Stefan by Tonia Rotkopf Blair
INTRODUCTION
I started reading the stories of “Love at the End of the World”, by my now 94-year-old mother, Tonia Rotkopf Blair, almost 20 years ago. Since I was already familiar with how she grew up in Poland and survived Auschwitz — indeed, I made a PBS-shown movie about it (see www.OurHolocaustVacation.com)—I found them interesting but unremarkable.
Then I began editing them and working with copy editors to publish a vanity press edition. On closer inspection, I noticed not only was the writing rock solid but the themes were eerily consistent: memory, kindness, romance — her hopes and dreams as well as the more sexual variant.
Finally, my mother’s insights and experiences drove me to review the Holocaust research I had been doing since the 1980s and to develop a theory. It became the book’s last chapter and can be summarized as “The Conspiracy of Love.”
Despite claims that “might is right,” “survival of the fittest” or that there is a secret cabal which rules the world, love is the super power that keeps us alive and eventually wins in the end.
As we descend into the hate, alienation and conspiracies of a president who made his name peddling the notion that Barrack Obama was born in Kenya, I am realizing how radical the Conspiracy of Love is.
Not only did it save a romantic Polish teen, by keeping hope alive through history’s darkest chapter, it can save us. It reminds us that we are here due of a long lineage of “lovers” dedicated to kindness, dreams and romance.
Hence, I am immensely proud to present “Stefan”, the first story my mother wrote, as she embarked on the literary journey that became her book, “Love at the End of the World”, recently acquired by a London publisher. Although it now includes 37 stories, if she had the opportunity to write only one, this would be it.
STEFAN
I was already late. The notices, posted on every street corner, said we had to be at the train station by eight in the morning. I was petrified. I tried to run with my little suitcase. It wasn’t heavy, but it slowed me down. The cattle cars were being loaded. The barking of the dogs, held on short leashes, made your blood curdle. People were being pushed into the cars by German soldiers carrying guns with bayonets. “Schnell, schnell,” they were shouting, pacing the platform in their heavy boots, kicking stragglers.
I ran alongside the train, trying to spot a familiar face through the doors of the cattle cars. There was no one I recognized. My heart was racing. I didn’t want to be pushed or kicked by one of the guards. Then I heard my name. “Tonia, Tonia, tutaj, tutaj,” which means “here, here.” Then I saw him. Stefan was leaning out from the wide opening of the car motioning to me. I elbowed through the heavy-coated men and women. His outstretched arm pulled me up from the platform into the crowded train. I felt safe to be with someone I knew.
I knew Stefan, but I had never talked with him. I wouldn’t dare. He was older, maybe twenty-four, educated, handsome, aristocratic-looking — the dream of every young nurse at the Drewnowska Hospital in the Lodz ghetto. I don’t know what his position was at the hospital, but I used to see him near the administration building. I was eighteen, the year was 1944.
Stefan held my hand while squeezing himself, with me following behind, to the farthest end of the car. Clearing a little space, he sat down on the floor, leaning against the wooden corner of the car.
The platform was emptying of the Jewish people. We could see the Germans walking alongside the cars. Then the heavy doors were slammed shut, bolted from the outside. Inside it was stifling hot. Although it was August, we were wearing our winter coats. The announcements said that the Germans were sending us to work camps, so we wanted to be prepared for the cold.
It was dark in the car. There were no lights and no windows. Two rectangular, narrow openings at opposite ends of the car, below the ceiling, covered by two strips of wood, allowed a little air and light to seep through. Our eyes were getting adjusted to the dark, and people began forming little spaces around them, sitting on their belongings.
Stefan drew me down next to him, on the wooden floor, placing our coats behind us. My heart was pounding. It seemed incredible that I was so close to this man. I couldn’t utter a word. Then there was a jolt and the train started moving. The sound of the wheels on the tracks and the rhythmic movements of the train were soothing. It gave us hope — something was happening.
I remember Stefan was wearing a white shirt, open at the neck; a little light coming from above accentuated his sharp profile. We soon became oblivious to the people around us, absorbed in our own world. He was telling me about the Polish writer Maria Konopnicka, and I hesitantly mentioned that I had read her short story, Mendel Gdanski, concerning anti-Semitism. Quietly we recited verses and whispered poems by Adam Mickiewicz, Poland’s most famous poet, who was part Jewish. He told me about his life before the war, about his aspirations. He was holding my hand all this time and, my being so near him, I felt faint. I could hear his heart beat and feel his breath on my hair. The train kept going.
We talked most of the night and sang, barely audibly, Chopin’s song “If I were a bird . . .” We kissed — I felt delirious.
The dawn was breaking and a little light had crept in when we realized the train had stopped moving. People were changing positions from the night, children were crying, two buckets were being filled by our eliminations. We didn’t know where we were. Since Stefan and I were sitting right under the opening, Stefan went on his hands and knees and I stood on his back to try to look through the narrow slot.
Everything appeared gray with a smoky haze covering the barren dirt. The most frightening sight was the tall poles with barbed wire connecting them. Wooden guard booths were situated at intervals. In the distance, structures looking like giant chimneys were visible. My heart sank. A terrible fear enveloped us all. I sat down next to Stefan wanting to crawl into something and obliterate what I had just seen.
Then the doors opened with a tremendous clank, the bright sunlight was blinding; the jarring shouts were penetrating our hearts. Gathering our possessions, we jumped down to the platform. Stefan and I, being younger, did so swiftly; others were brutally pulled down by the guards. It was bewildering.
We stood there close to each other with our little suitcases. German soldiers were shouting orders. They pulled Stefan away from my side. It all happened so quickly. All the men were herded away, leaving the women and children on the wide platform. I saw his proud head turn a little, but he could not see me. We never had a chance to say goodbye.
I later learned this hell was Auschwitz.
1999