We Were the Lucky Ones

by Georgia Hunter

  ‘What do you miss the most about life before the war?’ Eliska asks, looking up at him as they walk.

  Addy doesn’t hesitate. ‘Chocolate! The dark kind, from Switzerland,’ he beams. The Alsina had depleted its supply of chocolate weeks ago. Eliska laughs.

  ‘And you?’ Addy asks. ‘What do you miss the most?’

  ‘I miss my friend Lorena. I could tell her anything. I suppose I still do in my letters, but it’s not the same in writing.’

  Addy nods. I miss people, too. I miss my family, he wants to say, but he doesn’t. Eliska’s parents are separated, and she isn’t close with her father, who is in England now, as are many of her friends, including Lorena. She has an uncle who lives in Brazil, and that’s it – that’s the extent of her family. Addy knows, too, that despite the daily complaints, Eliska loves her mother dearly. She has no concept of what it might feel like to live without la Grande Dame. She’s not lying awake at night as Addy is, worried sick about the fate of loved ones left behind. It’s different for him. It’s unbearable at times. He hasn’t a clue as to the whereabouts of his parents, his siblings, his cousins and aunts and uncles, his baby niece – he doesn’t even know if they’re alive. All he knows is what the newspaper reports, none of which is promising. The latest headlines confirm what the Poles on the Alsina have told him – that the Nazis have begun rounding up entire communities of Jews, forcing them to live four and five to a single room in roped-off neighbourhoods. Ghettos. Most major cities now have one, some two. The thought of his parents being evicted from their apartment – forced to surrender the home where he’d spent the first nineteen years of his life, the home they’d worked so hard to acquire – makes Addy’s stomach turn. But he can’t talk about the headlines with Eliska, or about his family. He’s tried a few times, knowing that just hearing their names spoken aloud would help make them feel more present, more alive, in his heart at least. But each time he broaches the subject, she’s brushed him off. ‘You look so sad when you talk of your family,’ she says. ‘I’m sure they’re fine, Addy. Let’s talk of only the things that make us happy. The things we have to look forward to.’ And so, he’s humoured her and – if he’s being perfectly honest – let himself be distracted, catching in their frivolous chatter a moment’s relief from the crushing weight of the unknown.

  As they round a bend, they see the silhouette of the Alsina’s cylindrical steam towers jutting up over the horizon. From afar, the ship appears toylike compared with the monstrosity anchored beside it – a 250-metre-long battleship with quadruple turrets that soar four stories into the sky. The Richelieu has been detained, along with the Alsina, by the British. When either vessel will be able to sail again remains a mystery. ‘We should be thankful,’ Addy says, when Madame Lowbeer complains about the hopelessness of their situation. ‘We have a roof over our heads, food to eat. It could be worse.’ In fact, it could be much worse. They could be starving, forced to beg for scraps, to dig for grains of spoilt rice in the gutter, as they’d seen some of the West African children doing the week before. Or they could be stuck in Europe. Here, at least, they have a place to rest their heads at night, an endless supply of chickpeas, and, most important, a visa into a country where they’ll be allowed a life of freedom. A fresh start.

  At the port, Addy checks his watch again. With a few minutes to spare, they pause at a roadside newsstand. His heart sinks as he reads the headlines. GLASGOW HIT BY LUFTWAFFE, the front page of the West Africa Journal reads. Every day, news of the war in Europe worsens. Countries fall, one after the next. First Poland, then Denmark and Norway, parts of Finland, Holland, Belgium, France, and the Baltic states. Italy, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria have joined the Axis powers. Addy ponders the whereabouts of Willie and his friends in Montmartre who had poked so much fun at the idea of war. Did they stay in France, or did they flee, as he had?

  In a few weeks, Addy realises, it will be Passover – the third Passover that he will be forced to spend away from his home. Will his family try to find a way to celebrate this year? A lump forms in his throat and he turns away, hoping Eliska won’t notice the sadness in his eyes. Eliska. He is falling in love. In love! How can he feel this way, with so much worry consuming him? There is no explanation, other than that he can’t help it. It feels good. And with all that is happening around him, that in itself is a gift. He reaches for his mother’s handkerchief, dabs discreetly at the tears that have materialised in the corners of his eyes.

