Our hunger was almost unbearable: we were given practically nothing to eat. Each day when we were allowed a short time outside the huts we threw ourselves on the ground, tore up the scanty grass, and ate it like cattle. After such “outings” the corpse carriers had their hands full, for few could digest this “food.” The corpses were piled on to the handcarts, which formed an endless procession.
In this camp I had time for thought. It was obvious that the Germans were nearing their end. But so were we. The well-oiled machinery of murder was now running by itself, liquidating the last witnesses of the unspeakable crimes. I already surmised what was later to be confirmed: there were complete plans in existence for our final destruction as soon as the Americans approached the camp.
“Only another half hour till freedom, but only a quarter of an hour till death,” as one of us said.
I lay on my bunk, wasted away to a skeleton. I looked at everything as through a thin curtain, which, I supposed, was the effect of hunger. Then I would fall into a restless doze. One night when I was neither awake nor asleep the SS man from the Lemberg Hospital reappeared to me. I had forgotten all about him, there were more important things and in any case hunger dulled the thinking processes. I realized that I only had a few days to live, or at best a few weeks and yet I remembered the SS man again and his confession. His eyes were no longer completely hidden; they looked at me through small holes in the bandages. There was an angry expression in them. He was holding something in front of me—the bundle that I had refused to accept from the nurse. I must have screamed. A doctor, a young Jew from Cracow with whom I had sometimes conversed, was on watch that night.
To this day I do not know why there was a doctor in Block 6. He couldn't help us, for his whole stock of drugs consisted of indefinable red pastilles and a little paper wadding. But this was enough for the authorities to pretend that there was a physician to look after the 1,500 condemned men in Block 6.
“What's the matter with you?” asked the doctor whom I found standing by my bunk. Four of us had to sleep on a single bunk and naturally the other three had been roused.
“What's the matter?” he repeated.
“I was only dreaming.”
“Dreaming? I only wish I were able to dream again,” he consoled. “When I go to sleep I wish for a dream that would take me away from here. It is never fulfilled. I sleep well but I never dream. Was yours a nice dream?”
“I dreamt of a dead SS man,” I said.
I knew that he could not understand the few words I had spoken, and I was much too weak to tell him the whole story. What would have been the sense of it anyway? Not one of us was going to escape from this death hut.
So I held my peace.
During the same night one of the men in our bunk died. He had once been a judge in Budapest…Since his death meant we would have more room in our cramped bunk we pondered whether to report his “departure”; but in the end the fact that there was a free place could not be hidden.
Two days later, when a new consignment of prisoners arrived, a young Pole was allocated to our bunk. His name was Bolek and he had come from Auschwitz, which had been evacuated in face of the Russian advance.
Bolek was a strong character and nothing could shake him. Little disturbed him, and he retained his sangfroid in the worst situations. In some ways he reminded me of Josek, although physically he hadn't the slightest resemblance to him. At first I took him to be an intelligent country lad.
At Mauthausen nobody asked a fellow prisoner where he came from or what his profession had been. We accepted whatever he chose to tell us about himself. The past was no longer important. There were no class differences, we were all equals—except for one thing: the times of our appointments with death.
Bolek told us about the men who perished on the transportation from Auschwitz to Mauthausen. They died of starvation during the endless days of railway traveling, or they collapsed from fatigue during the all-day marches. Those who could no longer walk were shot.
One morning I heard Bolek murmuring his prayers in Polish, which was a very unusual occurrence. Very few of us still prayed. He who is incessantly tortured in spite of his innocence soon loses his faith…
Gradually I learned that Bolek, who had studied theology, had been arrested outside the seminary in Warsaw. In Auschwitz he endured the most inhuman treatment, for the SS knew that he was a priest in training and never tired of inventing new humiliations for him. But his faith was unbroken.
One night as he lay awake beside me in the bunk, I told him about my experience in the Lemberg hospital.
“After all, they are not all exactly alike,” he said when I had finished. Then he sat up and stared straight in front of him in silence.
“Bolek,” I insisted, “you who would have been a priest by now if the Nazis had not attacked Poland, what do you think I ought to have done? Should I have forgiven him? Had I in any case the right to forgive him? What does your religion say? What would you have done in my position?”
“Stop. Wait a minute,” he protested. “You are overwhelming me with questions. Take it easy. I realize that this business sticks in your memory although we have been through so much, but I take it that your subconscious is not completely satisfied with your attitude at the time. I think I gathered that from what you said.”
Was this true? Did my unrest come from my subconsciousness? Was this what drove me again and again to think about the encounter in the hospital? Why had I never been able to put it behind me? Why was the business not finished and done with? That seemed to me the most important question.
Some minutes passed in silence, although Bolek's eyes never left mine. He too seemed to have forgotten time and place.
