Ezekiel's World - Michael Kovner (Graphic Novel)

Ezekiel’s world

by Michael kovner A GRAPHIC NOVEL

5

p.283

The story takes place mostly in Jerusalem in the winter of 1991 during the First Gulf War. Scud missiles are landing on populated areas in Israel on a daily basis, causing extensive damage. Civilians have been issued gas masks in case the missiles are equipped with chemical warheads. People carry the masks, in brown cardboard boxes, wherever they go. Jerusalem, however, is not targeted and, as a result, becomes a «city of refuge» for many Israelis.

Text and Paintings – Michael Kovner Graphic Design – Anastasia Rubinstein Illustrations – pp. 201-210 – Noah Snir Translation from Hebrew to English – Jonathan Heinstein Language editor – Evelyn Abel Concept Development – Amikam Kovner All rights reserved to the artist Michael Kovner

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Amy Kovner Yuval Yavneh Abraham Feder Jessica Bonn Yair Assaf Daniella Fields Rachelle Yair Rami Fields Michael Yair Rachel Tzvia Back Avi Pnini Claire Gilead Joshua Waletzky Tamar and Menachem Ben Shalom Roy Etinger

Ezekiel’s world Part 1 February . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Jerusalem, 1991.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 ...a few days later . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

failed Ambush . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 San Francisco, 1991.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 The letter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Noni and Yvonne are coming.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Balcony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Vilna .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Alarm .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 The fall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 16 th of July, 1943 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 AT Mount Zion.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Part 2 March . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 C’ella.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

The weekend Thursday.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Friday.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 San Francisco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 friday evening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

Saturday.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 saturday evening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230 The Ghetto is burning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

April . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 HISTORICAL NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282 List of poems.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

o

FOREWORD

The figure of Ezekiel is based on the real and imaginary character of my father, Abba Kovner, who passed away in 1987, just short of the age of 70. We meet him here at the fictitious age of 75, alone, suffering from chronic arthritis, and requiring medical care.

While set in the First Gulf War (1991), the book reveals Ezekiel’s true past in sequences of dreams and nightmares reflecting events documented in the historical footnotes at the end. The authentic voice of the poet, Abba Kovner, comes through in a number of his poems that appear at different junctures in the story. A resistance fighter and partisan in the Holocaust, a poet and historian, his multifaceted personality impacted strongly on all around him.

This novel is my attempt to conduct a posthumous dialogue with him, a dialogue that regrettably remained incomplete in his lifetime. I have tried to confront some of the issues that continue to absorb me from the visual perspective of an artist (landscapes, wildlife, female form).

I wrote and illustrated the book as a way of pursuing that dialogue. Each of us was preoccupied with our own inner worlds when he was alive, and the conversation we both sought never took place.

To many people my father appeared strong, aloof, and inflexible: a quasi-prophet castigating the world; a man outside of normal society, larger than life, to whom people turned with respect and even reverence, and occasionally also disdain for what they perceived as his arrogance.

Poised at the crossroads of Jewish history, he grappled with the basic Jewish dilemmas life had brought his way. His own traumas informed his vision, but he always tried to see the broader picture of Jewish history and its mission in the world.

It was important to me to provide a more complete picture of the man. I knew him as someone full of life, humor, doubt, and love. He lived with contradictions, searching for meaning as he fearlessly walked over life’s “narrow bridge”.

Ezekiel is a complex character, dragging the baggage of failures and broken dreams. He is torn by personal and national tragedies. The secret of his strength is his determination to live life fully – despite everything. He carefully tried to nurture and shield an optimism, which was expressed in his love for his son and his grandson, and in his attraction to beauty in the women who were part of his life. Beauty and pain merged in him to fend off surrender.

The readings in the book are meant to help delineate the boundaries between inner and outer, between dream and reality. There are descriptions of each character and the dialogue of each appears in a different color.

Apart from the historical portions of the novel (denoted by the letter H), any resemblance between the characters described in this book and real persons is purely coincidental. The historical footnotes may be useful in mapping dates and geography. The poems, unless otherwise stated, were all written by Abba Kovner.

5

Ezekiel

Ezekiel is a lonely old man who lives on his own in a modest apartment in Jerusalem. His wife died a few years earlier, his son lives abroad, and his daughter committed suicide at the age of 26. Ezekiel was an important historical figure as a resistance commander in World War II and a political leader.

He was also a respected poet and writer. These days, however, his poems, as well as his ideas, are less popular.

To some extent, society has forgotten him. Ezekiel’s character is based on my father, Abba Kovner

Na’ama

Amos

Na’ama is a 25-year-old art student, who also works as a physiotherapist.

She treats Ezekiel, who suffers from chronic arthritis.

Yvonne

Ezekiel’s son, an architect.

After a traumatic experience during army duty in the West Bank, he left Israel.

He lives with his family in San Francisco.

Amos’ wife, a schoolteacher.

1 p.282

Noni Amos and Yvonne’s only son. He’s about six years old.

Shlomo

- Historical notes *

- Outer

- Translations

- Inner

- Explanation

- Flashback

- The angel’s voice - Inner voice

- Dream

Yvonne’s father.

He lives in Ramat Gan, a small city near Tel Aviv.

Michal Ezekiel’s daughter. She appears only in his dreams and memories.

C’ella Ezekiel’s neighbor. She sees to his daily needs.

6

Part 1

February

8

9

10

11

12

13

Even when shame came into all my limbs, With transparent nails glaring, We clung to our flesh As if alive.

Until we lay down one near the other.

Until we saw our faces one within the other.

At the edge of the redeeming pit, my sister, we remembered your going alone.

14

15

Jerusalem, 1991

16

17

18 Who wants to know?

Ezekiel Avidor?

My name’s Na’ama, I’m the physiotherapist.

What do you want?

Didn’t the social worker tell you that I’d be coming today?

Oh, yes. But I told her I don’t need you.

I don’t mean to sound rude, but judging by the way you’re standing you certainly do.

Thank you for your concern. Have a nice day.

19

Wait, wait, don’t close the door.

Look, I really need this job. I`m a student.

20

What are you studying?

Art.

Art is good.

21

...a few days later

Ay, ay

Does it hurt? It’s important not to hurt yourself.

22

Okay, I think that’s enough for today. I`ll make us some coffee.

23

Only when he began to understand to be aware That in a place abandoned By innocence By dream There is nothing to be found But an abyss, Perishing.

I had no idea you’re a poet.

24

How dare you read my poems!

I didn’t know it was such a big deal.

Never read them without my consent, never!

25

Okay.

Do you take sugar in your coffee?

Two, please.

26

Let’s go for a short walk.

27

What’s in the box you’re carrying?

My gas mask What do you need it for?

There’s a war going on, haven’t you heard?

A war…? This is not a war.

28

Do you know the neighbors here?

Not really. I know Israel, the guy from the grocery store.

My dad’s name is also Israel.

My father, may he rest in peace, was also called Israel.

No kidding. So many Israels.

Who sees to your daily needs?

My next door neighbor, a good woman.

29

Were you ever married?

My wife died 5 years ago.

I left the kibbutz soon after.

I`m sorry.

What did she die of?

A broken heart.

Do you see it, over there?

What?

Behind the trees‌

30

30 4

p.283

FAILED AMBUSH

Parol!

*

* Password

31 31

Parol!

N O T

Y E T . . . N O T

Y E T . . .

32

32

Ogon’!

* Shema Israel...

Fire!

*

Stoi! Stoi!* Hold your fire!!

NO!*

33 33

Sonia, my child

*

34

34

A great commander‌

35 35

My brothers in ruin. Gaping hollow of my landscape, the guilt is not yours.

Last to insurrection. First to pardon.

For you were consoled in the disaster.

At your doorway the appointed hour rang, your day unimagined.

For you chose nothing and in nothing nothing did you sin.

There is guilt. Its burning body crouches over my eyes. Over my eyes which saw the tidings. And I said maybe. But I did not yield to the dread and I did not foresee unto stoning. Until word of the ruins spoke in me‌

36

37

San Francisco, 1991

38

Time to get up.

We have to wake Noni.

Let him sleep a little more. We still have time.

Yeah, you always have time for that, right?

Just a little.

There is no little with you.

I’m going to wake Noni.

39

Do you want me to get you something to eat?

No thanks, just coffee.

40

Amos, what’s the news? Anything about Israel?

Three rockets fell on Ramat Gan. Anyone injured?

They haven’t said.

Israel is furious. It wants to invade Jordan and Iraq. It’s just posturing. They should let the Americans finish the job and not interfere.

Amos, enough.

Sorry…

41

You should get going or Noni will be late.

He’s only in kindergarten.

What’s it matter if he’s late once?

My teacher says I always come on Israeli time.

Noni are you done eating? Put your shoes on.

42

43

44

45

46

...A number of rockets fell today on the city of Ramat Gan, just east of Tel Aviv. No injuries were reported.

47

Hi, it’s me

Hi, it’s me.

Shalom Yvonne. Is anything wrong?

Everything is fine, thank god. to hear how you’re doing.

No, nothing.

I just wanted

Can you hear the rockets from your place?

Yeah. Sometimes it’s really loud.

Is it scary?

A bit.

Maybe you should go to Jerusalem and stay with Rachel for a while.

I don’t think so. They have a new baby. I don’t want to bother them.

Dad, Rachel wants you to come.

It’s really not necessary. Rachel and I have our differences.

What did you say, Dad? You heard me.

What? That’s nonsense.

48

The letter

50

You look different today.

How? I didn’t think you noticed such things...

I don’t know, your hair’s different.

Why not, because I`m old?

That’s not what I meant. Never mind, forget it.

How are the oranges?

They’re good, but that’s not the way to serve them.

What’s wrong with it?

You need to bring a paring knife, little plates, napkins, a small dish for the seeds…

So, you think you can teach me.

Not really. Maybe just show you how certain things are done.

Is it really that important, how to peel an orange?

It may be a small thing, but don’t underrate its importance.

51 Good morning, Mr. Avidor.

Good morning Avi. 11:35 like clockwork.

Even better, like a Swiss watch.

Anything interesting in the mail for me today?

You never know, do you?

Life’s full of surprises.

Is that your granddaughter?

That’s Na’ama.

Do you mind bringing it over here?

52

Hi, I`m Avi. Nice to meet you. I`m Na’ama.