  Eliska loops her arm through his. ‘Ready?’ she asks.

  Addy nods, forcing a smile as they continue on toward the ship.

  APRIL 7, 1941: The gates to Radoms two ghettos are sealed, confining some 27,000 Jews to the main ghetto on Wałowa Street and another 5,000 to the smaller Glinice ghetto just outside the city. With only 6,500 rooms between the two ghettos, they are drastically overcrowded. Living conditions and food rations deteriorate by the day, and disease spreads quickly.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Mila and Felicia

  Radom, German-Occupied Poland ~ May 1941

  The whispers pass swiftly among the workers, like a gust of wind through tall grass. ‘Schutzstaffel.’ German military. ‘They’re coming.’ The colour drains from Mila’s cheeks. She looks up from her sewing and, in her haste, pricks her forefinger with her needle.

  It’s been over a month since the gates to Radom’s two ghettos were sealed. Most of the city’s Jews – those who didn’t already reside in the ghetto – were given a ten-day notice at the end of March to leave their homes. A fortunate few were able to trade apartments with Poles whose homes fell within the designated ghetto borders. But the majority scrambled to find a place to live, which was exceptionally challenging as the ghettos were already far too crowded, even before the Jewish refugees began filing in from Przytyk, a nearby village that the Germans had converted into a military camp. The Kurcs, of course, had been forced out of their apartment and into the Old Quarter a year and a half ago. They were lucky in a sense, not to have to take part in the mad rush to find a space to reside. Instead, they stayed in their two-bedroom flat on Lubelska Street, watching from a second-storey window as the others filed in by the thousands.

  Soon after the ghetto was sealed in April, however, the Wehrmacht stationed in the city were replaced with Schutzstaffel, who brought along a new era of evil. Easily recognisable by their beetle-black uniforms and lightning-shaped s insignia, the SS prided themselves on being the purest of all Germans. Rumour spread quickly among the Jews that to become a member of the SS, officers had to prove the racial history of their families dating back to the 1700s. ‘These guys are true believers,’ Mila’s friend Isaac warned. ‘We are nothing to them. Just remember that. We are less than dogs.’ As a member of the Jewish Police, Isaac is in the unenviable position of working closely with the SS – he’d seen, up close, what they were capable of.

  There have been rumours at the workshop of a raid. It happens often – a swarm of SS will storm unannounced into one of the ghetto workspaces and order the Jews to line up so they can be counted, their permits checked. To live in the ghetto, the Jews must have papers deeming them worthy of work. Most without papers – the elderly, the sick, or the very young – have already been deported. The few who are left remain in hiding; they would rather take the risk of being discovered – and killed on the spot – than be torn from their families, especially now that word has begun to trickle back to Wałowa about the conditions of the slave labour camps where the deported are sent. Trying not to think of what will happen if Felicia is discovered, Mila has spent the past several weeks devising a plan, a way to hide her daughter in the event of a raid – and praying for her sister’s return.

  Halina had written in February. She and Franka had made it to Lvov, she said, and she’d found work at a hospital; she would come home as soon as she could with some savings and with the ‘drawings’ Adam promised. Mila hoped that ‘soon’ meant in the next few weeks. Their monthly rations lasted ten days, at
most. Every day their hunger grew; every day Felicia’s spine felt sharper as Mila ran her fingertips along her back, coaxing her to sleep. Occasionally Nechuma was able to find an egg or two on the black market, but when she did it cost her fifty zloty, or a tablecloth, or one of her porcelain teacups. They are burning through their savings and have nearly depleted the supplies they’d brought from home – a disturbing reality, considering there is no end in sight to this life in captivity.

  It’s dreadful, the routine of it all – the hunger, the work, the claustrophobia of living on top of one another. There is no such thing as privacy any more. There is no space to think. Every day the streets grow dirtier, smellier. The only beings that thrive in the ghetto are the lice, which have grown so big the Jews have taken to calling them ‘blondies.’ When you found one, you burnt it and hoped it wasn’t a typhus carrier. Mila and her parents are becoming despondent. They need Halina now more than ever – they need the money and the IDs, but even more they need her conviction. Her will. They need someone who can lift their spirits, who can look them in the eye and declare with confidence that there is a plan. A plan that will get them out of the ghetto.

