heffner) WISE MEN AND THEIR TALES THE TIME OF THE UPROOTEDNightELIE WIESEL TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY MARION WIESEL HILL AND WANG A DIVISION OF FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX NEW YORKHill and Wang A division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux 19 Union Square West, New York 10003 Copyright 1958 by Les Editions de Minuit Translation copyright 2006 by Marion Wiesel Preface to the New Translation copyright 2006 by Elie Wiesel Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech copyright 1986 by the Nobel Foundation All rights reserved Distributed in Canada by Douglas & McIntyre Ltd. Printed in the United States of America Published simultaneously in hardcover and paperback by Hill and Wang First edition of this translation, 2006 Library of Congress Control Number: 2005936797 Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-0-374-39997-9 Hardcover ISBN-10:0-374-39997-2 Paperback ISBN-13:9 78-0-3 74-50001-6 Paperback ISBN-10:0-374-50001-0 Designed by Abby Kagan www.fsgbooks.com 17 19 20 18 16In memory of my parents and of my little sister, Tzipora E.W. This new translation in memory of my grandparents, Abba, Sarah and Nachman, who also vanished into that night M.W.Preface to the New Translation by Elie Wiesel I F IN MY LIFETIME I WAS TO WRITE only one book, this would be the one. Just as the past lingers in the present, all my writ- ings after Night, including those that deal with biblical, Tal- mudic, or Hasidic themes, profoundly bear its stamp, and cannot be understood if one has not read this very first of my works. Why did I write it? Did I write it so as not to go mad or, on the contrary, to go mad in order to understand the nature of madness, the immense, terri- fying madness that had erupted in history and in the conscience of mankind? Was it to leave behind a legacy of words, of memories, to help prevent history from repeating itself? Or was it simply to preserve a record of the ordeal I endured as an adolescent, at an age when one's knowledge of death and evil should be limited to what one discovers in literature? There are those who tell me that I survived in order to write this text. I am not convinced. I don't know how I survived; I was weak, rather shy; I did nothing to save myself. A miracle? Cer- tainly not. If heaven could or would perform a miracle for me,why not for others more deserving than myself? It was nothing more than chance. However, having survived, I needed to give some meaning to my survival. Was it to protect that meaning that I set to paper an experience in which nothing made any sense? In retrospect I must confess that I do not know, or no longer know, what I wanted to achieve with my words. I only know that without this testimony, my life as a writeror my life, period would not have become what it is: that of a witness who believes he has a moral obligation to try to prevent the enemy from enjoy- ing one last victory by allowing his crimes to be erased from human memory. For today, thanks to recently discovered documents, the evi- dence shows that in the early days of their accession to power, the Nazis in Germany set out to build a society in which there simply would be no room for Jews. Toward the end of their reign, their goal changed: they decided to leave behind a world in ruins in which Jews would seem never to have existed. That is why every- where in Russia, in the Ukraine, and in Lithuania, the Einsatz- gruppen carried out the Final Solution by turning their machine guns on more than a million Jews, men, women, and children, and throwing them into huge mass graves, dug just moments before by the victims themselves. Special units would then disinter the corpses and burn them. Thus, for the first time in history, Jews were not only killed twice but denied burial in a cemetery. It is obvious that the war which Hitler and his accomplices waged was a war not only against Jewish men, women, and chil- dren, but also against Jewish religion, Jewish culture, Jewish tra- dition, therefore Jewish memory. CONVINCED THAT THIS PERIOD in history would be judged one day, I knew that I must bear witness. I also knew that, whileI had many things to say, I did not have the words to say them. Painfully aware of my limitations, I watched helplessly as lan- guage became an obstacle. It became clear that it would be neces- sary to invent a new language. But how was one to rehabilitate and transform words betrayed and perverted by the enemy? Hungerthirstfeartransportselectionfirechimney: these words all have intrinsic meaning, but in those times, they meant something else. Writing in my mother tongueat that point close to extinctionI would pause at every sentence, and start over and over again. I would conjure up other verbs, other images, other silent cries. It still was not right. But what exactly was it? It was something elusive, darkly shrouded for fear of being usurped, profaned. All the dictionary had to offer seemed meager, pale, lifeless. Was there a way to describe the last jour- ney in sealed cattle cars, the last voyage toward the unknown? Or the discovery of a demented and glacial universe where to be in- human was human, where disciplined, educated men in uniform came to kill, and innocent children and weary old men came to die? Or the countless separations on a single fiery night, the tear- ing apart of entire families, entire communities? Or, incredibly, the vanishing of a beautiful, well-behaved little Jewish girl with golden hair and a sad smile, murdered with her mother the very night of their arrival? How was one to speak of them without trembling and a heart broken for all eternity? Deep down, the witness knew then, as he does now, that his testimony would not be received. After all, it deals with an event that sprang from the darkest zone of man. Only those who experienced Auschwitz know what it was. Others will never know. But would they at least understand? Could men and women who consider it normal to assist the weak, to heal the sick, to protect small children, and to respectthe wisdom of their elders understand what happened there? Would they be able to comprehend