Page 217 - LEIBY

Chapter 28 217

stocky individual who represented the Polish regime, and lastly,
an activist from the Central Jewish Committee. Also present
were a handful of Jews who had come from the nearby city and
a large troop of Red Army soldiers who had come as security
guards.

“Are the victims’ relatives here? Can we begin?” William Bein
asked.

“There don’t seem to be any relatives, they obviously didn’t
survive the war,” came the morose reply.

Leiby gazed at the tangle of oak tree branches that provided
them with shade and at the sawn-off tree stumps dotted around.
Several of the assembled men had sat themselves down on the
stumps, and to Leiby it appeared to be a most suitable allegory:
were not the Holocaust survivors just like the dried-out tree
stumps, brutally cut down by other men, who had then had the
audacity to sit on them and crush any last vestige of the spirit
within them?

“No,” Leiby whispered to himself. “We’re not dead tree stumps,
we’re more like young, flimsy branches, who after being pushed
down into the earth, miraculously sprout and grow into
handsome, flourishing trees.”

“Give us a speech now, boy,” the Jewish Committee activist
turned to Leiby.

“Me?” Leiby blushed a fiery red – he had never spoken publicly
before.

“Yes, you. I hear that you have a poet’s soul.”

“I’m no good at public speaking.”

“I think that it will be inspiring for everyone to hear a speech
from a boy as young as you,” the man reflected. “As you said,
we adults are like dead tree stumps, but you, the youngsters,
are the fresh green offshoots, and Klal Yisrael will be rebuilt by