The Diary of Petr Ginz, 1941–1942

by Jonathan Safran Foer

  We received our report cards. Me, Hanka, and Pavel have all A’s. In our class there are 40% of them (16 out of 50). We had a show; we performed a reading of the Psalm and recited poetry. One-handed Dr. Kahn visited us. But the other class (IV.C) had a nice show. Fischmann did an impression of Lauder the head teacher, then of Miss Lauscherova (for this he put two hats on his breasts), and the teachers went all red, but they couldn’t do anything, because it’s these pupils’ last year in class.

  10. VII. 1942 (Friday)

  In the morning at home. In the afternoon at home.

  11. VII. 1942 (Saturday)

  In the morning at home, in the afternoon at Aunt Anda’s.

  12. VII. 1942 (Sunday)

  In the morning at the Hilfsdienst, in the afternoon at home.

  13. VII. 1942 (Monday)

  In the morning I was at the Jewish Community. I went to negotiate with Mr. Klemperer regarding tutoring his son in grammar. He wants to pay me 10 crowns per hour.

  In the afternoon at the Hilfsdienst.

  14. VII. 1942 (Tuesday)

  In the morning outside, in the afternoon at the Hilfsdienst.

  15. VII. 1942 (Wednesday)

  Same. I played billiards for the first time (the kind with holes and sticks) and won 2 crowns straightaway.

  16. VII. 1942 (Thursday)

  Tomorrow I have to travel with the Hilfsdienst as far as Suchdol.

  17. VII. 1942 (Friday)

  First thing in the morning I travelled by tram and by bus to Suchdol.

  It’s really far away. It rained all day and we had to wait at the akciz36 for those whose suitcases we were supposed to take away. We saw an officer trying to catch a bus, but he failed and swore terribly. I laughed; the German came over to us and shouted at one of us (Hecht): Du hast gelacht?37 The boy was expecting a slap but because he really didn’t laugh (that was me), he answered quite calmly: “No.” The officer then walked away.

  18. VII. 1942 (Saturday)

  In the morning with the Hilfsdienst, in the afternoon outdoors.

  I made a heavy gun out of clay and a carriage for it. Also a heavy cartridge, then a revolver, and a round bomb with an opening and a plug.

  19. VII. 1942 (Sunday)

  In the morning at the Hilfsdienst.

  Uncle Levitus and his wife are leaving with the transport. We were there in the afternoon and helped them pack. They are not worried because they had almost everything prepared.

  20. VII. 1942 (Monday)

  The Levituses were summoned to the transport.

  21. VII. 1942 (Tuesday)

  The Poppers were summoned to the transport.

  22. VII. 1942 (Wednesday)

  [Nothing recorded]

  23. VII. 1942 (Thursday)

  The Levituses reported to the exhibition grounds in the afternoon. I walked with them all the way to the first gate (the bottom one), where Jewish organizers were sending them to their places.

  24. VII. 1942 (Friday)

  In the morning at the Hilfsdienst.

  The Poppers have been called off the transport. They must have bribed some gestapo man. I heard this costs 50,000 crowns for one person.

  25. VII. 1942 (Saturday)

  Auntie received a summons to report as an added person to transport AAv.

  26. VII. 1942 (Sunday)

  In the morning at home, in the afternoon with the Hilfsdienst.

  27. VII. 1942 (Monday)

  Auntie has left.

  28. VII. 1942 (Tuesday)-l. VIII. 1942 (Saturday)

  [Nothing recorded]

  2. VIII. 1942 (Sunday)

  There is a big removal of (postal) horses going on. There are about fifty of them on Lodecka Street. A German officer is supervising it. The place is full of their poo.

  3. VIII. 1942 (Monday)

  Again, they are taking dogs away to Stvanice. They are testing whether they are afraid of shooting. It is very easy to see from Hlavkuv Bridge, but policemen are chasing people away from there.

  4. VIII. 1942 (Tuesday)

  In the morning at home, in the afternoon outside.

