Mendelssohn is on the Roof (21 page)

It was a small nothing in the overall economic picture of the Reich, where they squandered millions, where they destroyed, slaughtered, burned, and then plundered, amassed and used up again.

But this small nothing signified a helping hand and solidarity with all people who uphold freedom and sacrifice their lives, solidarity with the Soviet Army, which swooped down upon the half-million-strong horde of arrogant marauders with all their decorations and crosses and medals in Stalingrad and drove them out to die like rats.

This small nothing overcame Richard Reisinger’s irresoluteness. Now that he had decided to fight, he had something to sacrifice his life for.

The wood had been burned long ago, yet the trains kept arriving and leaving from the fortress town. Occasionally
Reisinger ran into the railway man who had smuggled in the wood, and some friends of his as well. They rarely had a chance to speak: either the troopers were too near or the SS men were paying too close attention.

Then one day Reisinger said to the railway man, ‘I’d like to get out of here, but I don’t know how to go about it.’ He told him he’d been thinking about it a long time, and that he hoped to climb over the battlements and walk along the highway to Prague.

The railway man knew a better and simpler way: they’d hide him in the brakeman’s hut and get him a uniform. Then he could simply leave from the station. Nobody would notice an extra railway man, because there were always so many of them hanging around. After that, Franta would take care of everything.

One day a member of the ghetto guards disappeared. They searched for him long and hard, but they didn’t find him. They tore apart the entire countryside, they asked their neighbours in the Small Fortress for help. But the trail grew cold. Nobody knew what had become of number BA 450.

In the end they dissolved the ghetto guard and sent all its members on a transport to the East. They left the
commander
of the ghetto guard in the fortress town for a while longer. Perhaps they thought they might need him again.

T
HE TRANSPORTS LEFT for the fortress town and for the East. Thousands of people went on them. Weighed down with baggage, numbers hanging from their necks, they walked through the gates of the Radio Mart and past the SS man on guard there. They were never to return. They were detained for as long as a week in makeshift huts and then they departed at night in sealed cattle trucks. Passers-by had to notice the SS man standing arrogantly on guard; they had to notice the
procession
of the condemned, burdened with bundles, wearing yellow stars.

One day the transports ceased. The supply had been used up.

In the offices of the Jewish Community new faces appeared. New workers arrived, ones whose life expectancies had been extended by the Central Bureau because they were related by marriage to people classified as Aryans.

The departing ones bore a grudge against the new arrivals: they had stolen their jobs, they believed; it was the new arrivals’ fault that they, the departing ones, were forced to go off into the unknown. Unwillingly they handed over their daily schedules of affairs, filled with petty and meaningless activities, meaningless because there was only a tiny number of people left. Yet they boasted about their work as if it were incredibly important, as if it required extreme skill and experience.

The meaningless affairs passed into new hands, and so
did the stolen property in the warehouses, where those from the Reich would come to pick out requisitioned goods. And because they also stole many other things, it sometimes happened that the warehouse manager ended up with nothing but the bill of consignment.

Of all the original workers at the Collection Agency, finally only eleven remained. These were indispensable because they helped the Central Bureau steal and store property. Among them was someone who searched for jewellery hidden in pawnshops or safes. Another was an antique dealer who specialised in paintings and knew how to estimate their value. Yet another was good at tracking down foreign currency and secret bank accounts. All eleven had become the robbers’ helpers – that was why they remained in town with their families. The twelfth was Dr Rabinovich. He had nothing to do with stolen property. He was a scholar. The head of the Central Bureau had charged him with creating a monument to the triumph of the Reich, a museum of the extinct race, and promised him the same protection as the other eleven.

Dr Rabinovich was not happy. His new co-workers didn’t care about religion and most of them didn’t even belong to a congregation. They didn’t treat the religious objects that continued to come in from out of town with respect and they considered their work in the museum to be just another job. They weren’t as zealous as their predecessors, but they conducted themselves with greater self-confidence: they weren’t afraid of him, Rabinovich. They didn’t seem impressed with the fact that the head of the Central Bureau himself often called him. Rather, they seemed to scorn his role. Their lives were secure, at least for a while, and that gave them the strength to avoid
meaningless work. They didn’t bow to him, nor did they ask him to intercede for them. Secretly they laughed at him, some of them even openly. He was unable to yell at them and threaten them with the transport as he had their predecessors. They weren’t lazy, indeed they were glad to be able to work. But they didn’t extend themselves.

