by Yishai Sarid
“What exactly are you trying to take over?” I asked him.
He said that at the moment they were leaning toward the crematoriums, both because they were situated on an easy-to-spot hill and because of their symbolic meaning, though of course from a more practical standpoint the gas chambers were more important, but at this camp they were small and not impressively located.
“Who’s playing the enemy?” I asked. I wanted to show him I understood a thing or two about these things.
He said that was a complicated issue. They certainly did not intend on dressing up our own soldiers like Germans, and anyway, there was no desire to fan the flames of hatred toward the Germans, who were now such close allies. “It looks like we won’t have enemy staging,” he said. “But as far as our forces are concerned, it’s going to be a staging of an operation like any other, not just a display of force.”
The female officer, who looked quite attractive in natural light, intervened to say that they were planning on demonstrating the rescuing of Jews from death. There would be a group of students the soldiers would be rescuing from inside the sheds, maybe even from the line to the gas chambers. I noticed the two other officers making a face, but they didn’t dare say anything. She was the dominant one in the group. She asked to see the statue of three vultures up close. She saw it as a symbolic point of reference. Perhaps that would be the placing of the stage for speeches and performances.
I explained it was a work of art made by a Polish prisoner, and that the ashes from the burnt bodies of prisoners were surreptitiously buried underneath it. To this day, no one knows what compelled the Germans to allow the statue to be installed there at all. They had all sorts of idiosyncrasies, like those orchestras playing to people on their way to death.
The female officer’s specialty was television: camera angles, lighting, that sort of thing. She told me that before enlisting for standing service, she had spent a few years working for production companies. “Think television,” she kept saying.
We were standing before her like chastised children. I could only imagine what they were planning. I understood the choreography: a helicopter landing and raising dust; strong, limber soldiers jumping out and taking over the camp in a dance of battle, combat in the open field and urban warfare, running, armed, through the paths of the camp, fighting against an invisible enemy, breathing life into ashes.
They took their time, measuring and testing and photographing. A group of Israeli high school students walked by. The officers were thrilled to meet them. They asked their names and where they were from. A small crowd formed. I was perfunctorily familiar with their guide. I nodded at him in greeting.
The children opened up to them, their teeth white, their smiles healthy. The officers treated them as if they were their own, with love and not a hint of inhibition.
I stood among them with a frozen smile, searching for a way to thaw, reaching out to touch the brown curly hair of one of the girls. I didn’t mean anything by it. I’d guided a hundred delegations and never touched anyone.
She turned around with a smile, thinking I was one of her friends. I recognized my mistake right away. “What are you doing?!” she barked.
They all looked at me like I was a pervert. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it,” I said.
“Then keep your hands to yourself,” she blurted, upset. Then she walked away, surrounded by her friends.
The officers stood at a distance from me. Only the pilot had seen what had happened. I looked at him pleadingly. He said nothing, but his gaze was withering.
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” I said, coming closer. But he turned his back on me, not interested in explanations.
The kids’ guide asked them to hurry up. They said an excited goodbye to the officers and walked away, wrapped in their flags.
“So sweet. You won’t find young people like that anywhere else in the world,” said the spokesperson’s officer. “This is our true revenge. So beautiful, smart, and accomplished.”
The commando officer, short and solid, said they reminded him of himself when he was younger.
The pilot said nothing, looking at me from a distance, trying to figure me out. He had me hostage now.
I looked back on the way to the parking lot, to make sure no one was chasing me. What crime did I commit? I thought, all of a sudden incensed. All I did was touch a girl’s hair.
The diplomatic vehicle raced down the highway to the west. They were all lost in their computer screens, planning fighting positions and camera angles. I had nothing to do. I knew enough, and had no desire to learn anything new. I didn’t want to look out the window, either. I was sick of this country’s landscape.
I recalled what you’d told me when we met at the launch in Jerusalem: that I should write down my impressions as a guide. I jotted down a few thoughts on my phone, but wasn’t quite prepared for the undertaking. I needed something else, and I didn’t know when I would get it.
That evening, the military attaché invited the visitors to a stylish restaurant in Warsaw. The reservation was made for five: the attaché and his wife, and the three officers. It’s easy to feel unwanted. I missed Ruth and Ido very much, but when I called she sounded sleepy. “He had a bad day,” she said, half-asleep. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
I considered punishing the delegation—not showing up to the trip to Treblinka the next day, avenging my insult by flying home first thing in the morning. Instead, I exhausted myself walking around. I passed by Janusz Korczak’s orphanage in the dark. The man never married or had any children, as is the habit of those hoping to save humankind. No one would have ever blamed him for touching a girl’s hair. I imagined his silhouette walking through the rooms at night, saying good night to the children, them answering him with their small voices, good night. Perhaps they loved him, or perhaps they were only in awe of him, and he knew it, and it broke his heart.
The next day, Treblinka. From there, they would drive straight to the airport, and I would have a few free days in Warsaw until the next group arrived. I couldn’t wait. I searched their faces for traces of the previous day’s incident and found none, so I decided to write it off, as if it had never happened.
