Kapo in Jerusalem (2015) - full transcript
An exploration of the moral and survival dilemmas in Auschwitz from the point of view of a deputy head of a block and a few of the prisoners from his block who survived the horrors of the camp, immigrated to Israel in the 40's and are still struggling to begin new life in the newborn state of Israel. Based on a true story.
Hey!
Hey, are you crazy?
I told you not to drink, right?
There's no water there!
Go on up.
Who is it?
-Buchman.
It's alright, Mr. Buchman,
I'm sorry.
Good night.
Shhh...
Shhh...
Mommy's coming.
Bruno really loved
this Nocturne.
He kept asking me to play it
over and over.
When I was liberated from Auschwitz,
my hands were rigid.
Arthritis.
Only a year later
could I play again.
Bruno would massage my palms
with almond oil really slow...
nice and slow.
I never heard anyone play
Chopin with such desire for life.
It's alright, keep working.
-It didn't fall here.
Yaakov, get up.
There are many wounded
in Ramat Rachel.
The Jordanians have a flame-thrower.
By tonight they'll burn down
the entire kibbutz. -Back to work.
Oven, this is 4.
Come in, 4, do you copy?
Yaakov, go back to work.
-Mortar shells are falling nearby.
After the Jewish Council set up
the health ward in the ghetto,
he was assigned to the hospital
on Chista street.
I ran the local pharmacy.
He was an excellent surgeon.
In 1942 he joined the
Jewish underground.
They'd train in our basement.
Sarah couldn't play
the piano anymore.
She'd come and assist him.
On hot days she'd stand
beside him during a surgery
and wipe the sweat
off his forehead.
She'd console him
when he lost a patient.
Dozens would die each day, and he
needed comforting over each one.
Yes, Tilda?
Yes, the secretary has left.
I'm not cold.
Yes, the fireplace is lit.
So sit by the fireplace
in the living room and light it.
The matches are on the mantel.
If you wouldn't call me every
five minutes, I'd be home by now.
After Sarah was sent to Auschwitz,
he caught the two Jewish policemen
who captured her during the roundup.
To save on bullets,
he broke their necks.
When I arrived in Auschwitz,
I was made assistant
to the registration officer.
I could've stayed in that job,
but a week later, an SS officer
shot the block leader
because the morning roll call
started late.
The prisoners themselves offered
to appoint me for his position.
They knew I was a doctor,
and that I was in the underground.
They thought I could defend them
against the Germans.
Yes, I was thinking
about myself too.
About Sarah.
I had better chances of survival
doing this job.
I wasn't naive.
I knew that a block leader
is part of the killing system,
but being surrounded
by so much death,
I realized I had to pretend
to be part of this system
so I could save
whoever I could.
In my block we had a carpenter
who worked in the women's camp.
He told me
she was still alive.
I'd send her notes
from time to time.
When we got to Jerusalem,
Bruno started working
at the Heath Service.
We had the wedding
at Dr. Dubnov's yard,
who was then chairman
of the Medical Association.
He was Bruno's teacher
in Warsaw.
On the day of the wedding,
the British imposed a curfew.
Bruno was stuck at the clinic
and couldn't leave.
Dr. Dubnov sent over
an ambulance to get him.
My groom arrived at the ceremony
in an ambulance.
A few minutes later,
a postman arrived
with a congratulation telegram
from the conservatorium.
The telegram was addressed
to me, Sarah Reich.
When he saw Bruno,
he started yelling out
that Bruno had tortured him when he
was his block leader in Auschwitz.
Hearing that, the rabbi decided
not to perform the wedding ceremony.
Bruno didn't argue.
God hadn't been on his side
in Auschwitz.
He didn't need Him
at his wedding either.
I open the gate,
take out the telegram,
hand it to the bride
and suddenly he's there
standing right before me.
I fainted.
I just...
What is this monster
doing in Jerusalem? I was sure that...
that he fled to Argentina
with the Nazis he worked for.
He was the biggest sadist
in Auschwitz.
The first night we arrived,
we got off the train and...
there he was.
It was so crowded
on the platform,
that I'd lost my child.
I lost my child.
I run around yelling for him
and he hits me with his club.
He hit a son helping
his father stand on his feet,
hit a sick elderly man,
hit a woman...
By morning he had killed
five people.
Bruno Kaminski was my student
at the Warsaw medical school.
An outstanding student.
I liked him even though
he was a communist.
He came from a poor family.
His father died
when he was a child,
and his mother had a fish stand
at the market.
He'd wake up early
every morning to help her.
When we immigrated here
in 1932,
we lost touch with him.
And one day,
six months after the war,
we heard a knock on the door.
We embraced.
He said that after what happened
in Auschwitz,
human civilization had
to be reestablished,
and here in Jerusalem,
on purpose.
I arranged a job for him
at the Health Service and he...
We didn't know Sarah,
but we'd heard about her.
She was a wonder child
in Warsaw.
At the age of 12 she was
already playing with a symphony.
I hit prisoners
the night they arrived.
When I heard about a transport
from Poland, I waited on the platform,
looking for friends.
But as soon as they set foot
on the ground,
it was like a strike of lightning,
with shouts in German, dogs,
whipping.
Families were torn apart.
Their belongings were taken
from them, their hats, shoes, clothes.
Babies were thrown
onto the trucks.
They didn't understand
the SS orders,
if they were supposed to stand
or walk, to turn right or left.
If I hadn't hit them, they'd be shot.
But I didn't kill anyone.
I didn't kill.
Those who died on the platform are
the ones who didn't survive the ride.
They're the ones who were dying
in the closed train cars
with no air, no food and no water.
I didn't kill.
While I was there,
I got word of what Bruno
had done in his block.
At first I didn't believe it,
but I kept hearing more rumors.
Our block leader would also
whip prisoners,
she'd sell their food for vodka,
for cigarettes,
for soap.
After the war...
After the war, when...
when Bruno came to visit me
at the American army's hospital,
I didn't want to talk to him.
I told Sarah about it.
On the first day I visited her
at the American hospital,
I held nothing back.
She was too weak
to even blink.
The next day I continued telling her.
I continued day after day.
For three months I'd feed her,
bathe her and tell her.
For three months
she didn't speak.
Doctor,
my back is aching.
I can hardly walk.
Hand me the rifle.
On Christmas eve 1943,
one of the SS officers got drunk
and started shooting in my block.
It was a massacre.
I fled from there looking
for another block to hide in.
No place would let me in.
Suddenly I see him standing
at the entrance to one of the blocks.
He immediately recognized me
and let me in
along with 30-40 others.
He knew that if he
let more people in,
the Germans would find out
he's hiding them.
So the ones he didn't let in
accused him of working for the SS.
Him? Working for the SS...?
He hid sick people so they don't
get sent to the gas chambers.
He asked the registration officers
to write down the Jews in his barrack
as being younger, so the SS
let them live.
He urged me to sabotage
the electrical system
to disrupt the weapon production.
He helped anyone
who tried to escape.
Lazer, your weapon.
Take the pill I gave you.
The ache go away in no time.
Oven, this is 4. We can't
wait for you any longer, over.
They're bombarding them
with cannons and shells.
Soon they'll be attacking them.
If Ramat Rachel goes down,
the Egyptians invade Jerusalem.
But... Roger, copy.
I was scared of him,
so I kept quiet.
I went with him once to get blankets
from the laundry room.
On the way back we saw
a young Czech girl
escaping from block 24,
the SS brothel.
He covered her with a blanket
and told her to hide in our block.
She was in his room
for three hours.
Then he passed her on to his friend,
the block 32 leader, who also...
The next day I went down
to the Health Service
to tell his manager about him,
about the man that he is.
But he knew that I'm a poet
and that I was close
with the nationalists,
he didn't want to hear me out.
I went back to Dr. Dubnov.
I told him: "Don't you realize
"that if the Nazis kept him
as block leader for two years,
"then they must've been
pleased with him?"
No.
He must have done
some good work for them.
No one listened.
Zimmerman was a famous
poet in Warsaw,
but he returned from
Auschwitz a different man.
His entire family
perished there.
I had trouble believing him...
But he wouldn't give up.
He brought more and more
survivors who also testified.
My cousin was in his block.
After the war, he wrote to us
from America.
"When he realized I had stolen
the blanket off a dead prisoner
"and used it to sew a lining
for my jacket,
"he beat me up ruthlessly."
Yes, I'd hit prisoners
even during food distribution.
They'd attack each other
like beasts.
Sometimes stabbing people
for an extra portion.
Other block leaders preferred to
spill the leftover soup on the ground
to avoid chaos,
but I instilled discipline
to enable me to distribute all the
soup, so in my block they ate more.
And I didn't take advantage
of my status.
I could've eaten by myself, but I ate
from the same pot with the others.
One day an SS officer told me
to bring over muselmenn from block 7
to fix the fences that
collapsed in the snow.
I told him: "They can't even move",
and he said: "We'll see about that."
He took a few pieces of bread
and tossed them to the muselmenn.
They crawled towards
the crumbs.
The ones who couldn't move
simply reached out
hoping that a piece of bread
would fall on them.
One dying man
choked another dying man
to steal a chewed up
piece of bread out of his mouth.
Do you hear the piano?
It's calling me,
"come to me, come to me."
When I can't hear
the noises anymore,
I sit down and play
and the noises dissipate.
The screaming, the moaning
and the cries.
