and he was bloody good at it. But of course, the “product” — what else to call it? He was dealing with
a profit and loss account which depended on his fellow prisoners who were being harvested. What items of value did each leave behind, right down to teeth and hair; how to turn possessions into
marketable assets; how to dispose of the unwanted remains. Sol has erected strong barriers, but deep inside him, there’s a despair which won’t die before he does.’
‘Yes.’ David was absolutely at a loss for words.
‘And there’s more,’ Martin continued, ‘in his job, Sol had help from other inmates — prisoners who were assigned to him for work in typing, filing, that sort of
thing. None lasted very long, but there was one woman who was especially competent. Ironically, she wasn’t a Jew, but a Romanian gypsy. Anyway, she worked well and became a good friend. She
had a daughter with her and I guess that touched a strong chord in Sol. The child was eleven or twelve and she came to help Sol whilst her mother was too sick to work one day. The girl was pretty
enough to attract the attention of one of the soldier guards and he made a grab for her. He held her down across Sol’s desk, bawling at him to get on with his figures whilst the child was
being violated in front of his eyes. Sol broke the habit of a lifetime just that once. He got out of his chair to fight back. It wasn’t much of a fight: a fit young soldier against a broken
down Jew. Sol got knocked senseless and the soldier completed his rape. He called in his mate who did her as well. Then they slit her throat. And then they woke Sol up and started in on him. They
took turns to knock him about a bit more before they castrated him with a pair of office scissors. Then they made him get rid of the body of the girl and get back to work himself.’
The nausea which this horror produced in David made him miss the further significance of the story but it came to him in a rush as he saw Martin staring at him. Martin spoke without waiting for
the question.
‘No, of course I’m not his son and it’s just a coincidence that we have our similarities. But he is the one and only father figure in my life. I respect him and I love him plus
I owe him a great deal. You see David, I have no idea who my natural father was and neither has my mother, Naomi. She was in Dachau too, and being young and quite pretty, she was much in demand.
How else was she to survive?’
He looked appealingly at David as if to seek approval for behaviour under circumstances which are unimaginable except to those who were forced to endure them. David stretched across the table
and put his hand briefly on Martin’s shoulder. It was an instinctive gesture made both to acknowledge the anguish and to thank him for sharing it. Then he said,
‘It’s a desperate, tragic story, but thank you for trusting to tell me. I guess you don’t often speak of it.’
‘You’re right. Only once a year. On our Day of Atonement, my mother Naomi, Sol and I, we stay home alone and just sit with each other, sometimes saying nothing for hours on end,
sometimes talking trivia. We find there is no catharsis to be gained from sharing memories of that time, it’s just enough to be still together.’
David was moved by this and said so. Then he added ‘Please tell me what happened next. How did you get from there to here?’
‘Well, to keep it brief. Sol and Naomi survived Dachau until the camp was liberated by the Americans in 1945. They’d become very close and it made things much easier to pretend that
they were man and wife with me as their son. Also, Naomi is Austrian, so we went to Vienna until Sol applied successfully to bring us here. We arrived in London late in 1947 and we’ve been
here ever since.’
David had plenty more to ask about, to burrow deeper into the relationships and understand more about the business, but he decided that he would hold his peace for now.
‘You get
a profit and loss account which depended on his fellow prisoners who were being harvested. What items of value did each leave behind, right down to teeth and hair; how to turn possessions into
marketable assets; how to dispose of the unwanted remains. Sol has erected strong barriers, but deep inside him, there’s a despair which won’t die before he does.’
‘Yes.’ David was absolutely at a loss for words.
‘And there’s more,’ Martin continued, ‘in his job, Sol had help from other inmates — prisoners who were assigned to him for work in typing, filing, that sort of
thing. None lasted very long, but there was one woman who was especially competent. Ironically, she wasn’t a Jew, but a Romanian gypsy. Anyway, she worked well and became a good friend. She
had a daughter with her and I guess that touched a strong chord in Sol. The child was eleven or twelve and she came to help Sol whilst her mother was too sick to work one day. The girl was pretty
enough to attract the attention of one of the soldier guards and he made a grab for her. He held her down across Sol’s desk, bawling at him to get on with his figures whilst the child was
being violated in front of his eyes. Sol broke the habit of a lifetime just that once. He got out of his chair to fight back. It wasn’t much of a fight: a fit young soldier against a broken
down Jew. Sol got knocked senseless and the soldier completed his rape. He called in his mate who did her as well. Then they slit her throat. And then they woke Sol up and started in on him. They
took turns to knock him about a bit more before they castrated him with a pair of office scissors. Then they made him get rid of the body of the girl and get back to work himself.’
The nausea which this horror produced in David made him miss the further significance of the story but it came to him in a rush as he saw Martin staring at him. Martin spoke without waiting for
the question.
‘No, of course I’m not his son and it’s just a coincidence that we have our similarities. But he is the one and only father figure in my life. I respect him and I love him plus
I owe him a great deal. You see David, I have no idea who my natural father was and neither has my mother, Naomi. She was in Dachau too, and being young and quite pretty, she was much in demand.
How else was she to survive?’
He looked appealingly at David as if to seek approval for behaviour under circumstances which are unimaginable except to those who were forced to endure them. David stretched across the table
and put his hand briefly on Martin’s shoulder. It was an instinctive gesture made both to acknowledge the anguish and to thank him for sharing it. Then he said,
‘It’s a desperate, tragic story, but thank you for trusting to tell me. I guess you don’t often speak of it.’
‘You’re right. Only once a year. On our Day of Atonement, my mother Naomi, Sol and I, we stay home alone and just sit with each other, sometimes saying nothing for hours on end,
sometimes talking trivia. We find there is no catharsis to be gained from sharing memories of that time, it’s just enough to be still together.’
David was moved by this and said so. Then he added ‘Please tell me what happened next. How did you get from there to here?’
‘Well, to keep it brief. Sol and Naomi survived Dachau until the camp was liberated by the Americans in 1945. They’d become very close and it made things much easier to pretend that
they were man and wife with me as their son. Also, Naomi is Austrian, so we went to Vienna until Sol applied successfully to bring us here. We arrived in London late in 1947 and we’ve been
here ever since.’
David had plenty more to ask about, to burrow deeper into the relationships and understand more about the business, but he decided that he would hold his peace for now.
‘You get
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