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Warsaw,
Fall 1942
Lately
I have been feeling ill. My health is not in order. I have
lung disease and spit blood. I regret deeply that this will
prevent me from entering into marriage with my beloved Moledet
["Homeland"]. Our love developed 15 years ago when
we studied together at school, and I sang her love-songs while
I was still a child. Eight years ago I began to work in her
father's office [Zionist Movement], and I made progress in my
work, steadily, which increased my chances of marriage
[immigration]. To my great sorrow you will see that disease
has struck me, and my dreams of life joined to hers [Eretz
Israel] is doomed to remain a dream. But whatever happens, I
will continue to bear great love for her, and the last words
that I breathe before my death will be the name by which I
have called her.
Gerushovitch
[a play on gerush, Hebrew for deportation] and his
brother Tevahovitch [tevah slaughter] send you their
greetings. My people labors and is going down to Killayon [Killayon
annihilation] with the aid of Yekes [the Germans]. I am only
surprised that his rich aunt, Olamska [Olam world], is
not helping him at all. I suppose that she knows only very
little about your people....
Hrubieszow,
1942
My
dear friend!
Do
not let the pathos of the opening frighten you. It contains
what I surely will not be able to express in the letter
itself. I began to write to you times without number, but I
was always overcome by the feeling of a senselessness in
writing, and this saved me from absurd action. You
understand... I always find myself accompanied by the
realization that it is illusion and self-torture to cling to
the shreds of the past and to bring them out into the light of
day. Then why? For you have wiped us from your memory, and
what are we? It is known that one cannot draw water from a
poisoned spring. I am holding fast to my soul, in order not to
allow escape to the bitterness that has mounted up against you
and your friends, who have forgotten us in such a simple way.
I am aggrieved against you, that you did not help me even with
a few words. But it is not my wish today to settle accounts
with you. Only the realization and certainty that we shall
never meet again has caused me to write.
The
sickness of Israel and my sickness and you know how long we
have been wrestling with it has been revealed now as entirely
without hope of cure, that is what the doctors have ruled. One
must therefore slowly become accustomed to this thought.
Perhaps it is terrible that there is no longer time enough to
assimilate it. You would surely like to know how the other
members of the family are. Praotzki [praot pogrom] and
Shehita [Shehita killing] live with me and with Israel.
There was nothing we could do against it. It has a fatal
effect on the health of Israel, and I can see how it will
bring about the end. But what can we do this is the situation
and no other. I am doing everything I can to prevent it but to
my regret there are elements that can stop even the strongest
will. Israel is dying before my eyes, and I wring my hands and
can do nothing to help. Have you ever tried to beat your head
against a wall? Two months ago I was in the city where you
were born. There I met my friends from Hurban [hurban destruction]
School. It is doing excellent business....
Hurban
accompanied me faithfully and tried to make the days of my
visit agreeable. For as regards the satisfaction of emotions
he was always very civil. I saw Chajka. Apart from her I found
nobody.
As
regards our material existence, we manage somehow. We work as
before. Josef [Kaplan] and I in our profession [leadership],
and it works somehow. Only one thing has changed the
prospects. I have only one desire: to tell the world that
Israel is so sick. For he is my best friend, and even if there
cannot be much practical help, still the simple realization
that somebody is with us, if only in their thoughts, on our
road of suffering, makes it easier. But do not upset yourself
too much, my friend. After all, there are theories concerning
adaptation to conditions.
This
has become a strange letter. At first it was intended to talk
only about myself and about you: how I draw up from my memory
details about you, and how sometimes when things are difficult
I wonder what you would have done in the same case. But
sometimes I cannot dredge up your appearance in my memory. I
have not a single photograph. Who knows what will happen to me
before you get this letter.
Don't
give greetings to anyone. I don't want to know them! But you I
would like to see again.
Tosia
[Altman]
Adam!
A few days ago I saw your parents. They are managing all
right. We, too, remember them with affection. So you may feel
reassured about them.
B.
Habas, Mihtavim min ha-Gettaot ("Letters from the
Ghettos"), Tel Aviv, 1943, pp. 40-43.
*
Many of the letters contain coded expressions taken from the
Hebrew. |
