Two rescuers
Zwei Retter is a novella by the Austrian writer Karl Emil Franzos , written in 1870 and published in 1876 in the collection Die Juden von Barnow at Duncker & Humblot in Leipzig .
action
The town of Barnow in Podolia in the 18th and 19th centuries: two stories are told. In each of the two, a member of the Barnow Jewish community saves his fellow citizens from the arbitrariness of foreign oppressors, i.e. from revenge on the entire Barnow Jewry.
The first story takes place in the spring of 1773. The " Empress in Vienna " is preparing to take over the rule in parts of Podolia, but the Barnowers are still living " under the Polish eagle ". The Lord von Barnow is the young Polish Count Joseph Bortynski. He is under the influence of his tutor, the castle chaplain. The narrator's name has not been passed down. The Barnow Jews call him the black gentleman. The housekeeper of the black gentleman smuggled a slaughtered Christian baby into the house of the head of the Jews, Samuel Beermann, shortly before Easter. When Samuel's wife Lea, who is mourning her deceased baby with her husband, notices the hideously messed up children's corpse in the house, it is already too late. The servants of the black master enter. Leah lies to the Christians in her distress that she killed her own baby. For this Lea is sentenced to death by the judge of Count Bortynski. But the sentence will not be carried out. In the summer of 1773 an auditor from the imperial military government took over jurisdiction in Barnow and released Lea the first rescuer. The "good emperor Joseph " gives the Bortynski family the title of count.
The second story occurs in 1843. Count Bortynski lives in Paris and lets his mandate , the German Friedrich Wollmann from Posen , rule in Barnow at his own discretion. There is a rumor that the mandate is the Jew Froim Wollmann. He had converted to the Christian faith, but still did not get his Christian girl from her parents as a wife; hence Wollmann's hatred of Jews . In any case, a Jewish soldier from Berdiczow deserted the Russian army , crossed the border to Austria at Husiatyn and was employed as a groom in Barnow by the wealthy, benevolent Chaim Grünstein. Russians and Austrians pursue the deserter. But the Barnow Jews hide the soldier from the grim mandate Wollmann. On the evening before the day of atonement , all Barnow Jews are gathered in their house of prayer, the mandatar and his servants surround it and demand the surrender of the soldier present. The Jews refuse. Then the service begins and the prayer leader Klein-Mendele, the second savior, raises his voice to the recitation of the Kol-Nidra . With the haunting singing he silences the former Jew Froim Wollmann. What is more, on the day after the Day of Atonement, Wollmann gives Chaim Grünstein an empty passport for the refugee.
Franzos concludes: “... that's the story of our rescuers. And now think again who is big and who is small, who is weak and who is powerful! "
expenditure
- Zwei Retter , pp. 95–111 in: The Jews of Barnow. Stories from Karl Emil Franzos . 11-15 Edition. Cotta'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Stuttgart 1920 ( archive.org ).
- Two rescuers . P. 131–143 in: Karl Emil Franzos: The beard of Abraham Weinkäfer. Stories. Afterword by Dr. Werner Martin. Reclam, Leipzig 1964 ( RUB vol. 183)
- Two rescuers . P. 51–67 in: Karl Emil Franzos: The child of atonement. Stories. Illustrations by Gerhard Großmann . With an afterword by Wolfgang Schütze. Buchverlag Der Morgen, Berlin 1965 (2nd edition, edition used)
In English
- Two saviors of the people , pp. 113-138 (translator MW Macdowall) in: The Jews of Barnow . William Blackwood and sons, Edinburgh 1882 ( archive.org ).