I hope there’s something in there to make him happier.

I don’t know if he wants to be happier.

But you know what will make me happier?

What?

Your phone number.

I don’t think so.

Well, am I likely to see you here again?

You might. Life’s full of surprises, you know.

What’s going on over there?

It’s all right, we’re just talking.

Goodbye, Mr. Avidor.

53

Adios.

54

Noni, my grandson.

That’s gorgeous. Who painted it?

55

Dear Ezekiel, It’s been a while since we last spoke, I hope you are wel l. From what I understand from Amos, your arthritis had been giving you a lot of trouble lately. I only hope that things are better now. You must know that he is very devoted to you even he does not phone often, and never puts it into words.

We are al l wel l. Amos is working very hard and I’m also busy with work, I can’t complain. Noni has started writing his first words, even though they haven’t yet learned the alphabet in school. I have no idea where he picked it up. He’s a lovely, inquisitive child, and keeps surprising us with his remarks and constant new ideas.

But in general, things are not great. Personal ly, I have not found the last few months easy. The longer we’re here, the more I realize I don’t belong here. I wil l never feel at home here no matter how long we stay. It’s not our land, not our food, not our language – and mostly, not our problems. This is not a new realization for me, but strangely (or not so strangely), the war has only made it clearer. I’m always worried, I can’t stop thinking about my family in Israel, my father and sisters, my nephews and you too, Ezekiel. I miss you al l so much and lately feel that it’s almost unbearable.

Also, the thought that Noni is growing up without knowing his family (the way I was raised, mom and dad are not “family” – family are brothers and sisters and uncles and aunts and cousins and grandparents…) also upsets me. He’s six years old now, by the way. If I’m not mistaken, it’s almost two years since you saw him.

If it were up to me, we would return to Israel tomorrow, but as you know very wel l, Amos is dead set against it. We fight about it al l the time and to tel l you the truth, I’m tired of it. I can’t think of any solution though. I’m just so worried and miss everyone so much. I’ve already said that, I know. I just feel that I have to be in Israel now. Also, I want to move my father to Jerusalem, to my sister’s, and I know it’s not going to happen unless I’m there. The bottom line is that we’re coming to Israel in two weeks’ time. “We” means myself and Noni. He is very excited about the visit and meeting you. He can’t stop tal king about it. That’s about it. It’s important for me that you understand that it’s a visit, but not just a visit (I’m not sure myself, you see), or maybe it’s better to say that it’s just a visit but we don’t yet have a return date.

I can’t wait to see you again, Yours, Yvonne.

P.S I’m sending you a picture Noni painted just for you.

Is something wrong?

Never mind. It’s a long story.

56

Noni and Yvonne are coming

58

Knock Knock

59

60

Welcome home!

61

Who´s this young man with you?

Don’t you recognize him? It’s Noni.

Say hi to Grandpa.

Hi.

No way. This boy is much bigger than Noni.

The last time Noni visited me he came up to here -this boy is almost my height.

Did you eat Noni up?

62

63

Ezekiel, you´re looking well.

At my age, if you hear that, you wonder if it’s time to start worrying.

64

You want something to drink?

There´s orange juice in the fridge.

Ask Grandpa if he´s got any cookies.

I think I´ve got some in the cupboard.

Grandpa, have you got any cookies?

65

What kind of cookies have you got, Grandpa?

Honey cookies.

Noni has three cats and a dog.

If the dog eats one cat, how many cats are left?

Two.

Very good.

Only Grandpa knows things like that.

How much is a dog that ate a cat?

66

Is there anything besides honey cookies?

No.

I don´t like honey cookies.

How do you know if you haven´t tasted them?

Okay. More for me.

I want some.

Wow, these are tasty.

I´m counting to three.

Let´s see who grabs one first.

One... two... three...

67

...Knock Knock

Noni, honey, go see who´s at the door.

Why me?

Because you´re the nicest one here.

Oh...Na’ama! I completely forgot.

Who´s Na’ama?

Never mind.

You´ll meet her in a minute.

A big secret?

Not really.

This is Na’ama, my tormenter.

68

Hi, I´m Naama.

How are you doing? Don´t think I didn´t hear you.

Let me introduce my daughter-in-law, Yvonne.

Hi.

yo u .

N ic e to m ee t

Okay.

Who’s Na’ama?

Grandpa´s physiotherapist.

What´s a therapist?

He has problems with his legs.

Noni, you know?

Grandpa draws very well, you can draw together.

68

69 What would you like to draw?

Interesting. I see birds and a plane.

Where are they headed?

I´m Yvonne.

They´re flying to Israel with me and Mom.

And what´s this?

That´s my dad.

70 Sure ... .

Look how they´re getting along.

Of course. Did you have any doubt?

I don´t know...things don´t always work out the way you plan.

So? So I stress over it Go with the flow. Take it easy.

Hi honey.

What are you guys up to?

Drawing.

What are you drawing here?

Here´s Naama, my inquisitor.

Dad’s coming down from the sky to join us.

71

72

Balcony

Vilna

Alarm

74

I’m going to have a cigarette, do you mind?

Not at all.

Are you cold?

A little.

We can share it.

This will warm you up.

75

I’m going to see what the boys are doing.

76 Hi grandpa.

I have a surprise for you.

Let me see.

What is it?

A balloon?

This is a GLOBE

WOW

77 Do you know where grandpa came from?

Yeah, it’s right here

No.

He came from Europe.

Do you know where that is?

Bravo.

Here is Lithuania and here is the capital - VILNA, where I grew up.

Come here, Noni, I’ll show you a book with lots of pictures.

78 This is a map of Lithuania.

What’s that?

This is the GHETTO. What’s that?

That’s for another time.

This is Vilna. My town.

Sometimes we would have a class trip on this big boat.

This is the river.

Grandpa, did you know how to swim?

That is the church.

That was the Palace.

79

This is where I played when I was your age.

That was the Jewish Ghetto.

But what is a Ghetto?

I’ll tell you later.

That was my home.

This was the home of the Vilna Gaon.

Who is the Vilna Gaon?

He was a great man!

80

Drowned And I too saw a skull floating on the water.

The Vilna flows into the Neman, and the Neman - where does the Neman go?

And I said to my mother, mother, Berlin is split in two. My mother said, My son, what did you name your son?

My wife bore me one. Named for our young brother, our young unlucky brother.

Now twenty years later my mother smiles – How was your brother unlucky?

Mother, mother, I reached down to catch the braids of the water and it wasn’t my mother. Or a woman’s skull.

Only a floating slab of the moon.

He who says: remember everything, in the end won’t remember anything. To remember everything is INSANITY. But to forget everything is to betray life.

These lines are Abba Kovner’s response to noted poet Avraham Shlonsky who wrote of the Holocaust: “I have made a vow: to remember it all, to remember and never to forget a thing.”

81 Let’s see.

Hey Ezekiel!

What’s up?

Are you Okay?

I don’t know ... grandpa says things.

I don’t understand...when he talks…

Yes... I’m fine.

I had a strange dream.

snak e’S BIT E

5

p.283

siren:

SNAKE BITE

82

s Come to the safe area.

SNAKE BITE

Are you alright?

Don’t worry so much.

83

E T I B e k a n s E snake BIT

Mom, what’s that noise? I’m afraid.

Don’t be afraid. Help me open this box.

What’s that? I am

.

Dont be afraid. It’s just a warning siren. No more.

Now you’re safe. Nothing can hurt you now.

We’ll put this mask on you, nice and tight, and it’ll keep you safe.

Now you’re safe.

And you, Mom? Now MOM is safe too.

84

Mom, grandpa isn’t putting on his mask.

Let’s ask him why.

Grandpa, why aren’t you putting on your mask?

I don’t need it.

Aren’t you

.

There’s nothing to be afraid of.

I‘ve seen a lot of things in my life and I don’t see danger now.

But I’M

Don’t be, Noni: “The whole world is just a narrow bridge; And the main thing is not to be afraid at all.”

85

So what did grendpa tell you?

Grandpa said there’s no reason to be afraid.

So smart...

You know, grandpa is a

hero.

He will teach me not to be afraid.

Yeah, a great hero.

What has happened to us?

The people are but grass, withered as a tree... (H.N.Bialik)

86

87

And the pride of a fallen man Is only the pride of a man Robbed And rising like someone who's beaten.

He stumbles, Hanging on to a ledge; and he Walks on the walls Back where he came from.

The fall

88

89

90

91

16 th of July 1943 2

p.28

2

*

I hear – loud, angry voices from the ghetto. The Jews are hysterical. I’m drained after a long day of negotiations. The Germans are not prepared to compromise. They want our commander.

It would be disastrous to hand him over. The hardest part is that the people in the ghetto have turned against us. Our own people. They came at us with knives and axes, injuring eight of us.

I gave an order not to fire on Jews, no matter what. Never.

* Outlaws! Hand over your commander.

The Ghetto will be destroyed because of you. * One life isn’t worth 20,000.

Your blood is no bluer than ours.

Everything’s collapsing all around us...There’s a smell – the bitter smell of defeat...

92

* What have they decided?

* Here they are.

Jenia and the commander are back from the Party meeting. We all know that whatever the Party has decided - he will do. I can see the dark expressions on their faces.

* They decided that the commander must turn himself in to the Gestapo, to save the ghetto.

* Is it final?

* Yes.

* It’s too late.

* We must do something. * What do you want to do?

* Too late?

This is a disaster, a disaster.

* I want to know what each of you thinks.

93

* Why are you always hiding?

* Why are you all so silent?

* Who can look me in the eye? * I can’t take it anymore. I don’t want to hear another word or make any decision.

Leave me alone.

The silence in the room is as heavy as lead.

* If it were me, I wouldn’t turn myself in.

Whatever we decide, we’ll always feel guilty.

* And you, Ezekiel?

How can we do something like this?

How can we bear this disgrace?

This shame??

This is betrayal, betrayal.

* And what about you Yulik, you always have plenty to say.

* I think that the Jews of the ghetto are right. Our blood is no bluer than theirs.

* You really want to hear what I think? * Yes, I do.

* That’s what I think.

94

The commander turns to me. I already know his decision, it is written on his face.

He pulls out his pistol.

Is he going to kill himself?

Should I stop him?

* And what do you think, Ezekeil?

