into a ditch. The tangled limbs make it impossible to tell one body from another. Not even an orgy could entwine legs, arms, heads and pelvises like that. They look strikingly different from the other inmates, from those circulating like spectres in pyjamas looking for something to eat or queuing for roll call early in the morning. The dead are still full and firm, with prominent muscles. They were gassed at once on arrival and it is hard to know whether to grieve over their abrupt extinction or to rejoice that they were spared the torture of camp life.
Vienna. January ’42
Dear Amara, yesterday we opened the door to find two servants in uniform, complete with aprons. ‘We’ve come to clean the house for the new owners,’ they said. My mother, always polite, offered them coffee. ‘There must be some misunderstanding,’ she told them, and added, ‘there really must have been a misunderstanding; this is our house, my father bought it before I was born.’ ‘But now it has been assigned to Consul Schumacher and his family.’ ‘Please, madam, don’t insist, we’ll sort it all out, you’ll see.’ ‘Aren’t you Jews by the name of Orenstein?’ ‘Yes, but Austrians first and foremost, my father lost an arm in the Battle of the Kolubara during the First World War and the Emperor himself pinned a medal on his chest.’ ‘Your house has been requisitioned, here are the papers. You must move out by tomorrow. We start cleaning now.’
My mother made telephone calls in all directions but couldn’t reach any of her friends. Only an employee at the department of social administration who told her abruptly that her house had been requisitioned under the new anti-Jewish laws and assigned to an Aryan family by the name of Schumacher.
‘Please come back tomorrow,’ said my mother very politely. ‘You will find the house clean.’ The woman made a sign to her assistant and they left. Soon after the doorbell rang again. This time it was an SS squad. They searched the house saying they were looking for arms. Of course there were no arms. But when they left they took with them all my mother’s silver, jewellery and furs, an eighteenth-century Venetian mirror and a nineteenth-century English silver teapot.
By now Amara knows nearly all Emanuele’s letters by heart. The words of her little lover echo in her mind, his voice gradually growing more dry and desolate.
‘This, first gas chamber. This, second gas chamber. Here,crematoriums one, two, three, four, five. Bodies gassed by pipe here for burning. Body in, smoke and ashes come out. One load every half hour. Here toilets and baths.’ The guide continues relentlessly, taking them rapidly from one part of the camp to another.
Łódź ghetto. February ’42
They knocked on the door of our house in Vienna at four in the morning. Gave us an hour to pack our bags. One case each, not more than three in all. But where are we going? No answer. They were impatient and bad-tempered. Papà and Mamma began arguing about what to put in the suitcases. Papà wanted to fill them with food. Mamma with clothes: rugs, warm coats. Her furs, jewels and money had already been taken by the other SS. When they came back after an hour we weren’t ready and they started shouting. Finally we left all loaded up; my father with a valuable mat under his arm and my mother with two cashmere jackets. But at the main door they took everything from us except the three cases. We were loaded onto a lorry and then a train. We had no idea where they were taking us. Four nights of hell in an armoured cattle-truck together with about a hundred other Austrian Jews and nothing to eat or drink. Luckily we’d brought some sausages and apples with us. My father kept saying: You see? You see I was right to bring food? We ate a sausage and an apple each, keeping the rest for later. But when we went to get more, Papà’s case was empty. One of those starving people had stolen the lot. Even the Prague
Vienna. January ’42
Dear Amara, yesterday we opened the door to find two servants in uniform, complete with aprons. ‘We’ve come to clean the house for the new owners,’ they said. My mother, always polite, offered them coffee. ‘There must be some misunderstanding,’ she told them, and added, ‘there really must have been a misunderstanding; this is our house, my father bought it before I was born.’ ‘But now it has been assigned to Consul Schumacher and his family.’ ‘Please, madam, don’t insist, we’ll sort it all out, you’ll see.’ ‘Aren’t you Jews by the name of Orenstein?’ ‘Yes, but Austrians first and foremost, my father lost an arm in the Battle of the Kolubara during the First World War and the Emperor himself pinned a medal on his chest.’ ‘Your house has been requisitioned, here are the papers. You must move out by tomorrow. We start cleaning now.’
My mother made telephone calls in all directions but couldn’t reach any of her friends. Only an employee at the department of social administration who told her abruptly that her house had been requisitioned under the new anti-Jewish laws and assigned to an Aryan family by the name of Schumacher.
‘Please come back tomorrow,’ said my mother very politely. ‘You will find the house clean.’ The woman made a sign to her assistant and they left. Soon after the doorbell rang again. This time it was an SS squad. They searched the house saying they were looking for arms. Of course there were no arms. But when they left they took with them all my mother’s silver, jewellery and furs, an eighteenth-century Venetian mirror and a nineteenth-century English silver teapot.
By now Amara knows nearly all Emanuele’s letters by heart. The words of her little lover echo in her mind, his voice gradually growing more dry and desolate.
‘This, first gas chamber. This, second gas chamber. Here,crematoriums one, two, three, four, five. Bodies gassed by pipe here for burning. Body in, smoke and ashes come out. One load every half hour. Here toilets and baths.’ The guide continues relentlessly, taking them rapidly from one part of the camp to another.
Łódź ghetto. February ’42
They knocked on the door of our house in Vienna at four in the morning. Gave us an hour to pack our bags. One case each, not more than three in all. But where are we going? No answer. They were impatient and bad-tempered. Papà and Mamma began arguing about what to put in the suitcases. Papà wanted to fill them with food. Mamma with clothes: rugs, warm coats. Her furs, jewels and money had already been taken by the other SS. When they came back after an hour we weren’t ready and they started shouting. Finally we left all loaded up; my father with a valuable mat under his arm and my mother with two cashmere jackets. But at the main door they took everything from us except the three cases. We were loaded onto a lorry and then a train. We had no idea where they were taking us. Four nights of hell in an armoured cattle-truck together with about a hundred other Austrian Jews and nothing to eat or drink. Luckily we’d brought some sausages and apples with us. My father kept saying: You see? You see I was right to bring food? We ate a sausage and an apple each, keeping the rest for later. But when we went to get more, Papà’s case was empty. One of those starving people had stolen the lot. Even the Prague
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