The Fighter Read online

  THE FIGHTER

  JEAN-JACQUES GREIF

  Contents

  Chapter 1 1918. In Praga, a suburb of Warsaw

  Chapter 2 Poles have a sixth sense

  Chapter 3 Only a revolution…

  Chapter 4 My mother becomes the courtyard’s queen

  Chapter 5 Here, nobody guesses we’re Jewish

  Chapter 6 She speaks French like a real Parisian girl

  Chapter 7 The Germans pound the streets of Paris with their heavy boots

  Chapter 8 A small town named Pithiviers

  Chapter 9 These cars usually carry cattle

  Chapter 10 Did you see the name on the signs? Auschwitz

  Chapter 11 It seems to me he is heavier than a living man

  Chapter 12 I am not allowed to hit a German

  Chapter 13 Who is this stranger who saves my life?

  Chapter 14 Little Rosenberg wants to show he’s the best

  Chapter 15 I’ll tell the kapo you studied electricity

  Chapter 16 We perceive shreds of screams, carried by the wind’s uneven breath

  Chapter 17 Something must turn up before tomorrow

  Chapter 18 I am not strong enough to vanquish the Polish blizzard

  Chapter 19 There’s no patrol in front of the fence

  Chapter 20 An elevator that falls a thousand feet down

  Chapter 21 I swallow six eggs with their shells

  Chapter 22 The cooks get used to me

  Chapter 23 The Red Army is trouncing the Germans

  Chapter 24 Your son is the same age as my daughter

  Chapter 25 Herr Remmele is a boxing fan

  Chapter 26 We pass the camp gate in the middle of the afternoon

  Chapter 27 When I say hi to these Germans, they don’t answer

  Chapter 28 What do they want? Tell me, Wisniak….

  Chapter 29 They say “ghetto”

  Chapter 30 On May 8, 1945, we hear that the war is over

  Chapter 31 Hitler didn’t kill everybody

  Author’s Note

  Footnotes

  To Maurice Garbarz

  Chapter 1

  1918. In Praga, a suburb of Warsaw

  “Come, Moshe,” my mother says. “In this new Poland, children have to be registered.”

  When I was born, the czar still reigned over the great Russian empire and Poland was a mere trinket hanging from his belt. He had so many subjects that nobody ever tried to count them. He didn’t even ask them to register their children. Or, at least, he didn’t ask my mother.

  At the end of the First World War, the czar of Russia tumbled down from his throne. His army of Cossacks left Warsaw. Poland became an independent country.

  We walk to the town hall in Praga, our Warsaw suburb.

  “How many children?” the man in the office asks.

  “What you say?”

  “How many? Your children, lady!”

  “Four children.”

  She finds him hard to understand. Before the war, the government people spoke Russian. Now it’s Polish. Why don’t they ever speak Yiddish, the language of the Jews?

  “How old are they?”

  “Schmiel Yankl, my first, he more than ten, sir.”

  “More than ten years old?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Okay, let’s say eleven. I’ll register him as Schmiel Yankl Wisniak, born in 1907. Next one?”

  “My daughter, Pola Kailé, she younger.”

  “Of course. If he is your eldest. When was she born?”

  “Schmiel, he walked already.”

  “Let’s say he was two. Pola Kailé Wisniak, born in 1909.”

  “Then Anschel Leib come.”

  “Did the daughter walk already?”

  “Hmm … Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll write down Anschel Leib Wisniak, born in 1911. Is that all?”

  “Also my last one, Moshe Azik.”

  “Two years later?”

  “No, sir. He young…”

  “Your youngest, I understand. All right: Moshe Azik Wisniak, born in 1913.”

  This is the date written on my birth certificate and all my other papers, but my mother is quite sure I was born on January 17, 1915. Who can know better than she? There was a great flu epidemic. My father died a few weeks after my birth.

