Читать книгу For All Humankind - Tanya Harrison - Страница 14

Lying in bed staring up at the stone ceiling of the St. Ottilien Monastery, fatigued, exhausted, and still recovering from the most horrible of atrocities, Elly was torn between emotions. A part of him was relieved and felt safe for the first time in years. The other part of him was intensely angry and overcome with hatred.

It was the spring of 1945. Elly Gotz was seventeen and recuperating in a makeshift hospital near the town of Geltendorf in the south of Germany. When he looked up from his bed, he saw a three hundred-year-old stone ceiling held up by old wooden arches. The monastery was a cold place of mostly hard surfaces like stone floors and wood benches. The wheeled-in hospital cots were the only soft surfaces, and the first comfort Elly and most other people there had felt in years.

The long halls of the monastery housed dozens of other weakened men, women, and children. All had just been rescued from the main Nazi concentration camp at Dachau, Germany. Among these men was Elly’s father, a fifty-four-year-old Lithuanian who now barely weighed his own age in pounds. Elly himself only weighed about seventy pounds and struggled to lift his emaciated body from the bed. When he did have the strength, he would walk the stone stairs of the monastery to exercise and rebuild what muscle he could.

If he wasn’t exploring the grassy surroundings of the monastery, Elly was with his father and the other survivors in their room. Conversations filled the long stone halls with lively voices: German, Polish, Hebrew, Yiddish, and Russian, among others. The rows of beds the only soft surfaces to mute the echoes.

Like everyone there, Elly had been rescued from the darkest of situations. His body saved from slave labour and starving conditions that would have taken his life eventually, his mind saved from the constant presence of death and the thought that, at any moment, he or his father could be killed.

While the physical torture of the Holocaust was over, Elly’s mind remained in a dark place. He was full of hate for those who had done such horrible things to him and millions of other Jewish people across Europe. By the end of World War II, over fifteen million people had been killed by the Nazi regime. Six million of these were European Jews, singled out for genocide by the Nazis and murdered in mass killings at concentration camps as part of the Holocaust—what the Jewish community now calls the Shoah.

Slowly gaining back their strength, Elly and his father spent their days trying to find Elly’s mother and the rest of the family, sending frantic letters to the Red Cross. As they did this, Elly wondered: Could he ever live a meaningful life? Was he to be forever full of hate for the people who had done this? At night, when he couldn’t sleep, he thought about the hate that had begun to overwhelm him. He knew his entire life would be defined not only by what happened to him and his family during the war, but also by how he chose to let it affect his future. He had a choice to make.

•••

Four years later, Elly was in Johannesburg, South Africa, studying to become an electrical engineer at Witwatersrand (Wits) University. To do so he had to leave his parents who were living in Rhodesia (known today as Zimbabwe). Despite the difficulty of being away from his family after they had endured so much to be reunited, he was thrilled to be attending university and learning about two of his favorite subjects: physics and engineering.

For Elly, the best part of university was being surrounded by other people interested in science. He and his friends would come to class early to talk about everything happening in the world. At the time, major scientific fields were undergoing a revolution. Albert Einstein’s theories were still new, being hotly tested and debated in physics lectures around the world. The computer chip had only recently been invented and was paving the way forward beyond the primitive technology of World War II, and engineers in America and Russia were successfully launching rockets high enough to pierce the atmosphere and into space.

Elly would walk to class among Johannesburg’s world-famous Jacaranda trees that gave the Wits University campus a bright purple hue amongst the otherwise green landscape. As beautiful as the Wits campus was, his gaze was never limited to just the greenery. Whenever a plane flew overhead, Elly would stop. He would try to see if he could tell what kind it was. He was absolutely fascinated by flight. Before the war, his dream had been to become a pilot, to control a machine in the air and leave the ground behind.

After the war, things felt a bit different. Becoming a pilot didn’t seem realistic. First and foremost, Elly wanted an education. He decided to become an engineer, and his talents made him well-suited to chase this goal. He loved to create new ways of doing things, to invent machines to solve problems, and to question old beliefs. In short, he was a born inventor, able to think differently than others his age and always curious if things could be done a new way…though this habit of questioning things didn’t always do Elly favors.

One semester, when his class was learning about the makeup of waveforms, Elly doubted his professor’s claim that an irregular wave can be broken into an endless number of regular sine waves. The professor proceeded to schedule a lesson specifically to prove that the theory was correct. That day Elly happened to be late, arriving a few minutes into the lecture. As he walked into the lab, he immediately heard the professor say, “There he is, the doubting Thomas”—an old nickname for people who are skeptical by nature.

After the professor successfully proved the nature of irregular waves, Elly would have to put up with being called “doubting Thomas” for a few more years. But he wasn’t bothered by his reputation for being curious and questioning. He knew his curiosity drove his desire and ability to learn. Eventually it paid off. In 1952, Elly graduated from Wits University with a degree in electrical engineering.

After graduation he moved back to Rhodesia to reunite with his parents. At that time, the economy there was far from booming. Unable to find a job as an engineer, Elly put his degree to work and opened a radio repair shop. His people skills and technical know-how led to success, and he eventually opened a recording studio. In these years Elly met his wife, Esme, and had three children. When the opportunity presented itself, he moved back to South Africa to open and operate a plastics factory.