* Here’s the pistol.

Now YOU are the commander.

* We will do whatever you say.

You are the commander.

* Be strong

* Why me?

He looks at me and says nothing, but I understand. He is the only one who can decide his fate.

95

* Let’s go.

* You are a bunch of traitors, traitors...

* I can’t understand how you can be so forgiving?

* Enough, enough of that.

As they leave the room, silence descends again.

There is no escaping. I know that from now on, nothing will ever be the same.

*

Betrayal?

96 * In your blood, live: in your blood, live.

KADDOSH HOLY KADDOSH HOLY KADDOSH HOLY

Today is the Sixteenth of July in memory of Itzik Wittenburg Today is the sixteenth of July?

On the sixteenth of July Forty-three years ago, On the night before the sixteenth of July, they raced trembling between the walls at daybreak on the sixteenth of July which never ends he shouted to them: You madmenGet down!

Get down!

The total reckoning.

Yearning for the dawn: Get down!

Get down!

One thousand ten thousand to the gate now!

* He is going to his death. We all know it, we all see it. It is we who handed him over...

* Executioners

97

Ezekiel...

Ezekiel...

98

Are you OK?

What happened to me?

Don’t worry, everything will be alright.

Please help me.

99

Yes, you are

What happened?

I’m all wet.

Let me help you undress.

I don’t understand...

Come, take a shower.

How??? What happened?

100

Please, let’s start.

I’ll help you.

That’ good.

Now let’s take the pants off.

101 Let’s take a shower.

Why are you looking at me like that?

I’m sorry, I’m confused.

Please help me to help you.

102

103

We’re finished. Here, take the towel.

104

Let’s shave.

Not now.

Why?

Enough, it’s enough.

I’m going to bring you some clean clothes.

105

Padre amato.

106

Two sugars, right?

I’m making coffee, do you want some?

Yes.

107 What do you think of Noni?

He is a very sweet boy, and smart.

People say a grandson is the best present one can get.

I am afraid I won’t find a way to Noni’s heart.

Maybe you can play with him.

no t a so n A gr an d so n is

I brought you something.

108 Do you know LEGO?

Yes, of course.

Amos used to play with it when he was little.

Yes.

Back then it was called “Magic Bricks”.

You know Amos? He is an architect.

Let’s see - what do we have here?

When he was a child, he was fascinated by those “magic bricks.”

See, they have little people here...

I just got an idea about what to do with Noni.

109

110

I bought for my son a little bell.

My son, my left-handed boy, held in his grip the little bell ringing it with his left hand.

There are bells all over the world.

The frogs croak, not hunting.

When my son rings his little bell the violets sigh with evening.

And at night I saw a strange wood – how radiant the ram’s bewildered eyes!

Around his neck a bell is ringing and ringing – Behind him the barbed wires rise.

All the walls are sealed. And the houses are as mute as books.

Maybe the blue sea hears how the ash buds in the desert.

Don’t cry, my son, the ram would be proud.

Ring the little bell with your right.

I am with you all night.

111

Is something wrong?

I was thinking about Amos when he was a child.

Do you think about Amos?

Yes, a lot.

I think I was a very good father.

Were you two close?

Yes, we were, very.

112

113

AT Mount Zion

114

Should we sit here?

OK

So, how are you managing with Ezekiel?

Sometimes it’s hard. You know he’s not an easy person.

But I feel privileged to have met him.

Would you like to order?

Yes sure. One tea, one cappuccino.

One tuna sandwich......

Maybe a bottle of dry white wine.

115

It’s a beautiful view

Any special reason you wanted us to meet?

No, just to get to know you better.

I thought...

You know...It’s just that you’re very beautiful...

What?

Don’t look, but there’s a man over there who can’t take his eyes off you.

116

Good morning, ladies.

May I ask what you need those for?

The masks?

Everybody has them.

Because of the war, you know.

The war is over.

Don’t you listen to the news?

GREAT Is it really over?

Yes.

THE WAR IS OVER

117

Wait, wait don’t get so excited.

This is just a prelude.

Soon, the real thing will come.

See these mountains, how glorious and peaceful they look.

But from there Evil shall break forth! Fire and brimstone shall fall from the sky to burn your wretched cities. And here below in the Valley of Hinnom, the earth shall split to devour the people of Zion.

You deserve this. So said the prophet ”Execute

You fell in love with

judgment, and show mercy and compassion, and

occupation. How pleasant

oppress not the widow, nor the orphan, nor the

it is to sit in cafes and

stranger nor the poor.”

sip your cappuccinos,

Vanity, arrogance and intoxication with power

when just over there,

have filled your heart, which has long forgotten

under your very noses,

the virtue of compassion.

you oppress, rob, destroy houses and kill women and children. All in the name of the false god of security. You lie to yourselves, and you lie to the world, painting a false picture and then placing the Holocaust in the center – that way you can justify any atrocity.

But God in Heaven sees everything. He shall leave this land wasted and desolate.

I can see that you think.

I’m meshuggeh - crazy.

I’m not. I am a man with eyes open and his heart bleeding from sorrow for his people who returned to Zion only to bring it to ruin.

I’m leaving now, but disaster is at your doorstep.

118 Who’s asking?

You shouldn’t take those people too seriously.

What people?

It is a bit distressing what he said.

There are plenty of crazy people here.

Ezekiel Avidor?

Don’t you think?

Haven’t you heard about the “Jerusalem Syndrome”?

No...

Tell me about Amos.

He must be a cool guy if you picked him.

He picked me.

Yvonne, why did you leave But you know, my Amos sometimes sounds the same.

Israel?

REALLY?

It’s complicated.

When the Intifada

started,

Amos was called up for 30 days of reserve duty...

I remember the day he returned very clearly. It was a summer morning.

I didn’t have to go to work until the afternoon, and I was on the sofa when the door opened.

Who is it?

It’s me.

The First Intifada (1987–1993) or Palestinian uprising against Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories began at the Jabalia Refugee Camp and quickly spread through Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

119 I wasn’t expecting you till Friday

I’m early.

What’s that silly hat?

Come, let me hug you and you’ll see just how much I’ve missed you.

Coffee?

You’re not going to run away, are you?

You look awful, Mossi.

Come, hug me, as only you know how.

120

Put your dirty uniform in the laundry

I’m the one who needs to be cleaned.

What did you say?

Never mind.

Amos, what’s going on?

121 He didn’t even look at me. He rummaged obsessively in his bag, and finally pulled out a watch, presenting it to me as some sort of proof, as if it was the most important thing in the world.

I asked him to tell me about it.

At first he didn’t make any sense; his speech was disjointed, choppy.

Only later did I realize that for him, the watch was something concrete to hold onto as proof of what he’d witnessed.

But when he finally found his voice, it was like a dam had broken.

He fell asleep, his head on my lap. It took me a while to make sense of his account of events there. It was horrible. His soldiers had abused several detainees in the night, and one of them, an old man, had died.

Amos found the watch in the bag of one of the soldiers. It had belonged to the old man.

122

He woke up, as though from a nightmare.

“I’m not going back to THAT army.” I was shocked.

He spoke incoherently, I couldn’t really follow.

Amos loved the army. Sometimes I thought he cared more

But he did say in different ways:

for the guys in his unit than for me.

I didn’t say anything. What was there to say?

123 We didn’t leave Israel right away, it took time.

But yes, that’s the main reason we left.

WOW, what a story.

To leave a country because of

That’s why you decided to leave Israel?

one awful incident?

Did he continue working?

It wasn’t that simple.

Every day he shrank more and more,

Yes, but he was sad all the time.

turning into someone else.

And on top of that, he had a huge quarrel with Ezekiel.

About what?

About leaving Israel and other things.

What did Ezekiel say?

It doesn’t matter.

You know my boyfriend wants to go abroad to study art.

He doesn’t want to stay here.

It’s not the same. You’re still young and ripe for adventure.

When we had to make the decision, Noni was almost 3 years old and Amos had a good job.

I didn’t want to leave, but I couldn’t stand seeing Amos like that.

I would find him in Noni’s bed sometimes, crying.

He said: “I can’t sleep when I think about him doing the army one day.”

He was depressed, in despair. You know what he once told me?

He said: “Staying here is a death sentence for Noni.”

124

125

WHAT COULD I DO?

126

127

Part 2

March

128

I want to have a longer session today.

Why?

Because of the weekend.

What about it?

129 Are you sure you can manage with Noni for three days?

Don’t you trust me?

130

C’ella

C’ella

131

132

Who is there?

It’s me, C‘ella

Maybe you should get dressed...

“If only if only you had seen how in the sandy wind the silence you wept went down to the sea.”

133 Hi C‘ella, how are you?

Fine, and you?

Not bad.

What have you cooked for us?

Chraime.

You’re great!

134

Shalom, Mr. Ezekiel.

Just Ezekiel, please.

OK.

I see the treatment is helping.

How is he doing?

Improving, I think.

135

136 No need to exaggerate.

How are you?

How do you feel?

Milk and Honey.

All right, Please sit down, let’s talk a bit.

I feel “not bad.”

And yet you‘re troubled by something, right?

It is so beautiful.

I could quote you something from Albert Camus: “In order to return to life you must receive some great act of grace, you must forget yourself or part of yourself. Then, in the early hours of the morning, at a turn in the road, wondrous dew descends on your heart and evaporates immediately, but the freshness remains. It is that freshness, and only that freshness, that the heart desires for itself.”

Albert Camus (Translation: Justin O’Brien)

137

It’s almost the weekend.

Are you worried?

Enough philosophy.

How are you feeling?

Better.

Yes, a bit concerned.

Don’t worry, I’ll stop by often to make sure everything is OK.

Are you leaving already?

Yes, I have a few things to take care of.

Adios

138 138 Do you know that I studied art?

No, I didn’t.

Let’s see if I can help you with your paper.

139 139 Look Na’ama, Cezanne and Van Gogh appear to be opposites.

What do you mean “appear”? They are complete opposites.

Are they? They both lived at in the same period, just a few dozen miles from each other, and yet they never met and maybe didn’t even know each other’s paintings.

And still, this is the most interesting dialogue of that period and maybe one of the most interesting in the history of art.

What about Van Gogh and Gauguin?

Good point. Gauguin is relevant of course, but that’s another issue. Cezanne is considered the guiding spirit of modern art. Cubism (are you familiar with the movement)?

