Plunder by Menachem Kaiser (suggested reading txt) 📗

which my relatives absolutely did qualify for. The judge in Będzin had been gracious about it and granted “recognition as deceased” anyway; the judge in Sosnowiec had not been gracious about it, had played it by the book, and ruled against us.

So it had been my (really The Killer’s) fault, not the judge’s. My suspicions were unfounded, all my hollering was misguided. (True, Judge Grabowska could have been gracious about it—​she understood what it was we were there to do, she understood The Killer had made a mistake, she could have allowed us to proceed anyway; one could, if so inclined, read into Grabowska’s decision a certain degree of maliciousness. But at the end of the day being a stickler for the rules hardly amounts to sabotage.) This was good news, I suppose. We were still in the realm of exasperating bureaucracy, nothing uglier was afoot. But the fact that I had to start over—​appealing to the Supreme Court was a nonstarter; there was in fact no basis to overturn the lower courts’ decisions—​was frustrating and dispiriting, not only because of how much longer this now might take, but also because it exposed, again, how little I understood, how unprepared I was, how interminable this process might be, how not in control I was. The antagonist was even more abstract than I’d thought: the antagonist was the process itself.

The Killer—​whom I did not fire, because this blunder notwithstanding she seemed to be doing a good job, and because she was affordable—​filed a new motion with the court in Sosnowiec, seeking to have my relatives “recognized as deceased.” It was back to square one. We placed an ad in the newspaper, again, asking anyone with information on the whereabouts of Moshe, Sura-Hena, Michoel Aaron, and Tamara Kajzer to please come forward in the next sixty days.

17

From chapter XXVIII,

Za Drutami Śmierci

by Abraham Kajzer,

ed. Adam Ostoja

I thoughtlessly directed my steps down the country road. I walked like a ghost, like a specter from another world. I was completely resigned. My chance of survival was zero. I watched the houses unthinkingly. I stopped and asked myself: Maybe here? It seemed to me that I had gone a long way, that I had gotten far away from the camp. I staggered. Unknowingly and completely by accident, I passed a detour and entered an alley.

I hid from the nagging wind behind a door and I stood there for a long time stupefied, indifferent, having no idea what to do next. I couldn’t think straight, I couldn’t even grasp the hopelessness of my situation. I stood calmly, leaning against the wall, glad that it was night and that everything around me was sleeping, that no one could see me.

It was barely dawn when I heard someone’s footsteps. Instinctively, I straightened up, clinging to the wall, wanting to hide from the view of whoever approached. Small and noisy steps approached slowly. My heart beat harder, my breathing sped up. Thoughts flashed like lightning through my head and then disappeared. Only now I realized the horror of my position.

Then, somewhere nearby, the steps stopped. I peered out carefully to see whether the danger had passed, and I saw a woman in front of me with a jug in her hand. She stood about five paces away from me, waiting, uncertain.

When she saw me, she dropped the jug, and covered her face with her hands, as though she wanted to block out the image of something terrible and monstrous. Then the fingers of her hands turned into predatory claws, ready to fight this terrifying ghost who stared at her. Slowly, without a word, she began to back up. It looked like her eyes would fall from their sockets with fear. Her horror restored my sense of balance. I took a step forward, and she stopped on the spot, her mouth open, her eyes wide, staring, spellbound.

Quietly I said, in German:

“Frau, do not be afraid. I will not harm you.”

“But you escaped from the camp . . .They will catch you and hang you!” she said in a horrified voice.

“There is no need for that,” I replied.

“Get away from this house!”

“No, I will not leave. Don’t you understand I have nowhere to go?”

I saw the hesitation in her eyes.

“Frau,” I said, “the war is coming to a close, Americans, British, or Russians will be here soon, and then it may be very bad for the Germans. If you hide me, you will have an excuse—​I will plead for you, I will defend you, then you will not be threatened.”

I tried to make my words sound convincing, but, in fact, I didn’t really believe these words, because I didn’t know what the future would bring.

“When I don’t even have my own flat,” she replied in despair. “I am a refugee from Breslau. I found shelter here with my five children, at my father’s.”

“I do not want a flat . . . I can stay in the cellar or in the basement, or in the attic . . . anywhere.”

“And when they find out? They’ll hang me together with my children . . . Maybe somebody saw you?”

“Nobody has seen me. I have been in this passageway for several hours. Anyway, I will not give you up, even if they skin me alive. Quickly, quickly, because we will be seen!”

“And you’re certain that no one saw you? You’re sure of it?”

“Yes!”

She stepped away from the house and looked around. She looked on all sides, finally returned, and with a firm motion she took me by the arm and led me to the basement.

We stood facing each other—​her, slender and pale, and me, wretched and unfortunate. She took my hand, and, to my great surprise, a warm tear fell. I stood motionless, silent, and full of some inner trembling.

After a long moment, she broke the silence.

“We are wasting time,” she said. “It’s already dawn. Soon some Polish women who work for us will arrive. Do not betray your presence to anyone. They come down here to