Mila 18 by Leon Uris

Author:Leon Uris
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction.Historical, classics, War, Suspense & Thriller
ISBN: 9781453225783
Publisher: Open Road
Published: 1961-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty

Journal Entry

IF YOU WANT TO be in movies,

You don’t have to travel far,

The ghetto is like Hollywood,

All here, have a STAR.

COMPLIMENTS OF CRAZY NATHAN

Ervin Rosenblum has done a magnificent job as cultural secretary of Orphans and Self-Help. We now have a full Ghetto Symphony Orchestra, fifteen theatrical productions in Yiddish and Polish, a secret school for both primary education and religious training in each orphanage; art exhibitions, debates, poetry readings, etc., etc. Several individual artists perform in roving troupes. Most well known is Rachael Bronski, who has made her debut with the symphony playing Chopin’s Second Concerto. She is called the “Angel of the Ghetto.” A pity Emanuel Goldman was not there to see her great talent.

But ... our situation continues to degenerate. The death rate, mainly from typhus and starvation, climbs upward: July, 2200; August, 2650; September, 3300; October, 3800. So far in November, 150 a day. Strange, the suicide rate continues to drop. Conclusion: The weaker ones have killed themselves already. The rest are determined to survive. Each morning families deposit new corpses on the sidewalk. No money for funerals. The “sanitation teams” come along with hand pushcarts, shovel the corpses up, twenty or thirty to a cart, and wheel them to the cemetery for burial in mass graves. The spectacle of death and starvation no longer impresses anyone. We must immunize ourselves. How crass.

Food comes in daily to Transferstelle. There is simply not enough to feed everyone. The Big Seven has shoved prices so high. Orphans and Self-Help is barely able to get bare minimum rations. The Big Seven has a virtual control on the licensed bakeries. The bakers are the “kings” of the ghetto.

Smuggling has become a way of life. No one can stop it. Napoleon tried and failed. The Germans cannot stop it. Even if they were scrupulous and honest, it would be impossible. Every guard is corrupt, Jewish Militia on the inside, the Polish Blues and the Germans on the outside. They all “play” for the right price. Why should the Germans even try to stop smuggling? Payoff money is lining the pockets of their top officials.

Smuggling runs from primitive forms to highly organized operations. In its most basic form, small, quick children dart about and move through small cracks in (or one of a half dozen tunnels under) the ghetto wall. Some of these children are sole providers for their families. They risk going into the Aryan side to scavenge in the garbage cans, barter if they have anything to barter, beg at the squares, or steal. One poor child was stuck in a crack in the wall. He was beaten by police on both sides of the wall.

The main transfer point of smuggled goods is outside the ghetto where the Jewish and Catholic cemeteries have a common wall. It has been breached in a dozen places and is a sort of “free trading zone.” Grave-diggers who work the detail for mass graves are the main contact people. However, one must be in the upper bracket of smugglers to work the cemeteries.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.