The Fifth Son

by Elie Wiesel

  The officer takes a step forward as if to strike her, but he changes his mind. The actor in him has the upper hand.

  “I am not telling you to pray to Death but to God. And what if I told you that Death is God? Listen to me, Jewess: my voice is the voice of your death. Cover it with prayers and perhaps you shall live.”

  “Never,” says Hanna Zeligson.

  “It will be your own doing.”

  He bows courteously and departs. His subordinates are kneeling, ready to shoot. The dazed crowd waits in silence. From time to time a body falls. The sun at its zenith turns heavy, leaden. Here and there a man or a woman staggers. Others appear to doze standing up. As if under a spell, they all try not to think of the reddening sky, of the burning ground. Who shall live, who shall die? The two hundred shall die. Before the day is over, before the Neila service is ended, all will have perished.

  Standing tall over the corpses, defying heaven and earth, SS officer Richard Lander is shouting:

  “You see, I was right to proclaim it: I am Death and I am your God.”

  That same night, four men meet in an underground shelter: Reuven Tamiroff, Simha Zeligson, Tolka Friedman and Rabbi Aharon-Asher. Still fasting. In the dim light they all look pale, sickly.

  “I invite you to take an oath,” says Reuven Tamiroff, coming straight to the point. “Whoever among us shall survive this ordeal swears on his honor and on the sanctity of our memory to do all he can to kill the killer, even at the cost of his life.”

  “We swear it,” reply Simha and Tolka.

  “And you, Rabbi?”

  “First, I’d like to speak to you, my friend Reuven.”

  They withdraw to a corner crawling with spiders, cobwebs all over them. Simha watches as they argue without rancor, never raising their voices, never taking their eyes off each other. The Rabbi defends Jewish tradition and Jewish Law which prohibit murder; Reuven pleads for the victims. “How can you defend the executioner, Rabbi?” “It’s not the executioner I’m defending, but the Law. The Law must not be broken, Reuven. The military governor is an assassin, everybody knows that; he must be punished, I agree with that. But wait until he has been judged.” “We have judged him. Look upon our group as a tribunal.” “A tribunal? Composed of only four members? Twenty-three are required. Moreover, the accused is entitled to a defender, did you forget?” They leave one another at midnight, each clinging to his position.

  “This was the first time they disagreed,” said Simha. “Also the last.”

  For me, it is a breakthrough. Suddenly I understand a great many things.

  Ariel,

  I know: you won’t believe me, you will be shocked, perhaps even disappointed, terrified, but it’s the truth. It is important to me that you learn this: your father has actually shed blood, he has committed the ultimate violence. I have killed, Ariel. I have destroyed a life. It is because of the dead, because of you, my son, that I have killed. To vindicate you I have assumed the role and mission of avenger.

  The man I executed or helped execute is someone you knew and who knew you: Richard Lander, the military governor of the ghetto and town of Davarowsk. The Angel. You do remember him, I’m sure. He remembered you.

  We condemned him to death. The trial was held in due form. I was a member of the tribunal. And also of the group that carried out the verdict.

  I shall tell you everything, my son. You have the right to know. And besides, you are aware of it all. Where you are, only truth matters, nothing else exists.

  Listen, Ariel.

  April 1946. Your mother and I, miraculously saved in separate camps, belong to the tribe of the wanderers. Even when we stay in one place, we are nomads; our heads and hearts are searching for other places far away, nonexistent places to find rest.

  I shall not tell you of our experience in those camps for survivors; they are not readily described. The daily humiliations. The constant depressions. The recurring feeling of being “superfluous.” No country will have us. No visas. Draconian quota restrictions. Debasing medical examinations. We are treated as slaves or beasts of burden. The rich nations admit only the rich; that is to say, the relatives of the rich, the physically sound, the young. As for the elderly, the sick, the desperate, the emotionally crippled, let them stay in the barracks while the international rescue organizations strain to keep their bodies and souls together.

