Matryoshka (Russian doll)

A bleak look at how the holocaust affects one of the perpetrators

Matryoshka

 

I stood by the cheap, vinyl topped table in front of the second floor window in the ‘Carefree’carehome. From the window the view was depressing - a suburban road lined with tarted up thirties bungalows, a shabby block of flat roofed shop units dispensing the essentials of modern life - baltis, booze and betting slips - to a steady stream of car borne customers, a glimpse of dismal countryside beyond, the drab low hills lost in leaden clouds doing nothing to lift my mood.

 

I turned and looked across the room. An ancient and decrepit man looked back at me.  His mean, lipless mouth had uttered not a single word for forty years.  There was a slight change in expression in the deeply lined face which might have passed for a smile and then, after a pause, an almost imperceptible sardonic shake of his head. Without speaking I turned away and looked again out of the window. There was nothing to lift anyone’s spirits in this sad sarcophagus of the decrepit and demented, sitting day after day in these damned pissproof chairs with the doped and dribbling, dozing to the drone of daytime TV - gardening, DIY and antiques - mogadon hell.

 

I turned and looked again at the old man, arthritic, face weary and lined - and I knew that there was only one release from this place. I shuddered and had to look away again. As I looked out of the window the Russian Doll on the sill caught my attention. Each of the small collection of keepsakes was a tenuous link to the past. I picked up the doll but its story eluded me. I placed it carefully back on the ledge and sat in the armchair beside the table. Billy Jones from the room three along came in without knocking and started on his rambling, endless, wartime reminisces. Combined with the oppressive heat of that room it didn’t take long for my eyes to start closing and for my head to drop. I woke with a start several times but in no time the inevitable happened ………………..

 

as water down a drain I gyre into that other place

where memories kaleidoscope in mystifying confusion

but now and then details click, conjoin,

to trigger pin sharp, puzzling

scenes from ‘life is but a play’

forgotten secrets dangling like tethered mines

slip free, explode  into the dazzling light of day …

 

 

mutter ….  vater ……birthday ... matryoshka

 

It is my fifth birthday.

We sit round the table in our house

Mutter unt Vater unt ich.

Mein namen ist Herman Muller.

My father looks at me and smiles

‘You have a present Herman, open it.’

I open the box wrapped in brown paper.

Inside is a painted wooden doll

I look up at father with tears in my eyes,

for surely he knows that all five year old boys

want a toy gun or a ball.

‘What is it father?’

He laughs. ‘It is a ‘Russian Doll - a matryoshka!’

‘Look Herman.’ Father twists the head from the doll and pulls out a smaller doll from inside. He repeats this until there are seven dolls ranging from small to large sitting side by side.

‘Now you try to put them together.’

 

I take the smallest doll and look at it carefully. I gasp, magic has happened, for it looks just like me but a little older and somehow I have become the doll - I am in school sitting at my small wooden bench next to my friend Wolf. My teacher, dressed in his brown button up suit with his white shirt and university tie passes me my year report to take home to my father. ‘Well done Herman, you are a credit to your parents. Remember that passing tests is important but obedience is even more important.’

 

Now I am back at home with the dolls and putting the first doll inside the second. My eyes nearly pop out when the next doll takes on my appearance at the age of fourteen.

 

I am at the village hall where our Hitler youth company meet three times a week. First we are inspected, then we march, and then we sing the party songs. We always end with the Horst Wessel and give our salute to the Fuehrer, as is the custom, on the first and fourth verses.

 

The flag on high! The ranks tightly closed!

The SA marches with quiet, steady step ------

 

 

Our commander Herr Schmitt has a sadistic streak and always picks on my friend Deiter. I squirm inside but there is nothing I can do.

 

I look at the next doll carefully and magically it transmutes into myself aged 22 and I am a fully fledged member of the 21^st SS Division. I have worn the uniform for four years now. First I served my Fuehrer and my fatherland with distinction in Poland and then another two years in France. After we routed the British at Dunkirk I volunteered to serve in one of the work camps in Poland. We were told that our work would be vital to solving once and for all Germany’s problem with the Jews.

 

The next doll comes and I am now 24 and serving in the vast system of camps close to the Polish village of Oswieche. My enthusiasm in my work has been rewarded and I command the welcome party that meet the trains bringing our visitors. The aim is to process the arrivals quickly and ease their passage along to the final procedure. The main task of my German squad is reassure our guests and curb the enthusiasm of our Ukranian assistants with their whips and dogs.

 

Another train arrives, the doors are pulled open, the dazed Jews help each other out and the Ukranians herd them into lines. My task is to make the division - those that can work for us and those that will be gassed. I purposefully don’t even look at these untermenschen. With their emaciated faces and dressed in rags greater Germany is better rid of them. I pass along the lines and indicate with my riding crop which are unfit for work. The Ukranians push and kick them in two groups. It is necessary work but my stomach always heaves. The next stage is the worst, when the mothers realise that their children are going to be taken away. I tell them they will just be given a shower and then a meal and taken to the children’s camp but the mothers are not stupid.

 I see movement in one of the wagons and when I go across, a boy of about five comes out of the shadows. ‘Can you help me sir? I have lost my mother.’ I take his hand and help him down and I tell him I will find her.

 

 

 

‘Sir, will you look after this for me until we reach our new home?’ He passes me a small package wrapped in brown paper and I open it to discover a Russian doll that must have been a valued present. ‘Will I be able to play my violin at our new school?’ The boy looks up at me and smiles. ‘You are a good man, to help me, Sir. My mother has told me not to trust Germans but I am also a German.’ I notice he has the most extraordinary brown eyes. ‘Will you please come to hear my first concert? My name is Isaac Goldstein.’ I mumble, ‘yes I will,’ but cannot look him in the eye as my stony heart crumbles into dust.  As I walk along the waiting groups his mother screams and I let her take the boy. They are in the group going directly to the gas chambers and ovens. As they shuffle off I can see the camp doctor making his own special selection.