how, within that cursed uni- verse, the masters tortured the weak and massacred the children, the sick, and the old? And yet, having lived through this experience, one could not keep silent no matter how difficult, if not impossible, it was to speak. And so I persevered. And trusted the silence that envelops and transcends words. Knowing all the while that any one of the fields of ashes in Birkenau carries more weight than all the testi- monies about Birkenau. For, despite all my attempts to articulate the unspeakable, it is still not right. Is that why my manuscriptwritten in Yiddish as And the World Remained Silent and translated first into French, then into Englishwas rejected by every major publisher, French and American, despite the tireless efforts of the great Catholic French writer and Nobel laureate Franois Mauriac? After months and months of personal visits, letters, and telephone calls, he finally succeeded in getting it into print. Though I made numerous cuts, the original Yiddish version still was long. Jrme Lindon, the legendary head of the small but prestigious ditions de Minuit, edited and further cut the French version. I accepted his decision because I worried that some things might be superfluous. Substance alone mattered. I was more afraid of having said too much than too little. Example: in the Yiddish version, the narrative opens with these cynical musings: In the beginning there was faithwhich is childish; trustwhich is vain; and illusionwhich is dangerous. We believed in God, trusted in man, and lived with the illu-sion that every one of us has been entrusted with a sacred spark from the Shekhinah's flame; that every one of us carries in his eyes and in his soul a reflection of God's image. That was the source if not the cause of all our ordeals. Other passages from the original Yiddish text had more on the death of my father and on the Liberation. Why not include those in this new translation? Too personal, too private, perhaps; they need to remain between the lines. And yet I remember that night, the most horrendous of my life: Eliezer, my son, come here I want to tell you somethingOnly to you Come, don't leave m e aloneEliezer" I heard his voice, grasped the meaning of his words and the tragic dimension of the moment, yet I did not move. It had been his last wish to have me next to him in his agony, at the moment when his soul was tearing itself from his lacerated bodyyet I did not let him have his wish. I was afraid. Afraid of the blows. That was why I remained deaf to his cries. Instead of sacrificing my miserable life and rushing to his side, taking his hand, reassuring him, showing him that he was not abandoned, that I was near him, that I felt his sorrow, instead of all that, I remained flat on my back, asking God to make my father stop calling my name, to make him stop crying. So afraid was I to incur the wrath of the SS. In fact, my father was no longer conscious. Yet his plaintive, harrowing voice went on piercing the si- lence and calling me, nobody but me.Well? The SS had flown into a rage and was striking my father on the head: Be quiet, old man! Be quiet! My father no longer felt the club's blows; I did. And yet I did not react. I let the SS beat my father, I left him alone in the clutches of death. Worse: I was angry with him for having been noisy, for having cried, for provoking the wrath of the SS. Eliezer! Eliezer! Come, don't leave me alone His voice had reached me from so far away, from so close. But I had not moved. I shall never forgive myself. Nor shall I ever forgive the world for having pushed me against the wall, for having turned me into a stranger, for having awakened in me the basest, most primitive instincts. His last word had been my name. A summons. And I had not responded. In the Yiddish version, the narrative does not end with the im- age in the mirror, but with a gloomy meditation on the present: And now, scarcely ten years after Buchenwald, I realize that the world forgets quickly. Today, Germany is a sovereign state. The German Army has been resuscitated. Use Koch, the notorious sadistic monster of Buchenwald, was allowed to have children and live happily ever afterWar criminals stroll through the streets of Hamburg and Munich. The past seems to have been erased, relegated to oblivion. Today, there are anti-Semites in Germany, France, and even the United States who tell the world that the story of six mil- lion assassinated Jews is nothing but a hoax, and many people, not knowing any better, may well believe them, if not today then tomorrow or the day after I am not so naive as to believe that this slim volume willchange the course of history or shake the conscience of the world. Books no longer have the power they once did. Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow. THE READER would be entitled to ask: Why this new translation, since the earlier one has been around for forty-five years? If it is not faithful or not good enough, why did I wait so long to replace it with one better and closer to the original? In response, I would say only that back then, I was an un- known writer who was just getting started. My English was far from good. When my British publisher told me that he had found a translator, I was pleased. I later read the translation and it seemed all right. I never reread it. Since then, many of my other works have been translated by Marion, my wife, who knows my voice and how to transmit it better than anyone else. I am fortu- nate: when Farrar, Straus and Giroux asked her to prepare a new translation, she accepted. I am convinced that the readers will ap- preciate her work. In fact, as a result of her rigorous editing, I was able to correct and revise a number of important details. And so, as I reread this text written so long ago, I am glad that I did not wait any longer. And yet, I still wonder: Have I used the right words? I speak of my first night over there. The discovery of the reality inside the barbed wire. The warnings of a veteran inmate, counseling my father and myself to lie about our ages: my father was to make himself younger, and I older. The selection. The march toward the