52
PARTISAN REVIEW
ri ght-of-wa y. No time to stop, Miss Kl einweiss. My ques tion is, wha t
do you do?"
Without hesita ting, Dorka Kl einweiss responded, " Swerve over the
side."
Baggelman: "Aha ! I thought you would say tha t! Now, wha t if the
van were to be loaded with peopl e? T hen what do you say?"
Minister Mordechai Kl een : " It's a compl etely h ypo theti cal ques–
ti on ."
Parad yz: " Not h ypotheti ca l. T he driver is the Judenra t. The
loaded van is the Ghetto. T he child is the few who must go."
Gutfreind : "But we can still put on the brakes . By saying,
no."
" I have a pl an that will meet every obj ection ." It was Verbl e, of
Ho using, once again. " Miss Kl einweiss said tha t the Judenra t might
act from self-interest. T o payoff old scores, and so forth. Very well ,
then. Why don 't we pick the names compl etely by chance? Then fate
will be the guilty pa rty."
Paradyz: " It's a wonderful idea. We could put the names into a
ha t!"
Schpitalnik: " Yes, yes. We could even put our own names in . Out
of a popula tion of over a hundred thousand, the chance o f on e of us
being p icked is practicall y nil. "
Many voices spo ke together: " Yes. Do it by lo t! Wha t could be
fairer!"
But the membership of the Jewish Council h ad yet
to
h ear from
the Minister of Vital Statistics. The Hungarian removed his spectacl es,
whi ch h ad little bl ack ribbons a llached
to
the lenses, and rubbed his
eyes. He licked the whiskers nearest hi s mouth. " No," he said, " it will
not do .
If
we are going to leave the decision to blind ch ance, we might
as well allow the Death 's Headers to do it. They' ll seize whomever
des tiny puts in their way. I have been thinking and thinking. Why does
the Conqueror wish us to become hi s accomp lices in thi s matter? Why
doesn ' t he simpl y take the farmers himself?
It
can onl y be because he is
going to commit a crime so big tha t even he dares n ot do it alone. Wha t
could such a crime be? I have no t thought so far. I onl y know if I were
one of the Others the thing I would want most is for the Jews to do it
for me. And the thing I would want least is for the Jews
to
resist.
Judenrat members, here's my advice. Let's set a fire, a bi g o ne, and
order everyone to break through the walls, to swim over the river.
Run !
That is wha t we should tell our peopl e.
Run! R un! R un !"
"Be qui et, sir !"
"Wha t is he saying?"
