Trieste

by Daša Drndic

  They are making little worlds of the dead, whispers Haya to Jarmušek.

  Worlds for fun. Worlds people play with, Jarmušek says.

  In the eighteenth century the so-called Papierdockenmacher make dolls, animals, papier-mâché masks, or only body parts, which are then glued or sewn onto a stuffed leather torso. In the second half of the eighteenth century the Hilpert, Ammon, Heinrichen, Allgeyer and Lorenz families dictate the production of pewter dolls. Shops and children’s stores are inundated with an exotic (pewter) animal world, with mythological characters and medieval knights. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the Trix, Schucho, Bub, Fleischmann, Arnold, Plank, Schoenner and Bing companies become synonymous with the desirable toy. The number of people involved in designing and producing toys keeps growing. While, for example, 1,366 people work on making toys in 1895, ten years later there are more than 8,000 of them, and 243 companies or small toy factories are at work in Nuremberg in 1914. And so, the Nuremberg world of imagination grows and grows and travels everywhere, especially to the United States. Toys feed Nuremberg and Nuremberg feeds on toys.

  Then comes World War One, and with World War One begins the quiet demise of Nuremberg toys. Instead of toys, weapons are produced. Instead of little varnished, mechanical cars, big olive-drab caterpillar tanks are produced. Instead of swift electric trains that circle through mountain landscapes in elegant salons and spacious children’s bedrooms, the hit is Big Bertha. Then, from 1933 on, Jews, the majority owners of the factories begin to disappear from Nuremberg at a dizzying rate, so the toys disappear, too. In the summer of 1943 Hitler announces a ban on manufacturing toys, all toys. Hitler advises children to Play at the arts of combat and sing war songs, marches.

  At the doll and toy exhibition Haya and Jarmušek look at a photograph beneath which there is a pile of old toys, stained and broken. The picture shows first-grade Nuremberg pupils from the Jewish elementary school located at the time at Obere Kanalstrasse 25. The picture is dated 1936. Each child in the picture is holding a toy. The boys hold a paper cone of some sort in which there might be sweets, models of little metal automobiles in lively colours, perhaps a small train, a tin soldier or a miniature tank. Most of the girls are holding dolls.

  But by 1943, when Hitler puts a stop to toy manufacturing, the children in the picture no longer exist. Four of them (numbers 10, 18, 32 and 33) are deported to Poland with their families in 1942, to Izbica, the packed departure lounge for Belsen. Their teacher is taken to Krasniczyn. No-one knows who the children marked 2, 8, 9, 12, 14, 15, 16, 19, 24, 28, 30, 31, 35 and 36 are, where they have gone or what has happened to them. Perhaps they are riding along on a moveable shelf in Bad Arolsen, which Haya knows nothing about at that point, though she might have known. But no matter where the children from the picture went, no matter where they were taken, in 1942 they probably carried a toy with them. They were the children of Nuremberg, connoisseurs when it came to dolls, trains and automobiles.

  When Birkenau was liberated, aside from the gold teeth, the hair and clothing, the piles of bones, dolls were also found, many of them from Nuremberg. Their hair pulled out, naked, with no limbs, often with eyes missing, so similar to their little owners. In camps, objects and people merge. In camps, objects and people become symbiotic.

  These camp dolls are like Bellmer’s, but smaller, Jarmušek says.

  Bellmer who? asks Haya.

  Three years before the picture of the first-graders of the Jewish elementary school was taken in Nuremberg, in Berlin Hans Bellmer fashions his first life-size doll, as if mocking the future Borghild. Afterwards, Bellmer makes many more “sick” Puppen in Paris. He makes Puppen with moveable pubic bones, with mobile, twisted limbs, with extra limbs; Puppen with feet in white socks and children’s shoes, their private parts without pubic hair; gigantic monstrosities of immature adults who mock the impeccably modelled, muscular bodies which Leni loves photographing and Adolf loved watching. Bellmer’s Puppen were monster Puppen, huge mirrors reflecting history and its Macher.

