Chapter Nine

The Pulley

I

Alas! When the dawn came to the Baluty Suburb, the Jews wished it were once again night. At daybreak Franz Xavier Wohltat, the coffee roaster, informed the Jewish Council that all children ten years and under, with the exception of the Hatters’ orphans, had to report to the Radogodsh Station. Also every Jew not strong enough to hold a regular job. Otherwise the whole Ghetto would be destroyed.

You can imagine the sorrow and anguish this order—soon it was on lampposts, on the building walls—caused. People ran into the streets and rushed up and down. Where were the little ones, whose necks were like wooden pencils, to go? What would happen to the broken-down Jews? Now we know the answers to these questions. At the time, though, there were hundreds of fantastical theories. One was that the boys and girls would grow up in the Conqueror’s homeland, and become Lords and Masters themselves. Another was that they were going to be trained to fight in submarines. Because of the small spaces in U-boats, you see. One thing was certain, no more comfortable passenger wagons. Boxcars only, the kind used for cows and steers. Plus this: a whole week went by before one of these cars, leaving full, came back empty. Now the Baluters were going to some spot far away.

Ladies and gentlemen, we won’t dwell on those terrible days—which in fact stretched for weeks, for months, for the whole life of the Balut. After the children, after the sick people, came the turn of anyone aged more than sixty-five. Then sixty-two. Then sixty. The policemen, the porters, took whoever could not fully blow up a paper bag. By the end of the year there were only healthy, hardworking Jews left in the Ghetto. Everyone wondered: would these be deported as well? It seemed there was nothing that anyone, in our shrinking population, could do.

Then one day—we are now in springtime, 1943—a Jewish policeman, Pergament by name, was found lying dead on Rybna Street. He was smiling, even though there was a hole just in front of his ear. The very next morning a second body was found, in the muddy Marysin section. This turned out to be Urinstein, Minister of Vital Statistics. Neither the top of his head, nor his top hat, was there. Poor man! Urinstein! So far from his home! The stars of both men had been removed; a note was pinned on their chests instead: Better to be a Jew than one of Them!

Better to be a Jew than one of them? The statement amazed the Baluters, not because of what it said—you could argue both sides of that question, like in a debate—but because it suggested they had a choice. I am a dog, a dog, Leibel Shifter had said. But everyone knew he had been mad. No, no cure for Judaism. It was a sentence for life.

The next day, when they buried the two shooting victims, was a holiday, the first since the wedding in the Virgin Mary Church. Factories closed. Shops boarded up. And they let out the few who were left in the schools. The official ceremony was in the Baluter Square. There was a band and a bandstand. Hundreds of policemen, with black crepe on their hats, milled around. Also present, also in black, was a big crowd of Judenrat workers—clerks, typists, printers, along with their families. Of course the porters. Naturally the fire brigade. But many plain citizens gathered there, too: café owners, spinning-mill foremen, skilled workers of various kinds. It was a crowd that stood for law and order. They wanted to protest anarchy. NO MORE RECKLESSNESS! That was the banner they raised in the air. The band played. A special honor guard, half ministers, half policemen, carried the coffins through the square.