“I don't think that the attitude of the great religions to the question of forgiveness differs to any great extent. If there is any difference, then it is more in practice than in principle. One thing is certain: you can only forgive a wrong that has been done to yourself. Yet on the other hand: Whom had the SS man to turn to? None of those he had wronged were still alive.”
“So he asked something from me that was impossible to grant?”
“Probably he turned to you because he regarded Jews as a single condemned community. For him you were a member of this community and thus his last chance.”
What Bolek was saying reminded me of the feeling I experienced during the dying man's confession: at that time I really was his last chance of receiving absolution.
I had tried to express this view when discussing the affair with Josek but he managed to convince me otherwise at the time. Or was it illusion?
But Bolek continued: “I don't think he was lying to you. When one is face to face with death one doesn't lie. On his deathbed he apparently returned to the faith of his childhood, and he died in peace because you listened to his confession. It was a real confession for him—even without a priest…
“Through his confession, as you surely know—though it was not a formal confession—his conscience was liberated and he died in peace because you had listened to him. He had regained his faith. He had become once again the boy who, as you said, was in close relation with his church.”
“You seem to be all on his side,” I protested. “Very few SS men were brought up as atheists, but none retained any teaching of their church.”
“That's not the question. I thought a lot about this problem when I was in Auschwitz. I argued with the Jews there. And if I survive this camp and ever get ordained a priest, then I must reconsider what I have said about the Jews. You are aware that the Polish church in particular was always very antisemitic…But let us stick to your problem. So this Lemberg fellow showed signs of repentance, genuine, sincere repentance for his misdeeds—that at least is how you described it.”
“Yes,” I answered, “I am still convinced of that.”
“Then,” Bolek pronounced solemnly, “then he deserved the mercy of forgiveness.”
“But who was to forgive him? I? Nobody had
empowered me to do so.”
“You forget one thing: this man had not enough time left to atone for his crime; he had no opportunity to expiate the sins which he had committed.”
“Maybe. But had he come to the right person? I had no power to forgive him in the name of other people. What was he hoping to get from me?”
Without hesitation Bolek replied, “In our religion repentance is the most important element in seeking forgiveness…And he certainly repented. You ought to have thought of something: here was a dying man and you failed to grant his last request.”
“That's what is worrying me. But there are requests that one simply cannot grant. I admit that I had some pity for the fellow.”
We talked for a long time, but came to no conclusion. On the contrary, Bolek began to falter in his original opinion that I ought to have forgiven the dying man, and for my part I became less and less certain as to whether I had acted rightly.
Nevertheless the talk was rewarding for both of us. He, a candidate for the Catholic priesthood, and I, a Jew, had exposed our arguments to each other, and each had a better understanding of the other's views.
When at last the hour of freedom struck, it was too late for so many of us. But the survivors made their way homeward in groups. Bolek too went home and two years later I heard that he had been ill, but I never learned what happened to him eventually.
For me there was no home to return to. Poland was a cemetery and if I were to make a new life I couldn't start it in a cemetery, where every tree, every stone, reminded me of the tragedy which I had barely survived. Nor did I want to meet those who bore the guilt for our sufferings.
So soon after the liberation I joined a commission for the investigation of Nazi crimes. Years of suffering had inflicted deep wounds on my faith that justice existed in the world. It was impossible for me simply to restart my life from the point at which it had been so ruthlessly disrupted. I thought the work of the commission might help me regain my faith in humanity and in the things which mankind needs in life besides the material.
In the summer of 1946 I went on a journey with my wife and a few friends to the neighborhood of Linz. We spread a rug on the hillside and looked out on the sunny landscape. I borrowed a pair of binoculars and studied nature through them. Thus at least I could reach with my eyes objects to which my weak legs could no longer carry me.
As I looked around I suddenly saw behind me a bush and behind the bush a sunflower. I stood up and went slowly toward it. As I approached I saw other sunflowers were growing there and at once I became lost in thought. I remembered the soldiers’ cemetery at Lemberg, the hospital and the dead SS man on whose grave a sunflower would now be growing…
When I returned, my friends looked at me anxiously. “Why are you so pale?” they asked.
I didn't want to tell them about the haunting episode of the hospital in Lemberg. It was a long time since I had thought about it, yet a sunflower had come to remind me. Remind me of what? Had I anything to reproach myself for?
As I recalled once more the details of the strange encounter I thought how lovingly he had spoken of his mother. I even remembered her name and address which appeared on the bundle containing his possessions.
A fortnight later on my way to Munich, I took the opportunity to pay a visit to Stuttgart. I wanted to see the SS man's mother. If I talked with her, perhaps it would give me a clearer picture of his personality. It was not curiosity that inspired me but a vague feeling of duty…and perhaps the hope of exorcizing forever one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life.
At that time the world was seeking for a more precise understanding of the Nazi atrocities. What at first nobody could believe, chiefly because the mind could not comprehend the enormity of it, slowly became authenticated by fresh evidence. It gradually dawned that the Nazis committed crimes which were so monstrous as to be incredible.
