Four Scraps of Bread (4 page)

She welcomed us with a tight grimace. Here were five young girls upsetting her peace. She was living in the basement of her large two-story home with a colony of lazy, ugly cats.

She took us around the building. We were dazzled. A real interior, full of furniture. In the bedrooms there was a bed … Seeing these familiar objects, whose very existence I had forgotten, was an emotional experience. The wooden plank of yesterday was now a too-soft bed.

The group of huts in the camp had now transformed into a real house.

The strip of barbed wire was now a garden in bloom.

Could it all be real? Or was it, too, a trap?

I needed time to understand.

It took me several weeks to rediscover the joy of a soft bed.

We swallowed entire loaves with omelets made from powdered egg.

This dreamlike sensation of no longer being on rations was intoxicating and almost made us ill.

Little by little we realized that we were in possession of ourselves, to do as we wished, freely.

This freedom, once acknowledged, was heavy with promise and anxiety.

My body was satisfied, but the soul that dwelt within was aching and sick.

Where should I look? How could I find the cure for the sickness of living?

The sight of a copulating couple in Auschwitz, the discarded woman blue and trembling, kept me at a safe distance from the American soldiers at whom some of my fellow prisoners were throwing themselves.

The soldiers were quite plump. They sparkled with medals and carelessness.

They were plucking low-hanging fruit without asking questions.

No, for me, that was not freedom.

T
HE
S
MILE

Crushed by loneliness, I roamed around the sun-filled countryside. Life was weighing on me. The respite organized by the welcome committees would be over by the end of August 1945. What would I do? What would I choose? To whom or to what would I turn? I was only alive in my own eyes. For others, who was I?

I had the choice between two solutions: end it all, or carry on. But not at any price. My legs kept me moving, but I could not see anything. A silent war was raging inside me. It made the pendulum of my decision swing wildly.

A couple found me. I did not see them coming. There they were in front of me: too late to run away. I was fascinated by the lady's smile. Its kindness woke me up to life, but at the same time dragged me into an incomprehensible, troubling world. I was paralyzed by my inability to communicate. All we had were gestures and the warmth of our voices, then the uneasiness of an awkward silence.

I was anxious to get away and reconnect with the me that definitely existed, cast to the winds. These new friends picked up on this and left me alone in the middle of this crossroads of a thousand paths.

This chance meeting later became the live wire that led to a new beginning. I did a lot of acrobatics on this wire, but I have never forgotten the warmth and the kindness of that first smile.

I chose the path that was lit up by this chance smile. It was full of brambles on which I was often hurt, but the sun came out at the right moments. By now love has begun to heal my wounds, which have become openings onto the paths of friendship.

T
O
D
IE

This blessed life would have let go of me

If I had allowed it

It was easy

A dizzy flash

The fleeting joy of a moment

But Spring was making noise

In my young, wounded memory

And I could hear it

Beyond the barbed wire

T
HE
S
UITCASE
F
ULL OF
H
OLES

In September 1945 I reentered life with a suitcase full of holes. Instead of clothes it was stuffed with hopes, dreams, and also fears.

Feeling ill at ease, as if I were wearing tight clothes, I knocked at the door of the woman with the smile. She took me in as a housekeeper and cook. I didn't know how to do anything. There was so much to learn all at once! The woman with the smile soon realized this, and I could often read the annoyance in her eyes. It took so little to build up my courage, but the slightest thing could destroy it.

I could speak fluently with my eyes and hands. I could read people's looks; a sixth sense was my antenna. The only word I knew in her language was “tremendous.” What a big word in the mouth of a girl who knew nothing!

I was no good at housekeeping, but I loved to cook. My cooking was emotional. For a smile I would invent unusual, sweet mixes which surprised the palates in my household.

After a few weeks the woman with the smile told me she was leaving for America. In that one moment my enthusiasm for cooking died, and my life was empty once again.

A gentleman who was very aware of his own importance needed some help while waiting for his family to return. I went to his house with my suitcase now full of dashed hopes. But I was unmoved by working for this man with spindly fingers who would think nothing of pulling out the soft white heart of a bread roll and abandoning it on his plate. He, for his part, did not care for my inventions, and so we parted company without regrets.

Once again I set off with my suitcase with holes in it, full of clothes, a few fewer dreams, a few more disappointments and fears. But I still wanted to hope and to be useful.

It took me thirty years to decide to write this book.

These few pages were born of a dark past that the love of my husband, the wished-for, unexpected, demanding arrival of our four children, and my friendships, have allowed me to accept. I also found inspiration in the acts of my parents, and in those of my fellow prisoners with whom I spent a year: their words and their silences became a reason for me to live so that I could bear witness, and hope. There is a mystery in encounters: its light has borne me along, and several times gave me back my life.

Today,
⁹
I know with certainty that the creative love of my husband—my friend—has brought me peace because he was able to believe in me. For twenty-one years, with the joys and difficulties of each day—but with passion—we have continued to reinvent love.

His family has become mine too. Without knowing me, his parents were able to tell him, “If you have chosen her, she must be good.” Their trust has warmed my heart and helped me on the road to reconciliation.

Loyalty; the woman with the smile whom I met at a time of loneliness, and her commitment despite time and challenges; the thousand miracles of friendship: these have allowed me to reread my past with a look of hope, and to plunge into life with faith and enthusiasm. I believe in love. It sets life ablaze all around it.

FROM DARKNESS TO JOY

“
I was naked and you clothed me
.”

—Matthew 25:36

“
Forgiveness does not erase what has been, but conserves the forgiven past through the eyes of purification
.”

—Emmanuel Levinas

“
God, You can do nothing for us. It is up to us to help You
.”

