It’s strange what a bundle of books can do. Our temporary base, every canvas tent a sign of impermanence, has suddenly changed, as if distant visions, quiet and calm, have arrived as our guests.
You pick up a book and you are at home, with your parents. The lamp is lit, and you are completely immersed in the book. Papa, a lawyer who represents the famous Singer sewing machine company among others, has just received a new catalogue and is studying it excitedly.
Mama is fixing a late afternoon snack. Dostoevsky’s book fascinates me so much that I don’t hear her voice calling me to come and taste what she’s made. When I finally pry myself away from the book, I want to say, Why did you pluck me away from these amazing scenes?, but I restrain myself so she won’t feel bad.
Salo, our chief medic, who saw his uncle’s stolen home with his own eyes, doesn’t talk about what he saw. His every gesture says, I am doing what I have to do at this time. I must not succumb to grief. One of the wounded, whose bandage Salo changed in the middle of the night, called him “a lover of mankind.” Salo quickly shrugged off that label. “I do my duty. It’s not exceptional.” Once I heard him say, “My uncle Herzig is a hearty man, just like his name, and his house was not only full of lamps but filled with inner light. Now he is a prisoner in one of the camps and who knows if I’ll see him again.”
* * *
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KAMIL HAS ESTABLISHED a new routine, evenings of study. We are in the land of the Ba’al Shem Tov and his followers. Here he walked, meditated, searched for God, and through his students conveyed his Torah teachings to us, and this is a perfect moment to get to know them.
Once a week we make time for Torah. This new arrangement is not acceptable to everyone. Some have reservations or even object. “If there is a purpose to our being here,” Kamil explains, “it is to become aware of ourselves, of parents and grandparents and their faith. Hopefully we can shake free of fixed opinions and prejudices and open our eyes to see not only what we usually see but also what we are prevented from seeing.”
8
The rains have ended, and it’s possible to sit silently or read a book. Kamil insists on this quiet time. Truth to tell, there’s no reason to insist. People are thirsty for a little quiet and introspection. Danzig, after reading for about an hour, sat up and said, “I used to love to read Stefan Zweig.”
“And now?” wondered Hermann Cohen.
“Now he seems naïve.”
“We’ve grown wiser?”
“We’ve changed, apparently.”
“How so?”
“I have no idea.”
Hermann Cohen is a man of action, and his practicality is obvious in his every move, but he, too, sits in his corner sometimes and reads. Having these books has changed our lives. Even before you dip into one, you feel as though you are in an armchair or in the garden of your home, together with your family or just by yourself.
Danzig didn’t pursue an academic career after graduating from university but went to a provincial town and opened a bookstore. Jews and not only Jews would come to buy or borrow a book, to read the daily paper, or to purchase a periodical. Alongside the shop, he had a room where people would sit and read. It wasn’t a very big store, but it hummed with life. Sometimes arguments broke out, but Danzig’s pleasant manner was enough to calm the atmosphere.
Danzig loved provincial life and the Jews who came to his shop. The older generation were displeased that the young people would congregate there. They feared that their sons and daughters would be attracted to foreign culture.
Now, like everyone, Danzig is disconnected from his family and lives temporarily in these mountains, in the hope that the war will not last long and life will resume as before. Milio will return to his parents, and Danzig to his family. Danzig is so busy raising Milio and training and raiding that he can’t afford to get close to what once was his. I often hear him say, “and nevertheless,” a kind of answer to all those who indulge their despair in private.
Owing to his height and broad shoulders, Danzig is known as “the pillar of the platoon.” During raids, he carries a double load on his shoulders. When we relocate from place to place, he moves most of the equipment. The old people are happy for his help, but his gentle manner is most evident when he carries Milio in his arms, feeds him, and tells him a story.
9
Kamil keeps reminding us that if there’s a rationale for why we fight, it’s to protect the weak who’ve been entrusted to our care. At times we go on raids, but guarding the base is continuous, day and night. To maintain this vigilance, only one squad or, in special cases, two squads go out at a time on raids. We eagerly wait for new fighters to join us, but for now they have yet to arrive.
“We must find the streams to our forgotten reservoir,” Kamil reminds us. This is harder to fulfill than his other commands. The sayings of the Besht, as retold by Martin Buber, undeniably stir the heart, but make no mistake, they are anchored in prayer and the observance of religious law.
“These texts are a regression to dark days,” declares Big Karl, one of the best-loved fighters, who was named for Karl Marx. “We left the ghetto not only to save ourselves but also to break away once and for all from an irrational tradition and to live as free men.”
“Do we also want to cut ourselves off from our parents and grandparents?” demands another fighter.
“From their beliefs, yes.”
Karl is a superior squad leader. A squad under his command feels his power, and it’s easy to follow him. When he speaks of his beliefs, you can feel the inner engine that governs his existence. He’s a second-generation communist, a true believer. Not by chance did Kamil choose him as a fellow commander.
Kamil, to his credit, is very tolerant. He knows that some of the fighters are loyal communists, and some are active in the leftist Bund and Shomer Hatza’ir. Their time in the ghetto and the forests has changed them but not their beliefs. To satisfy those who disagree with him, we read poems by Heine or Rilke, or chapters from Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment.
* * *
—
THE RAIN, DAMPNESS, and cold have worsened. Several sacks of flour have grown moldy, a serious setback. At one time Kamil planned to raid military camps scattered in the foothills and to liberate and absorb the thousands of prisoners who remain in the work camps. Kamil believes that five thousand fighters could change the course of the war. The wetlands are ideal territory for partisan warfare. Fighters from here could undermine the self-confidence of an entire army.
For now nothing has come of all these plans. We are increasingly engaged with day-to-day existence: reinforcing the tents, struggling against wetness and hostile patrols. The fear that a long stay in the mountains would diminish our resolve was unfounded.