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Authors: Elie Wiesel
Tags: Historical
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was such a good liar. Was it because everything was like chess to him? Aren’t we liars or actors, to a lesser or greater extent, when we play chess? Tricking the opponent’s vigilance, isn’t that a lie?
In my subterranean hideaway, I was worried. As I had no contact with the world outside, I was ignorant of what was happening to the Jews under the enemy’s yoke.
My father, I learned later, suffered through illness and despair in Auschwitz. Most of his relatives and friends had died long before; in fact, some of them, including my grandmother, died the very night they arrived in Birkenau.
Miraculously, Arele and my father survived. To the bitter end of the war, they worked together in Auschwitz, providing support for each other.
As the weeks and months went by in the summer of 1944, everyone understood that the evacuation of the ghetto meant that the war, and therefore the occupation, the apotheosis of evil, was coming to an end. The count knew full well that the Red Army was approaching Kolomea; often, in the evening, we could hear the artillery in the distance.
The count was preoccupied about what would happen“afterward.” What would he do when the retreat order was given? he asked himself out loud. Would he be transferred to the front, to the rear? For how long?
And I had anxious thoughts too: If he leaves, what will become of me?
One evening, he came down the stairs to the hideaway, where I was reading by candlelight. I assumed he wanted to play chess and I started to put out the board.
“No,” he said. “No need to anymore. It’s over. I have to leave the city. I wouldn’t like to fall into the hands of the Russians.”
He paused for a moment before continuing.
“The city is almost entirely surrounded. The battle won’t last long. Our defenses are too weak and we’re going to set up a well-organized retreat. I think that the day after tomorrow, you’ll be able to go upstairs. Dorothea is staying here. She’ll take care of you. But …”
Another pause.
“No doubt you’ll be questioned about me. Remember the fact that you’re still alive and more or less free. You owe it to me.”
I thought to myself: No, he’s wrong. That’s not true. I owe the fact that I’m still alive to his and my passion for an ancient, constantly reinvented game. Fearful as I was, I kept silent. Why annoy the count by contradicting him? As long as he was still around, he was dangerous, all-powerful.
He smiled ambiguously, melancholically or pusillanimously—I couldn’t tell—and shook my hand before leaving.
• • •
A few hours later, the Red Army’s heavy artillery shelled Davarowsk. As a result, I was no longer the only person to breathe the underground dust. All of the city’s inhabitants congregated in the antiaircraft shelters. There was not a single Jew among them. They had all been swept into a tempest of fire and hatred. The sensation was strange: I was the only young descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the last disciple of Moses and Rabbi Akiba, in a dark, condemned world, about to reawaken on the ruins of its memory and hope.
Contrary to what the count had said, Dorothea was nowhere to be seen. Had she followed her master? Returned to Germany perhaps? Or had she taken refuge at the house of relatives, or civilians, far from the front? Was she afraid of the inevitable reprisals of the population who had had to serve the Germans for so long? Other pro-Nazi collaborators had fled for the same reason. It was predictable, crystal clear: The hour of the dispensers of justice and avengers had finally arrived.
How many more days and nights was I going to stay all alone, without help and without food, in this hideaway where fear was my only faithful companion?
I tried to pass the time by resuming a game I had started with the count. But my brain wasn’t working very well anymore. More and more anguished, I couldn’t concentrate. The black and white pieces seemed perturbed and disoriented on
In my subterranean hideaway, I was worried. As I had no contact with the world outside, I was ignorant of what was happening to the Jews under the enemy’s yoke.
My father, I learned later, suffered through illness and despair in Auschwitz. Most of his relatives and friends had died long before; in fact, some of them, including my grandmother, died the very night they arrived in Birkenau.
Miraculously, Arele and my father survived. To the bitter end of the war, they worked together in Auschwitz, providing support for each other.
As the weeks and months went by in the summer of 1944, everyone understood that the evacuation of the ghetto meant that the war, and therefore the occupation, the apotheosis of evil, was coming to an end. The count knew full well that the Red Army was approaching Kolomea; often, in the evening, we could hear the artillery in the distance.
The count was preoccupied about what would happen“afterward.” What would he do when the retreat order was given? he asked himself out loud. Would he be transferred to the front, to the rear? For how long?
And I had anxious thoughts too: If he leaves, what will become of me?
One evening, he came down the stairs to the hideaway, where I was reading by candlelight. I assumed he wanted to play chess and I started to put out the board.
“No,” he said. “No need to anymore. It’s over. I have to leave the city. I wouldn’t like to fall into the hands of the Russians.”
He paused for a moment before continuing.
“The city is almost entirely surrounded. The battle won’t last long. Our defenses are too weak and we’re going to set up a well-organized retreat. I think that the day after tomorrow, you’ll be able to go upstairs. Dorothea is staying here. She’ll take care of you. But …”
Another pause.
“No doubt you’ll be questioned about me. Remember the fact that you’re still alive and more or less free. You owe it to me.”
I thought to myself: No, he’s wrong. That’s not true. I owe the fact that I’m still alive to his and my passion for an ancient, constantly reinvented game. Fearful as I was, I kept silent. Why annoy the count by contradicting him? As long as he was still around, he was dangerous, all-powerful.
He smiled ambiguously, melancholically or pusillanimously—I couldn’t tell—and shook my hand before leaving.
• • •
A few hours later, the Red Army’s heavy artillery shelled Davarowsk. As a result, I was no longer the only person to breathe the underground dust. All of the city’s inhabitants congregated in the antiaircraft shelters. There was not a single Jew among them. They had all been swept into a tempest of fire and hatred. The sensation was strange: I was the only young descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the last disciple of Moses and Rabbi Akiba, in a dark, condemned world, about to reawaken on the ruins of its memory and hope.
Contrary to what the count had said, Dorothea was nowhere to be seen. Had she followed her master? Returned to Germany perhaps? Or had she taken refuge at the house of relatives, or civilians, far from the front? Was she afraid of the inevitable reprisals of the population who had had to serve the Germans for so long? Other pro-Nazi collaborators had fled for the same reason. It was predictable, crystal clear: The hour of the dispensers of justice and avengers had finally arrived.
How many more days and nights was I going to stay all alone, without help and without food, in this hideaway where fear was my only faithful companion?
I tried to pass the time by resuming a game I had started with the count. But my brain wasn’t working very well anymore. More and more anguished, I couldn’t concentrate. The black and white pieces seemed perturbed and disoriented on
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