Come, my people, enter your houses,
and shut your doors behind you;
hide yourselves for a little while
until the indignation passes.
For behold, the Lord is coming forth out of His place
to punish the dwellers of the earth for their iniquity,
and the earth shall disclose the blood shed upon her,
and shall cover her slain no longer.
What a dignified and proper introduction, I reflect; this is a man worth listening to. But to my great disappointment the speaker goes on to say something banal and offensive. ‘Yes,’ he shouts passionately, ‘the slain, the slain! — our people walked like sheep to the slaughter!’ And all at once everything around me goes black. The speaker has been transformed into a uniformed Nazi waving his fleshy hand: Left, right! Left, right! I want to scream out: Bastard, how dare you! But Raymond, my Auschwitz friend, has appeared beside me and places his hand on my mouth. Don’t say a word! he whispers. Our only hope is to get out of here before it’s too late. There is to be a selection at daybreak!...
I stand up cautiously, as I did one time in Auschwitz — when I risked my life to carry a blanket from one barrack to another — and to Esther’s consternation I leave the building. As luck would have it, the April night is dark and foggy and there are no searchlights. I wait a minute or two, hesitating. Am I to betray my wife as I once betrayed my parents? But then there she is, standing right next to me.
‘Why did you rush out like that?’ Esther asks, upset.
‘Let’s walk,’ I reply. ‘We’ll talk later.’
Morning of the Swastika
It was spring of 1949. I had left for work earlier than usual and Brunswick Road was still wrapped in slumber. As I turned the corner at Lygon Street my steps froze. There, screaming at me from a wall like a malignant spider, a huge black swastika. And all at once I was back there, my head shaven, standing to attention in front of Block 5. A well-dressed passing stranger looked at me blankly, asked me something, I didn’t know what.
When I got to work I learnt that the tranquillity of our streets had been violated overnight by a gang of thugs. Swastikas and abusive Nazi slogans against Jews had appeared all over the place. Floods, fires and other emergencies bring people together quickly. The word spread. After work that very day, a hundred alarmed men, mostly Holocaust survivors, met in one of our communal centres. The mood was dark determination — and Never Again!
And without too many words we divided ourselves into groups of four or five. Armed with crowbars, spanners and other improvised weapons, and with the quiet acquiescence of the police, we patrolled from dusk till dawn the streets of Brunswick and Carlton. Most hoodlums are cowards by nature: they will involve themselves in mischief as long their behaviour is not checked. But the minute they discover they could end up with broken bones or a cracked skull, they withdraw to their rat-holes to await more opportune days.
Meanwhile the haunting nightmares, the daylight visions and the whole gamut of ghosts from our harrowing past made an abrupt return. Practically every morning Esther would wake in a sweat. ‘I spent the night in Majdanek,’ she cried one morning, ‘among hundreds of women being driven naked through a snowfield. What am I going to do?’ I would give her a sedative, boil a pot of coffee and sip the warming brew with her in uneasy silence. Then I would leave for work.
The swastika daubings became a hotly debated issue in our community. Some of the older-established settlers were extremely wary of the impetuous new arrivals and argued against any drastic action; they felt that we survivors tended to overreact, to over-dramatize. Leave it alone, they advised; after all, there are times when to do less is to do more. But the former inmates of the concentration camps wouldn’t give in — they were harbouring a resolve no outsider could understand. ‘Yes,’ one man shouted as if seized by a fever. ‘I may be out of the camp but the camp is not out of me. They won’t get me again, never!’
On the evening of one of those tension-filled days, Esther and I were invited to the home of my neighbour David Mrocki, who also happened to be my boss. He wanted us to meet a Jewish friend of his from Sydney, a short fellow with a pair of grey eyes that darted about as if seeking recognition. ‘I’ve heard,’ this man remarked, barely lifting his face from a hot bowl of potato soup, ‘that you were in the camps. Is that right? Can you tell me why?... I mean, you must have done something, mustn’t you, otherwise it doesn’t make sense.’