  Albrecht Dürer was born in Nuremberg, Jarmušek says.

  And Hans Sachs, Haya says.

  The first pocket watch was made in Nuremberg, Jarmušek says.

  The first European railway line was built in Nuremberg, Haya says.

  The Nuremberg laws were adopted in Nuremberg.

  There were trials in Nuremberg.

  Nuremberg was reduced to rubble by bombs. Nuremberg was a rubbish dump with 100,000 people left homeless.

  Nuremberg has a promenade along the River Pegnitz. Let’s go for a walk along the Pegnitz, Haya says. Are there any Jews in Nuremberg?

  We learned a lot about Nuremberg, Jarmušek says.

  Yes. Nuremberg is a green city, Haya says.

  Later, Haya left, Jarmušek flew away. Like a blonde angel Jarmušek flew over Berlin, and Haya went back to Gorizia. I cannot fly with you, she said. I cannot.

  Do birds chirp in flight? Haya asks a woman who is sitting next to her. The woman who is sitting next to Haya is elderly, about seventy, and she appears to be agitated.

  It is a crime to catch song birds and cage them, says the lady sitting next to Haya. That’s what my neighbour does. My neighbour has nine caged birds, which no longer sing, she says.

  We started out down Himmelweg.

  To paradise?

  To the chirping of birds.

  What is your name?

  Rajzman, Samuel Rajzman.

  What did you do before the war?

  Before the war I was an accountant at an export firm.

  When did you turn up at Treblinka and how did you get there?

  In August 1942 they picked me up in the Warsaw Ghetto.

  How long were you at Treblinka?

  For a year. Until August 1943.

  Describe the Treblinka camp.

  Trains arrived every day, sometimes three, sometimes four, sometimes five of them. All the travellers were Jews. Jews from Czechoslovakia, from Germany, from Greece and Poland. As soon as the trains stopped, the people had to disembark at once, within five minutes. On the platform they were sorted into groups, men in one group, women in another, children in a third. Then they ordered them to take off their clothes. While the people hurried to strip off their clothing, the German guards snapped their whips. Then the old camp inmates would come. They would collect the clothing and take it to the barracks. The people walked naked along a special path to the gas chambers.

  What did the Germans call the path?

  Himmelfahrtstrasse.

  The Street of the Heavenly Path? The Road to Heaven?

  Something along those lines. I can draw you where the path went.

  No need. How long did people live after they arrived at Treblinka?

  Not long. From when they stripped off their clothes to when they arrived at the gas chamber, at most ten minutes. The men. Fifteen minutes for the women, because first they had to have their hair cut.

  Why did they cut the women’s hair?

  There was talk that they were using the hair to make mattresses for German women.

  I cut women’s hair.

  You are?

  Abraham Bomba. I was a barber before the war. At Treblinka I cut mens and women’s hair, mostly women’s. After the war I opened a hair salon in the basement of New York Grand Central Station.

  Where did you cut the women’s hair?

  First in the gas-chamber, before they gassed them, later in the undressing barracks. When they stripped them naked the women were first examined, then sent to us for a haircut. The women were always naked when we cut their hair.

  How were they examined, by whom?

  They were laid on tables and their intimate parts were examined. Those were not professionals, not doctors. They were supposed to find out if the women hid any valuables, gold, money, jewellery, in their vaginas. These men used leather gloves for their examinations, so the women bled terribly.

  How many barbers did the work?

  I don’t rem
ember precisely. Some were professional barbers, others were not. There was this Jewish Camp Elder, engineer Galewski. He told us what to do.

  What did he say?

  He said we should make believe we’re giving the women a real haircut, so they wouldn’t know they were going to be gassed, so they would believe that after the haircut they were going to take a shower. He said, don’t make them look like monkeys.

  How much time did you have for each haircut?

