A Brief Stop On the Road From Auschwitz (37 page)
Read A Brief Stop On the Road From Auschwitz Online
Authors: Goran Rosenberg
I don’t want to bore anyone with this business either, so I won’t reproduce what Dr. Paul Lindner says about your condition in his certificate, Ärztliches Zeugnis, of May 21, 1959, except for the last sentence: “Since liberation, his working capacity has been permanently reduced by 60%.”
Er ist dauernd, seit der Befreiung, 60% arbeistsunfähig
.
I have no idea how Dr. Lindner arrives at the figure of 60%, but it’s undeniably not the same as 0%. Dr. Lindner refers you to Dr. E. Goldkuhl, who’s the senior consultant at the Långbro mental hospital in Stockholm, and who arrives at the same conclusion in a certificate dated June 13, 1959: “In my opinion, Mr. Rosenberg’s working capacity is to be considered reduced by 60% as a result of chronic psychoneurosis.”
On February 5, 1960, a consultant and specialist in mental health, Dr. Harald Rabe, certifies that since December 11, 1959, you’ve been on sick leave, “being entirely unfit for work as a
result of mental depression.” Dr. Rabe also identifies a clear causal link between “the experiences in the years 1939–45 and the nervous illness.”
On March 3, 1960, another certificate from Dr. Lindner, an Ärztlicher Bericht.
On March 9, 1960, another certificate from Dr. E. Goldkuhl.
They all assert the same thing, time after time: You’re ill as a result of the persecution, and as a result of the illness your capacity for work has been reduced by at least 60%.
On February 10, 1960, your reparations claim is examined by another German-appointed
Vertrauensarzt
, Dr. Herbert Lebram, who makes yet another decision on your case:
In the processing of this case, there is a complete divergence of opinions between the previous medical examiner and the psychiatric specialists consulted, showing how difficult it is to judge afflictions largely manifesting themselves subjectively [
wie schwer eine gerechte Stellung bei derartigen hauptsächlich subjektiv manifestierte Leiden einzunehmen ist
]. From the information provided by the claimant, it is not possible to prove anything with certainty, particularly as the claimant—possibly because of mistrust—proved unwilling or unable to establish closer contact with my examining colleague. Since no damage resulting from persecution—lasting deterioration as a result of constitutionally determined psychoneurosis—can be proved with certainty, I judge the claimant’s working capacity to be reduced by 25% up to 1955, and subsequently by 20%.
It’s not clear how Dr. Lebram, in February 1960, can judge that your condition improves by five percentage points from 1955 to 1956. From the start of 1956, at any event, he judges you to be precisely as well as is required to absolve Germany from its
obligation to compensate you for lasting damage and injury as a result of Auschwitz, etc.
On November 4, 1959, you break free of the factory’s gravitational pull and find yourself traveling in untrodden forest. You’re not going to sell Japanese cameras under the brand name of Taron but imported costume jewelry from somewhere or other, I’m hazy on the exact details. I hear the phrase “costume jewelry” mentioned a few times but take little notice and only much later understand what it means. Costume jewelry is a fancy name for cheap baubles or trinkets. You, who can’t sell a hand-soldered luggage rack of the finest quality, who actually can’t sell anything particularly well when I come to think of it, are to travel around Sweden in your black Volkswagen Beetle selling costume jewelry to local jewelers’ shops, or to whatever sort of shops it is that stock costume jewelry.
It’s not your idea, of course, any more than the Japanese cameras are.
Your increasingly fixed idea is to get away from the factory at pretty much any cost.
The costume jewelry is the Rosenblum brothers’ idea.
You know the Rosenblum brothers from the aliens’ camp in Öreryd.
It strikes me that you go back to Öreryd in order to go forward.
It strikes me that nowhere in the little town with the big truck factory is there anyone with the sense to harness your burning ambitions and give them the extra thrust they need to reach
a proper launch speed, one that will make the horizon open and turn surviving into living.
I don’t know much about Mordka and Zalman Rosenblum’s road to Sweden. What I do know is that they’re transferred together with you and Natek from the quarantine camp in Lund to the aliens’ camp in Öreryd and from there to the aliens’ camp in Tappudden-Furudal, and that from there your roads separate. I don’t know when the Rosenblum brothers break free from their factories and start their wholesale business in costume jewelry.
Because that’s how it is, most survivors have a factory to adapt to or break free from, since factory work is what the survivors are largely considered suitable for. The factories undoubtedly also need punch-card operators and machine engineers and people who can construct ingenious luggage racks or whatever, but those aren’t horizons that open up so readily to people like you. The horizon that most readily opens is an enterprise of some kind, a tobacconist’s, a tailor’s, a cake shop and cafe, an import company, a wholesale business, or even a factory of one’s own. You undeniably try to go that road yourself, and setting your aims very high, as I see it, going for a factory of your own, just like Grandfather, and a house of your own as well, just as in Łódź, but for some reason you lose heart and momentum. Some might say that you aim too high, that a factory and a house of your own aren’t for people like you, but I’d say that you’re simply too alone in a too-small town with a too-big truck factory.
Too alone by far to move on by yourself.