Of course, I am.

The most important movements in modern art take their inspiration from Cezanne and Van Gogh. In my view, the Cubists built on Cezanne’s work for their innovations and the Expressionists were inspired by Van Gogh. Even an artist like Matisse considered himself a student of Cezanne.

Is he really that good?

In my opinion, he is the greatest architect of spatial construction in painting.

It’s complex.

Many artists have grappled with the inherent paradox of a two-dimensional canvas and three-dimensional reality.

Since the Renaissance, they have tackled the problem with the rules of perspective.

Cezanne tried a different approach.

140 140 How to create the illusion of perspective while working in two dimensions.

True... but Cezanne tried to understand the form and shapes of nature: to study them and evoke in us, the observers, the sensation that a blind man has when he feels the angles and shapes along his route, trying to form a universe out of them.

The space that Cezanne formed is not what you see when you look outside your window.

It is a space that you can be part of, and explore, as a wanderer would walk along a trail.

It opens up to you and communicates with you, as if you were inside it. multiple perspectives can be found in a single painting. It is active observation that is constantly changing.

And what about Van Gogh? What’s his approach to landscape?

In Van Gogh’s landscapes, the viewer is not an indifferent observer seeing the landscape from a safe distance. Looking at a Van Gogh’s landscape, you feel pulled into the painting as if by a hurricane. You are shaken by strong emotion and you experience the landscape the way a sailor would navigate the seas. And yet the space itself is clear and simple, opening up to you as a whole. It is not broken. But at the same time, it is very intense and conflicted.

To unite all the elements into a single whole, unified space demands a strong intellectual force which both Van Gogh and Cezanne had. I think people ignore the importance of their innovative use of color.

Of Cezanne too?

People think that Cezanne’s focus on the form and structure of space means he isn’t a Fauvist. But I think that he and Van Gogh actually generated Fauvism. If we consider color as an expression of emotion, we can see that they both express great, powerful emotion in their works, yet at the same time show tremendous restraint. This contrast elevates them to the highest peaks. Now, that’s enough for today. I just wanted to emphasize the importance of space in painting and its relation to the soul. The wider (and deeper) the space is, the more room the human soul has to express itself. It touches on the private dialogue between man and his soul. As our capacity to move in space increases, we feel that we have ever-larger wings. Isn’t that what art is all about, to give us wings?

141

142 142

143

144

145 Michal, no! n..o..o...

146

To plant in shifting sand Not to ask how. Will it blossom, will it bud? When will groundwater touch the blood of the single balloon full of tears?

- buy! Since the day has come. the day has come! And they are transparent. They are light and not yet ripe - for a quarter! Very first flowers from the King’s garden.

Two for a quarter.

Buy balloons for planting the Arbor Day of Sand!

The child is dead.

I am going to him and will not come back to me again.

147

148

The weekend

Thursday

150 Wow! Gorgeous! I love the sea. The smell, the feel, the breeze. The water seeps into my pores, I yearn to be free.

151

152 I’m going in.

OK.

What about you?

No, no. The water’s too cold for me.

Come on, Yvonne, lighten up.

Stop it, Na’ama... You’re hurting me.

153

154

Wrap yourself up so you won’t get cold.

That was a real treat.

Yvonne, can I ask you something?

Sure.

155 Yvonne, what’s the story about Michal?

You know that Michal committed suicide?

Yes.

Why does he blame Ezekiel?

But why?

Michal had a non-Jewish boyfriend from Holland and was going to live with him in Amsterdam. Ezekiel It’s sad. No one really knows why someone

loved her deeply, but he told her:

decides to take their life. Amos took it very hard

”If you marry him, I will mourn you as

and he blames Ezekiel.

dead.”

Did he really say that?

You know, Ezekiel can be hard, even cruel about certain things.

156 Now I understand a little better...

157

158 Noni, see what we have here.

LEGO

Meanwhile

I want to tell you what happened during the big war...

Do you remember I promised to tell you about the ghetto?

We will build a ghetto from Lego pieces...

Not really.

You remember what I told you about Vilna? Now I’ll tell you what happened to your great-grandparents and all the Jews of Vilna.

What happened in Vilna happened to all the Jews in Europe.

Let’s spread the Lego pieces on the table and start to build the ghetto.

Great The ghetto is built.

In the distance is Vilna, my home town ( I painted it ).

159

After the Germans fenced off the ghetto they began shouting and cursing, to herd the Jews into the Ghetto.

They stationed guards and fenced off the Ghetto.

No one could get in or out.

160

Why are the Jews going along with it?

Why don’t they fight?

We will talk about that later. They don’t know what

Who is this man in black?

Which one?

is going to happen to them. They feel an awful dread in their hearts.

Here in the back.

That is the Messenger.

What is the Messenger?

Someone who sees things nobody else can.

161

When we got inside, I knew that was the end.

Where are you, Grandpa?

That no one would get out I’m over here, the man in blue.

alive.

So I escaped.

I was afraid. But

That’s me outside.

remember, Noni?

Weren’t you

“The world is

scared they

a narrow bridge.

would shoot you?

What counts is not to be afraid at all.”

I am out Darkness fell on the ghetto

162 I waited for dark. Night fell on the city.

From the Ghetto, I could hear more shouting and dogs barking. I had a good friend (Poldek) and I arranged to meet him in the woods just outside of town.

Why didn’t they take him to the ghetto?

He wasn’t Jewish. Only Jews were put in the ghetto.

Why just them?

That was the easiest way to separate them from everyone else before killing them.

Killing them?

Yes. But they didn’t know that.

Here is where I met Poldek. We talked for hours.

I told him what had happened and I could see he understood.

He told me: “I will take you to a safe hiding place.“ He took me to the monastery.

What is a monastery?

That is for another time.

We still have to build the monastery and it’s getting late.

Noni, get undressed and I’ll read you a story before bedtime.

163

Can you read what’s written here?

This is a story about the little angel, Michael, who was scared and got over his fear.

Do you see the old king sitting here on the throne?

The

little

angel

MICHAEL

This is GOD. Why is he sad?

“He is sad because there are very few kings left in the world.

He has grown tired over light years and he has stopped doing the work he used to do.”

They are Gabriel and And who are these two?

Rafael who guard him, and that little one is the hero of our story.

Why do they have to guard him?

Does GOD have enemies?

164

There is a Satan in the world.

What’s a Satan?

A satan, who causes all the bad things in the world.

He especially likes to condemn Israel.

Who is Israel?

Israel is us.

What is “condemn”?

To say bad things about someone, whether they’re true or not. In our story we’ll find out how little Michael dared to stand up to Satan all by himself, and succeeded.

165

Hey, Look. Here’s an old photo hiding between the pages of the book.

What is it?

That’s me when I was about the age of your dad, Amos.

That’s not true...

Time to say the SHEMA

Go to sleep, sweetheart.

166 San Francisco

Jerusalem

Hello.

Who is this?

It’s me, Amos.

Amos...

Is everything OK?

167 Everything’s fine.

I just wanted to say hello to you and Noni.

How’s Noni??

He is fine.

He is here sleeping.

Where is Yvonne?

Yvonne and Na’ama went up north for a few days.

Who’s Na’ama?

She is my physiotherapist.

What?

You have a physiotherapist?

Is it helping?

168

I don’t know yet.

How is Yvonne?

She is OK.

I can’t understand how she left Noni with you.

Why? You don’t think I can handle it?

No. You can’t!

169

Say hello to Noni and Yvonne for me.

Tell them that I miss them very much...

OK.

Take care... Bye...

And still the journey is abandoned, your spirit in self-ambush, my son, ever at the crossroads: Go – forth! Until it vanishes from you and is as true as the furrowed row.

Blessed is the harp of my beloved winking from between its strings.

Cursed is the harp that to its moaning the heart of my beloved has burst.

171

16.06.1988

172

Knock.

Knock.

Come in.

Come in, come in

173

174 Three.

Sugar?

Are you sure?

Yes, I am sure.

You look troubled.

Did something happen?

175

It’s hard for me to tell and it will be hard for you to hear.

I’m here, I’m listening.

Did you know that I was in Hebron?

No, I didn’t know.

I was in charge of the checkpoint outside Hebron.

176

The city was under curfew for three weeks.

Why? The city was under curfew for three weeks.

Why?

Because someone was angry, that’s all. Nobody knew how long it was going to last. You know what a curfew is, right? My shift started at five in the morning. As soon as I got there I realized that something horrible had happened. There were six boys there, teenagers, bound hand and foot, badly injured, and lying on the ground.

177 177

After a brief inquiry, I got a clear picture of what had happened during the night. A few people had still been out during curfew, including the boys and an old man. The soldiers detained them, tied them up, and dumped them at the side of the road. The old man protested, making them even madder by daring to challenge their authority. They threw him into a ditch and beat up the other detainees.

Afterwards they ordered them to defecate on the old man. He was the lavatory for the night. The soldiers joined them, contributing what they could to the occasion. I called the doctor (in the morning) who administered first-aid to the boys. They had nearly frozen to death during the night. For the old man, there was nothing he could do. The worst part was that nobody cared. My soldiers were in a state of shock...I think they understood what they had done and yet they were in denial...as if somebody else had done it. They wanted me to leave them alone. Why bother...? I went to see the regiment commander and demanded that he involve the CID. He looked at me and said: “Amos, you know I’m really fond of you. Please, just let it go.

The army knows how to deal with these situations. If we involved the CID in every incident of this type, we wouldn’t be able to function and you know it.

That’s the way it is. Accept it. If you can’t deal with it, leave”

*Criminal Investigation Division of the army (CID)

I should thank him, really.

He opened my eyes.

I made up my mind.

There is no place for me in that army.

178 Say something.

I have to think about it.

It’s hard to believe.

That’s a cop-out.

Don’t you believe me?

That’s not what I said.

What did you say?

Leaving is the easy way out.

Are you going to refuse to serve in the army?

To deal with conflict – you confront it, you don’t run away, especially since we are at war now.

Yes. That’s exactly what I’m going to do.

That’s NONSENSE.

You don’t abandon the battlefield in the middle of battle.

This isn’t a war. And even in a war there are rules.

This is abuse. It didn’t start today. It’s been going on for 20 years. It will go on for another 20 years. Someone has to say: Enough!!!

