Journal 1935–1944

by Mihail Sebastian

  Tuesday, 26 August

  It seems that most of the young (eighteen to twenty-one) Jews who reported today at the recruitment office have been kept in Bucharest to work at the Poligon. Only one detachment of three hundred was sent to Găesşi. I anxiously wait to see what will happen to Benu tomorrow. I’ll be happy enough if he is assigned to a local detachment; only the thought of his leaving Bucharest frightens me. As for myself, the fact that I still have five days to go makes me calm, even indifferent, as if the whole business did not concern me.

  Heavy fighting on the Russian front, without any major changes. The resistance of Odessa has sent a new wave of anxiety flooding over last week’s optimism in Bucharest. Tutubei Solacolu, Rosetti, and Camil— whom I saw today—complained that the progress was slow and difficult.

  From Killinger’s3 speech yesterday at the German legation: “As Germans and Romanians continue fighting side by side, their friendship will become solid and ingrained.”

  We lack information about the operations in Iran. The military aspect is not that interesting (though the country is so vast and the geographical difficulties considerable). I suspect there will not be a proper war, and that things will go quite quickly. The political aspect is much more interesting, and more unpredictable. What will the Germans do? Will they protest and leave it at that? Will they allow the British démarche to go unanswered? That is hard to believe. Will they attack Turkey? It’s not out of the question. But then they would have to move hundreds of thousands of men to the Balkans—which would probably be no easy matter, now that the whole eastern front is open and heavy fighting is either under way or imminent.

  The closer we get to autumn, the more complex and dramatic the war may become.

  Wednesday, 27 August

  I am beginning to feel departure nerves, afraid that all my hustle and bustle will have been in vain. Benu has to report tomorrow morning. Other young men from his contingent have been sent to Dadilov, Fierbinţi, or Videle. Is it possible that he will be kept in Bucharest? The chances are very slim. I myself, who probably have some protection as a teacher, do not know whether I can escape.

  Thursday, 28 August

  Benu has been sent to Fierbinţi. He leaves tomorrow morning.

  In Iran the new government—formed yesterday—has ordered the troops to end all resistance.

  The Germans have occupied Dnepropetrovsk (Ekaterinoslav) in the south, and Luga in the north. In the center, in the Smolensk sector, the Russians seem to have been counterattacking for several days. The Romanian losses in Odessa are said to be heavy.

  Yesterday in Paris, a twenty-nine-year-old from Calvados by the name of Paul Colette—a volunteer in the French anti-Bolshevik expeditionary corps—opened fire with a revolver on Laval and Déat, at the end of the ceremony of the handing over of the flags.

  Friday, 29 August

  Benu left this afternoon for Fierbinţi. All day I ran around in vain, hoping to do something so that he could remain in Bucharest. But since he has now left, may the best of luck go with him. Some day the experience will stand him in good stead.

  Saturday, 30 August

  Emil Gulian called round to see me. He hasn’t changed: still affectionate, kindly, straightforward, sensitive. We have fifteen years of friendship between us, and I feel that nothing has budged it. And yet. . . The simple fact that he was in his lieutenant’s uniform made me feel awkward. I spoke with him and at the same time said to myself: you see, he didn’t feel embarrassed to come here, he wasn’t afraid to be seen. We went out together, but I was obsessed by the thought that he, being in uniform, might find this disagreeable. When we reached Calea Victoriei, I said goodbye on some pretext or other. I had the feeling—perhaps mistaken, perhaps exaggerated—that I would do him a disservice by going any farther with him.