  Two minutes. It was very painful. Some barbers recognized their wives, their mothers, their grandmothers, and they just had to go on cutting. And they weren’t allowed to say a word. Not even hug before their dear ones were to be gassed. It was very hard to watch. It was horrible. It was awfully painful.

  Rajzman, describe the railway station at Treblinka.

  At first there were no signboards whatsoever at the station, but a few months later Kurt Franz, the camp commander, ordered they be put up. The barracks where the clothing was stored had signs reading “RESTAURANT”. Then there were signs for “TELEPHONE”, “POST OFFICE”, “WAITING ROOM”. There were even train schedules for the departure and arrival of trains from, say, Vienna and Berlin.

  How did the Germans at Treblinka behave with the victims?

  They each had their duties. For example, Scharführer Mentz, Willi Mentz, was in charge of the Lazarett. Weak women and children who couldn’t make it to the gas chambers on their own were killed at the Lazarett. There was a Red Cross flag flying at the Lazarett entrance. Mentz specialized in killing and he didn’t let anyone replace him when there was killing to be done. Mentz loved to kill. I remember, they brought him two sisters, one ten, the other two years old. When the older girl saw that Mentz was pointing a revolver at her sister, she threw herself at his feet and pleaded with him not to do it. Then Mentz didn’t kill the two-year-old, he flung her into the oven alive and shot the older one. Once they brought to the Lazarett a woman and her daughter who was about to give birth. They laid the pregnant woman on the ground, and around her gathered S.S. men to watch her labour. The birth lasted about two hours. Then Mentz asked the baby’s grandmother whom he should kill first, her or the baby. The woman said, Kill me. She pleaded with Mentz, Kill me. But of course Mentz first killed the baby, then he killed the baby’s mother, then in the end he killed the grandmother.

  Do you know who Kurt Franz was?

  Unfortunately, I do. I also know his dog Barry. Kurt Franz was a savage murderer. One of the worst in the camp.

  Substantiate that statement.

  The train from Vienna arrived. I stood on the platform as people were led out of the wagons. An older woman approached Kurt Franz, produced an identity card and said, I am Sigmund Freud’s sister. Assign me to office work. I am frail and old, she said. Franz studied the card very thoroughly, and then said, Yes, ma’am. This is an error. Look, he said, here is the train schedule. You have a train to Vienna in two hours. Leave all your valuables and documents, Kurt Franz said, and go and take a shower, he said. When you get back your ticket to Vienna and all your things will be waiting for you. Naturally, the woman went into the bathhouse and never returned.

  You were saying, Glazar?

  Tölpel. His name was Moritz Tölpel. He was very short, nearly dwarf-like, almost completely bald and a bit of an oddball. So, Moritz Tölpel stands there during roll call, his trouser legs dragging on the ground. He stands there, cringing. Kurt Franz—Lalka—takes his measure, and says: Yes, you’re the one. A Ukrainian guard manages to dig out a smelly old robe from the grisly pile of clothing belonging to the men, women and children who had already been murdered, and tells Tölpel, Put that on. The garment drags on the ground. Tölpel can’t even take a step. He trips, falls, gets up, falls, and Lalka howls, Step, march, one-two! and keeps snapping his whip. Then a guard digs out a black hat that used to belong to a rabbi long since dead, a grimy Halbzylinder, pins a shiny half-moon onto it, then into the tiny hand of dwarfish Tölpel he thrusts a heavy club. A sign will be put on each of the latrines, Lalka says. “TWO MINUTES FOR SHITTING. WHOEVER TAKES LONGER LIVES A DAY SHORTER” Then Bredow hangs a large kitchen clock around Tölpels neck and says, Here he is, our Treblinka “Scheiss-Meister”, and Lalka howls: From now on you are Commander of the Shit! You are now the grand sovereign over everyone and their shit. Anyone who takes longer than two minutes, do with them what you will!