  As I said, it is 1946. We are in a “Displaced Persons” center near Ferenwald. Bleak days, nightmarish nights. I am not myself: I know it’s irrational, I know it’s illogical and childish but I go on looking for you, I look for you everywhere, constantly. Not like your mother: poor thing, she has found you. She sees you. She speaks to you. She tends you and feeds you. She never tires of praising your beauty, your precociousness. At first, I make an effort, I say: “You mustn’t, Rachel. You are sinning against nature. And against the Almighty.” Then I give up.

  One day, Simha pays me a visit. We embrace. He lives in Belsen. I watch him anxiously: could he be searching for his wife Hanna? No, he saw her die, all of us saw her die. He is looking for me. To bring me up to date.

  We find an empty corner so that Simha may speak confidentially. It has to do with the Angel: he is alive.

  “Yes,” repeats Simha. “He is alive. We have picked up his trail.”

  Do you know, Ariel, that words can strike like objects? Do you know that they can cause pain?

  Simha elaborates: it was an officer of the Palestine Jewish Brigade, whose secret unit tracks and punishes the worst of the Nazi killers, who discovered the executioner of the Davarowsk Ghetto.

  “The Angel has been spotted in a provincial town called Reshastadt,” says Simha. “Our friends are keeping him under total surveillance. Do you …?”

  I can guess his question.

  “My answer is yes. We have taken an oath. What right do I have to betray it?”

  I don’t need to go into details, my son. Simha and I left for Frankfurt where our friends from the special unit gave us our instructions for the following week. I’ll describe them to you another day. What matters is that the operation succeeded. Our friends were professionals. Preparation, execution; in truth, Simha and I were but assistants, extras. It was they who chose the place and the time; it was they who threw the grenade. As through a thick mist, as through the walls of a distant ghetto, I saw and heard the explosion. I saw a man—the Angel—slumped on the pavement. Mission accomplished. Ambulance, police cars. This is 1946; occupied Germany barely functions. The death of one man neither shocks nor rouses indignation. Just another news item.…

  Later we talk about it often, Simha and I, during our regular monthly reunions. Would I have taken part in the operation had you not been involved? Was I right to participate? We both rummage for ideas and precedents to justify our deed retroactively.

  Nothing but words, Ariel, I know. Justice has been done? One makes that claim, one is wrong to make that claim lightly. Even if one could execute the Angel a thousand times, six million times, justice would not be done: the dead are dead, my son, and the killer’s death will not bring them back.

  I think of my friend Rabbi Aharon-Asher who, from the beginning, spoke out against our methods. And what if he was right?

  Your father

  FATHER,” I say hoarsely. “Who is Ariel?”

  He seems weary, my father. As always, since I can remember. I know I should spare him, leave him alone, but I cannot. I am so tense it hurts. I beg him to speak, to explain: what I have just discovered threatens to upset my universe. It would be absurd not to pursue it.

  “I am not a child anymore,” I continue. “Stop protecting me. I feel the evil forces prowling around us; I want to know them.”

  I am on fire: I can feel the flame running through my veins. I hear a voice—my voice?—saying:

  “You have spent years writing letters to someone you call Ariel: who is he? You call him son. Is it me? Who am I, Father?”

  He shifts uncomfortably in his chair as if it wer
e burning his skin, he stands up, sits down, rises again, opens a drawer and closes it, moves toward the window and comes back.

  “I didn’t think you knew,” he says weakly. “These letters, where did you find them?”

  “By chance. One day I wanted to read your manuscript on Paritus. They were hidden inside.…”

  He avoids my gaze. Clearly, he feels guilty. I cannot imagine for what.

  “And so you’ve read everything?”

  “No. Not everything.”

  “The story of the oath?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did it affect you to know that your father once took part in an execution?”

  “It didn’t.”

  “Don’t tell me it leaves you indifferent!”

  Indifferent is a strong word, but not entirely incorrect. Stories of vengeance have never thrilled me. Sure, I applaud the Nazi hunters, especially those of the Israeli Secret Services, who track down war criminals the likes of Eichmann and Mengele, but to reduce the Event to that seems simplistic. My father, in 1946, punished an assassin? Fine. In those days, that was undoubtedly the thing to do. What stood out was the name Ariel. My father writes to him with a tenderness that troubles me; I must find out who he is.