  Emil works at P.O. and edits a daily information bulletin on the basis of all the reports received there. He knows an enormous number of things. The most worrying is the possibility of a Legionary government. Apparently Antonescu has for some time been negotiating with so-called “moderate Legionaries” (Codreanu Senior, Virgil Ionescu, Herseni, Vojen,4 and so on); whereas the German press is outspoken in its support for the diehards. Anyway, it is thought that the “moderates” are themselves only (temporarily more subdued) front men for the diehards. Gulian thinks that there is a very serious danger of a Legionary comeback. He also told me some strange things about a certain tension between Romania and Hungary. The Hungarians have been violently attacking Romania in their press. The Romanian government does not respond but lets it be known that the problem of Transylvania will soon be posed. I was surprised that the affair did not strike Emil as strange, or at least naive, at the height of the war with the Russians.

  This morning I met the painter Daniel in the street, and he too spoke of a possible return of the Legionaries. “Vojen is at the Propaganda Ministry every day.”

  At the front, the broad lines of the situation are unchanged. The Germans announced yesterday that they had occupied Kiev, and the Finns today that they had taken Vyborg. Fighting is still going on in Odessa.

  Comşa gave thirty thousand lei so that he could be assigned to Bucharest. As a result, he is doing some construction work or other at Otopeni.

  Sunday, 31 August

  Rain, pitch-darkness, frequent flashes of lightning that illuminate the deserted streets. I think of Benu—and then of the men in the trenches. Tonight will be two years since the beginning of the war.

  I don’t know what the exact situation is at the front. Yesterday evening’s German communiqué does not even mention ground operations. It would appear that things have again come to a halt. But even if this is true, it cannot last long. Will there be a German offensive to cross the Dnieper? Will they again try to break through toward Vyazma? Will they throw even greater forces against Leningrad? Or, finally, will they attack Turkey?

  I feel the lack of a radio, especially at such moments of relative inactivity before major news events.

  Yesterday there was a police raid at the bathing place on Lake Floreasca. All the Jews were rounded up and taken to police headquarters. There are all kinds of unwritten prohibitions.

  I am reading Tristram, Shandy. Rather long and padded out. Enjoyable, of course, but far from being a masterpiece. It sometimes resembles Montaigne—but what a distance!

  Tedium, disgust, indifference, disintegration.

  Monday, 1 September

  The first of September! With what difficulty August passed! And how unreal today’s date, 1 September 1941, seemed to me in the past—in the spring, for example. Today, the first of March 1942 seems to me equally remote, equally implausible. Time passes and solves nothing. Theoretically we know that we are drawing ever closer to the end of the nightmare—but for now we are in darkest night, thrashing around in the same sorry anguish.

  Two years of war! But have we reached the bottom of our misfortune? Have we climbed the whole hill of disappointments? Can we consider ourselves on the other side of the slope? There was a time when Autumn 1941 seemed to me the outer limit of the war. But now another year or two seems quite plausible, even on the moderate side.

  Some DNB dispatches suggest between the lines that there is indeed a Russian counterattack in the central sector of the front. Otherwise the communiqués and dispatches are so vague that you are left with the feeling that something is being confected in the shadows, something that could break out very soon.

  I don’t know why, but yesterday’s papers again printed the official announcement that “20 Jewish and 5 non-Jewish Communists” will be shot in the event of any act of sabotage.

  A cold, greyish blue autumn morning. I went for a long walk with Eugen Ionescu along the banks of the Dîmboviţa; it was like being in a strange town.

  Tuesday, 2 September

  To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow

  Creeps in this petty pace from day to day.

  —Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, scene v

 
; An anthology could be made of euphemisms in the daily press. The following sentence in today’s Azi struck me as especially tasty: “Given that German troops have already been on the other bank for several days . . ., the final operational phase of an encircling action is being carried out here, which in all probability is approaching maturity at lightning speed. ”

  Wednesday, 3 September

  Autumn, rain, cold. Gloomy November weather. It is dark by seven, and then it becomes extremely difficult to move around the city. The streetcars go slowly, with people clinging to steps and buffer rails. Both yesterday and today there were police raids all over the city—which slowed traffic even more. Yesterday I jumped off a streetcar in the nick of time, just as the police were closing in on it.

