| |
––––––––
‘So that’s what I think we should do,’ Thys said. ‘What do you think, liefie? It’s your family home, after all. It’s just that, after walking in our Lord’s footsteps, it just seems it’s something He would want us to do.’
Annamari closed her eyes and felt the plane’s engines throbbing. It made sense. It was the right thing to do. She hadn’t realised it before, but she’d always felt the need to do something, anything that would make a difference, make up in a small way for all the guilt.
It had hit her as she’d stood, awestruck at the million flickering flames that failed to light up the dark chamber in the Yad Vashem complex. The hollow feeling in her stomach that had refused to budge ever since the terrorists killed her family; it wasn’t just pain at her loss, it was guilt – guilt that she had survived while her family had perished. Guilt at how much Thys loved her. Guilt because she didn’t deserve it, any of it – Thys, her sons, Steynspruit – not after what she had done. Guilt tore at her as the quiet, never-ending roll call of the names and ages of the million-and-a-half children who had perished in the Holocaust swirled around her. All those children, all their parents, their families, their nation. A future murdered. She stumbled out of the Children’s Memorial.
How stupid, how vacuous she must have seemed to Yossi earlier that morning as she’d chattered on and on about the day ahead. ‘This should be really interesting,’ she’d said. ‘I don’t know much about the Holocaust. Tell us about it, Yossi.’ After so much time together, she’d learned that Yossi loved being asked questions – it gave him an opportunity to tell yet another story.
But this time Yossi had shaken his head. ‘This one, better you see for yourself and make up your own mind.’
The entrance to the Yad Vashem museum was disappointing. Yossi said it was one of the most famous museums in the world but the large entrance was stark and dull. Annamari hoped she wasn’t going to be disappointed.
As they penetrated deeper and deeper into the horror that was the Holocaust, Annamari felt as if she’d slipped, Alice-like, into utter madness. Grey, grainy photograph after photograph of crowds of people going to their deaths, movies of riots, of people being beaten, roaring crowds in stadia hung with swastikas, Hitler’s strident voice exhorting his adoring followers to do something – she didn’t understand German but she knew it was something horrid. He sounded a little like Dominee van Zyl during one of his more impassioned sermons. Annamari glanced guiltily at Thys, thankful that he couldn’t read her mind. She wondered what Thys was thinking, what he was feeling. Thys’ face was set in stone. Gas chambers, execution squads, crematoria – Annamari’s head reeled. Why had she never been told about this? She should have known. Everyone should know. Why hadn’t anyone done anything to stop it? This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.
It was real. There, in the Hall of Names, it was so very, very real. Portraits, photographs, hundreds of them – men, women, children – lined the domed roof; all dead, all murdered. She blinked as they moved out of the hall into the bright sunlight and made their way in silence into a vast black room, empty except for the names engraved into the floor – Auschwitz-Birkenau, Majdanek, Bergen-Belsen, Mauthausen-Gusen, Treblinka, Janowska, Chelmo, Belzec...twenty-two Nazi murder sites – ‘there were dozens more,’ Yossi said. The eternal memorial flame seared Annamari’s eyes. There was nothing to say.
‘I’ll leave you here,’ Yossi said, removing his yarmulke as they emerged into the sunlight again. ‘The Children’s Memorial is over there. You are parents. You should see it together. Just the two of you.’
Annamari looked at him curiously. She could have sworn he’d been crying.
‘It’s not all bad, you know,’ he’d comforted her later as she stumbled, sobbing, to his side. She hated him then, for not warning her. For making her go in there. All those children, those little children... Thys put his arms around her, held her close, preventing her nerveless legs from collapsing under her. What was wrong with her? She never cried, not like this, not even when Ma and Pa and Christo had died. Not at their funeral. Not afterwards. Thys had been worried about her; he’d told her to cry, but she couldn’t. She wouldn’t give the terrorists the satisfaction of breaking her. Never. Now she wept. And Thys wept too.
‘Many non-Jews I bring here – many Jews too – they feel terrible, terrible guilt,’ Yossi said quietly. ‘For the Jews I think it’s because they know that in a different time, in a different place, it could have been them. But it wasn’t. So they feel relief and that makes them feel guilty. Of course, many also lost their entire family and that’s not something one gets over easily, as you know.’
Annamari nodded mutely. Thys gently wiped her cheeks with his handkerchief. He looked grim.
‘I cannot believe God-fearing, good Christian people did this,’ Thys said. ‘I cannot believe that people who went to church every Sunday to sing the praises of the Lord would slaughter men and women and children like that on Monday.’
‘For non-Jews, I think the Holocaust and what they see here is more complicated,’ Yossi said. ‘It is very hard to come to terms with the evil that men can do. I think many wonder what they would have done back then if they had lived in Germany, or anywhere in Nazi Europe – or Russia for that matter. It’s history – but it’s not really, is it? Only fifty years.’
Annamari nodded, hiccupping as the storm of her emotions abated.
‘But it’s not really over, is it?’ Thys said. ‘People are still being persecuted. Even at home – in Steynspruit. There was a Jewish family there, when I was growing up. And they were totally ostracized. By everyone. Even my father. He was the dominee. People listened to him. He should have done more to stop it. He could have done more. I should have done more.’
‘Come,’ Yossi said. ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself. I want to show you one last thing. It’s not all bad.’
He led them to a rock on which was inscribed the words Garden of the Righteous among the Nations.
‘This garden was established in honour of the thousands of non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust,’ Yossi explained. ‘They were Christians and communists, atheists and Moslems. Ordinary men and women who did what they could to combat evil. They are also remembered and honoured. As it says in the Mishnah – that’s part of the Torah, our holy book –He who saves one human being is as if he saves an entire world.
***
Opening her eyes, Annamari turned to her husband who was looking at her anxiously. She put her hand over his giant paw, clenched on the armrest between their seats.
‘I think it’s a wonderful idea,’ she said. ‘I think we owe it to Ma and Pa and Christo. I think it will make their deaths meaningful somehow. But how will we do it?’
‘Oh liefie, thank you. It will be wonderful. You’ll see. But there’s a lot we need to plan. And all the legalities.’
‘I think we should discuss it with Petrus and everyone as soon as we get home. The boys too.’
‘Absolutely,’ Thys said. ‘I think they’ll like it, though. It’s a very African concept in many ways.’
Annamari smiled. Steynspruit Kibbutz didn’t sound very African to her. She closed her eyes again and her heart soared as Mozart’s triumphal Fifth Symphony washed over her. For the first time in years she felt relaxed, content, at peace. Perhaps, she thought before sleep claimed her, it was because at forty thousand feet, she was in close proximity to Ma and Pa and Christo ... and God. And she was sure they’d give their blessing. For once in her life, she would be doing something right.