by Unknown
Their devotion to Judaism had been my guiding light. With this same kind of devotion, my husband, Ron, and I have been able to follow our dream of raising our sons in Israel for the past seventeen years. Our beliefs have given an almost exhilarating atmosphere to our family. Ron and I are a team, a very volatile team. We have been together for thirty-one years (twenty-seven married). We are moving now into a new phase of our marriage where we are witnessing the rewards of our twenty-four years of parenting. Watching the small miracles of God in our everyday life mixed into the countless hours of hard work. Watching our children grow into young adults, learning Torah, finding jobs, making commitments, and passing on the strong traditions and love for Judaism that have been ingrained so tenderly into their lives.
So you see, Hitler didn’t succeed in his goal of wiping us out. We are here, and we are even stronger. Living a life full of tradition and joy. Raising the next generation in our country, Eretz Yisrael. There are scars, anger, and pain, but they are not our focus. Not for my parents, not for me, not my children.
At the age of seventy-nine and sixty-eight, my parents made aliyah in 1999, after living in Los Angeles for thirty-two years. To this day they practice a commitment to their religion and ideals, ideals that helped them survive the Holocaust, pick up the pieces, and raise another generation. These are the exhilarating moments that fill our lives with strength, courage, and continued commitment to our faith and our country.
ROSIE WEISEL was born in Paris, France, but her family emigrated to America when she was young. She was raised in Kentucky and California but has lived on Kibbutz Saad for the past seven years. The mother of six sons—Adir, Raphael, Gavrieal, Chanan, Yididya, and Tzur—Ms. Weisel has been a graphic artist and calligrapher for twenty-six years and has designed and written illuminated manuscripts and family trees. She has been a Le Leche League leader (an international breastfeeding organization) for twenty-two years. For the past four, she has taken care of young children on the kibbutz where she and her family are permanent residents.
Chapter 10: A Hat of Glass by Nava Semel
Nava Semel and her mother
Photo by Shirley Barenholz
To my mother, who showed me the light through the glass.
To my father, who taught me how to embrace the past.
They always hold my trembling hand when I write.
Note: Shirley Barenholz, a Dutch/Israeli photographer and a daughter of a Holocaust survivor from Bergen Belsen, published Children of Hope in Holland in 1998. This book follows with photos and text on the lives of twelve Israeli families, whose older parent survived the horror and began a new hopeful chapter in Israel. The thirteenth chapter is about the author herself living in Holland.
Nava Semel is one of Israel’s finest contemporary writers, and one of the first Israeli women to address the Holocaust in fiction and prose. Proud of her parents’ survival and determined not to let the memories die, she has become the voice for the second generation through her work. When I met her in Israel for the first time, in the spring of 2000, I felt that we had known each other our entire lives. –MW
This is not the whole truth. Just bits and pieces of it sloughed off over the passing years. As I gather them up, they seem at times like crumbs from bread that’s turned moldy. Whenever I’ve tried to see the whole of it with my own eyes, it’s been like walking backwards. I take care not to bump into the wall behind me. It’s an ache I’ve known before.
“Clarissa,” I called after her in the street.
I think about her sometimes. Never actually forget her.
I started running after her, but stopped. She’d become no more than a speck of gray that kept getting smaller and smaller. As I watched, something turned inside me, then turned again and again, until it reached all the way back to the way things had been at the beginning.
It was three months before the end of the war, but we didn’t know it yet. I had no recollection of my face, hardly remembered my age either. I had no way of knowing that the man I’d married three years earlier and had lived with in western Hungary had been consumed by then in a cloud of smoke.
Nor could I conjure up the dead fetus I’d been carrying inside me for two whole months—the soundless, motionless load that left no trace save a hidden line curving its way across my stomach. The body was one I hadn’t seen in all those years since the war began. Even the menstrual blood, dependable as the seasons, the blood that might have assured me that at a time like this the sun was still revolving on its axis and that the universe was following its usual course, it, too, was taken away from me.
Janine, the French girl, said they were adding some sort of potion to the watered-down liquid they used to shove at us, announcing: “Soup.” Except that for me, to know that the bleeding had stopped was undeniable proof that time had frozen, and that something was guarding the straits, lest even the slightest rush of hot dust push its way through and dissipate the heavy slumber. Those who had been consumed through the chimneys were the only ones to rise away, to beg for mercy.
In the long line that shuffled through each morning, only one thought kept flickering in my mind. I longed to spot those bombers in the sky zeroing in on the cursed spot and wiping it away, the same as you wipe away a spot of blood after being struck across the mouth, then wipe it away again, until the only traces are the small drops on your hand, not a sign of it remaining on your mouth. But the wound kept oozing, and there was nobody to rise up and put a curse on the place, to make certain that nothing ever grew there again.
When my son went to see it, only one generation later, he returned heavy-hearted and told me: “Mother, the ground is covered over with grass.”
I asked myself what kind of a short memory the Creator must have, to be so good to that soil and not to have damned it. Planting a seed in it, no less, never felling its grass. He may go so far as to add some flowers just to please it. Can’t He even bide his time until those of us who cursed it are no longer here to watch?