—Etty Hillesum

T
HE
M
EANING OF
M
Y
L
IFE

In Birkenau a dying woman gestured to me: as she opened her hand to reveal four scraps of moldy bread, she said to me in a barely audible voice, “Take it. You are young. You must live to be a witness to what is happening here. You must tell people so that this never happens again in the world.” I took those four scraps of bread and ate them in front of her. In her look I read both kindness and release. I was very young and did not understand what this act meant, nor the responsibility that it represented.

I forgot about this episode for a long time.

In 1978 Darquier de Pellepoix
¹⁰
said, “Only lice were gassed in Auschwitz.” I was outraged by the depravity of his words, which brought back the memory of that woman's act. I saw her face again. I could not be silent any longer.

Speaking up is a difficult thing for me, but I cannot shy away. It is not a duty of remembering that I am obeying, but rather a loyalty to the memory of those women and men who disappeared in front of my eyes.

I was sixteen when I was deported. Of all the Hungarian Jews, I was one of the very few to come back.

I was saved.

I am alive.

I said yes to my life.

It is clear to me that I had to transform the memory of death into a call to life. I have realized that peace is possible only if each one of us discovers—or rediscovers—the unique flavor of our life.

I am gently turning the pages of my life. Some pages are blank, some are yellowing, some erased, and others are silently awaiting revelation.

Tomorrow is in my hands.

My memory had been frozen.

Thanks to a lot of work within myself, it has slowly begun to thaw out.

The bright colors of autumn are now illuminating my days.

T
HE
L
AST
M
INUTE

How can one make a place of death like Auschwitz a place that speaks to the future?

Will those whose desire to live made them cry out until the last minute be heard forever?

It pains me when people say that my brothers and sisters went into the gas chambers “like silent lambs” when in fact I can still hear them praying, imploring the Almighty until the last minute.

That last minute: when they were still hopeful for life.

Surely those who have gone before are inviting us today to learn a lesson of peace from such brutality so that a better tomorrow will shine on our lives and on those of coming generations?

I would like it if this memory that is stamped on my heart could inspire the strength to live and act so that “never again” becomes a reality.

God speaks in us and through us.

He asked Adam, “Where are you? Where have you gone?”

He asked Cain, “What did you do with your brother?”

These two questions from the Almighty dominate and drive my existence.

H
UNGARY

For a long time my memories of childhood and adolescence were as dark as the silence of adults. My Hungarian wound was so painful that I had locked away my memories. I even forgot my mother tongue.

Today I feel open to reconnecting with my Hungarian past.

The strength came to me through the constant, sensitive help of my daughter, Anne, and through inner silence. I went back to Hungary with Anne and was able to soothe the resentment that had held me prisoner against the people of that country. More than 437,000 Jews were deported in just three months starting in April 1944.

How could the book of my memories take shape without a chapter on my Hungarian wound? If I had not reached inner peace, I could not have felt free enough to write myself into my own story.

To go through this has taken great humility, and time spent with the infinite.

From my open wounds I have tried to make life grow. Have I succeeded?

Familiarity is the veil that separates me from the child that I was.

All that I have left from my childhood is snapshots. Little things leap like sparks from deep in my laboratory.

I can see a yellow house with a canopy under which I lapped up the miles on my scooter. We had a large garden with trees, which I would climb to take refuge when I was angry. I used to sing at the top of my lungs as I swung my feet and cast a bitter eye over the whole of the earth. I also liked to get things straight in my head, with my pockets stuffed full of paper so that I could write down what I was thinking.

I was a difficult child, especially after my sister, Irene, was born. Her arrival was altogether too important to my mother, I thought. There were four years between us, and I resented everyone for the shadow that she cast over me.

I must have been fourteen when my father was sent for forced labor because he was Jewish. We had no idea where he was. I did not understand his long absences. One time he came back home weakened, beaten down, impossible to reach. We didn't dare ask questions. We were living in a state of absolute terror. Fear reduced me to silence and made me lose touch with reality.

Fear steadily began to take hold, and Hungarian Jews faced ever more humiliations. We were barred from school. I could not understand such injustice. It was a terrible shock: for me, life had stopped.

My mother bore everything on her shoulders. She confronted daily difficulties in silence. To help her, my little sister and I would play on the violin a piece of music that she would often sing. The look on her face encouraged us despite the wrong notes. I admired her calmness and her great, soothing blue eyes.

I also remember that on Good Friday in the village where I was born, we would barricade ourselves in our home. On that day Christians going to pray in the church would use their crosses to hit us in the street and would break window panes in our houses. The villagers would hound our small community because they believed we were guilty of killing Jesus. I was frozen with fear.

I snuffed out my memory in order to survive. Only with time, and a slowly rediscovered trust in life itself, did I learn how to loosen my knotted-up voice.

My knapsack is full of words which have not yet come into the world.

C
RISIS

My life stopped when I was sixteen, at the height of my adolescent rage, the height of my rage toward my parents. At Auschwitz I left my mother and sister without a look or a gesture, and when I wondered where they were a Polish commandant casually said, “Look at the flames rising from the smokestack. They are all in there.” My life stopped once again.

I was paralyzed by the horror of that scene, by remorse for not having been able to say goodbye to my loved ones, or ask their forgiveness. I let myself sink into the depths of grief, into infinite despair. If I had not immediately stifled this hopelessness I think I would have gone mad.

Remorse continued to eat away at me when I came back from the camps: remorse for being alive, me. Why not the others? They were a thousand times more worthy than me. What would I do with myself now? Crushed by a feeling of uselessness, incompetence, loneliness, guilt, I lost interest in my life. Fear overtook me again. I became Fear. It made me to want to end it all. An unexpected smile saved me from the brink. Blessed be that smile! But I could not stop blaming myself.