War and Remembrance1988

Aaron Jastrow:
[in his journal, reflecting on becoming an Elder at Therezenstadt] God forgive me for not letting them kill me, but if I were to have died, what hope would there be for Natalie and Louis? And what hope is there indeed? It is now painfully evident, with this public use of my name and face, that we are at last hopelessly beyond diplomatic rescue of any kind. Since leaving Sienna, I have carried a well-concealed pouch as a last resort, containing the photocopied documents of my earlier conversion to Catholicism. My "Ace in the Hole," as it were, to save me from a bad fate as a Jew. [He rips up the papers.] But this morning, for the first time in perhaps fifty years, I put on philacteries, borrowed from a pious old man next door, and I mean to do this in all the days remaining to me on this sick and stricken Earth. Taking it all in, from that moment in my youth when I turned my back on my religion, until this morning, when I entered SS headquarters, I have spent my life on the run, but now I turn and stand. I am a Jew. Thus I answer Eichmann.