  Before my father’s death, we were poor already. Afterward, we became even poorer. My mother sews day and night near the window or under the light of the oil lamp. She is known as Myriam the Seamstress. Her customers can barely pay her. When I was a baby, as she didn’t eat enough, her milk was too watery to nourish me. I was very small. My legs were so thin and crooked that I couldn’t stand up. I sat on the floor all day. I moved, though: I glided around as fast as a stone on a frozen lake. Soon after my third birthday, my mother brought me to a healer—that is, a doctor who couldn’t get a diploma on account of being a Jew.

  “He has rickets,” he said. “Give him two spoonfuls of cod-liver oil every day.”

  After a few weeks, I was strong enough to begin walking. Now they call me Monkey Moshe, because my legs are curved like a chimp’s. I am very thin.

  If it weren’t for my brother Anschel, hunger would kill us all. He is clever. He sticks an iron pike at the end of a cane, then he steals potatoes on market days. On other days, he sits down in the street and weeps.

  “Why are you crying?” people ask him.

  “‘Cause I’m hungry.”

  “Poor kid… Here, go and buy some food!”

  They give him loose change. He buys bread and brings it home. My other brother, Schmiel, has a job already. He cuts leather for one of my father’s cousins. He left school when he was ten, although he loved to study. Anschel will also leave school when he is ten. Already, he doesn’t go too often, as he spends all day looking for food. The salesgirl at the grocer’s takes pity on him. When he asks for a quart of milk, she fills up his can, which contains half a gallon. One day, the grocer’s wife hears him buying half a quart of oil for the lamp. She comes out of her back shop and sees he is carrying a gallon-and-a-half jug.

  “Oy, your mother gave you quite a big jug to carry just half a quart of oil. You seem to find it rather heavy.…”

  My brother tells us about it.

  “Lucky she didn’t look inside the jug! It would have meant the end of my scheme.”

  Pola, my sister, finds him selfish.

  “You think only about yourself. What about the salesgirl? She would have lost her job!”

  We’re always hungry. When Anschel brings home a potato, he divides it into eight parts. Food is so scarce that we rejoice when we eat one-eighth of a potato or two.

  The market comes to our courtyard on Tuesdays and Fridays. It isn’t a big one like they have in Warsaw. Peasants lay out their vegetables on the ground. They sell turnips, beetroots, beans, cabbage, pickled cucumbers in a bucket, homemade vodka—and above all, potatoes. The kids sing a ditty:

  Sunday, potatoes

  Monday, potatoes

  Tuesday, potatoes

  Wednesday and Thursday, potatoes

  Friday, potatoes

  Saturday, potato cake.

  The courtyard is large, with houses on three sides and stables on the fourth. We live in a big room plus a small kitchen, on the second floor of a four-story building. At night, we stick two folding beds together and the five of us sleep there, as close as sardines in a can. They put me in the middle. In winter it’s warm and cozy, but in summer I’m too hot.

  They say that rich people have pipes that bring water into their homes. In our courtyard, people gather at the fountain all day long to fill up pitchers, jugs, tin cans. We keep water at home in a barrel. In winter, it freezes during the night.

  Four outhouses stand in the cou
rtyard, just under our window. I imagine that stinking gnomes live underground in a huge palace, the outhouses being its turrets.

  I like to sit near the window. I watch the fountain, the outhouses, and especially the stables. They contain twelve carts, which are just simple wooden platforms drawn by two horses. I admire the skill of the carters when they tie mountains of scrap or rags on their platforms. Ah, these carters are tough men. Every evening, they get drunk on vodka in a filthy tavern on this side of the courtyard, then they cross back to the stables, singing and staggering, to sleep with their horses. Some of them are Jewish. I know we’re Jewish, too, but I can barely understand them. The language they speak sounds like Yiddish, but it contains strange words. “It’s slang,” my mother says.

  I notice that my brothers often come home with cuts and bruises all over their faces and bodies. Every other day, my mother sews up their old sweaters and their pants.

  “The Poles attacked us,” they say.

  “We ran, but they caught us.”

  “They ambushed us at the corner.”

  Why do the Poles attack the Jews? That’s a great mystery. For a long time, I thought that the word Jew actually meant “poor,” but in fact these Poles who are not Jewish are often as poor as we are.