chimneys looming in the distance under an indifferent sky. The infants thrown into fiery ditches I did not say that they were alive, but that was what I thought. But then I convinced myself: no, they were dead, otherwise I surely would have lost my mind. And yet fellow inmates also saw them; theywere alive when they were thrown into the flames. Historians, among them Telford Taylor, confirmed it. And yet somehow I did not lose my mind. BEFORE CONCLUDING this introduction, I believe it important to emphasize how strongly I feel that books, just like people, have a destiny. Some invite sorrow, others joy, some both. Earlier, I described the difficulties encountered by Night be- fore its publication in French, forty-seven years ago. Despite overwhelmingly favorable reviews, the book sold poorly. The sub- ject was considered morbid and interested no one. If a rabbi hap- pened to mention the book in his sermon, there were always people ready to complain that it was senseless to burden our children with the tragedies of the Jewish past. Since then, much has changed. Night has been received in ways that I never expected. Today, students in high schools and colleges in the United States and elsewhere read it as part of their curriculum. How to explain this phenomenon? First of all, there has been a powerful change in the public's attitude. In the fifties and sixties, adults born before or during World War II showed a careless and patronizing indifference toward what is so inade- quately called the Holocaust. That is no longer true. Back then, few publishers had the courage to publish books on that subject. Today, such works are on most book lists. The same is true in academia. Back then, few schools offered courses on the subject. Today, many do. And, strangely, those courses are particularly popular. The topic of Auschwitz has become part of mainstream culture. There are films, plays, novels, international conferences, exhibitions, annual ceremonies with the participation of the na-tion's officialdom. The most striking example is that of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.; it has received more than twenty-two million visitors since its inauguration in 1993. This may be because the public knows that the number of survivors is shrinking daily, and is fascinated by the idea of shar- ing memories that will soon be lost. For in the end, it is all about memory, its sources and its magnitude, and, of course, its conse- quences. For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living. He has no right to de- prive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time. SOMETIMES I AM ASKED if I know the response to Auschwitz; I answer that not only do I not know it, but that I don't even know if a tragedy of this magnitude has a response. What I do know is that there is response in responsibility. When we speak of this era of evil and darkness, so close and yet so distant, responsibil- ity is the key word. The witness has forced himself to testify. For the youth of to- day, for the children who will be born tomorrow. He does not want his past to become their future. E.W.Foreword by Franois Mauriac F OREIGN JOURNALISTS frequently come to see me. I am wary of them, torn as I am between my desire to speak to them freely and the fear of putting weapons into the hands of interviewers whose attitude toward France I do not know. During these encounters, I tend to be on my guard. That particular morning, the young Jew who came to inter- view me on behalf of a Tel Aviv daily won me over from the first moment. Our conversation very quickly became more personal. Soon I was sharing with him memories from the time of the Occu- pation. It is not always the events that have touched us personally that affect us the most. I confided to my young visitor that noth- ing I had witnessed during that dark period had marked me as deeply as the image of cattle cars filled with Jewish children at the Austerlitz train stationYet I did not even see them with my own eyes. It was my wife who described them to me, still un- der the shock of the horror she had felt. At that time we knew nothing about the Nazis' extermination methods. And who could have imagined such things! But these lambs torn from their mothers, that was an outrage far beyond anything we would havethought possible. I believe that on that day, I first became aware of the mystery of the iniquity whose exposure marked the end of an era and the beginning of another. The dream conceived by Western man in the eighteenth century, whose dawn he thought he had glimpsed in 1789, and which until August 2, 1914, had be- come stronger with the advent of the Enlightenment and scien- tific discoveriesthat dream finally vanished for me before those trainloads of small children. And yet I was still thousands of miles away from imagining that these children were destined to feed the gas chambers and crematoria. This, then, was what I probably told this journalist. And when I said, with a sigh, I have thought of these children so many times! he told me, I was one of them. He was one of them! He had seen his mother, a beloved little sister, and most of his family, except his father and two other sisters, disappear in a furnace fueled by living creatures. As for his father, the boy had to witness his martyrdom day after day and, finally, his agony and death. And what a death! The circumstances of it are narrated in this book, and I shall allow readerswho should be as numer- ous as those reading The Diary of Anne Frankto discover them for themselves as well as by what miracle the child himself escaped. I maintain therefore that this personal record, coming as it does after so many others and describing an abomination such as we might have thought no longer had any secrets for us, is differ- ent, distinct, and unique nevertheless. The fate of the Jews of the small town in Transylvania called Sighet; their blindness as they confronted a destiny from which they would have still had time to flee; the inconceivable passivity with which they surrendered to it, deaf to the warnings and pleas of a witness who, having es- caped the massacre, relates to them what