"What is she doing?" Malovo asked.
"She is watching for the train," he responded. "She looked at us but didn't seem to care."
Malovo broke off the embrace as the B train slid into the station. She and Hazzan hopped on the car behind the one Miriam stepped into and rode it to Fifth Avenue where Miriam got off. They followed her onto the platform, where she remained, apparently waiting for the F train, which was scheduled to arrive next.
The glow from the light of the train had just appeared far down the track when a tall, filthy man with wiry hair and a wild beard stepped in between Malovo and her line of sight. "Say friends, got any spare change for the hungry ... the hungry being me?" the man asked, though it was difficult to see his mouth for all the hair around it.
Malovo scowled and stepped to the side, but the man moved with her. "Get out of my way, disgusting scum," she snarled.
Instead of shuffling away, the beggar rose up to his full height, his eyes suddenly ablaze with righteousness, and waved a nearly black finger in Malovo's face.
"'HE'—or in this case, SHE—'WHO MOCKS THE POOR SHOWS CONTEMPT FOR THEIR MAKER,"' he shouted. Heads turned, wary of what might be happening. "And I expect this probably applies to you, 'WHOEVER GLOATS OVER DISASTER WILL NOT GO UNPUNISHED.' ... That's Proverbs 17:5!"
The F train rumbled to a stop. Peering around the lunatic, Malovo saw Miriam dash inside a car.
"Get out of my way!" Malovo shouted and connected a foot with his groin. She dodged around him as he sank to the ground with a groan and got on the car, with her companion scrambling to make it just behind her.
As the train rumbled out of the station, the beggar pulled himself to his feet and stumbled through the toll gates to a pay phone. He picked up the receiver and punched in a code that only linemen with the New York City phone company were supposed to know. When he got the right tone, he dialed a number. "She's being followed," he said. "White woman dressed like a skunk—can't miss her, and a black dude ... tall, skinny."
Edward Treacher doubled over as a fresh wave of nausea emanated from his testicles to his mouth. "I hope you know I sacrificed the family jewels for the cause," he gasped into the receiver. He listened and in spite of the pain, chuckled. "Very funny, but it doesn't mean I enjoy getting them kicked up into my stomach."
22
We have a special guest with us this evening," Karp told the class. "His name is Moishe Sobelman, and he owns a bakery on 29th and Third that makes the best cherry cheese coffee-cake in the world."
Three dozen pairs of eyes glanced longingly at the tray on a table off to the side from which the smell of warm coffee cake rose. Karp was pleased that not one of his students was absent, and most of their parents, whom he'd made a special effort to invite, were with them.
The death of Rabbi Romberg had been a blow to the congregation, especially the children and the youth groups whom the rabbi mentored. Karp had seen many of his students at the funeral, the devastation written all over their faces. And yet here they were, ready to move on with their lives.
Maybe some of that has to do with knowing that the idea for this class was his, Karp thought. "As you know, this class was created by Rabbi Romberg to introduce you to role models in the Jewish community, and I don't think you'll find a better one than Mr. Sobelman. Tonight, I've asked him to speak to you about his experiences at a place called Sobibor during World War II. I'll warn you now, it isn't a pleasant story. If it gets to be too much for you, you may excuse yourself. However, I think it's a story that is relevant today, and one I believe that we all should know."
Sobelman got up from his chair and walked to the front of the classroom. He looked at the students for a moment, a sad look passing across his face. "Who can tell me about the Holocaust?"
Elisa Robyn's hand shot up. "The Holocaust refers to Nazi Germany's efforts to remove Jews and other 'undesirables' from Europe by putting them in death camps.
"About 6 million Jews, and another 6 million other people, like Gypsies, Slavs, Communists, and even Catholics, were murdered."
"Very good, Miss...?" Sobelman replied.
"Robyn, Elisa Robyn," the girl replied, turning to bat her eyes at Giancarlo, who responded with a "well done" nod.