The pilot, a nature buff, asked that we veer off the road and drive to the Vistula River, flowing calmly and broadly. We walked right to the water. Lots of birds were resting on the banks, among the trees, and the landscape stretched to the horizon. A blessed silence fell between us.
“How cruel we are to each other,” the pilot said out of the blue, a tear gleaming in his eye.
I was surprised, and envious. I’d been wandering this land for three years without being able to shed a single tear. I mustered up my courage, walked over, and put my hand on his shoulder. We were standing very close, but only for a moment, until he pulled himself together and said, “Let’s keep going.”
We arrived at the camp a short while later. There are the tracks, there’s the forest, there are the stones symbolizing the path of the Jews. I told them about the trains that came here every day and returned empty, three thousand, four thousand, five thousand people every day. I shouted like a train announcer. I couldn’t keep describing it in a restrained, mournful voice anymore. I was filled with a physical rage that demanded an outlet. And what exactly were these three officers planning to do? Bomb the plowed field with the ashes buried underneath? Raid the shadows of the forest?
The officer took pictures of the memorial stones dedicated to exterminated communities. “What do you think, should we build a set here?” she asked. “We can build a few sheds for the soldiers to occupy; some guard towers, a bit of fencing? It’s too empty this way. What do you think?”
The commando officer cleared his throat awkwardly and said that fighters landing in the chopper out in the open would be in a killing field. There was nothing to hide behind and nothing to occupy.
The pilot said this was not his area of expertise, and that he didn’t know anything about filmmaking.
&n
bsp; “So, what do you think?” the officer asked me directly, even smiling. “Let’s hear you for a change.”
“Listen,” I told her. “Just listen for a second. Do you hear anything? Wind and birds. Now travel back in time. A little more, further back. The birds are still singing, the wind is still blowing, you’re in the same place, and it’s full of people. They arrive by train and within an hour or two they’re just dead animals, burned to ashes. Focus, feel it. They’re here around us, a part of nature. They came here as subhuman and left as worm food, dust, crushed bugs. Look at this insect, running at your feet, that kind of centipede. They are inside of it. It ate their ashes on its way to the forest. What could be simpler or more natural? There’s no need to talk, it’s easier to look at nature, breathe the air, then stop breathing, because your airways are filled with gas. These are nature games. That’s why the Germans came here, east, to fertilize the earth, because it belongs to whoever works it. They’re here, in this field, screaming. Listen, just listen for a moment. They’re being eaten, constantly eaten, and burned, and ridiculed. Whipped on their way to be strangled as punishment for once having worn clothes and walked the streets and raised their children and cooked their food and read books and had friends. They’re just miserable meat about to be burned.”
The pilot walked over and said quietly, “Come on, I think we’ve seen enough. We’ve got enough information to make our decision. We can go.”
“Hold on,” I said, “I have more to say to you.”
But he insisted that we leave. I could only take them so far. I couldn’t go really deep. They remained focused on their mission. I wanted to keep explaining it to her, but our eye contact was broken. She was whispering with the two others, and they were talking about me. The treetops wavered unusually, with gusto, as if a monster was blowing on them, and the pilot led me gently to the car that was going to take us home, to Warsaw.
I said a warm goodbye to them at the airport, squeezing their hands for maybe a touch too long, insisting on kissing the female officer on the cheeks. That’s not something I normally do, but I felt attached to her all of a sudden.
The pilot asked the driver to take me home and make sure I was all right.
“Write to me when you get back,” I said with an odd joviality. “Don’t hesitate to ask for more details, reports, whatever you want. I’m completely at the disposal of this operation, at your disposal. I hope to see you here again soon!”
I spent hours sleeping in my apartment, evening, night, morning, midday. I felt as if I had to gather my strength, but I wasn’t sure what for.
I woke up a full day later to the depressing sunset of the northern countries. When I stepped outside, I ran into my elderly neighbor, as if she’d been waiting there for me. She signaled for me to hold on. I did. She walked back into her apartment, and returned with a few items of men’s clothing on hangers: a few pairs of gray pants, a used jacket, two sweaters, a belt. Take it, take it, she said with her hands.
I glanced at myself, at my clothes, and realized they were quite tattered. Good God, I’d been walking around like this all this time. I thanked her and took the clothes. I invited her in for some tea, but as usual she mumbled something and walked tensely back into her apartment. The clothes smelled pleasantly old. I would definitely wear them.
Then I Skyped Ruth. She looked at my image on the phone and said I didn’t look good.
My eyes were odd; my beard wild and dirty.
“When are you coming back?” she demanded. “The kids are hitting him again.”
I told her I was completely swamped with the military project and the delegations, and that I would come for a few days as soon as I could.
“You can’t go out to meet people looking like that,” she said. “Do something about it.” Then she changed her attitude and told me she saw my book at a store. “I was so proud. I convinced the salesperson to place it somewhere more prominent, so that everyone buys it.”
I told her I regretted not using a more pleasant cover image, like a forest, or a Jewish child, instead of a picture of the murderers on their day of rest.
