I Am Juden

by Stephen Uzzell

  In such a state, I passed the night. Terrified to let each breath go, lest it proved my last.

  Dawn lit up the gaps between the planks once again, and found me alive.

  I had survived the night, of course. Mr. Poplowski had not poisoned the fish soup. If I was to continue surviving outside the camp, I’d have to get used to accepting the kindness of strangers. This would be a challenge in itself. Any new situation or encounter, especially with a non-Jew, was fraught with danger.

  Mr. Poplowski returned as promised with a heavy ivory tray. After I’d playfully wrestled Polo to the ground, her master served tea and toast, remarking how much stronger I appeared in daylight. We ate from porcelain plates and drank from dainty cups - the height of sophistication, for two men and a dog penned together in a hole in the ground. After breakfast, Mr. Poplowski produced a satin handkerchiefs from his suit-coat (no shirt, vest only) and loudly blew his nose before announcing, ‘I have a confession to make.’

  He removed a cream envelope from his chest pocket and tapped it against his fingers as he spoke.

  ‘After finding you, I wrote to my brother Anton, requesting advice. He is a practical man with a young family in Poland and a small dairy farm. His reply came first thing.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘You were very ill when I found you. I began to entertain certain notions of companionship, of which an old man must be disabused. You cannot live indefinitely underground like a mole. And I realise now you would not be safe in my cottage.’

  ‘Safe from whom?’

  ‘I have acquired a reputation in these parts as a… a hermit. A man so intolerant of others he once threw a chap into the stream for the crime of inadvertently blocking his path.’

  I was not surprised by this disclosure, although I kept my opinion to myself.

  ‘To suddenly start playing host to a mysterious stranger summoned from the depths of the forest… Too many questions would be asked. I’d be unable to provide satisfactory answers.’

  ‘I do not wish to cause any trouble.’

  ‘With Anton, the very opposite would be true.’

  ‘With Anton?’

  ‘You would be an invaluable extra pair of hands.’

  I wrinkled my eyes, assessing what I’d heard. ‘Are you proposing I work on your brother’s farm?’

  He nodded. ‘Anton is setting out later today. He will arrive by nightfall.’

  ‘He’s coming here?’

  ‘In order to speak in person, yes. We will have dinner together, the three of us. Providing you are amenable, you could accompany Anton home in the morning.’

  Events were moving far too quickly. I did not know what to say.

  ‘Unlike here,’ Mr. Poplowski continued, filling the gap, ‘your presence on the farm will go completely unnoticed. Casual labourers are two-a-penny in Lublin, or they used to be, before the war. You would be just another transient farm hand, as anonymous as you wished. In exchange for your work, you would enjoy food and shelter, a new life, a new freedom…’

  I had stopped listening.

  Mr. Poplowski didn’t know it, be he had uttered the magic word: Lublin.

  The city was on the other side of the border, almost halfway between Wilno and Cracow, where Shoshana had last been bound.

  I told Mr. Poplowski I would meet his brother, and was prepared discuss the venture that evening. But it was already a mere formality. My mind was made up: the two of us would leave for his farm in the morning.

  If Anton’s promise proved true, I would stay long enough to repay my debt and recover my strength.

  If not, I was in Poland, less than two hundred miles from my family.

  Later that afternoon I was invited up to the cottage in order to clean and groom myself for dinner.

  The cottage’s warren-like interior did little to dissuade me from the notion that its owner was regarded as a hermit. Each room was dimmer and dustier than the last, untroubled by such niceties as electricity or plumbing, but insulated from floor to ceiling with several decades worth of curled newspaper. I bathed at the back in water from a heated cauldron and dressed in one of my host’s black and white striped suits.

  After shaving, I joined him in the ‘library’ – rather a grand word for such a shelf-less cell, although well served in terms of the sheer number of books. Undaunted by its general disarray, Mr. Poplowski had what appeared to be his own homespun version of the Dewey Decimal Classification, and knew the location of just about every book we mentioned in our wide-ranging discussion. After my recent privations, the afternoon’s wait was most pleasing. I was reminded of that first halcyon summer in Wilno with Shoshana and Herman Glik, and my daily sojourns to the Strashum Library where I first encountered Abba Kovner, cigarette clamped between lips, hovering over an antique Talmud.