  I don’t yet know how the comedy of going off to work will end. Complicated operations are slowly continuing at the recruitment office, with all manner of deals, agreements, and bargaining. It is a huge money market in which everyone is involved. I am waiting to see whether the school will obtain an exemption for teachers. They asked us for money— ten thousand lei per teacher—but even so, nothing is certain.

  Within two days the Jewish population of Bucharest has to come up with four thousand beds, four thousand pillows, four thousand blankets, eight thousand sheets, eight thousand pillowcases, etc.5 The Community has been asked to collect the things itself—but if it does not do this in time, the operation will be handled by the police. Teams of “intellectuals” have been hastily formed to get the business started.

  It is being said (Vişoianu, Rosetti) that the German attack on Turkey is just days away, perhaps even hours. A certain pause on the Russian front. The last four or five German communiqués have again been very low-key. The bad weather is probably also complicating things. Perhaps for that very reason the war will shift to warmer climes. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were a lightning attack in Turkey and the Turks’ resistance were rapidly overcome. A short war, giving the Germans total victory in three to four weeks (which is not impossible), might offer them political compensation for the major delays in Russia. With an autumn success like that, it would be easier for them to go into winter from a propaganda viewpoint.

  I am reading with great pleasure Shakespeare’s Sonnets. With the idea of one day doing a verse translation, I wrote down two sonnets in Romanian this evening, for the time being in a simple literal translation.

  Thursday, 4 September

  Translated three more Shakespeare sonnets this evening. Of course, they are no more than rough sketches. Not even that. I would have to do a lot of work to raise them above their formless state.

  In the army, when something was needed (office supplies, plates and dishes, gaps in the storehouse, etc.), the solution was quite simple: let the Jews come up with it! And that is what the Jews did. Yesterday’s order, which makes us responsible for the provision of hospital beds and linen, is essentially a barracks solution.

  Even more than yesterday, people are saying that the outbreak of war in Turkey is imminent. Von Papen is in Berlin.

  The German communiqués continue to be subdued. Yet it seems (from telegrams and commentaries) that the pressure is mounting on Leningrad, while to the south the Dnieper has been crossed at one point. As to the central sector, they admit that there is a Russian counteroffensive, but also assert—in flat contradiction—that the Germans have reached Bryansk (?).

  Eugen Ionescu pointed out to me in Gide’s Journal a thoroughly anti-Semitic page that he wrote in 1914 about Jewish literature. It could very well have been published in Romania by Porunca Vremii or Sân-Giorgiu.

  Friday, 5 September

  I went to the Bar association to take my diplomas from the files. It is a year since they struck me off, and today was the first time I have been back at the courts. No emotion (I have no memories, regrets, or hopes there), but I did feel a certain disgust. There was a funny guy at the administration department who, I don’t know why, spoke to me from time to time in German:

  “I’m not an anti-Semite. Oh no, I’ve got different ideas. How much will you give? Wie viel? Fiinf hundert?”6

  I gave him three hundred—and he took them with an amusing air of generosity and broad-mindedness. He addressed me all the time with the familiar tu and kept lapsing into German, especially when it was a question of money.

  A pitiful sight in the courtyard of the Great Synagogue, where they are collecting beds, mattresses, bedclothes, and pillows. Crestfallen people keep arriving with things on their backs—resigned, mournful, not rebellious, almost not surprised. No one is surprised any more at anything. The people in charge are unhappy that the work advances so slowly, without enthusiasm. Old things are brought in. They have been told that if we do not carry out the instructions by tomorrow, the army will do the requisitioning itself. And another ultimatum arrived this morning, demanding five thousand suits, hats, and boots. Finally, also this morning, the Community was informed that beginning Wednesday we will have to wear a piece of material with the “six-cornered star” stitched to the top left of our coats. I returned home feeling poisoned. More patience is needed than I have, a more stubborn will to endure anything. I feel like dropping everything and saying: shoot, kill us, put an end to it. But of course it is not with that kind of despair, and anyway not with that kind of surrender, that the Jews have survived down the ages.

