Felix entered the kitchen with Victor, the Ukrainian who surrendered to us. Tsila served Victor a sandwich and a cup of tea, and he was invited to sit on a crate. For the first time we got a good look at him.
After Victor finished his meal, Felix asked him in a businesslike manner, “Tell all of us, please, what you told the commander and me.”
Victor raised his head, looked Felix straight in the eye, and said, to everyone’s surprise, “It is hard for me to talk at this moment.” His tone implied a request for patience.
“What’s the problem?” Felix did not consider his request.
“When I speak, I see the pits and the soldiers shooting people in the back of the neck, and the horror silences me.”
“The fighters need to know the reason why they are risking their lives,” continued Felix in his emotionless voice.
Victor hesitated and then surprised us again. “I pray to God to put the right words into my mouth and that I will not be afraid to tell you exactly what I saw. You know better than I do how hard it is to convey to another person what you have seen, especially atrocities. It’s very easy to be inexact, to be vague, to justify yourself and appear blameless.
“I will confess right away, I’m no different from other people in my village. I, too, stood by the side indifferently while the Jews in my village were murdered. I, too, slept in my cozy bed after the slaughter of the Jews, but something inside me—call it fear—robbed me of my sleep and showed me the horrors of their death. I wanted to ignore those images. I went to the river, walked into the mountains. Everywhere they stood before my eyes, as if waiting for me.
“For many weeks these visions tortured me. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I feared that if I told my family how I felt they would ridicule me, denounce me. Even worse, they would say I had gone crazy. I kept quiet, and my silence strangled me.
“Forgive me for getting ahead of myself; I want to say more, if I may. I was born in Holovka, a small village. My father owns a farm, and the whole family works there; some do manual labor and others tend the sheep or bring the fruits and vegetables to the market.
“At the age of eighteen I was conscripted into the emperor’s army, did my basic training, and was sent to guard storehouses. Unluckily for me there was an explosion in one of the depots, and I was wounded in my right leg. I was discharged from the army and went home. My brothers and sisters had moved on, and I was left behind: assistant bookkeeper for the farm. The wound, which left a scar, made me different from my brothers and sisters. A person with a scar like mine doesn’t sleep well; he’s worried with good reason and also without—he’s afraid of people. A woman I was close to from my youth, who loved me and I loved her, the minute she discovered the scar on my leg she wanted to end our engagement with the excuse that she had never seen anything so hideous in her life. I admit, a scar like mine is not an uplifting sight, but I would say she exaggerated. Women do tend to exaggerate.
“Why am I telling you all this? Are these trivial details important, compared with the events that follow? Why do I dwell on them? Because were it not for the scar, I think my life would have been different. I would have done well at the farm or set up my own, and the death of the Jews would not have concerned me. But what can I say, a man’s fate in not in his own hands. The scar, in any event, made me a different creature but by no means righteous.
“When the Germans invaded the village, we felt they were more polite than our police and behaved fairly. Yes, a few of their officers were condescending, but this is normal for a conqueror, so said the old people of our village, who had seen other conquerors in their day.
“In the village there were five Jewish families, and they were treated differently. They were taken from their homes and lined up in threes, old people, women, and children included, and made to march through the length of the village. Whoever could not march was forced to crawl, but beyond this humiliation there was no further abuse. In the evening they went back to their homes.
“In the village, confusion was mixed with satisfaction. The bizarre parade was seen as amusing mistreatment, nothing more. ‘It’s good to remind the Jews to act humbly and honestly and not get rich at the workers’ expense,’ my father declared.
“The attitude toward the Jews of the village was always distant. Be wary of them, our fathers taught us. In public school I studied alongside Jewish children. Most of them wanted to excel, but there were also two dimwitted ones who were ridiculed. I was intrigued by the Jewish children, but I didn’t really like them. Their strangeness attracted my attention. I liked to ask them questions and hear their answers. They filled my dreams—sometimes as creatures who performed miracles with their magical powers, and sometimes as little monsters, slithering and grabbing hold of people.
“I come back to the main story. Again they took the Jews from their homes and again marched them in threes through the village, but this time the women and men were ordered to dance and kiss each other. This sight was funnier. Everyone laughed, even the blind and deaf. The entertainment lasted about two hours, and they were finally ordered to return home.
“Every day the commander came up with a new abuse. One time a pig was brought to the square, and the marchers were ordered to dance around it, then to bend down and kiss it. Everyone exploded with laughter and looked forward to the next show.
“It went on this way for about three weeks, maybe more. Two old people died, unable to endure the marching, and a young man named Max, who had been my classmate, committed suicide. One woman went insane, cursed the soldiers and called them storm troopers, and was shot in the belly.
“Then the commander went away, and his deputy left the Jews in their homes. The Jews reopened their shops, and it seemed like the abuses had passed and life was back to what it had been before.
“As it turned out, this was merely a lull.
“The commander returned and the following day ordered the Jews to assemble in the village square, dressed in holiday clothes. This time they were marched to the river and ordered to go into it. Anyone who didn’t go in was pushed in. The Donets River isn’t wide but it is deep. The old people and children drowned quickly, and those who tried to swim were shot. The clear river water turned red. The screaming stopped very quickly.
“That was how the Jews of Holovka perished. In the nearby villages the Jews were also abused, but their death was different: They were taken to the forest, they dug themselves pits, and when they were done, they were shot at the edge. Their fellow Jews who came after them covered the pits and dug other pits for themselves.
“That’s how the killing was carried out. Life in the village continued as normal. The farmers worked the fields, stored vegetables and fruits. People broke into the homes of those who were killed and took whatever they wanted.
“My father summed it up: ‘They brought it on themselves.’ And I think everyone agreed with him. Don’t get the wrong idea; I’m no saint. If it weren’t for the scar on my leg, I assume the sights that I saw would have vanished from my head, and I would have gone back to work. But what can I say? The sights gave me no rest. I felt a rope tightening around my neck, and if I didn’t run away from that place, I would have choked. And so here I am before you.”
Felix asked him very politely, “Maybe you know of a fellow named Paul, who disappeared from here about a month ago? We don’t know what happened to him.”
“No,” he replied, then took his head in his hands and said, “but in a hut outside the village lived a strange couple with a daughter, newcomers. He worked as a day laborer and she at home. One night a man broke into their house, shot them dead, and kidnapped the daughter. There had been rumors about the couple in the village. The next day they were buried in a plot outside the cemetery, and the matter was dropped.”
Felix leaned toward him. “And what else was said?” he asked.
“That’s what they said.”
We knew it was Paul. We shuddered.
Victor sat for a while on the crate without moving. The things that he said hovered in the empty darkness. We had known abuse in the ghetto, but the horrors that Victor described were more raw and more terrible.