Measure of a Man (2 page)

My grandfather was brave. Once, a band of robbers had been preying on our village. When my grandfather was crossing a
bridge, one of the robbers attacked him. Grandfather wrestled the man to the ground, clamped his teeth down on the robber’s finger, and bit it off. He wanted them to know not to attack our family or village.

But in Mukačevo, Abraham’s courage was useless against the Germans. Seeing him pinned to the ground, humiliated, the Gestapo crawling all over him and mocking his faith, I realized that my grandfather’s might was no match for the force we were about to face. It was also my first of many lessons in religious hate. I could not understand the Nazi attitude. I still don’t. Killing people because of their religion? It made no sense to me. When people don’t think for themselves, horrible things happen. This I know.

Because my father was a ghetto leader, our family was put on the very last transport from Mukačevo to Auschwitz. We were not told where we were headed. I remember standing still and quiet inside the cattle car, my brother’s small hand wrapped tight inside mine. We arrived in Auschwitz at night. The train creaked to a slow stop. We waited for the door to fling open, but it didn’t. The people inside craned to look through the opening in the car. Hours passed. Left overnight, the occupants were forced to relieve themselves inside the cattle car. My family huddled together to stay warm and calm.

The next morning, rays from the sun pierced our car and warmed our bodies. Sunlight flooded our enclosure as the door unlatched and opened. I remember thinking at that moment that nothing bad could happen on a day as beautiful as this. My youthful optimism was unprepared for the reality we were about to step into.

We hopped down from our car, and gaunt, sullen prisoners hustled us away.

“Out! Out! Hurry! Hurry!” yelled the inmates.

We were told to leave behind our bags and any items of worth we brought and to join the herd ambling toward the gates. It was larceny on the grandest of scales. In an instant the Germans seized generations’ worth of toil and striving. Although we didn’t realize it then, Hitler’s mass-killing machine had been designed for ruthless efficiency, extracting every ounce of value from every possession confiscated. Prisoners with gold fillings had their teeth yanked and put in buckets of acid to burn away the dross of skin and bone; the hair shorn from our heads was used to make delayed-action bombs—nothing wasted, everything exploited.

Standing there, shuffling forward, robbery was now the least of our worries. I was too short to see over the adults. But as we got closer to the front of the line, I could make out Mengele. He did not look like the monster he was. He was handsome, even.

With just a few families now in front of us, I did not know what to do or expect. Finally, it was our family’s turn. Mother clasped Rivka’s hand and held my baby brother tight in her other arm. Mengele stood before us, quiet and calm. He looked us down and up before silently motioning for Mother to put my brother down. Mengele wanted to send Mother to the right and Sruel Baer to the left. But Mother would not let go of my brother; she clenched him closer. This time Mengele commanded she let go. Mother refused. So, with a flippant shrug of his shoulders, Mengele pointed for Mother, my baby brother, my younger sister Rivka, and my grandparents to all go to the left. To avoid panic or an uprising, the
Germans calmly told us the separation would merely be temporary, that we would see one another and be reunited later inside.

We wouldn’t.

“See you later,” my mother said looking back at us over her shoulder.

“See you later,” I said waving.

I did not know it then, but with a flick of his baton, Mengele had sealed our family’s fate. That moment, standing there in the Auschwitz selection line, was the last time I ever saw my mother; my baby brother, Sruel Baer; or Rivka.

Mengele ordered Father, Simcha, and me to go to the right. I was glad we had Simcha with us. That is, until the men and women on the right were separated and Simcha was taken away from Dad and me. For the longest time, I could never understand why Mengele did not send her to the left to be burned. Now, however, I think I know the answer, and it haunts me: Simcha was a tall, beautiful girl with silky blond hair—one of Mengele’s genetic obsessions. Inside the camp I heard stories about the things the Germans liked to do to young, pretty Jewish girls. But no brother can let such thoughts linger too long, so I hoped it was only a rumor.

With Simcha gone, it was just Dad and me. The men and boys were then taken to an area where we were told to strip naked. Our shoes and clothes were seized. They then shaved our heads and bodies before splashing a disinfectant on us that burned like hell.

I’m not certain, but I do not think my father wanted the Germans to know we were father and son. We did, however, stand together in the tattoo line. That is why the serial numbers put into
our arms were in order. My father’s was “A4405.” Mine was “A4406.” The “A” meant Auschwitz.

At least Dad and I are still together
, I remember thinking.
At least Brother and Sister are with Mother, Grandfather, and Grandmother
.

But those thoughts ended as quickly as they began.

A few hours later, in a quiet moment, my father pulled me close and whispered.

“I’m going to talk to you very seriously,” he said. “Together, we will never survive, because working together we will suffer one for the other. We will suffer double. We must separate.”

“No!” I cried. “You cannot leave me!”

“You must listen!” he said sternly. “It is the only way.”

I shook my head
no
as if to shake away his words. The thought of his leaving me made me dizzy. It was a level of panic only a child on the edge of abandonment can feel.

“On your own, you will survive,” he said. “You are young and strong, and I know you will survive. If you survive by yourself, you must honor us by living, by not feeling sorry for us. That is what you must do.”

Today I am grateful for those words. They echo in my heart even still. It is a cruel thing, feeling guilty for surviving. But my father erased any future guilt and replaced it with purpose. It was a gift only a father’s wisdom could give. It gave me a reason to go forward, a reason to be. It does still.