  My brother Schmiel says that in Warsaw, on the other side of the Vistula River, the Jews live together in neighborhoods where the Poles do not enter. Our neighborhood, Praga, is “mixed,” which means that we can’t escape the Poles. We must be careful.

  I stay at home because of my crooked legs, but I walk better now. I’ll soon go out into the courtyard and the streets. I’ll have to face theses terrible Poles. My brothers are cowards. As soon as they see a Pole, they run away. I won’t give in. I’ll fight. I’ll be as strong as the carters. When a carter argues with a peasant, he comes right up to him and grabs the lapels of his jacket. The peasant falls to the ground right away. At first I didn’t understand what happened. Then, after seeing many fights from my window, I noticed that the carter gave a knock with his head or a kick with his knee between the peasant’s legs. The carter’s move is so fast that you hardly see it. I’ll grab the Pole by his jacket lapels and knock him out!

  When the opponent knows how to fight, it is quite a different matter. Another gang of carters declares war on our guys. A battalion of enemies enters the courtyard. Our carters, Jews and Poles, confront the danger together. At first they fight with fists and feet. Then they grab sticks and chains. When these weapons fail, they pull out knives. The fighting lasts all night long. At dawn, we hear gunshots. My mother forbids me to go near the window, because of stray bullets. Once the fight is over, the police come to pick up the wounded and the dead.

  Stray bullets are very dangerous. Mazik, the carters’ leader, is a real thug. He levies his share of the cartloads, carries and resells stolen goods, extorts money from peasants who want to get a spot in our courtyard on market day. Sometimes he drinks so much he becomes crazy. He screams, waves his handgun, shoots everywhere. In the end, he puts his gun in his pocket and falls to the ground, dead-drunk. Then people find another body lying on the ground. It so happens that it is one of Mazik’s enemies, someone who insulted him or didn’t pay his due. The witnesses report the events to the police: Mazik was beyond himself, he was shooting without aiming. What could they make of it? The victim was killed by a stray bullet. Me, sitting near my window, I often see Mazik shooting at a target for practice. He staggers and lurches and waves his arms like a windmill…. A shot in the air, a shot on the ground, a shot in the center of the target!

  Our Praga neighborhood is very poor. Everybody says it is a thieves’ nest. From my window, I watch pickpockets at work on market days. You need good eyes to see more than a peasant jumping and hollering because his money has vanished. The pickpocket’s hand is so fast.… It dives into the peasant’s pocket and comes out holding a thick wallet. I see it! I also see something strange: just before the pickpocket acts, a man in a hurry jostles the peasant. After watching for weeks, I can follow the whole scene. The pickpocket needs three partners. Two of them shout at each other and trade insults, then pretend to fight. Gawkers gather right away. The third partner elbows his way through the crowd to reach the front row. As he pushes the peasant aside, he gives him a nasty poke in the back with his elbow. The peasant screams. He looks for the brute who hurt him so he can curse at him. He focuses his attention on the pain in his back. He doesn’t feel the crafty caress of the pickpocket’s hand.

  Some robbers wait for the end of market day. Having sold all his vegetables, the peasant is going back to his village. He has bought cigarettes, candles, and other goods that the villagers have ordered. The robber jumps onto his cart noiselessly, rustles around in the bags to feel what they contain, then throws cigarette packs and candles to his accomplices. There is a saying in Yiddish: “The robber is so skilful that he would steal the crack of your whip.”

  As soon as my legs are strong enough, my brother Anschel finds work for me.

  “You know all the thieves, Moshe. I’ll introduce you to a peasant who’ll give you a job as a guard.”

  “If I see a thief, I give him a headbutt!”

  “You’d better not. You pull the peasant’s jacket and show him the thief, that’s all.”

  The peasant’s eyes widen when he sees his new guard. I am five years old, but I am very small.

  “This runt will protect my goods?”

  “That’s the whole point. The robbers won’t notice him. They won’t be very cautious, so he’ll be able to spot them easily.”