Sometimes when it doesn't comply,
I bite my hands to keep myself
from smashing it,
ripping out its cords and
running to lay on the train tracks.
When the damned SS guards
would wander the blocks,
looking for a Jews to abuse,
he'd place me at the entrance
to the block
and I'd sing to them:
"Ring far out
"Where blossoms sprout
"If you find a rose about
"Say hello for me."
They'd stop and listen,
and move on to another block.
They didn't know this song
was written by two Jews,
Heine and Mendelssohn.
Bruno tried to disprove
the allegations against him.
He brought witnesses
to the hospital
to tell me about what
he did in Auschwitz,
how he took care of people,
saved them and protected them.
But I knew these witnesses
stayed alive because he helped them,
that's why they testified
in his favor.
Go on, take the lentils
and go home.
Go already!
I wanted to testify
in his favor,
but I knew it would
cost me my clients.
No other block leader cared
for his prisoners like he did.
He got us thicker soup
from the kitchen.
Every few weeks he'd get
replacement clothes for us
from the laundry room.
Several times he even got us
some underwear.
He set up a shoemaking workshop
inside our block.
It saved our lives. Over there,
death started from the shoes.
If your shoes were torn
and you started limping,
you'd be immediately sent
to the gas chambers.
Those who accuse him of sending
people to the gas chambers,
don't understand how
that machine functioned.
Only the SS sent people there.
Yes?
-Got any eggs today?
Do you have stubs today?
-I'll pay you extra.
Will you also do my time in jail?
Go away. -Come on...
-No, get out.
The shop is closed.
Go away.
One day, when he sat beside me
in the hospital,
messengers from the Jewish Agency
walked in
and said they've got an immigration
certificate to Israel for him.
Bruno said he won't leave
without me.
They told him they won't
have another certificate,
but he insisted.
He was a doctor,
they needed him,
so they issued
one for me as well.
He carried me in his arms
to the ship
and cared for me the whole trip.
I said to myself,
if he had any doubts about
his actions in Auschwitz,
he wouldn't immigrate
to Israel.
Shhh...
Shhh... go to sleep, Booboo.
Evil Shoshana is coming tomorrow,
and you mustn't be tired.
Go to sleep, shhhh...
Good night, sleep tight.
I also took bread
from the prisoners.
Once every two weeks
when the SS gave me a list of people
who'd be gassed the next day.
I knew they didn't stand
a chance,
so I gave their bread to those
who had a chance to survive.
I also took their clothes
and gave them to others.
A good coat and shoes
could prolong lives.
So they hated me and cursed me,
but it was necessary.
Obviously the Nazis
planned to terminate us all,
but I set some rules to help
the prisoners hold on.
Most of them understood
my intentions.
They saw that my block
had the lowest death rate.
During the sail,
I thought a lot
about what Bruno did there.
But also about what I did.
I survived
because when my shoe tore,
I stole one from the woman
who slept on the bunk above me
even though I knew the sergeant
would see her barefoot and shoot her.
I stole clothes from a woman
in the shower,
stole a blanket from
a sick woman,
and pushed old women and
little girls in the soup line.
I stole a slice of bread from
my aunt who had dysentery,
though I knew she'd die
of starvation the next day.
She didn't die.
The next day she stole a slice
of bread from a woman
more sick than her,
and stayed alive.
Had I been in his block,
he'd beat me up.
My aunt will remember
that slice of bread all her life.
After the war I met her
on a ship sailing to Israel.
Bruno took me for a walk
around the deck,
and she was sitting on a pile
of ropes, fixing a torn coat.
She saw me...
and looked away.
I counted them.
238 men from my block survived
the death march to Mauthausen.
Those living here, ask:
"So few?"
Those who were there, say:
"So many."
I waited.
I thought they'd come
and speak up.
One time, I had a high fever.
I asked him for an exemption
from work duty.
He was a doctor,
he knew it was pneumonia,
but he didn't exempt me.
A flea?
Get out.
Out!
Out!
He knew there was no chance of
survival in the sick people's block
but if someone caught typhus
he sent him there right away
so that others don't
get infected.
When he got typhus, he didn't go there.
He made us take care of him.
My best friend Yanek Tauber
caught it from him and died.
Yanek!
Yanek!
Yanek!
But for some there was
nothing to be done.
They lay exhausted on the bunks,
without moving or speaking.
They were too weak
to crawl to the electric fence.
After they died, I hid their
bodies for a few days
so I could give their share of food
to those who had a chance.
When I met Sarah
at the American hospital,
she was just like them.
Her heart was barely beating.
She wanted to...
but I didn't let her.
Only when she arrived in Jerusalem
did she realize she was capable,
capable of love.
She said she forgave me.
Lazer, come back here!
Lazer!
Yaakov, Eliyahu, quickly,
open the gate!
Eliyahu, clear the sacs quickly,
before they butcher him!
He's running straight towards
the Arabs,
they'll torture him
and slaughter him!
What about Ramat Rachel?
-We'll get him back and head there.
What if you don't come back?
-Doctor, stay out of this.
They need us more in Ramat Rachel.
-What are you doing? Doctor!
We'll save him from being slaughtered.
-Doc, put down the rifle!
Do you hear me?
Put down the rifle!
In early 1947, Zimmerman
the poet asked me
to testify at Dr. Dubnov's.
I'd waited for that moment.
I had plenty to say about him
but I mentioned only one incident.
In April 1944, the Germans started
building new blocks in Birkenau.
I was a construction engineer,
they took me from the coal mines
to work in the camp.
One day it was raining.
The work was stopped,
and when I returned to the block
I saw Bruno
putting a coat
over a prisoner's face
and choking him.
The prisoners knew I'd helped
muselmenn die. They thanked me.
The only one who complained
at Dr. Dubnov's was a survivor
who saw his son
being shot dead by the SS.
His name was Antman.
I wouldn't let him leave the block
to help the boy
because I knew that the Germans
would kill him too if he did.
He heard his son moan
all night.
He never forgave me for that,
nor himself.
He stopped eating,
stopped working,
and when he was dying
he urged me to help him die.
I couldn't play God any longer.
I told him to crawl to the fence.
But he didn't have the courage.
The next day he started
eating again.
That's why he blames me.
Because of me he's guilty to this day.
Antman doesn't owe me a thing,
certainly not his life.
I owe him.
When I saw him eating
and working, I realized
that even at the pit of hell
a man can remain a man
and fight for his life.
Antman ended up
beating the Germans.
They tried to take away his will
to live, but didn't succeed.
He was dying the whole night,
outside by the door.
Bruno wouldn't let me
go to him,
to cover him with a blanket,
to wet his lips with water.
I asked him how many
people he'd killed.
He thought a bit and said: "Five".
He killed more.
I picked up the phone
and told him I'm calling the police,
but he took it from me
and said no judge
could judge him
any better than he
judges himself.
He asked me to think it over
for five minutes
and promised that if I still
want to call the police,
he'll turn himself in.
Thank you.
We had two Slovak Jews
who planned to escape.
Bruno got them some knives,
clothes and some food.
It was October 1944.
They waited for rainfall,
so they have better chances.
One night I heard two
muselmenn say
that they'd give the Slovaks
to the SS for some bread.
I told Bruno.
He interrogated them
and told me to choke them.
I could see he couldn't
do it himself anymore,
so I choked them.
And the Slovaks escaped.
To this day I think that was
the best thing I've ever done
and I thank Bruno for giving me
the power to do it.
In my block there were Kapos
who kept alive the prisoners
who begged to die.
We called them "murderers".
The Kapos who helped women die,
were called "angels".
The Germans didn't urge Bruno
to kill.
They wanted the Jews
to be tortured as much as possible.
Bruno killed in order
to spare those poor people
a few more days in hell.
Had the Germans known this,
they'd have killed him.
I didn't choke them with a coat,
only my bare hands,
so I could see their faces.
So that if they change their mind,
I could let go.
But they couldn't talk.
They barely opened their eyes.
Sometimes their eyes
would slightly crack open.
None of them were scared,
nor regretted it.
Their eyes
were saying "thank you".
Shlomo, stack it up high.
Yaakov, take it easy.
Go back to work.
Oven, this is 4,
do you copy? Over.
If you're not here in ten minutes,
we're leaving.
Half the kibbutz is burnt down,
they won't last long.
You're still a baby, my child,
but you must watch out for Mom.
Watch out for her
and look after her.
When she's out on the balcony
hanging laundry,
when she slices bread
with a knife,
when she lights fire in the burner.
When she cries.
When she laughs.
When she's silent.
Shhh...
"Go to sleep already,
my beautiful Yankele
"Close your dark little eyes
"A little boy who
already has all his teeth..."
Come, we brought water.
"Still needs his mother
to sing him a lullaby?"
Want some water?
Doctor, don't you want
some water?
Let's go.
Applebaum was 46,
from Katowice.
Tarnopolski was 42, from Kielce.
Cantor was 40, from Bedzin.
Zuckerman and Edelman
were 38, from Warsaw.
They were muselmenn.
In Auschwitz I shortened
their suffering out of mercy,
but I also despised and hated them
for giving up.
Today, when I think of
the gratitude in their eyes,
I don't think they gave up.
Nor do I think that they thanked me
for preventing their suffering.
They thanked me for giving them
that brief moment
to feel like humans again,
who can decide their own fate.
Them and not the SS.
When my father died
in that block,
they threw his body
onto the pile.