  “So be it,” says my father.

  He takes the manuscript and pulls out several pages and hands them to me. I stand and read.

  Outside it is dark. Inside it is dark. A thick, tightly pressed crowd is waiting for the gates to open to see the sky and breathe fresh air.

  The mood is somber. There is an awesome finality to the event. We are old people without a future. Our resignation removes us from this world. Why were we marked for this first convoy to “the East”?

  A child’s voice—yours, Ariel?—brings tears to my eyes. What luck, we are together. Yes, that is the word I heard: luck. I answer: we are going on a trip together. I love trains, says the child.

  As for me, it is not the trains I like; it is the railroad stations. I could spend days and days in them without getting bored; I could watch my life unfold surrounded by travelers rushing about oblivious of me. Only railroad stations too have changed. Too large. Too modern. The electric trains: too shiny, too efficient, too clean. I prefer steam locomotives. The hissing, the whistling, the white smoke.

  You must have been six years old, perhaps a little more, when we were in a station for the first time. It was a small one, I remember. And old, I remember that too. A very long, very dark structure opening onto the platforms. People crying, that’s normal. Soon the train will pull in, there will be separation. Take it easy. Someone says: take it easy. It is useless. People shove, knock against each other, step on each other’s toes. Insults, prayers, knowing glances. Lord, have pity on us. Someone says: Lord, have pity on us. A madwoman answers laughing and I don’t know what she said; I only know that she laughed. Voices are raised: make her shut up, oh, yes, she should not be laughing, not here, not now.

  Then suddenly it’s evening. The gates open and a man in uniform—very tall, very strong: a giant—comes to inform us that the train has been delayed; it won’t arrive until tomorrow. A good sign, somebody says. A bad sign, his neighbor answers. How shall we spend the night here? a voice asks. There is no room to lie down. Never mind, we’ll take turns sleeping. Not the children, says an old man, and I shall always remember his voice though not his face. The children will sleep in a corner near the open window. Wrong. The giant orders the windows shut. A woman shouts: but we’ll suffocate! Others join in: we’ll suffocate, we’ll suffocate! All right. The giant is kindhearted; two small skylights will remain open but it is forbidden to go near them. Understand? No, I do not understand, not yet; that night you left us, you were six years old; you are still six years old.

  Dead children are lucky; they don’t grow up.

  My father is distraught. He mumbles a few sentences and every word is a stab. Once upon a time, once upon a time there lived a little Jewish boy named Ariel, Ariel.… That little boy, that little Jewish boy was endowed with every gift, with every grace.… Ariel was the favorite, the spoiled child of the ghetto of Davarowsk.… Ariel was the glory and future of the doomed Jewish community of Davarowsk.… Anyone ready to drift into hopelessness had but to see him smile to regain courage.… Ariel was the heart Rabbi Nahman of Bratzlav speaks of—the heart of the world, the heart that resembles a human being yearning for love and beauty.…

  I listen to my father and I have the feeling of hearing an ancient tale I knew long ago but had forgotten. The words flow and fuse into one another and it seems that he is repeating himself over and over as if to cast a spell over me. From now on I shall understand many things but I don’t know whether that will be a source of pain or comfort. My father’s solitude and the more visible, more concrete solitude of my sick mother: both living with their dead child; both seeking in me their lost son, my brother Ariel.

  Where am I in this dream?

  I am overcome by sadness. I am falling into a well, I think I can hear the sound my consciousness makes as it hits bottom.

  So as not to succumb entirely, I reach out to my father. What I feel for him at this moment is more than love; it is something else. I would so like to protect him, to give him back his youth, his vigor, his capacity for happiness, his authority over me, his life.

  “Ariel, my little Ariel,” he says whispering like a guilty, unhappy child.

  “Yes, Father,” I say.