  I tried staying home and reading. Perhaps it is a kind of desertion (I said to myself full of scruple), but anyway I could not be of greater use, and I don’t see why I should subject myself to such torture.

  I continued reading Shakespeare’s sonnets.

  Rosetti tells met that Pălăngeanu (General Ciupercâ’s chief of staff) said to some friends that he expects Odessa to fall the day after tomorrow, on Sunday. Mrs. Goga told Rosetti today that twelve thousand Romanian soldiers were killed in Bessarabia and Bukovina, and that eighteen thousand have fallen before Odessa.

  Sunday, 7 September

  The German communiqués maintain the same silence, which has been continuing for a week or more now. (“Vom Schweigen im Kriege” [On Silence in War] is the title of an article by Goebbels in Das Reich in which he speaks of a Nachrichtenpolitik [news policy]. I do not have a mental picture of the front, nor do I know where the present lines are. There is the battle of Leningrad in the north, and the battle of Odessa in the south. In the center there is a Russian counteroffensive, but I do not know how big or intense it is, nor what are its chances.

  On Saturday I had a day in the dumps, but then I suddenly got over it. I have no right. I mustn’t. In a sense, I would even say that I do not have any reasons. If I look at the map of the continents in my mind’s eye, the game comes to look more straightforward. There is no need to follow it day by day, and no point in fretting about every individual episode. The final outcome is ineluctable. The day will come when it will be possible to breathe. Il s'agit de durer. Il ne s’agit que de cela.7

  Yesterday I went into a grocer’s shop to do some shopping for Benu— and I had a fright. I have done hardly any shopping since I moved to Strada Antim in April, and I no longer knew the prices. They have risen three, four, or five times. It is terrible. And we are still only at the beginning of September. What will it be like in the middle of winter?

  I have no money left. Today I gave Mama my last thousand-lei note. And now? I don’t know.

  Monday, 8 September

  Three air-raid warnings last night, in a clear blue moonlight that was translucent and gentle as never before. One of the most beautiful nights I can remember. Everything was transfigured, everything gentler and purer. The still, silent city became something quite different from the usual city. I spent the first two alerts (at eleven and one) in the shelter. But I did not go down for the third (it was after two o’clock, though when I opened my eyes I thought from the light that it was well into morning). I didn’t have the impression that the bombing was serious. But I heard in town today that a textile factory in the Colentina district receive
d a direct hit and was destroyed.

  A Havas telegram says that Petrograd will fall in two or three weeks at the latest.

  Virginio Gayda8 says that Germany does not intend to occupy the whole of Russia, only Petrograd, Moscow, Kiev, and Kharkov, after which the war with the Soviets will be effectively over and the Axis will be able to carry the war to other fronts in the winter of 1942.

  Ceacăru:9

  “After the war I’ll take you on as chief editor of my paper.”

  Look at why Ceacâru thinks this war is being fought. And look at how he imagines things ending!

  Tuesday, 9 September

  We were supposed to start wearing the “six-cornered star” tomorrow morning. The order was given to the Community and passed on to police stations. But there was a change of mind following an audience that Filderman1 had tonight with the Conducator.2 The change of mind does not give me any pleasure. I had grown used to the idea that I would be wearing a yellow patch with a Star of David. I imagined all the unpleasantness, all the risks and dangers, but after a moment’s alarm I not only resigned myself but began to see in that sign a kind of token of identity. Even more, I saw it as a kind of medal, an insignia certifying my lack of sympathy for the vile deeds around us, my lack of responsibility for them, my innocence.

  In the courtyard of the Great Synagogue, where the commissions carry out their requisitioning, I meet all kinds of old familiar faces from my days at university and in journalism—people I have not met for many a year. I seem to have grown terribly old, if I compare myself with them. (Ludo’s schoolboy face.3 He’s unchanged after so many years—I don’t think I have seen him since 1932-1933—whereas I have aged so much!)