Giants by Eilat Negev Yehuda Koren

Author:Eilat Negev, Yehuda Koren [Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev]
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781849545549
Publisher: Biteback
Published: 2013-09-19T04:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU, OCTOBER 1944

For some time now, the Lilliput Troupe had been living not only in a house of horror, but also in an environment appallingly unsuited to their size where every object presented a monstrous obstacle. Even short distances seemed vast and arduous to their undersized, bowed legs and tired feet. Their situation was made slightly more bearable by Mengele; he had small wooden stools built for them in the camp carpentry shop, which was located on the first floor of crematorium II. Wherever they went, they carried their stools like artificial limbs so they could rest in the course of a journey that was bound to quickly exhaust them. The Lilliputs had always disliked being lifted like babies, partly out of fear that they’d be dropped, or placed in chairs too high for them to get out of. The stools thus became their makeshift ladders to independence.

When the weather was nice and they were not in the medical clinics, the Ovitz ladies would go outside to the square in front of their barrack, set up their stools, and watch the world go by, just as they had done in Rozavlea. Remarkably, in spite of the horrific events transpiring daily in the camp – or maybe because of them – the magnetic Lilliput Troupe continued to attract public attraction. The camp was always abuzz with rumours; the tale of dwarfs basking in the sun or strolling about on parade soon spread. Even inmates from distant barracks would find ways to pass by and gaze. Some of the Lilliputs’ former fans were surprised to discover them behind barbed wire, as they had not known the dwarfs were Jewish. Others were amazed and delighted that these star performers had not been changed drastically by the camp, for there they were, still in all their finery – as if the world had not really been turned upside down.

Auschwitz was a Babel of tongues and nationalities, from Italian and French to Greek and Polish. Having lost their families, inmates naturally gravitated to any surviving fellow townspeople, and to anyone who spoke their language. So it was that even strangers from Maramureş County came to chat with the Lilliputs – to enquire who had died, who had survived. Ibby Mann, whose theatre-loving father had invited the Lilliput Troupe to dinner in his home after one of their performances in the happy days before the deportation, recalls:

Mother knew they were expert dress makers and at the end of the evening she presented them with a colourful fabric to make outfits for their show. Only my twin sister Sarah and I had survived the selection, so when I heard that the Lilliputs were in the camp I rushed over to see them. They not only remembered their visit but had been looking for us in the camp. One of them went back into their barrack returning with a dress made from the fabric mother had furnished. I caressed the doll-sized dress and cried. A matching shawl accompanied the dress and they let me have it – the only memento I had left from my mummy.

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