Chapter 71 Chapter Seventy

Natalie was not easy to recognize when she was working, because her face was hidden from the bottom of her eyes with a handkerchief.Motes of dust from the machines that trimmed and polished the mica floated over the long rows of tables.The women workers sit here all day, cutting the minerals that have been broken into pieces into thin slices.Natalie was another hunched-backed figure in the throng of ragged workers.This kind of work requires dexterity and is tiresome, but it is not difficult to do. She couldn't figure out what the Germans were going to do with it.Probably something to do with electrical equipment.Apparently it was a scarce material, since the chips and table scraps were sent to the mill; the ground powder, like the cut flakes, was shipped back to Germany in crates.Her job was to slice book-sized mica into thinner, more transparent sheets until the tool could no longer pierce another layer, without cutting a single piece in the process, lest she be armed with armbands and supervised by her. The vicious old French Jew was beaten severely in that section.This is indeed simple enough.

She spent eleven hours a day in this long, low, overcrowded rough wooden shed.There was a dim light from low-wattage bulbs hanging from long black wires; there was no fire in the room, and it was almost as cold as the snowy outdoors, and because of the mud beneath our feet and the breath of the packed women, even Wetter than outdoors.A toilet that overflowed disgustingly and gave off a foul stench.The latrine is only cleaned once a week by a small team of poor university professors, writers, composers and scientists wearing yellow stars, who the Germans like to have to do their shit.There was also a stench coming from the huddled, ragged women who hadn't showered for a long time.They barely have water to drink, let alone bathe and do laundry.For a visitor from the outside world, this wooden shed is hell.Natalie was used to it.

Most of these women were of noble birth like her.Among them were Czechs, Austrians, Germans, Dutch, Poles, French and Danes.Terezin is really a melting pot of different nationalities.Many were once very wealthy, and many were as highly educated as Natalie.The mica factories only accepted privileged women from the ghetto to work. The frightening, unexplained threat of "deportation to the East" loomed over Terezin like death haunted normal life.The deportation is intermittent, and a large number of people are suddenly cut off like a plague, but the workers of the mica factory and their families will not leave.At least, no one has ever walked by.

Most of the women who do this kind of easy work are older; Natalie's assignment to the mica factory means some kind of secret "shelter".Same goes for sending Ellen to work in the library.They took a sharp turn and landed in Theresienstadt, which, although surprising, was not accidental.There are also mysteries.They don't know what it is.Meanwhile, day by day they endured. The bell rang at six o'clock. The machine stopped.The hunched women stood up, stowed away their tools, and bustled out, wrapping themselves tightly in shawls, undershirts, and tattered clothes.They walked stiffly but quickly, rushing to the long queue for food before the soupy food was still warm.Once outside, Natalie pulled down her handkerchief, revealing a face that had hardly changed; thinner, paler, still beautiful, with thinner lips and a firmer chin.A fresh, cold wind swept over the snow-covered, straight streets, blowing away the usual stench of Theresienstadt's clogged sewers, littered excrement, rotten cabbage and sick, filthy people .It was a ghetto smell, plus the sickly smell of the dead on the carts that passed day and night, and the burning bodies in the crematoriums outside the city walls.The death rate of the Jews who were not slaughtered but "died" was not much lower than that in the extermination camps.

She walked down the street between the straight rows of barracks roofs, across town to the kindergarten.At this time, the stars were shining in the sky, and a crescent moon was next to a bright evening star, hanging low above the fortress wall.The rare fresh and clear air blowing into her chest made her feel very comfortable.She remembered Ellen's one-liner that morning: "Did you know, honey, that it's Thanksgiving? We've got something to thank, anyway." She walked around the high wooden wall that separated the Jew from the Grand Place and heard musicians playing in the SS cafes on the edge of the square.At mealtimes, the streets are quieter and less crowded, although there are still some frail old people staggering along and digging in the rubbish.Long snake formations for food snaked from some courtyards to the streets.People stood, their eyes wide open eagerly, ladling their watery portions of food from tin plates into their mouths.It was one of the more poignant sights of the ghetto to watch these educated Europeans gobble up this poor diet like starving dogs.