Sadly, South Africa in the 1950s brought new scenes of horror to Elly’s life. Racism was everywhere. Many of the white people of South Africa treated black Africans as second class, lesser humans. Elly had seen it before. He worried what would happen to his children if his family remained there, not wanting them to grow up surrounded by racism and the violence that follows it.

Because of the atmosphere in South Africa, Elly and his wife knew it was time to leave. Nothing good could come from being surrounded by so much hate, and as a recent immigrant Elly was powerless to stop it. In search of a better life for their children, he and his wife moved their family to Toronto, Canada.

They arrived in Toronto in 1964, where they bought a bungalow in the suburbs. Elly joined his brothers-in-law in operating a plastics factory in the industrial heart of the city. Canada was different from the other places he had lived, and the adjustment for his family was at times a challenge. But moving to North America came with perks as well. Elly noticed that the Canadian newspapers were full of news about NASA and spaceflight.

The engineer in him wanted to know everything—how NASA built the spacecraft, how they designed the fuel pumps, how they balanced such huge machines…everything. At the same time, Elly had never let go of his childhood dream. The aspiring pilot in him wanted to know what it felt like to sit on a rocket and launch into outer space.

In time, Elly became very successful in Toronto. His drive to learn, invent, and try new things soon paid off, presenting him with rewarding experiences and allowing him to support hundreds of people by providing them with well-paying jobs at his factory. He was also able to save for his children’s education, knowing they wouldn’t have the same difficulty he did getting high school diplomas or going to college.

Eventually, Elly and his family became Canadian citizens. He had lived in Lithuania, Germany, Norway, Rhodesia, South Africa, and now Canada. So, while he was now a proud Canadian, Elly Gotz was truly a citizen of the world. Ultimately, though, what mattered to him was not national identity or pride, but that he and his family were safe and happy. For this, Elly loved Canada. He became an active community member, volunteer, and a member of his synagogue. In the decade that followed, as a generation matured that had never experienced the Holocaust (including his own children), Elly began speaking publicly about the horrors of the Holocaust. Through his own story he would impress upon countless children the danger of one simple feeling: hate.

•••

It was a hot Sunday in July. Elly’s home was empty. The kids were at their cottage by the lake with Esme. He spent most of the day doing a mix of reading, fixing things around the house, and working in the yard. It was an incredibly warm day in Toronto—with the humidity it felt nearly 30°C (about 86°F) all afternoon.

After a few hours in the garden, it was about four o’clock. The summer sun was unrelenting, even as its angle was starting to allow for more shade behind the house. It was time for a break. To cool himself down during the day, Elly would make his way into the basement. While the basement was significantly cooler than the rest of the house, there was another reason he wanted to go down there.

Today was the day that NASA would be landing on the Moon, and the family’s brand new color TV was in the basement. Elly needed to keep checking in to see how the mission was progressing. He sat on the green basement couch and put his glass of water on the wooden coffee table in front of him. As condensation quickly formed around the outside of the glass, he turned on the TV.

The TV’s sound came on before the cathode ray screen had time to warm up and show a picture. Elly could hear newscasters describe the status of the mission. When the screen turned on, he saw that they were describing the landing procedure over images of NASA’s mission control room in Houston. He had gone downstairs just in time. The lunar landing was imminent.

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were on a descending flight path, taking them closer and closer to the lunar surface, with each kilometer they traveled like a plane coming in for landing. They would soon land at their target in the Mare Tranquillitatis region, just above the Moon’s equator on the side facing Earth (the same side of the moon always faces Earth).

In that moment, Elly actually began to feel a bit nervous. With a background in electrical engineering, he knew how many points of failure there were in a machine as complex as the Lunar Module. Just one circuit failure or blown transistor and the astronauts might not be able to land. The entire event would be a disaster and two men would be marooned to die in space.

With the sun’s beams still blasting through the narrow basement windows, Elly listened to the voice of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) news anchor explaining that there would be no video of the actual landing. The TV cameras could only be turned on and connected to Earth once they were safely on the moon’s surface. The screen cut to a countdown clock and animation of the Lunar Module. Elly leaned forward and listened closely, cautiously, as the live audio from the astronauts played over a cartoon animation of the spacecraft descending.

He could hear Buzz Aldrin speaking with ground control in Houston, as well as to Armstrong, who was piloting the LEM. Buzz was reading out numbers from the computer, rattling off how high they still were above the surface and how much fuel was remaining. The power of those computers Buzz was reading from was unimaginable to Elly—they were the best of the best and were designed specifically to help humans fly in this strange environment on the Moon. He grew jumpier as he started thinking about the hundreds of transistors and circuits that must be operating at full capacity. After all, in his time running factories and radio repair stores, he had seen hundreds, if not thousands, of blown fuses, corroded connections, and faulty components. Knowing the nature of machines, he couldn’t help but be tense. He grabbed his glass of water, the ice cubes mostly melted away by now, and took another sip, hoping for the best.