I knew he had a piece
of bread in his pocket,
so I ran to get it.
But some bastard realized that,
and beat me to it.
Bruno saw him
and made him
give it back to me.
Call Bruno!
Call Bruno over right now!
I want to see him! -Calm down.
-I want to talk to him!
I want him to get me out of here.
Bruno...
Bruno!
"Softly singing measures wing
"Sweetly, through my mind
"Ring out, little song of spring
"Ring out unconfined!"
When we'd return from work,
Bruno would give us soup.
Good, thick soup.
One pot could feed
1.000 people.
At night he would pass
from one bunk to another
and cure the sick,
resurrect the dead.
After hearing him out, I realized
I just don't understand it.
The evidence against him
was very compelling
but so were his answers.
I couldn't decide whether he did it
for his own sake or for the prisoners.
Of course he wanted
to survive,
but in many cases
he also saved lives.
I couldn't decide on the matter.
-It was a big mistake.
Because he wasn't suspended,
he fooled himself that his actions
would be understood,
so he could live here.
I didn't fall for his charm.
It was clear to me
that he'd been corrupted by
the power the Nazis gave him.
I never trusted a communist,
especially one who turned Zionist
and immigrated to Israel.
The Nazis weren't stupid.
It's unreasonable to think
that for two whole years
they were convinced he was
working for them,
while secretly working
for the Jews.
Stop it, will you?!
When I saw that Dr. Dubnov
wasn't suspending him,
I went to tell the press
about what he did in Auschwitz.
So "Haaretz" published
a short story on the last page.
It quoted one stanza
from my poem "Our Graves"
Here.
"Here lie my father, mother
and sister.
"On this stone my wife's
ashes have set.
"The wind carries the dust
of my son and daughter
"Between these linden trees
my soul hovers."
Two days later,
two British policemen
came here
and said:
"You have tuberculosis."
They put me in confinement
in a hospital in Netanya.
I did have TB.
He was the only one
who knew about it.
One day I found the word "Kapo"
written on my door at the clinic.
The nurses were whispering,
the doctors started enquiring,
and the patients stopped coming.
I was repeatedly asked:
"Why didn't you tell the prisoners
"to rebel or escape?"
I once walked into a block with
400 political prisoners on death row.
Two sentries were guarding them.
I told them they should escape,
that if 400 of them charge the gates,
some will surely make it to the woods,
but if they keep sitting and waiting
to be taken to the gas chambers,
nobody will survive.
They didn't respond.
They all kept to themselves,
not out of fear, I believe,
they were just
hoping for a miracle.
They heard from the Germans
that the Russians had arrived,
that the war will end soon,
so they had no reason
to revolt or escape.
The main cause of death
in Auschwitz
was hope.
When I saw he was
still working there,
I turned to the Health Service
branch manager,
but he told me he can't
fire him without fair trial.
So one morning,
before the patients got there,
I walked in there
and wrote "Kapo" in black
on his door.
Rumors about the investigation
reached the conservatorium.
Both the teachers and students
would ask questions.
I heard them whispering
behind my back.
One day the director
calls me over and...
tells me she's cancelling
my end of the year concert.
She said it's due to the war,
the Arabs' shooting.
I told her other concerts
weren't canceled.
She said that sometimes
it's possible.
The next day they held a concert
for a pianist who immigrated
from Germany in 1933.
When the audience
entered the hall,
I got on stage before him
and played.
He understood and waited.
The director sat
in the first row.
When I was done,
she applauded.
She didn't dare fire me.
I didn't tell Bruno.
The Health Service manager
said he wasn't going to fire him,
but a few weeks later,
Bruno told me he quit.
He knew he'd be fired.
He quit because he couldn't take
all that suspicion.
He ended up opening a private clinic
in Musrara neighborhood,
facing his apartment.
I sometimes came to visit them.
Unfortunately, I couldn't
invite them over.
One day, an Orthodox couple
came to his clinic.
The woman had a throat infection.
When her husband saw Bruno,
he became furious.
I could hear him shout
all the way here.
He made us shave our beards
and side curls,
forbade us to pray and mocked us
for not eating un-kosher food.
One Friday night he entered
the block and saw us praying.
He hit us with his club
and threatened us
that if we don't stop,
we don't get any bread the next day.
"No God can save you,
only I can.
"So don't worship Him,
worship me."
"No God can save you!"
he'd yell at us.
No God can save us.
On Rosh Hashanah eve
he demanded that our rabbi,
Rabbi Israel Mintz from Krakow,
cancel all prayers,
and told him that if he didn't
forbid us to fast on Yom Kippur,
he wouldn't give him
the ointment
the rabbi needed for the sores
on his feet.
When he saw
that we all fasted,
he sent Rabbi Mintz,
may God avenge his soul,
to the clinic in block 7.
There they gave him an injection
to the heart.
When I saw that murderer
in his clinic here
wearing his white robe
and smiling, my blood boiled.
I grabbed the nurse's scissors
and tried to stab him.
Suddenly his wife walked in
and started screaming.
"No God can save you..."
When we got home, we saw
he was stabbed in the shoulder.
The blade pierced through
the robe and his shirt.
I licked the blood
off the wound,
just like we did back there.
I wanted to go to the police,
but I feared that if Weissman
is put on trial,
it could persuade other Orthodox
survivors to slander me.
I knew they hated me.
They never understood
that I made them shave off
their beards and side curls
so that the Germans
don't torture them,
that I forbade them to pray
because then the Germans
would pull them out of roll call
and make them do exercise
in the cold and the rain,
till they collapsed.
They hate me because they're scared
to hate their God.
The God that didn't save them.
It's much easier to hate me.
I didn't go to the police,
but I bought a gun.
Doctor?
If anything happens to me,
send this to my parents, okay?
Why are you giving this to me?
If you survived Auschwitz,
you must be a lucky man.
Take it.
When I heard about
the attempt to stab him,
I rushed to his clinic.
The door was locked.
He opened up only after
seeing me through the peep hole.
I told him he shouldn't risk his life
nor Sarah's.
I suggested he leave
the country.
I could've arranged a visa
to England for him,
but he refused.
Had you told him the truth,
he'd have left. -I did.
You didn't tell him he's
being ostracized,
that there's no chance
he'll ever be forgiven,
that anyone who was in his block
is waiting for a chance to kill him.
I did tell him that!
I should've acquitted him and
cleared his name once and for all,
but I didn't want
to interrogate him.
I just didn't.
Because my parents and siblings
and their children,
were all there.
I didn't want to know
how they were tortured,
how they were murdered,
while I was here,
in Jerusalem.
After the liberation,
he immigrated to Israel.
I stayed in Europe
with several other survivors.
We had a list of SS men
who worked in Auschwitz.
Eventually we met up with some
soldiers and officers
who'd been discharged
from the Jewish Brigade.
We killed off many Nazis.
In April 1946 we managed to infiltrate
Stalag 13 near Nurnberg,
where German POWs
were held,
and smeared arsenic
over 3.000 loaves of bread.
9.000 SS men got sick,
but unfortunately,
only 200 of them died.
After that I immigrated to Israel
and started working in this factory.
I knew about the allegations
against Bruno.
I feared to speak up for him.
I had started a new life.
I wanted to forget the past
and erase it.
I didn't want to have to explain
how I survived.
Didn't want any rumors
about how I took my revenge.
The suitcase tore because
you're over-stuffing it.
Why two jackets?
I don't need a jacket.
Fine.
Why don't you take a pill?
Okay, I'll get you
another suitcase.
Hello, sir.
I'm sorry, Mr. Zimmerman,
you have to hurry up.
-Yes, I know.
You've got three more sacs.
The postmen are coming in
to work tomorrow morning, and...
Yes. -What will they give out?
-I know, I know.
I'll stay here all night.
Don't forget to lock up.
-I won't.
I was hospitalized in Netanya
for a few weeks.
By the time I returned to Jerusalem
it was obvious to me
that neither the Jewish Agency
nor the Union would do anything.
He was already one of them.
After all, he'd fought in the Warsaw
ghetto along with Mordechai Anielewicz.
So I turned to
the Nationalist Underground.
I was friendly with some of them
back in Poland,
and they agreed to settle
the score with him.
I felt that death by gunshot
was too easy.
I wanted him to be
beaten to death.
Beaten to death.
So I went with them,
waited for him
outside his clinic,
and...
When he came out, we closed in
on him with toques over our faces
and clubs under our clothes.
It was dark,
but one street light was lit,
and I could see his face
while we were beating him up.
He showed no fear.
He showed no fear.
He was...
Suddenly I heard an inner voice
that wasn't my own
saying, "leave him alone.
"Leave him alone,
this is a mistake."
They left him there
and went away.
He was left lying on the ground.
He didn't see my face
because it was covered, but...
He heard my voice.
That he heard.
I never wrote anything else
after that.
Stand against the wall!
Yuvel, run to the gate!
Yes, I recognized Zimmerman's voice.
I wasn't surprised.
I knew him well,
he was a famous poet in Warsaw.
I had respect for him
and his poetry,
but he felt it earned him
some special status.
He wanted easy jobs,
new shoes, extra soup.
His wife was pregnant.
She was gassed the night they arrived
with the two little children.
His odds were against him too.
He wasn't used to working.
He didn't know how to use a shovel,
a hammer, or how to steal.
But he could speak pretentiously
about the spirit of man,
faith, compassion and hope.
He ended up as a rat for the SS.
