I Am Juden Read online

  From Monday to Friday, we all worked. The women took care of household chores, which was not satisfactory to Shoshana’s way of thinking, and it was often remarked that her girls spent more time learning aikido and boxing than they did sweeping the floors. Herman Glik led Moishe and Baruch and the other young men to work in the forests, chopping trees to be sold as winter fuel. With my large frame and powerful limbs, I was an obvious candidate for the role of wood-cutter, but to Herman’s amusement, I found an alternative means of employment.

  At the northern end of Pilies Street, near the Cathedral and National Museum, there was a small shoe-repair shop that had a long queue stretching out onto the pavement. When I inquired inside, I quickly saw the reason for this chronic over-subscription: the harried cobbler was balancing his shoe-repairing work while taking care of a backroom full of young children. His wife was bed-bound, Mr. Donelaitis told me glumly, with severe swelling. I explained my limited experience as Mr. Zygoti’s apprentice in Cracow, and was given my own green apron before I could say another word.

  In part I had missed the fragrance of leather and glue and the supple, satisfying pleasures of the trade, and Mr. Donelaitis was certainly grateful for the help. But there were other reasons for my decision. Every other Jewish arrival I knew worked outside the city in large teams and only ever talked to a Lithuanian when one of them arrived on a wagon to collect the logs. I was struck with how insular the life of an immigrant could be. Long after 17th century Venetians compelled us Jews to live in Ghettos, we chose to voluntarily wall off ourselves from a city that had been good enough to take us in. I wanted the best of both worlds. While I was in Wilno, I would work with the local people, and become a part of their quotidian lives in this Baltic paradise, opposite the Catholic Cathedral and the National Museum, yet be able to retreat to communal Jewish living at the end of the day.

  For a few months that summer, I achieved something close to happiness. On bicycles, Shoshana and I explored an area of six beautiful green lakes in the north-eastern part of the city, perfect for picnics and swimming. Although we were technically stranded in a foreign city with no plan other than ‘wait and hope’, I thought we had already reached the promised land. If we could only get our mother to the new House of Cracow, she would be safe. But in that summer, all hopes were short-lived.

  On September 1st 1939, the Nazis invaded Poland.

  From that point on, Shoshana and I also waged a losing battle with our own guilt. We had abandoned our friends and mother for the good life in Wilno while Kazimierz was under siege. Each day brought worse news. A Nazi lawyer called Hans Frank had been appointed as Chief Jurist of occupied Poland and Frank had imposed a temporary ban on Jewish travel visas while the new administration took charge. Our mother was trapped on Izaaka Street for the time being. We had reason to believe that Cracow was relatively safe, since it was in the middle of the occupied zone now called the Generalgouvernment. Indeed, Jews from the less stable annexes of the Wartheland, from Lodz and Poznan, were already being transferred into the Generalgouvernment, so we had to believe that citizens of Cracow had found unlikely protectors in the German army.

  And then, on September 18th, Lithuania awoke to find not Nazi panzers but Soviet T-34s rolling down their capital’s streets. Stalin fought The Battle of Wilno as a counter-blast to Hitler’s own invasion. Polish forces in Lithuania were relatively weak and their commanders, unsure whether to actively oppose the Soviets, did not put up much of a fight. By the end of the day the Soviets had secured the airfield and made several thrusts into the city, taking the Rasos Cemetery.

  By the morning of September 19th the advanced Soviet armoured units had been reinforced with infantry and cavalry. The people of Wilno were presented with an ultimatum which they could not refuse. In exchange for the return of 1/5th of the Wilno region (including the city), Lithuania would have to accept Soviet military bases in its territory. The alternative was a full-scale Soviet invasion.

  The Jewish community initially welcomed both the Soviets and the subsequent Lithuanian administration. Herman Glik argued the lesser of three evils: that we would now not be ruled by the hated Polish Endeks or fall under the occupation of Nazi Germany. Having been well versed by my parents in the history of Russian-orchestrated persecution - in Odessa, in Yekaterinoslav, in Kiev, in Vichob, in the heart of the Pale of Settlement - I was less disposed to see the Soviets as saviours. But I tried to convince myself that Elena and Radion’s childhoods belonged to a different century, and those days were gone for good. Many of my fellow Jews had already made that leap of faith. Fourteen thousand refugees from the south made their way to the city, including one remarkable young woman called Vitka Kempner who would become my sister’s own madritch.