The only Rosenblum brother I remember is Zalman. Zalman is the name I find on the Öreryd and Tappudden transport lists, but Zygmunt is the name I remember. Uncle Zygmunt. In the world after Öreryd, it’s spelled Sigmund or Sigismund, just as Rosenblum is spelled with an
s
instead of a
z
. Uncle Zygmunt is
almost fifteen years older than you, wears thin-rimmed glasses, and looks more like a schoolteacher than a traveling salesman in costume jewelry, and I remember him not only for what happens next but also for the fact that he actually looks at me and talks to me. I don’t think it’s primarily for your talents as a salesman that you’re offered the opportunity to take over Uncle Zygmunt’s sales district in southern and western Sweden. I think it’s because Uncle Zygmunt sees and understands more than most people.
What happens next is that Uncle Zygmunt is killed in a car accident.
This happens during your first week as a traveling salesman in costume jewelry. You get home late Friday night, and I can’t get to sleep until you’re back, and by Saturday morning Uncle Zygmunt is dead. The telephone rings and you answer and I realize something terrible has happened.
Much later, I realize that this is the morning you give up. You’ve left the factory for untrodden forest and you’re all too alone again and darkness is falling. Sheer momentum keeps you traveling for a few more weeks, and I find it hard to get to sleep in the evenings and dream of your little Beetle being crushed beneath a huge semitrailer truck, just like Uncle Zygmunt’s Volvo in the glossy photo in the brown envelope on the chest of drawers in the hall.
On December 15, 1959, you’re unquestionably home again, writing a letter to Natek about what has happened. You wait four weeks before you tell him, and when you finally do your tone is neutral, almost unconcerned, and has an obviously false ring to it. “Everything will sort itself out, health permitting,” you write in Swedish, and continuing in Polish, you say that “all is fine at home.” About me you write that I’m “still a comfort and
delight, thank heavens.” About Lilian you write that she’s “coming on wonderfully, thank heavens.” About yourself you say almost nothing. You merely write that you’re back home and will consider your future once the weekend is over.
On January 13, 1960, another letter to Natek. You’re still considering what to do next: “I’m at home for now, and haven’t looked for any other work but am taking a little rest.… Göran and Lilian are hale and hearty, thank heavens.”
Doesn’t anybody notice how ill you are?
I don’t.
The international news roundup in the local paper, January 9, 1960: “Several ugly instances of anti-Semitism have been reported in recent weeks, not only in West Germany but also in England and Holland.”
The front page of the local paper the same day:
In protest against anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi incidents, a torchlight procession held in West Berlin on Friday evening attracted tens of thousands of young people.… Large white banners carried at the head of the procession bore slogans such as “Against Racial Hatred,” “Against anti-Semitism,” and “No Nazis at our University.”
The first page of the local paper on January 27, 1960:
A more thorough education about the true nature of Nazism and the methods of anti-Semitism have been demanded by young people at Sweden’s schools, represented by eight pupil organizations due to present their demands on Thursday to the Minister of Education and Ecclesiastical Affairs.… [A working group from these
organizations] has carried out a survey of modern school textbooks and found coverage of the political history of the 1930s and 40s to be totally inadequate.
The front page of the local paper on March 2, 1960: “The well-oiled training machine at Scania Vabis. Every employee will get an opportunity to improve at his trade.”
The local paper’s cinema advertisements on April 25, 1960: “Eagerly anticipated Paramount premiere. Danny Kaye and Louis Armstrong in
The Five Pennies
. Captivating tunes. Inspiring rhythms. Laughter galore.”
Patient record no. 200/60, opened on April 26, 1960: “[The patient] has been in a progressively depressed state. Adm. [admitted] 4/20 u.d. [under the diagnosis of] Neurosis to Ulvsunda nursing home. Scarcely admitted before attempting to drown himself. Taken to the general hospital and revived following tracheotomy and respirator treatm.”
Letter from Mom to Uncle Natek on April 29, 1960:
I’ve thought of writing to you many times, but felt I had no right to worry you. But now David has written to you himself about his mental breakdown after so many failed attempts to tear himself away from the factory. After Rosenblum’s accident his nerves went to pieces and he fell into a depression. He stopped sleeping at night, the pills didn’t work any longer, and he was
signed off sick
[in Swedish] for a while. To get over his anxiety he wanted to start work again at any cost, even if it was only temporary because of his other plans. So he went back to Scania-Vabis even though it was like facing his own death sentence and the whole experience triggered a reaction in him that I could never in my life have foreseen. He completely lost all his self-confidence and the usual medical care could do nothing for him anymore. God knows that it
is with a heavy heart I share this with you, and perhaps I ought not to, but you are his only brother. So David was admitted to hospital for treatment on 4/19, and on 4/20 when I went over to visit him (David’s alive and will get better) I couldn’t find him, because he was in a serious condition after an unsuccessful suicide attempt. He had thrown himself in the water. The staff realized and got him out after 15 minutes. But he’d swallowed an awful lot of dirty water. It took him 12 hours to come around and he was in critical condition. They kept him on a respirator for 3 days, which was one of the things that saved his life. His physical condition soon started improving, but the anxiety stayed for a long time. David’s now in the general hospital but as soon as his physical health is restored they’ll move him to a psychiatric hospital. He’s probably going to have what they call electric shock treatment, which we hope will have positive results. The children know nothing about this and neither do any of our close acquaintances. This is for David’s sake. This is harder for me than anything in my life before, but with the way things are, I have to stay strong if I’m not to break down.
Whom do I see
The Five Pennies
with, if not you? I remember it was with you, even if, much later, I realize it can’t have been.