13
Soon, very soon, I’m going to a place
where nobody wants to go, and from which
no traveler ever returns.
And then it ends.
All over the ghetto in flames, the ghetto in ruins, methodically, day after day and one by one, the Germans locate the bunkers. With weapons or gas, they force people out to kill them or arrest and deport them. One by one until ours, at 18 Mila Street, the heart of the revolt, Mordechai’s refuge with one hundred and twenty fighters. On May 7, it finally happens; the Nazis find us, surround us, and block all exits.
We’re trapped.
We can’t leave, can’t breathe, and the heat is unbearable. Outside the Germans wait, inside we suffocate. Crushed together, sweating and gasping, we wait for death, which will come tomorrow for sure, in the morning. The last night is long, the last night is sad, because it’s the last. We always knew it would end, that we’d have to die. But it’s sad for life to end when it’s only just begun; it’s terrible to die when you’re not even twenty. We haven’t lived our lives! Everyone is silent, wracked by sorrow.
Mordechai is silent too. He’s solemn, of course, but at the same time so proud. Twenty days, it lasted twenty days! He would never have dared hope that we’d hold out so long! Twenty days of life gained, of honor regained. We have nothing to be ashamed of. He feels sad, of course, but not hopeless. Breaking the heavy silence, he says to a girl: “Sing us something. Our lives must end with a song.” She begins to sing a song from the time before, and the sweet words bring us a little comfort, the beautiful notes are a lullaby for the last night, whispering goodbye.
But on the morning of May 8, all our music stops, replaced by the sounds of Nazi drills above our heads. They bore little holes and send down their suffocating gas to poison us. And soon the air in the bunker is no longer air at all.
This time, it’s over, there’s no more hope. It’s impossible to escape, and surrendering is out of the question. Mordechai announces that it’s time to die. But we won’t let them take our lives: we’ll do it ourselves because our lives belong to us, and because they’re sacred. We will give ourselves death by our own hands. With dignity.
So Mordecai and all his companions raise their weapons and turn them on themselves. They shoot their youth, put an end to their lives, kill themselves slowly, and one by one they die.
To see them fall breaks my heart.
Suddenly, just as the Germans are about to enter the bunker, a voice cries, “Over here! A way out!” Just before I flee, I turn and see Mordechai lying on the ground with Mira, his body abandoned, face hidden. I call out, weeping, but he doesn’t answer, and he doesn’t move, and he doesn’t get up.
He will never live again.
We’ve lost our angel, our soul, our great and beautiful commander! But he won his war.
He died with honor, he died in battle. He died a man with dignity, a free man, a hero.
He died a human being.
He died.
Mordechai!