序言
以色列阿加姆农庄
1952年11月
在我蜗居下面的球场上，我的两个儿子——阿里和哈南——正在踢球。他们踢得不赖，尤其是哈南，他才五岁啊。阿里还要小一岁，瘦一些，也腼腆一些。他不像哈南那样喜欢身体接触。
待会儿我要和他们一起踢，教他们怎样跑步，怎样过人，怎样佯攻，怎样“顶球”。
看着他们，我又想起和哥哥卡尔在柏林旧居对面的小花园里踢球时的样子，我家也是父亲的诊所。有时候父亲的病人也会在树荫下驻足观看我们嬉戏。
我依旧记得他们的话，可能是洛威先生——那个我有生难忘的病人说的吧——魏斯大夫的孩子。看到那个小家伙了吗？就是那个鲁迪•魏斯，将来他会成为职业运动员的。
卡尔比我年长三岁，他清瘦，安静，从来没有运动员的天赋。他总是说自己玩累了，或者说他要去画画或者读书了。我猜想他和我一样，都对我们的父亲魏斯大夫感到失望。不过他是一个温和体贴的人，他爱我们太深了，却一直没法让我们知道。
一切都结束了，一切都过去了。卡尔、父亲、母亲还有家里的其他人都在那场浩劫中死去了，一场大屠杀啊。我幸存下来了。今天，安居在加利利海【1】岸边的一所砖砌平房里——我的目光越过远方的田地和桃林，眺望着那深蓝色的湖水——我终于完成了魏斯一家的家史，这在某种意义上也是欧洲几百万犹太人的编年史，包括六百万的受害者和少数幸存者，也包括那些奋起反抗的勇士。
我的妻子塔拉——一个在以色列土生土长的犹太人——帮我完成了这部家史。她受的教育远远比我多。我只勉强在柏林读完了高中，把青春荒废在足球、网球、呼朋唤友逛大街上了。
塔拉毕业于美国密歇根大学，是一个儿童心理学家，精通五种语言。而我希伯来语还说不流利呢。但我已经不再是一个欧洲人。以色列是我的祖国。1947年我为她的独立而战斗过，将来，只要她召唤我，无论何时，我都会一次又一次拿起枪杆来。在乌克兰打敌后游击战的日子里，我觉悟到宁可握紧了枪战死也不能向刽子手们屈服。我把这些教给阿里和哈南，尽管年纪还小，他们还是懂得了。他们怎么会不懂呢？约旦河对岸的叙利亚炮兵每周有好几次把炮弹倾泻在阿加姆农庄，或者邻近几个村庄。距离我们蜗居五十米外有一个地下掩体，床铺、水、食物、厕所一应俱全。每月至少有一次强烈的炮火把我们逼到那里过夜。
我、塔拉和孩子们有时候看到我们这边的战士带着炮行进在尘土飞扬的公路上，对叙利亚人以牙还牙。不止一次，我们村的村民被召集起来协助“压制”敌军火力。对这种义务我没有什么兴趣，但我热诚地完成了他们。我也不认为向小孩子甚至婴儿灌输为生命而战的必要是一种兴味盎然的工作。但是对于绝境求生我学会了太多，如果我不尽早把这些知识交给孩子们，我就不是一个称职的好父亲。他们已经知道了不要屈服，不要向敌人低下头颅。
我从多个渠道搜集材料完成我的家庭的故事。我利用暑假的时间两次到欧洲寻访（我在当地的高中当体育教练，像阿加姆社区的其他成员一样我把全部工资上交农庄，不过我有时能得到特别拨付的基金，塔拉的父母也能资助我）。我和许多了解我父母、哥哥卡尔和叔叔摩西的情况的人通信。我在以色列遇到过许多集中营和华沙犹太人隔离区的幸存者。塔拉帮我翻译了大部分文献，做了大量的写作工作。
我哥哥卡尔的信息主要来自于他的遗孀，一个叫做英加•黑尔的基督徒，她现在住在英格兰。
大约在一年以前，听说我在寻找关于我的家庭的遭遇的材料，一个叫做库特•道夫的人写信给我。他是一位曾经就职于德国军队的平民工程师，是纽伦堡审判【2】起诉方的重要证人。他为法庭找到了他的侄子，党卫军军官埃里克•道夫的日记。库特•道夫答应我寄给我一份他侄子漫长、详细的日记的副本。这些日记破碎而不连贯。有时候，埃里克•道夫甚至不为事件注明日期，幸好他在散漫的流水帐中包含了足够的地名和日期，使我至少能判断每件事情发生的月份。1935年到1938年之间的部分缺失了，这一时期的材料看来丢失或者损毁了。
我把这些日记和我的家庭被毁灭的历史按照时间顺序搭配在一起。我和塔拉都觉得刽子手的动机对我们这些受害者的命运十分重要。
我从来就不认识这个埃里克少校，但是我家住在柏林的时候他和他的妻子曾经到我父亲那里看过病，这是那个可怕的年代里疯狂的巧合之一。我的父亲医治了他和他的家人，但是三年以后，就是这个埃里克•道夫发号施令，制定了种种措施，先后杀害了我的哥哥卡尔、父母双亲和摩西叔叔，还有六百万其他的受害者。
我们告别恶梦，从纳粹铁蹄下的欧洲这个暗无天日人间地狱里解脱出来不过七年，却如同隔世。塔拉说事实上这个悲剧永远不会从我们身边走远，我们必须让我们的儿子辈和孙子辈懂得这一点。全世界的孩子们都必须懂得这一点。本•古里安【3】说过：要宽恕，但是永远不能忘记。我还不怎么能宽恕，或许永远也不能。
注释：
【1】加利利海：以色列和叙利亚边境上的湖泊。
【2】纽伦堡审判：纽伦堡为德国城市，二战后同盟国在这里设立国际法庭，公审纳粹战犯。
【3】本•古里安：波兰出生的以色列政治家，先后两次出任以色列总理。
Prologue
Kibbutz Agam
Israel
November 1952
Below our tiny house, on the soccer field, my sons, Ari and Hanan, are kicking a ball. They aren't bad, especially Hanan, who is five. Ari is a year younger, thinner, shyer. He doesn't seem to like the body contact as much.
