there. They think Iâm the crazy one, not Goeth!
The electric iron doesnât work and I canât fix it. Time is done with it. The light is coming from the ceiling and a shadow is in my eyes. I turn around, and Goeth was standing over me. He said, does it work?
The only thing I can do is make believe. I push this wire in, put the screws in the thing. Nothing explodes. Suddenly it works for a minute. I am saved.
I had the pleasure to look into his eyes and if I ever saw the Devil looking at me, it was him because his eyes were as cold as steel. I had this heavy iron. I could have certainly hurt him badly. I could have hit him at least twice. He was hanged after the war, but I could have killed him. Death was liberating for him. You cannot hurt or demean somebody whoâs dead. Him and Hitler should have been sentenced to life in prison under the same conditions as me.
Irene Stays Healthy
It was terrible, because you never knew from day to day what was the next for us. Everybody was for themselves. I got used to it, everybody gets used to it when you have to. It was not so terrible anymore. The food was not so bad but a lot of people froze to death.
I didnât let myself go like some people. They got overridden by lice and by pimples. They didnât look like humans. I exchanged one week of bread for a little comb and a mirror. That was my black market. I had it all the time. Nobody else used it. The lice was very bad but I didnât have lice. I cut my hair myself for style a little. And my uniform I make nicer. Always I try to look a little good. I am still very vain.
I tried to help people in little ways. I made dresses from burlap sacks so they look healthy. It was important to look healthy. If not, to the clinic and you die. In camp you want them to think you are healthy. I exchange my potatoes for beets, and I use the beets to rub on my face for color. I look a little better. This I do for the others who arenât so good. Who are maybe a little sick. Beets. It makes good color of the cheek.
After the war I met a woman on the Pitkin Avenue in Brooklyn. She is hugging and crying and saying I am an angel. She tells this to Rita. I am not an angel. I did terrible things. I was lucky.
Dirty Money
Sometimes I worry if I can pull this off. I leave my writing desk in tears. Will people care that a gentile is writing about the Holocaust? Am I appropriating Jewish material? Am I respectful enough? Why am I doing it in the first place? The questions continue endlessly, the writerâs self-torture at three A.M. There were no Jews where I grew up. As a kid I thought they were the same as Christians only they went to church on Saturday. I married the first Jew I met.
I remember a local woman whose husband beat her repeatedly for twenty years. He once shot her brother for trying to protect her. After that no one bothered the couple again. He eventually beat her so badly that she was hospitalized for several weeks and he went to prison. The husband was released a broken man, having aged hard in every way. His wife suffered brain damage from his last beating and required significant care. Because neither of them could work, the state sent them a monthly check, a form-of welfare that reminded me of war reparations.
I call Arthur and ask if he has looked into compensation. The subject pisses him off mightily.
âNo,â he says. âI have no interest in money from the Germans or the Poles. My wife says take the money and give it to the kids. Let the grandchildren go to college. On what, I ask you? On the lives of their great-grandparents? If a murderer pays me money for killing my brother, it makes me dirty. You pay twenty-five dollars, twenty-five thousand dollars, two hundred fifty thousand dollarsâthen youâre okay. Youâve paid off your debt. And what after they pay me off? What do I tell my mother and father if I should see them in Heaven? Hi mother, they paid me off. They paid
The electric iron doesnât work and I canât fix it. Time is done with it. The light is coming from the ceiling and a shadow is in my eyes. I turn around, and Goeth was standing over me. He said, does it work?
The only thing I can do is make believe. I push this wire in, put the screws in the thing. Nothing explodes. Suddenly it works for a minute. I am saved.
I had the pleasure to look into his eyes and if I ever saw the Devil looking at me, it was him because his eyes were as cold as steel. I had this heavy iron. I could have certainly hurt him badly. I could have hit him at least twice. He was hanged after the war, but I could have killed him. Death was liberating for him. You cannot hurt or demean somebody whoâs dead. Him and Hitler should have been sentenced to life in prison under the same conditions as me.
Irene Stays Healthy
It was terrible, because you never knew from day to day what was the next for us. Everybody was for themselves. I got used to it, everybody gets used to it when you have to. It was not so terrible anymore. The food was not so bad but a lot of people froze to death.
I didnât let myself go like some people. They got overridden by lice and by pimples. They didnât look like humans. I exchanged one week of bread for a little comb and a mirror. That was my black market. I had it all the time. Nobody else used it. The lice was very bad but I didnât have lice. I cut my hair myself for style a little. And my uniform I make nicer. Always I try to look a little good. I am still very vain.
I tried to help people in little ways. I made dresses from burlap sacks so they look healthy. It was important to look healthy. If not, to the clinic and you die. In camp you want them to think you are healthy. I exchange my potatoes for beets, and I use the beets to rub on my face for color. I look a little better. This I do for the others who arenât so good. Who are maybe a little sick. Beets. It makes good color of the cheek.
After the war I met a woman on the Pitkin Avenue in Brooklyn. She is hugging and crying and saying I am an angel. She tells this to Rita. I am not an angel. I did terrible things. I was lucky.
Dirty Money
Sometimes I worry if I can pull this off. I leave my writing desk in tears. Will people care that a gentile is writing about the Holocaust? Am I appropriating Jewish material? Am I respectful enough? Why am I doing it in the first place? The questions continue endlessly, the writerâs self-torture at three A.M. There were no Jews where I grew up. As a kid I thought they were the same as Christians only they went to church on Saturday. I married the first Jew I met.
I remember a local woman whose husband beat her repeatedly for twenty years. He once shot her brother for trying to protect her. After that no one bothered the couple again. He eventually beat her so badly that she was hospitalized for several weeks and he went to prison. The husband was released a broken man, having aged hard in every way. His wife suffered brain damage from his last beating and required significant care. Because neither of them could work, the state sent them a monthly check, a form-of welfare that reminded me of war reparations.
I call Arthur and ask if he has looked into compensation. The subject pisses him off mightily.
âNo,â he says. âI have no interest in money from the Germans or the Poles. My wife says take the money and give it to the kids. Let the grandchildren go to college. On what, I ask you? On the lives of their great-grandparents? If a murderer pays me money for killing my brother, it makes me dirty. You pay twenty-five dollars, twenty-five thousand dollars, two hundred fifty thousand dollarsâthen youâre okay. Youâve paid off your debt. And what after they pay me off? What do I tell my mother and father if I should see them in Heaven? Hi mother, they paid me off. They paid
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