  I returned home from Mr. Donelaitis’ shop on the dark afternoon of Sunday October 30th to find a strange young couple seated in a cloud of smoke opposite Herman and Shoshana at our kitchen table, their crossed rifles leaning against the door of my sister’s cleaning cupboard. I knew why they had come.

  Yesterday was supposed to have been a day of pride for Lithuanians. Six weeks after the Soviets had invaded, their troops withdrew on Saturday 29th and power was once again ceded to the capital. Unfortunately, when the nationalists made their grand reclamation, marching into the centre with the pomp of a full fanfare, they found themselves mere bit-players and their city in tatters. The Soviets had plundered the local infrastructure, taking everything they could carry. They left behind 60,000 Jews, twice as many Poles but only a few thousand Lithuanians. For once, everyone apart from the Jews was miserable. The Lithuanians resented our joy at being liberated from Polish anti-Semitism and the Poles resented our love of the Red Army. Such bitterness coalesced in the streets within minutes of the Lithuanian entrance, and anti-Jewish riots broke out later, under the usual veil of darkness. Several tradesmen were beaten to death defending their properties. The Jews went back to being miserable. In the hospital I volunteered at, I heard rumour that the riots would go for a fortnight at least, up until the anniversary of Kristallnacht, November 9th.

  So a visit of the likes we’d received was inevitable. The fight back had begun.

  ‘Our mighty axe-man returns,’ the young woman said, rising from the table at my entrance. Vitka Kempner was all cheek-bones and blonde curls, a teenage Marlene in military fatigues. ‘How was the wood today?’

  ‘Not this one,’ Herman said. ‘Jozef leaves the heavy lifting for the rest of us. He works all the hours God sends as a fancy shoe-maker up the road, opposite the National Museum. You wouldn’t think it, but he’s got the hands of a temple dancer.’

  ‘Making shoes on a Sunday,’ Vitka said. ‘Is business that brisk?’

  ‘It is, but today I’ve been helping with the children,’ I said. ‘My employer’s wife is ill with elephantiasis and there are five young ones to look after, schoolwork and such like.’

  ‘The day after Lithuanians attack us with crowbars,’ Herman said. ‘And Jozef’s playing au-pair for their kids.’

  ‘That might be the best time of all,’ Abba Kovner said, a man of no less distinctive appearance than his young friend. I had seen Abba before at the Strashum Library, poring over an antique Talmud, its yellowed pages a precarious funeral pyre beneath his cigarette. Gaunt and heavy-lidded, Abba was a compelling figure. He wore his hair long and his expression longer. His thick black locks were pushed back today, accentuating the flat wedge of his features, large, hooded eyes, flared nostrils at the precipice of his nose’s sheer edge and the tight slit of mouth like a prison hatch. Like Vitka, he wore a military jacket, shirt collar pulled out, and wide trousers over skinny legs, tucked into his boots.

  ‘Jozef’s always been a natural with children,’ Shoshana said. ‘With me as a sister, he didn’t have a choice. That’s another thing you’ve got in common, it’s crazy. Abba also has a sister, and he was born in Russia.’

  ‘Crimea,’ Abba snapped, his customary mode of address. ‘Sebastapol, on the Black Sea.’
r />   ‘Our parents met in Odessa,’ I said.

  Shoshana adjusted her eye-patch, which had started to ride up and expose the rim of her empty socket. ‘Abba’s family left when he was young, and he ended up here in Wilno, where he went to art-school. He’s a sculptor and a poet.’

  ‘But don’t let that put you off,’ Abba said.

  Vitka said, ‘He’s actually a pretty decent guy.’

  ‘My brother loves poetry,’ Shoshana said. ‘He taught Literature and Humanism in Germany.’

  ‘In another life,’ I said. ‘My mother left Russia and settled in Cracow. I went north, to Kiel. I lost my job last year and headed home, where I trained as a shoe-maker. Then Akiva came calling and Shoshana and I arranged our first transfer of children to Kaunas, and – ’. I shrugged as if to say, Here we are now, but Shoshana beat me to it.

