None of Us Will Return
STREET FOR ARRIVALS, STREET FOR DEPARTURES
There are people arriving. They scan
the crowd of those who wait seeking those who wait for
them. They kiss them and they say that they are tired from
the journey.
There are people leaving. They say good-by to those who
are not leaving and they kiss the children.
There is a street for people arriving and a street for
people leaving.
There is a café called "Arrivals" and a café called "Departures."
There are people arriving and there are people leaving.
But there is a station where those arriving are the same
as those leaving
a station at which those arriving have never arrived, to
which those leaving have never returned
it is the biggest station in the world.
This is the station at which they arrive, wherever they
come from.
They arrive here after days and nights
after crossing whole countries
they arrive here with children, even babies, who were not
supposed to have been taken
They have brought their children because you do not part
with children for this journey.
Those who had gold brought it along because they thought
that gold might be useful.
Everyone brought his dearest possession because you must
not leave what is dear to you when you go far away.
Everyone has brought his life along, above all it was his
life that he had to bring along. And when they arrive
they think they have arrived in Hell
possibly. Still they did not believe it.
They did not know that you could take a train to Hell
but since they are here, they steel themselves and feel ready
to face it
with women, children, aged parents
with family keepsakes and family documents.
They do not know that you do not arrive at that station.
They expect the worst-they do not expect the unthinkable.
And when the soldiers shout to them to line up by fives,
men on one side, women and children on the other, in a
language they do not understand, they understand the blows
of the truncheons and line up by fives since they are ready
for anything.
Mothers clutch their children-they shudder at the thought
that the children might be taken away from them-because
the children are hungry and thirsty and crumpled from not
having slept across so many lands. At long last they are
arriving, they will be able to take care of them.
And when the soldiers shout to them to leave bundles and
blankets and keepsakes on the platform they leave them because
they ought to be ready for anything and do not wish
to be surprised at anything. They say "We'll see"; they have
already seen so much and they are tired from the journey.
The station is not a station. It is the end of a line. They
look and they are stricken by the desolation about them.
In the morning, fog hides the marshes.
In the evening, spotlights illuminate the white barbed-wire
fences with the sharpness of stellar photography. They believe
that this is where they are being taken, and they
are terrified.
At night, they wait for daylight with the children weighing
down their mothers' arms. Wait and wonder.
In the daytime they do not wait. The lines start moving
right away. Women and children first, they are the most
weary. The men next. They are also weary but relieved that
wives and children are being taken care of first.
For the women and children always go first.
In the winter they are gripped by the cold. Especially
those who come from Crete. Snow is new to them.
In the summer the sun blinds them as they step down from
the dark boxcars that were sealed shut at the start of journey.
At the start of the journey from France from the Ukraine
from Albania from Belgium from Slovakia from Italy from Hungary
from the Peloponnesus from Holland from
Macedonia from Austria from Herzegovina from the shores of the
Black Sea from the shores of the Baltic from the shores of
the Mediterranean and from the banks of the Vistula.
They would like to know where they are. They do not
know that this is the center of Europe. They look for the
name of the station. It is a station without a name.
A station which for them will never have a name.
There are some who are traveling for the first time
their lives.
There are some who have traveled to every part of the
globe, businessmen. All landscapes were familiar to them but
they do not recognize this one.
They look. Later on they will be able to tell how it was.
Everyone wants to recall what his impression was and how
he had the feeling that he would never return. It is a feeling one might have had already in one's life.
They know feelings should not be trusted.
There are those who come from Warsaw with big shawls
and knotted bundles
those who come from Zagreb, women with kerchiefs on
their heads
those who come from the Danube with garments knitted
by the hearth in multicolored yarns
those who come from Greece, bringing black olives and
Turkish Delight
those who come from Monte Carlo
they were in the casino
they are in white tie with shirt fronts that the journey has
completely ruined
pot-bellied and bald
they are bankers who played at banking
newlyweds who were leaving the synagogue with the bride
dressed in white, wearing a veil, all wrinkled from lying on the floor of the boxcar
the bridegroom dressed in black and top hat with soiled gloves
the relatives and guests, women with beaded bags
who all regret that they were not able to stop off at their
homes and change into something less fragile.
The rabbi holds his head up high and walks first. He has
always set an example for the others.
There are little girls from boarding school with their identical pleated skirts and their hats with blue
streamers. They pull up their stockings carefully as they alight. They walk
demurely five by five as though on a Thursday outing,
holding one another by the hand and not knowing. What can
they do to little girls from boarding school who are with
their teacher. The teacher tells them: "Be good, children."
