Kamil keeps reminding us that if there’s a rationale for why we fight, it’s to protect the weak who’ve been entrusted to our care. At times we go on raids, but guarding the base is continuous, day and night. To maintain this vigilance, only one squad or, in special cases, two squads go out at a time on raids. We eagerly wait for new fighters to join us, but for now they have yet to arrive.
“We must find the streams to our forgotten reservoir,” Kamil reminds us. This is harder to fulfill than his other commands. The sayings of the Besht, as retold by Martin Buber, undeniably stir the heart, but make no mistake, they are anchored in prayer and the observance of religious law.
“These texts are a regression to dark days,” declares Big Karl, one of the best-loved fighters, who was named for Karl Marx. “We left the ghetto not only to save ourselves but also to break away once and for all from an irrational tradition and to live as free men.”
“Do we also want to cut ourselves off from our parents and grandparents?” demands another fighter.
“From their beliefs, yes.”
Karl is a superior squad leader. A squad under his command feels his power, and it’s easy to follow him. When he speaks of his beliefs, you can feel the inner engine that governs his existence. He’s a second-generation communist, a true believer. Not by chance did Kamil choose him as a fellow commander.
Kamil, to his credit, is very tolerant. He knows that some of the fighters are loyal communists, and some are active in the leftist Bund and Shomer Hatza’ir. Their time in the ghetto and the forests has changed them but not their beliefs. To satisfy those who disagree with him, we read poems by Heine or Rilke, or chapters from Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment.
THE RAIN, DAMPNESS, and cold have worsened. Several sacks of flour have grown moldy, a serious setback. At one time Kamil planned to raid military camps scattered in the foothills and to liberate and absorb the thousands of prisoners who remain in the work camps. Kamil believes that five thousand fighters could change the course of the war. The wetlands are ideal territory for partisan warfare. Fighters from here could undermine the self-confidence of an entire army.
For now nothing has come of all these plans. We are increasingly engaged with day-to-day existence: reinforcing the tents, struggling against wetness and hostile patrols. The fear that a long stay in the mountains would diminish our resolve was unfounded.
The unit is consolidated, the fighters devoted to the weaker members. Differences of opinion have not led to a rift. Moreover, our daily routine is strictly organized. Everyone agrees that without mental work the unit can become demoralized. Depression is one of our toughest enemies. A person thinks of his father and mother, his brothers and sisters, how they were snatched in sudden aktions—such a memory strikes like a bolt of lightning.
At first he doesn’t feel the pain, but slowly the images penetrate his body, and depression soon blackens his vision. The fighter, who only an hour earlier was ready and willing, collapses as if an unbearable load has been placed on his shoulders.
When a person falls into depression, the others cautiously try to talk to him, heart to heart. Sometimes the right word revives him, but usually words are unable to free him from the snare of despair.
One of the fighters once sank into a depression so deep it seemed he was finished. All attempts to speak to him failed. His face grew grayer by the hour, and he was on the edge of collapse. Finally, one of the fighters approached and, in a voice not his own, said to him, “In the name of your mother and father, I ask you to get out of the darkness you’ve plunged into; we cannot permit ourselves such a loss. Your father and mother ask us to protect the widows and orphans. Depression is the invention of the devil, who tugs us away from the truth and seeks to defeat us from within.” Miraculously, the words that this fighter mined from his soul took the man out of his depression, and he stood on his feet.
But success does not always smile on us. There are two fighters in our unit who suffer from prolonged depression. We keep a very close eye on them, never leaving them alone, and when we go on raids they are never in the rear.
Kamil, who is himself prone to moodiness, speaks from time to time about foul humors and depression, which impede decisive action. One must shake them off, defy them, and thwart the schemes of Satan.
“We have a great mission at this hour, to rescue the Jews from the talons of the foe and ourselves from despair. The world is filled with evil and wickedness and anarchy, but we, thank God, have not fallen into that trap. We will do everything that God has called upon us to do. The Ten Commandments are engraved in our hearts to guide us.” It’s scary to be around Kamil when he talks about our mission in this world. His eyes blaze, he grows taller, and he looks like one of the giants of generations past.