A thin man in a long ragged coat and a cloth cap came up to her. "Hi, are you okay?" said the man named Udam. She blurted out and answered in Yiddish, "What's the best way?" Now, she speaks the language as fluently as her grandmother.Often, a Dutch or French fellow sufferer would even take her for a Polish Jew.When she spoke English, it was easy for her to use the old American accent at the beginning, but the language sounded strange here.She and Ellen also talked a lot in Yiddish, because he used it a lot in the library and when he taught Talmud, though he generally taught in German and French.

"Jeselsson's String Quartet is playing again tonight," Udam said. "They wanted us to play later. I have new material." "When can we rehearse?" "Just after we've seen the kids, okay?" "I have an English class at seven o'clock." "The program is simple. It doesn't take too long." "Ok." Louis was waiting at the door of the dormitory room.With a cry of joy, he jumped into her arms.As soon as Natalie hugged his strong body, she forgot about mica, boredom, suffering and fear.His cheerfulness infected her and cheered her up too.Whatever the wind was blowing, the flame was not destined to be extinguished.

Louis had been the light of her life from birth, but never so strongly as now.Although he left her and came to this kindergarten to stay with hundreds of children, he could only see her for a few minutes at night, living in this damp, dark, old stone house, controlled by a strange woman Sleeping in a coffin-like wooden box and eating a rough hodgepodge—even though the children's food was the best in the ghetto—Louis thrived like a weed.The other children were emaciated and sick, at first listless and drowsy, then weakened by uncontrollable crying, and finally died of cold and hunger.The death rate in this kindergarten is staggering.However, he didn't know whether it was his ups and downs-the constant change of water, air, food, bedding and companions-that tempered him, or whether, as she often thought, it was the tough and tenacious Jastrows and the tenacious Jastrows. The union of the Henrys produced what Darwin called a eugenic, and Louis was alive anyway.He was at the top of every subject.Finger painting, dancing, and singing are all the same to him.He seemed to outwit others effortlessly.He is also the leader of mischief.The nursery in the kindergarten saw him with love and hate.He was looking more and more like Byron, but with his mother's big eyes.His charming and somewhat melancholy smile was exactly like his father's.

She always eats here because of her night shift rotation.Udam also eats here.He usually tries to arrange everything in his own way.That's how he spends his free time with his three-year-old daughter.His wife was gone, sent away.Tonight, there are a lot of potatoes in the soup. Although they are frozen and taste a bit rotten, they are quite satisfying.As they ate, he read his new lines while his daughter and Louis played.The portable puppet stage was folded and placed in the entertainment room in the basement.Later, the two children also came down to watch their rehearsal.Natalie rehearsed a puppet show to amuse the children, a Punch and Judy play, with Udam's sarcastic lines, that had secretly taken the ghetto by storm.That distinguished her more than her American citizenship.That status, surprising at first, soon became unsurprising.Whether it was bad luck or stupidity, she was here, and that was what it was to the people in the ghetto.

Natalie could become blissfully engrossed in picking up this long-lost boyhood game.She makes puppets, dresses them up, manipulates them into funny poses to suit Udam's lines.At one point, she even performed in the same SS café where he sang.When Udam sang lascivious German songs to the roar of the rowdy SS men, or when he sang Lily.When sentimental folk songs like "Marlene" brought tears to their eyes, she sat there trembling and listened.Afterwards, her hands trembled so badly that she could hardly manipulate the puppet.Thankfully the show wasn't a success.Udam didn't show any of his favorite plays, and he didn't ask them to perform again.There were far superior puppet shows in the ghetto for the SS to order.Without Udam's sarcasm, Natalie's little performance is really not good.