179 These soldiers were under my command.

Like what

They were my friends.

Leibowitz

If they turned into animals, it could happen to anyone.

said.*

In occupation, it’s virtually impossible to retain your humanity. We’re mercenaries.

Like...

Like what???

We are turning into “Judeo-Nazis.”

What are you saying? Judeo-Nazis?

Don’t talk like that in my house.

The comparison is intolerable. How can you possibly compare?

We have to compare.

...That my son would compare us to them...?

What’s the sense of it all?

You don’t grasp the meaning of Eretz Israel. Why we are here. What it means for the Jewish people to return to their land.

So why stay in this place?

Yeshayahu Leibowitz – Israeli scientist, philosopher, and one of the most forceful opponents of Israel’s occupation of the territories. He used the taboo word “Judeo – Nazis” to warn against the implications of protracted occupation. Because of that assertion, he was denied the Israel Prize.

180

I guess you’re right. I don’t belong here.

Didn’t you learn anything from what happened to Michal?

What did you say?

Just what you heard. It’s not always about “the Jewish People.”

181

If we could lift one more veil We might reveal The face of our near ones more than the thing for which we went to war

182

183

Friday

184

There are so many birds here.

Can you identify them?

Not really. What are those?

They are pelicans.

185

Look, Look A heron.

What kind of heron?

A gray heron.

186

Most herons live in groups but the gray heron lives mainly alone.

How do you know so much about birds?

Why is that?

I watch them.

It has an inner life. It’s quiet and confident. Its eyes penetrate the hidden world and it sees everything. There’s something noble about it. It doesn’t care It seems distant and even cold to me.

what others think of it.

Its integrity pushes the other birds away.

Yes. That’s the way I see you.

You always steer the conversation towards the personal.

Sometimes I have difficulty with that.

You know, you describe it as if you were talking about yourself.

Myself?

Well, so be it.

187

Look how sweet - a mother and her boy walking hand-in-hand.

That’s not a boy; it’s a girl.

Ok, a girl. These days you don’t see many parents walking hand - in – hand with their children.

True. In America, mothers push their kids in strollers up to the age of six or seven.

Wow! That’s beautiful!

188

How beautiful the world is and how lighty we turn our eyes away from it.

189

Our Back to the Cypresses Our backs are to the Cypresses. we hide the hills behind our homes ashamed to see the stars we rush into the rustling streets lest our hearts become entangled in the open space.

And so we lived in closed rooms and in the city outskirts strapped with telephone and telegraph wires far from everything we innocently loved within time, beyond our selves.

Lea Goldberg

Translated by Rachel Tzvia Back

190

San Francisco

191

192

193

Dear Mossi, How are you?

How are you getting along with your new toy (the bluejay) and Nina? I don’t know who I miss more, you or her. Don’t be offended, I’m just kidding.

I know you’re angry at me for not phoning, but you know how hard it is for me to express myself in tal king – a kind of paralysis comes over me, as you wel l know.

That’s why I prefer to write. This period (this crazy war + my family) has been both interesting and hard. Everything has been stressful and painful. The war brought up al l sorts of tensions (especial ly between myself and Racheli and Dad ), which I thought I had gotten rid of, especial ly concerning Racheli and her relationship with Dad. She treats him with such animosity, not wil ling to forgive him for how he treated her as a child. I’ve always had to stand between them. And Noni is smart and sensitive, and feels everything. He has real ly matured and misses you terribly. I wish you’d do to me what you do to him. Leaving Israel and our problems in San Francisco drained al l my energy. Al l the love I had for you had died. I felt that I had no resources left to try to retrieve those feelings. I felt empty. I know this hurt you. In that sense, the distance between us is good. I feel that I am slowly regaining my energy and the ability to love.

You wouldn’t believe what a great relationship Noni has formed with Ezekiel. It’s one of the good things that has come out of this trip. For me too, seeing Ezekiel has been meaningful. It gnaws at him that the two of you don’t speak.

There’s a young woman here who takes care of him and I’ve real ly fal len in love with her. She has such grace and simplicity, the opposite of me. To her everything seems so simple and easy to resolve.

We (she and I) have decided to spend a long weekend in a cabin on a kibbutz by the sea. Unexpected ly, Noni chose to stay with Ezekiel rather than with Racheli or his other cousins. You may think it irresponsible, but I see how important this relationship is to both them, so I’m going along with Noni’s wishes.

It’s getting late, so I’l l end here.

I love you and miss you, Yvonne

194

friday evening

This is the convent.

Here I hid from the Germans.

At the window is the Mother Superior – who is in charge of the convent.

Grandpa, what is a convent?

A place for Christian women who believe in God and live and work together in what they believe is God’s service.

What kind of service do they do there?

They farm and grow their own food, but their real service is through good works and prayer.

Who do they pray for?

They pray for themselves. They believe that their god (Jesus) will save their souls.

But don’t ask me who Jesus is because that is a very long story and we are getting away from our own story.

The women who live in the convent are called nuns. I had to disguise myself as a nun.

195 In the convent I found peace and quiet. But I felt like a stranger.

The whole time, I kept thinking about the ghetto and what was happening there. What was happening with the people I loved whom I had left behind.

From his suffering image, from the feet of the cold statue, look. With a delicate hand dust sweep into gold coffer only my crucified memory outside the fence!

In the court, in a private language, my sister plays with another god.

I worked in the fields with the nuns.

I went to the forest to gather blackberries and pick mushrooms but my heart was somewhere else.

In the evenings I wandered in the woods. I tried to find out anything I could about the ghetto.

One day I me a priest.

What is the priest?

A priest is like a rabbi, but Christian.

He fixes things between the people and their God. The priest told me that the Germans were taking all the Jews by truck to the forest and shooting them.

Did they kill them???

Yes. It was awful.

It was hard for me to believe, but he convinced me when he said: “I met people who saw it all.�

196 We parted. The priest went his way and I stayed there alone.

It was cold and I was all alone.

I felt that my world was destroyed, that I was being sucked in by a giant whirlpool.

A great darkness covered my soul. But in the midst of it, I saw a clear picture before my eyes.

I knew the Jews had no hope.

The Germans were going to murder everyone. The only choice was to fight. Not to win, because there was no chance of that. Just to fight for our honor as Jews.

To die in dignity.

What is a manifesto? What did you write?

I’ll tell you in a minute.

And there I started to write the manifesto.

I told her about my meeting with the priest and what he had said. She burst out: ”I knew it.”

I told her: I’m going back to the ghetto to be with my people.”

She said: ”That’s crazy. You’re choosing death. I’m offering you safety here.” I told her that I wanted to convince my people to stand up to the Germans, resist, fight for their honor.

She was quiet for a moment, then she said: ”Go in peace my child. I give you

The next day I went to the Mother Superior and told her what I was thinking.

my blessing and I will be the first to help.

Did she help you?

Yes. She brought us our first pistol.

We disguised ourselves as garbage men working for the city.

That evening I met the priest in the wood.

197

Grandpa, you said you’d tell me about the manifesto.

Let us not go like sheep to the slaughter!

1 p.282

Yes, sure, good thing you reminded me.

I’ll recite it to you from memory, but it’s a bit long.

Jewish youth: don’t be fooled by the lies you are being told. Of the eighty thousand Jews living in “Lithuanian Jerusalem” only twenty thousand have survived. Our parents and our brothers and sisters were torn from us before our very eyes.

Where are the hundreds of Jews put into forced labor camps by their Lithuanian captors?

Where are the Jews of Yom Kippur?

Where are our brothers from Ghetto #2?

Anyone led out of the ghetto gates does not return. All Gestapo roads lead to Ponar. Ponar is death. Enough hesitation! Cast off your illusions: your children, your wives and husbands are no longer among the living.

Ponar is not a concentration camp. Everyone who went there was shot!

Hitler plans to exterminate all of Europe’s Jews. It is the lot of Lithuanian Jews to go first.

Don’t go like sheep to the slaughter!

True, we are weak and defenseless, but the only response to murderers is resistance.

Grandpa, is this going to be much longer?

Let me go on.

Brothers! It is better to die fighting of our own free will than to live on at the mercy of murderers.

Resist! Resistance to our last breath!

198 Later that evening

Someone who is free can get up and leave, and someone who is free cannot get up and leave.

199

Hi, grandpa.

I thought you were asleep.

Is it a poem?

I couldn’t sleep.

What are you writing, Grandpa?

A poem.

What is a poem?

Do you want to try?

OK

j f k g h h g l n c v j f g h j g n k v b

Listen and you will see.

That is a part of a poem.

In the sand my son drew a flower; Your flower, shall we kiss it, I asked him with a smile – so it won't whither?

When you write a poem imagine a tune in your mind.

But I hardly know how to write.

I’ll get confused.

Don’t worry, it’s good to be confused.

j f k g h h g l n c v j f g h j g n k v b j k v c j b f g h j g n b k v b j k v c j b

I a h v e d o g h o d o g i h v e d o g i hav h a v

I wrote a poem, Grandpa.

Knock

Great! Keep going but be careful

Knock

to leave a space between the words.

Someone is at the door. Run off to bed so no one will know we’re fooling around in the middle of the night.

200

Good evening.

Good evening. What a surprise. Are you on your way back from the cinema?

No, from a play.

I see that you are writing?

How is it coming along?

So, so.

What are you writing about?

Something about childhood memories.

That’s interesting.

And you C’ella, what childhood experiences live on in your memory?

Do you really want to know?

The play I saw dealt with childhood memories too.

201

Yes, I do.

202

203

204

205

206

207

208

209

210

211

The most beautiful period of my life was during the Holocaust.

That’s an awful thing to say but it’s true.

What is the meaning of a common fate? I went through similar things. I was saved by

Are you sleeping, sweetheart,

non-Jews. I lived on kibbutz after the war.

or just pretending?

Everything is reflected through our consciousness, and each consciousness is different. We each experience our fate uniquely. A common fate doesn’t mean

Good night, dear – sweet dreams.

common experience?

So what exactly does it mean?

Good night, Ezekiel.

Good night.

212

I brought Bergman's film Persona.

Are you familiar with it?

Yes.

Would you like to watch it with me?

Sure, but I have to finish this letter first. You know I have trouble writing letters.

213

The movie is about to start.

So pause it.

