I Have Lived a Thousand Years (3 page)

It is Saturday, March 25th, 1944. Six days have passed since the Germans invaded Budapest. What about graduation, only three months away? What about our report cards?

But Mrs. Kertész leaves the classroom before we have a chance to ask questions. She leaves without a word of reference to the German occupation. Without indication of what is to happen next.

We sit in stunned silence, staring at each other. And then slowly, ever so slowly, my classmates stand up one by one and file out of the classroom.

I, too, rise to my feet and look around. The worn, wood benches bolted to the dark, oil-stained floor. The whitewashed walls with their threadbare maps and faded pictures. It is all so familiar, so reassuring. Even the dark green crucifix above the door spells security.

For nearly four years I have struggled, sweated, and sometimes triumphed within these walls. In front of this blackboard. For nearly four years I have breathed the smell of the oiled floor mingled with chalk dust, apprehension, and excitement.

Will I ever again sit behind this narrow desk furrowed by a thousand pencil marks? Will I ever again share secrets and moments of hilarity with my classmates?

Perhaps the schools will reopen soon. Perhaps the country will settle down under German occupation and everything will be just as before. I just know that soon everything will be just as before. Lessons will resume and our class will be together again. And we will graduate as planned. I’m quite certain of that.

I decide to leave by the main entrance. The boys use the main entrance. Maybe Jancsi Novák will be leaving just now, too. I want to see him for the last time.

As I turn into the hallway leading to the main entrance, an arm reaches out and blocks my way. I look up, astonished. It is not Novák. A stocky, pimply-faced boy with dark, slicked-back hair stands in my way, grinning. He raises his arm in the Nazi salute and says:
“Heil
Hitler!” A group of boys lining both sides of the stairs echo,
“Heil
Hitler!” Grinning.

I pass through them as I go down the stairs, holding my head high, looking straight ahead. They begin to chant, louder and louder,
“Heil
Hitler!
Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!”

I run down the stairs. The stocky boy shouts, “Down with the Jews! Down with the Jews!” And the others echo, louder and louder, “Down with the Jews! Down with the Jews!”

I fly down the stairs and out to the street. I run and run. Other sounds reach me. I recognize these sounds. My schoolmates are singing the vulgar army marching song:
“Hej, zsidó lány, zsidó lány
. . .” Hey, Jew girl, Jew girl ... I am far down the block now and I still hear them singing the repulsive popular tune.

The sounds follow me home. Mocking, taunting, devastating. Sounds that penetrate. Sounds that bruise. Sounds that can kill. As I run, one of my braids comes undone. Tears choke my throat. Sweat runs down my back. My temples throb.

No one is home. It is Sabbath morning and my parents are still at the synagogue. I fish the house key from under the mat and slam the great heavy oak door behind me. I run to my room and bury my face in my pillow. My stomach trembles with every convulsive sob.

I weep and weep. I weep for my classroom, which is no longer my classroom. For the school that will never be my school again. I weep for my life, which will never be the same.

T
HE
T
ALE OF THE
Y
ELLOW
B
ICYCLE

SOMORJA, MARCH 27 1944

The dreaded moment has come: There is no escape. We are in the hands of the SS. The process of our “liquidation” has begun.

We are lost and helpless. Like lifeless matter we are carried along on a powerful conveyor belt toward an unknown fate. The smooth operation of the process is strangely reassuring.

It is easiest to give up. The struggle is over. Perhaps it is God’s will. No, not perhaps. Surely it is God’s will.

On a Monday morning in March, all Jews are ordered to appear at the town hall to be registered. We have to line up to be counted, and we are supplied with tags. Like children leaving for summer camp. Or pets leaving the pet shop.

We are ordered to deliver all our valuables—jewelry, radios, and vehicles.

I have to part with my new Schwinn bicycle.

My bike is my only real possession. It had been a birthday present from my parents. For years I had hoped and prayed for a bike, and my new Schwinn is more wonderful than anything I had imagined. More grand.

It is bright yellow, with red-and-yellow webbing on the back wheel. It has a dark-yellow leather seat and the shiny
chrome handlebars are tucked into handles that match the seat. It is beautiful.

