The New Yorker - 16.09.2019

THENEWYORKER, SEPTEMBER 16, 2019 49

Herbert’s list. However, during Sep­
tember and October of 1944, when
eighteen thousand Terezín prisoners
were shipped to Auschwitz in a se­
ries of eleven transports (which left
almost no men under the age of forty
in the camp), the Jews lost all control
over the lists. In the end, this task was
taken over by the S.S., and no pris­
oners were protected any longer. My
father was deported to Auschwitz
in the eighth transport, on October
16th, and died in the gas chambers.
My mother, Bobby, and I were spared,
owing not to Herbert’s protection but
to chance. The Nazis who drew up
the lists passed us by.
Herbert and his wife (they had no
children) left Terezín in the final trans­
port, the eleventh, with members of
the Council of Elders. Before leaving,
he gave my mother three small enve­
lopes marked with our names and told
her they contained a fast­working poi­
son “in case we needed it.” He planned
to use it himself on the train. He also
gave her a letter to deliver, if she sur­
vived, to his sister, who had emigrated
to the United States.
Here is Herbert’s letter:
Terezín, October 27, 1944
My dear Elly,
Our father was arrested on September 6,
1941, and on November 11, 1941, he died.
He was an honorable, good man. The last mes-
sage he sent me, saying that he was all right,
was delivered to me here last year by some-
one who had shared his suffering. Our tatinek
[daddy] lived up to his obligations, but his ac-
tions were not reciprocated.
Since 1939, filled with ideals, I have worked
hard to fulfill my obligations to those who,
like me, faced persecution and oppression. I
regret that I will never be able to describe
what I experienced and what I saw. I ask one
thing of you: do believe that everything you
will hear is true. Nothing that you will hear
can compare with what I knew about and wit-
nessed. My participation in these events has
always been impartial and honest.
Except for our father, up until today, thank
God, I was able to save our whole family from
the terrible fate that befell tens of thousands,
maybe hundreds of thousands, maybe mil-
lions. Tomorrow, my family and the family of
my Gerta must begin the journey that was
taken by thousands before them. If God is
merciful, they may survive these terrible times.
Unfortunately, after tomorrow I will not be
able to watch over them or help them any-
more. I hope that there will be someone who
will look after them. I hope that the good I
have done in the past will be of some benefit
to them.

Tomorrow I will leave, separately from the

rest of my family. After tomorrow you will

never hear from me again. I will vanish into

the endless nothingness to join those who had

to pay for what they knew and witnessed, while

for many years the whole world watched with

folded arms. We are at war, we are the ene-

mies, and we have to know how to die like sol-

diers. In the next forty-eight hours, my fate

will be sealed, and my wife Gerta’s as well.

All I ask of you is to take care of our father’s

grave and, if you should find us, to bury us

next to him. Help our family and Gerta’s as

much as you can. Help them forget. They will

need your help.

Be well. I wish you and Max and Gretl

much happiness. And never forget that what

you will hear cannot be compared to the re-

ality of what people had to live through.

Your Herbert

When the eleventh transport ar­

rived in Auschwitz, the members of

the Council of Elders on it were exe­

cuted. The Nazis wanted no witnesses

to their actions to survive.

W

e had talked endlessly about the

moment “when it will end” and

dreamed of the return of those who

had left on transports into the un­

known. But the end of the war was

nothing like what we had envisioned.

For most of us, there were no reunions.

We learned what had happened to our

loved ones in late April of 1945, when

cattle cars filled with half­dead ex­pris­

oners and corpses began to arrive back

in Terezín. Among the survivors were

former Terezín inmates who told us

about Auschwitz. One friend, Karel

Gross, who had left Terezín on the

same transport as my father, told my

mother that he had seen Mengele send

my father to “the wrong side.” But,

since there was no proof of his death,

for many years I didn’t accept it. In the

early fifties, when I was a student at

Vassar, I fantasized that he would visit

me on campus.

My mother, Bobby, and I remained

in Terezín until May, 1945, when the

camp was liberated by the Soviet Army.

After the war, my mother always spoke

of Vikínek and Herbert in the same

loving manner. She had several oppor­

tunities to remarry, but she never did.

She told me, though, that she would

have married Herbert if he had lived.

I could never bring myself to ask her

why she preferred him to my father.

She was more than ten years older than

Herbert; perhaps he aroused protec­

tive, maternal feelings that my much

older father could not. It was unthink­

able for me to bring up the thorny ques­

tion of whether there had been an

element of calculation in their relation­

ship. Besides, if his position of author­

ity, his power to “protect” us from the

transports, had motivated her in any

way, I do not believe she would have

admitted it even to herself. I do think

she truly loved him. My mother died

in 1990, at the age of eighty­six.

Just before Herbert left for Ausch­

witz, he gave me his little red Czech­

English dictionary, which I still use.

When I recently looked up his date of

birth, I learned that he was only thirty

when he died.

Bobby inherited my father’s ex­

traordinary gift for humor and word­

play and, as J. R. Pick, became one

of Czechoslovakia’s leading satirical

writers. Despite his poor health, he

began to publish right after the war

and never stopped writing, even when

the Communists banned his work, in

1969. He never fully recovered from the
      tuberculosis he contracted in Terezín,
      and I continued to worry about his
      health until he died, at the age of fifty­
      seven, in 1983.
      When I was imprisoned in Terezín,
      I wanted to pour out my feelings in
      my diary, but I was unable to put them
      into words. I recorded some every­
      day events, but my deepest emotions
      and fears remained unspoken. The
      diary contains only hints of how un­
      happy I was.
      The thought that Bobby could die
      was so frightening to me that I could
      not bring myself to mention his ill­
      ness. As for my mother’s affair with
      Herbert, it so profoundly embarrassed
      and disturbed me that his name never
      appears in the diary. I was caught be­
      tween my love for my father and my
      need to learn to accept Herbert. These
      were confusing emotions that I was
      incapable of expressing then. More
      than that, I was unable to deal with
      the guilt and shame of being “pro­
      tected” by my mother’s lover while
      others were being sent on the trans­
      ports to die, and these feelings have
      remained with me to this day. They
      must be the reason it has taken me so
      long to tell this story. 