214

We are exactly the same.

Sure, exactly.

215

We lay there completely naked and sunbathed.

Suddenly I saw two figures on the rocks over us.

The boys coming closer. They were very young. Suddenly Katarina said to him ”Hey you, why don’t you come over here?” Suddenly he was on top of her.

I turned to the other boy and said, ”Aren’t you coming to me too?” He grabbed my breast. It hurt so much. I was overwhelmed and came almost immediately.

I felt something I’d never felt in my life I came over and over.

It was so good.

She is wild.

216

Is it possible to be one and the same person at the same time?

I mean two people. I think I can change myself into you if I tried...

Go to bed.

Good night.

217

Against the darkness and the silence

I have always wanted a sister.

I only have brothers.

Na’ama enough! I want to watch the film.

218

219

Hi Mossi.

What a surprise.

How are you?

Yes it’s difficult...

Please be patient.

Mossi, have faith in me..

I just need time...

Don’t pressure me.

220

Saturday

222

Do we need anything else?

I think we have more than enough.

Sit down, please.

No, no. I just couldn’t fall asleep.

I heard you talking with Amos last night.

You were eavesdropping.

Don’t worry, it wasn’t private

Whenever I talk to him I get so upset.

Why is that?

223

Yvonne what’s the matter?

It’s complicated.

You know, it’s strange, we never talk about the important things.

About love.

About love?

What exactly are you referring to?

Yes, what is love?

224 Love doesn’t have a general definition.

Everyone finds their own definition of “love.”

Every relationship has its own kind of love. No two ways of love are alike.

Even if someone has a number of loves, each is unique.

What may strike you as a loveless relationship – between Amos and myself, is perhaps profound love, an opportunity for me to work on it.

To repair, not to destroy.

225

For me, love comes from fullness, not from breakage.

That’s why repairs don’t work.

Maybe you’re right, but maybe not.

Who knows what love is?

Na’ama, I’m sorry, I have to finish this letter to Amos.

It won’t take long.

226

What’s love?

227

Did you bring sugar?

Sure. A little sweetness won’t hurt us.

228 Wow, Matisse! I’m crazy about him.

I also really like him.

His appreciation of beauty is unmatched.

They look just like us.

Why do you always have to compare?

Aren’t we fine as we are?

229

230

saturday evening

Now we are going to organize the hardest scene. The Actzia and the rebellion. To make it easier to understand the situation, we have to arrange the Lego people in groups. German = black, Jews = yellow, The underground fighters = blue. But there is also another group. The Judenraat, the Jewish police

What is that?

Jewish police helped organize the life of the Jewish communities under the Germans.

Why did they help them?

How should we color them?

I will paint them yellow and black.

Why did they help Germans?

I don’t like them.

I’m going to make them ugly.

Some of them thought they could make things better for the Jews.

But they ended up working together with the German enemy in a cruel situation that they didn’t even understand.

231 Do you remember you asked me what Actzia is?

Yes

Here it comes

232

The Jews are forced out of their hiding places.

Why were they so cruel and mean?

Doing this to their own people?

Yes, you are right. But they were victims, too.

233

Where were you, Grandpa?

This was position No. 1

This was position No. 2.

The command position. I was the commander.

Why didn’t you call other Jews to help you fight?

They still believed the Germans were taking them to a better place to live and work. All we had to offer them was an honorable death. Nobody wants to hear that. We were rejected by our own community.

We saw everything. It was terrible to see it all and do nothing. I ordered our fighters to hold their fire and wait until the Germans entered the ghetto.

234

At the same time, the Germans moved their troops around the ghetto.

How did you know about that??

We had a lookout.

Also, people on the Judenrat told us. The Germans started coming in. We had so waited for that moment. It’s terrible to say that we wanted the ghetto liquidated ended. But we were prepared for that. We took out our weapons.

I wanted to wait as long as we could, and then open fire with guns and grenades from a short distance, especially from behind, which would have been more effective.

235

Yasha was on the porch in the advance

Wow...

position when he saw the German commander. He fired. The commander dropped down, dead.

Yasha was a hero

He could have been if he hadn’t disobeyed my order to hold his fire.

But he killed the commander.

The gate watchman shot Yasha in the head and killed him.

The Germans started to burn down the building from which the shots had been fired.

Our fighters managed to escape and join us.

Then something unexpected happened.

The Germans retreated and left the ghetto.

The Germans left the ghetto

236 They forced the Jewish police to finish the ghetto’s liquidation.

Why did they agree?

What choice did they have?

237 The Jewish police started shouting and routing Jews out of their hiding places with shouts and blows.

How did they know where the hiding places were?

There were a lot of informers – people who told on others.

The ghetto began to burn – house by house.

The Ghetto began burning house by house.

What did you do?

I summoned our people to our main position.

We argued about what to do next. Some wanted to stop the hunt at once even if it meant killing the Jewish policemen.

Some wanted to break through the gate and kill as many Germans as possible.

They would have been killed. The Germans had tanks.

Yes, you are right.

We had an escape plan and I gave the order to carry it out.

238 The ghetto continued to burn as one section after another went up in flame.

Grandpa, what was your plan?

To leave the ghetto through the sewage tunnels.

Yuck... Why through the sewage?

It was the only way to avoid capture.

The fighters arrived at the sewage entrance one by one.

Meanwhile, rumor of our plan had spread and more and more people began gathering around, demanding that we take them with us. Fighting broke out. I gave an order that we would not take anyone with us who had no weapon, including parents or siblings. It was the worst moment of my life.

What about your parents?

My father had already passed away. Yes. My mother came and asked: ”what

And all the people left in the ghetto – where did they go?

about me?” I told her I had no answer

while the ghetto was burning down?

for her.

239 Most of them were already gone.

And you?

Grandpa, why did you run?

We didn’t run. We left according to an orderly plan.

That was the end. There was no alternative.

Grandpa, why did you ran away?

240 We didn’t run away.

Why don’t you understand?

Why???

We didn’t run away.

There is nothing to be found but an abyss, perishing.

Enough!

Grandpa, enough!

241 3

p.283

*It was decided to destroy the ghetto

242

The Ghetto is burning

*Yasha fired shots too soon. It seems that two or three Germans were killed. They blew up the house where Yasha was positioned.

I think everyone there was killed.

*The Germans are leaving the ghetto.

The Jewish police are replacing them.

The BASTARDS. The hunt is on.

From every hole they drag the Jews to boxcars.

*I’ve got them in sight.

*Deckler’s guys.

*Who?

*Nobody fires until I give the order! *Deckler was the chief officer of the Jewish police.

*What are we here for? *What are we wating for?

243

*Where are you hiding them?

Think you’re some kind of Where is your family?

hero? We’ll soon turn you over to the Gestapo and then we’ll see what you’re made of.

What’s holding us up?

Are our people in position?

Everything’s falling apart. The whole plan is collapsing. Our struggle has failed.

The situation has changed. There’s nothing we can do. We can’t kill our own people even if they’re in the devil’s service. They are victims like us. The Jews believe they’re heading for work camps, not for liquidation.

For them it isn’t extermination, maybe it even seems like rescue. They won’t revolt... can they possibly be right??? I’ve made my decision.

244

*I’ve made my decision even though it’s tough. Tomorrow evening we’ll organize to leave the ghetto. WE’LL MEET THE PARTISANS IN THE FOREST. Yulik will meet us at the appointed spot. We’ll have ample opportunity to take revenge on the Germans and we will do so HEROICALLY. Don’t give in to despair.

*It would be senseless and suicidal to resist.

*I think our commander is right and we should obey his order.

And anyway, maybe they are taking them to work camps.

*Let’s break through the gates.

At least we’ll die while killing Germans.

That’s the reason we stayed behind.

Until the end. To fight for our people’s honor. Isn’t that what we told ourselves? “We won’t go like sheep to the slaughter.”

Isn’t that right?

245

*Don’t fall apart.

Maybe they were right and we were wrong

When I asked my soul to die in sickness, isolation, in a hopeless war: when I asked my soul to die what did not stop flowing in my shrinkig veins was you and you.

You In a thousand reflections, my love, I atone for you.

Please, answer me, please...

246

Good evening.

What is going on here?

Ezekiel!

What happened?

Noni, my dear, what happened?

Don’t cry, everything will be all right.

Come, let’s pull up the blanket.

Grandpa went crazy.

I’m afraid of Grandpa...

247 I’ll sing you a lullaby, Do you know the hyacinth song?

The full moon gazes night after night at the garden flowers all suddenly abloom; night after night it watches the hyacinth in our little garden and its white-tasseled swoon.

In the morning we'll all go out to the garden to see the white bloom, lush and round; for the hyacinth there my son will sing until great joy in our garden abounds.

Lea Goldberg Translated from the Hebrew

by Rachel Tzvia Back

248

Now what am I to do with Ezekiel?

I don’t understand.

I don’t understand.

Ezekiel – speak to me.

It is me, C’ella.

What don’t you understand?

Look at me, it’s me, C’ella.

Come let’s get you to bed.

You will rest and I’ll make us both tea...

Lean on me That’s it... Good...

Everything will be alright.

249

That’s enough! You’re overdoing it.

I’m not an invalid yet.

250 Whatever you say.

I’m going to make tea.

How much sugar?

Three.

Three?

Where does the pain came from?

Like a worm into the heart? * H.N.Bialik

251

You’re retreating into your books again?

Why call it retreat?

I find consolation in them.

Why can’t I see what’s in front of me?

C’ella... Why don’t you join me for tea?

Don’t you see I brought two cups?

252

What are you reading?

Medieval liturgical poems - piyyutim.

C’ella, why don’t you take off your strange hat?

Don’t you like it?

You look better without it.

Is that better?

So, what happened between you and Noni that he’s so frightened and upset?

253

You know how children are. They can unintentionally touch a raw nerve. How do you explain something to a 6-year-old when sometimes you can’t explain it to yourself?

I really regret what happened. I lost control.

Maybe you can explain it to me.

I’ll quote to you from a poem I wrote. That will help you understand.

254

On the River's Shore The shore clamored and roared, it seemed with thousands, then a thousand more.

Shadows rose up on each wrestled wave that pulled then pushed away I'll cross over beside you, my daughter, by your side, I'll cross over the water.

But how can we cross over, Mother, how, when you hair is white with age?