  5. VIII. 1942 (Wednesday)

  [Nothing recorded)

  6. VIII. 1942 (Thursday)

  [Nothing recorded)

  7. VIII. 1942 (Friday)

  [Nothing recorded)

  8. VIII. 1942 (Saturday)

  We went to the slaughterhouse, rode on rafts, enjoyed the sun and the water, and had a good time.

  9. VIII. 1942 (Sunday)

  In the morning at home.

  Petr Ginz (1928–1944), Moonlit Mountain, 1942–1944. India ink on paper; Gift of Otto Ginz, Haifa; Collection of the Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem.

  Postcard dated July 9, 1944, to Petr Ginz in Theresienstadt, from his father, Otto Ginz. From the private archives of Chava Pressburger.

  DEAREST PETR,

  A PACKAGE WILL BE SENT TO YOU ON JULY 12. I WILL ENCLOSE A LIST AND EXPLAIN THE ORDER IN WHICH YOU SHOULD EAT EVERYTHING. DO NOT EAT ANYTHING THAT HAS GONE BAD.

  KISSES

  9/7 1944

  The Last Meeting

  Chava Pressburger

  Petr’s diary accurately describes his rich life almost until the moment of his transport to Theresienstadt. He lived for two more years in Theresienstadt, during which time, in spite of difficult conditions, he continued to draw and write. He edited the magazine Vedem38 and, as far as possible, lived life to the full. In two years, the naive, dreamy boy turned into a serious sixteen-year-old young man who was immensely interested in just about every scientific subject. In Theresienstadt one had the opportunity to meet acclaimed scientific experts and great artists, from many disciplines. Petr listened keenly to their lectures, which took place secretly, because any intellectual activity was strictly forbidden by the Germans.

  Two years later, when I was also deported to Theresienstadt as a fourteen-year-old, I had the chance to see Petr briefly, hug him, and say good-bye to him, before he was deported with a transport to his death in Auschwitz. I wrote down the terrible moments of our last farewell in my Theresienstadt diary:

  16 August 1944

  Petr is an awfully smart boy. In their house he is known as the smartest. When I arrived here, a girl asked me if Petr Ginz is my brother, and said he was the most intelligent boy in the “heim.” I was very happy and I was very proud of him.

  16 September 1944

  I haven’t written for a long time, I couldn’t find time to do it. Petr was ill, his fever was 39°. There is this epidemic in Theresienstadt now. Fevers, people feel no pains. I was very worried that he might have something, because Petr and I are here alone together and if something happened to him, I am responsible; how would I explain it to our parents?

  27 September 1944

  So Petr and Pavel are in the transport. They were summoned the day before yesterday. It was said they’d be leaving the next day, but meanwhile they are still here, because the train hasn’t come. They are living in the Hamburg barracks in the garret. … We are hoping the transport will stay here, they say there is a strike in the entire protectorate, so the train won’t even get here. When I found out that Petr is in it I felt ill. I ran to the toilets and cried my heart out there.

  In front of Petr I try to calm myself; I don’t want to worry him. They are supposed to be taken somewhere near Dresden; I am terribly afraid there will be bombing there and the boys might get hurt. Mummy and Daddy, I miss you very much, especially now that my only support will be gone. Who knows if we’ll all find each other ever again? Oh, I wish the war would end already, it’s already a bit too much for us! What will our parents say at home when they find out that Petr is gone? They will probably know it soon now; Karel Müller wrote it home. Poor Daddy and Mummy!

  28 September 1944

  The train is now here and both boys have boarded it. Petr has the number 2392 and Pavel 2626. They are together in one carriage. Petr is amazingly calm; Uncle Milos was admiring him. I kept hoping the train wont come, even though I knew t
he opposite was true. But what can one do?

  In the morning Hanka (my cousin) and I went to see them by the slojzka.39 It was a terrible sight, I will not forget it till I die. A throng of women, children, and old people were pushing near the barracks to get a last glimpse of their son, husband, father, or brother. The men were leaning out the windows, pushing and shoving one on top of the other, to glance their dearest. All the barracks were surrounded by police so that no one could escape. Ghetto watchmen were standing near the building and chasing away people who got too close to it. Men were waving from the windows and saying fare well with their eyes to their relatives. Crying was heard from everywhere. We quickly ran and brought the boys two slices of bread, so they wont be hungry. I pushed my way through the crowd, crawled under the rope that separated it from the barracks, and handed Petr the bread through the window. I still had time to touch his hand through the bars and already the ghetto cop chased me away. Lucky it ended there. Now the boys are gone and all we have left of them are empty beds.