He was obliged to work with these new people now. Only twelve of the original people were left, and he was one of them. They had been saved, and perhaps they would survive the war together with these new ones. The head of the Central Bureau continued to summon him to his office, but he had been in a bad mood recently. The Reich was losing on all fronts, and that equanimity he had always boasted about was beginning to go. He no longer went to the theatre wearing all his decorations. He no longer interested himself in music – indeed, lately it seemed to annoy him. He frantically devoured the various strategic studies
forecasting
staggering victories of the Reich in the nearest future, which he believed and didn’t believe. For doubts were beginning to assail him in spite of everything. He was irritable, bad-tempered and rude to his staff. The city where his mother lived hadn’t been spared the bombing after all. The old white-haired lady had not been killed, thank God, but her villa was destroyed. All the valuable keepsakes were now ashes and dust. Even that exquisite figurine of
The Judgement of Paris
fell victim to a bomb. Now there was only the one original left, in the Meissen museum.

He had never been one to drink, but now he began. He drank alone, so his staff wouldn’t see him, carefully choosing the wines and liqueurs from the warehouse. People assigned to the Jewish Community created a little hideout for him with rugs, armchairs and a special cabinet for bottles and a
radio. It was actually a nicely furnished room, though it was underground. He took refuge there, to listen to foreign broadcasts and to drink. Once drunk, he’d find a German station, turn it up to top volume, and listen to noisy patriotic songs about airmen who were always victorious, about the homeland where everything would be beautiful when the victors returned. And yet the airmen were victorious only in the patriotic songs. Bombs were falling on the homeland. The cities were piles of rubble. After these patriotic songs he would sometimes hear a cajoling, gentle voice exhorting his countrymen to hold back the savage hordes, promising that the Reich had secret weapons it would use to conquer the enemy. At those times he’d pull out his revolver and shoot wildly into the air – anything to avoid hearing that voice he knew so well. He knew that the voice came on only when it was necessary to cover up defeats.

Nevertheless, he’d appear in his office every morning in a clean uniform with decorations, clean-shaven and fresh as a daisy, or so it seemed. He’d shout at his staff, tell them to work faster. The operation in the Protectorate was almost over. There were about three thousand people left who were protected by marriage to Aryans. He hadn’t got the nod from the highest police officer of the Reich about them yet, but he had no doubt that their time would come. And finally there were these twelve here. He no longer needed them. All the Jewish property was already stolen and stored in warehouses; gaining the property of those protected by marriage was an unlikely prospect, as they had hidden it, or what remained of it, with various relatives long ago. Now he could send the twelve off to the East, while the chimneys of the crematoria were still smoking. The war might be lost, but his task in the Protectorate was virtually completed.

But he told those twelve nothing. Let them work to the last moment. Indeed, he spoke to them more kindly than he did to his own staff. He must allay their fears, lull them, until it was time to strike.

Slowly Dr Rabinovich grew reconciled to his new helpers, and grumbled at them only when he saw them handling the sacred articles as if they were ordinary goods. Even now the shipments continued to come in, to be entered in a ledger, given over to teams of skilled workers and stored in
warehouses
. The new workers soon learned the ingenious and rather simple system. But they didn’t try to work quickly. Production was decreasing, but in no way dangerously.

The head of the Central Bureau, however, seemed to be losing interest in the museum lately. Whenever
Rabinovich
tried to submit his accounts, the head of the Central Bureau just waved his hand. These days he often talked to Rabinovich about the Holy Writ, about the Talmud and the Cabala. He posed cunning questions touching on certain passages in the Talmud that might appear to be judgements against Christianity. He didn’t really care about Christianity – he had left the church long ago, as all members of the SS were ordered to do. But he liked to show off his knowledge. He took pleasure in embarrassing the ‘learned Jew’. Rabinovich answered the questions humbly and evasively – he didn’t know the purpose of the questions and whether they contained some trap for him. But the head of the Central Bureau was apparently only enjoying himself, because he dismissed Rabinovich graciously. He even patted him on the shoulder. Of course, he never offered him his hand, even when he was in a good mood.

After dismissing Rabinovich he smiled maliciously. They were ready to strike. The net was drawn so tightly that
none of the twelve suspected a thing. Otherwise those who had helped in the robbery might try to hide some secret records of the transfer of assets achieved by torture, records of the jewels and gold, of currency in the hands of those who were considering escape abroad if the Reich was possibly to collapse. But not a single trace of the thefts must remain – that was his major concern. That was why the journey of these twelve must be short and swift.

In the Rabinovich household, life proceeded as if nothing had changed, as if so many tens of thousands hadn’t gone into the unknown. Although his sons weren’t allowed to go to school, he was able to tutor them himself in the evenings. Life went on, grey and colourless. It was a waiting game, a battle against time. Few people with stars appeared on the street these days.