he has seen with his own eyes, but they refuse to believe him and call him a mad-manthis set of circumstances would surely have sufficed to in- spire a book to which, I believe, no other can be compared. It is, however, another aspect of this extraordinary book that has held my attention. The child who tells us his story here was one of God's chosen. From the time he began to think, he lived only for God, studying the Talmud, eager to be initiated into the Kabbalah, wholly dedicated to the Almighty. Have we ever con- sidered the consequence of a less visible, less striking abomina- tion, yet the worst of all, for those of us who have faith: the death of God in the soul of a child who suddenly faces absolute evil? Let us try to imagine what goes on in his mind as his eyes watch rings of black smoke unfurl in the sky, smoke that em- anates from the furnaces into which his little sister and his mother had been thrown after thousands of other victims: Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky. Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith for- ever. Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes. Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never. It was then that I understood what had first appealed to me about this young Jew: the gaze of a Lazarus risen from the deadyet still held captive in the somber regions into which he had strayed, stumbling over desecrated corpses. For him, Nietzsche's cry articulated an almost physical reality: God is dead, the God of love, of gentleness and consolation, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had, under the watchful gaze of this child, vanished for- ever into the smoke of the human holocaust demanded by the Race, the most voracious of all idols. And how many devout Jews endured such a death? On that most horrible day, even among all those other bad days, when the child witnessed the hanging (yes!) of another child who, he tells us, had the face of a sad angel, he heard someone behind him groan: For God's sake, where is God? And from within me, I heard a voice answer: Where He is? This is wherehanging here from this gal- lows. On the last day of the Jewish year, the child is present at the solemn ceremony of Rosh Hashanah. He hears thousands of slaves cry out in unison, Blessed be the Almighty! Not so long ago, he too would have knelt down, and with such worship, such awe, such love! But this day, he does not kneel, he stands. The human creature, humiliated and offended in ways that are in- conceivable to the mind or the heart, defies the blind and deaf divinity. I no longer pleaded for anything. I was no longer able to lament. On the contrary, I felt very strong. I was the accuser, God the ac- cused. My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God, without man. Without love or mercy. I was nothing but ashes now, but I felt myself to be stronger than thisAlmighty to whom my life had been bound for so long. In the midst of these men assembled for prayer, I felt like an observer, a stranger. And I, who believe that God is love, what answer was there to give my young interlocutor whose dark eyes still held the reflec- tion of the angelic sadness that had appeared one day on the face of a hanged child? What did I say to him? Did I speak to him of that other Jew, this crucified brother who perhaps resembled him and whose cross conquered the world? Did I explain to him that what had been a stumbling block for his faith had become a cor- nerstone for mine? And that the connection between the cross and human suffering remains, in my view, the key to the unfath- omable mystery in which the faith of his childhood was lost? And yet, Zion has risen up again out of the crematoria and the slaugh- terhouses. The Jewish nation has been resurrected from among its thousands of dead. It is they who have given it new life. We do not know the worth of one single drop of blood, one single tear. All is grace. If the Almighty is the Almighty, the last word for each of us belongs to Him. That is what I should have said to the Jew- ish child. But all I could do was embrace him and weep.Night 1T HEY CALLED HIM Moishe the Beadle, as if his entire life he had never had a surname. He was the jack-of- all-trades in a Hasidic house of prayer, a shtibl. The Jews of Sighetthe little town in Transylvania where I spent my child- hoodwere fond of him. He was poor and lived in utter penury. As a rule, our townspeople, while they did help the needy, did not particularly like them. Moishe the Beadle was the excep- tion. He stayed out of people's way. His presence bothered no one. He had mastered the art of rendering himself insignificant, invisible. Physically, he was as awkward as a clown. His waiflike shyness made people smile. As for me, I liked his wide, dreamy eyes, gaz- ing off into the distance. He spoke little. He sang, or rather he chanted, and the few snatches I caught here and there spoke of divine suffering, of the Shekhinah in Exile, where, according to Kabbalah, it awaits its redemption linked to that of man. I met him in 1941. I was almost thirteen and deeply observant. By day I studied Talmud and by night I would run to the syna- gogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple. 2T HEY CALLED HIM Moishe the Beadle, as if his entire life he had never had a surname. He was the jack-of- all-trades in a Hasidic house of prayer, a shtibl. The Jews of Sighetthe little town in Transylvania where I spent my child- hoodwere fond of him. He was poor and lived in utter penury. As a rule, our townspeople, while they did help the needy, did not particularly like them. Moishe the Beadle was the excep- tion. He stayed out of people's way. His presence bothered no one. He had mastered the art of rendering himself insignificant, invisible. Physically, he was as awkward as a clown. His waiflike shyness made people smile. As for me, I liked his wide, dreamy eyes, gaz- ing off into the distance. He spoke little. He sang, or rather he chanted, and the few snatches I caught here and there spoke of divine suffering, of the Shekhinah in Exile, where, according to Kabbalah, it awaits its redemption linked to that of