LITMIR.BIZ

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of Culture, which Ernst had been passing, there stood a tall, brown-haired young man with a thin, razor-sharp nose, with small, greenish eyes, wearing a clean, immaculately tailored black uniform and highly polished boots.

      ‘Komm’her! Komm’her! Come here!’

      And since Ernst gazed at him rooted to the spot, bewildered by that rigid black apparition, by that cold, cutting voice – nobody had ever spoken to him in such a voice – and because he was in doubt as to whether he was really the person being spoken to, the officer yelled: ‘Ja, ja! Du, herein! Yes, yes! I’m talking to you! In here! In here!’ And he pointed his arm at the vaulted entrance of the palace.

      In that moment of surprise and confusion, Ernst did not realise that with that curt, cutting shout, that ‘Halt!’, that gesture inviting him inside the tall vaulted entrance of the Palace of Culture, the war had finally arrived in that quiet, peaceful little town hidden away in a valley of the Maramureș Mountains. He did not realise his life had entered a strange circle, a hallucinatory ring dance, which no sooner did it end but it would begin again in the same place and with the same curt, cutting shout, but spoken in a different tongue…

      Indeed, till that shouted ‘Halt!’ the wind of war had blown but lightly, over the radio airwaves that brought news of battles and advances and retreats in faraway, unfamiliar places, news of the unknown dead and wounded; some men, young and very young, were conscripted and forced to meet the war somewhere faraway, at the front or behind the front; but in the little town life went on in the time-honoured fashion, monotonously, with the minor bustle of working days, with the stagnant tranquillity of holidays, as if nothing at all were happening in the world…

      ‘Ja, ja! Du, herein! In here!’

      Bewildered by this tone of voice, without it even crossing his mind to ask a question or to object, Ernst went through the massive wrought iron gate of the palace. Inside the spacious entrance, a soldier in a green-grey uniform took him and showed him where he was to stand ‘to attention’ and then ‘at ease.’

      Outside the strident orders of the young officer in the black uniform could still be heard: ‘Halt! Herein!’ and other people from the town now appeared, whom the solider made stand next to Ernst in a perfectly straight line.

      For example, in the cool, vaulted lobby of the Palace of Culture there now appeared Yehiel Pasternak, the grocer from the corner of Slatina Street, a thin, gangly man, whose hair and beard were as yellow as straw, a man of around fifty years, whose fat wife and four children, also as blond as straw, were waiting for him at home for the Sabbath meal. The soldier in the greenish-grey uniform pointed the muzzle of his carbine at the place next to Ernst and ordered:

      ‘Attention! At ease!’

      ‘Yes, yes, Herr Offitzeer, I understand!’ said Yehiel Pasternak to the soldier in a very civil voice, elevating him in rank out of fear, and stood on the precise spot indicated, as rigid as stone pillar.

      ‘Halt! Herein!’ came the officer’s voice from outside. And a lad of around fifteen appeared, wearing a round black felt hat, from which poked two long curly sideburns. The lad looked around with curious blue eyes, evidently amused at what was happening to him on the holy Sabbath.

      ‘Halt! Herein!’

      And Josef Birnberg made his appearance, the owner of Forestiera L.L.C., which is to say, Limited Liability Company. Birnberg had a timber factory, forests, warehouses for firewood, lumber and railway ties, and a barrel factory. He was said to be the richest man in the town, but you could never know with those big timber merchants, because today they were as rich as a Korah and tomorrow they would suffer a resounding krach1, going from boom to bust, and the whole business would come toppling down like a house of cards… A tall, imposing man with a pointy black goatee chased with strands of silver, Josef Birnberg took his place in the line, next to the cheder2 boy with the curly sideburns and the round felt hat, answering the soldier’s order in perfect German and with a perfect knowledge of German military ranks, from when he had been a sub-lieutenant in the Austro-Hungarian Army, K.u.K. Regiment, which is to say Kaiserliche und Königliche Infanterie-Regiment Nummer 77, which had earned renown in the world war of 1914-18:

      ‘Jawohl, Gefreite! Yes, corporal!’