But back then I was just a stubborn teenage boy, so I argued. A lot. Still, Dad would not give in. His mind was made up, his words rehearsed. Soon, very quickly, a flood of anger filled me,
because boys do not know any other way to show sadness to their father. I knew he loved me, but I could not understand. That night, lying in the dark, his decision went through my heart like a spear.
How could he do this?
I thought.
How could he leave me alone in the world? In this hell?

The next morning, the Germans gave us our work orders. It was our second day in the camp. The soldiers asked if we knew any trades, like masonry, carpentry, medicine—that kind of thing. I was not listening so well because I was still hurting about my father’s decision to split us up. But the next thing I knew, Dad grabbed my wrist and thrust it into the air.

“A4406,” he said. “He is a mechanic. Very skilled.”

Dad was not lying. I was always good with my hands and had worked a few years in a mechanic’s garage in Hungary. Here is how that happened. When I was about twelve years old, the Germans had begun occupying some of the towns surrounding ours. Closer and closer they came. Stories began to spread about Jewish boys being taken and forced to work in German labor camps. So my father decided to send me away to Hungary to live with his cousin in Budapest. I begged my father to let my older friend Yitzhak Mermelstein come with me. Yitzhak was poor, so my father agreed to cover the cost of his train ticket.

When my father’s cousin arrived at the train station in Budapest, I could instantly tell things were not going to work out. I spoke Hungarian poorly, and my father’s cousin seemed annoyed with having two teenage boys intrude on his family’s lovely apartment. When it came time for dinner, Yitzhak and I were put in the
kitchen at the maid’s table. I was too headstrong to handle such rudeness. That night, speaking in Yiddish, I told Yitzhak not to unpack.

“Tonight we run away,” I said.

“Where will we go?” he asked.

“What does it matter?” I said. “We cannot stay here. We will leave tonight and find a place to stay. In the morning we will find jobs. We will be okay.”

There was a nervousness in Yitzhak. His eyes always seemed on the verge of tears, and for that reason I think he found comfort in my unearned confidence.

That night we sneaked out. No note; we just left.

Yitzhak and I roamed through the night not knowing the city or the language. It was foolish and dangerous, but what did we know? We were kids. We wandered the streets for over an hour before spotting a small building bathed in a shimmering red light. We walked toward it. Standing at the door I could see Yitzhak’s hands trembling, so I did the knocking. The door was whisked open, and a beautiful older girl answered. She could tell we were too young to understand what this place was, or what she and the other girls inside did for a living: we were kids, not customers. She welcomed us in and asked if we were lost or in trouble. She was kind and sweet, like an older sister. The clacking sound of high heels descending the stairs filled the room as another beautiful, kind girl in a flowing dress swished down and joined us. That night the pretty girls let us stay in an extra room. The next morning they introduced us to men who were oddly eager to please the girls by offering us jobs.

My job was working as a grease monkey repairing cars. Yitzhak did carpentry and small home repairs. Given our youthful innocence and
naïveté
, it took us a few days to understand that our new “sisters” were prostitutes and that our “apartment” was actually a whorehouse. But it mattered little. The girls were so nice and nurturing. They helped Yitzhak and me with our Hungarian, bought us sodas and ice cream, and took us to the beach on Sundays.

For the next three years, we lived with our surrogate sisters and made enough money to feed ourselves and earn our keep in the brothel. Life was good. Even though the Jews in Budapest were required to wear large yellow Stars of David, no one knew us, so we never wore them. Still, I wondered if the same could be said for my family back home. Each week I wrote letters to Mother and Father. I told them that Yitzhak and I had moved, but I didn’t exactly tell them we were living with courtesans.

Then one day while fixing a car motor, my right hand got caught and mangled. One of our sisters rushed me to the hospital. There, I decided to write my parents a letter. Not to tell them what happened or where I was, just to keep up my correspondence. My injury meant I could not write. I showed one of my sisters a letter I had written and asked her to mimic my handwriting. She took down my message and mailed the letter from the hospital.

The instant my father saw the unfamiliar handwriting, he knew something was wrong. He hopped on a train and tracked me down at the hospital. The worst part was that he had already
gone to the brothel using the return address from my letters. Someone there told him I had gotten my hand caught in a motor and was at the hospital.

Standing there, silent and stern, my father did not speak to me. He did not need to. His gaze cast more shame upon me than his words ever could. I wanted him to know the girls were like our sisters, loving and kind and helping us so much. But we never spoke of it. Instead, he took me home.

When we got back to Pavlovo, my five-year-old baby brother was hanging on me as if I were a hero. I’d been away for over half his life and hardly knew him. I had lost touch with home.

The next morning, my father explained that Jewish boys and men in nearby towns were being rounded up and taken. He and my godfather decided we should run and hide deep in the woods. I had just spent years in Budapest living a carefree life without restrictions, without fears. Now, just hours after coming home, my father was packing me up, arming me with a handgun, and taking me out in the field to practice shooting.

“I’m not going!” I said.

“Yes, you must!” Father yelled.

“I will never do that! Whatever happens to you, I want it to happen to me. You separated me from you in Budapest. I’m not going!”

“Hush! You don’t understand the danger. You will obey me!”

“I will not! Not unless you go with me,” I said.

I loved my father. I had missed him terribly while I was away. What was the point of being back in Pavlovo if I had to hide in the forest like some wounded animal?

The Nazis made the decision for us. The next day, the Germans and Hungarians surrounded our home and took us away.