  ‘And I’ve been taking care of him ever since,’ she said, smiling with Vitka.

  ‘I was in Akiva when I was a little child,’ Vikta said.

  ‘You make it sound like the Girl-Guides.’

  I asked who they were with now.

  ‘Hashomer Hatzair,’ Abba growled.

  Their uniforms made sense now, styled as they were like Bolshevik Revolutionaries. Hashomer Hatzair was a Socialist-Zionist movement formed in Austria-Hungary in 1913, while I was in short-pants, trying to fend off Obergefreiter Gruber and the Bavarian army.

  ‘Vitka’s Polish,’ Shoshana said. ‘Her family are still there, too.’

  ‘In Kalisz,’ Vitka said. ‘I couldn’t bear to stand by and watch the SS abuse any longer. Leaving my parents is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I was sure we could all be safe here.’

  ‘Vitka and Abba just met this morning,’ Shoshana said, ‘in Subocz Street. Tell them the most amazing thing.’

  ‘We share -’ Vitka said.

  ‘The same birthday,’ Abba said.

  ‘March 14th,’ Vitka said. ‘But not -’

  ‘The same year,’ Abba said. ‘You’re 1920, right?’

  She nodded. ‘And you’re 1918.’

  I did the maths in my head. Vitka was nineteen, which was slightly older than I’d thought. But Abba… I stared at him, trying not to gape.

  ‘You’re only twenty-one years old? I thought you were our age.’ I looked at Herman for moral support. ‘Early thirties.’

  ‘It has been remarked before,’ Abba said. ‘I blame my parents for naming me.’ In Hebrew, Abba means father. ‘If they called me Bubala, I’d still be splashing around the Black Sea, building sand-castles.’

  Somehow, I couldn’t see Abba Kovner in a baby’s swimming costume.

  ‘So many coincidences,’ Shoshana said. ‘I can’t get my head around them.’

  ‘C.G. Jung says there are no such thing as coincidences,’ Herman Glik said. ‘Or rather, he explains that a synchronicity is a meaningful coincidence. It’s about the two halves of the brain talking to each other.’ He started to gesticulate now, warming to his theme. ‘The left part, the creative part, jumps around time, past, present and future, and notices a time and place when something significant is going to happen. The right part, the logical part, rationalises a reason for us to be in that particular place at that particular time, and – voila! Here we all are.’

  It was the most I’d ever heard Herman say, on any subject. The four of us were equally flummoxed by all this left-brain/right-brain philosophizing and I felt duty-bound to navigate a way back.

  ‘Whatever you’ve come here for,’ I said, looking from Vitka to Abba. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t to discuss Jung’s theory of synchronicity.’

  ‘They’re organising defence groups to attack the rioters,’ Hernan said.

  ‘Which is it?’ I said. ‘Defend or attack?’

  Abba reached into his jacket and pulled out a fistful of flyers, handwritten in exceptional Hebrew cursive script, far more beautiful than my own, and mimeographed. I took a slip and read aloud. ‘The Independent Jewish Defence Force in Wilno calls you into the streets to defend the life and honour of Wilno’s Jewish population.’

  ‘Join us,’ Vitka urged, seizing my wrist in a not altogether friendly fashion. ‘Together we can end this pain.’

  ‘You could start by easing your grip,’ I said, shaking my hand free. ‘My father tried to stop the rioters in Vichob and was arrested for his efforts. It was Russians attacking us then, but I believe my point is still valid.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’ Vitka asked, crossing her arms. ‘Make shoes?’

  ‘I’ll do everything I can to ensure the safety of the Jewish people, by arranging transfers to Palestine.’

  ‘And after the Kaunas children, how many transfers has that been, exactly?’

  I didn’t know, but it was very few. With the Dutch consul under investigation, there was precious little opportunity. All other foreign embassies had closed. The special certificates could only be issued by Sochnut, and the Jewish Agency was already overwhelmed. And even Sochnut had stopped facilitating transfers for anybody over the age of eighteen. Meanwhile, hundreds of new refugees flooded into the city every day.