 

Later that week comes the dreaded weekly task that tightens the screw on my stomach beyond toleration. I have to get the report from the camp doctor on his latest medical experiments. It is to be sent directly to the Reichsministers office. I enter the hut and go directly to his office where he hands over the reports. I try not to look at the shelves with the specimens but a flash of colour catches my eye and I can’t help turning to look. I gasp as I see the Russian doll on the shelf. I just manage to utter ‘What!’ - then I see the small glass jar on the shelf above. Time stops and I stare numbly,  a pair of piercing blue eyes seem to be looking at me, accusingly, from inside the bottle. On the label is written Isaac Goldstein.  In my head I hear Isaac’s voice clearly - ‘will you please come to hear my first concert?’

 

Another doll to assemble. Before the Russians arrive in April 1945 we are ordered to take any remaining inmates still able to walk and we set off for the west. As we approach the American sector I desert, cut my hair off and steal some ragged clothes. Somehow the stupid American officer believes my story. I find menial work in the fields and after a few years, office work in Munich.  I meet an English girl called Sarah. In 1956 we marry and I find myself living in Nottingham.

 

Another doll.  I see myself now approaching middle age. In 1960 we had a son Peter. It is now 1965 and we are sitting round the dining room table. Sarah has made a birthday cake to celebrate my 45^th birthday.

  

 

‘Daddy, here is your present - open it now,’ Peter says to me, his face beaming! My heart leaps with joy! How could life be any better? I pull off the paper. My heart stops as I look at the small painted wooden doll that lies in my hand. I keep looking at it and am aware that Sarah and Peter are looking at me with alarm and confusion. They speak to me but somehow my eyes and ears are seeing and hearing another awful reality. The house of lies that I have built with care has totally collapsed in an instant. Now that the skeletons are released they dance inside my head. Before I fall into a catatonic state an image plays that fills me with horror. I see again the glass jar in Mengeles office - this time it is my son Peter. But his eyes - that startling blue!  He speaks to me, ‘father - why?’

 

The final doll. The doll’s figure becomes myself several years later. I see a man of about 50 lying on a bed. He is thin and his face is vacant. He has passed several years in a psychiatric hospital in the deepest depression.

 

Then he is strapped to a trolley and wheeled into the hospitals ECT suit. The doctor and orderly strap down my arms and legs and attach the pads to my skull. Mengele stands beside the trolley looking on with approval. After the treatment there is a slight whiff of burnt flesh which takes me to another awful place.   

 

Many years have passed. Many hospitals, many treatment units. Finally here - the Careless care home. My life passes year after year in oblivion. The dark shadows that once haunted have been burnt away many years ago.

 

I stand again at the table and look across at the old and bent man. He looks back but his secrets remain hidden. I step across to the mirror and inspect that familiar face more carefully. My eyes are blank - if they are the mirrors of my soul then there is none!

 

 

 

Reviews

[Kathy Van Kurin]

"Matryoshka (Russian doll)"
alangraham,
Beautifully done Alan. History is seen marching through your above poem and it is a valuable history lesson; one which should be revisited every so often. The Russian doll is a valuable tool for the emotional theme of time passing and choices within. to think a of a young person to an older man living each stage of life and trying to deal with the guilt from this time period and the awful reality of how the Jews were treated and how the German nation was hoodwinked by Hitler. Anyway it was a disturbing time.
Blessing to you!
Kathy

[alanwgraham]

Thanks Kathy for taking the time to look out this old story. It is difficult to read and very emotional to write for we are looking into the abyss.
Regards,
Alan

[Kathy Van Kurin]

Alan you did good. Well, to examine and study something is to make sure it is not repeated again or in another form. God help humanity!
Kathy

[Tina Kline]

This is a very impressive write. Well written. Very gripping. It's a sad tale, very bitter. Sometimes the past comes back to haunt us. For him the past came forward and took his life away but left him still alive. He couldn't escape what he had done, he couldn't live with it when it was pulled from those dark shadows and pushed back into the light of life. A very unique and well written story. I think it is going to haunt me for a while but that's okay. It shows how great your writing is.

[alanwgraham]

Thanks for this review - part of the motivation for writing it was that the horrors of the Holocaust are fading into the past and when the survivors have gone it may just become another part of history. Yesterday I spoke to a friend of my dad (now 95) who went with him to see the result of the nuclear explosion at Hiroshima a few weeks later. I wrote a story based on their trip called 'walking to zero'.
Good luck with your own writing.
Regards,
Alan

[Tina Kline]

You're very welcome. :)

[Glen Weimann]

Alan this is very good. Bit scary, very depressing, but good. Your time/place leaps keep the reader on their toes. I'm guessing you've considered how much or little to signpost such changes to orientate the reader to the new phase - I think it's maybe a tad lighter than I would wish personally, but only marginally. The other thing that struck me was your range of knowledge - very impressive to be able to portray so many situations, all with authenticity. As for your writing style, what better testament can I offer than that I was gripped and engaged. The opening 2 paras are scarily accurate and telling! My choir goes and sings in such 'waiting rooms' and it's a bit sad to be there, as well as hot! If you read the piece again slowly and detachedly you should pick up two or three proof-read things, but they didn't really get in the way.

Regards
Nigel