Udam was the son of a Polish church choirmaster.He was pale and lanky like a crane, with fiery eyes and shaggy, curly red hair.Although he composed and sang obscene, even obscene songs, he presided over Yom Kippur services in the synagogue.He had been deported from Prague to Theresienstadt early, along with the group of Zionists who formed and ran the nominal Jewish municipality.Now the Berlin Gang and the Vienna Gang are pushing them out because the SS prefers German Jews.Udam worked in the farcical Theresienstadt bank, even though it had become the domain of the Jews who arrived later.These people still couldn't let go of their sense of superiority and always wanted to squeeze others out. Udam knew more about political activities and intrigues in the Jewish ghetto than Natalie could understand.His name is Joseph.Smonowitz, but everyone called him "Udam."She had even heard the SS call him that. Tonight, he adds some new gags to their most popular skit, Frost - King of the Cuckooland. Nata put a crown on Punch's head and a long red nose with icicles hanging on it. This is the king.Frost-Cuckoo Kingdom is losing the battle.The king kept blaming the reported disasters on the Eskimos at home. "Kill the Eskimos! Kill them all," he raged.What's funny is that a puppet dressed as a minister, wearing clothes that look like a uniform, also has a red nose with icicles, rushing in and out. He cried and howled; and he reported that he had killed more Eskimos, making the king jump up and down with joy.At last the minister rushed in and announced that all the Eskimos had at last been purged.The king was full of joy, and then the cemetery yelled again: "Wait, wait! Who am I to blame now? How am I going to fight the war? This is terrible! Send a plane to Alaska quickly, and put more Eskimos on it." Come! Eskimos! I need lots and lots of Eskimos!" The curtain fell. Oddly enough, the Jews would find this crude, death-themed, insinuating little play extremely comical.These catastrophes are like the latest news in Germany.The minister reported on these disasters in the pompous, contradictory clichés of Nazi propaganda.This adventurous underground humor was a great relief in life in the ghetto.There's a lot of stuff like that, and no one seems to report it, because it just keeps going. Natalie manipulates the puppet with pain and poignancy.She was no longer an American Jew who feared falling into the clutches of the Germans and relied entirely on the talisman of her passport for her safety.That amulet didn't work.The worst has happened.Strangely, she felt a little more at ease in her heart, and her thoughts became clearer.Now, her entire life is focused on a single goal: to carry Louis through this, to stay alive. Udam's new line, about some of the latest legends in the Jewish quarter: Hitler has cancer; the Germans are short of oil, and the war cannot be fought; Theresienstadt is quite popular.Natalie manipulated the puppet's every move to match Udam's gags, and his daughter and Louis couldn't understand the jokes at all, and just laughed at the red-nosed puppet.After the rehearsal, she hugged Louis tightly, feeling an electric shock from the embrace.Then she went to her English class. In the teenage boys' barracks, lessons were held day and night.The education of Jewish children was officially forbidden, but there was nothing else for them to do.The Germans were not serious about stopping them either. They knew what would happen to these children, so they didn't care what kind of noise they made in the slaughterhouse.These wide-eyed, skinny kids ran a tabloid, learned languages ​​and instruments, rehearsed plays, discussed Zionism and sang Hebrew songs.On the other hand, most of them have become cynical, sophisticated thieves and liars.Believes nothing, knows the streets of the ghetto like a mouse, and is sexually premature.The way they greeted Natalie often disturbed her, though she felt that she was, if not obnoxious, at least an unsexy woman in her baggy brown woolen suit with the yellow star on it. . But these kids are engrossed from the start of class.There were only nine of them in all, bright, voluntary beginners trying to learn English so they could "go to America after the war."Two people were absent that night because they were going to rehearse "Abducted from the Harem".Their last performance of "The Bartered Bride" was a huge success in the ghetto, and even the SS admired it.Now they went on to rehearse the Mozart opera with great ambition.Natalie saw a poor performance of the beloved "The Bartered Bride" because several actors had just been sent away.She even heard Verdi being rehearsed somewhere in the cellar of one of the barracks, but that seemed too far-fetched.When the lesson was over, she hurried through the windy, starry night to the tower where she was to perform. Across the long, low, sloping-ceilinged room, the quartet was already at work.The room, which used to be used for conferences, is now filled with beds because more and more Jews have entered