man. I met him in 1941. I was almost thirteen and deeply observant. By day I studied Talmud and by night I would run to the syna- gogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple. 3One day I asked my father to find me a master who could guide me in my studies of Kabbalah. You are too young for that. Maimonides tells us that one must be thirty before venturing into the world of mysticism, a world fraught with peril. First you must study the basic subjects, those you are able to comprehend. My father was a cultured man, rather unsentimental. He rarely displayed his feelings, not even within his family, and was more involved with the welfare of others than with that of his own kin. The Jewish community of Sighet held him in highest esteem; his advice on public and even private matters was frequently sought. There were four of us children. Hilda, the eldest; then Bea; I was the third and the only son; Tzipora was the youngest. My parents ran a store. Hilda and Bea helped with the work. As for me, my place was in the house of study, or so they said. There are no Kabbalists in Sighet, my father would often tell me. He wanted to drive the idea of studying Kabbalah from my mind. In vain. I succeeded on my own in finding a master for my- self in the person of Moishe the Beadle. He had watched me one day as I prayed at dusk. Why do you cry when you pray? he asked, as though he knew me well. I don't know, I answered, troubled. I had never asked myself that question. I cried because because something inside me felt the need to cry. That was all I knew. Why do you pray? he asked after a moment. Why did I pray? Strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe? I don't know, I told him, even more troubled and ill at ease. I don't know. From that day on, I saw him often. He explained to me, with 4great emphasis, that every question possessed a power that was lost in the answer Man comes closer to God through the questions he asks Him, he liked to say. Therein lies true dialogue. Man asks and God replies. But we don't understand His replies. We cannot under- stand them. Because they dwell in the depths of our souls and re- main there until we die. The real answers, Eliezer, you will find only within yourself. And why do you pray, Moishe? I asked him. I pray to the God within me for the strength to ask Him the real questions. We spoke that way almost every evening, remaining in the synagogue long after all the faithful had gone, sitting in the semi- darkness where only a few half-burnt candles provided a flicker- ing light. One evening, I told him how unhappy I was not to be able to find in Sighet a master to teach me the Zohar, the Kabbalistic works, the secrets of Jewish mysticism. He smiled indulgently. After a long silence, he said, There are a thousand and one gates allowing entry into the orchard of mystical truth. Every human being has his own gate. He must not err and wish to enter the or- chard through a gate other than his own. That would present a danger not only for the one entering but also for those who are already inside. And Moishe the Beadle, the poorest of the poor of Sighet, spoke to me for hours on end about the Kabbalah's revelations and its mysteries. Thus began my initiation. Together we would read, over and over again, the same page of the Zohar. Not to learn it by heart but to discover within the very essence of divinity. And in the course of those evenings I became convinced that Moishe the Beadle would help me enter eternity, into that time when question and answer would become ONE. 5AND THEN, one day all foreign Jews were expelled from Sighet. And Moishe the Beadle was a foreigner. Crammed into cattle cars by the Hungarian police, they cried silently. Standing on the station platform, we too were crying. The train disappeared over the horizon; all that was left was thick, dirty smoke. Behind me, someone said, sighing, What do you expect? That's war The deportees were quickly forgotten. A few days after they left, it was rumored that they were in Galicia, working, and even that they were content with their fate. Days went by. Then weeks and months. Life was normal again. A calm, reassuring wind blew through our homes. The shopkeepers were doing good business, the students lived among their books, and the children played in the streets. One day, as I was about to enter the synagogue, I saw Moishe the Beadle sitting on a bench near the entrance. He told me what had happened to him and his companions. The train with the deportees had crossed the Hungarian border and, once in Polish territory, had been taken over by the Gestapo. The train had stopped. The Jews were ordered to get off and onto waiting trucks. The trucks headed toward a forest. There every- body was ordered to get out. They were forced to dig huge trenches. When they had finished their work, the men from the Gestapo began theirs. Without passion or haste, they shot their pris- oners, who were forced to approach the trench one by one and offer their necks. Infants were tossed into the air and used as targets for the machine guns. This took place in the Galician forest, near Kolo- may. How had he, Moishe the Beadle, been able to escape? By a miracle. He was wounded in the leg and left for dead 6Day after day, night after night, he went from one Jewish house to the next, telling his story and that of Malka, the young girl who lay dying for three days, and that of Tobie, the tailor who begged to die before his sons were killed. Moishe was not the same. The joy in his eyes was gone. He no longer sang. He no longer mentioned either God or Kabbalah. He spoke only of what he had seen. But people not only refused to believe his tales, they refused to listen. Some even insinuated that he only wanted their pity, that he was imagining things. Oth- ers flatly said that he had gone mad. As for Moishe, he wept and pleaded: Jews, listen to me! That's all I ask of you. No money. No pity. Just listen to me! he kept shouting in synagogue, between the prayer at dusk and the evening prayer. Even I did not believe him. I often sat with him, after ser- vices, and listened to his tales, trying to understand his