For a moment I thought the chap was clowning. But he wasn’t. Rather, his question carried a legitimate simplicity, which made it all the more difficult for me to answer. Why should innocent people be sent to camps, let alone be tormented, tortured and murdered? I found myself choked for words. I stood up there and then, took Esther’s arm, and we left our neighbour’s place without a goodbye.
At home Esther was furious. ‘Why didn’t you shut up that vulgar, stupid man? How could you let him get away with such arrogance?’
‘I couldn’t do it, Esther, I just couldn’t do it. There was a cruel logic to his question. Don’t forget, he spent the war years on a different planet from us. How can you explain to someone like him about the survivor who won’t undress when he goes to bed at night, keeps a packed suitcase by his door, walks to work for fear of trains, and sees a swastika in every church cross? Or about my old acquaintance Dov, who, unable to settle here, took off to a remote township in Queensland, closed his window on life and nailed an Aryan name to his door — to mislead the Gestapo forever lying in wait to escort him back to Dachau!’
Moving
Brunswick Road was a paradox, a contradiction: a soulless street inhabited by soulful people — regular, everyday, hard-working Australians who sang, danced, cried, rejoiced in the morning sun, clouded over when the chips were down.
The room we occupied was tiny, dark and without heating. We dreamt of moving, but where to? There was an acute scarcity of residential accommodation and one had to pay good key-money for a decent roof over one’s head. We worked hard, from break of dawn into the depth of night. I earned eight pounds a week and Esther four pounds. She made sure that her wages covered our cost of living; the rest went straight into the State Savings Bank in Swanston Street. I always entrusted my wages to the same teller; if he was away I came home with misgivings. This may strike some as peculiar, but banking had never been a part of my culture: our family savings, when there were any, had always been stuffed into a woollen sock and hidden behind the portrait of my grandparents hanging on the green wall over my parents’ bed.
After sixteen months of putting penny to penny we managed to accumulate what to us was a small fortune, and were ready to make a move.
Life has its serendipities. While walking along Bourke Street in the city one scorching Saturday in summer, I was astonished to spot two familiar faces approaching: Wigdor Widawski and his son Kuba, men from the land of my past whom I had known since childhood. The three of us were overjoyed to meet up like this — an emotion so common among survivors who had known each other before their world crumbled to pieces. It carried a confirmation of one’s existence, dispelling for a while the sense of a too-fragile reality.
‘When did you come to Australia?’ asked Wigdor. ‘Is anyone else from your family with you?’ I didn’t answer and he understood. When I explained our circumstances and our present living conditions, he promised to look into things, and so he did. Returning from a meeting at the Kadimah a few days later, I found Kuba waiting for me. ‘Father knows of a vacant flat in Eildon Road, St Kilda. Number 35. Be there tomorrow right after breakfast, there’s a good chance that you can get it.’
St Kilda! Was it possible, I thought, to find a proper home in a suburb where most of my friends were renting small rooms in impersonal boarding-houses; St Kilda, where palm-trees reached into the blue sky, while seagulls circled in the evening sun as it dived into the sea to cool its blazing face? Was it possible?
We arrived on time and happily inspected our pot
ential new address, which looked to me like a castle out of a Cinderella story. Then, after parting with all our savings, my Esther — like a shining princess — took from our new landlady’s hand the golden key to our sudden two-bedroom life.
People who only knew about the war from the daily papers or newsreels, who ate well, slept in comfortable beds, showered each morning, took a glass of milk and a slice of toast before going off to work, of their own free will, in a train which they boarded without fear — such people could never understand a survivor’s delight at being the master of her own kitchen, or at the pleasure of reading a paper in his own private toilet.
It was difficult to say goodbye to our red-headed landlady and her three children, especially young Kay. Their black cat George, who on occasion had helped himself to our dinner if we left it unguarded on the stove, seemed visibly upset. But the time had come and they wished us well.
Apart from our bed, which we transported from Brunswick Road to St Kilda (on a Tuesday morning, regarded among Jews as a lucky day), there was not another stick of furniture in our new flat. We ate our first meal sitting on the bare floor.
