Dante’s Equation

He was disappointed with the first page—only what he already knew; name, profession, dates of birth and death, hometown. But it did include the name of Kobinski’s parents and of his wife and son. There was a photograph, encased in plastic. The label said: “Yosef and A

In Jerusalem, a lot of judging was done based on a man or woman’s dress. There was nothing but piety here—A

Aharon turned the page. There were appended pages here, old-fashioned paper hyperlinks. Kobinski was mentioned in a survivor testimony by Abram Solarz and in one by Haskiel Malloh. Also there was a reference to an article 378881 in the Collections department. The reference only said it was “a document.”

Aharon wrote all this down in his little notepad. It seemed this trip would not be as in-and-out as he had hoped. He didn’t go to look for these items right away but turned in the binder and found the entries for A

Aharon worried his bottom lip, felt the rough edge of his beard there. Well, it had happened, hadn’t it? Everyone knew it had. Millions had died, so why should he feel surprised about these three? What, other people hadn’t suffered? His jaw tightened against the gaze of the boy’s eyes. Aharon looked on his little map, businesslike, to see where he could find the survivors’ testimonies.

The testimonies were in another building, naturally. He made his way over there and had to wait for a spot at a computer. After fifteen minutes, a middle-aged woman with a large purse left a station and he snatched the seat. On the entry screen you could browse by year, subject, or location or enter a search word. He entered “Abram Solarz.”

Solarz’s testimony was twenty pages long. Aharon sca

It was the 4th of September. Rumkowski gathered together everyone. He said, “I can’t bear to tell you this, but they want us to give up all the children and the elderly.”

At that time, we did not know that eventually everybody would be taken. We were only trying to hang on to the ghetto by digging in our fingernails as hard as we could. As bad as it was there, we knew it could be worse.

Rumkowski said, “I never imagined I would be forced to deliver this sacrifice to the altar with my own hands. In my old age I must stretch out my hands and beg: ‘Brothers and sisters, hand them over to me! Fathers and mothers, give me your children!’ ”

Such a terrible speech. Such wailing! Some said, “Do not take an only child, only take children from families who have many.” Others said, “We should defend to the death the children.” But Rumkowski shouted over all of them. “They have demanded twenty thousand,” he said, “all the children under age ten and all the elderly. And even that will only be thirteen thousand, and we must take the rest from the sickest and weakest who would not survive long anyway.”

He said we had to cut off limbs to save the body. At that time, there were still one hundred thousand Jews in Lodz, so you can do for yourself the numbers.

After this speech, everyone was in a panic, ru

Aharon skipped ahead, feeling sick to his stomach. He sca

The deportation of the twenty thousand was to begin that Monday, but already Saturday the Jewish officials—policemen, doctors, firemen—began to collect them. They went into every building, every room, and when they found the elderly or sick or children, they took them to hospitals to wait. You could not believe the cries, the screams, the pleading of the parents! People were out of their minds.

At last they came to our building. They had a list of names and addresses, but they searched everywhere because parents were moving around the children, trying to hide them. In our flat, there was only my wife and I, both young enough and healthy enough to be safe.

After they left, we heard a commotion in the hall. She insisted, my wife, so I cracked the door to look. Down the hall lived Rabbi Kobinski and his son, Isaac. This man, he worked all the time, you never saw him except maybe on Shabbes he would walk to shul with his son. His wife, A

It would be a miracle if the boy looked eight. Of course, the children were all small, with nothing to eat. But I knew that he was younger anyway. I could have said to the doctor, “Yes, he’s eleven,” even though he wasn’t, but I said nothing.

The doctor looked at his form. “It says here he was born on such-and-such a date. We must take him.”

Kobinski kept saying, “He’s eleven.” He told the boy to recite something in Hebrew and Isaac did. “You see, he’s preparing for his bar mitzvah.” But the doctor didn’t care. Two policemen took hold of the boy and pulled him from Kobinski’s hands.

Kobinski’s face—such a look of resignation, so heavy! He said, “All right. In that case, I’ll go with him.” The doctor tried to talk him out of it, but he insisted he was sick—pneumonia, like his wife. He coughed into his hand.

They waited while he packed a bag and they all left the building together. I heard stories later—Kobinski was not the only parent to do this. Many gave themselves up to die with their children.

Aharon could not stop his imagination, could not help but think—what would he do if they came to his door and tried to take Yehuda? Any of his children? The baby? It made him feel terrible, so he pushed it from his mind. Thinking like that was no use to anyone, and certainly not to God. Look, if things happened then there was a good reason and that was that.

He returned to the main screen, entered the search words Haskiel Malloh.

Malloh had been in Auschwitz with Kobinski. Aharon had to scan several pages before finding a mention of him.

Whenever I could, I would line up against the fence to see a new transport arrive. Many of the men couldn’t stand it—to see the selection—but I was searching for my daughter, Tanya. Several times I saw people that I knew, but never Tanya. I saw the rabbi’s wife from my old hometown sent to the gas chambers. She was alone. I don’t know what happened to her family. I saw once this beautiful blond Jewish girl, maybe nineteen. Mengele told her to strip right there. He could see that she was shy and this was only meant to torment her. She refused so they carried her away and put her in the ovens alive and screaming. I have never forgotten that girl.

I saw the arrival of Rabbi Kobinski and his son, Isaac. I didn’t know who he was then, but he drew everybody’s attention. When they tried to take his things, he put up a fuss. He was protecting his books, of course, only a rabbi would be shot over books. And they would have shot him, but his son pleaded and he relented. “Okay, only let me keep my notebook,” he said to the guard. Bitte nur mein Notizheft, bitte nur mein Notizheft. The guard watched him take it from his bag, like he was going to let him keep it. But once he had it out, the guard snatched the notebook from his hand and flung it onto a fire they had burning in a barrel to keep the guards warm.