grief. But all I felt was pity. They think I'm mad, he whispered, and tears, like drops of wax, flowed from his eyes. Once, I asked him the question: Why do you want people to believe you so much? In your place I would not care whether they believed me or not He closed his eyes, as if to escape time. You don't understand, he said in despair. You cannot under- stand. I was saved miraculously. I succeeded in coming back. Where did I get my strength? I wanted to return to Sighet to describe to you my death so that you might ready yourselves while there is still time. Life? I no longer care to live. I am alone. But I wanted to come back to warn you. Only no one is listening to me This was toward the end of 1942. Thereafter, life seemed normal once again. London radio, which we listened to every evening, announced encouraging 7news: the daily bombings of Germany and Stalingrad, the prepa- ration of the Second Front. And so we, the Jews of Sighet, waited for better days that surely were soon to come. I continued to devote myself to my studies, Talmud during the day and Kabbalah at night. My father took care of his business and the community. My grandfather came to spend Rosh Ha- shanah with us so as to attend the services of the celebrated Rebbe of Borsche. My mother was beginning to think it was high time to find an appropriate match for Hilda. Thus passed the year 1943. SPRING 1944. Splendid news from the Russian Front. There could no longer be any doubt: Germany would be defeated. It was only a matter of time, months or weeks, perhaps. The trees were in bloom. It was a year like so many others, with its spring, its engagements, its weddings, and its births. The people were saying, The Red Army is advancing with giant stridesHitler will not be able to harm us, even if he wants to Yes, we even doubted his resolve to exterminate us. Annihilate an entire people? Wipe out a population dispersed throughout so many nations? So many millions of people! By what means? In the middle of the twentieth century! And thus my elders concerned themselves with all manner of thingsstrategy, diplomacy, politics, and Zionismbut not with their own fate. Even Moishe the Beadle had fallen silent. He was weary of talking. He would drift through synagogue or through the streets, hunched over, eyes cast down, avoiding people's gaze. In those days it was still possible to buy emigration certificates 8to Palestine. I had asked my father to sell everything, to liquidate everything, and to leave. I am too old, my son, he answered. Too old to start a new life. Too old to start from scratch in some distant land Budapest radio announced that the Fascist party had seized power. The regent Mikls Horthy was forced to ask a leader of the pro-Nazi Nyilas party to form a new government. Yet we still were not worried. Of course we had heard of the Fascists, but it was all in the abstract. It meant nothing more to us than a change of ministry. The next day brought really disquieting news: German troops had penetrated Hungarian territory with the government's approval. Finally, people began to worry in earnest. One of my friends, Moishe Chaim Berkowitz, returned from the capital for Passover and told us, The Jews of Budapest live in an atmosphere of fear and terror. Anti-Semitic acts take place every day, in the streets, on the trains. The Fascists attack Jewish stores, synagogues. The situation is becoming very serious The news spread through Sighet like wildfire. Soon that was all people talked about. But not for long. Optimism soon revived: The Germans will not come this far. They will stay in Budapest. For strategic reasons, for political reasons In less than three days, German Army vehicles made their appearance on our streets. ANGUISH. German soldierswith their steel helmets and their death's-head emblem. Still, our first impressions of the Germans were rather reassuring. The officers were billeted in private homes, even in Jewish homes. Their attitude toward their hosts was distant but polite. They never demanded the impossible, 9made no offensive remarks, and sometimes even smiled at the lady of the house. A German officer lodged in the Kahns' house across the street from us. We were told he was a charming man, calm, likable, and polite. Three days after he moved in, he brought Mrs. Kahn a box of chocolates. The optimists were jubi- lant: Well? What did we tell you? You wouldn't believe us. There they are, your Germans. What do you say now? Where is their fa- mous cruelty? The Germans were already in our town, the Fascists were al- ready in power, the verdict was already outand the Jews of Sighet were still smiling. THE EIGHT DAYS of Passover. The weather was sublime. My mother was busy in the kitchen. The synagogues were no longer open. People gathered in private homes: no need to provoke the Germans. Almost every rabbi's home became a house of prayer. We drank, we ate, we sang. The Bible commands us to rejoice during the eight days of celebration, but our hearts were not in it. We wished the holiday would end so as not to have to pretend. On the seventh day of Passover, the curtain finally rose: the Germans arrested the leaders of the Jewish community. From that moment on, everything happened very quickly. The race toward death had begun. First edict: Jews were prohibited from leaving their residences for three days, under penalty of death. Moishe the Beadle came running to our house. I warned you, he shouted. And left without waiting for a response. The same day, the Hungarian police burst into every Jewish home in town: a Jew was henceforth forbidden to own gold, jew- 10elry, or any valuables. Everything had to be handed over to the authorities, under penalty of death. My father went down to the cellar and buried our savings. As for my mother, she went on tending to the many chores in the house. Sometimes she would stop and gaze at us in silence. Three days later, a new decree: every Jew had to wear the yel- low star. Some prominent members of the community came to consult with my father, who had connections at the upper levels of the Hungarian police; they wanted to know what he thought of the situation. My father's