Vanished Childhood and the Holocaust

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Later in the novel Maciek and Tania learn they cannot trust anyone and that they cannot have friends either. In Warsaw, Maciek realized how problematic his existence was. “My existence continued to be a problem not susceptible to a pleasant solution. Children in these establishments were a rarity; they attracted attention and, therefore, danger.” (96). Together Tania and Maciek made up stories and rehearsed them at night, always preparing for the worst. At one point they had to run for their lives as German soldiers were shooting at them. “A German soldier on the roof of a building on the side of Piwna, was shooting at me.” (134-135). As a child trapped in wartime, Maciek’s life was in permanent danger. He was a young Jewish boy that had to grow up overnight in order to deal with all the nightmares that war brought.

Maciek encountered real brutality when a woman who was marching refused to throw her jewelry into the bucket as the Ukrainian soldiers demanded. “the Ukrainian in charge of it grabbed her hand, saw a ring, beat her on the face and with an easy, fluid gesture, just like a butcher, cut of her finger. He held it up for all to see.” (140). He witnessed hatred and intolerance of one nation towards another – unable to help, Maciek kept moving forward. Not long after, Maciek witnessed another brutal incident -- the sexual abuse of women. “Some women were made to kneel, soldiers holding them from the back by the hair, their gaping mouths entered by penis after penis.” (141). Not only did Maciek observed the most horrific crimes against women but he also lost his childhood innocence through witnessing crimes first-hand, worse than the bullets that was fired at him in Warsaw.

In Tzili, seasons are used to point out the importance of time passing. As for Maciek, time also passed and autumn came. He felt this was probably the sweetest season, but his hope dwindled quickly. At the train station he thought they were going to Auschwitz, until Tania managed to get them on a different train to Piasowe. In Piasowe, Tania and Maciek found some peace and childhood normalcy. “There were four of us who took cows to the same pastures, two boys and a girl” (152). On the farm with animals and other people, Maciek experienced a freedom he wasn’t used to anymore. He couldn’t tell the truth about who he really was to his new ‘friends’, but spending time playing outside brought back some happy memories: “it reminded me of dry flower stalks and the game my grandfather had played with Zosia and me in our garden.” Unlike Tzili, Maciek had many happy childhood memories from before the war.

One thing stuck with Maciek, as he grew older. He found that lying became easier than telling the truth. “I was chained to a habit of lying” (171). Maciek couldn’t even manage to tell his aunt about his tobacco smoking – a lie became an easier way of living. The scar Maciek carried inside of him wasn’t a physical war scar but rather an emotional one. The brutalities imprinted into his young mind became the driving force for telling lies - lies that kept him and Tania safe and alive. Lies also ends up taking Maciek’s young heart hostage in the end, as the truth never held any safety for a child born as a Jew.

Works Cited:

Appelfeld, Aharon. Tzili. New York: Schocken, 1983. Print.

Begley, Louis. Wartime Lies. New York: Knopf, 1991. Print.