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PARTISAN REVIEW
Hungarian wife so that nobody could come looking for him and want
something. He had too many friends among the men and the women
being sent on the transport. And Commandant Rahm had insisted that
the wheel of fate turned fairly-at least in his Nazi terminology-so
that nobody would be left out from those already called up for the trans–
port. That certainly didn't have anything to do with fairness.
In
addition,
he had a special fondness for exact numbers and demanded responsibil–
ity from all the members of the Council of Elders from the first to the
last. Just like the people in Berlin kept an eye on him and the Jewish rep–
resentative in the fortress. Rabbi M. didn't intend to risk his battered
safety for even the more fragile safety of someone else. The clash of inter–
ests in two attempts for safety ended up being dangerous. He didn't care
what the office workers thought of him. What mattered to him were the
people at the SS headquarters. His life depended on them. The workers
in the office could only complicate things.
Adler didn't ask me about anything. He didn't want to go on the trans–
port by himself. He was happy that I had come in time, if pale after not hav–
ing slept, with circles under my eyes. My whole body was hurting. I didn't
even sit down. We picked up our things bound in the brown margarine
boxes and hung our transport numbers around our necks. I had number 63.
"Yeah," Adler said a little later, as if he were answering me or throwing
something back in my face . "You never did get hung up on little things."
"No," I said.
"We'd better go if we don't want to miss it," Adler said. Nothing
more. Then we went up to the train station which cut across the center
of the fortress along L Street, the longest avenue in the fortress that cut
like a knife deep into its belly and ended in a pair of silver tracks.
"You still want to make everybody happy?" Adler asked.
I had stopped talking
to
him. He hadn't even asked me if I wanted
help with my box.
"How are you feeling?" he asked finally.
"I'm fine," I answered. "How about you?"
"Good. How could I not be?"
We got in the same wagon with Viii Feld . Nobody felt like talking.
Everything that had ever happened was already over. The first thought
on everybody'S minds was where we were going and what was going to
happen. Everybody was asking themselves their most secret question:
am I going to make it like I survived the fortress or in some other camp
before Terezin?
Am
I ready to live at the suffering of somebody else,
instead of someone else, or at somebody else's expense? Am I willing to
swallow my own heart so that my legs don't shake and fall under me the
