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and Jonathan in love and affection! Nu, well, even I was not hatched in Chelm, and I pretended to be a perfect simpleton, and told him humbly with lowered gaze that it is not seemly for a dreck Jude like me to gossip with an honorable German Offizier! He glowered at me then like a scorched pot and walked away. Toward evening he returned, stepping ganderlike this way and that, and again began to question me about things between me and Neigel. (That is, they had begun to suspect something about my officer!) He even removed his black cap and blinded me with his Sahara of a shaven skull shining in the light. No doubt he thought he would put a little fear into me. Only I remained loyal to Neigel. At length he smiled a smile that made me sweat between my teeth, and went his way. He was suspicious of me, which is not important, but it was plain as the midday sun that Herr Neigel was not clear of this Staukeh’s suspicions either!”

CHATUNA

WEDDING

The celebration of marriage. Nuptials.

When I married Ruthy, Aunt Idka showed up at our wedding with a Band-Aid on her arm. She had covered her number with a Band-Aid because she didn’t want to cast a pall on the happy occasion. I felt crushed with grief and compassion for her, for what she must have endured to do a thing like that. All evening I couldn’t tear my eyesaway from her arm. I felt as if under that clean little Band-Aid lay a deep abyss that was sucking us all in: the hall, the guests, the happy occasion, me. I had to put that in here. Sorry.

TEVACH, KETZON LE

SLAUGHTER, LIKE SHEEP TO THE

Only once did Wasserman wonder why the camp prisoners were so passively resigned to suffering at the hands of their tormentors. Neigel had gone out to choose new workers from the latest transport, and again Wasserman observed the “blues,” the Jewish prisoners in charge of meeting the transports on the platform. They saw Neigel approach and knew what this meant for them. All the same, they continued to do what they were doing, just as their predecessors had when Neigel came to choose a new shift of workers two weeks before. Wasserman: “Dear Lord, even when we were being led ‘there,’ to the gas, that is, with a sole Ukrainian in the lead, we never thought to rise up against him! A decree from heaven! We knew what was in store, for we had lived in the camp these three months and our eyes were not dimmed nor our noses blunted by the smell of smoke, so why, pray, if not a real rebellion, then at least a slap on the Ukrainian’s face, may grass grow out of his cheeks, or at least one small stream of spit, a bubble of spit in all of Sodom? No? Ai, shame, I believe, flowed in our veins like a sleeping potion. And when shame is visited upon man, who was created in God’s image, it leaves nothing in the world worth rebelling for. Is this an answer, dear Lord? Have your beings betrayed themselves to such an extent that the one punishment they deserve by my own pitiable hand is that I should never again raise a finger to earn the doubtful privilege of being called a ‘human being’? Et, fine thoughts, as I delved and hoed in my garden. Only, I had no such thoughts when we were herded into the gas chamber. The same song, I believe, played inside us all, a lullaby tamed with anguish, to the dry, old tempo measured by the great metronome of Grandfather Death, the great jaws clicking in our honor, sucking us up and grinding us, tick tock, tick tock, as we all became part of this death machine, ai, we are not human beings going to our death here, no, but only what remains of them after being so shamed and depleted: the metal skeleton of human character, soulless mechanisms … Only these could we offer as a kind ofpoor, ironic challenge to our killers; indeed yes, we were their reflection, their own cruel likeness, for we were not dying here as Jews but as living mirrors reflecting an image of the world in our endless procession, and we decreed the fate of the world … ai, our mass death, our meaningless death, will be reflected forevermore in the arid wilderness of your lives …”

Wasserman’s words are recorded here in full. And yet, for the sake of balance, I have to ask: Not even a curse? Not even a slap on the face? Really? Like that? Like sheep to the slaughter?

YOMAN

DIARY

A record of events, activities, thoughts, observations, etc., kept daily or at frequent intervals.

Dr. Fried’s diary of the Warsaw zoo is our only available record of the vast changes that took place in the running of the zoo during the early thirties. At first Fried noted only purely professional facts pertaining to the condition and purchase of animals (here, for example, is an excerpt from his diary for 8/3/37: “1. X-ray of the leopard cub, Max—pelvic region and hindquarters. No indication of spinal injury. 2. Pelvic bones intact. Lines of epiphysis indicating deficient calcification in the epiphyseal line of the femur and tibia. Amadea the baboon is urinating blood. That is, estrus has begun … Requests for two pairs of Nando-conor birds brought offers from Rabbitsden Garden, England; Boros, Sweden; the de Branfère Zoological Gardens, France; and the Wildlife Company, Redding Center, Hampstead, England”). But when the zoo had been coerced into joining Otto’s war and changing its “interests,” reports and information about the newly arrived ARTISTS [q.v.] filled the diary instead. So, for instance: “11/2/42: ILYA GINZBURG [q.v.] arrived at the zoo. Physical state: Severely deteriorated. Mortal danger. Physical and emotional trauma resulting from