“Careful, young lady!”
“You’re the one who’s not looking where you’re going, dammit!” she replies.
But as she looks up, she sees the face of Professor Morgenstern, and realizes she’s been rude. She’s almost knocked the poor old man to the ground.
“Please forgive me, Professor. I didn’t recognize you.”
“It’s you, Miss Adler!” And as he says this, he peers at Dita with his myopic eyes. “But are you crying?”
“It’s the cold. It’s irritating my eyes, dammit!” she answers sharply.
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
“No, nobody can.”
The professor puts his hands on his hips.
“Are you sure?”
“I can’t explain. It’s a secret.”
“Then don’t tell me. Secrets are for keeping.”
The professor bows and marches off to his hut without another word. Dita feels even more bewildered than she was before. Maybe it’s her fault. Maybe he’s right, and she shouldn’t stick her nose into other people’s business. She wants to talk with someone; she thinks of Miriam Edelstein. She’s the only one who visits Hirsch outside regular hours.
Dita finds Miriam with her son, Arieh, inside Barrack 28. There’s not much time left before curfew. It’s not the best time for visits, but when the deputy director sees Dita’s distress, she can’t bring herself to say no.
The darkness and the cold don’t lend themselves to long conversations, but Dita tells her everything from the beginning: Mengele’s warning, how she accidentally witnessed Hirsch’s first encounter with a particular individual, her doubts, and her attempts to resolve them by finding out the truth. Miriam listens without interrupting her, with no sign of surprise when Dita tells her about Hirsch’s secret affairs with other men. She even remains silent for a while after Dita has finished her tale.
“So?” asks Dita impatiently.
“You’ve got your truth now,” Miriam replies. “You’ll be satisfied.”
“What do you mean?”
“You wanted truth, but a truth that suited you. You wanted Fredy Hirsch to be a brave, efficient, incorruptible, charming, flawless man … and you feel cheated because he’s a homosexual. You could have chosen to be happy at the confirmation that he’s not an SS informer, that he really is one of us, and one of the best. But instead, you feel offended because he’s not exactly what you’d like him to be.”
“No, don’t misjudge me. Of course I’m relieved that he’s not one of them. It’s just that … I couldn’t imagine him being that way!”
“Edita, you talk about this as if it were a crime. The only thing that’s different is that instead of being attracted to women, he likes men. It’s no crime.”
“In school, they told us it was an illness.”
“The real disease is intolerance.”
They stop talking for a moment.
“You already knew, didn’t you, Mrs. Edelstein?”
The woman nods.
“Please call me Miriam. We share a secret now. But it’s not our secret, so we have no right to reveal it.”
“You know Fredy well, don’t you?”
“He’s told me some things and then I’ve found out others.…”
“Who is Fredy Hirsch?”
Miriam gestures that the two of them should walk around the hut. Her feet are freezing.
“Fredy Hirsch’s father died when he was very young. He felt lost. And then they signed him up for the JPD, the German organization that gathered together young Jews at that time. He grew up there and found a home. And sport was everything to him. The organization quickly realized that he had talent as a coach and an event organizer.”
Dita links arms with Miriam Edelstein to try and stay warm as they walk. Miriam’s words blend with the sound of their clogs stamping on the night frost.
“His reputation as a JPD coach grew. But the rise of the Nazi party ruined everything. Fredy told me that Adolf Hitler’s supporters were a bunch of mean-spirited barroom troublemakers who used to defy the laws of the German Republic. Later, they were the ones who started to make laws to suit their own purposes.”
Hirsch told Miriam he’d never be able to forget the afternoon he arrived at JPD headquarters and was confronted by the words traitor Jews painted on one of the walls. He wondered what they had betrayed and couldn’t come up with an answer. Some afternoons, stones would hit the windowpanes during a pottery workshop or while the choir was rehearsing. Each blow against the glass shattered something inside Fredy.
