Free All but My Life: A Memoir by Gerda Weissmann Klein Page A

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    We visited the old section of the cemetery that I liked best. It had not been tended for years and a thick, untrimmed hedge ran all around it. Many of the stones, we noted, were sinking deep into the earth. Papa read the barely legible Hebrew inscriptions, and translated them for me.
    Suddenly we heard somebody approaching. Looking up, I saw Abek. After I had introduced him to Papa he said that he had met Escia strolling along one of the paths and she had told him that Papa and I were nearby.
    “I wanted to see you,” he said simply. I felt Papa’s swift questioning glance, but he did not say anything.
    When Abek learned that we had been reading the inscriptions on the stones he addressed Papa in fluent Hebrew. This seemed the right moment for me to get away.
    “I am sure that you and Papa will get along fine without me. I want to see Ilse anyway,” I said, and ran as fast as I could.
    After an hour or so, I saw Papa and Abek coming down the path leading to Escia’s home, talking with great animation. Papa was glad to find someone he could talk to about the study of Hebrew.
    “Just imagine,” he told me, “Abek has a book that I have wanted to read for a long time. Now I can finally get it.”

    “I am very glad,” I said unenthusiastically, “but I think we ought to go home. Mama will be waiting.”
    Papa looked at me curiously. I usually urged him to stay out longer. He spent too much of his time in the damp cellar room.
    “Let us go home then,” he agreed.
    “I’ll see you very soon,” Abek said in farewell.
    We walked home in silence.
    Papa told Mama of the encounter with Abek, and how glad he was to have found another Hebrew scholar. I was knitting, and tried not to pay any attention.
    While Mama was fixing supper, Papa called me to his side. “I want to talk to you about Abek,” he said quietly.
    “What about him?” I feigned indifference.
    “I am convinced that the boy cares a lot for you.”
    “Papa, you are talking silly. I don’t even know him.” I started to walk away.
    “Wait just one minute,” he said, “Abek is a fine boy. I could see it during the short time that I spent with him. The fact that you hardly mentioned him is proof enough that you may care for him. I only ask one thing of you: whatever life may bring, try not to make any decisions during this horrible war. Grow up slowly. Enjoy life. I want to see you laughing more than anything else. You have already cried enough in your young life.”
    Several days later, when Abek came and brought Papa the book he had promised, I made it my business not to remain at home.
    Papa was quite annoyed that I did not return until late, and he told me that Abek had asked about me several times. He had even offered to fetch me from Ilse’s house, where I had gone, but Papa had persuaded him to stay.
     
    The news from the Eastern front was disheartening, and there were no letters from Arthur. This time we all knew much better how to conceal our concern.
    My girl friends in Bielitz had heard from their brothers. Gisa, in Krakow, wrote again and again, this time not kindling
our hopes, but expecting comfort from us.
    One bright morning early in October the mailman handed me two letters, one from a friend living in the Gouvernement, the other, a square white envelope without a return address, addressed in black ink in unfamiliar writing.
    As I opened this one the black ink seemed to be transformed into a rainbow of colors. Scribbled on a tiny sheet, in Arthur’s handwriting, were a few words telling that he was well and working and that he would write more as soon as the mail could go through normal channels again. Someone apparently had taken that note into the Gouvernement, and a stranger had transmitted it to us from there.
    Papa’s and Mama’s eyes glittered with tears of joy. It was. the second time Arthur had escaped the murderous Germans.
    That afternoon Abek came. In my happiness I was kind to him and a different relationship