Mila 18 - Leon Uris [97]
“The quarantine order is merely a thin disguise for a ghetto. If we collect this mass fine for them, there will be others. Registration of property. I don’t have to explain that to you. The most dreadful part of their whole scheme is to make us issue the orders. Now, we on the Civil Authority believe we could be of some service to the community and be a protective wall between the community and the Germans. The Germans are converting the Civil Authority into their own tool for carrying out their dirty work.”
The room was stricken with fear. Everyone knew what the Germans were up to. Everyone also knew he was facing a moment when he had to search the depths of his own soul to see if it held a hidden reservoir of courage. So long as they carried out German orders, they and their families were safe. Defiance could bring them instant death. Was this worth dying for? Emanuel Goldman, their chairman, thought it was.
One by one they revealed themselves. Weiss, who had been an army officer all his life, had never been much of a practicing Jew. He considered himself an assimilated Pole. He was angry. He banged his fist on the table. “Certainly, as conquerors, they will give us the choice to withdraw in honor,” he said.
What nonsense, Goldman thought. Weiss is still playing colonel. “These are not soldiers, but Nazis,” Goldman said. “I do not know if they will let us resign.”
Now Silberberg. Once he had written plays in which vaunted ideals bounced from the rafters of the theaters. He had been terrified into conformity. He sulked. He hated himself for it. “We are not collaborators,” he said, finding his reserves of strength.
Seidman, the engineer, was Orthodox. “Misery is nothing new for the Jewish people. We have lived in ghettos before.”
As he talked he began to sound like Rabbi Solomon, but Goldman knew that Seidman spoke from conviction and not fear.
Marinski, the factory owner. He had spent a lifetime building his leatherworks. The new orders would end in confiscation of his factories, he was certain of it. He had to calculate. As a member of the Civil Authority, can I save my factory or shall I gamble that the Germans will back down if we have a show of strength? There was another thing worrying Marinski. He was a just and proud man. The right and wrong seemed clear. “We must make a stand,” he said.
That was the way Schoenfeld felt too. He was a brilliant lawyer. “No matter how complete the occupation. No matter how strong their authority, they have to base every action on cause. They gave you a cause with the excuse of a quarantine. A determined effort by us, and I am certain we can force them to adhere to the rules of basic decency. Make them negotiate.”
And Paul Bronski spoke. “We have no choice. To whom can we appeal? An outside world who won’t listen to us? Schoenfeld, you are a fool if you think we can negotiate them out of a ghetto. They want it, they’ve ordered it in Berlin, and they’ll have it. There is nothing we can do.”
“Yes there is,” Goldman answered. “We can behave like men.”
Boris Presser, the merchant, who had an art of being anonymous, said nothing except to vote with Paul Bronski and Seidman against making a protest to the Germans.
“It is voted five to three that we protest to Funk.”
A sudden wave of nausea hit Paul. He stumbled to his feet. “We are under no bylaws stating that we can vote. We are merely independent department heads. If you want to go to Funk with a protest, do it in the name of the others—not me.”
Was it an outburst of cowardice? Was it an outburst of self-preservation? Goldman wondered. He wondered if it was not all a useless gesture. There would be fifty more men like Paul Bronski to replace them and fifty more to replace them. What good would a protest do? Bronski was the realist there. The Germans would have what they wanted, regardless.
Emanuel Goldman was very tired. He was seventy-three years old. His children were all married. He lived alone with only his housekeeper.
He had had a good rich