568
PARTISAN REVIEW
in Yiddish, "Prayer House." The big synagogue is empty and whitewashed.
Turned into a museum. Only a guard passes by like a shadow along the
walls, and two fragments of tiles from back then are embedded in the
entrance.
It's late now. I wander along the track to the cemetery. Here at least
I am sent by permission, to an address that does exist, to the graves of
the family. The gate is closed. There is no one to ask. Everything is
closed.
An evening full of mist. Suddenly the trams are hurrying. The voices
of the flower vendors in the Rynek are swallowed up in the fog. To go
to
the reserved hotel? In Krakow? Like going to a hotel in Tel Aviv instead
of returning home. The desk clerk scurries up to help: "Yes, of course,
Madam, here's the bus schedule to Auschwitz. From the town of
Oswiecim, you have to go on foot a bi t."
On the table at the entrance are old newspapers. Two elderly lady
tourists are interested in a jazz festival that may not take place.
And there, at the foot of the stairs, on the way to the room, the move–
ment that had swept me up ever since early morning stops. No, just not to
return alone to the gigantic radio in the strange room! I buttoned the coat
and went out in pursuit of a dubious rumor that was given to me.
Slawskowska Street. Maybe....
And indeed, in the dark, in Yiddish, among the artisans' signs, a small
address: "Mordechai Gvirtig Culture Club." A door at the edge of a yard. A
doorman sits at the entrance. And in the depths, in the gloom, a few frozen
figures are playing cards, gazing vacandy behind the wooden frames of news–
papers. "Israel!" the doorman sits up straight, leads me with sudden
importance to the "board" room. Five wrinkled faces rise up to me: "Israel!"
They sit me down in the middle, following my efforts in a mixture of basic
German, a few words in Yiddish, and gestures. They nod at length in deep
wonder at every word, assault one another in noisy arguments. Finally, they
answer together, in a strange chorus: "Ha! Yes, Poser's daughter! Poser and
Abeles," they nod: "Buttons, buttons!" "Yes, buttons," I affirm; "a button
factory." "The Hebrew high school," I continue. "Yes, the high school. Now
a Polish technical school." The Christian cook serves me a sandwich with
a lot of bread and a cup of tea. They dismiss her with the superiority of a
bygone age, and urge me: "Eat, eat." For a moment, they go back to their
business. The "chairman" is dictating a petition
to
the "secretary" about the
cultural situation. To whom? On behalf of whom? Still? Like those sten–
cilled pages in cellars and photographs of pale-faced choirs that were
presented every Holocaust Memorial Day in the glass cabinets of the school.
I attempt to explain; they will certainly understand that it's impossible to get
on the bus and simply ask the driver in a foreign language to tell me where