  As I perform my task quite well, the peasant gives me three potatoes. A real treasure!

  Resourceful Anschel has found an unlimited stock of food:

  “The owner of the stables wants me to feed the horses. I told him you would help me. We can eat as much as we want.”

  “Horse food?”

  “Potatoes. We grind potatoes and mix them with oats.”

  We can even put potatoes into our pockets and bring them home. The owner of the stables doesn’t care. We cost much less than regular workers. I’m glad I’m using a spade and turning the grinder’s crank. Since my legs are weak, I want to strengthen my arms. I have decided to become very strong. I lift up stones, I climb trees, I carry crates for the peasants.

  Even when we gain weight, we still suffer from skin rashes because we don’t get enough vitamins. That’s one way you can know whether someone is poor: we poor people scratch ourselves all the time.

  Chapter 2

  Poles have a sixth sense

  My mother wants to send me to public school. It’s free, which is quite convenient. I’d learn to speak Polish. This might be useful later on. The principal warns her: “I can’t guarantee his safety. You’d better send him to one of your own schools.”

  So I’m a pupil in the Jewish school. They don’t ask us for tuition. How could my mother pay?

  In the public school, the other kids would beat me to a pulp during recess. Here there is no danger—as long as I stay inside the walls. After school, I do have to walk home. The Polish schoolboys attack us on the way. With my crooked legs, I can’t flee like the others. I try to catch a Pole by his lapels to give him a good butt. I’m much too small. My head comes to the level of his belly! Thanks to my small size, they take pity and don’t hit me too hard.

  I find a large bag that used to hold potatoes. I ask my mother for small pieces of cloth to fill it up. I call it a punching ball. I hang it from the doorframe between our room and the kitchen. I hit it for hours every day. My brothers and my sister laugh at me. You won’t laugh anymore when I’m champion of the world!

  By and by, I grow up and the shape of my legs improves. When I’m seven, my uncle Prezman decides it’s time I go to the synagogue with him. He replaces my father, who should have taken care of my religious education. My uncle picks a very solemn day: Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. The synagogue is right in our courtyard. It is just the first floor of one of the hous
es. It looks like a big store. It smells of cold tobacco and onions. It is full of smoke in winter, like the other houses, because they heat it with brown coal, which is cheaper. We must spend the whole day in this holy place, praying and fasting.

  “Uncle Prezman?”

  “Yes, Moshe.”

  “The other years, I used to eat on the day of Yom Kippur.”

  “You shouldn’t have. At least this year you won’t.”

  “Why, Uncle Prezman?”

  “Moshe, you’re spending the day inside the synagogue. This is the last place where you could eat something today.”

  “Hey, I think that I fast enough on other days!”

  I get out of the synagogue and vow never to enter it again.

  I fast so much that I faint in class. The school principal gives me bread and sweetened milk to get me back on my feet.

  Despite hunger, I become very strong. When we practice wrestling, none of my schoolmates can beat me. Outside, when Poles attack us, I give them a taste of my headbutts and knee kicks. I also know a secret trick. I grab my opponent by his jacket lapels; I bend my knee and raise my foot to his stomach; I roll on my back, taking him down with me, then I let his jacket go and straighten my leg, throwing him back behind me. He usually stays on the ground for at least ten minutes. What’s for sure is that he won’t ever feel like bothering me again.

  I still don’t understand why the Poles hate the Jews. They shout, “Filthy Jews! Go back to your own land!” My land is Poland. My brother Schmiel, who is quite a scholar, says they mean to send us back to Palestine, where Jews lived two thousand years ago.

  Their religious faith feeds their hate. If we want to remain alive, we’d better stay home when they march in the streets on a Sunday or a Catholic holiday. One Sunday, the son of the vodka seller walks out of the courtyard just as a religious procession is marching by. He is a poor simple-minded boy.

  “Hey, you, are you Jewish?” some fellows who come at the tail of the procession ask him.

  Instead of answering, he grins foolishly. The Poles think he is laughing at them. They start beating him up.