the ghetto.They were pouring in far faster than they could be sent "East".The only hope of the Jews in the ghetto was that the Americans and the Soviets would smash Frost-Cuckooland in time to free those trapped in the Theresienstadt locks.At the same time, the aim of the immediate life was to avoid deportation and to make the days and nights here more bearable by means of cultural life. Jesselson's quartet is excellent.Three gray-haired men and a very ugly middle-aged woman played with musical instruments brought into the Jewish Quarter. Their ragged bodies swayed in harmony with Haydn's beautiful melody. .The hall was packed full.People sat hunched on the bunks, others lay down, some squatted on the floor, some stood in a row against the wall, and hundreds of them sat close together on wooden benches.Natalie waited for the song to end so as not to alarm anyone before she pushed her way through the crowd.People recognized her and moved out of the way. A puppet stage has been set up behind the musicians' chairs.She sat down next to Udam on the front floor and let the music—and now Dvořák—soothe her soul.The elegant and melodious sound of the violin and viola, and the weeping sound of the cello interweave into a beautiful and melodious Arabic-style folk song.The musicians then played a quartet of Beethoven's late period.Theresienstadt's program list was always long, and the audience was grateful and fascinated, although the sick and elderly people around were dozing off. Before the puppet show began, Udam sang a new song in Yiddish: "They Come."Here's another of his well-crafted, double-entendre political shows.A lonely old man who sings on his birthday that everyone has forgotten him sits desolately and alone in his room in Prague.Suddenly, his relatives came.During the re-singing, he became happy, cheered on the stage, and clapped his hands: Ah, they are here, they are finally here! British relatives, Russian relatives, American relatives, relatives all over the world! Come by plane, come by ship—oh, what a joy, oh, what a day of rejoicing, oh, thank God, from the East, from the West, oh, thank God, they are here at last! Immediately there were colorful sounds!When he sang it again, the audience also sang and clapped their hands rhythmically: Come from the East, come from the West!The puppet show started in this high-pitched tone. Before their performance of "Frost—King of the Cuckoo Land," they performed another popular skit.Punch plays a ghetto official who is trying to court his wife.Judy pushed back and forth and refused: this place is too big and there is no cover, she is hungry, he hasn't showered, the bed is too narrow and so on.These excuses were familiar to people in the ghetto, and there was much laughter.He took her to his office, where it was just the two of them, and she obeyed sheepishly.But just as they were getting along, his subordinates kept interrupting them to report problems in the Jewish quarter.Udam imitated the couple's corner conversations and panting voices, interspersed with Punch's angry bureaucratic tone and Judy's disappointed and frustrated complaints, plus some obscene lines and actions, making the whole performance comical.Even Natalie, crouching next to Udam and manipulating the puppet, couldn't stop giggling. The revised "Frost——The Cuckoo Kingdom" also caused a lot of laughter.Udam and Natalie came out from behind the scenes with flushed faces, bowing again and again. Cheers came from all over the building: "Udam!" He shook his head and waved his hands, please don't do this. More people cheered: "Udam, Udam, Udam!" He gestured for silence and asked permission to exit.He said that he was tired, not in a good mood, and had a cold, so let's make up for it next time. "No, no. Now another one! Udam! Birddam!" This is always the case every time a puppet show is performed.Sometimes the audience got what they wanted; sometimes, after pleading, Udam got out.Natalie sat aside.He assumed the pose of a melancholy singer, folded his hands upon his breast, and sang a mournful hymn in the deep baritone voice of the choirmaster. "Udam... Udam... Udam..." Every time he sang the song, Natalie felt a chill down her spine.This is a passage from the Yom Kippur liturgy. Man was created from dust, and his destination is in the dust.He is like a piece of broken ceramics, a withered flower; like a floating mote, a fleeting shadow; like a dream, passing away. After each pair of similes, the audience sang softly the opening line: "Udam... Udam... Udam." It means, "Man...man...man." In Hebrew, the word for man is Adam.Udam is an inflection of Adam in Polish Yiddish. "Adam, Adam, Adam" - this heartrendingly low hymn sung from the throats of the Theresienstadt Jews makes Natalie.Henry felt an excitement that she had never felt before being sent to the country.These people, all under the shadow of death, were laughing with joy just now, but now they sang in a low voice what might be their own dirge.When Udam sang the gorgeous words and phrases