I'll wear your shawl, my daughter, and this ribbon in my hair.

But, Mother, your face is aged and graying too.

Speak no weeping words, daughter. Dress me, beloved child, in my wedding gown and beside you, to redemption I'll cross over, daughter of mine.

The others saw the daughter. They saw the mother too.

Their hands were tight-fisted, their silent voices unmoved.

Thus the assembled stood crowded. Their gaze long and dark. Look – they called out in a voice of thousands, an Old Woman!

Come out, the crowd commanded.

The face a washed boulder. Razor eyes to the shattered tribe.

Between each rising and falling wave, a mother suspended in her daughter's wake: At a time like this, how can you cast me out (daughter, daughter) when just yesterday in my arms I held you (daughter, daughter) my breasts still full with milk – (daughter, daughter).

People! We are all brothers, and she is my only one.

And the shores filled up with people. Only their gaze long and dark.

The mother retreated, the daughter as though rope-tied followed, though with faltering steps.

If I follow you, Mother, (the mother stands a petrified-tree at water's edge) I walk not toward life. (the mother at water's edge) Do you wish us to die together, tell me. (a mother at water's edge) Mommy! See – the bridge is before me, the boys wait in the forest.

Is that about leaving your mother behind?

Yes. And I was the one who gave the order.

The mother spoke her eyes bereft: My curse is not upon you. Go. In my purse I keep a knife.

Then the shore leveled. Each person afraid of the next. And a wall fell.

Too late.

255

What are you doing?

What you see.

C’ella, please...

Don’t..

256

Touch my heart.

There is pain which perhaps only the body can heal.

257

There is pain that has no relief.

258

Dear Mossi, How are you?

It was very nice to get a phone cal l from you, but again, I felt the disappointment in your voice. I was also left with a bitter taste in my mouth. It's hard for me to say what I want, especial ly on the phone. I am returning to pen and paper, which I hand le better. I feel and understand your pressuring me to make a decision. I know how difficult it is to live with uncertainty. It's what I hate most. So, this is my decision.

Noni and I are coming home. It might take two weeks to arrange some things and say good-bye to the family and some friends (especial ly girlfriends) I stil l have left. But most importantly, I am at peace with my decision. After the telephone cal l from you, I hard ly slept, and suddenly I felt relieved, and then happy at the thought that we would be together again. You and me. You, me and Noni. I don't want to say more; we'l l have enough time to discuss things when we meet. I now understand that the decision to live far away from you is mine, and that I didn't do it for you. So, everything is for the best (as they say). Times of difficulty are an opportunity for improvement. That's what happened to me. It's possible that meeting Na’ama (Ezekiel 's physiotherapist) helped me understand things about myself.

I can't wait to hold you and to look into your intel ligent eyes. I always knew, and now more than ever, that your just being, gives me faith both in myself and in life.

Yours, Yvonne

259

April

260 They are coming to say good-bye.

Noni and Yvonne are coming by this afternoon.

Yes, I know.

261 I wanted to tell you but it wasn’t final...

Maybe I didn’t want to cause pain...

Have you known for long?

Yes.

You should have told me.

To whom?

Both of us.

I’ve become attached to Yvonne.

Who hasn’t?

262

It’s funny. Two months ago I didn’t even know her and now...

I do know.

Here they come.

263

It will be OK.

How are you?

Yes, of course.

Let’s go, Grandpa.

Grandpa, you remember you promised to teach me magic?

Bring me the cane.

We’ll do a bit of MAGIC.

264

Sit down and watch carefully.

Are my hands empty?

Shut your eyes.

Yes. Are you sure there is nothing in them?

Yes, I am sure.

Do you feel something in your belly?

No. Shut your eyes tight...

265

Abra... cadabra...hokus...pokus Open your eyes.

Look what’s coming out of Noni’s ears.

Grandpa, do some more magic.

I’m going to tell your mother that

OK. Watch Grandpa carefully.

you don’t know how to clean your ears.

Don’t be afraid.

Does Grandpa look like a rooster?

No.

Hokus pokus Grandpa laid an egg.

But roosters can’t lay eggs.

266

What’s new?

It’s good to see you again.

You know...there isn’t much to add.

267

Sure.

Want to share an orange?

Remember – you offered me a cigarette when we first met here?

Yes.

268 More Magic.

Just one more trick... Please...

Put your hand in.

No.

Here’s the hat.

Feel anything?

Abracadabra... Hokus pokus...

And now ? Do you feel anything?

Yes. Pull.

More.

So pull.

269

More

More

Go!

270

Go, Go

Grandpa is a Magician.

271

Yes, I know.

Stay here a minute with your aunt.

I’m going to say good-bye to Grandpa.

Mom, you know, Grandpa is a magician.

She isn’t my aunt.

Come on, let’s play a game.

272

So...

So

So how was your stay?

In what regard?

Is your flight tomorrow?

Yes. All packed?

I’m almost done.

In every way.

273

274

Where should I start?

275 It’s very complex. There were many wonderful things. But it was difficult, as if there was a cloud that made it hard to breathe.

The experience of this strange war...

How was your return to Israel?

Was there anything positive?

Yes. As a matter of fact.

Same here.

It was wonderful to meet Noni and to get to know him.

It was a privilege getting And what about you, Ezekiel?

to know you better.

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They forgot the LEGO box.

Na’ama, Na’ama come here!

Please come.

Can you catch up with them?

Sure.

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You forgot the LEGO.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

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Will I see you again, Grandpa?

An endless field plays hide and seek in me until the words are gone.

As the decline of years and the rise of vision accumulate I fear too much world lies within me.

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No one will carry my mother’s bier with me No one will come close to my mother’s bier with me Come to the vast plains Lead your eyes to the white river It scoops out its channel and shoves like the prow of a heavy ship in the ice and say with me imi imi.

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HISTORICAL NOTES

ABBA KOVNER 1 Abba Kovner was born in 1918 in Sebastopol, Crimea, on the shores of the Black Sea. His early life was typical of Jewish youth of the time. He was raised in Vilna, the preeminent center of Jewish scholarship and the teachings of traditional and modern persuasions, from Orthodoxy to socialism. Abba attended the University of Vilna as an art student, learning to sculpt, and later developed a passion for poetry.

Like many other boys his age he was drawn to the Zionist movement and joined the local Zionist youth group of «Ha-Shomer Ha-tsa’ir.» But his fate was hardly typical. The Nazi war machine saw to that.

On June 24, 1941, two days after Germany launched its surprise attack on the Soviet Union in «Operation Barbarossa,» the Germans occupied Vilna. Several thousand Jews fled eastward with the Soviet Army, but the rapid German advance trapped the majority in Vilna. Almost 60,000 Jews remained in the city under German occupation.

Less than a month after the Germans occupied Vilna, they conducted their first Action. Einsatzkommando 9 rounded up 5,000 of Vilna’s Jews and led them off to Ponar to be murdered.

Kovner and 16 other members of Ha-Shomer Ha-tsai’r fled the city to avoid enclosure in the ghetto. They hid in a Dominican convent a few miles outside of Vilna (pp. 194-196), watching as the Nazis conducted one action after another.

Although they had been subjected to constant terrorism and destruction since the German arrival, the Jews of Vilna were still not ready to believe the truth about the mass shooting of Jews. On September 17, 1941, SS squads, assisted by Lithuanian auxiliary units, shot more than 1,200 Jews from the Vilna ghetto in the pits of Ponar, including some 700 women and 250 children.

On November 6, 1941, the Germans ordered Jews without work permits to move from Ghetto No. 1 to Ghetto No. 2.

During the move, they seized almost all the Jews without work permits from Ghetto No. 1 and held them for two days at the Lukiszki Prison. They then marched them to Ponar to be executed. (pp. 231-233) One Ponar survivor, a little girl, actually came back to the ghetto and told of her experiences. No one wanted to believe her story. But Abba Kovner had no illusions about the German intentions for Vilna’s Jews.

On December 31, a secret meeting was held of youth groups and activists, many of whom advocated resistance and a call to arms. Not all agreed to stay and fight. Abba Kovner took it upon himself to urge what remained of the ghetto inhabitants to rise up and fight from within the ghetto.

In an impassioned speech delivered at a ghetto soup

kitchen, he called out to those around him: «Jewish youth!

Do not trust those who are trying to deceive you. Out of the eighty thousand Jews in the Jerusalem of Lithuania only twenty thousand are left… «Ponar is not a concentration camp. They have all been shot there. Hitler plans to destroy all the Jews of Europe and the Jews of Lithuania have been chosen as the first in line.» (p. 197) Shortly thereafter the United (Fareinikte) Partisan Organization – F.P.O.– was formed, on January 21, 1942 in the Vilna Ghetto. It took as its motto: «We will not go like sheep to the slaughter,» from the speech given by Abba Kovner.

It was decided that the F.P.O. would be led by a «staff command» made up of Kovner, Josef Glazman and Yitzhak Wittenberg, the «chief commander». Later, two more members were added to the staff command – Abraham Chwojnik of the Bund and Nissan Reznik of Ha-No’ar Ha-Tziyoni – expanding the leadership to five.

The goals of the F.P.O. were to establish means of self-defense for the ghetto population, to sabotage German industrial and military activity and to join the partisans and Red Army against the Nazis.

Initial studies of how to defend the compact space of a few city blocks, without outside contacts and a source of arms, led some to believe that the only real defense would be classic hit-and-run partisan warfare from bases outside the ghetto.

However, not all ghetto Jews were in favor of the resistance movement. The Vilna Judenrat led by Jacob Gens felt that the only way for the Jews of Vilna to avoid total annihilation was to prove that the ghetto was economically useful to the Germans in their war effort.

Fearful that the activists would provoke severe reprisals on the remaining Jews, Gens, aided by his ghetto police, began a propaganda campaign against the resistance. He succeeded in convincing the leaders of the «Work Brigades» to support his efforts and was able to turn public opinion against the F.P.O. and its leaders.

2

YITZHAK WITTENBERG AFFAIR (16th of JULY 1943)

(pp. 91-96)

When the Germans learned of the resistance movement they began to pressure Gens to arrest the people involved. Gens set up a meeting with the F.P.O. leaders to try to get them to cease and desist.