"Nice to meet you, Miss Robyn, Elisa Robyn," Sobelman said with a little bow. "Can anybody here tell me about Krystalnacht?"
Elisa's hand shot up again. But Sobelman called on a boy with Woody Allen glasses and demeanor. "Yes, what is your name?"
"Aaron Spellman," the boy replied. "Krystalnacht means 'Night of Broken Glass' because so many windows of Jewish homes and businesses were destroyed during anti-Jewish riots in Germany. It was November 9, 1938 ... at the beginning of the Holocaust."
"Yes, yes ... the beginning," Sobelman replied as if the words themselves haunted him. "Though at the time, many did not see it as a warning of what was to come. After all, only 100 Jews were killed and 30,000 sent to the 'work camps' that were beginning to spring up in the German countryside. Of course, that doesn't account for the 7,000 shops and 1,500 synagogues that were also damaged or destroyed, or similar attacks that took place in Vienna at the same time. Some Jews saw the writing on the wall and fled Germany and Europe before it was too late, but most just thought it was those crazy Nazi bullies blowing off steam and that soon the German people would rein them in."
Sobelman straightened his shoulders as he looked at his audience. "We as a people underestimated the power of propaganda and hate. There was a worldwide depression, jobs were scarce. In order to rise to power, the Nazis needed someone to blame it on—a scapegoat. And Jews were convenient as they always had been, though in truth Germany had historically treated Jews better than many other European countries. They were an integral part of the community, respected and liked ... good businessmen." He paused. "By the way, who knows the historic reason that Jews are said to be money-grubbers?"
Giancarlo raised his hand. "It started in the Middle Ages. Christians were not supposed to charge other Christians usury, meaning interest, if they loaned money. Of course, that meant no Christian was going to loan money. But Jews could loan money and charge interest, so they were sort of the first bankers."
"Yes, yes, very good," Sobelman nodded. "A fine young man who knows his history."
"Ass kisser," Zak whispered, though not quietly enough.
"And you, young man," the baker asked Zak, "what do you know of pogroms?"
"Uh, that would be when the other people in the community attacked Jews without reason," Zak answered. If it had to do with bloodshed and fighting, he was all over it.
"Oh they had reasons, perhaps not legitimate ones, but they had reasons," Sobelman replied. "During feudal times, nobles were required to supply the local king with military help in times of war in exchange for titles and lands. But it cost a lot of money to keep up a castle as well as an armed force. The nobles often had to borrow money against their crops or lands, and the only place they could do that was their local Jewish merchant. They racked up quite a lot of debt that way. And during the Crusades, it was even worse. Galloping off with your men to the Holy Land was expensive business, and they had to borrow even more money until they were so far in debt, they really didn't own their own horse, much less their land."
Sobelman shrugged. "Of course, one way to get out of paying one's debts is to murder the person you owe. They couldn't say it like that, so they came up with 'reasons,' often with the approval of their local churchmen. One reason they invented was that Jews murdered Christian babies to use their blood for Satanic rituals; that was why the harvest was poor, or the plague was back inside the castle. But it was sometimes hard to look upon the kindly old Jewish moneylender as a monster. So they used propaganda to depict Jews as hiding their real faces behind their big noses and smiles, when everybody knew they really looked a lot like Satan, complete with horns and fangs. And that is how it starts ... first you destroy the idea of your enemy as a human being, and then you can destroy their lives without the
guilt."
"What's that have to do with Krystalnacht?" Zak asked.
"Because that was how the Holocaust started, and we should have been aware that history was repeating itself on a grand scale. There were actually Nazi cartoons that showed big-nosed Jews with horns. It was the Jews who controlled the money, according to the Nazi propaganda machine; Jews who stopped good Aryan men from being able to put bread on the table for their families. Convince a man that someone is attacking his family, and he will gladly break the windows of that man's business and his home ... and then it is not such a far leap to break his bones and smash his teeth. Such a man will go along with those who say they have a plan, then try to pretend he doesn't know what is happening ... or, as so many did, join in and be part of the solution, the Final Solution."
