Without Lifting A Finger

“We drove on. It was a strange day. Reality seemed to have sunk into an abyss. We drove along a high narrow ridge beneath low-lying clouds, as in the cabin of a funicular. The closest likeness I could think of was one of those old Chinese ink drawings, showing travelers moving along monotonously amid mountain peaks, clouds, and waterfalls. The boy huddled in the back seat and barely moved. All he had learned in the course of his short life was to distrust everybody and everything. He remembered nothing else. When the guardians of National Socialist culture bashed in his grandfather’s skull, he had been three years old; he had been seven when his father was hanged, and nine when his mother was gassed—a true child of the twentieth century.

Then, in the perfect stillness, hundreds of leaves detached themselves from their branches and came floating down, as though in answer to a mysterious command. They glided serenely through the clear air, and some of them fell on me. In that moment I saw the freedom, the boundless consolation of death. I made no decision, but I knew that I had the power to end my life if Helen should die, that I wouldn’t have to stay behind alone.

“Near the hotel I heard subdued voices and steps. Two SS men came out of a house door, pushing a man ahead of them into the street. I saw his face in the light of a street lamp. It was narrow and waxen, and a black trickle of blood ran down over his chin from one corner of his mouth. The crown of his head was bald, but there was a growth of dark hair on the sides. His eyes were wide open and full of horror such as I had not seen in years. Not a sound escaped him. The SS men pushed and pulled him impatiently. They were quiet about it. There was something muffled and eerie about the whole scene. The SS men cast furious, challenging glances at me as they passed, and the prisoner stared at me out of paralyzed eyes, making a gesture that seemed to be a plea for help; his lips moved, but not a sound came out. It was a scene as old as humankind: the minions of power, the victim, the eternal third, the onlooker, who doesn’t raise a finger in defense of the victim, who makes no attempt to set h...