For a few slices of bread
he ratted out those who were sick,
slacking off or stealing.
Even me.
He knew that I knew about it.
Every day there
I told him:
"Have mercy.
"Have mercy, Bruno Kaminski."
Those damned Nazis haven't got
a shred of mercy in them.
Had he shown a bit more mercy,
we'd have had the strength
to bear it.
That night, Bruno returned
beaten up.
He had to stitch up
his own cheek.
I told him that maybe
we should go somewhere far away.
Maybe a kibbutz,
where we wouldn't run into
people who knew us back then.
But Bruno refused.
He was sure of his innocence
and claimed that running away
would be an admission of guilt.
I didn't want to run away
because there was nowhere to go.
There were thousands
of survivors in Israel
and I had to clear my name.
I turned to the Communist Party
in Jerusalem,
and asked them to put me
on trial.
But they were busy fighting off
the British
and getting ready for
war with the Arabs.
They had no time to meddle
in the past.
Oven, this is 4,
we're going in.
I'm not asking for confirmation,
I'm informing you.
So come back at night with ammo,
or we won't last out there.
I'll explain it to you
after the war!
Listen up, everyone.
In ten minutes we pull out,
we're done waiting for them.
Get your gear, come on.
Gear up, everyone.
Every morning Sarah would
escort me to the clinic
and back home every evening,
and lock me at home.
She'd play for me,
tried to teach me
to play the piano.
I liked being her prisoner.
I couldn't bear the thought
that he's alive,
and just two streets
away from me.
I went to Rabbi Landau and...
He told me:
"Forget it, Weismann.
"Fix shoes, pray, give charity,
"and God will give you
the strength to go on."
I fixed shoes, prayed
and gave charity,
but every day I'd walk to the
Western Wall through Musrara
and pass by his clinic.
As fate would have it,
I passed there one evening
and saw him slicing a loaf of bread
and eating it on his way out.
At night I returned there
with a canister of petrol,
poured on the door
and lit it up.
I wanted to burn down
his apartment too,
but his wife was from
a family of rabbis
who'd perished in Treblinka.
I didn't want to harm her.
We had an idea who set
the clinic on fire.
But Bruno insisted
not to go to the police.
He didn't want to settle the score
or to punish.
He started seeing patients
at home.
I told him I'm scared someone
might burn down the apartment.
But he said it's close
to other apartments,
and that the bastards wouldn't
dare to harm the neighbors.
Then I found out I'm pregnant.
I've never seen Bruno so happy.
We went to a restaurant
and after that to a bar
on Ben Yehuda street.
Luckily,
no one knew him there.
We danced till dawn.
Bruno...
He was a dancer.
The band played the foxtrot.
But when we returned home,
I felt I couldn't raise a child
in a home someone might set fire to.
Go hang yourself, Buchman!
I'm not scared of the police,
and if you don't stop
knocking on the door,
I'll poison your cats
who meow all night long!
Tomorrow morning that witch
will come and smell the stain.
She'll think the child threw up,
that I don't look after him properly,
that I neglect him, that I'm
irresponsible or crazy.
Take me in your arms, Bruno,
lay me in your bed,
remove my nightgown
and whisper something magical
that would lift my spirits.
At least he's running
to Jerusalem.
When we found out
Sarah was pregnant,
we went to the American consulate
to get a visa.
I also didn't want my child to have
to bear my cross when he grows up.
We thought people would understand
after a few years time,
and we could return.
They interrogated us for almost
two hours at the consulate.
Doctors are a wanted profession.
The interrogator was also impressed
by Sarah being a pianist.
He just wanted to make sure
we're not communists
and most of all, he wanted
to know how we survived the camps.
He was Jewish,
his family must've
perished there.
It was obvious we had no chance
at getting a visa.
One of the consulate visitors
must've heard the clerk
call out Bruno's name,
and so he followed us
when we left.
When we crossed the
Muslim cemetery in Mammilla,
he popped up behind one
of the graves
with a drawn gun.
His name was Mishka Weiss.
Bruno was in shock. He was sure
this Mishka had died there, but...
he was very much alive.
He claimed that Bruno sent him
to the gas chambers
and that the Nazis,
who were more decent than him,
recruited him to the Sonderkommando
at the crematorium.
Bruno feared that this Mishka
was going to shoot us,
so he drew his gun
and fired a shot.
Mishka collapsed.
Bruno ran to him,
but Mishka must've
still been alive,
so Bruno shot him again.
He took his papers
and his gun.
On the way home,
Bruno told me
that Mishka had killed
four prisoners in his block
for shoes, for a coat,
for a slice of bread.
Bruno always evaded my question
about the scar on his forehead.
When we got home he told me
that this Mishka
broke into his room one night
with a pack of criminals
and that they tried to kill him
with wood they broke off the bunks.
Mishka himself cut him
with a sharp piece of tin.
Had the prisoners not heard
Bruno scream and saved him,
this Mishka would've
slaughtered him.
I listened to his explanations
and I understood, but...
suddenly I also
started fearing him.
Sarah didn't sleep a wink
all night.
Whenever I looked at her,
she'd look down.
Like the time she was hospitalized
at the Displaced Persons camp.
She was silent.
Her expression said it all:
'You were too quick to shoot him.
This isn't Auschwitz.
'People's lives aren't cheap
like they were back there.'
Put it on quickly.
Go on.
Drop it down.
I told Mishka that Bruno
is a doctor in Jerusalem.
I knew he had a big score
to settle with him.
I never saw him since.
After the war
I tried to buy eggs
without stubs.
I was caught.
Yes,
I offered Mishka money
to kill him,
but I was glad it didn't
work out in the end.
I'm the victim.
I'm the witness.
But I'm neither the judge
nor his executer.
We tried to get a visa to Sweden,
France, Belgium.
Sarah could've gotten
a visa without me.
I begged her to think about herself
and the child. She refused.
Meanwhile the war broke out.
Our troops had been fighting
heavy battles,
so I decided to enlist.
I understood why
he wanted to enlist.
He didn't even have to say it,
the scars on his face said it all.
But he had fought enough.
He was wounded in the ghetto,
survived Auschwitz
and he was 40 years old.
He owed nothing to anyone.
Mommy's coming, Booboo.
She became terrified.
She had outburst of crying and rage,
her hair started falling out.
She stopped eating.
Anything she ate came right up.
One day she threatened me
with an abortion if I enlist,
and so I never left her alone.
I hid my medicine bag
from her, and my gun.
Doctor!
Doctor!
Doctor!
Lazer!
"Softly singing measures wing
"Sweetly, through my mind
"Ring out, little song of spring
"Ring out unconfined!"
On the 15th of May
the war broke out
and he decided to enlist.
I begged and cried.
I managed to hold him back
for three days.
On the 4th day he went down
to the recruiting office
at the Schneller camp.
I walked after him.
When I got there
I started yelling,
I told the officer that Bruno
was a Kapo in Auschwitz,
that he collaborated
with the SS,
that he's a murderer,
and that he murdered a man
in Jerusalem as well.
Then I saw Bruno's gun
tucked in his belt.
I grabbed it and threatened
to shoot myself.
Bruno hugged me,
held me,
took away the gun
and walked me back home.
She apologized, cried.
She swore...
but I knew she meant
every word.
I'm a murderer.
I'm a collaborator.
I can understand why anyone
who wasn't there
and didn't know who I was,
would doubt me.
But Sarah was there
and she did know me.
She wanted to kill herself
because she knew
she would never see me as
completely innocent.
But she was there.
She saw how they
got off the trains all battered up,
how they were defeated as
they were stripped
and dressed in prisoner uniforms,
how the moment they were
shaved and numbered
they became
a herd of cattle.
Doesn't she get it?
Doesn't she see they accuse me
to cover their own cowardice?
Their own helplessness
and wretchedness?
Their self-disgust and shame?
I who tried to save them, am I
to blame for their shame and misery?
Am I to blame for their deaths?
From the moment I was imprisoned
till the moment I was liberated,
I forced myself to believe
that people can stay humane
even in the face
of inhumane evil.
I forced myself to hope
that even when fearing death,
one can fight for life
with reason,
sanity and solidarity.
Doctor.
Doctor, we're going,
are you coming?
What was left for me
in that war? Mercy?
Was I to give up on the sanctity
of life in the name of mercy?
Is Sarah right? Is there
no sense in logic?
No value in thought?
No point in having a will?
Doctor... -If every choice we make
is worthy of contempt
if there's no point in sanity
and solidarity... -Let's go, Doc.
If every choice we make just brings
us closer to a senseless death,
then I should've run to the electric
fence the day I got there.
Doctor, come on,
we're going.
What is it?
Come, Doc.
Two days later, late at night,
there was a knock on the door.
Some officer or a doctor,
came to inform me.
They were on the way
to Ramat Rachel.
The Arabs ambushed them
with gunfire and mortar shells.
Bruno got up
to help a casualty.
He ran to him without ducking
despite the fire and the shells.
He knew
why he didn't duck.
So do I.
After all that's happened,
she tried killing herself
several times.
I sat by her side
day and night,
trying to save her from herself,
and the baby in her womb.
We had a daughter her age,
our only daughter.
Dina.
In the summer of 1939 she went
to visit her grandparents in Warsaw.
In September
the war broke out
and she never returned.
After the child was born, it was
very hard for me to care for him.
Sometimes I'd cry so loud,
that I couldn't hear him crying.