But ere long priests, philanthropists, and philosophers implored the world to forgive the Nazis. Most of these altruists had probably never even had their ears boxed, but nevertheless found compassion for the murderers of innocent millions. The priests said indeed that the criminals would have to appear before the Divine Judge and that we could therefore dispense with earthly verdicts against them, which eminently suited the Nazis’ book. Since they did not believe in God they were not afraid of Divine Judgment. It was only earthly justice that they feared.
Stuttgart, I found, was one great ruin. Rubble was everywhere and people were living in the cellars of bombed houses merely to have a roof over their heads. I remembered the “Crystal Night” when they were burning the synagogues, and somebody had said: “Today they burn down the synagogues, but one day their own homes will be reduced to rubble and ashes.”
On columns and walls I saw notices posted by families who had been torn apart and were seeking to find each other again. Parents were looking for their children; children their parents.
I inquired for the street in which the SS man's mother was supposed to be living. I was told that this part of the city had been devastated by the bombs and the inhabitants had been evacuated. As there was no public transport, I set out on foot to pursue my quest. Finally I stood outside an almost completely destroyed house, in which only the lower floors seemed partly inhabitable.
I climbed the decrepit, dusty stairs and knocked on the shattered wooden door. There was no immediate response and I prepared myself for the disappointment of an unfulfilled mission. Suddenly the door opened gratingly, and a small, frail old lady appeared on the threshold.
“Are you Frau Maria S——?” I asked.
“Yes,” she answered.
“May I speak to you and your husband?”
“I am a widow.”
She bade me come in and I looked around the room, the walls of which were cracked and the plaster on the ceiling was loose. Over the sideboard hung, not quite straight, a photograph of a good-looking, bright-eyed boy. Around one corner of the picture there was a black band. I had no doubt this was the photograph of the man who had sought my forgiveness. He was an only son. I went over to the photo and looked at the eyes that I had never seen.
“That is my son, Karl,” said the woman in a broken voice. “He was killed in the war.”
“I know,” I murmured.
I had not yet told her why I had come, indeed I had not yet made up my mind what I wanted to say. On the way to Stuttgart many thoughts had run through my head. Originally I had wanted to talk to the mother to check the truth of the story he had told me. But was I not secretly hoping that I might hear something that contradicted it? It would certainly make things easier for me. The feeling of sympathy which I could not reject would then perhaps disappear. I reproached myself for not having planned to open the conversation. Now that I confronted the mother I did not know how to begin.
I stood in front of Karl's portrait in silence: I could not take my eyes off him. His mother noticed it. “He was my only son, a dear good boy. So many young men of his age are dead. What can one do? There is so much pain and suffering today, and I am left all alone.”
Many other mothers had also been left all alone, I thought. She invited me to sit down. I looked at her grief-stricken face and said: “I am bringing you greetings from your son.”
“Is this really true? Did you know him? It is almost four years since he died. I got the news from the hospital. They sent his things back to me.”
She stood up and opened an old chest from which she took the very same bundle the hospital nurse had tried to give me.
“I have kept his things here, his watch, his notebook, and a few other trifles…Tell me, when did you see him?”
I hesitated. I did not want to destroy the woman's memory of her “good” son.
“Four years ago I was working on the Eastern Railway at Lemberg,” I began. “One day, while we were working there, a hospital train drew up bringing wounded from the east. We talked to some of them through the windows. One of them handed me a note with your add
ress on it and asked me to convey to you greetings from one of his comrades, if ever I had the opportunity to do so.”
I was rather pleased with this quick improvisation.
“So actually you never saw him?” she asked.
“No,” I answered. “He was probably so badly wounded that he could not come to the window.”
“How then was he able to write?” she questioned. “His eyes were injured, and all the letters he sent to me must have been dictated to one of the nurses.”
“Perhaps he had asked one of his comrades to write down your address,” I said hesitatingly.
“Yes,” she reflected, “it must have been like that. My son was so devoted to me. He was not on specially good terms with his father, although he too loved our son as much as I did.”
She broke off for a moment and looked around the room.
“Forgive me, please, for not offering you anything,” she apologized. “I should very much like to do so, but you know how things are today. I have nothing in the house and there is very little in the shops.”
I stood up and went over to her son's photograph again. I did not know how to bring the conversation round again to him.
“Take the photograph down if you like,” she suggested. I took it carefully down from the wall and put it on the table.
“Is that a uniform he is wearing?” I asked.
“Yes, he was sixteen at the time and in the Hitler Youth,” she replied. “My husband did not like it at all: he was a convinced Social Democrat, and he had many difficulties because he would not join the Party. Now I am glad he didn't. In all those years he never got any promotion; he was always passed over. It was only during the war that he was at last made manager, because all the younger men were called up. Only a few weeks later, almost exactly a year from the day on which we received news of our son's death, the factory was bombed. Many lost their lives—including my husband.”
The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness Page 8