  ‘I’m afraid what I told you has not changed,’ Shoshana said to Vitka. ‘My brother will not fight.’

  ‘Violence does in truth recoil upon the violent,’ I said.

  ‘Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.’ Abba had recognized the allusion. ‘The Adventures of the Speckled Band. Do you know how Sherlock Holmes finished that sentence?’

  I nodded, for I did.

  ‘And the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another,’ Abba said. ‘Make no mistake, the Nazis are hard at work at that task as we speak, Mr. Siegler. The whole of Europe shall be our burial pit.’

  ‘They wouldn’t get their hands dirty,’ Vitka said. ‘They’re making us dig our own.’

  ‘This is true,’ Abba said. ‘The days of Sherlock Holmes fighting off a poisonous snake with an iron poker have long since passed.’

  ‘And my sister was right, Mr. Kovner. Principles do not change. At least, mine haven’t.’

  ‘Yet,’ Abba said.

  I felt regret at discomfiting my sister, if that’s what I had done, but I was not ready to take up arms against our oppressors. For now, our business was done. I rose to excuse myself, but was stilled by Herman’s hand against my forearm.

  ‘Let us at least find the others and say Kaddish to honour those who fell last night.’

  Herman knew I didn’t like to participate in prayer, although I hadn’t disclosed to him that I was an atheist. He also knew he had me in a difficult position, for I wouldn’t further embarrass Shoshana in front of her new friends by declining his cleverly-worded invitation.

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to lead the Prayer of the Dead,’ he said, ‘as you weren’t here last night.’

  ‘I could never do it as well as you, Herman.’

  ‘Unfortunately I think you’re going to get a lot of practice.’ We rose to gather our Akiva house-mates in the living room, but Herman was not done yet. ‘I heard some of your Lithuanians toasting their overnight success as I walked past the Tappo D’Oro this morning. One of them said, This’ll be a great city when we get rid of the Old Town.’

  ‘I told you,’ Abba said. ‘Mass burial pits, that’s how.’

  ‘It’s an old joke,’ I said. ‘But I don’t think it’s meant to be anti-Semitic.’

  ‘Oh, Jozef!’ Shoshana said. ‘Honestly.’

  ‘No, let’s hear the Professor out.’

  ‘When I heard the joke it was ‘get rid of the whole town’, not ‘Old Town’. Lithuanians are sick of being pushed about by one nation after another, Austro-Hungarian, Polish, Russian. They want to see the back of all of them, not us.’

  Herman said. ‘So they beat the Jew to death in the street? If you’d been with us last night instead of your precious shoe-maker, you’d know what I mean.’

  ‘Herman,’ Shoshana cautioned. ‘Don’t.’

  ‘Look where he works. Even the street he chose for us. Every
body else I know lives cheek-by-jowl in the Ghetto. Your brother picked the only Akiva house outside the Jewish Quarter.’

  ‘Vitka and Abba found us without too much difficulty,’ I said. ‘We’re not exactly in hiding.’

  ‘Come on, boys,’ said Shoshana. ‘Play nice.’

  Once again I felt ashamed for squabbling in front of our guests.

  I observed Kaddish with the rest of the House of Cracow, once the quorum of ten males had been achieved. Our committed militants took their rifles and left shortly after prayers, with seven new part-time recruits to their Independent Jewish Defence Force.

  From everything I have heard, our youths were a boon to the IJDF, and even helped to reign in some of what I regarded as Hashomer Hatzair’s more provocative tendencies. I certainly didn’t begrudge their involvement. Moishe and Baruch and the others were young men fully able to decide their own paths of action and did not need my counselling on how to spend their evenings. Even after a day of wood-cutting, they still had energy to burn, and I was pleased to see this put to constructive use. It’s true, I felt safer knowing they were on patrol.

  My only concern was that, with Vitka and Shoshana taking prominent roles while Abba matriculated from art-school, the IJDF was predominately run by women. This was not a problem to me, knowing full well Shoshana’s strength of body and mind, but I wondered how some of our lads would handle the situation, not always holding the most enlightened views on sexual equality. Luckily, Moishe and Baruch seemed used to it, having been schooled how to box by my sister’s punishing fists.

  ***