Some time before the final evacuation, the commandant of the Letz ghetto set up a curfew. It was a simple rule…no Jews out on the streets after sundown or they would be shot. The army had lost its faith in fines and reprimands, so to enforce the new penalty they set up snipers on the roofs. To help their aim, not to mention their recognition, all Jews had to wear a luminescent star on their backs of their coats so that they could be seen in the dark.
Helping to institute the new rules, much too enthusiastically it was felt, was a magistrate named Gozlin. I don’t know if that was his real name, but probably not because the word gozlin in Yiddish means swindler. And this is precisely what Gozlin was. He had been nothing more than a minor corrupt official in town before the war but since everyone above him had been shot, this treacherous little man was elevated to run the ghetto.
It was at this point that Gozlin really began to live up to his name. He cheated his neighbors of their possessions, stole property left and right, and diverted bread and supplies that he then sold back to the starving families. He himself handed out the coats with the stars on the back. In other words, as the saying went, he spit on the Mitzvot, the laws and commandments that were handed down through the Torah.
Clearly something had to be done about him, so when my distant cousin, the innkeeper everyone called Manny the Bear, said he had a way to solve their problem, the others helped in any way they could. They sent a message to Gozlin to come to the inn early in the morning to discuss some business and they let it be known that a bribe was in the offing. Naturally, Gozlin showed up promptly and was met with a great hug from Manny, who was called The Bear by virtue of this.
Manny, it is said, sat the magistrate down at a table and began to pour wine and ply him with what little food their was, and tell foolish gossip about everyone in town until Gozlin was dizzy and exhausted. Then, as it grew later and later in the day, in hushed tones Manny began to ravel a knot of intrigue. He arranged for Gozlin to receive outrageous kickbacks, funnel even more food into his secret trove, have a tryst with one of the lovely girls in the town, and even be informed of the next meeting of the resistance fighters. And all this for just a few more scraps on the table for Manny and his family.
“Greedy Jews,” Gozlin laughed out loud while shaking his head. But he was smiling too and agreed to the proposal.
As he started to leave, Manny called Gozlin his great friend and helped him on with a coat and gave him another huge hug. Then with tears in his eyes he ushered the magistrate out the door. Assuming he had made a clever deal for himself, and planning to turn Manny in the moment he made use of his information, Gozlin stepped out into the twilit streets of Letz.
I think you can guess what happened. I did when I heard this story. Gozlin was immediately shot down by the snipers.
So consumed by his greed and so busy scheming, he had completely forgotten about the curfew. He had not noticed that Manny switched coats on him and he walked out wearing the star on his back.
No one, of course, condoned the murder. But no one was especially upset about it either. There was a war on after all and Letz was one of its battlefields. And also Manny the Bear felt that there was an important lesson to be learned in it, which he would repeat to all who would listen. One passed down through my family all the way to me.
“A good Jew observes the Mitzvot,” he concluded, “but a smart Jew watches his back.”
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