One afternoon, his mother asked him to come home straight from school because they had to discuss something important. Fredy had matters to attend to, but he accepted his mother’s request because one of the JPD teachings he had absorbed was to respect hierarchies and ranks zealously.
When he got home, he found the family gathered, somber. His mother informed them that their stepfather had lost his job because he was a Jew, and the situation was becoming dangerous. They had decided to leave for South America—Bolivia—to start over.
“Go to Bolivia? You mean run away!” Fredy replied harshly.
His stepfather started to stand up to confront him, but it was Fredy’s older brother, Paul, who told Fredy to shut up.
Fredy walked out of the house, stunned. Bewilderment and force of habit led him to the only place where everything was orderly and coherent—JPD headquarters. It was there he found one of the directors checking the water bottles before the next excursion. Normally, Hirsch didn’t talk about personal matters, but he couldn’t bear the cowardice of running away.
The coordinator of outdoor activities, whose blond hair was starting to turn white, had watched Fredy grow up in the JPD. He looked at Fredy long and hard, and told him that if he wanted to stay, there’d be a place for him in the JPD.
Fredy was only seventeen, but he already possessed self-confidence. His family left, and he was on his own. Although not entirely: He had the JPD. In 1935 they sent him to the Düsseldorf branch as a youth instructor. He told Miriam that initially he was euphoric over his new job in such a vibrant city, but his euphoria rapidly disappeared in the face of the hostility shown to the Jews. They stopped fixing the windows at the JPD headquarters because the stone-throwing became a daily event. Insults were hurled at them from the street, and each day saw a drop in the number of children who attended. Some mornings, his basketball team consisted of a single player.
One afternoon, from an upstairs window, Fredy spotted someone painting a yellow X on the large wooden entrance to the building. He raced down the stairs. The boy with the paintbrush looked at him mockingly and went on painting, unconcerned. Fredy grabbed him by the shirtfront so forcefully that he dropped his can of paint.
“Why are you doing this?” asked Fredy, taking in the swastika armband with a mix of bewilderment and anger at what was happening in his own country.
“You Jews are a danger to civilization,” yelled the adolescent disdainfully.
“Civilization? You and your friends are going to give me lessons in civilization when you spend your days beating up old people and throwing rocks at houses? What would you know about civilization? While you Aryans were living in the north of Europe in wooden cabins, wearing animal skins and roasting meat on two sticks, we Jews were building entire cities.”
Fredy grabbed hold of the young Nazi. Various people who saw him do this started to approach.
“There’s a Jew hitting a boy!” shouted a woman.
The owner of a fruit shop came toward them with the metal pole used for lowering the shop shutters, followed by about another dozen men. A hand grabbed Fredy’s arm and pulled him away.
“Let’s go!” the director shouted at him.
They only just had time to run inside the building and slam the main door shut before an avalanche of enraged citizens rushed toward them in what seemed to Fredy to be a display of collective madness.
They closed the JPD branch the next day a
nd sent Fredy off to Bohemia. He continued to work for Maccabi Hatzair, organizing sports activities for the young people of Ostrava, Brno, and then finally, Prague.
He didn’t much like the Czech capital and was perplexed by the Czechs, who seemed more carefree and informal than the Germans. But at Hagibor, on the outskirts of Prague, he found a perfect location for sporting activities. They put him in charge of a group of ten- to twelve-year-old boys. The plan was to get them out of Bohemia and lead them through neutral countries all the way to Palestine. They needed to be in excellent physical shape, but they also had to know the history of the Jews and their adversities so that they would feel a sense of pride and be keen to return to the land of their forebears.
Hirsch applied himself to the task with his customary dedication and enthusiasm for the orders he’d been given. Such was his effectiveness and charisma when it came to his charges that the leaders of the Jewish Youth Council in Prague decided to put this responsible and tenacious young man in charge of the groups of children new to the club, who were often a bit disoriented.