  I am Strawzcynski. Once Lalka was out walking with a camera in one hand and a gun in the other. He didn’t know whether he’d rather be snapping some pictures or doing some shooting. Then he spotted Sztajer, whose back was turned to him. Sztajer was my neighbour from Czestochowa. Lalka took aim and shot Sztajer in the buttocks. Sztajer screamed and fell to the ground. Lalka came over, beaming. Get up and drop your pants, he said. The man obeyed. He was barely conscious, blood gushing from his buttocks. Lalka scowled, shrugged and said, Fuck it. I missed your balls. Then off he went looking for another target.

  Rajzman, how did you manage to stay alive?

  There were about eight thousand Jews in my transport, brought from Warsaw. I had already undressed and was heading towards Himmelfahrtstrasse when Galewski, a friend of mine of many years, noticed me. He whispered, Go back. Go back quickly. He said, They need a translator for Hebrew, French, Russian, Polish and German, and I convinced them to let you go. Galewski was in charge of a group of camp workers. He took part in the revolt. He was killed. I was assigned to the job of loading. Onto trains I loaded bundles of clothing belonging to people who had been killed. After two days, from a small town near Wa rsaw, they brought to Treblinka my mother, sister and two brothers. I watched them being taken to the gas chambers. Then, while I was loading clothing, I found my wife’s documents and a photograph of her with our child. That is all I have left of my family. That photograph.

  On average, how many people were killed every day?

  Between ten and twelve thousand.

  How many gas chambers were there?

  At first there were only three. Then they built another ten. They were planning twenty-five.

  How do you know?

  I know. There was construction material on the small square. I asked someone, What’s that for? There aren’t any Jews left. Then someone said, There will be more. We still have plenty of work to do.

  Have you heard? says the woman who is now sitting very close to Haya and makes no effort to leave. Have you heard? A bedridden little old lady on Via dei Magazzini was eaten by rats? she says. Do you have a dog? A person needs a dog. Dogs protect us from rats and loneliness, says the lady sitting next to Haya. My dog died recently. Ever since my dog died I haven’t been sleeping well. I listen. I do a lot of walking. I had a nice dog, a golden retriever, she says.

  They call the new Pope “Rottweiler”, Haya says. The definition of hyperbolic functions is:

  , did you know that? The Panzer Pope Rottweiler.

  The lady sitting next to Haya on a bench in the Parco della Rimembranza pretends not to hear what Haya has said about the new Pope, because she has heard. A little later it will become clear that the elderly woman has excellent hearing. Have you read? asks the lady sitting next to Haya, right next to her, on the same bench in the Parco della Rimembranza, their shoulders nearly touching, but not touching, for had they touched Haya would have moved away, that’s for certain, she would have slipped off the end of the bench, Do you know that postmen in Germany have recently been attending workshops on canine psychology? asks the lady next to Haya. The German post office is offering classes on canine psychology to all their staff the lady says to Haya. The heads of the post office insist, says the lady sitting next to Haya in the Parco della Rimembranza, that dogs continue to attack postmen because postmen are particularly attractive to dogs, the lady says, but ever since the German post office has been offering these workshops, the number of attacks has dropped drastically, or so says the post office spokeswoman, a certain Sylvia, says the lady sitting next to Haya. The number of attacks has dropped by half, says S
ylvia, says the woman next to Haya, and that has been happening ever since the postmen were advised at the workshops not to run when they see a big dog coming at them. The spokeswoman says, says the lady next to Haya, that some eighty thousand postmen and postwomen attended the workshops on canine psychoanalysis this year, she says, and the exercises included theoretical and practical advice, and the psychologists explained to the postmen that they must not rely on their bicycles, because one cannot escape a chasing dog even on a bicycle, so says Sylvia, the spokeswoman of the German post office, says the woman next to Haya. So the postmen said, Buy us vespas, or mopeds at least, says the woman next to Haya, but Sylvia the spokeswoman tells them that is out of the question.