view was that it was not all bleak, or per- haps he just did not want to discourage the others, to throw salt on their wounds: The yellow star? So what? It's not lethal (Poor Father! Of what then did you die?) But new edicts were already being issued. We no longer had the right to frequent restaurants or cafes, to travel by rail, to attend synagogue, to be on the streets after six o'clock in the evening. Then came the ghettos. TWO GHETTOS were created in Sighet. A large one in the center of town occupied four streets, and another smaller one extended over several alleyways on the outskirts of town. The street we lived on, Serpent Street, was in the first ghetto. We therefore could remain in our house. But, as it occupied a corner, the win- dows facing the street outside the ghetto had to be sealed. We gave some of our rooms to relatives who had been driven out of their homes. Little by little life returned to normal. The barbed wire that encircled us like a wall did not fill us with real fear. In fact, we felt this was not a bad thing; we were entirely among ourselves. A 11small Jewish republicA Jewish Council was appointed, as well as a Jewish police force, a welfare agency, a labor committee, a health agencya whole governmental apparatus. People thought this was a good thing. We would no longer have to look at all those hostile faces, endure those hate-filled stares. No more fear. No more anguish. We would live among Jews, among brothers Of course, there still were unpleasant moments. Every day, the Germans came looking for men to load coal into the military trains. Volunteers for this kind of work were few. But apart from that, the atmosphere was oddly peaceful and reassuring. Most people thought that we would remain in the ghetto until the end of the war, until the arrival of the Red Army. Afterward everything would be as before. The ghetto was ruled by neither German nor Jew; it was ruled by delusion. SOME TWO WEEKS before Shavuot. A sunny spring day, people strolled seemingly carefree through the crowded streets. They exchanged cheerful greetings. Children played games, rolling hazelnuts on the sidewalks. Some schoolmates and I were in Ezra Malik's garden studying a Talmudic treatise. Night fell. Some twenty people had gathered in our courtyard. My father was sharing some anecdotes and holding forth on his opinion of the situation. He was a good storyteller. Suddenly, the gate opened, and Stern, a former shopkeeper who now was a policeman, entered and took my father aside. De- spite the growing darkness, I could see my father turn pale. What's wrong? we asked. I don't know. I have been summoned to a special meeting of the Council. Something must have happened. The story he had interrupted would remain unfinished. 12I'm going right now, he said. I'll return as soon as possible. I'll tell you everything. Wait for me. We were ready to wait as long as necessary. The courtyard turned into something like an antechamber to an operating room. We stood, waiting for the door to open. Neighbors, hearing the ru- mors, had joined us. We stared at our watches. Time had slowed down. What was the meaning of such a long session? I have a bad feeling, said my mother. This afternoon I saw new faces in the ghetto. Two German officers, I believe they were Gestapo. Since we've been here, we have not seen a single of- ficer It was close to midnight. Nobody felt like going to sleep, though some people briefly went to check on their homes. Others left but asked to be called as soon as my father returned. At last, the door opened and he appeared. His face was drained of color. He was quickly surrounded. Tell us. Tell us what's happening! Say something At that moment, we were so anxious to hear something en- couraging, a few words telling us that there was nothing to worry about, that the meeting had been routine, just a review of welfare and health problemsBut one glance at my father's face left no doubt. The news is terrible, he said at last. And then one word: Transports. The ghetto was to be liquidated entirely. Departures were to take place street by street, starting the next day. We wanted to know everything, every detail. We were stunned, yet we wanted to fully absorb the bitter news. Where will they take us? That was a secret. A secret for all, except one: the president of the Jewish Council. But he would not tell, or could not tell. The Gestapo had threatened to shoot him if he talked. 13There are rumors, my father said, his voice breaking, that we are being taken somewhere in Hungary to work in the brick factories. It seems that here, we are too close to the front After a moment's silence, he added: Each of us will be allowed to bring his personal belong- ings. A backpack, some food, a few items of clothing. Nothing else. Again, heavy silence. Go and wake the neighbors, said my father. They must get ready The shadows around me roused themselves as if from a deep sleep and left silently in every direction. FOR A MOMENT, we remained alone. Suddenly Batia Reich, a rela- tive who lived with us, entered the room: Someone is knocking at the sealed window, the one that faces outside! It was only after the war that I found out who had knocked that night. It was an inspector of the Hungarian police, a friend of my father's. Before we entered the ghetto, he had told us, Don't worry. I'll warn you if there is danger. Had he been able to speak to us that night, we might still have been able to fleeBut by the time we succeeded in opening the window, it was too late. There was nobody outside. THE GHETTO was awake. One after the other, the lights were go- ing on behind the windows. I went into the house of one of my father's friends. I woke the head of the household, a man with a gray beard and the gaze of a dreamer. His back was hunched over from untold nights spent studying. 