commanding voice of the soldiers, the poor tired hands are forced to move
faster and plunge the spades deeper into the hard earth. So the grave grows bigger and bigger, and death draws closer with every rise and fall of their spades.
Death? What kind of death awaits them? Is death really so near? The grave
is almost finished and the corpse is still alive! But that is surely a trifle: someone
will ensure that the corpse is no longer alive. Still, it is interesting, very
interesting, to know what they, the oppressors with rifles on their shoulders,
think about it. Or perhaps they do not think anything at all, do not reflect on
anything? For them it has been a foregone conclusion that once the work is finished, those engaged in the task will be stood up against the wall, next to the
grave, rewarded with hot ‘dumplings,’¹⁸¹² and — that’s that! Straight into
the grave to rest from such a hard and bitter task! The question is, why they
have not given a moment’s thought to their own situation. They have been so
busy with their work that they have had no time to think about themselves!
Thus the oppressors force the diggers to work faster, and they have no
time to look up from the grave to where, a little further from the wall, their
wives and children have crept up to watch their nearest and dearest dig
a grave for themselves. With bloodshot eyes, their minds inflamed, they are
staring at the grave, which grows in their eyes into a vast terrifying abyss
with a thousand huge maws, about to devour their loved ones.
An armed soldier approaches and orders all three men to lie down in the
grave next to each other. This means it’s all over, but instead of standing them
against the wall so that they roll down into the grave, the oppressors are going
to do something else. They will spare them tsa’ar gilgul mechilot¹⁸¹³ and let
them have the ‘dumplings’ right here on the spot, on the freshly made bed.
But who says it [5] has to be ‘dumplings?’ It’s wartime after all, and every piece
of metal is worth its weight in gold. Given the German policy of economising,
it’s quite possible they will want to save the few ‘dumplings’ and replace
them with spadefuls of earth shovelled onto the living corpses!
After they have been lying ‘comfortably’ in the grave for a few minutes, it
turns out that the grave needs to be a bit deeper. And the hands of the diggers
1812 (Yiddish, slang) bullets.
1813 (Hebrew) the pain of rolling through the tunnels. According to rabbinic lore, when the dead are resurrected at the end of days, they will endure pain and suffering as their bodies are brought to the Holy Land.