I'll have to work with them. Teach them the moves, how to pass off, to feint, how to "head" the ball.
Watching them, I'm reminded of the way my brother Karl and I used to play in the little park opposite our home in Berlin. Our home was also my father's medical office. Sometimes my father's patients would stop under the shade trees and watch us.
I can still hear their voices--maybe Mr. Lowy, who was his patient for as long as I can remember--talking about us. Dr. Weiss' kids. See the little guy? Rudi Weiss? He'll be a professional someday.
Karl was three years older than I. Thin, quiet, never an athlete. He'd get tired. Or he'd want to finish a painting or read. I guess we both disappointed our father, Dr. Josef Weiss. But he was a gentle and thoughtful man. And he loved us too much to ever let us know.
* * *
All ended. All over. Karl and my parents and all of my family died in what is now called the holocaust. A fancy name for mass murder. I survived. And today, seated in this cinderblock bungalow above the Galilee--I see its dark-blue waters in the distance beyond the fields and peach orchards--I finish this chronicle of the family Weiss. In some ways, it is a chronicle of what happened to millions of the Jews of Europe--the six million victims, the handful who survived, those who fought back.
My wife, Tamar, an Israel-born sabra, helped me prepare this document. She is far better educated than I am. I barely finished high school in Berlin, being too busy playing soccer, or tennis, or roaming the streets with my friends.
Tamar attended the University of Michigan in the United States. She is a child psychologist and is fluent in five languages. I still have difficulty with Hebrew. But I am no longer a European. Israel is my country. I fought for her liberty in 1947, and I will fight again, and again, and whenever I am asked to. In my days as a partisan in the Ukraine, I learned that it is better to die with a gun in one's hand than to submit to the murderer. I have taught this to Ari and Hanan, and, young as they are, they understand. Why should they not? Several times a week Syrian artillery from across the Jordan drops shells on Kibbutz Agam, or on some of our neighbors. Fifty meters from our little house there is an underground shelter, complete with beds, water, food, toilets. At least once a month the bombardments become sufficiently strong so that we must spend the night there.
My sons, Tamar and I sometimes watch our soldiers moving our own guns across the dusty roads below, to pay the Syrians in kind. More than once, my own unit has been called up to assist in "neutralizing" the enemy artillery. I find no pleasure in these duties, but I do them willingly. Nor am I overjoyed at the necessity of teaching small children, infants, about the need to battle for one's life. But I have learned a great deal about survival and I would be less than a good father if I did not impart this knowledge to them early. Already they know not to yield, not to bow one's head.
* * *
The information I collected for this narrative about my family came from many sources. Twice during my summer vacations I visited Europe. (I'm employed as athletic director at the local high school, and like all members of the Agam community I am required to turn my entire salary over to the kibbutz; however, special grants of funds are sometimes made, and Tamar's parents helped me.) I corresponded with many people who knew my parents, my brother Karl, and my Uncle Moses. I have met scores of survivors of the camps here in Israel, people from the Warsaw ghetto. Tamar assisted me in translating most of the material, and with much of the writing.
A major source for information on my brother Karl came from his widow, a Christian woman named Inga Helms Weiss, who is now living in England.
Approximately a year ago, hearing about my search for the story of my family, a man named Kurt Dorf wrote to me. He was a German civilian engineer attached to the German army, and he had been a prominent witness for the prosecution at the Nuremberg trials. He had located the diaries of his nephew, an SS officer named Erik Dorf. Kurt Dorf was kind enough to send me a copy of his nephew's lengthy, detailed account. These diaries are of a fragmented and desultory nature. Oftentimes, Erik Dorf did not even date his entries, but fortunately he did mention enough places and dates in his rambling account so that I have been able to determine at least the month for each entry. There is a gap between the years 1935 and 1938. The material from this period has apparently been lost or destroyed.
I have interspersed sections of these diaries with the account of my family's destruction. It seems to me (and Tamar) that the motives of the murderers are of as great importance to us as the fate of the victims.
I never knew Major Erik Dorf, but in one of those crazy coincidences with which those dreadful years are filled, he and his wife had at one time been my father's patients in Berlin. Three years after my father had taken care of him and his family, this same Erik Dorf was signing orders and establishing procedures that would lead to the murder of Karl, my parents, my Uncle Moses--and six million other innocents.
It seems unbelievable that it is only seven years since the nightmare ended, since we were delivered from the murky hell of Nazi Europe. Tamar says that actually we are never delivered from this tragedy. Our children, and our children's children, must be told about it. And so must the children of the world.
Forgive, Ben-Gurion once said, but never forget. I am not quite ready for forgiveness. Perhaps I never will be.
Copyright © 1978 by Gerald Green and Titus Productions, Inc.
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