The welfare officer came
to take him to a kibbutz.
I didn't let them...
but they took him by force.
So I went there
and kidnapped him.
I hardly cry ever since.
Subtitles:
Trans Titles Ltd.
Hey, are you crazy?
I told you not to drink, right?
There's no water there!
Go on up.
Who is it?
-Buchman.
It's alright, Mr. Buchman,
I'm sorry.
Good night.
Shhh...
Shhh...
Mommy's coming.
Bruno really loved
this Nocturne.
He kept asking me to play it
over and over.
When I was liberated from Auschwitz,
my hands were rigid.
Arthritis.
Only a year later
could I play again.
Bruno would massage my palms
with almond oil really slow...
nice and slow.
I never heard anyone play
Chopin with such desire for life.
It's alright, keep working.
-It didn't fall here.
Yaakov, get up.
There are many wounded
in Ramat Rachel.
The Jordanians have a flame-thrower.
By tonight they'll burn down
the entire kibbutz. -Back to work.
Oven, this is 4.
Come in, 4, do you copy?
Yaakov, go back to work.
-Mortar shells are falling nearby.
After the Jewish Council set up
the health ward in the ghetto,
he was assigned to the hospital
on Chista street.
I ran the local pharmacy.
He was an excellent surgeon.
In 1942 he joined the
Jewish underground.
They'd train in our basement.
Sarah couldn't play
the piano anymore.
She'd come and assist him.
On hot days she'd stand
beside him during a surgery
and wipe the sweat
off his forehead.
She'd console him
when he lost a patient.
Dozens would die each day, and he
needed comforting over each one.
Yes, Tilda?
Yes, the secretary has left.
I'm not cold.
Yes, the fireplace is lit.
So sit by the fireplace
in the living room and light it.
The matches are on the mantel.
If you wouldn't call me every
five minutes, I'd be home by now.
After Sarah was sent to Auschwitz,
he caught the two Jewish policemen
who captured her during the roundup.
To save on bullets,
he broke their necks.
When I arrived in Auschwitz,
I was made assistant
to the registration officer.
I could've stayed in that job,
but a week later, an SS officer
shot the block leader
because the morning roll call
started late.
The prisoners themselves offered
to appoint me for his position.
They knew I was a doctor,
and that I was in the underground.
They thought I could defend them
against the Germans.
Yes, I was thinking
about myself too.
About Sarah.
I had better chances of survival
doing this job.
I wasn't naive.
I knew that a block leader
is part of the killing system,
but being surrounded
by so much death,
I realized I had to pretend
to be part of this system
so I could save
whoever I could.
In my block we had a carpenter
who worked in the women's camp.
He told me
she was still alive.
I'd send her notes
from time to time.
When we got to Jerusalem,
Bruno started working
at the Heath Service.
We had the wedding
at Dr. Dubnov's yard,
who was then chairman
of the Medical Association.
He was Bruno's teacher
in Warsaw.
On the day of the wedding,
the British imposed a curfew.
Bruno was stuck at the clinic
and couldn't leave.
Dr. Dubnov sent over
an ambulance to get him.
My groom arrived at the ceremony
in an ambulance.
A few minutes later,
a postman arrived
with a congratulation telegram
from the conservatorium.
The telegram was addressed
to me, Sarah Reich.
When he saw Bruno,
he started yelling out
that Bruno had tortured him when he
was his block leader in Auschwitz.
Hearing that, the rabbi decided
not to perform the wedding ceremony.
Bruno didn't argue.
God hadn't been on his side
in Auschwitz.
He didn't need Him
at his wedding either.
I open the gate,
take out the telegram,
hand it to the bride
and suddenly he's there
standing right before me.
I fainted.
I just...
What is this monster
doing in Jerusalem? I was sure that...
that he fled to Argentina
with the Nazis he worked for.
He was the biggest sadist
in Auschwitz.
The first night we arrived,
we got off the train and...
there he was.
It was so crowded
on the platform,
that I'd lost my child.
I lost my child.
I run around yelling for him
and he hits me with his club.
He hit a son helping
his father stand on his feet,
hit a sick elderly man,
hit a woman...
By morning he had killed
five people.
Bruno Kaminski was my student
at the Warsaw medical school.
An outstanding student.
I liked him even though
he was a communist.
He came from a poor family.
His father died
when he was a child,
and his mother had a fish stand
at the market.
He'd wake up early
every morning to help her.
When we immigrated here
in 1932,
we lost touch with him.
And one day,
six months after the war,
we heard a knock on the door.
We embraced.
He said that after what happened
in Auschwitz,
human civilization had
to be reestablished,
and here in Jerusalem,
on purpose.
I arranged a job for him
at the Health Service and he...
We didn't know Sarah,
but we'd heard about her.
She was a wonder child
in Warsaw.
At the age of 12 she was
already playing with a symphony.
I hit prisoners
the night they arrived.
When I heard about a transport
from Poland, I waited on the platform,
looking for friends.
But as soon as they set foot
on the ground,
it was like a strike of lightning,
with shouts in German, dogs,
whipping.
Families were torn apart.
Their belongings were taken
from them, their hats, shoes, clothes.
Babies were thrown
onto the trucks.
They didn't understand
the SS orders,
if they were supposed to stand
or walk, to turn right or left.
If I hadn't hit them, they'd be shot.
But I didn't kill anyone.
I didn't kill.
Those who died on the platform are
the ones who didn't survive the ride.
They're the ones who were dying
in the closed train cars
with no air, no food and no water.
I didn't kill.
While I was there,
I got word of what Bruno
had done in his block.
At first I didn't believe it,
but I kept hearing more rumors.
Our block leader would also
whip prisoners,
she'd sell their food for vodka,
for cigarettes,
for soap.
After the war...
After the war, when...
when Bruno came to visit me
at the American army's hospital,
I didn't want to talk to him.
I told Sarah about it.
On the first day I visited her
at the American hospital,
I held nothing back.
She was too weak
to even blink.
The next day I continued telling her.
I continued day after day.
For three months I'd feed her,
bathe her and tell her.
For three months
she didn't speak.
Doctor,
my back is aching.
I can hardly walk.
Hand me the rifle.
On Christmas eve 1943,
one of the SS officers got drunk
and started shooting in my block.
It was a massacre.
I fled from there looking
for another block to hide in.
No place would let me in.
Suddenly I see him standing
at the entrance to one of the blocks.
He immediately recognized me
and let me in
along with 30-40 others.
He knew that if he
let more people in,
the Germans would find out
he's hiding them.
So the ones he didn't let in
accused him of working for the SS.
Him? Working for the SS...?
He hid sick people so they don't
get sent to the gas chambers.
He asked the registration officers
to write down the Jews in his barrack
as being younger, so the SS
let them live.
He urged me to sabotage
the electrical system
to disrupt the weapon production.
He helped anyone
who tried to escape.
Lazer, your weapon.
Take the pill I gave you.
The ache go away in no time.
Oven, this is 4. We can't
wait for you any longer, over.
They're bombarding them
with cannons and shells.
Soon they'll be attacking them.
If Ramat Rachel goes down,
the Egyptians invade Jerusalem.
But... Roger, copy.
I was scared of him,
so I kept quiet.
I went with him once to get blankets
from the laundry room.
On the way back we saw
a young Czech girl
escaping from block 24,
the SS brothel.
He covered her with a blanket
and told her to hide in our block.
She was in his room
for three hours.
Then he passed her on to his friend,
the block 32 leader, who also...
The next day I went down
to the Health Service
to tell his manager about him,
about the man that he is.
But he knew that I'm a poet
and that I was close
with the nationalists,
he didn't want to hear me out.
I went back to Dr. Dubnov.
I told him: "Don't you realize
"that if the Nazis kept him
as block leader for two years,
"then they must've been
pleased with him?"
No.
He must have done
some good work for them.
No one listened.
Zimmerman was a famous
poet in Warsaw,
but he returned from
Auschwitz a different man.
His entire family
perished there.
I had trouble believing him...
But he wouldn't give up.
He brought more and more
survivors who also testified.
My cousin was in his block.
After the war, he wrote to us
from America.
"When he realized I had stolen
the blanket off a dead prisoner
"and used it to sew a lining
for my jacket,
"he beat me up ruthlessly."
Yes, I'd hit prisoners
even during food distribution.
They'd attack each other
like beasts.
Sometimes stabbing people
for an extra portion.
Other block leaders preferred to
spill the leftover soup on the ground
to avoid chaos,
but I instilled discipline
to enable me to distribute all the
soup, so in my block they ate more.
And I didn't take advantage
of my status.
I could've eaten by myself, but I ate
from the same pot with the others.
One day an SS officer told me
to bring over muselmenn from block 7
to fix the fences that
collapsed in the snow.
I told him: "They can't even move",
and he said: "We'll see about that."
He took a few pieces of bread
and tossed them to the muselmenn.
They crawled towards
the crumbs.
The ones who couldn't move
simply reached out
hoping that a piece of bread
would fall on them.
One dying man
choked another dying man
to steal a chewed up
piece of bread out of his mouth.
Do you hear the piano?
It's calling me,
"come to me, come to me."
When I can't hear
the noises anymore,
I sit down and play
and the noises dissipate.
The screaming, the moaning
and the cries.
Sometimes when it doesn't comply,
I bite my hands to keep myself
from smashing it,
ripping out its cords and
running to lay on the train tracks.