It was my last selektion. Who knows, perhaps the face unwittingly etched on me by my father and mother was what had kept me alive. Even now, when I study the rounded lines that frame my children’s faces, I wonder whether that was what made me seem healthy enough, still fit.
Five hundred of us they chose, and took us to the sealed railway car. The doors were bolted and just beyond them we could hear the horror-stricken voices of those not chosen.
“Don’t go near the door,” the Kapo said. “They’re finishing off the ones left behind.”
Then they hitched the car to the back of the train. For four days we traveled, us chosen girls, our bodies deep in excrement and degradation. The stench was polluting the planet like the detritus of giants, bound to fall like ripe fruit and be utterly shattered. A few loaves of bread tossed inside just a moment before the train pulled away represented the innermost wish of someone hoping to buy us a little more time. Between the slats in the sides you could catch a glimpse of the earth moving. Were we going around in circles, only to wind up back where we’d started? The passing of time was marked by the jerking of our bodies packed together like worms, coupled with the relentless churning of the wheels as they thrust us forward along overworked tracks.
Many hours later the train stopped. Its doors opened suddenly, but instead of daylight, we saw the dusk of evening. A rush of cool November air clashed with the stench. That was when it hit me full force, as palpably as when a cripple fingers his deformity, only to be overcome by excruciating shame. We stood there in the big station, and the darkness cringed before the ray of light along the tracks. Trembling, we stood, exhausted from the trip, our rags clinging to our bodies, enveloped in stench. I had no idea what phantom world they’d brought us to and where they’d be hustling us to next. The end was near, but we didn’t know it. A man stepped out of the darkness and started in our direction. He was tall and his white locks glistened as they fell neatly over his forehead and temples. He was wearing a Wehrmacht uniform without the SS s
kull and cross-bones. Five hundred pairs of eyes looked at him in mute terror. I heard a sigh, but it may have been my imagination. His face was clearly visible in the light of the emerging moon. Incredulous at first, he soon turned his head away in disgust. Later I saw the sorrow, too; he could not wipe it away.
“Women,” he muttered and his face cut through our tightness. “You’ve arrived at a labor camp. You are in Germany and this is Zittau.”
There was a wrenching moan of anguish. He came a step closer, and the front row of women moved back, pushing back the ones behind. He held out his arm.
“You women have nothing to be afraid of. Nobody is going to harm you here. This is a labor camp.”
We’d heard about those by now. We’d already been in another camp. I couldn’t believe it. The old man in his elegant uniform did not conceal the surge of compassion that swept him at the sight of the tortured creatures before him. He took another step and touched one of the women standing near him, then fingered the frayed edge of her dress.
“It’s a disgrace,” he said. “It’s a disgrace to look this way. Das ist eine grosse Schande.” He brought his palms together. “Women,” he said again, “I was an officer in the Great War. You were brought into the Reich in order to work in the factories here.” With a flourish, he motioned toward the large barracks whose silhouettes stood out against the darkness.
“So long as I am here and you apply yourselves to your work, nobody will harm you. I give you my word—the word of an officer who fought in the Great War.”
Then he turned on his heel and hurried off, disappearing in the darkness.
“It’s a disgrace,” he had said.
We’re nothing more than a crisscrossing shadow, a huddle of humanity with a flimsy breath of life still flickering inside us. The old officer was not with us long. Some SS women assigned to guard us let it be known that he was too soft, and that the surge of pity had been his downfall.
I don’t know what they did with him. A solitary ray of light had touched the darkness, only to be extinguished. The selfsame darkness was free to reassert its haughty sway over a locked planet. We are still no more than prey, I told myself, still not members of the human race.
At four-thirty, with the morning still reluctant to unfold, we rise. Treading gingerly, we make our way to the washroom at the end of the corridor. Shaven scalps bend over the basins. Every time I bring water to my mouth, it works its way into the spaces where I once had the shiny, white teeth of a young girl. When they took me from my home, the Nazi struck me, and during those first few hours, fragments of teeth kept rolling about inside my mouth. I could neither spit them out nor swallow them. All I drank was my blood, and its taste was peculiar.
At five, the kitchen workers haul in a large pot, holding it by both handles and dragging it along the floor. One at a time, we fill our dishes and sip the murky liquid in short gulps. It has neither smell nor taste, and only the heat of it reaches our bodies. We’d stand there, in rows of five, in the doorway, pressed up against each other, huddling tightly to keep warm. The prisoners’ uniforms hung loosely on our bodies, and the stripes outlined our emaciated forms. Over our shriveled breasts, there was a gray stripe with our badge, the yellow Star of David, on it, and a number. Even in the darkness it lost none of its shine. Two, nine, six, three, four.
“Who are you? Who are you?” “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
I would recite my number over and over again, like a dybbuk slipping out of its bottle, then back in again.