At this meeting, Gens had F.P.O. leader Wittenberg arrested. Other F.P.O. members were alerted and, in anger, attacked the Jewish police, eventually freeing Wittenberg who went into hiding inside the ghetto.

The next morning, in response to Gens’ failure to produce the F.P.O. leader to the Gestapo, the Germans threatened to liquidate the entire ghetto and its remaining 20,000 Jews if Wittenberg were not apprehended. In panic, Gens again turned to the people, claiming that the resistance members were provoking the Nazis.

He asked: «Is it worth sacrificing tens of thousands of lives for the sake of one man?»

Large numbers of ghetto inhabitants began to demand that the F.P.O. give Wittenberg up. Some attacked F.P.O. members with stones. The F.P.O. literally faced a crisis of life or death.How were they to fight the ghetto population that they had vowed to defend?

Ultimately, Wittenberg, himself, made the decision to bow to Nazi demands and turn himself in. But before submitting to torture and death at the hands of the Gestapo, his final act as leader of the F.P.O. was to appoint Abba Kovner his successor.

During the summer and fall of 1943, Kovner and his resistance fighters carried out acts of sabotage against German military trains and transports of equipment, and even set up an illegal printing press outside of the ghetto.

One of their key goals was to form ties with the Soviet resistance in the city and the forests. Kovner also sent emissaries to the Warsaw and Bialystok ghettos to warn the inhabitants about the mass killings of Jews in the occupied Soviet Union and to arouse resistance.

283 3

LAST DAYS OF THE GHETTO

(pp. 235-238).

On September 1, 1943, German forces began the final destruction of the Vilna ghetto. Kovner and the F.P.O. strove to persuade the ghetto residents not to assemble for deportation because they were actually being sent to their deaths.

The Jews of Vilna refused to believe this since Gens had led them to believe that they were being sent to labor camps in Estonia.

Fighting broke out between the F.P.O. and the Germans who brought in light artillery and explosives to flush out the ghetto fighters. But at nightfall, the Germans pulled out of the ghetto and left it to the Jewish police to continue the hunt until daylight.

After the initial skirmish with the Germans, Gens tried to prevent further destruction: he offered to supply more Jews for forced labor in Estonia if the Germans would leave the ghetto. The Germans agreed and named the figure Gens was to produce.

Gens was hoping to fill the German quota with the F.P.O. members he was able to capture. But the German authorities refused to wait and rounded up every Jew they could get their hands on, eventually deporting all but 12,000 Jews from Vilna.

Shortly thereafter, on September 14, Gens was summoned to a meeting with the German authorities, never to return. He was interrogated by the Gestapo, accused of aiding the resistance and shot. Ten days later the ghetto was liquidated.

4 THE FOREST AND THE PARTISANS (pp. 233-245).

Once more, the F.P.O. urged the remaining Jews to resist deportation, and again the last of the Jews of the Vilna ghetto chose not to heed the call to arms.

Kovner and hundreds of ghetto fighters escaped through the city’s sewers and other outlets to Rudniky Forest, where they joined up with Soviet partisans for combat and sabotage missions.

There, Kovner and his followers ran an all-Jewish partisan division that acquitted itself heroically.

The division played a key role in destroying power installations, water infrastructure, and supply depots. They blew up German transport trains and rescued the group’s prisoners from the Kalais labor camp (pp. 29-35).

In the spring of 1944, a group of partisans under Abba Kovner attacked the “White Poles.” They set up an ambush near a makeshift bridge at the head of a marsh. In the dead of night, there were footsteps and a group was spotted approaching the bridge. The partisans demanded the password several times but received no answer. They opened fire. Within moments, one of the fighters realized that there were women in the group, and Abba Kovner immediately halted the fire. The group approaching the bridge was actually comprised of Jewish partisans from the unit under Kovner’s command. There were several dead, including two women, one of whom was an intimate friend of his.

After the war, Kovner helped organize the Beriha movement, leading hundreds of thousands of survivors to Palestine. Kovner and his wife, Vitka Kempner, who was also his partner in the underground movement, settled in Palestine, where he joined the Givati Brigade to defend the newly-established state of Israel.

In 1961 Kovner testified at the trial of Adolf Eichmann and later dedicated himself to poetry. He also authored several books for which he won the 1970 Israel Prize in Literature.

Abba Kovner died at age 69 in September 1987.

5 GULF WAR (pp. 2, 82-85).

The Gulf War (also referred to as the First Gulf War, August 2, 1990-February 28, 1991), was waged by a United Nationsauthorized coalition force from thirty-four countries. Led by the United States against Iraq, its express purpose was to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait after their invasion and annexation of the

country on August 2,1990.

This war was also referred to (by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein) as the Mother of all Battles, and is commonly known in the West as Desert Storm (i.e., its operational name) or the Iraq War. Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990 was met with international condemnation and immediate economic sanctions by the UN Security Council. U.S. President George W. Bush deployed American forces in Saudi Arabia and urged other countries to send troops to the region. The great majority of the military forces making up the coalition were from the United States, with Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and Egypt leading contributors, in that order. Saudi Arabia paid about US $40 billion of the US $60 billion cost involved.

The initial effort to expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait began with aerial bombardment on January 17, 1991, followed by a ground assault on February 23. It was a decisive victory for the coalition forces, which liberated Kuwait and advanced into Iraqi territory.

The coalition ceased its advance and declared a cease-fire 100 hours after the start of the ground campaign. Aerial and ground combat was confined to Iraq, Kuwait, and areas on the border of Saudi Arabia. However, on the night of January 17-18, Israel was bombarded by land-to-land Scud missiles with conventional warheads, launched from western Iraq toward metropolitan Tel Aviv, Haifa and points in the Negev. These attacks continued up to the end of the war. Thirty-nine missiles fell within Israel’s borders with the aim of provoking Israel into a counterattack on Iraq. Any Israeli response would have endangered the fragile Arab coalition supporting the international force. The missile attacks may also have represented a response by Saddam to the Israeli bombing of Iraqi nuclear facilities in 1981. In the course of the war there were dozens of fatalities in Israel as a direct result of the Scud attacks, primarily from heart failure and strangulation while wearing gas masks. The victims were mainly elderly but also included children.

Despite the relatively minor physical damage caused by the Scud attacks, they did manage to dent the population’s morale and raise the anxiety level. Many residents of the coastal cities fled to the south, the Galilee and Jerusalem. The first wave of Scuds and lack of an orderly response by the government generated confusion.

On 22 January 1991, Scud missiles and a malfunctioning coalition Patriot were responsible for injuring 96 people in Ramat Gan, and possibly killing three elderly people who died of stroke. The code alarm “Snakebite” was a signal for residents to put on gas masks and proceed to shelters or “safe areas”.

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List of poems Part 1

Page 13. . ..... from “My Little Sister,” 35 iii. Translated by Shirley Kaufman.

Page 23. . ..... from “Tashlikh” in Sloan Kettering. Translated by Eddi Levenstone.

Page 35. . ..... “No. 3” from “The Key Fell to the Bottom.” Translated by Rachel Tzvia Back.

Page 80. . ..... from “Drowned” in From All My Loves. Translated by Shirley Kaufman.

Page 87. . ..... from “Last Storm” in Rosa’s Song. Translated by Shirley Kaufman.

Page 96. . ..... from “Sloan Kettering.” Translated by Eddi Levenstone.

Page 110..... from “Sounds Nearby” in Parting from the West. Translated by Rachel Tzvia Back.

Part 2

Page 132..... from “My White City’s Voice” in From All My Loves. Translated by Rachel Tzvia Back.

Page 146..... “To Plant in Shifting Sand” in A Canopy in the Desert. Translated by Shirley Kaufman.

Page 163..... “The Angel Michael.” Translated by Rachel Tzvia Back.

Page 170..... from “My Lover’s Violin” in Rosa’s Song. Translated by Rachel Tzvia Back.

Page 181..... from “Sloan Kettering.” Translated by Eddi Levenstone.

Page 195..... from “My Little Sister.” Translated by Shirley Kaufman.

Page 198..... ”Last Storm” in Rosa’s Song. Translated Shirley Kaufman.

Page 199..... from “My son drew a flower in the Sand” in From All My Loves. Translated by Rachel Tzvia Back Page 245..... from “Last Storm” in Rosa’s Song. Translated by Shirley Kaufman.

Page 254..... from “On the River’s Shore” in The Key Fell to the Bottom. Translated by Rachel Tzvia Page 279..... from “Endless Field” in El. Translated by Rachel Tzvia Back.

Page 281..... “46” from “My Little Sister.” Translated by Shirley Kaufman.

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Michael Kovner

Born in 1948 in Israel on Kibbutz Ein Ha-Horesh in the Sharon plain, Michael Kovner started his art studies in the 1960s with Yohanan Simon. In 1972 he went to the U.S. to study at the New York Studio School, where he was privileged to meet the artist Philip Guston, who became his teacher and friend.

In the summer of 1975 he returned to Israel, settling in Jerusalem. The Jerusalem Artists’ House welcomed him with an exhibition of his abstract paintings executed in New York. On view were large works, very powerful in Photo by Inbal Ross

their use of color and form.

In his 1979 exhibition at the Bineth Gallery in Tel Aviv he included, for the first time, bird’s - eye views of desert landscapes. Since then, he has mainly painted landscape series: various urban landscapes, houses in Gaza, New York views, rural scenes, Jerusalem, seascapes, portscapes, and lately—landscapes of the Beth Shean and Jezreel valleys.

A retrospective of Kovner’s landscape paintings was exhibited in 2002 at the Ramat Gan Museum of Israeli Art, and a book was published of all his works.

Since 2001, he has rented a studio in Long Island, New York where he paints for three months every summer.

In February 2005 he exhibited paintings from New York at the Bineth Gallery in Tel Aviv under the title “New York Landscapes.”

His works are also on permanent display at the George Krevsky Gallery in San Francisco “Michael Kovner’s paintings are far from being mere landscapes. They bespeak moments of contact, colored by a profound sense of love and belonging that binds together man and place. The focus is not on the beauty of a given view, but rather on its character, on the many ways in which it exists in time and on its unique quality. Looking at the barns and the recumbent cows in Kovner’s paintings, you feel that the painter not only passed by and “immortalized” the appearance of a place or captured an “impression of it,” but that he was there with heart and soul.”

Dr. Ariel Hirchfeld

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