When the damned SS guards
would wander the blocks,
looking for a Jews to abuse,
he'd place me at the entrance
to the block
and I'd sing to them:
"Ring far out
"Where blossoms sprout
"If you find a rose about
"Say hello for me."
They'd stop and listen,
and move on to another block.
They didn't know this song
was written by two Jews,
Heine and Mendelssohn.
Bruno tried to disprove
the allegations against him.
He brought witnesses
to the hospital
to tell me about what
he did in Auschwitz,
how he took care of people,
saved them and protected them.
But I knew these witnesses
stayed alive because he helped them,
that's why they testified
in his favor.
Go on, take the lentils
and go home.
Go already!
I wanted to testify
in his favor,
but I knew it would
cost me my clients.
No other block leader cared
for his prisoners like he did.
He got us thicker soup
from the kitchen.
Every few weeks he'd get
replacement clothes for us
from the laundry room.
Several times he even got us
some underwear.
He set up a shoemaking workshop
inside our block.
It saved our lives. Over there,
death started from the shoes.
If your shoes were torn
and you started limping,
you'd be immediately sent
to the gas chambers.
Those who accuse him of sending
people to the gas chambers,
don't understand how
that machine functioned.
Only the SS sent people there.
Yes?
-Got any eggs today?
Do you have stubs today?
-I'll pay you extra.
Will you also do my time in jail?
Go away. -Come on...
-No, get out.
The shop is closed.
Go away.
One day, when he sat beside me
in the hospital,
messengers from the Jewish Agency
walked in
and said they've got an immigration
certificate to Israel for him.
Bruno said he won't leave
without me.
They told him they won't
have another certificate,
but he insisted.
He was a doctor,
they needed him,
so they issued
one for me as well.
He carried me in his arms
to the ship
and cared for me the whole trip.
I said to myself,
if he had any doubts about
his actions in Auschwitz,
he wouldn't immigrate
to Israel.
Shhh...
Shhh... go to sleep, Booboo.
Evil Shoshana is coming tomorrow,
and you mustn't be tired.
Go to sleep, shhhh...
Good night, sleep tight.
I also took bread
from the prisoners.
Once every two weeks
when the SS gave me a list of people
who'd be gassed the next day.
I knew they didn't stand
a chance,
so I gave their bread to those
who had a chance to survive.
I also took their clothes
and gave them to others.
A good coat and shoes
could prolong lives.
So they hated me and cursed me,
but it was necessary.
Obviously the Nazis
planned to terminate us all,
but I set some rules to help
the prisoners hold on.
Most of them understood
my intentions.
They saw that my block
had the lowest death rate.
During the sail,
I thought a lot
about what Bruno did there.
But also about what I did.
I survived
because when my shoe tore,
I stole one from the woman
who slept on the bunk above me
even though I knew the sergeant
would see her barefoot and shoot her.
I stole clothes from a woman
in the shower,
stole a blanket from
a sick woman,
and pushed old women and
little girls in the soup line.
I stole a slice of bread from
my aunt who had dysentery,
though I knew she'd die
of starvation the next day.
She didn't die.
The next day she stole a slice
of bread from a woman
more sick than her,
and stayed alive.
Had I been in his block,
he'd beat me up.
My aunt will remember
that slice of bread all her life.
After the war I met her
on a ship sailing to Israel.
Bruno took me for a walk
around the deck,
and she was sitting on a pile
of ropes, fixing a torn coat.
She saw me...
and looked away.
I counted them.
238 men from my block survived
the death march to Mauthausen.
Those living here, ask:
"So few?"
Those who were there, say:
"So many."
I waited.
I thought they'd come
and speak up.
One time, I had a high fever.
I asked him for an exemption
from work duty.
He was a doctor,
he knew it was pneumonia,
but he didn't exempt me.
A flea?
Get out.
Out!
Out!
He knew there was no chance of
survival in the sick people's block
but if someone caught typhus
he sent him there right away
so that others don't
get infected.
When he got typhus, he didn't go there.
He made us take care of him.
My best friend Yanek Tauber
caught it from him and died.
Yanek!
Yanek!
Yanek!
But for some there was
nothing to be done.
They lay exhausted on the bunks,
without moving or speaking.
They were too weak
to crawl to the electric fence.
After they died, I hid their
bodies for a few days
so I could give their share of food
to those who had a chance.
When I met Sarah
at the American hospital,
she was just like them.
Her heart was barely beating.
She wanted to...
but I didn't let her.
Only when she arrived in Jerusalem
did she realize she was capable,
capable of love.
She said she forgave me.
Lazer, come back here!
Lazer!
Yaakov, Eliyahu, quickly,
open the gate!
Eliyahu, clear the sacs quickly,
before they butcher him!
He's running straight towards
the Arabs,
they'll torture him
and slaughter him!
What about Ramat Rachel?
-We'll get him back and head there.
What if you don't come back?
-Doctor, stay out of this.
They need us more in Ramat Rachel.
-What are you doing? Doctor!
We'll save him from being slaughtered.
-Doc, put down the rifle!
Do you hear me?
Put down the rifle!
In early 1947, Zimmerman
the poet asked me
to testify at Dr. Dubnov's.
I'd waited for that moment.
I had plenty to say about him
but I mentioned only one incident.
In April 1944, the Germans started
building new blocks in Birkenau.
I was a construction engineer,
they took me from the coal mines
to work in the camp.
One day it was raining.
The work was stopped,
and when I returned to the block
I saw Bruno
putting a coat
over a prisoner's face
and choking him.
The prisoners knew I'd helped
muselmenn die. They thanked me.
The only one who complained
at Dr. Dubnov's was a survivor
who saw his son
being shot dead by the SS.
His name was Antman.
I wouldn't let him leave the block
to help the boy
because I knew that the Germans
would kill him too if he did.
He heard his son moan
all night.
He never forgave me for that,
nor himself.
He stopped eating,
stopped working,
and when he was dying
he urged me to help him die.
I couldn't play God any longer.
I told him to crawl to the fence.
But he didn't have the courage.
The next day he started
eating again.
That's why he blames me.
Because of me he's guilty to this day.
Antman doesn't owe me a thing,
certainly not his life.
I owe him.
When I saw him eating
and working, I realized
that even at the pit of hell
a man can remain a man
and fight for his life.
Antman ended up
beating the Germans.
They tried to take away his will
to live, but didn't succeed.
He was dying the whole night,
outside by the door.
Bruno wouldn't let me
go to him,
to cover him with a blanket,
to wet his lips with water.
I asked him how many
people he'd killed.
He thought a bit and said: "Five".
He killed more.
I picked up the phone
and told him I'm calling the police,
but he took it from me
and said no judge
could judge him
any better than he
judges himself.
He asked me to think it over
for five minutes
and promised that if I still
want to call the police,
he'll turn himself in.
Thank you.
We had two Slovak Jews
who planned to escape.
Bruno got them some knives,
clothes and some food.
It was October 1944.
They waited for rainfall,
so they have better chances.
One night I heard two
muselmenn say
that they'd give the Slovaks
to the SS for some bread.
I told Bruno.
He interrogated them
and told me to choke them.
I could see he couldn't
do it himself anymore,
so I choked them.
And the Slovaks escaped.
To this day I think that was
the best thing I've ever done
and I thank Bruno for giving me
the power to do it.
In my block there were Kapos
who kept alive the prisoners
who begged to die.
We called them "murderers".
The Kapos who helped women die,
were called "angels".
The Germans didn't urge Bruno
to kill.
They wanted the Jews
to be tortured as much as possible.
Bruno killed in order
to spare those poor people
a few more days in hell.
Had the Germans known this,
they'd have killed him.
I didn't choke them with a coat,
only my bare hands,
so I could see their faces.
So that if they change their mind,
I could let go.
But they couldn't talk.
They barely opened their eyes.
Sometimes their eyes
would slightly crack open.
None of them were scared,
nor regretted it.
Their eyes
were saying "thank you".
Shlomo, stack it up high.
Yaakov, take it easy.
Go back to work.
Oven, this is 4,
do you copy? Over.
If you're not here in ten minutes,
we're leaving.
Half the kibbutz is burnt down,
they won't last long.
You're still a baby, my child,
but you must watch out for Mom.
Watch out for her
and look after her.
When she's out on the balcony
hanging laundry,
when she slices bread
with a knife,
when she lights fire in the burner.
When she cries.
When she laughs.
When she's silent.
Shhh...
"Go to sleep already,
my beautiful Yankele
"Close your dark little eyes
"A little boy who
already has all his teeth..."
Come, we brought water.
"Still needs his mother
to sing him a lullaby?"
Want some water?
Doctor, don't you want
some water?
Let's go.
Applebaum was 46,
from Katowice.
Tarnopolski was 42, from Kielce.
Cantor was 40, from Bedzin.
Zuckerman and Edelman
were 38, from Warsaw.
They were muselmenn.
In Auschwitz I shortened
their suffering out of mercy,
but I also despised and hated them
for giving up.
Today, when I think of
the gratitude in their eyes,
I don't think they gave up.
Nor do I think that they thanked me
for preventing their suffering.
They thanked me for giving them
that brief moment
to feel like humans again,
who can decide their own fate.
Them and not the SS.
When my father died
in that block,
they threw his body
onto the pile.
I knew he had a piece
of bread in his pocket,
so I ran to get it.
But some bastard realized that,
and beat me to it.
Bruno saw him
and made him
give it back to me.