      ‘Ich bin SS-Unterscharführer,’ the soldier disdainfully corrected him.

      Josef Birnberg looked at him in silent fear. Yes, it seemed that things had changed since then… And not only the names of the ranks, but also the tone of voice, the bearing, and who knows what else…

      ‘Halt! Herein!’ came the harsh voice from outside.

      And Rahmil-Melamed appeared, the cheder teacher from the school for small children, who ate on weekdays at the parents’ houses and on the Sabbath ate lunch at the house of Mr Josef Birnberg himself; the teacher appeared in his Sabbath kaftan, which was black, clean, patched in numerous places by his wife Sara, but so neatly worked that you could barely see where the patches were.

      ‘Halt! Enter!’

      And in the lobby of the Palace of Culture appeared Simon Meirovici, the poor tailor, ginger, stooped, short-sighted, who sat on the bench at the back in synagogue and rather than praying cavilled about the ‘respectables’ who sat by the east wall of the synagogue. After him came Zainvel, the porter in the fruit and vegetable market; then Meilach, the carter from the hay mart; then Natan Eisenguss, who owned the haberdashery and ‘modes’ shop in the centre of town. And so, around thirty souls of every kind had been rounded up: schoolboys, students on holiday, like Ernst, elderly men, thin and fat, fathers whose wives and children were waiting for them at home, not suspecting a thing. All these men found themselves herded into the lobby of the Palace of Culture, beneath the tall vaulted ceiling, which was painted with an ordinary blue sky, at whose edges hovered white, innocent cherubs. They were all wearing their Sabbath best, they were all Jews, all pale and frightened, and all wore the yellow star stitched to their chests and backs…

      Some two weeks previously, when the order came for the Jews to stitch the yellow star to their clothes, a wave of indignation and anger washed over the community. Some said that the star should not be worn: ‘We shouldn’t let ourselves be humiliated.’ Others said that the yellow star should be worn ‘dafka’, deliberately, with pride even: ‘We should show them that they can’t humiliate us… ’ But life had to go on, you had to go outside, for a loaf of bread, about your daily business, for a breath of air, and the order was categorical: ‘Those who disobey will be arrested on the spot and prosecuted with the full severity of the law.’ And so the second opinion prevailed and the town’s Jews began to wear the yellow star, with greater or lesser pride… Moreover, the oldest and wisest of the community, with a wisdom probably springing from the ages, even found words of consolation. If a gezeirah had to come – an evil commandment against the Jews – then let Him Above prevent the worst, they said. In any case, many Jews, particularly the religious ones, themselves wore clothes that set them apart – caftans, round felt hats, or a kind of hat with fur in the corners, called a streiml – or cropped their hair short and had long curly side whiskers and untrimmed beards, to distinguish them from the other nations: ‘One more distinguishing mark hardly matters, we openly declare ourselves Jews, after all, from father to son, and nobody wishes to hide… ’ How easily a man accustoms himself to everything! Even to his own humiliation…

      To Ernst, a student who had been abroad, the law seemed not only humiliating, not only insulting, but also stupid and ridiculous. It was a small town and everybody knew everybody else, and for a fact, everybody knew who was a Jew. And who was a Romanian. And who was a Hungarian. And who was a Ukrainian. And who was a Zipser German3. And who was a Gypsy. Nobody tried to hide what he was. The law was quite simply idiotic. If a person knows you, what is the point of his making you wear a sign to say you are who you are? And if a person doesn’t know you, what is it to him what race you are? Ernst also put these questions to his friend, Dr Klaus Daoben, the judge, who was descended from the Zipser Germans that settled in Maramureș centuries ago: a tall, muscular, suntanned man, with a round, smoothly shaven face, large head and cropped pate, a mountaineer, with whom Ernst went hiking in the Maramureș Carpathians. He put the questions to him in a bitterly joking

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