The Librarian of Auschwitz(71)
He arrives back at the camp, his cheeks burning with anger. Helena is nervously waiting for him at the camp entrance.
“Tell Fredy Hirsch to come to my room for an urgent meeting,” he says to her. “Tell him it’s a matter of the utmost importance.”
It’s all or nothing.
Helena is back in a flash, accompanied by Hirsch, the idol of the young people, the apostle of Zionism, the man who’s capable of speaking as an equal with Josef Mengele. Rudi looks him over quickly: sinewy, his wet hair impeccably combed back, a serene, slightly severe gaze, as if he is irritated at being roused from his thoughts.
When Rudi explains that the leader of the Resistance in Birkenau has gathered definitive proof that the September transport from Terezín is going to be exterminated in its entirety in the gas ovens that very night, Hirsch’s expression doesn’t change. There’s no surprise, no response. He remains silent, almost standing at attention like a soldier. Rudi fixes his eyes on the whistle hanging from Fredy’s neck like an amulet.
“You are our only chance, Fredy. Only you can speak to the leaders in the camp and convince them to stir up their followers. To launch themselves as one against the guards and start an uprising. You have to talk to all the leaders, and that whistle around your neck has to give the signal that the uprising has begun.”
Still no response from the German. His expression is impenetrable, and his eyes are fixed on the Slovak registrar. Rudi has already said all he has to say and falls silent, too, as he waits for Hirsch’s reaction to this desperate proposal in the midst of a totally hopeless situation.
And Hirsch finally speaks. But the person who is speaking isn’t the social leader or the intransigent Zionist or the proud athlete. Rather, it’s the children’s educator. And he speaks in a murmur.
“And what about the children, Rudi?”
Rosenberg would have preferred to leave this discussion until later. The children are the weakest link in the chain. In a violent uprising, they’re the ones with the least chance of surviving. But Rudi has an answer to this, too.
“Fredy, the children are going to die no matter what—no question. We have a possibility, maybe just a small one, but a possibility nevertheless, of getting thousands of prisoners to rise up and destroy the camp, thereby saving the lives of many deportees who will no longer be sent here.”
Fredy’s lips remain tightly sealed, but his eyes speak for him. In an uprising involving hand-to-hand combat, the children will be the first ones they slaughter. If a breach is opened in the fence and there’s a stampede to escape, they’ll be the last ones to fight their way through. If the prisoners have to run hundreds of meters cross-country under a hail of bullets to reach the forest, the children will be the last to get there and the first to be cut down. And, if any of them reach the forest, what will they do, alone and disoriented?
“They trust me, Rudi. How can I abandon them now? How can I fight to save myself and leave them to be killed? And what if you are mistaken and there is a transfer to another camp?”
“There won’t be. You’re doomed. You can’t save the children, Fredy. Think about the others. Think about the thousands of children all over Europe, and all the children who’ll come to Auschwitz to die if we don’t rebel now.”
Fredy Hirsch closes his eyes and lifts one of his hands to his forehead as if he had a fever.
“Give me an hour. I need an hour to think about it.”
Fredy leaves the room with his customary upright posture. No one who sees him walking across the camp could know that he’s carrying the unbearable weight of four thousand lives on his shoulders. As he walks, he strokes his whistle obsessively.
Several members of the Resistance, who are already aware of the situation, come into Rudi’s room to find out what’s happened, and Rosenberg tells them the outcome of his conversation with the head of Block 31.
“He’s asked for a while to think it over.”
One of them, a Czech with a steely look, says Hirsch is buying time. They all look at him, asking him to explain what he means.
“They’re not going to destroy him. He’s useful to the Nazis. He’s prepared valuable reports for them and anyway, he’s German. Hirsch is waiting for Mengele to claim him, to remove him from here any moment; that’s what he’s waiting for.”
A tense silence hangs briefly in the air.
“That’s a low comment typical of Communists like you! Fredy has taken risks for the sake of the children hundreds of times more often than you!” Renata Bubeník yells at him.
The Czech starts to shout, too, calling her a stupid Zionist and saying that they’ve heard Hirsch asking the Kapo in his current hut if there’s been any message for him.
Rudi stands up and tries to make peace. He now realizes why it’s so important to find a leader, a single voice, someone capable of bringing such a mixed group of people together and convincing them to rise up as one.
When everyone else leaves, Alice comes to sit beside Rudi and share the wait, because that’s all they can do now, wait for Hirsch’s reply. Alice’s presence is a relief in the midst of chaos and uncertainty. She finds it hard to believe that the Nazis will kill all of them, even the children. Death is something terrible but foreign to her, as though it could happen to others but not to her. Rudi tells her it’s horrible, but Schmulewski can’t be wrong about something like this. Then he asks her to change the topic. They talk about life after Auschwitz, about how much she likes country houses, about her favorite foods, the names she’d like to give her children one day … about real life, and not this nightmare in which they are trapped. For a short while, a future seems possible.