The Librarian of Auschwitz(85)
“Why? That’s simple—he got scared.”
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly what you’re hearing. He chickened out. He was asked to lead an uprising, and he didn’t have the guts. End of story.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t care if you believe me or not. That’s what happened.”
“You didn’t know Fredy Hirsch, did you?”
The man comes to a complete stop at Dita’s comment, as if he’d been caught doing something wrong. Dita tries hard to prevent her anger from turning into tears as she speaks.
“You didn’t know him. You know nothing about him. He never walked away from anything. You think you know a lot, that the Resistance knows everything … but you don’t understand a thing.”
“Look, kid, what I do know is that the order was transmitted to him from the leaders of the Resistance, and what he did after that was take all those pills in order to wipe himself off the map,” answers Alter, annoyed. “I don’t know why there’s so much interest in him. The whole business of Block Thirty-One is a pantomime. The whole family camp is a pantomime. Hirsch and the rest of us have played the Nazis’ game. We’ve been their helpers.”
“What do you mean?”
“This camp is a front, a cover-up. Its only purpose is to cover up the truth in the face of international observers who may come here to discover if there’s any basis to the rumors that have reached some countries that the German camps are slaughterhouses. The family camp and Block Thirty-One are a stage set, and we are actors in the play.”
Dita falls silent. The bald man shakes his head.
“Stop brooding over it. Your friend Hirsch became frightened. That’s only human.”
Fear …
Dita suddenly sees fear as a type of rust that undermines even the strongest convictions. It corrodes everything; it destroys all.
The bald man walks off, nervously glancing to his left and right.
Dita stays in the side street. The words boom inside her head and block out everything around her.
A set decoration? Actors in a play? Nazi puppets? Their entire effort in Block 31 has been to benefit the Germans?
She has to put her hand against the side of the hut to steady herself because she feels dizzy. The entire family camp is a lie? None of it is real?
She begins to think that maybe it has to be so. Truth is put together by destiny; it’s nothing more than a whim of fate. A lie, on the other hand, is more human; it’s created by mankind and tailor-made to purpose.
Dita heads off in search of Miriam Edelstein. She finds her in her hut, sitting on her bunk. Her son, Arieh, is saying good-bye as he heads off to walk along the Lagerstrasse with some other boys before the evening crust of bread is handed out.
“Am I bothering you, Aunt Miriam?”
“Of course not.”
“You see…” Dita’s voice hesitates; Dita herself hesitates. Her legs are shaking again like pistons. “I’ve been talking to a man from the Resistance. He told me an incredible story: that the family camp is a cover-up for the Nazis in case observers from other countries come to investigate.…”
Miriam nods silently.
“So it’s true! You knew it!” whispers Dita. “So the only thing we’ve done all this time has been to serve the Nazis.”
“Not at all! They had a plan, but we’ve carried out our own plan. They wanted the children to be abandoned like junk in a warehouse, but we opened a school. They wanted them to be like cattle in a stable, but we’ve made them feel like people.”
“And what use has that been? All the children in the September transport have died.”
“It was worth it. Nothing has been in vain. Do you remember how they used to laugh? Do you remember how wide-eyed they were when they were singing ‘Alouette’ or listening to the stories of the living books? Do you remember how they jumped for joy when we put half a biscuit in their bowls? And the excitement with which they prepared their plays? They were happy, Edita.”
“But it lasted such a short time—”
“Life, any life, is very short. But if you’ve managed to be happy for at least an instant, it will have been worth living.”
“An instant! How short is that?”
“Very short. It’s enough to be happy for as long as it takes a match to be lit and go out.”
Dita is silent as she weighs up how many matches have been lit and gone out in her life—and there have been lots. Many brief moments in which a flame has shone, even in the midst of the deepest darkness. Some of those moments have occurred when, in the middle of some huge disaster, she has opened a book and buried herself in it. Her small library is a box of matches. As she thinks this, she smiles with a hint of sadness.
“And what will become of the children now? What will happen to all of us now? I’m scared, Aunt Miriam.”
“The Nazis can strip us of our homes, our belongings, our clothes, and even our hair, but no matter how much they take away from us, they can’t remove our hope. It’s ours. We can’t lose it. You hear more and more Allied air raids. The war won’t last forever, and we have to prepare ourselves for peace. The children have to keep learning, because they’re going to find a country and a world in ruins, and it will be they, and you, the teenagers, who will have to rebuild it.”