And Peace Never Came

From the Ashes

find it brutally hard, especially around 3:00 in the morning when I feel as if the life is going out of me. Eszter keeps talking to me, trying to keep me awake. But one night I feel simply at the end of my strength. Unmindful of Eszter's begging, know­ ing that the foreman will discover me, I sit down among the hand grenades and instantly fall asleep. But not for long. Soon I hear Eszter yelling: "Boske!" I jump up and run to my machine before the foreman can get to me, shaking his iron rod. I find Saturday even harder than the night shift. We are in the factory eighteen hours between Friday at 6:00 p.m. and Sat­ urday at 6:00 p.m. Then all the machines finally stop till Sun­ day at 6:00 p.m. (althoughwe are occasionally called to work at six in the morning on Sundays as well). A sudden hollow silence follows. It leaves me with a terrible ringing in my ears, a loss of balance and shattered nerves. I am incapacitated in my movements or am only very slowly, and with great effort, able to move my arms and hands. It takes a few hours to recu­ perate. After the exhausting night shift, Sunday, if we are lucky, is supposed to be free. If there is enough water we have a chance to really wash up—although always in cold water, summer or winter. We disregard the glassless windows, or the broken ones. We don't care anymore about the SS guards walking up and down in front of them. We just undress as if they weren't there. We know they don't consider us to be humans anyway. While we engage in our ultimate physical struggle, our non­ physical needs are totally dormant, but they come to the sur­ face instantly after just a little rest. As soon as we sit among our fellows, our old selves pop up obediently and our minds travel away from our wretched existence. We often have long conversations with Hanna and very often, to the whole room's delight, she recalls poems. Then everybody who wants to leave 54 the present behind listens quietly, remembering a nobler world in the past. She recites from the work of poets we always felt and feel akin to, like Francois Villon, Paul Geraldi, Faludi, Adi Endre. The pure, unburdened love for art replaces somewhat, without our awareness, our true longings. Sometimes she sings, saving our sensibilities from obliv­ ion. Her warm speaking voice adapts itself smoothly to both arts. When people get to know about her talent, she gets in­ vited often to other rooms. She also draws in our room, lacking paper, on the walls. She finds charcoal to draw with in the rub­ bish outside. We also have some short conversations with fellow prison­ ers which, in some ways, include the past, but don't step over neutral ground. Intuitively avoiding painful points by exchang­ ing recipes fits neutrality perfectly. Giving or listening to recipes takes a different shape and deeper meaning here than it had when we were free. It serves an unusual double purpose. First, the recipe and its quality throws some light on each per­ son's previous circumstances; also, remembering the past in this way lends new energy to the owner of the recipe. The other advantage is that the listener raises her spirits by imagining a merry, beautiful home where the recipe can be made. Maybe it awakes a tiny secret hope. The colourful picture takes us away from our dull existence for a short while. In the same vein are the dreams of crystal and porcelain that I entertain while I drill the monotonous grey hand grenades. In the middle of winter, all of a sudden, unbelievable words circulate. We are to get winter coats. Sure enough, women line up for coats after work in front of the SS office. They stand in line, barely minding the beating that goes with every coat. They wait for hours, for weeks on end. The coats are used and flimsy, but they provide an extra layer for an ema­ ciated body in the cold. The SS could hand them out in one afternoon, but they choose another way. The price for every coat is a beating. I refuse to stand in line like a beggar, to ask 55 [3.142.197.212] Project MUSE (2024-04-23 09...