Moishe Sobelman sighed. "Your teacher, Mr. Karp, asked me to speak to you tonight about my experiences when I was not so much older than you. In fact, it all began shortly after my bar mitzvah in Amsterdam."
"You're from Holland?" Giancarlo asked.
Sobelman nodded. Yes, he was from Holland, or more officially, the Netherlands, where Jews had long been an important part of the community. The Christian Dutch had struggled for many years for their own religious freedom and so were tolerant of others; indeed, they'd welcomed 25,000 German Jews who fled their native land ahead of the coming storm in the late 1930s.
"We lived in a small town outside of Amsterdam where my father was also a baker," Sobelman said, smiling at Karp. "He was not so famous for his cherry cheese coffee-cake, but his strudel was the best in Holland. People would drive out from the city just to get it when it was hot from the ovens. He was a good man and had many friends, Jews and Gentiles."
The Jews in Holland watched the growing power of Hitler and the Nazi Party with concern, but they thought his rise would be a short-lived aberration. "Then came the news of Krystalnacht," Sobelman recalled. "Our parents thought that would be the last straw before the German people would come to their senses and throw the criminals in prison."
The next thing they knew, Sobelman continued, Hitler had invaded Poland, and then France fell, and finally the Netherlands capitulated.
What frightened Amsterdam's Jews were the stories that other Jews were being rounded up in Germany and the occupied countries and shipped off.... Where, no one knew, only that they did not come back again and there was no word of their fate. "Oh, occasionally someone heard from somebody who'd heard from a relative of a person who said that these Jews were being murdered in massive numbers," he said. "But the rumors were too horrible to believe."
For a time, the Jews in Holland believed that they were safe. The country was occupied by the Germans, but their fellow Dutch would never let them be singled out for extermination. Then in 1943, the Germans announced that the Dutch Jews would be "relocated." Sobelman paused and shook his head before looking back at his audience. "And you know what is the strangest part of all? We didn't resist; we went along like so many sheep to the slaughter. People acted as if we were all going on vacation together. Families packed suitcases and dressed in their best traveling clothes. The vacation would last until the war was over, our parents told each other, and then we would all go home."
Moishe Sobelman, his parents, Ibrahim and Sarah, and his four-year-old sister, Rebecca, were sent to a relocation camp near the Polish village and rail station for which it would be named. A quiet place in the country called Sobibor, surrounded by forests and swamps; a lightly populated area, but strategically placed near the large Jewish populations in the Chelm and Lublin districts.
Construction of the Sobibor camp had begun in March 1942, and the project was a model of German efficiency—a large rectangle of land, 400 by 600 meters in size, was cleared and then surrounded by triple lines of barbed-wire fence, each three meters high and under the watchful shadows of strategically placed guard towers. Tree branches were intertwined in the fences so that the casual passerby wouldn't know what he or she was looking at.
The camp itself was divided into three areas, each also surrounded by barbed-wire fencing and guard towers. The first, the administrative area, was placed close to the railroad station, which had a platform that could accommodate twenty freight cars at a time. "It could have been a train station like any other in Europe," Sobelman said. "We were told it was merely a transit point and that we would be moving on shortly. Only they would not say where we were going."
This area also included the living quarters for the guards, "SS soldiers and Ukrainians who were forced to work in concentration camps, though in truth many of them enjoyed their work; after all, their people had a long history of murdering Jews." The first area was also where the guards housed the Jewish prisoners that were used as the camp's labor force.
The second area, called Camp II, was where the arriving Jews were marched to be separated from their belongings and each other. "The young children went with the women," Sobelman said quietly. "That was the last time I saw my mother and sister. They and the others were taken to a building where they were forced to undress before going into a special hut to have their heads shaved so that the Germans could make use of their hair. I can remember to this day a woman who started screaming hysterically as she was led away, 'It's impossible! It's impossible! It cannot be!"'
