Free The Entertainer and the Dybbuk by Sid Fleischman

this time, the former officer wasjerking around as if pulled by strings. He covered his mouth with his arm, but still words came tripping forth. His eyes rolled in a surging panic.
    Freddie sat back, folded his arms, and enjoyed the show. How adroit the dybbuk was! And what a hopeless fool the mass murderer appeared to be, now trying to stuff his mouth with a clenched fist. Bravo, Avrom Amos! Out through the German’s ram’s horn of a nose came his confession. “So, jury! So, Judge! What was my motive? What else? The boy discovered papers. He learned who I really am, a war criminal with a noose waiting for me. Why else would I kill the boy? Why else?”
    â€œIs that your sworn testimony?” asked the judge, hunching forward.
    The defendant pulled his knuckles free of his mouth to protest, but the dybbuk drowned him out. “I’m guilty! You, at the typing machine—are you getting this down? I, Colonel Gerhard Junker-Strupp, former SS officer, I poisoned the boy! In my native Germany, I directed the murder of whole trainloads of children. Some by my own hand. I remember a redheaded kid, Avrom Amos Poliakov by name. I shot him. His sister, Sulka. She, we poisoned. For those petty crimes alone, I should have your death penalty twice over! For the other little Jews, a million times over! Guilty! Guilty, jury, fromtop to bottom! I’m late for my own hanging. So kindly hurry it up, Judge.”
    As if struck by lightning, the newspapermen went flying to telephones to get this bombshell of a story in print. The judge sat back. He seemed to enjoy the chaos in his courtroom as a refreshment from dreary shoplifting and burglary trials.
    The SS officer collapsed in his chair, a gaze of profound confusion and vagueness in his eyes. Had he suddenly gone mad? Who had known these darkest war secrets of his?
    Freddie gazed at him and could see his future more clearly than any crystal ball could reveal. Until his last day on earth, the German was going to be possessed by aJewish dybbuk. Avrom Amos was going to drive him crazy.
    Freddie sent a flick of a wave toward the witness stand. He felt sure the dybbuk was looking at him.
    â€œMazel tov, pal,” Freddie said. “L’chaim!”
    He didn’t move his lips.

Author’s Note
    W ho could have imagined that the witch’s oven in Hansel and Gretel would leap out of the storybooks and into real life? It happened in Germany, during the 1930s and 1940s.
    Jewish children by the cattle carloads were delivered to the gas ovens and death factories during World War II. Why the huntfor children? Among Nazi calculations at the highest level was a fear that the Jewish young, if allowed to grow up, would seek revenge for the slaughter of their parents. No Jewish child was to be left breathing. Europe was to become Judenfrie —free of Jews.
    Before being crushed and surrendering in 1945, the Nazis came close to succeeding. The human butchery and smoking crematoria were unprecedented in history. The events have come to be known as the Holocaust. The word is from the Greek, meaning to be burned whole.
    For a few coins, bounty hunters searched out children in hiding and delivered them to the Nazis. There were specialdays set aside to rid the cities and villages of Jewish kids, as in this story. Collecting the terrified young in sacks, like stray cats, really happened, too. And yes, painting childish lips with poisons happened. Poison was cheaper than bullets, and what was a mere Jewish child worth?
    It is surprising how many fragmentary diaries kept by children of the Holocaust have survived and been published. Here and there, I have slipped into this narrative a few trembling words still fresh from the tragic past.
    It has taken me a long lifetime of novel writing to finally feel prepared to grapple with the Holocaust. But what tale to tell? There was a horror story in every victim. At thesame time, the indomitable Jewish sense of humor somehow