One evening they were sitting at the table eating potato pancakes fried in margarine and drinking rose-hip tea. Suddenly there was a loud banging at the door. That was strange. They had a doorbell, after all, and nobody came visiting at such a late hour. Rabinovich opened the door. There stood two SS men with pistols who screamed at him to pack his things, up to fifty kilograms in weight, and to be ready in precisely one hour, or else. A van would come for them and they mustn’t be one minute late. The SS men brandished their pistols and slammed the door behind them.

Rabinovich’s wife began to cry. So this was the end. What about all the promises the head of the Central Bureau had made to him? Was this his reward for faithful service? Rabinovich consoled her. They couldn’t be calling them for the transport, because they were sending a van for them. They were probably going to take them to the fortress
town, where he’d have various privileges again. The head of the Central Bureau must have decided that the
Rabinovich
family would be better off there. Who knew what bad things were about to happen in the main city? In the ghetto he would belong with the prominent ones who weren’t sent to the East.

‘How can we pack up all our things in an hour?’

Once again Rabinovich calmed her down. They could take only the most important things, in any event, so an hour would suffice. And if a van was waiting for them in front of the house they wouldn’t have to drag around their heavy baggage. All the while he suspected that a worse fate awaited them. A night summons never meant anything favourable, and the deadline of an hour meant that the SS men were in a hurry. If they were doing things quickly, that was always ominous.

But maybe they were just playing tricks. They loved the kind of trick that terrified people. And besides, the head of the Central Bureau had promised him protection. But could he believe him? Not long ago they’d suddenly arrested a certain manufacturer and inventor and sent him and his entire family away, even though he had been designated an ‘honorary Aryan’. They had emptied out his apartment with lightning swiftness that time, and the things they didn’t want they sent to the museum. He himself saw the family albums and read the letters from the new authorities with whom the family had maintained friendly contact until the last moment. But the manufacturer owned stocks, gold and jewels, and that sealed his fate. Rabinovich, however, had no assets whatsoever. There was nothing to plunder in his poor apartment.

Precisely one hour later, Rabinovich and his family walked
down the steps. The other tenants watched them through opened doors. Outside, the van was waiting, covered with a canvas roof. It looked a bit too big for his family and their baggage. The chauffeur in an SS uniform stood next to the van and motioned them to climb the plank into the back. When they got inside they saw several other people huddled there in the midst of their baggage. The van filled up as the chauffeur stopped in various streets. More and more people with baggage kept entering. When the van was filled to bursting, the chauffeur started abruptly and began to pick up speed. As the van hurtled along, the baggage bumped against the travellers and the children cried with fear.

Although it was too dark to distinguish their faces Rabinovich knew at once who they were: the very eleven who had remained after all the rest had gone. And he was the twelfth. They were all terrified and no one spoke a word. The noise of the engine would have made talking impossible in any case. He knew they were as protected as he was, but he had scorned these fellow workers because they served Mammon, because they helped track down stocks and shares, gold, jewels and valuable paintings. Now he was riding in the same vehicle with them, now he was forced to travel with them to an unknown destination.

Night had fallen by the time the van reached the station at the outskirts of town. All the transports to the fortress town as well as to the East left from this same station. Nobody knew to which trains the trucks of the transport would be attached along the way, not even the railway men. At the platform stood six SS men. As was their custom, they screamed, ‘
Los,
schnell
!’ at the people getting out of the van and pushed them along, together with the children and baggage, towards the long freight train. An
old dilapidated passenger carriage with high steps leading to it was attached to the train. They had to scramble up the steps with all their baggage, urged on by the SS men and their whips. The windows of the car were boarded up and it was dark inside. The SS men closed the door behind them and stood guard outside. A long period of waiting began. They lost track of time – perhaps it was already morning.

It wasn’t until they were inside the train that the people began to talk to one another. They complained about the broken promises of protection. They told about various big shots, generals and magistrates to whom they had delivered valuables and who had spoken to them so graciously, so cordially. They exchanged names of people from secret offices whose task had been the evacuation of Czechs. They had all been in touch with such important people. Surely these people wouldn’t abandon them after they had been provided with so many valuables, surely they would save them at the last moment; surely a fancy limousine would appear any minute now and a general would step out, all covered with medals and decorations, and say, ‘This person performed good services for the Reich. I demand that he and his entire family be released.’ The SS guards wouldn’t dare disobey such a command, for this person’s rank would be so high that even the head of the Central Bureau would be unable to stand up to him.