  12 October 1944

  It has been fourteen days now since the boys left, and we haven’t received any news from them. There were altogether seven transports, the list for the last one was being distributed yesterday, and I heard there will be more.

  16 October 1944

  Today there was an alarm again, after a long time. I saw foreign airplanes. First there were droves of them and then we saw four, followed by German fighter planes. I am terribly afraid they will bomb where our boys are. Who knows if my little Petr and I will ever meet again? Dear boy! I hope not even God could allow this to happen.

  28 October 1944

  Oh, today is another sad day! Uncle Milos boarded a transport to the East a moment ago. He received the summons around midnight last night, saying he has to leave at two o’clock. I heard that Günther40 arrived here and was very angry at Rahm41 for leaving so many Jews here. It is exactly a month today since the boys left, and now Uncle. Hanka and I will stay here all alone, the last ones from our entire family.

  2 November 1944

  Yesterday I found Petr’s diary. When I read it, I couldn’t control myself and I had to cry. Dear poor darling.

  In Israel, one day a year is dedicated to the memory of the Holocaust. On this day, called Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Day, the media deals with this subject, documentary films are shown containing horrifying witness accounts of Holocaust survivors from different countries. A great number of these accounts were recorded many years ago, immediately after the war, when the experiences were still fresh (even though I don’t believe that one can ever forget the horrors one lived through in concentration camps). Some testimonies were also used during the trial against Nazi war criminals in Nuremberg.

  Israeli television broadcast a witness testimony that was extremely upsetting to me because it also had to do with the death of my brother, Petr. I heard details about how mass murder was carried out in gas chambers. I ask the readers to forgive me for returning to that terrible description. The witness in question worked in the gas chambers. His task was to wait for the people shoved into the gas chamber to suffocate; then he had to open the chamber and transport the heaps of corpses to the ovens, where they were to be burned. This man could barely speak for tears. He testified that the position of the corpses suggested what went on inside the hermetically sealed chamber, when it began to be filled with toxic gas. The stronger ones, led by an overpowering instinct for self-preservation, tried to get to the top, where there was still some air left, so that the weaker ones were trampled to death.

  The picture of this horrific scene often haunts my thoughts, especially at night, even though I try to resist it. I see Petr in this terrifying situation and I find it hard to breathe myself. I ask myself: why him, and not me?

  Writings from Theresienstadt

  Pieces written for the magazine Vedem (Theresienstadt, 1942–1944)

  Petr Ginz

  WANDERING THROUGH THERESIENSTADT

  A room buried under The Cavalier,42 stinking of the stench of latrines, weak light, filth, physical and spiritual. The only care is to eat enough, get some sleep and …? What more? A spiritual life? Could there exist anything more in those underground lairs than mere animal desire to satisfy physical needs? And still, it is possible! The seed of a creative idea does not die in mud and scum. Even there it will germinate and spread its blossom like a star shining in darkness.

  The blind artist Berthold Ordner43 is proof of this. One day I visited him with Jiricek Schubert, in order to write about him in our magazine. After a brief introduction I asked him to tell me something about himself. Unfortunately he spoke only German, so we couldn’t communicate very well.

  “Ever since my youth,” this man said, “I was a keen observer of everything that was happening in front of my eyes. When I was later fatally blinded, I was forced to stop drawing. I couldn’t see or touch what I was drawing. I was simply missing the third dimension. And so I reached for the wire.” Having said this, he took a beautiful peacock off his shelf, made of delicate copper wires. I couldn’t stop admiring the beautiful lines and the detailed execution of this object. The eyes on the tail were made of wire twisted into spirals.

  “And how do you work?” I asked.

  “First I shape a skeleton, and if it seems to have the right shape, I work out individual details, muscles and such, using a thin wire.”

  “How come you still remember so exactly the shapes of models you haven’t seen in over twenty-five years?”