At first I think I will not be able to give up my bicycle. How can they tell me to take it to the town hall and just leave it there, my most precious possession? Without a sound of protest. Without even demanding an explanation. I thought such things could not happen.

My father’s face was frozen into a mask of defiance when he brought the news to us on Sunday afternoon. I began to scream. I was not going to do it! Let them kill me, I was not going to let them take my new bike! I had not even ridden it yet. I had been waiting for spring to try it out. Spring was just beginning. The snow had just begun to melt, and as soon as the mud cleared I was going to take my brand new shiny Schwinn on the street. I could not part from it now!

In my panic and rage I felt helpless, exposed. Violated.

Father spoke to me in a low tone, almost a whisper. His voice was choked with anger and pain. “As soon as this is over, all this madness, I will buy you another Schwinn. Never mind this one, Elli. Never mind. You will have the most beautiful bike money can buy. A full-size bike. Bigger than this one and even more beautiful.”

“I don’t want another bike. I have not even tried this one out. What right do they have to take it from me? You gave it to me. It was my birthday present. It’s mine. How can they just
take
it?”

Daddy’s soft hands on my cheeks soothed my sobbing. He repeated, over and over, “Never mind, Ellike. Never mind.”

On Monday morning, as I walk, tall and erect, with my Schwinn, between my father and my brother, each leading
his own bicycle, I feel no more rage or panic. Only pain, and humiliation. But when I see my bright, shiny bike lined up against the wall among the many battered, lackluster old bicycles, I feel the ground slip under me.

In a daze I follow Daddy and my brother to the courtyard of the town hall. Jewelry, silverware, radios, and cameras are piled high on long tables. Mommy waits in line to place some of her best silver cutlery and her antique silver candelabra on top of the pile. I do not look at her face. But I see the other faces as they turn from the table after depositing their precious objects. Degradation and shame flickers in every eye.

That night Father takes me down into the cellar. In the far corner of the dank, dark underground room the flashlight reveals a rough spot on the earthen floor.

“Look, Elli. Here on this spot I buried our most precious pieces of jewelry, about twenty-five centimeters deep. Mommy and Bubi also know the spot. Each one of us should know where the jewels are buried. We don’t know which one of us will return. Will you remember?”

I refuse to look. “I don’t want to know! I don’t want to remember!”

Daddy put his arm about my shoulders. “Elli ... Ellike ...” he repeats softly. Then, slowly, with weighty footsteps, he leads me up the stairs.

In the kitchen Mommy turns from the stove and asks Daddy in a matter-of-fact tone, “Have you showed her?”

With a silent nod Daddy intends to forestall any further discussion on the subject. But I burst out crying. “Why should Daddy show me the spot? Why? Why should I know
about the jewels? Why? Tell me, why? Tell me! I don’t want to know the spot! I don’t want to be the one to survive! I don’t want to survive alone! Alone, I don’t want to live. Oh, God, I don’t want to live if you don’t! I don’t want to know about anything! I don’t want to know!”

Dead silence follows my outburst. My sobs are the only sounds in the kitchen. In utter misery I go to my room. I pull the blanket over my head to muffle my convulsive screams.

Oh, God. Why? Why? Why?

T
HE
T
ALE OF THE
Y
ELLOW
S
TAR

SOMORJA, MARCH 28, 1944

The sound of the town crier wakes me. Before, my fascination with the town crier’s performance had been voracious. I would always be in front of the townsfolk who gathered on the small hill near our house upon hearing his drumbeat. I stood close to the stocky man in his green uniform and cap so that I could watch his distinctive ritual. At the conclusion of the drumbeat he would, in one motion, thrust the drumsticks into the wide leather strap on his shoulder and then yank out a document, while contorting his face into a vocal instrument. His mouth turned to one side and opened round like a trumpet so that he could blast the proclamation. The syllables erupted like bullets from a pistol. At the conclusion of the recital the audience would quickly disperse, but I could not stop gaping as the town crier reversed the process, turning his trumpet mouth back into a puffy, round visage, while tucking the sheet of paper under his shoulder strap, yanking out the drumsticks and striking his drum with the barrage of a rapid-fire march. It was only then that I would reluctantly walk back home.