Call Bruno!
Call Bruno over right now!
I want to see him! -Calm down.
-I want to talk to him!
I want him to get me out of here.
Bruno...
Bruno!
"Softly singing measures wing
"Sweetly, through my mind
"Ring out, little song of spring
"Ring out unconfined!"
When we'd return from work,
Bruno would give us soup.
Good, thick soup.
One pot could feed
1.000 people.
At night he would pass
from one bunk to another
and cure the sick,
resurrect the dead.
After hearing him out, I realized
I just don't understand it.
The evidence against him
was very compelling
but so were his answers.
I couldn't decide whether he did it
for his own sake or for the prisoners.
Of course he wanted
to survive,
but in many cases
he also saved lives.
I couldn't decide on the matter.
-It was a big mistake.
Because he wasn't suspended,
he fooled himself that his actions
would be understood,
so he could live here.
I didn't fall for his charm.
It was clear to me
that he'd been corrupted by
the power the Nazis gave him.
I never trusted a communist,
especially one who turned Zionist
and immigrated to Israel.
The Nazis weren't stupid.
It's unreasonable to think
that for two whole years
they were convinced he was
working for them,
while secretly working
for the Jews.
Stop it, will you?!
When I saw that Dr. Dubnov
wasn't suspending him,
I went to tell the press
about what he did in Auschwitz.
So "Haaretz" published
a short story on the last page.
It quoted one stanza
from my poem "Our Graves"
Here.
"Here lie my father, mother
and sister.
"On this stone my wife's
ashes have set.
"The wind carries the dust
of my son and daughter
"Between these linden trees
my soul hovers."
Two days later,
two British policemen
came here
and said:
"You have tuberculosis."
They put me in confinement
in a hospital in Netanya.
I did have TB.
He was the only one
who knew about it.
One day I found the word "Kapo"
written on my door at the clinic.
The nurses were whispering,
the doctors started enquiring,
and the patients stopped coming.
I was repeatedly asked:
"Why didn't you tell the prisoners
"to rebel or escape?"
I once walked into a block with
400 political prisoners on death row.
Two sentries were guarding them.
I told them they should escape,
that if 400 of them charge the gates,
some will surely make it to the woods,
but if they keep sitting and waiting
to be taken to the gas chambers,
nobody will survive.
They didn't respond.
They all kept to themselves,
not out of fear, I believe,
they were just
hoping for a miracle.
They heard from the Germans
that the Russians had arrived,
that the war will end soon,
so they had no reason
to revolt or escape.
The main cause of death
in Auschwitz
was hope.
When I saw he was
still working there,
I turned to the Health Service
branch manager,
but he told me he can't
fire him without fair trial.
So one morning,
before the patients got there,
I walked in there
and wrote "Kapo" in black
on his door.
Rumors about the investigation
reached the conservatorium.
Both the teachers and students
would ask questions.
I heard them whispering
behind my back.
One day the director
calls me over and...
tells me she's cancelling
my end of the year concert.
She said it's due to the war,
the Arabs' shooting.
I told her other concerts
weren't canceled.
She said that sometimes
it's possible.
The next day they held a concert
for a pianist who immigrated
from Germany in 1933.
When the audience
entered the hall,
I got on stage before him
and played.
He understood and waited.
The director sat
in the first row.
When I was done,
she applauded.
She didn't dare fire me.
I didn't tell Bruno.
The Health Service manager
said he wasn't going to fire him,
but a few weeks later,
Bruno told me he quit.
He knew he'd be fired.
He quit because he couldn't take
all that suspicion.
He ended up opening a private clinic
in Musrara neighborhood,
facing his apartment.
I sometimes came to visit them.
Unfortunately, I couldn't
invite them over.
One day, an Orthodox couple
came to his clinic.
The woman had a throat infection.
When her husband saw Bruno,
he became furious.
I could hear him shout
all the way here.
He made us shave our beards
and side curls,
forbade us to pray and mocked us
for not eating un-kosher food.
One Friday night he entered
the block and saw us praying.
He hit us with his club
and threatened us
that if we don't stop,
we don't get any bread the next day.
"No God can save you,
only I can.
"So don't worship Him,
worship me."
"No God can save you!"
he'd yell at us.
No God can save us.
On Rosh Hashanah eve
he demanded that our rabbi,
Rabbi Israel Mintz from Krakow,
cancel all prayers,
and told him that if he didn't
forbid us to fast on Yom Kippur,
he wouldn't give him
the ointment
the rabbi needed for the sores
on his feet.
When he saw
that we all fasted,
he sent Rabbi Mintz,
may God avenge his soul,
to the clinic in block 7.
There they gave him an injection
to the heart.
When I saw that murderer
in his clinic here
wearing his white robe
and smiling, my blood boiled.
I grabbed the nurse's scissors
and tried to stab him.
Suddenly his wife walked in
and started screaming.
"No God can save you..."
When we got home, we saw
he was stabbed in the shoulder.
The blade pierced through
the robe and his shirt.
I licked the blood
off the wound,
just like we did back there.
I wanted to go to the police,
but I feared that if Weissman
is put on trial,
it could persuade other Orthodox
survivors to slander me.
I knew they hated me.
They never understood
that I made them shave off
their beards and side curls
so that the Germans
don't torture them,
that I forbade them to pray
because then the Germans
would pull them out of roll call
and make them do exercise
in the cold and the rain,
till they collapsed.
They hate me because they're scared
to hate their God.
The God that didn't save them.
It's much easier to hate me.
I didn't go to the police,
but I bought a gun.
Doctor?
If anything happens to me,
send this to my parents, okay?
Why are you giving this to me?
If you survived Auschwitz,
you must be a lucky man.
Take it.
When I heard about
the attempt to stab him,
I rushed to his clinic.
The door was locked.
He opened up only after
seeing me through the peep hole.
I told him he shouldn't risk his life
nor Sarah's.
I suggested he leave
the country.
I could've arranged a visa
to England for him,
but he refused.
Had you told him the truth,
he'd have left. -I did.
You didn't tell him he's
being ostracized,
that there's no chance
he'll ever be forgiven,
that anyone who was in his block
is waiting for a chance to kill him.
I did tell him that!
I should've acquitted him and
cleared his name once and for all,
but I didn't want
to interrogate him.
I just didn't.
Because my parents and siblings
and their children,
were all there.
I didn't want to know
how they were tortured,
how they were murdered,
while I was here,
in Jerusalem.
After the liberation,
he immigrated to Israel.
I stayed in Europe
with several other survivors.
We had a list of SS men
who worked in Auschwitz.
Eventually we met up with some
soldiers and officers
who'd been discharged
from the Jewish Brigade.
We killed off many Nazis.
In April 1946 we managed to infiltrate
Stalag 13 near Nurnberg,
where German POWs
were held,
and smeared arsenic
over 3.000 loaves of bread.
9.000 SS men got sick,
but unfortunately,
only 200 of them died.
After that I immigrated to Israel
and started working in this factory.
I knew about the allegations
against Bruno.
I feared to speak up for him.
I had started a new life.
I wanted to forget the past
and erase it.
I didn't want to have to explain
how I survived.
Didn't want any rumors
about how I took my revenge.
The suitcase tore because
you're over-stuffing it.
Why two jackets?
I don't need a jacket.
Fine.
Why don't you take a pill?
Okay, I'll get you
another suitcase.
Hello, sir.
I'm sorry, Mr. Zimmerman,
you have to hurry up.
-Yes, I know.
You've got three more sacs.
The postmen are coming in
to work tomorrow morning, and...
Yes. -What will they give out?
-I know, I know.
I'll stay here all night.
Don't forget to lock up.
-I won't.
I was hospitalized in Netanya
for a few weeks.
By the time I returned to Jerusalem
it was obvious to me
that neither the Jewish Agency
nor the Union would do anything.
He was already one of them.
After all, he'd fought in the Warsaw
ghetto along with Mordechai Anielewicz.
So I turned to
the Nationalist Underground.
I was friendly with some of them
back in Poland,
and they agreed to settle
the score with him.
I felt that death by gunshot
was too easy.
I wanted him to be
beaten to death.
Beaten to death.
So I went with them,
waited for him
outside his clinic,
and...
When he came out, we closed in
on him with toques over our faces
and clubs under our clothes.
It was dark,
but one street light was lit,
and I could see his face
while we were beating him up.
He showed no fear.
He showed no fear.
He was...
Suddenly I heard an inner voice
that wasn't my own
saying, "leave him alone.
"Leave him alone,
this is a mistake."
They left him there
and went away.
He was left lying on the ground.
He didn't see my face
because it was covered, but...
He heard my voice.
That he heard.
I never wrote anything else
after that.
Stand against the wall!
Yuvel, run to the gate!
Yes, I recognized Zimmerman's voice.
I wasn't surprised.
I knew him well,
he was a famous poet in Warsaw.
I had respect for him
and his poetry,
but he felt it earned him
some special status.
He wanted easy jobs,
new shoes, extra soup.
His wife was pregnant.
She was gassed the night they arrived
with the two little children.
His odds were against him too.
He wasn't used to working.
He didn't know how to use a shovel,
a hammer, or how to steal.
But he could speak pretentiously
about the spirit of man,
faith, compassion and hope.
He ended up as a rat for the SS.
For a few slices of bread
he ratted out those who were sick,
slacking off or stealing.
Even me.
He knew that I knew about it.
Every day there
I told him:
"Have mercy.