  “This is due to my memory. I use my memory to conjure up various objects that I saw in my youth, and I re-create them now, twenty years later, in the form in which I understood them back then. It is a method similar to the expressionist technique. Look at the model at home, then make it, following especially the outline and shape. Colours are secondary. It’s the same with me, except the gap between observing the model and re-creating it is a little longer. Twenty-five years! So much has changed in that time! I used to have shows of my work in America, France, England, Germany, Spain, Sweden, and elsewhere; museums were fighting for my creations. Now in Theresienstadt I am starving; I don’t even have enough wire to work with.”

  “Do you still feel your blindness?” I asked him.

  “Sometimes, when I am reflecting on things, I don’t feel the lack of my eyesight at all. In my spirit, I leave the dirt here completely behind. Those are my happiest moments.”

  Petr Ginz

  LINOCUTS

  As the entire linocut technique shows, a linocut is the expression of a person who does not make compromises. It is either black or white. There is no grey transition. There can’t be any soaring strokes as in a painting or insane fragmented deletions, whose parallels can be found in the mad fruits of some poets’ labour. Everywhere there is the same, calm line, arch, curve, plane. A sculptor, for example, cannot create his sculpture in a state of ecstasy. It would look strange if the sculptor, in a sudden attack of artistic feeling, started hitting the marble, bronze, or other material. That material would either collapse or fall apart. It is simply necessary to work calmly and over an extended period of time, during which you can instantly control the emotions that have just come up. I think that this can only help your art. Paper, music sheetnotes, and a canvass can take everything, but sculptures and linocuts cannot. So according to this I would divide art into two types, the calm and the ecstatic. Of course, this doesn’t mean that every poet or writer has to create in a state of ecstasy. Not at all. Some poets write calmly, others less so. But they do have this choice. An artist working in marble does not have that choice. A linocut artist—and this applies to any engraver—does not have it either. A painter, yes, a composer, too, and so does a dancer, but not a metal craftsman. When I say, “He has a choice,” you mustn’t imagine that after a long deliberation he will choose one or the other. His own character chooses between calm art and art created in a state of ecstasy. And this is also how we must judge those works of art. Calm art reveals the artist�
�s core; ecstatic art shows his mood. Picture it like this: Every day, we’ll draw lines bent this way or that. These are the poet’s moods. Calm art means that the poet slightly corrects every day the line from the day before, until he arrives at an average angle: this is his core. The ecstatic artist will capture one line, one mood, which may be different from the one that follows it.

  Petr Ginz (1928–1944), Night Blossoms, 1942–1944. Linocut; 11.5 × 17 cm; Gift of Otto Ginz, Haifa; Collection of the Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem.

  But in the end I beg for your forgiveness for straying so much from the given topic. Farewell!

  Petr Ginz

  CRAZY AUGUST

  The air was humid and chilly. Suspended in it were clusters of steely grey fog that almost touched the surface of the sea. Unpleasant light wind. A green mass of waves at a distance of about a hundred yards gradually disappeared, until it merged with the sea.

  August sat in the cabin of The Bonifacie. They called him Crazy August, but Petr, the young sailor, believed him. “He is not mad,” he used to say, “he’s just different, a bit strange. He probably knows some big secret you don’t and can’t understand.”

  “You’ve become almost like him, you’ll end up losing your marbles if you keep talking to him,” the other sailors would say to him. “They are ignorant,” August would say and his eyes seemed to Petr as if they were looking down at him from a high mountain, hidden by clouds. No, August was not a madman, certainly not, how could he be when he spoke so convincingly? And Petr was fond of him, he liked that crazy man with the deep eyes, he trusted him. August did speak in a strange way. “No one in the world talks like this,” thought Petr. “I have never heard the captain, the ship steerer, the sailors or anyone in the port speak in such a peculiar way.” For this was his entire world. It was nighttime. Everyone was asleep, only the steps of the guard with his dog could be heard on the deck. Petr was falling asleep. His muscles felt soft and relaxed. His muscles, his entire body felt free, which also relaxed his mind. His thoughts were drifting off behind the blue fog of sleep. He was losing consciousness.