  His eyes cloud over, his breathing becomes heavier as he repeats:

  “Ariel.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  He stiffens for a moment, then he lets go. He bursts into tears, he who has never wept. For whom is he crying? For his dead son or for the other who has usurped his place?

  I feel crushed by the weight of the past.

  To counteract my obsession with Ariel I invent another: the Angel. I need to learn more about him. I run from one library to the other, from one documentation center to the other. I consult The New York Times archives, I ask Lisa, who is going to Washington, to consult the special archives of the Library of Congress, I write to the historians Trunk and Wulf, and gradually I find clues: the character becomes less blurred, less elusive, he slowly takes shape.

  His name is mentioned four times at the Nuremberg trials. His activities are described at the trials in Frankfurt where the executioners of Auschwitz were judged. Witnesses report having seen him in Belzec and Chelmno, places he had visited to perfect his training.

  I even succeed in finding a photo. It shows him in SS uniform, whip in hand, making a speech to a group of officers somewhere in Poland. I had discovered the photo in a little-known album entitled Images of Death.

  A reference to his theatrical ambitions can be found in the deposition of SS Colonel von Gleiwitz whose extradition to Poland in early 1952 aroused cries of outrage in the German press:

  “… in Davarowsk we were faced with a rather ridiculous problem: after the day’s work, my men of Einsatzkommando II were forced to listen to the endless discourses of the local commander, a certain Richard Lander, an SS lieutenant colonel and, on occasion, a decidedly mediocre actor.”

  Holed up in my tiny student’s room, swamped by papers, I ask myself: who am I? What am I to do with a life that is not mine, with a death stolen from me by my own brother?

  Late at night I sometimes worry about my sanity. I am alone and yet I hear voices, Simha’s and Bontchek’s tales. Lisa suspects me of taking drugs: I look, she tells me, like a dying man.

  How am I to overcome the desire to let everything go and give in to my voracious nocturnal ghosts?

  My relationship with my father has changed: I find it more difficult than ever to speak to him, for I do not trust him. On the other hand, my ties to Bontchek and Simha have become more precious to me; I meet them separately. I talk to them. I make them talk. I complain about my father, they defend him. Lisa wants me to marry her. “You cannot marry a dead man, Lisa!” I tell her.

  My work goes badly, I
have a hard time concentrating. Metaphysics now bores me as much as medieval poetry: the killer of Davarowsk has taken possession of me, impossible to get rid of him.

  I stand up, I sit down; I open a book and close it; I go out only to come back a minute later; I scribble notes which I throw into the wastebasket. And my exams are approaching. A paper due on Freud and mythology. Another on Wittgenstein. A third on the theme of “origins” in Eastern thought.… My head is bursting: names, theories, formulas that call for similarities or differences in concept, attitude, intuition. I must forget the people inhabiting me, the faces that obscure my vision; I must also forget, totally forget, Richard Lander or I shall never earn my degree. My hatred for this Nazi killer grows; even in death he pursues me with his wrath, his whims, his desires. Yes, even in death he will not let go of me, he drives me into that forbidden zone where there is no distinction between prayer and blasphemy, between triumph and defeat, between life and death; he pushes me toward chaos, toward madness. And the more he pushes me, the more the distance between us diminishes; the more he reveals himself, the more engrossed I become. I am tracking him down and yet I am his prisoner. For such is the life of the survivor.…

  Then one day, incredibly, there was the Angel. I made my sensational discovery in May, six months after my talk with my father, in The New York Times. Though dressed in civilian clothes, he nonetheless looked vaguely familiar: the studied concentration, the controlled gaze, the hint of a supercilious smile.… More than the people around him, he moved on an invisible stage. I seized a magnifying glass, studied the photograph, rushed to my files, feverishly pulled out the album, let the whole thing spill out of my hands, but the coincidence was blinding: it definitely was the Angel looking at me from the pages of The Times. Under an assumed name—Wolfgang Berger—he currently held an enviable position in German and European industry. His name appeared in the article in connection with a medal conferred on him by a philanthropic organization.