We stand there tensely, side by side, in frozen anticipation. At a quarter to six we hear the sound of footsteps—master of the women. What an icy expression God has given him. Never a twitch. Nothing ever fluttered or glinted. He would flash a look in our direction as though seeing the scum of the earth. Marching behind him was his bevy of women officers, his chorus, in their spotless uniforms and shining boots, taking count. Day after day, the same count. Next, one of them would tour the rooms, inspect the pallets, and depart. Then he would move on. Sometimes he would crack his whip; he’d never use his open palm. The very touch might be infectious. The overseer’s entourage included one golden-haired officer, Brunhild of the Black Forest. Utterly untarnished, without so much as a furrow near her eyes or cheeks. Only the slightest rosiness, as if to say, how healthy I am, O noble beauty.
The rows extended as far as the eye could see in either direction, and the only sound was that of plodding footsteps. The women’s arms drooped like two extra stripes, like flaccid worms.
In the large workshops, along the workbenches, were the airplane parts for us to polish with whetstones and wheels and assorted implements whose exact nature baffled me. Nor did I know just how to fit them together. And in my dreams I again find myself holding a shiny metallic object and struggling to fit it back where it belongs, but it resists. I try to force it, but it refuses. Until suddenly it dissolves and the molten steel slithers across my fingers and up my stripes, reaching the back of my neck, where it settles, trying to strangle me.
She hardly says anything. Only the bare essentials. Mingling among us and watching. A broad-framed woman, she wears a prisoner’s uniform like the rest of us, but she’s different. Imprisonment hasn’t clung to her.
Janine the Frenchwoman, whose pallet is next to mine, says: “This Clarissa was a fronthure.”
I tell my children that she was a whore sent as a diversion for the soldiers more than three years earlier. Several others like her had already thrown themselves against the fence to sever the frenzied memories. Others had turned into wild dogs, directing their humiliation and disgrace at women as yet unafflicted.
But not Clarissa. The way I remember it, the torment never took hold of her.
Day follows day in confusion. There’s no keeping track. One morning I awake on my pallet, but it feels like smoldering stones. There I am in a vast desert, the furnace overhead sapping whatever precious fluids still flow inside me. I implore it to take even more.
Janine drags me off the cot. “Get up,” she says, almost shouting. I don’t budge. The goodness of the desert is what I want. She prods me, but I can’t move my legs. They’re drowning in the desert sands and I haven’t the will. Janine beats me with her fists.
“On your feet,” she says, “or you’ll be missed in the roll call. You mustn’t be sick!” she shouts. “Mon dieu, you just can’t take that kind of risk.”
“Leave me alone,” I beg of her. Janine persists and forces my feet toward her, tying my shoes on.
And above, out of the fiery skies, comes a different voice. “Leave her alone!” Janine pounces on her.
“Monster,” she yells. “She’ll die if she doesn’t get up!”
The vast desert drifts away. I open my eyes, which feel like tiny flames. Like from days gone by, Clarissa’s voice lacks the parched sound that comes from unremitting hunger and a wilting mind.
“You fool,” she says to Janine. “You know I wouldn’t let her die. Just leave her here.” Bowing to Clarissa’s authority, Janine loosens her stubborn grip.
“Now leave,” she orders.
Clarissa kneels and takes off my shoes. She lifts my spindly legs back onto the cot.
“I’ll be back soon,” she whispers.
I don’t know where she went but she did come back, and in the hollow of her palm were some tablets, gleaming. A kind I had never seen here. Perhaps she’s out to poison me, to embed her evil in me, to scar me with her shame. But I keep still. Like an obedient child, I open my mouth and swallow. Into another desert I sink. There’s the hint of a breeze brushing its precious sands, stirring up pillars of dust.
For three days she keeps coming, putting the medication in my mouth, and disappearing. On the fourth day, as Janine tells it, Clarissa stood during the first roll call at the end of the corridor and waited. Then, when the golden-haired officer arrived, Clarissa stopped her and whispered something in her ear. The officer approached her master and he took the roll call, but not a single woman w
as missing.
I was not the only one of whom Clarissa took charge at a harrowing moment. There were others like me. She brought medicine to the ailing, solace to the dying, wetting their foreheads with soothing compresses until the end.
For Sarah Mendelssohn, who came down with the sailors’ disease, scurvy, she brought fruits and vegetables.
The only islands of potatoes we ever saw floating in the lake of soup appeared on those rare days when the factory owners came to see the prisoners. That was how we found out about the orders to give us more and better food to make us more productive. But the SS men would fish any morsels of vegetable and shreds of meat out of the soup, leaving us nothing but the greasy water, without a trace of the nourishment it once contained.
When I tried to thank her, haltingly, she brushed me aside with a flick of her hand and turned away, as though it was more than she could bear.
Late one night, the door came open quietly. Clarissa got up and walked toward it, treading very carefully, as if on sizzling embers. She made her way to the pale slit of light, and as the door opened wider, I could make out the shadow of the golden-haired officer. She was standing there blocking the light. As soon as Clarissa crossed the threshold, the officer turned on her heel and Clarissa followed. The door closed silently, as though it had never moved. I fasten my head to the hardness of the pallet, and as I turn back, I find Janine’s eyes, like a cat’s, slicing through me in the darkness. I turn away. The silence hangs so heavy that I can almost hear the Frenchwoman’s eyelids batting, and the sound of my own breathing rumbles in my ears.