This time I do not go to the square. Lately the town crier’s proclamations bring bad news for us. News that humiliates me in front of the other listeners. I open my window and let the words filter in through the muslin curtains.

“Hear ye! Hear ye! As of 8
A.M.
this Tuesday morning, the twenty-eighth day of the month of March, in the nineteen hundred and forty-fourth year of our Lord Jesus Christ, all the Jews must wear a yellow star on the left side of the chest. The star must be of canary-yellow fabric, of six equal points, eight centimeters in diameter. Any Jew—man, woman, or child—seen on the street without the star shall be arrested!

“Likewise, a canary-yellow, six-pointed star of one meter in diameter shall be painted on the exterior wall to the left of the main entrance of every Jewish residence. As of 8
A.M.
this Tuesday morning, the twenty-eighth day of the month of March, -in the nineteen hundred and forty-fourth year of our Lord Jesus Christ, the residents of any Jewish house not duly marked with the afore-indicated star shall be arrested!

“This proclamation be duly ...”

I shut the window. My God, what next? A yellow star? In after-school Hebrew class I had heard evil tales of Jews having to wear humiliating markings on their clothes, long, long ago, in the Middle Ages. The Jew badge.

This yellow star was a Jew badge!

I refuse to leave the house. I was not going to appear with the Jew badge. I couldn’t be seen wearing that horrible, horrible thing. I would die if any of my schoolmates saw me.

My brother makes a brave joke of the whole thing. He makes believe he has been awarded a medal. He cuts a star out of cardboard and covers it with glistening golden-yellow silk fabric. It really looks like a gold military medal. He pins it on his chest and marches about the streets with a smile of triumph.

My brother’s “medal” becomes the envy of his friends.
Soon other young boys begin wearing decorative yellow stars, pretending to be honored and not humiliated by the star. They, with my brother in the lead, see it as a mark of distinction.

I could not understand them. When I saw my tall, handsome, seventeen-year-old brother wearing his “medal” with mock pride, his valiant attempt to turn humiliation into triumph made me want to cry. It was a bitter, bitter joke. My anger was laced with raw pain.

I do not leave the house for nearly a week. Mother pleads, her voice gentle and sad, “Elli, let’s thank God for being alive. Let us thank God for being together, in our own house. What’s a yellow star on a jacket? It does not kill or condemn. It does not harm. It only says you’re a Jew. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. We’re not marked for being criminals. Only for being Jews. Aren’t you proud of being a Jew?”

I don’t know if I am proud to be a Jew. I had never thought about it. But I know I do not want to be marked as a Jew or as anything else. I am hurt and outraged at being made to wear a glaring label, a thing intended to set me apart and humiliate me. A criminal, or Jew, what’s the difference in their intent? What’s the difference in my shame? I am no longer a human being. I am singled out at will, an object.

Daddy seems oblivious to the star. Mommy has to remind him to put on his jacket with the star every time he goes outdoors. You cannot simply pin a star on whatever you are wearing. The law stipulates that a star has to be sewn onto every garment. With small stitches, to be exact. Mommy solves this problem by sewing stars to several of our outer garments, and we could choose to wear only these when going outdoors.

The canary-yellow star does not detract from Daddy’s elegance. He was always impeccably dressed and had a proud bearing, and even with the badge of shame he continues to exude an air of quiet dignity. His lack of awareness of this degrading emblem puzzles me. How can he so totally ignore the star?

The grating, high-pitched tones of the town crier’s chant carry a new message. End-of-the-year report cards are being distributed at all the local schools. As none of the nation’s schools will reopen, all schoolchildren, from first-graders to secondary school seniors, must appear in person at the respective schools to pick up their report cards, diplomas, certificates of graduation. Each graduate of the municipal secondary school must appear in person at the institute’s homeroom at ten o’clock this very morning to receive his or her diploma.