Everything Is Illuminated

Alex, Alex’s Grandfather, Jonathan, and the woman whom they still call Augustine, though they know she is not Augustine, leave the woman’s house to head to Trachimbrod. The woman says that she has never ridden in a car and doesn’t feel safe doing so. She then walks slowly ahead of the car while Alex, his Grandfather, and Jonathan follow in the car behind her. When they reach Trachimbrod, it is dark. There is nothing there, no houses, no objects.

Alex asks the woman how Trachimbrod disappeared. The woman says that it happened quickly. She explains that one day, Nazi soldiers arrived in Trachimbrod. They lined all of the Jewish people in Trachimbrod up in lines. They then held people’s family members at gunpoint and said they would shoot them if people didn’t spit on the Torah. When it came to the woman’s father, the Nazi soldiers held his wife (the woman’s mother) at gunpoint. The woman’s father refused to spit on the Torah, and the Nazi soldiers shot his wife. They then held the woman’s four-year-old sister at gunpoint. The woman’s father again refused to spit, and the Nazis shot the woman’s sister. The Nazi soldiers then held the woman’s pregnant sister at gunpoint, with the gun pointed inside her vagina. When the woman’s father again refused to spit on the Torah, the Nazi soldiers fired.

The Nazi soldiers then held the gun to the woman’s father’s head and said that if he spat on the Torah, they would kill him. He spat, and they killed him. The woman’s pregnant sister remained alive, though the bullet killed her baby. The woman’s sister crawled through the streets and then knocked on the doors of people in town who weren’t Jewish, but nobody would help her out of fear that they would be killed if they did. The woman’s sister then crawled to the forest. The next day, she returned to town and gathered all of her family’s valuables and buried them. She then fled to Russia. Years later, she returned to Trachimbrod, which no longer existed. She gathered what she could find of what she buried and brought those valuables to the house closest to Trachimbrod, which is where the woman now lives.

After hearing what happened in World War II in Trachimbrod, Jonathan and Alex stand in silence before a monument in the center of what used to be the town. The monument is dedicated to the 1,204 Trachimbroders killed “at the hands of German Fascism” on March 18, 1942. It was dedicated on March 18, 1992, by the prime minister of Israel. The group then returns to the woman’s house. At the house, they ask the woman again if she knows anything about Augustine, and she says no. She says she knew that Safran survived, though, because she saw him years later when he returned for one afternoon. They talked during that afternoon about Shakespeare, not about the war.

The woman then gives Jonathan a box labeled “In Case.” Before they leave, Alex asks what the woman’s name is. She says it’s Lista. As they go, Alex’s Grandfather kisses Lista on the lips. Lista then says she must go attend to her baby, who is waiting for her.