  Mila sets her sewing down, the tunic’s buttonhole half complete, and licks a drop of blood from her finger. ‘Felicia,’ she whispers, pushing her chair away from her workbench and peering between her knees. Beneath the table, Felicia looks up from her spool of thread – she’s made a game of trying to roll it from one hand to the other.

  ‘Tak?’

  ‘Come.’

  Felicia extends her arms and Mila lifts her carefully to her hip, then half walks, half jogs to the far corner of the room, to a wall lined with long bolts of viscose rayon, wool, and recycled shoddy, and beside them, a row of paper sacks, each nearly twice Felicia’s size, filled with fabric scraps. Setting Felicia down on the floor, Mila glances over her shoulder at the door in the opposite corner. A few of the others in the room look up from their sewing but go about their business.

  Mila squats so her eyes are level with Felicia’s and takes Felicia’s hands in hers. ‘Remember the day we played hide-and-seek?’ she asks, steadying her breath and trying not to rush her words. She doesn’t have much time, but Felicia must understand exactly what Mila is about to tell her. ‘Remember, you hid here, and pretended you were a statue?’ Mila glances toward the paper sacks. When they’d first practised the drill, Mila had to act out what it meant to ‘be a statue,’ and Felicia had giggled watching her mother stand perfectly still, as if she were carved from a block of marble.

  Felicia nods, her expression suddenly sober, like that of a child much older than two and a half.

  ‘I need you to hide for me, love.’ Mila opens the sack she’d marked at the bottom corner with a tiny x, lifts Felicia up again, and gently lowers her inside. ‘Sit, darling,’ she says.

  Inside the sack, Felicia bends her knees to her chest and then feels the ground moving beneath her as her mother pushes the bag so it’s flush against the wall. ‘Lean back,’ Mila instructs from above. Felicia rests her spine tentatively on the cold cement behind her. ‘I’m going to wrap you up tight,’ her mother says. ‘It will be dark, but only for a little while. Stay perfectly still, like we practised. Just like a statue. Don’t make a noise, don’t move a muscle until I come find you, okay? Do you understand, love?’ Her mother’s eyes are wide, unblinking. She’s talking too fast.

  ‘Yes,’ Felicia whispers, although she doesn’t understand why her mother would leave her here, in the dark, alone. The last time, it felt like a game. She remembers her mother’s impression of a statue, how it had seemed silly. Today, there is nothing to laugh about in the urgency of her mother’s voice.

  ‘Good girl. Like a statue,’ her mother whispers, holding a finger to her lips and bending down to kiss her on the top of her head. She’s shaking, Felicia thinks. Why is she shaking?

  In an instant the paper sack is rolled shut and Felicia’s ears are filled with a crunching sound as the world around her goes black. She strains to hold on to the faint tap of her mother’s heels retreating across the room, but all she can make out is the whirring of sewing machines, and the subtle rhythmic crinkle of the paper sack, a finger-width from her lips, moving with her breath.

  After a moment, though, there are new sounds. A door opening. A sudden commotion – men’s voices yelling strange words, chairs scraping the floor. Then there are footsteps, lots of them, passing by her all at once, toward the far side of the room. The people, the workers, are leaving! The men continue to yell until the last of the footsteps have dissipated. A door slams shut. And then all is quiet.

  Felicia waits for several heartbeats, her eardrums straining, reaching. Shreds of cotton tickle her elbows and ankles and she wants badly to move, to scratch at the places that itch, to call out. But she can still feel the tremble in her mother’s touch and decides she’d better sit quietly as she’d been told. She blinks into the darkness. After a while, just as her bottom has begun to ache, the door clicks open. Again, footsteps. She stiffens, sensing right away that they are not her mother’s. Their owners traipse around the room, their boots landing heavily on the floor.

