This was the answer the rabbi got: “You cry! You weep! You have fine feelings! You think I don’t want to weep, too? Like a woman! A baby! But the Elder has to think of the entire community, not Jews one by one! He has to keep it alive until the war comes to an end! Maybe the Red Army will win and Horowitz will be defeated. But remember, the Bolsheviks know we’ve been working day and night for the Race of Masters. They are not going to embrace us, to kiss our cheeks. Or else the Conqueror will march straight to Moscow and even England will have to surrender. Then we go to Madagascar. Then we make the new Kingdom of Zion. That won’t be the end of the world.”

An anonymous voice: “Maybe you’d prefer it that way?”

“A hero! A roomful of heroes! You think you’re big shots because you tried to kill yourselves. Martyrs like in the Bible! Listen! If you don’t make the list, then the Others will take one hundred or two hundred instead of fifty; they’ll take children instead of adults. It’s not just yourselves you’re killing! You’re murdering the ones who want to live!”

“Mister Chairman! Help us! We can’t choose the names! Tell us which ones!”

The President of the Judenrat’s veins stood out in his throat, and on his forehead. “Which ones! It doesn’t matter which ones! I am a physician. I know that sometimes you have to cut off a gangrened arm to save the rest of the body. Look at me. My whole life has been devoted to the welfare of children. But even I have to let the newborn baby die in order to save the mother’s life. Now we have to give them fifty people, so that our dear Jewish children, our hope, our future, can live. Be brave! When a great boat is sinking, like the Titanic, not everybody can get into the lifeboats. Some have to stay behind.”

“But the captain of the Titanic went down with the ship.”

“Who said that? Who dared?”

Not one soul responded. That made Trumpelman smile. “You think I want to save myself? That I’m a coward? I invite you to put me on trial when the war is over. Get a jury. A judge. I’ll explain before the Jewish people, before history, what I had to do. And what if they find me guilty? Let them put me inside a cage, like an animal! Yes, I’m guilty! Because I did not sit wringing my hands! I dipped them in ink, the same as blood!”

With those words the Lithuanian sat at the table and—on white paper, with a black-capped pen—began to write name after name. Silently the ministers took their places. Verble stopped the Elder: to the three names already listed, he added a like number of his own. Rievesaltes was next. He leaned over the sheet. He scrawled and scrawled. Five hands reached for the pen. Around the whole table it went. There was no sound, except for the scratching the gold tip made.