Ruth said she thought the image was good because it drew attention.
I told her I had to go; that I had a meeting with the military attaché. I knew I had something to finish there. I couldn’t leave defeated. I tried on the clothes the widow had given me. They were clean and warm, and that was enough for me.
I wrote to the members of the military delegation. I also tried to get in touch with the attaché, but no one at his office answered.
I went on one more high school trip, and then my schedule cleared up. The bookings stopped coming. I called the travel agency, but felt they were evading me. Finally, the manager told me that a few schools had sent bad reviews about me, saying there were some issues, and that they’d decided to put my services on hold for the time being.
I was mad at them for doing this behind my back. I protested. No, sir, I wasn’t going to be treated that way. I yelled at them. I lost my cool. I realized my reputation was ruined. Not too long ago I was the most sought-after guide for delegations to Poland, and now I was at the bottom of the list. Of course, there were also financial implications. Ruth had become accustomed to a certain lifestyle, which is why she’d accepted my prolonged absence. Now things were hopeless.
They must have been alarmed by my reaction, because the manager of the travel agency called a short while later and invited me to get involved with a new venture: day trips to Holocaust sites for general tourists.
“What are general tourists?” I asked.
She explained that meant tourists who came to Poland on vacation, not on a Holocaust tour, but still wanted to devote a day to the subject. “It’ll pay off,” she promised. “Instead of going on tours that last a full week you’ll be able to work on day trips, and you’ll make the same money.”
I didn’t have much choice. I waited for something big to come. I knew it would, and didn’t want to miss it.
A few days later I reported early in the morning to one of the biggest hotels in Warsaw, across the way from Stalin’s tower, where I met the Polish minivan driver. We waited ten minutes, thirty minutes, but nobody showed up. The driver went to the reception desk to ask around. Reception called up to the room and was told our party would be right down.
Almost an hour late, a group of older people showed up, eight or nine of them, wearing heavy jackets. The men had potbellies and the women wore heavy makeup and a collection of necklaces and bracelets. They lumbered loudly into the minivan without apologizing for their tardiness.
I introduced myself to them. “I’ll be accompanying you on your tour of Auschwitz,” I said, trying to sound formal and imbue the trip with some meaning.
They nodded gravely and then embarked on an unending conversation, a chatter with no end in sight, all about their experiences at the casino the previous night, the shopping they had done and the shopping they planned to do, the breakfast—which they said was rich but not as high quality as in other European hotels. They listed the foods they ate, discussed the shortcomings of the Polish people, their own children and their children’s partners and their grandchildren, business and real estate and money, all in a constant whirlwind of babble. They were adamant about stopping for coffee and a smoke every hour and returned carrying bags from each such stop.
I tried to figure them out. Who were these people? Their conversation revealed their hometowns, but their line of work was hard to discern. One of the more dominant members of the group owned a business. He spoke at length about an employee who opened and closed the place but didn’t clean it well enough at the end of the workday. He was thinking of letting him go.
Pretty soon I was missing the students and the soldiers and regretting every negative thought I’d ever had about them. In the middle of the ride one of the group suddenly leaned over, voice hoarse with cigarettes, and said, “Doctor, they told us you’re a doctor, why don’t you tell us a little bit about the Hol
ocaust, about what we’re going to see today.”
I was glad he’d addressed me, and gave my regular introduction talk about the origins and course of the Holocaust. I was very proud of this little lecture; the epitome of summarization and precision. But they didn’t have any patience for it. They had the attention span of kindergartners, and by the time I got to the invasion of Russia and the beginning of extermination by the Einsatzgruppen and local gangs, one woman called out to her friend, “Check it out, there’s an IKEA here.”
After that they were all too distracted, and the lecture was over. Maybe they’re right, I thought. What’s the point in all these recitations? If it is our duty to carry on living, why not live life in all its stupidity? Or maybe they were doing this on purpose, and not out of stupidity. They looked like fairly successful people, certainly more than I, who had to accompany them to make a living. We arrived at Auschwitz I. Upon their request, I took pictures of them in front of the “Arbeit Macht Frei” gate. I was beginning to like them. I led them among the brown brick structures, through the gate exhibition, the suitcases, the prostheses, and then through the first gas chamber and the crematorium beside it. I spoke little—the exhibits spoke for themselves. I can imagine they were truly shocked, but when I told them we would now drive over to Birkenau and have another hour-and-a-half- to two-hour tour, they sent over their representative—the business owner—and he said they were ready to skip the second part of the tour, it was all very interesting and very shocking, but they’d had enough, the women in particular were having a hard time, and we could head back now.
“Fine,” I said right away. I was afraid of going back there too, to those things I could see there. “But you should know that’s where the mass killings happened. When people talk about Auschwitz they mostly mean Birkenau. You’ll be missing the most important place.”
He looked at me with gravity, with compassion, placed his big palm on my shoulder, and said, “It’s okay, we get it. Don’t think poorly of us, we’ve had enough, we don’t need to see any more horrors to understand. Enough. We don’t need any more. And don’t worry, you’ll be paid in full.”