Alexandra > Recent Status Updates

Post iom da malbonaj aferoj venas tia feminismo, kiu volas liberigi la edzinon-patrinon de la domo… ĉu tre sovjete?

Tamen ankaŭ la sugestoj pri la tiama E-ujo interesas — ekz. E-a korespondado inter laboristoj kaj ruĝarmeanoj menciiĝas. Nerilate, estas iom da tajperaroj ĉi-eldone.

Post longega atendado mi finfine eklegis ĉi tion ĉar nenio estas garantiita; ĝi estas multe pli bona ol mi atendis! La lingvaĵo estas interesa (aparte se laŭtlegi), kiel ankaŭ la tiam ne sed nun jam foraj etosoj. Mi suspektas ke mi povos diri ke ĝi ja meritas legadon ankaŭ pro kialoj krom nur tiu, ke ĝi estas originale Esperanta.

Where are Dawid’s other writings, like poems and the mentioned _Alarm_?

… Nobody’s working anywhere; everyone’s running to secure work assignments for those in their family who are unemployed; parents of the unfortunate children are trying to save them by any means. The Registration Office was sealed after the lists were made, so that all rescue attempts by falsifying birth certificates, registration books and other documents, or making up death certificates, etc. are failing.”

“Friday, September 4. Łódź. Yesterday’s tragic news has turned out to be unfortunately true. The Germans are demanding all the children up to age ten, the elderly over sixty-five, and all other sick, swollen invalids, people unable to work, and those without employment. The panic in the city is incredible. …

… As a result, when the Germans sent in vehicles today for the rest of the sick, a number of hostages were included to fill the quota, while the ‘connected’ ones stayed in hiding. The mood in the ghetto is panicky; everything’s in suspense, and everyone’s waiting.”

… they went to the apartments of the sick who had already been driven out and, as if out of the blue, asked where the deported person was. When the unfortunate relatives answered that they had already been taken, the police took hostages anyway, unless the alleged fugitive was presented. …

… On this occasion, the Jewish police committed a kind of crime unknown before in the ghetto. The Germans demanded as a quota the number of sick registered on the hospitals’ lists. The police, as a result of various orders from influential people, wanted to spare the relatives of powerful persons, so they invented a new way of dealing with the situation: …

“Wednesday, September 2. Łódź. The hospital tragedy did not end with yesterday’s deportation of the sick from the ghetto. When the Germans found out that a number of the sick escaped from various hospitals, they demanded their return. Following the registers from the hospitals, they started to search the apartments of patients’ relatives to fish out the fugitives. …

… Their wages are minimal, deductions [for their expenses] enormous, and their working conditions must be awful because notifications keep arriving about sick workers sent to hospitals in Berlin, from where they are returned to the ghetto and are unable to work.”

27.Aug.1942: “I’m helping to set up a new file of workers being deported for labor to Germany. I am learning very interesting things: letters and bills sent in by various German firms and work camps that employ Jewish slaves (jüdische Arbeitskräfte) from our ghetto. …

… Leder-und-Sattler idiots. Above all, I don’t have too much time left to stay at home and think of food.”

… There’s also none of the prisonlike atmosphere in the workshop, no screaming, less dust, and no …

26.Aug.1942: “Today I worked in the Arbeitseinsatz as a clerk, a pen pusher. I work there from 7:30 in the morning to four in the afternoon. I’m very satisfied because I finally have the peace I longed for. I don’t have to care about anything, and the thoughtless rewriting of data in the files doesn’t require any effort. …

23.Aug.1942: “The radical remedy for these plagues [bedbugs and flies] would be to end the war. That would solve this and other important problems as well.”

21.Aug.1942: “In the afternoon it was +39˚C [103°F] in the sun. I don’t feel the heat at all. But the fatigue, which is characteristic of all starvelings, increases a hundredfold in the heat. I can’t study at all, and even reading fiction is arduous for me. I can leave home only if my legs don’t fail me, and they are failing more and more often recently.”

20.Aug.1942: Amid rumors of an impending end to the war: “A few friends and I spoke a lot today about the future, and we have come to the conclusion that if we survive the ghetto, we’ll certainly experience a richness of life that we wouldn’t have appreciated otherwise. May the moment of liberation come at last!”

17.Aug.1942: “There’s finally a tiny spark of hope for us. The Germans report that Churchill has been in Moscow since [August] 13 and that the conference of superpowers that’s been going on there has already divided almost the entire world of the future.”

… I waded through the history coursebook until the first year of World War I; I can’t go on any further. My foreign languages have again been ‘held in abeyance.’ Maybe now I’ll be writing a little more. I wish I could pull myself together. The deepest pessimism is beginning to rule me again.”

“Wednesday, August 14. Łódź. Today, amid the greatest hum in the workshop, I wrote several more pages for _Alarm_. I’ve recently checked out Polish novels from the library (for 2 RM a month). I am also reading the second volume of Galsworthy’s _Forsythe Saga_ and Thomas Mann’s _Buddenbrooks_ in their original languages. I have no strength to study, however. …

… with diminishing efficiency of body and mind. We keep dreaming, waiting, and counting, always with the same negative result outraging all possible calculations and suppositions. We’re fighting to survive until liberation, a goal as elusive as a phantom.”

“Tuesday, August 11. Łódź. Day after day passes. One buys rations, eats the little food there is in them, starves while eating it, and after that keeps waiting obstinately, continuously, and unshakenly until the end of the cursed, devilish war; the workshop, home, meals, reading, night with bedbugs and cockroaches, and all over again without end, constantly losing strength, …

09.Aug.1942: “Mrs. Kamusiewicz has died. A day before her death a doctor stated that had she had 3 dkg of sugar and 10 dkg of meat a day added to her food for at least a week, he would have been able to keep her alive! But as in the case of 80 percent of the ghetto population, such treatment is a physical impossibility.”

… In India a National Congress that wants independence has assembled. Gandhi is its chairman. England is not giving in and is being supported by China, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Colossal changes are taking place all around the world, while we are rotting here in the ghetto. What a delight it must be to be free and satiated now, and to take in the history happening before our eyes!”

“Wednesday, August 5. Łódź. In politics it’s somehow silent again. The only thing I can glean from the newspaper is about the Russian offensive. Gentlemen democrats in the West continue to do nothing.

…

… The main thing is to survive.”

… In any case, Szyjo has agreed with me that an unshaken, sincere, honest, and in every way persuaded sympathizer like me is a hundred times more important for the organization than many a loud, even sincerely working activist who may, however, in actuality be a Kripo agent. In my view, I can give the society more while working for myself than many an activist who doesn’t want anything for himself. …

… I’ve agreed readily because this is the only way I can be useful to them. Everything I write is almost 100 percent consistent with their views, except, of course, for the essential difference in our opinions on personal attitude. …

“Tuesday, August 4. Łódź. Niutek came to our workshop to see Szyjo Sonnabend (Niutek maintains only friendly relations with me). I, too, spoke with Szyjo. He understands quite well my ‘isolated-from-everyday-life’ writing perspective, and he, too, is reluctant to take direct action. He asked me whether I’d like to make use of their organization to widen the influence of my works. …