sung by the lead singer, his voice was crying like a cello.He closed his eyes, swayed in front of the small puppet stage, stretched out his hands, and raised them high.It is unbelievable that a few minutes ago this man was uttering the crudest obscenities, and now his voice was filled with awe and love for God and for man. "Like a floating mote, a fleeting shadow..." "Udam... Udam... Udam..." He stood on tiptoe, raised his arms stiffly high, opened his eyes wide, and stared at the audience like an open furnace door: "It's like a dream..." Those fiery eyes closed.He lowered his hands and his body relaxed, almost unable to support himself.The voice of the last sentence lowered and almost became a whisper: "...flying away" He never sang it a second time, and always bowed stiffly with a tense pale face to thank the audience for their applause. Natalie had thought it too queer to end an evening's entertainment with the aria sung at this harrowing liturgy, with such tunes and words.It's just kind of eerie.Now, she understands.This is exactly Theresienstadt.The cleansing she saw in the faces of those around her infected her own as well.The audience is exhausted, satisfied, ready to go back to sleep, ready for another day in this valley of shadows.So did she herself. "What the hell is that?" On her cot was a gray tweed dress with a yellow star.Next to it were thick cotton socks and new shoes.On the opposite side of Ellen's bed was a man's clothes and shoes.He sat at the small table between the two beds, absorbed in a large brown volume of the Talmud.He raised a hand. "Let me finish this paragraph first." Here the "care" given to them can be seen most clearly.The two of them had a room to themselves, though it was a small room with only one window, which was partitioned off from a larger room by panels.This large room used to be the dining room in the private residence of a wealthy Czech.Beyond the partition, hundreds of Jews crowded into bunks on the fourth floor.Here were two small beds, a small dim lamp, a desk, and a cardboard wardrobe the size of a public phone booth, the ultimate luxury in a Jewish ghetto.Even the living conditions of the officials of the municipal council are no more than that.There was never any explanation for this generous treatment, either because they were "well-known people."Ellen eats here, but doesn't have to stand in line.The elder who was in charge of the house sent a girl to bring him meals.Yet he hardly ate much.He seems to be relying on the air to pass Baizi.Usually when Natalie came back there was some offal and soup left over, if she was willing to swallow it.Otherwise, the people on the other side of the partition will gobble up this thing. Now, what is this gray tweed suit for?She picked it up and compared it to herself.Good material, well cut and fit well, just a little too loose.There was a strong scent of roses faintly exuding from this suit.It must have been worn by an upper-class woman in the past.she is still alive?Or is it dead?Or has it been deported? Ellen.Jastrow sighed, closed his book, and turned to face her.His beard and hair are all white, his skin is like soft mica, and the bones and veins can be seen.Since his recovery, he has been quiet and frail, but with amazing stamina.Every day he taught, gave lectures, listened to music, went to theaters, and worked at his desk all day long to compile catalogs for the Hebrew classics. He said: "These things were delivered at dinner time. It was amazing. Then Epstein came and explained what happened." Epstein was head of the Theresienstadt municipal body at the time, a figure who held the title of Acteste and could be counted as mayor.Once he had been a lecturer in sociology and president of the German Jewish Association; now he was a deferential, languid survivor of captivity by the German Gestapo.He was compelled to bow down to the SS and try to do useful work in his scrupulous way, but the other Jews saw him only as a puppet of the Germans.He had little choice, and little courage left to exercise the little choice he had been given. "What did Epstein say?" "We have to go to SS headquarters tomorrow. But there's no danger. He says it's a good thing. We deserve more privileges. He assured me so solemnly, Natalie." She felt a chill in her heart, even in her bones, and at the same time hurriedly asked: "Why do you want us to go?" "Meet Lieutenant Colonel Aikman." "Eckman!" People in the Theresienstadt area are familiar with the names of the local SS officers, such as Lehn, Heindel, Moss, etc.Lieutenant Colonel Eckerman was a sinister, high-ranking name that was only whispered about.Although his military rank is not very high, he is a figure not much lower than Himmler and Hitler in the minds of people in the Jewish Quarter. Ellen's look was kind and sympathetic.He showed no sign of fear. "Yes. It's a great honor," he said in a quiet, sarcastic tone. "The clothes are a good sign, though, aren't they? At least some one wants us to look good. So let's do it, my dear."