The following Saturday we set out with our friend Mendl Blicblau on a shopping spree: for a table and chairs, a carpet, an ice-chest, bath-towels, tea-towels, a broom, a shovel, a rubbish-bin. When I described our excursion to my boss David Mrocki that Monday, he gave me a perplexed, even suspicious look, so I quickly reassured him that I hadn’t robbed a bank — everything had been bought on hire-purchase. ‘That’s even worse!’ shot back the older man, who had lived in Melbourne through the Depression. ‘One should only buy with cash. Save, save and save! Earn an interest on your savings, and then buy.’
‘You may be right,’ I replied, ‘though I was taught by my father that if you invest a złoty in a bank for a year, you might gain a grosz in interest — but not a minute extra is ever added to your account of days in the bank of life!’
The Professor
Like most survivors, I constantly had to reassure myself that I was living in a new reality. One Monday morning, as I turned from Eildon Road into Grey Street and walked towards St Kilda railway station, a thought flashed across my mind: I had abandoned my pickaxe, an offence punishable by death! But I’m not in Ebensee, I reminded myself. But then, you never know. Perhaps I ought to buy a replacement in a local hardware store, so that I wouldn’t be accused of stealing.
At the station I asked for a weekly ticket, and all at once everything grew misty. ‘Are you all right?’ asked the woman from behind her little window.
‘Yes, sure. Would you like to see my identity card, my passport?’
‘No, that’s quite unnecessary. Not here, sir. Have a seat, there’s no hurry, there’s been a delay and the next train won’t be arriving for a few more minutes.’
I thanked her, but immediately wondered if the delay had been caused by the late arrival of fresh human cargo.
Although the carriage was practically empty, a rather oversized gentleman of about fifty, dressed in navy-blue overalls, got on and chose to sit opposite me. He yawned and with a weary gesture opened his brown case (which I noticed contained fishing gear), took out a newspaper and began to peruse the sports section. I shuffled anxiously in my seat, looked around, peered out the window in a sweat. The train was moving now, picking up speed.
My neighbour smiled as if reading my thoughts; he could obviously tell from my attire and behaviour that I was a New Australian, probably a nervous camp survivor. Yes, I heard myself say, even though I was reluctant to start a conversation with a total stranger. But the man’s smile and demeanour seemed an invitation to do so.
I pointed to his newspaper. ‘Have they cancelled the future yet?’
‘The future has taken an enormous leap,’ he replied. ‘But we ordinary people would be mad to entrust our future to hopes and promises... And here we are,’ he concluded ambiguously.
I looked out once more. The train was already pulling into Flinders Street station, though it seemed to me that I had boarded it just moments before. We said goodbye and he quickly vanished into the surging tide of people.
Imagine my astonishment when, on the following Sunday, while visiting an acquaintance who had had half his stomach removed at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, Esther and I came across the very same man. He was standing next to the patient’s bed, dressed in a beige suit and a shirt trimmed with an emerald tie.
‘A pleasure to see you again,’ he greeted me. ‘I was still on holiday last time we met.’
‘That must explain your overalls and fishing gear,’ I ventured.
‘Precisely. As a rule I travel to work by car, properly dressed for the part.’ To my surprise he said this in Yiddish. It put me instantly at ease.
‘And what part is that?’ I asked.
The man stretched out his hand. ‘My name is Feldman. I’m a teacher of Semitic languages. What about you two?’
‘We don’t teach,’ I replied, after introducing him to my wife. ‘We barely escaped with our lives from Germany’s foremost academy.’
Professor Feldman proved to be a man of friendliness and charm. After a while the three of us departed together; when we reached the hospital exit he offered us a lift and invited us to join him for a cup of coffee downtown. He was large and bulky, and could hardly squeeze himself into the driver’s seat. His car, the colour of dirty red bricks, he called ‘Surcia’ — from Sara, he explained, turning the key in the ignition. ‘Now, my darling Surcia, show your master what you can do.’
At the café he scrutinized our faces meaningfully. We felt uneasy, tried to avoid his gaze. At last he spoke.
