Both Wartime Lies by Louis Begley and Tzili by Aharon Apelfeld describes the coming of age of Jewish children during the Holocaust of World War II. The natural experiences of growing up are changed and twisted by the war and its horrors, but the specific developments, their perceptions , and impacts are affected by the children’s personalities and circumstances of their lives, which results in two completely different stories.
Childhood
The two children have different personalities, and their childhood experiences are almost opposite. Maciek is the only child who used to be surrounded by loving adults: his father, grandparents, aunt, and babysitters, of whom he especially remembers Zosia. His early years are full of learning and playing, the taste of homemade food and loving touches of Zosia. His childhood is happy and wealthy, and the change brought by the war is especially horrific in contrast.
Tzili, on the other hand, is the least favorite daughter of a big family; at school, children often mock her for being calm, quiet, and not too clever. She is taught Judaism, tough, and she often recalls the words of her teacher. For example, she keeps reciting the holy words when she is abandoned by her family to “look after the house” (Apelfeld 10). The night when her native town is almost destroyed by the soldiers, her prayers calm her down and help her to stay hidden.
Support and Teachers
During the Holocaust, Maciek is not alone; his aunt Tania helps him throughout his wartime experience. She becomes an “essential worker” and finds German “friends” (Apelfeld 34, 39). Together with the grandfather and the friend they manage to forge false documents for the entire family to cover up the fact that they are Jewish. Tania also helps Maciek by educating him and teaching him the survival skills of lying.
Tzili, on the other hand, constantly meets people and loses them. She is abandoned by her family, escapes Katerina; then Mark leaves her. She believes that Mark stays within her in the form of their child, but the child dies in the end. Apart from that, it is difficult to say that any of these people help her in her strife or in the process of growing up; rather, it is her who supports Mark and works for Katerina.
In a way, they provide her with essential lessons through related experience, but they have no intent of training her to survive the way Tania teaches Maciek German and rehearses lies with him. No one is even there to explain Tzili what menstruation is. She is essentially alone (safe for her memories and the voice in her head) until the final part of the book when she meets Linda, who helps her get aboard a ship going to Palestina. Linda appears to introduce Tzili to this new world, a possible future, and she may be regarded as the character that plays a part similar to that of Tania in the life of Maciek.
Experiences of the Holocaust
The war-related experiences of the children are also very different. For Maciek, there was a lot to get used to: the house of the family is taken up by Gestapo headquarters, they are all was forced to wear yellow stars, and the Jewish children can not go to school anymore. For a while, their lives still have a place for games and learning: they read books, explore the world (often in the form of the secrets of the opposite gender), but gradually these common aspects of growing up are twisted by the war into something morbid. An example is the confrontation between Polish youngsters and the Jewish ones that has the potential of becoming a manslaughter. Then, Maciek witnesses his first Judenaktion.
After that moment, the war for Maciek is about lying, and once he is introduced to Catholic faith, this knowledge begins to disturb him. He learns that lies are considered to be a mortal sin by the Catholic faith. As a result, he believes that he has soiled his soul and cannot cleanse it because he has to lie to survive. All of these faith-induced fears came together with more down-to-earth fear for the life: for example, Maciek admits that his health issues literally “terrorize” his aunt since a medical examination could show that he is circumcised (Begley 119). The war meant that Maciek and his family are surrounded by enemies: anyone, even a fellow Jew, could turn them in. Apart from that, as the time passes, new terrors appear, such as the growing prices and hunger, which at one point results in the family eating human flesh sold to them as pork.
Tzili also lies to survive (calling herself the daughter of Maria), but her lies do not cause the same moral turmoil as those of Maciek. Apart from that, her being a Jew is often an asset rather than a danger: it attracts Mark to her, and it helps her when she meets the refugees. In general, she has a different perspective on the war and the Holocaust: she is the victim of hunger, her own ignorance, and people cruelty.
She suffers all the types of abuse throughout the book, including beatings, rape attempts, humiliation, and manipulation, and her survival skills are more essential: for example, she is busy with finding food, which Maciek never has to worry about. Her natural calmness and resignation make her almost fearless with time: as she says, repeating the words that Mark (or Mark’s spirit) has told her many times, “death is not as terrible as it seems” (Begley 79). It is clear, therefore, that children’s personal qualities affect their perception of the situation.
The Effect of Holocaust
The outcomes of the two stories are also very different. Begley describes adult Maciek as a “sea-tossed, hollowed out and bereft” person who “has been changed inside forever” (9-10). Begley also indicates that Tania and Maciek “have learned their lesson” of lies and distrust (136). In other words, they proceed to lie after the war: the fear they had lived with for so much time got embedded in their minds, and they do not trust people after having been surrounded by enemies for so long. Begley finishes by saying that Maciek “has no childhood that he can bear to remember; he has had to invent one” (141). The author clearly states that they part with Tania and that Maciek remains broken and alone without any true past.
The reader is never introduced to grown-up Tzili, but a few things can be said about her new personality. First of all, she has become a woman who had loved, given birth, and survived the death of her unborn child. Quiet and defenseless in the beginning, she speaks up and tells the person who beats her up that she is not an animal, but a woman (Apelfeld 78). The horrors of the Holocaust have made her stronger. However, she has lost everyone, and the memories of her childhood that she compares to the Garden of Eden are the only things that are left of her innocence (Apelfeld 102). Apelfeld writes: “of all her scattered life it seemed to her that nothing was left” (114).
At the same time, Tzili is heading towards a new life together with Linda, who is as broken as herself. In the end of the book, she is not alone and has a destination: Palestine, which means that the Holocaust has given her a companion and the promises of a new life. She does not know what she will meet there, but she eagerly repeats after the speaker: “In Palestine everything will be different” (Apelfeld 118).
Conclusion
Both books depict the war and the Holocaust as extremely traumatic experiences that twist the normal process of coming of age for two children. Both of them are deprived of their childhood through the loss and pain or fear of the war, but their experiences are not identical, and so are their personalities. As a result, the Holocaust affects them in different ways. Maciek was taught to survive through lies and distrust, and he is unable to forget these lessons of the war. Tzili, on the other hand, just feels emptied, bereft, but her scar is healing, and she is heading for Palestine, for a new life.
Works Cited
Apelfeld, Aharon. Tzili, The Story Of A Life. New York, New York: Grove Press, 1983. Print.
Begley, Louis. Wartime Lies. New York, New York: Ballantine Books, 2010. Print.