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...The
ghetto has been struck a hard blow. They demand what is most
dear to it − children and old people. I was not
privileged to have a child of my own and therefore devoted my
best years to children. I lived and breathed together with
children. I never imagined that my own hands would be forced
to make this sacrifice on the altar. In my old age I am forced
to stretch out my hands and to beg: "Brothers and
sisters, give them to me! − Fathers and mothers, give me
your children..." (Bitter weeping shakes the assembled
public)... Yesterday, in the course of the day, I was given
the order to send away more than 20,000 Jews from the ghetto,
and if I did not "we will do it ourselves." The
question arose: "Should we have accepted this and carried
it out ourselves, or left it to others?" But as we were
guided not by the thought: "how many will be lost?"
but "how many can be saved?" we arrived at the
conclusion - those closest to me at work, that is, and
myself - that however difficult it was going to be, we
must take upon ourselves the carrying out of this decree. I
must carry out this difficult and bloody operation, I must cut
off limbs in order to save the body! I must take away
children, and if I do not, others too will be taken, God
forbid... (terrible wailing).
I
cannot give you comfort today. Nor did I come to calm you
today, but to reveal all your pain and all your sorrow. I have
come like a robber, to take from you what is dearest to your
heart. I tried everything I knew to get the bitter sentence
cancelled. When it could not be cancelled, I tried to lessen
the sentence. Only yesterday I ordered the registration of
nine-year-old children. I wanted to save at least one year -
children from nine to ten. But they would not yield. I
succeeded in one thing - to save the children over ten.
Let that be our consolation in our great sorrow.
There
are many people in this ghetto who suffer from tuberculosis,
whose days or perhaps weeks are numbered. I do not know,
perhaps this is a satanic plan, and perhaps not, but I cannot
stop myself from proposing it: "Give me these sick
people, and perhaps it will be possible to save the healthy in
their place." I know how precious each one of the sick is
in his home, and particularly among Jews. But at a time of
such decrees one must weigh up and measure who should be
saved, who can be saved and who may be saved.
Common
sense requires us to know that those must be saved who can be
saved and who have a chance of being saved and not those whom
there is no chance to save in any case....
I.
Trunk, Lodzsher Geto ("Lodz Ghetto"), New
York, 1962, pp. 311-312. |
