I expect that Izzy, his sons and Louis may be living in or around Marseille. I shall do my best to find them.
Jaśmin promises not to give up searching for him, as well, though she also says that she’ll never set foot in Continental Europe again.
*On the way home from Izmir, I stopped in Lublin and said a kaddish for Erik outside the Lipowa Street camp. And for all the other heroic friends of ours who were long gone, especially Johann, who had given up his life for me.
Seeing the muddy clearing where Erik had been hanged and hearing my trembling voice undid me, however. I felt as if I were pulling my existence out of an emptiness so great that everything I saw and felt was only an illusion.
I stayed just long enough to intone an ‘El Male Rachamim’ for Erik’s soul and then fled, though turning away from where he’d been murdered made me feel as though I was leaving behind the best part of myself.
I think of Erik every day of my life. I try to remember the dead in all their uniqueness, as he would have wanted.
The autobiography of the Jews is still being written. That is our victory. And I believe now that Erik’s deepest hope was for The Warsaw Anagrams to serve as his contribution to it. I am convinced, in fact, that that was why he returned as an ibbur.
Heniek Corben
Warsaw, 3 Kislev, 5715 (28 November 1954)
<p>GLOSSARY</p>(all words are in Yiddish except where otherwise indicated)Alter kacker – Literally, ‘old shitter’, but with the meaning of ‘old fart’.
Brenen zol er! – ‘May he burn in hell’; a common curse.
Challah – A yeast-leavened egg bread, usually braided, traditionally eaten on the Sabbath.
Der shoyte ben pikholtz – ‘The idiot son of a woodpecker’; a traditional epithet.
Dreidl – a four-sided top inscribed with the Hebrew letters and, which together form the acronym for (a great miracle happened there).
Ech – A groan or exclamation of displeasure or disparagement.
‘El Male Rachamim’ – Hebrew prayer for the repose of the soul of the departed.
Festina lente – Latin for ‘hurry slowly’.
Flor – German word for the gauze or crepe used in women’s clothing and in veils.
Gehenna – Hebrew word for hell, used commonly in Jewish folktales and kabbalistic literature.
– Polish for stuffed cabbage leaves; part of the country’s traditional cuisine.
Golem – Hebrew: In Jewish folklore and mystical traditions, a golem is an animated being created entirely from inanimate matter. The most famous story of such a creature involves Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague, who was said to have created a golem to defend the Jewish ghetto from anti-Semitic attacks.
Gottenyu – My God!
Goy – Non-Jewish person, gentile.
Goyim – The plural of Goy.
Hak mir nisht ken tshaynik! – Literally, ‘Don’t knock me a teakettle,’ but with the meaning, ‘Stop rattling on and on with that endless chatter!’
Hänschen klein – Little Hans in German.
Hatikvah – An anthem written by Naphtali Herz Imber, a Galician Jew, who moved to Palestine in the 1880s. The Hebrew title means ‘The Hope’.
Hilfe – ‘Help’ in German.
Ibbur – Hebrew word for ghost, spirit or spectre.
Kaddish – The Jewish prayer of mourning.
Katshkele – Little duck.
Levone – Moon.
Linka – ‘String’ in Polish.
Macher – Important person or big shot.
Mazel tov – Of Hebrew origin, an expression that means ‘I’m thrilled for your good fortune’, ‘Good for you’ or simply ‘Congratulations!’
Meshugene – Crazy.
Meiskeit – Very ugly person, sometimes used with affection, as when applied to a child so ugly only its mother could love it.