Most of those who arrived on the train soon passed from Camp II to Camp III through a walkway two or three meters wide, surrounded on both sides by barbed wire. It was covered with branches so that the prisoners could not see out or be seen by those outside. "The Tube," as it was called, ran for 150 meters—"that would be more than one and a half American football fields"—toward a group of trees.
"Behind the trees was a large, ugly brick building containing three rooms—each about twelve feet by twelve feet," Sobelman said. "Into these rooms naked, frightened Jews were driven—as many as 160 people, sometimes more, at a time, all crammed together and unable to move as they listened to the sound of diesel engines starting outside and then smelled the exhaust being pumped into the rooms."
Sobelman looked around the room. He had their complete, undivided attention. "Now imagine that you are in one of those rooms. You cannot sit down. You cannot smell the carbon monoxide in the fumes, but you know it is there. So you and the others begin to panic. You fight and claw and climb over one another's naked bodies, looking for an escape. But there is none, and all you can do before you die is scream or pray."
Sobelman closed his eyes. "Ach, I still can hear the voices of the Hassidic women shouting the Shema Israel." His voice suddenly grew so loud that the audience sat up and their eyes flew open wide. "SHEMA YISRAEL ADONAI ELOHEINU ADONAI ECHAD! HEAR O ISRAEL, THE LORD IS OUR GOD, THE LORD IS ONE!"
Then Sobelman was quiet again. His voice wavered. "But they did not shout very long ... not long at all. In fact, from the time most of us arrived at the rail station until those final moments in the gas chambers, it was only two or three hours. That's all it took to process and murder four or five hundred people at a time.... Men, women, children, they spared no one." Zak raised his hand and kept it up until the old man nodded to him. "How ... how come you're alive?"
Sobelman laughed, though the sound was free of humor. "How many times have I asked myself that question, and still I have no answers. I was with my father when we were forced to strip and then herded toward those gas chambers past the SS guards and Ukranians, who laughed and hit us with sticks to make us keep moving. We had just about reached the building when a German officer grabbed me by the arm.... I wanted to stay with my father and held onto his hand, but he pulled away and said, 'Do not forget.' And then he was gone into the building, and I never saw him again."
The class remained silent as the old man in front of them broke down and wept. Karp walked over with a glass of water and placed a hand on Sobelman's shoulder. "Would you prefer to continue some other time?" Sobelman gratefully accepted the water and drank. "No, I will finish my story. My father told me to never forget because justice needs
a witness." He patted Karp on his shoulder. "Thank you, my friend, for your concern, but telling a story such as this is not as hard as living it."
Sobelman turned his attention back to the audience. Many of their faces were pale, and most had tears in their eyes, even the adults.
"I was spared not through some kindness, but because the Germans and their Ukranian dogs did not want to do the dirty work," he said. "They kept several hundred Jewish slave laborers for that.... We worked in teams. Some cleaned out the killing rooms, the bodies so tightly packed that even when they were dead, there was no room to fall down. Rail tracks ran up to the back of the building; bodies were hauled out the rear doors and loaded on trolleys to be taken to pits, where other prisoners stacked them like cordwood for efficiency, then burned and buried them."
Sobelman sighed and then continued. "There were many jobs in the camp. Some gathered the hair in the shaving hut and sorted it by color and quality—most going to stuff mattresses though the best was used for wigs. Other slaves gathered bodies in the camp of laborers who had been killed by guards or died of starvation simply because they had no wish to live any longer. My job was to remove gold fillings from the teeth of the corpses before they were placed on the trolleys for the burial pits."
"Oh my God," cried one of the mothers as she placed a hand over her mouth. She looked in desperation at her husband as if hoping he might take her and their child out of the room. But he just took her hand in his and nodded toward Sobelman, which allowed her to gather herself and face the old man, too.
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