Fredy never forgot how difficult it was to cheer up those children. Unlike the children who had been brought up with the havlagah principle of self-restraint, whose parents had imbued them with a strong sense of Jewishness and Zionism, and who had arrived mentally prepared and bursting with enthusiasm, this other group consisted of shy, sad, and apathetic children. They weren’t interested in games or sports, and none of Fredy’s funny stories prompted a smile.
There was one twelve-year-old boy in the group called Karel who had the longest eyelashes Fredy had ever seen. And the saddest eyes. At the end of that first afternoon, when Hirsch was trying to get to know them better, he suggested that each of them say where they would like to be at that particular moment on that particular September day of 1939. Karel gravely replied that he’d like to be in heaven so he could see his parents. The Gestapo had arrested them, and his grandmother had told him he’d never see them again. Then he sat down and didn’t say another word. Some of the other boys, who had so far been very serious themselves, laughed in that typically tactless way that children have—laughing at others allowed them to cover up their own fears.
One afternoon, the vice chairman in charge of youth activities at the Jewish Council of Prague asked to see Hirsch. He grimly explained to Fredy that the Nazi grip was closing, the borders were being sealed, and it would soon be impossible to evacuate anyone from Prague. And so the first havlagah group must leave immediately, within twenty-four or forty-eight hours maximum. He asked Fredy, as their top instructor, if he would like to be the person to accompany this group.
It was the best offer Fredy had ever had. He could go with the group, leave the horrors of war behind him, and reach Palestine, as he’d always dreamed of doing. However, going would mean leaving behind the groups he’d started to instruct at Hagibor, abandoning a task he knew was critical for those boys who had been choked by the Reich’s prohibitions, hardships, and humiliations. Leaving meant abandoning Karel and the rest of them. He remembered what the JPD had meant to him in Aachen after his father died, when he felt lost. It was where he’d found his place in the world.
“Anyone else would have gone,” continues Miriam, “but Hirsch wasn’t just anybody. He stayed at Hagibor.”
Miriam and Dita sit silently as if they are weighing up the consequences of that decision. It is beyond calculation.
“After everything that’s happened … I feel guilty for doubting him.”
Miriam sighs and her breath emerges as a puff of white vapor. Just then, the curfew siren sounds, ordering everyone back to their barracks.
“Edita…”
“Yes?”
“Tomorrow you must speak to Fredy about the business with Dr. Mengele. He’ll know what to do. As far as the other matter is concerned…”
“It’s our secret.”
Miriam nods, and Dita races off so fast that she’s almost flying over the frozen mud. She still feels a sharp pain deep within her. But while it hurts to have lost her white knight, she is relieved. Hirsch is trustworthy.
13.
A few huts away, in Block 31, another conversation is taking place. Fredy Hirsch is addressing the empty stools.
“I’ve done it. I’ve done what had to be done.”
His own voice echoing in the darkness of the hut sounds strange to him.
He’s told that handsome Berliner not to return. He should feel proud of himself, happy even, because his willpower has triumphed. But he doesn’t. He’d prefer to find women attractive, but there’s something about his basic assembly. Maybe a piece that’s been put in the wrong way round, or something like that …
He walks out of the hut and sadly gazes at the landscape of mud, huts, and towers. Under the electric lights he can make out two figures standing face-to-face on either side of the fence—Alice Munk and the registrar from the quarantine camp. It must be close to freezing point outside, but they aren’t cold; or if they are, they’re sharing it, so it’s more bearable.
Maybe that’s what love is—sharing the cold.
Block 31 seems small and crowded when all the children are there, but huge and soulless when they leave.
In an effort to warm himself, he lies down on the floor of the hut, elbows pinned to his body, and starts punishing his abdominal muscles by doing scissor-kicks with his legs up in the air. Love has been a constant source of problems for Fredy since he was an adolescent. Given how disciplined he has been in everything else, he feels a deep frustration at his inability to overcome his deepest instincts.
One, two, three, four, five …
On JPD excursions, he liked to snuggle up inside his sleeping bag with the other boys, who were always happy to clown around and accepted him. After his father died, he felt so protected and comfortable with them.… There was nothing like that feeling of companionship. A soccer team wasn’t just a soccer team; it was family.
Eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one …
The pleasure he felt hanging out with the boys didn’t disappear as he grew older. He felt much more removed from the girls; there wasn’t that sense of camaraderie he had with the boys. Girls intimidated him. They kept the boys at a distance and ridiculed them. He felt at ease only with his teammates and the boys who joined him on hikes and at games. He carried that feeling into adulthood. Then he left Aachen for Düsseldorf.
There comes a point when your body decides for you. Clandestine encounters started. Some took place in public bathrooms with their weak lighting, permanently wet floors, and rusty stains in the washbasins. But now and again, there was a tender glance, a slightly less mechanical caress, a moment of fulfillment, impossible to resist. Love was like walking on a carpet of shattered glass.
Thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty …
Over the years he’s tried to keep busy with his tournaments and training, organizing endless events so as to keep his mind busy and his body exhausted. One slip, and it could destroy his reputation. Keeping busy has also allowed him to disguise the fact that no matter how popular and in demand he is, he always ends up alone.
Fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine …
That’s why he continues to slice through the air with his scissor-kicks, making his abdominal muscles ache, punishing himself for not being what he’d like to be, or what everyone else would like him to be.
Seventy-three, seventy-four, seventy-five …
A pool of sweat shows his determination, his capacity for sacrifice … his success. He sits up and, feeling more relaxed, allows his memories to fill the night’s emptiness.
And those memories take him back to Terezín.
They deported him to the Terezín ghetto in May 1942, as if he were just one more Czech. He was among the first to arrive. The Nazis also sent machine operators, doctors, members of the Jewish Council, and cultural and sports instructors. They were preparing for the transportation of massive numbers of Jews.
When Fredy reached the town, he
found the urban design of a military mind: streets drawn up with a set square and quadrant, geometrical buildings, and rectangular garden beds that would probably produce flowers in the spring. He liked that logical city; it matched his sense of discipline. It even occurred to him that it might be the start of a new, better period for the Jews before their return to Palestine.
The first time he stopped to look at Terezín, a breeze ruffled his straight hair. He smoothed it back into place. He wasn’t prepared to let anything make him lose his composure. He belonged to a race thousands of years old, a chosen people.
His work with youth groups in Prague had been intense, and he wanted to continue his sports activities and Friday gatherings to encourage the Hebrew spirit. It wouldn’t be easy; he’d have to confront the Nazis, as well as the odd member of the Jewish Council who was aware of the stain he tried so zealously to hide and wouldn’t forgive him. Luckily, he could always count on the support of the council chairman, Yakub Edelstein.
He successfully put together athletics teams, classes in boxing and jujitsu, and basketball tournaments. He established a soccer league with several teams, even convincing the German guards to form a team to take on the prisoners.
He remembers glorious moments: the roar of the spectators who packed not only the perimeter of the field but the doors and windows of all the buildings overlooking the inner courtyard where the games were played.
He recalls the moments of frailty, too; there were many of them.
He recalls one game in particular, a soccer match he organized between the SS guards and the Jews, where he was the referee. There was absolutely no space in any of the openings onto the patio. Hundreds of eyes followed that game intently from every possible spot. It was more than a game. Especially for Fredy. He spent weeks preparing the team, studying tactics, preparing them mentally, putting together sets of exercises, asking people to donate milk rations for his players.
There were only minutes left in the game and the forward for the SS team intercepted the ball in the center circle. He started to run in a straight line toward the goal area and caught the midfielders on the prisoners’ team off guard. There was only one defender left to intercept him. The Nazi ran toward him, and just when he was about to confront him, the prisoner discreetly pulled back his leg so that the Nazi could get past him. The SS guard took a point-blank shot and scored the winning goal. Hirsch will never forget the expressions of complete satisfaction on the faces of the Aryans. They’d beaten the Jews—even on the playing field.
The Librarian of Auschwitz Page 14