They have no wish not to be good.
There are old people who have had news from their
children in America. Their knowledge of foreign lands came
from postcards. Nothing looked like what they see here. Their
children will never believe it.
or
There are intellectuals. Doctors or architects, composers
poets, recognizable by their walk, by their glasses. They
too have seen a great deal in their lifetimes. They have studied
lot. Some have even imagined a great deal in order
write books and nothing they have ever imagined resembles
what they see here.
There are all the furriers of the big cities and all the
gentlemen's and ladies' tailors all the clothiers who had emigrated to the West and who do not
recognize in this place
the land of their forebears.
There are the inexhaustible multitudes of the cities where
each man occupies his own pigeonhole and now in this place
they form endless lines and you wonder how all that could
fit into the stacked pigeonholes of the cities.
There is a mother who slaps her five-year-old because he
does not want to give her his hand and because she wants
him to keep still at her side. You run the risk of getting lost
you must not become separated in a strange place in such
crowd. She slaps her child and we who know do not forgive
her for it. Besides it would make no difference if she were
to smother him with kisses.
There are those who journeyed eighteen days who went
mad and killed one another in the boxcars and
those who had been suffocated during the journey because
they had been packed in so tightly
of course they do not get off.
There is a little girl who hugs her doll to her heart, you
can smother dolls too.
There are two sisters in white coats who went out for a
walk and did not return for dinner. Their parents are still
worrying.
In ranks of five they move along the street for arrivals.
They do not know it is the street for departures. You only
pass this way once.
They move in strict order-so that you cannot fault them
for anything.
They come to a building and they sigh. At last they have
arrived.
And when the soldiers shout to the women to strip they
undress the children first taking care not to wake them up
completely. After days and nights of travel they are fretful
and cross
and they begin to get undressed in front of their children,
it can't be helped
and when the soldiers hand each one of them a towel they
worry if the water in the shower will be warm because the
children might catch cold
and when the men come in to the shower room through
another door naked too the women hide their children
against their bodies.
And then perhaps they understand.
And it is useless for them to understand now since they
cannot tell those who are waiting on the platform
cannot tell those who are riding in the dark boxcars across
all the countries on the way here
cannot tell those who are in detention camps and are apprehensive about their departure because they fear the climate
or the work and because they are afraid of leaving their belongings
cannot tell those who are in hiding in the mountains and
in the woods and who no longer have the patience to stay
in hiding. Come what may they will return to their homes.
Why would they be taken away from their homes they have
never done any harm to anyone
cannot tell those who did not want to go into hiding because you cannot go and leave everything
cannot tell those who thought they had put their children
in a safe place in a Catholic boarding school where the
sisters are so kind.
A band will be dressed in the little girls' pleated skirts.
The commandant wants Viennese waltzes on Sunday mornings.
A blockhova, to give her window a homey touch, will
make curtains out of the holy cloth the rabbi wore so that he
would be ready to perform services no matter what happened
wherever he might be.
A kapoi will dress up in the morning coat and top hat
and her girlfriend in the veil and they will play bride and
groom at night when the others have collapsed in their
bunks from exhaustion. The kapos can have a good time they
are not tired in the evening.
Black olives and Turkish Delight will be distributed to the
German women prisoners who are sick, but they do not like
Kalamata olives nor olives in general.
And all day and all night
every day and every night the chimneys smoke with this
fuel from all the countries of Europe
men assigned to the chimneys spend their days sifting the
ashes to recover melted gold from gold teeth. They all have
gold in their mouths these Jews and they are so many that
it makes tons.
And in the spring men and women spread the ashes on
the marshes drained and plowed for the first time and fertilize the soil with human phosphate.
They have bags tied to their bellies and they stick their
hands into the human bone meal which they scatter by the
handful over the furrows with the wind blowing the dust
back into their faces and in the evening, they are all white
with lines traced by the sweat that has trickled down over
the dust.
And no fear of running short train after train arrives they
arrive every day every night every hour of every day and
every hour of every night.
It is the biggest railway station in the world for arrivals
and departures.
It is only those who go into the camp who find out what
has happened to the others and who weep at having left
them at the station because that day the officer ordered the
younger people to form a separate line
there has to be someone to drain the marshes and to scatter
the ashes of the others
and they say to themselves that it would have been better
never to have entered and never to have found out.
You who have wept for two thousand years
for one who suffered three days and three nights
what tears will you have
for those who suffered
many more than three hundred nights and many more than
three hundred days
how much
will you weep
for those who suffered so many agonies
and they were countless
They did not believe in resurrection to eternal life
And they knew that you would not weep.
