“Civilization? You and your friends are going to give me lessons in civilization when you spend your days beating up old people and throwing rocks at houses? What would you know about civilization? While you Aryans were living in the north of Europe in wooden cabins, wearing animal skins and roasting meat on two sticks, we Jews were building entire cities.”
Fredy grabbed hold of the young Nazi. Various people who saw him do this started to approach.
“There’s a Jew hitting a boy!” shouted a woman.
The owner of a fruit shop came toward them with the metal pole used for lowering the shop shutters, followed by about another dozen men. A hand grabbed Fredy’s arm and pulled him away.
“Let’s go!” the director shouted at him.
They only just had time to run inside the building and slam the main door shut before an avalanche of enraged citizens rushed toward them in what seemed to Fredy to be a display of collective madness.
They closed the JPD branch the next day and sent Fredy off to Bohemia. He continued to work for Maccabi Hatzair, organizing sports activities for the young people of Ostrava, Brno, and then finally, Prague.
He didn’t much like the Czech capital and was perplexed by the Czechs, who seemed more carefree and informal than the Germans. But at Hagibor, on the outskirts of Prague, he found a perfect location for sporting activities. They put him in charge of a group of ten-to twelve-year-old boys. The plan was to get them out of Bohemia and lead them through neutral countries all the way to Palestine. They needed to be in excellent physical shape, but they also had to know the history of the Jews and their adversities so that they would feel a sense of pride and be keen to return to the land of their forebears.
Hirsch applied himself to the task with his customary dedication and enthusiasm for the orders he’d been given. Such was his effectiveness and charisma when it came to his charges that the leaders of the Jewish Youth Council in Prague decided to put this responsible and tenacious young man in charge of the groups of children new to the club, who were often a bit disoriented.
Fredy never forgot how difficult it was to cheer up those children. Unlike the children who had been brought up with the havlagah principle of self-restraint, whose parents had imbued them with a strong sense of Jewishness and Zionism, and who had arrived mentally prepared and bursting with enthusiasm, this other group consisted of shy, sad, and apathetic children. They weren’t interested in games or sports, and none of Fredy’s funny stories prompted a smile.
There was one twelve-year-old boy in the group called Karel who had the longest eyelashes Fredy had ever seen. And the saddest eyes. At the end of that first afternoon, when Hirsch was trying to get to know them better, he suggested that each of them say where they would like to be at that particular moment on that particular September day of 1939. Karel gravely replied that he’d like to be in heaven so he could see his parents. The Gestapo had arrested them, and his grandmother had told him he’d never see them again. Then he sat down and didn’t say another word. Some of the other boys, who had so far been very serious themselves, laughed in that typically tactless way that children have—laughing at others allowed them to cover up their own fears.
One afternoon, the vice chairman in charge of youth activities at the Jewish Council of Prague asked to see Hirsch. He grimly explained to Fredy that the Nazi grip was closing, the borders were being sealed, and it would soon be impossible to evacuate anyone from Prague. And so the first havlagah group must leave immediately, within twenty-four or forty-eight hours maximum. He asked Fredy, as their top instructor, if he would like to be the person to accompany this group.
It was the best offer Fredy had ever had. He could go with the group, leave the horrors of war behind him, and reach Palestine, as he’d always dreamed of doing. However, going would mean leaving behind the groups he’d started to instruct at Hagibor, abandoning a task he knew was critical for those boys who had been choked by the Reich’s prohibitions, hardships, and humiliations. Leaving meant abandoning Karel and the rest of them. He remembered what the JPD had meant to him in Aachen after his father died, when he felt lost. It was where he’d found his place in the world.
“Anyone else would have gone,” continues Miriam, “but Hirsch wasn’t just anybody. He stayed at Hagibor.”
Miriam and Dita sit silently as if they are weighing up the consequences of that decision. It is beyond calculation.
“After everything that’s happened … I feel guilty for doubting him.”
Miriam sighs and her breath emerges as a puff of white vapor. Just then, the curfew siren sounds, ordering everyone back to their barracks.
“Edita…”
“Yes?”
“Tomorrow you must speak to Fredy about the business with Dr. Mengele. He’ll know what to do. As far as the other matter is concerned…”
“It’s our secret.”
Miriam nods, and Dita races off so fast that she’s almost flying over the frozen mud. She still feels a sharp pain deep within her. But while it hurts to have lost her white knight, she is relieved. Hirsch is trustworthy.
13.
A few huts away, in Block 31, another conversation is taking place. Fredy Hirsch is addressing the empty stools.
“I’ve done it. I’ve done what had to be done.”
His own voice echoing in the darkness of the hut sounds strange to him.
He’s told that handsome Berliner not to return. He should feel proud of himself, happy even, because his willpower has triumphed. But he doesn’t. He’d prefer to find women attractive, but there’s something about his basic assembly. Maybe a piece that’s been put in the wrong way round, or something like that …
He walks out of the hut and sadly gazes at the landscape of mud, huts, and towers. Under the electric lights he can make out two figures standing face-to-face on either side of the fence—Alice Munk and the registrar from the quarantine camp. It must be close to freezing point outside, but they aren’t cold; or if they are, they’re sharing it, so it’s more bearable.
Maybe that’s what love is—sharing the cold.
Block 31 seems small and crowded when all the children are there, but huge and soulless when they leave.
In an effort to warm himself, he lies down on the floor of the hut, elbows pinned to his body, and starts punishing his abdominal muscles by doing scissor-kicks with his legs up in the air. Love has been a constant source of problems for Fredy since he was an adolescent. Given how disciplined he has been in everything else, he feels a deep frustration at his inability to overcome his deepest instincts.
One, two, three, four, five …
On JPD excursions, he liked to snuggle up inside his sleeping bag with the other boys, who were always happy to clown around and accepted him. After his father died, he felt so protected and comfortable with them.… There was nothing like that feeling of companionship. A soccer team wasn’t just a soccer team; it was family.