Kartoffeln

__Elie__

I grew up in the small town of Sighet in Transylvania. I wanted to learn Cabbala, so i decided to ask my father. He said i was too young. I decided to look for a master myself. Soon enough i found a master, Moshe the Beadle. One night he noticed me while i was praying at dusk. He asked why did i weep when i prayed. I replied with " i don't know". I have never asked myself why i weeped when i prayed, I just weeped. I asked him why does he pray. He answered with some questions that he asked himself. After that day i saw him a lot. He explained that every question possessed a poiwer that did not lie in the answer. "Man raises himself toward God by the questions he asks Him," he was fond of repeating. "That is the true dialogue. Man questions God and God answers. But we don't understand His answers. We can't understand them. Because they come from the depths of the soul, and they stay there until death. You will find the true answers, Eliezer, only within yourself!" he told me. We talked nearly every evening. One evening i told him how upset i was becuase i couldn't find a master to instruct me in Cabbala. He smiled indulgently. After a long silence, he said, "There are a thousand and one gates leading into the orchard of mystics] truth. Every human being has his own gate. We must never make the mistake of wanting to enter the orchard by any gate but our own. To do this is dangerous for the one who enters and also for those who are already there." Moshe talked to me for hours about Cabbala. We would read together pages from the Zohar until I understood the meaning. Then one day, Hungarian police took Moshe and the other foreign Jews from Sighet. They were crammed into trains and tooken away. Several months have passed and life was back to normal. One day I saw Moshe sitting outside on a bench. I went over and talked to him. He told me what they did to him, but I didn't believe him. He told everyone in Sighet, but they didn't believe him either, they all thought he was crazy. He wanted everyone to know the horrors that he experienced. A year passed and news informed everyone about the Russian front and how they were going to stop Germany. German soldiers stopped in our town and moved into people's houses. They were kind and didn't ask for much. One soldier even bought Madame Kahn a box of chocolates, how kind.

Elie Oct. 14

The soldiers are making us wear the Star of David, so they know that we are Jewish. They are starting to take away our jewelery and other expensive belongings. We are lined up outside without much water. Kids are begging their parents for water and some of the soldiers give them water. The people of Sighet are not smiling anymore ever since the soldiers were being rude. A day has past and now they are lining us up and loading us into train carts. Mademe Schachcer was screaming fire! and everyone was getting annoyed. She had finally gone crazy and her son was holding onto her tightly trying to calm her down. We arrived at what seemed to be a camp and in the distance we saw a pit of flames. A truck was dumping something inside the pit. It was babies! Who would kill babies! I was being leaded to the pit and i thought i was going to die, but they suddenly we turned... that was close.