Youth book ‘Mara’s stories’ shines through sadness

“MARA’S STORIES: GLIMMERS IN THE DARKNESS,” by Gary Schmidt, 2001, Henry Holt & Co., New York, 149 pages, hardcover, $16.95.

Some knowledge should run in the blood – only it doesn’t. Though my grandmother spent the 1930s coaxing relatives out of Austria, my son wasn’t born knowing anything of the Holocaust. When he was young, I didn’t know how, when my every fiber was engaged in enveloping him with love, I could speak of such cruelties.

So we read books. This winter, Daniel, age 11, discovered “Mara’s Stories,” a Globe-Hornbook selection for middle readers.

“Read this, Mom,” he said. “You’ll like it.”

Mara is a fictional storyteller interred in a concentration camp. Each night she gathers the women and children of her barracks to tell a story out of Jewish lore, stories of besting rich folk and outsmarting police, of miracles worked through the trances of Hasidic rabbis and sacrifices that make a difference. Often, Mara (whose name means bitter, for she lived in a bitter time) alters the tales to refer to her surroundings.

The first is a story about Salek, a young violinist in a Polish concentration camp who sits on his bunk and plays his instrument, his fingers pressing on the neck of the violin, his bow caressing the strings. There is no violin, but still, Salek hears the music in the air.

When a great master violinist is brought in, the two play a Corelli duet, “And,” says Mara, “those around them heard. They heard the music … . All those in the barracks held their breath with the astonishment of it.”

But miracles don’t last, not in the camps. The Master is called for a selection. Feverishly, Salek goes in his place. “Someday,” Mara predicts, “the camp will be liberated. And the Master will survive. … And in all his concerts, he will end by playing a single line from the Corelli duet, a single lonely line that nevertheless will thrill with the sounds of happiness. And he will always weep, my children. He will always weep.”

I closed the book. “Isn’t it too sad?” I asked Daniel.

“It’s supposed to be, Mom,” he replied.

Here, even the funny stories are sad, such as the one about the rabbi and son who arrive at the Ministry of Travel in Berlin to request passports. In this tale, the passport isn’t the obstacle, it’s where to go. America? “America is not taking Jews,” says the clerk. Then Paris? “France is not taking Jews.” Rome? Again. Taking a globe, the rabbi points to country after country. But no one is admitting Jews. Finally, the boy speaks. “Please sir, you should have another globe.”

Other stories tell of miracles, of rabbis saved from the abyss, of faith shining beyond cruelty, of a blue ribbon of flame lighting a last dance of the faithful, of names of the dead dancing above men forced by the Nazis to crack tombstones to create a road for tanks.

Yes, “Mara’s Stories” is supposed to be sad. But it’s not gloomy. Glimmers shine within the darkness, threads of beauty, faith, meaning, even humor. By holding these threads, we move to consider an essential question of life: whether life itself is the ultimate value or what we do with that life.

Schmidt is not Jewish, but he grew up surrounded by Jews and by such stories. A professor at Calvin College in Michigan, he says he kept the manuscript for years until Elie Wiesel insisted he publish it. And so he did, adding invaluable notes to each story. These tell the sources of the stories, leading to a treasury of Jewish lore by Wiesel and Martin Buber with stories even more resonant than those in this volume.

Schmidt also explains the names he uses, each another story, for the names celebrate partisans, rabbis and leaders. Salek, the violinist, is named for Salek Bot, a partisan killed while making a bomb meant for the Germans. He, too, was a violinist.

And so I’ll add my own story: I like to think that “Mara’s Stories” is named for Mara Capy, dancer and storyteller from this very same tradition of humor, faith and acceptance, until breast cancer took her 10 years back.

Yes, read this book, Mom. And Dad. And kids. It won’t tell you what happened in the Holocaust, but it will say something about what carried many through.

Donna Gold is a free-lance writer who lives in Stockton Springs.