"Have mercy, Bruno Kaminski."
Those damned Nazis haven't got
a shred of mercy in them.
Had he shown a bit more mercy,
we'd have had the strength
to bear it.
That night, Bruno returned
beaten up.
He had to stitch up
his own cheek.
I told him that maybe
we should go somewhere far away.
Maybe a kibbutz,
where we wouldn't run into
people who knew us back then.
But Bruno refused.
He was sure of his innocence
and claimed that running away
would be an admission of guilt.
I didn't want to run away
because there was nowhere to go.
There were thousands
of survivors in Israel
and I had to clear my name.
I turned to the Communist Party
in Jerusalem,
and asked them to put me
on trial.
But they were busy fighting off
the British
and getting ready for
war with the Arabs.
They had no time to meddle
in the past.
Oven, this is 4,
we're going in.
I'm not asking for confirmation,
I'm informing you.
So come back at night with ammo,
or we won't last out there.
I'll explain it to you
after the war!
Listen up, everyone.
In ten minutes we pull out,
we're done waiting for them.
Get your gear, come on.
Gear up, everyone.
Every morning Sarah would
escort me to the clinic
and back home every evening,
and lock me at home.
She'd play for me,
tried to teach me
to play the piano.
I liked being her prisoner.
I couldn't bear the thought
that he's alive,
and just two streets
away from me.
I went to Rabbi Landau and...
He told me:
"Forget it, Weismann.
"Fix shoes, pray, give charity,
"and God will give you
the strength to go on."
I fixed shoes, prayed
and gave charity,
but every day I'd walk to the
Western Wall through Musrara
and pass by his clinic.
As fate would have it,
I passed there one evening
and saw him slicing a loaf of bread
and eating it on his way out.
At night I returned there
with a canister of petrol,
poured on the door
and lit it up.
I wanted to burn down
his apartment too,
but his wife was from
a family of rabbis
who'd perished in Treblinka.
I didn't want to harm her.
We had an idea who set
the clinic on fire.
But Bruno insisted
not to go to the police.
He didn't want to settle the score
or to punish.
He started seeing patients
at home.
I told him I'm scared someone
might burn down the apartment.
But he said it's close
to other apartments,
and that the bastards wouldn't
dare to harm the neighbors.
Then I found out I'm pregnant.
I've never seen Bruno so happy.
We went to a restaurant
and after that to a bar
on Ben Yehuda street.
Luckily,
no one knew him there.
We danced till dawn.
Bruno...
He was a dancer.
The band played the foxtrot.
But when we returned home,
I felt I couldn't raise a child
in a home someone might set fire to.
Go hang yourself, Buchman!
I'm not scared of the police,
and if you don't stop
knocking on the door,
I'll poison your cats
who meow all night long!
Tomorrow morning that witch
will come and smell the stain.
She'll think the child threw up,
that I don't look after him properly,
that I neglect him, that I'm
irresponsible or crazy.
Take me in your arms, Bruno,
lay me in your bed,
remove my nightgown
and whisper something magical
that would lift my spirits.
At least he's running
to Jerusalem.
When we found out
Sarah was pregnant,
we went to the American consulate
to get a visa.
I also didn't want my child to have
to bear my cross when he grows up.
We thought people would understand
after a few years time,
and we could return.
They interrogated us for almost
two hours at the consulate.
Doctors are a wanted profession.
The interrogator was also impressed
by Sarah being a pianist.
He just wanted to make sure
we're not communists
and most of all, he wanted
to know how we survived the camps.
He was Jewish,
his family must've
perished there.
It was obvious we had no chance
at getting a visa.
One of the consulate visitors
must've heard the clerk
call out Bruno's name,
and so he followed us
when we left.
When we crossed the
Muslim cemetery in Mammilla,
he popped up behind one
of the graves
with a drawn gun.
His name was Mishka Weiss.
Bruno was in shock. He was sure
this Mishka had died there, but...
he was very much alive.
He claimed that Bruno sent him
to the gas chambers
and that the Nazis,
who were more decent than him,
recruited him to the Sonderkommando
at the crematorium.
Bruno feared that this Mishka
was going to shoot us,
so he drew his gun
and fired a shot.
Mishka collapsed.
Bruno ran to him,
but Mishka must've
still been alive,
so Bruno shot him again.
He took his papers
and his gun.
On the way home,
Bruno told me
that Mishka had killed
four prisoners in his block
for shoes, for a coat,
for a slice of bread.
Bruno always evaded my question
about the scar on his forehead.
When we got home he told me
that this Mishka
broke into his room one night
with a pack of criminals
and that they tried to kill him
with wood they broke off the bunks.
Mishka himself cut him
with a sharp piece of tin.
Had the prisoners not heard
Bruno scream and saved him,
this Mishka would've
slaughtered him.
I listened to his explanations
and I understood, but...
suddenly I also
started fearing him.
Sarah didn't sleep a wink
all night.
Whenever I looked at her,
she'd look down.
Like the time she was hospitalized
at the Displaced Persons camp.
She was silent.
Her expression said it all:
'You were too quick to shoot him.
This isn't Auschwitz.
'People's lives aren't cheap
like they were back there.'
Put it on quickly.
Go on.
Drop it down.
I told Mishka that Bruno
is a doctor in Jerusalem.
I knew he had a big score
to settle with him.
I never saw him since.
After the war
I tried to buy eggs
without stubs.
I was caught.
Yes,
I offered Mishka money
to kill him,
but I was glad it didn't
work out in the end.
I'm the victim.
I'm the witness.
But I'm neither the judge
nor his executer.
We tried to get a visa to Sweden,
France, Belgium.
Sarah could've gotten
a visa without me.
I begged her to think about herself
and the child. She refused.
Meanwhile the war broke out.
Our troops had been fighting
heavy battles,
so I decided to enlist.
I understood why
he wanted to enlist.
He didn't even have to say it,
the scars on his face said it all.
But he had fought enough.
He was wounded in the ghetto,
survived Auschwitz
and he was 40 years old.
He owed nothing to anyone.
Mommy's coming, Booboo.
She became terrified.
She had outburst of crying and rage,
her hair started falling out.
She stopped eating.
Anything she ate came right up.
One day she threatened me
with an abortion if I enlist,
and so I never left her alone.
I hid my medicine bag
from her, and my gun.
Doctor!
Doctor!
Doctor!
Lazer!
"Softly singing measures wing
"Sweetly, through my mind
"Ring out, little song of spring
"Ring out unconfined!"
On the 15th of May
the war broke out
and he decided to enlist.
I begged and cried.
I managed to hold him back
for three days.
On the 4th day he went down
to the recruiting office
at the Schneller camp.
I walked after him.
When I got there
I started yelling,
I told the officer that Bruno
was a Kapo in Auschwitz,
that he collaborated
with the SS,
that he's a murderer,
and that he murdered a man
in Jerusalem as well.
Then I saw Bruno's gun
tucked in his belt.
I grabbed it and threatened
to shoot myself.
Bruno hugged me,
held me,
took away the gun
and walked me back home.
She apologized, cried.
She swore...
but I knew she meant
every word.
I'm a murderer.
I'm a collaborator.
I can understand why anyone
who wasn't there
and didn't know who I was,
would doubt me.
But Sarah was there
and she did know me.
She wanted to kill herself
because she knew
she would never see me as
completely innocent.
But she was there.
She saw how they
got off the trains all battered up,
how they were defeated as
they were stripped
and dressed in prisoner uniforms,
how the moment they were
shaved and numbered
they became
a herd of cattle.
Doesn't she get it?
Doesn't she see they accuse me
to cover their own cowardice?
Their own helplessness
and wretchedness?
Their self-disgust and shame?
I who tried to save them, am I
to blame for their shame and misery?
Am I to blame for their deaths?
From the moment I was imprisoned
till the moment I was liberated,
I forced myself to believe
that people can stay humane
even in the face
of inhumane evil.
I forced myself to hope
that even when fearing death,
one can fight for life
with reason,
sanity and solidarity.
Doctor.
Doctor, we're going,
are you coming?
What was left for me
in that war? Mercy?
Was I to give up on the sanctity
of life in the name of mercy?
Is Sarah right? Is there
no sense in logic?
No value in thought?
No point in having a will?
Doctor... -If every choice we make
is worthy of contempt
if there's no point in sanity
and solidarity... -Let's go, Doc.
If every choice we make just brings
us closer to a senseless death,
then I should've run to the electric
fence the day I got there.
Doctor, come on,
we're going.
What is it?
Come, Doc.
Two days later, late at night,
there was a knock on the door.
Some officer or a doctor,
came to inform me.
They were on the way
to Ramat Rachel.
The Arabs ambushed them
with gunfire and mortar shells.
Bruno got up
to help a casualty.
He ran to him without ducking
despite the fire and the shells.
He knew
why he didn't duck.
So do I.
After all that's happened,
she tried killing herself
several times.
I sat by her side
day and night,
trying to save her from herself,
and the baby in her womb.
We had a daughter her age,
our only daughter.
Dina.
In the summer of 1939 she went
to visit her grandparents in Warsaw.
In September
the war broke out
and she never returned.
After the child was born, it was
very hard for me to care for him.
Sometimes I'd cry so loud,
that I couldn't hear him crying.
The welfare officer came
to take him to a kibbutz.
I didn't let them...
but they took him by force.
So I went there
and kidnapped him.
I hardly cry ever since.
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