14Get up, sir, get up! You must ready yourself for the journey. Tomorrow you will be expelled, you and your family, you and all the other Jews. Where to? Please don't ask me, sir, don't ask ques- tions. God alone could answer you. For heaven's sake, get up He had no idea what I was talking about. He probably thought I had lost my mind. What are you saying? Get ready for the journey? What jour- ney? Why? What is happening? Have you gone mad? Half asleep, he was staring at me, his eyes filled with terror, as though he expected me to burst out laughing and tell him to go back to bed. To sleep. To dream. That nothing had happened. It was all in jest My throat was dry and the words were choking me, paralyzing my lips. There was nothing else to say. At last he understood. He got out of bed and began to dress, automatically. Then he went over to the bed where his wife lay sleeping and with infinite tenderness touched her forehead. She opened her eyes and it seemed to me that a smile crossed her lips. Then he went to wake his two children. They woke with a start, torn from their dreams. I fled. Time went by quickly. It was already four o'clock in the morn- ing. My father was running right and left, exhausted, consoling friends, checking with the Jewish Council just in case the order had been rescinded. To the last moment, people clung to hope. The women were boiling eggs, roasting meat, preparing cakes, sewing backpacks. The children were wandering about aimlessly, not knowing what to do with themselves to stay out of the way of the grown-ups. Our backyard looked like a marketplace. Valuable objects, precious rugs, silver candlesticks, Bibles and other ritual objects were strewn over the dusty groundspitiful relics that seemed never to have had a home. All this under a magnificent blue sky. 15By eight o'clock in the morning, weariness had settled into our veins, our limbs, our brains, like molten lead. I was in the midst of prayer when suddenly there was shouting in the streets. I quickly unwound my phylacteries and ran to the window. Hungarian po- lice had entered the ghetto and were yelling in the street nearby. All Jews, outside! Hurry! They were followed by Jewish police, who, their voices break- ing, told us: The time has comeyou must leave all this The Hungarian police used their rifle butts, their clubs to in- discriminately strike old men and women, children and cripples. One by one, the houses emptied and the streets filled with peo- ple carrying bundles. By ten o'clock, everyone was outside. The police were taking roll calls, once, twice, twenty times. The heat was oppressive. Sweat streamed from people's faces and bodies. Children were crying for water. Water! There was water close by inside the houses, the back- yards, but it was forbidden to break rank. Water, Mother, I am thirsty! Some of the Jewish police surreptitiously went to fill a few jugs. My sisters and I were still allowed to move about, as we were destined for the last convoy, and so we helped as best we could. AT LAST, at one o'clock in the afternoon came the signal to leave. There was joy, yes, joy. People must have thought there could be no greater torment in God's hell than that of being stranded here, on the sidewalk, among the bundles, in the middle of the street under a blazing sun. Anything seemed preferable to that. They began to walk without another glance at the abandoned streets, the dead, empty houses, the gardens, the tombstones 16On everyone's back, there was a sack. In everyone's eyes, tears and distress. Slowly, heavily, the procession advanced toward the gate of the ghetto. And there I was, on the sidewalk, watching them file past, un- able to move. Here came the Chief Rabbi, hunched over, his face strange looking without a beard, a bundle on his back. His very presence in the procession was enough to make the scene seem surreal. It was like a page torn from a book, a historical novel, per- haps, dealing with the captivity in Babylon or the Spanish Inqui- sition. They passed me by, one after the other, my teachers, my friends, the others, some of whom I had once feared, some of whom I had found ridiculous, all those whose lives I had shared for years. There they went, defeated, their bundles, their lives in tow, having left behind their homes, their childhood. They passed me by, like beaten dogs, with never a glance in my direction. They must have envied me. The procession disappeared around the corner. A few steps more and they were beyond the ghetto walls. The street resembled fairgrounds deserted in haste. There was a little of everything: suitcases, briefcases, bags, knives, dishes, banknotes, papers, faded portraits. All the things one planned to take along and finally left behind. They had ceased to matter. Open rooms everywhere. Gaping doors and windows looked out into the void. It all belonged to everyone since it no longer belonged to anyone. It was there for the taking. An open tomb. A summer sun. WE HAD SPENT the day without food. But we were not really hun- gry. We were exhausted. 17My father had accompanied the deportees as far as the ghetto's gate. They first had been herded through the main syna- gogue, where they were thoroughly searched to make sure they were not carrying away gold, silver, or any other valuables. There had been incidents of hysteria and harsh blows. When will it be our turn? I asked my father. The day after tomorrow. Unlessthings work out. A mira- cle, perhaps Where were the people being taken? Did anyone know yet? No, the secret was well kept. Night had fallen. That evening, we went to bed early. My fa- ther said: Sleep peacefully, children. Nothing will happen until the day after tomorrow, Tuesday. Monday went by like a small summer cloud, like a dream in the first hours of dawn. Intent on preparing our backpacks, on baking breads and cakes, we no longer thought about anything. The verdict had been delivered. That evening, our mother made us go to bed early. To con- serve our strength, she said. It was to be the last night spent in our house. I was up at dawn. I wanted to have time to pray before leaving. My father had risen before all of us, to seek information in town. He returned around eight o'clock. Good news: we were not leaving town today; we were only moving to the small ghetto. That is where we were to wait for the last transport. We would be the last to leave. At nine o'clock, the previous Sunday's scenes were repeated. Policemen wielding clubs were shouting: All Jews outside! 18