‘I know what you’ve been through,’ he began. ‘Just as we all once stood together at Sinai, so did we all, one way or another, stand in the roll-calls at Auschwitz.’
‘I understand your metaphor, Professor,’ I said, ‘but you are fortunate that you were there only metaphorically.’
‘I know. I didn’t mean to offend.’ He sat back. ‘On the other hand, I believe that the heavy chains you have to wear belong, in a sense, to all of us. Yet we must also move on. In time, everything will pass.’
‘It depends for whom,’ said Esther.
‘For everybody.’ He smiled warmly. ‘Trust me, there is nothing more inevitable than the inevitable. Time takes care of everything.’
Somehow we were not reassured.
At the Feldmans’
Several weeks later the telephone rang. It was an inclement Sunday morning. The cold southerly buffeting the numb streetlamps, echoed in the telegraph wires’ melancholy whisper, evoked memories of roll-calls in muddy snows, of resigned hands waving a last goodbye.
Esther had picked up the receiver. She turned to me, covering the mouthpiece with her palm. ‘We’re invited for next Saturday to Professor and Mrs Feldman for afternoon tea. Can we go?’
They lived in North Carlton. A tiny hallway led into their small but warmly furnished first-floor flat. Across each of the two lead-light windows opposite the threshold hung a white translucent gauze curtain, like a shy bride’s veil. The walls spoke of academia, and of art. To our pleasant surprise the mutual friend we had visited at the hospital, David Nissen, was also invited; he and his wife Miriam had already arrived.
Lemon tea was served in ornate glasses, Russian-style, and there were tasty sandwiches and freshly-baked cheese blintzes covered in marmalade, which our corpulent host swallowed like vitamin pills.
‘Yes,’ said the professor, turning towards me. ‘I owe you an apology, young fellow. I was rather callous last time when we talked about remembrance, and you were unquestionably right. Pain by proxy carries a fake sense of melodrama. There is, and will always remain, a gulf between Holocaust survivors and the rest of mankind — a separateness which no outsider can fathom.’
‘You are partly right,’ I replied, a little ungraciously perhaps. ‘One can understand and feel with those who survived, but what outsiders cannot grasp is that sense of inner destruction felt b
y survivors. Once you’ve been tortured, you’re forever tortured.’
‘I agree,’ David Nissen chimed in. ‘The senseless murder of our people is something of a pathological enigma. Hitler, in my opinion, was a slave to his own vulgarity, a simpleton, a failed artist. His suspicion that his father was half-Jewish drove him to a maniacal hatred, and only a man who hates himself is capable of hating like that.’
‘Bravo, David, bravo!’ our host almost shouted.
Mrs Feldman, after refilling our glasses with fresh tea, beckoned Miriam and Esther into an adjoining room. All at once, despite the presence of the two other men, I felt alone. For a moment I thought I could sense warm fingers journeying over my jacket, and a voice, the voice of a man I loved but had so miserably betrayed. Son, be careful, whispered the voice of my father. You’ve lost your yellow patch.
I swivelled round and saw Aaron Feldman leaning against a wall, next to David Nissen, and they looked to me so strange, complete strangers. But then Aaron’s words wrenched me out of my reverie. ‘Yes, yes,’ he was saying. ‘We must strive to eliminate hatred — and we can do it, surely we can. Teaching, education is the key to everything.’
His words snapped me back to myself. ‘Education?’ I retorted. ‘Education can’t teach love, decency, justice. Hatred, on the other hand, can certainly be taught. Many of the top Nazis were highly educated. David, you mentioned Hitler. Didn’t he attend the Academy of Fine Art in Vienna?’
‘Not quite, but nearly. The director of painting, Griepenkerl, rejected his application twice! If he had been a bit less critical, Hitler would probably have ended up as some pathetic obscure landscapist, and our recent history would have an entirely different landscape.’
‘Who can tell?’ said Feldman. ‘If anything, that would seem to support my argument! I still bank on education.’
Sunrise West Page 12