As nervous as he was, the aspiring pilot and adventurer was still alive in Elly. This side of him wasn’t nervous at all, but actually jealous. What did it feel like to see the Moon’s surface coming increasingly closer to you? How did it feel to fly with no atmosphere? With no resistance, did it feel like the spacecraft wanted to drop like a stone? Could the astronauts feel the thrust of the descent engine? Every push of the navigation thrusters? What would they do if the main descent engine failed? The Lunar Module was like a single engine aircraft, with no backup plan if things went wrong. If an airplane experiences engine failure on Earth, pilots can glide to a safe landing thanks to atmospheric lift. But the moon has no atmosphere—if the engine failed, the Lunar Module would immediately plummet to the surface and crash.

Just as he continued to think about all of the possible electrical risks, mechanical risks, and flight risks, Elly heard Neil Armstrong interrupt a brief period of silence: “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”

They had done it.

Finally able to relax, he leaned back into the couch and smiled. Forty-one years old, father of three, and a citizen of the world, Elly Gotz had one simple reaction: “Wow, what a moment!” Two astronauts had piloted a spacecraft to the surface of the Moon while he listened live back on Earth.

It was about 4:15 in the afternoon. The CBC newscaster informed the audience that it would be another few hours until Neil and Buzz exited the Lunar Module to explore the surface. Elly watched for a few minutes more, then finished his water, which had no ice cubes remaining, and went back upstairs.

He’d initially had planned to do a few more things around the yard, but admitted defeat when he realized he was simply too excited. It was a beautiful day, and the most exciting thing he had ever seen on TV had just happened. The kitchen upstairs was lit up with sunlight, the shine reflecting Elly’s mood perfectly.

Arguably, the most famous image of the twentieth century. This picture of Buzz Aldrin was taken by Neil Armstrong, who played photographer for much of the Apollo 11 mission.

Deciding he was indeed far too excited to go pull weeds from the garden or take on any other type of chore, he instead picked up the phone and started calling family members. He was ecstatic, but had no one to talk to in an empty house. He absolutely had to talk to somebody about what had just happened. He wanted to share what he had just seen, to talk about how amazing it was, and, ever the engineer, to make sure people appreciated the magnificence of the machinery.

Elly had spent years fixing radios and all sorts of other electronic devices. While radios are complex machines, they were nothing compared to what NASA had built to go to the Moon. Maybe, he thought, people who aren’t engineers can’t fully appreciate the technological immensity of what NASA engineers accomplished today. A machine can be very stubborn when it doesn’t want to work. Did people who didn’t work with machines understand how incredible it was to use them to land on the Moon? It takes great engineers to design a machine that absolutely cannot fail during its one and only opportunity to work.

Calling his friends and family, his voice was beaming with pride and excitement. Elly made sure to emphasize the amazing nature of the landing, insisting people appreciate the mastery of machines that NASA had just shown. For the next few hours he regaled as many people as he could over the phone with everything he knew about the space program (and engineering).

As evening approached, it was starting to cool off outside. The humidity was relenting too, at least a bit, and the sun was past the horizon. Only a slight bit of light still pierced the air. It was setting up to be a calm, warm, summer night. Having made his last phone call, Elly got ready to watch more of the mission. He went to the kitchen to make a sandwich, pour another glass of water, and look through the pantry for some snacks to satisfy his sweet tooth. Sadly, most of the good stuff had been packed up with the kids to go to the cottage. But, he finally spotted potato chips and chocolates—the perfect snack foods to relax downstairs with and watch history be made.

With no wind or rain outside, the streets were quiet on this Sunday night. The only sound in the house came from the TV. Elly wondered: was everyone else inside doing the same thing he was? He could see the Moon through the short basement windows above him. It wasn’t a Full Moon, barely at Third Quarter phase, but it seemed particularly bright. Inside, he sat on the couch and ate his sandwich as he listened to the newscasters of the CBC discuss what kind of preparations the astronauts were undertaking. By now it was nearly eleven o’clock at night.

Then, an image came on the TV. It was the side of the lunar lander. Elly had seen the craft dozens of times in the newspaper and during the news coverage of the Apollo 9 and 10 missions. But now it was sitting on the ground, a vantage point of the craft he hadn’t seen before. That was because this was a live feed of the lunar module on the surface of the Moon. The news anchor confirmed what he was seeing. A small camera connected to a long arm on the side of the lander had been extended and turned on. The Lunar Module wasn’t alone. Viewers could see Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong holding onto the ladder along the side of the spacecraft, ready to step down at any moment. The image wasn’t very good, even for TV standards at the time—it was black and white and seemed faint. But that didn’t matter. Live video from the Moon was beaming into Elly’s basement. That feat alone, being able to transmit a live signal to Earth from the surface of the Moon, was surreal in the moment.

After a brief conversation between Armstrong and Houston, which viewers were allowed to listen in on, the young man from Ohio, two years younger than Elly, began making his way further down the lander. Armstrong was stepping feetfirst down the ladder that connected the Lunar Module crew cabin to the ground. He even tested being able to jump back up the ladder.