  Soon there are voices accompanying the footsteps. More strange words. Felicia’s heart knocks hard against her chest, so hard she wonders if the men in the room might hear it. Pressing her eyes shut, she sips delicately at the dark, claustrophobic air, whispering silently to herself to stay still as a statue, still as a statue, still as a statue. The footsteps grow closer. The floor throbs beneath her now, with every stomp. Whoever it is must be centimetres from her! What will they do if they find her? And then she hears it: a horrible crunch – something heavy, a boot maybe, colliding swiftly with the paper sack next to hers. She gasps, then quickly covers her mouth with her hands. Shaking, she’s struck by the sensation of something hot and wet between her legs, realising a moment too late that her bladder has given way.

  The men begin yelling again, in a singsong voice. ‘Come out, come out wherever you are!’ they taunt. A tear slides down Felicia’s cheek. As quietly as she can, she cups her hands over her face, bracing herself for the blow that’s sure to come. When it does, she’ll be discovered, and they’ll snatch her up – where will they take her? Holding her breath, she wishes with every ounce of her two-and-a-half-year-old soul that the men will pass.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Halina and Adam

  Lvov, Soviet-Occupied Poland ~ May 1941

  In Halina’s half sleep, her brother Genek has escaped from whatever hell he’s undoubtedly been subjected to and returned to Lvov. He’s at the door to her apartment, knocking, for his flat has been confiscated and he needs a place to stay. Halina rolls to her side, feeling Adam’s warmth beside her, and then her stomach clenches as she realises she isn’t dreaming. The knocks are real.

  Disoriented, she sits up, reaching for Adam’s arm. ‘What time is it? Did you hear that? Who on earth – who could it be?’ A fraction of her still believes, or wants to believe, it’s Genek.

  Adam reaches for his bedside lamp. ‘Franka, maybe?’ he offers, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with the heels of his hands.

  When Halina and Franka arrived in Lvov in January, Franka had found an apartment two blocks south of Adam’s. She visits often, but never in the middle of the night. Halina slips out of bed and into her robe, glancing at the clock – it’s half past one in the morning. Standing perfectly still, she waits for another knock. It comes a moment later, this time faster – thump-thump-thump-thump-thump – the fleshy outer edge of a fist beating quick and hard against wood. ‘NKVD!’

  Halina’s eyes widen. ‘Kurwa,’ she curses under her breath.

  It’s been months, as far as she knows, since Stalin shipped off his last trainful of ‘undesirables’ to the east. The NKVD had come for Genek – his neighbours confirmed it, the knock like this one after midnight. Most likely they’d come for Selim, too – she’s searched and searched and found no trace of him. Are they here now for he
r? For Adam?

  Halina and Adam had talked at first about living separately, for this exact reason. Adam’s work in the Underground is risky – if he were caught, he’d no doubt be deported or killed – but Halina was adamant. ‘I didn’t hike across a river and nearly die of hypothermia so we could live down the street from one another,’ she’d said. ‘You have a perfect false ID. If they come for you, use it.’ Adam had agreed, and soon after, they were married in a quiet fifteen-minute ceremony, with Jakob and Bella as their witnesses. Now, Halina wonders whether she should have been so stubborn in insisting that she and Adam share an address.

  Adam leaps out of bed and pulls a shirt over his head. ‘Let me go, see what they—’

  ‘Halina Eichenwald!’ a second voice calls through the door, deeper, also in Russian. ‘Open up immediately – or you will face arrest.’

  ‘Me?’ Halina whispers. Since she began work at the hospital, she’s learnt to understand and speak Russian. ‘What could they want from me?’ She smooths her hair behind her ears, her pulse thundering. They had prepared for a knock on the door for Adam, but hadn’t thought through what to do if it was for her.

  ‘Let me—’ Adam tries again, but this time it’s Halina who interrupts.

  ‘I’m coming, just give me a moment!’ she calls. She turns to Adam as she knots the cotton belt of her robe around her waist, ‘They know I’m here,’ she says. ‘No use hiding.’

  ‘They do now,’ Adam whispers, his cheeks flushed. ‘Our IDs – we could have used them.’