  Anton Poplowski arrived on a well-cared for horse and cart shortly before dusk.

  Facially, he bore his brother’s dark, leonine features - the slicked back helmet of black hair, the raised eyebrows that met in the middle, a reflection of that drooping moustache – but there the similarity ended. Whereas my host exuded a saturnine glower, the farmer was a convivial, hale and hearty fellow it was impossible to dislike. In turn, I felt Anton warm to me in a manner his brother had not. It was agreed before the serving of dinner’s first dish that the two of us would leave for Lublin early in the morning.

  Since our deal had concluded so prematurely, conversation inevitably turned to other matters, namely the subject of my fateful delivery into the brothers’ lives. They deserved to know the truth, and I was sure I could trust them.

  Even so, I relayed my story in reverse, starting four days previously, when Mr. Popolowski stumbled upon my naked body in a pool of vomit beside his brook, proceeding to my encounter with Victor, my brief and felonious stay at the dilapidated hovel (a partisan safe-house, I learned) and concluding with the revelation of Camp Moda, the minor role I had played in the Chaze’s subterfuge and my final escape. It is fair to say my tale was received with an astonishment bordering on the incredulous.

  Several cognacs were dispatched, in quick succession. Mr. Poplowski prided himself on his knowledge of the woods, and had believed the cable-works factory to be still abandoned. He knew nothing of its current incarnation at the hands of the SS.

  The brothers had assumed I was an escapee of Nazi custody, but of an even more heinous kind than the one I had endured. From the extent of my physical degradation that Tuesday morning, Mr. Poplowski was convinced that that I had somehow crawled out of the execution pits of Ponary.

  It was my turn to be dumbfounded.

  Having read the Operational Situation Reports copied by the Chaze - the Gestapo’s infernal murder tallies where every pound of flesh was assiduously accounted for - I could not believe anybody had survived.

  Yet I was wrong.

  According to my host, three people had already dug themselves out through the mountain of corpses under which they were buried. Last Saturday evening, a woman called Sara Menkes clawed herself free of the grave the Germans had left her in, their bullet having only grazed her ear. Traumatised, covered in her friends’ and family’s blood, Sara Menkes stumbled through the forest and collapsed at a partisan camp, perhaps the same one from which Victor claimed to have been excluded.

  Shortly after I had made myself comfortable for the night on the front room couch (out of the kennel at last), Anton returned, a candle shadow announcing his presence down the staircase. I assumed he had left his jacket or reading spectacles at the dinner table, and bid him proceed without concern for my disturbance.

  ‘Actually, it was you I was hoping to speak to.’

  I sat up against the arm-rest. ‘I hope I haven’t said anything to cause offence.’

  ‘Not at all, quite the opposite. It’s just that I’ve – well. I’ve had an idea.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘A proposition, if you will. I thought you might want to sleep on it, rather than being ambushed first thing in the m
orning. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I… that is to say… Well. The thing is, you don’t look very Jewish.’

  ‘I assure you I am no impostor.’

  ‘Nobody is suggesting that. Until the war ends, and that day it is surely coming, I was going to propose… Well. What would you think about no longer openly advertising the fact that you’re Jewish?’

  Advertising? I was aghast. I tried to keep my countenance free of offence, but he must have read my disappointment, for he added, ‘Amongst friends, of course, you should never feel the need to conceal yourself. But unfortunately friends are presently few and far between.’

  Very quietly I asked, ‘Is this proposal of yours is a condition of coming to work on your farm?’

  ‘Not at all. We have several real Jews who hide with us, and will always take more. You wouldn’t have to live like they do, is what I’m trying to say.’

  ‘And how do they live?’

  ‘In constant fear, Jozef. In hiding. With your looks and build, you could pretend to be a good strapping German, and nobody would be any the wiser.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Of course, the choice is entirely yours. Perhaps the idea is a stupid one. I am quite drunk, after all.’

  ‘As am I. Forgive my temper. I am sure you meant well.’

  ‘Sensitivity has never been my strong point. I should have thought more carefully. Whatever you decide, you will be safe as our guest, I give you my word.’

  Nothing was said of the matter next morning. In fact, nothing was said at all. We ate in brusque silence.

  After breakfast, we worked up a sweat loading the horse’s wagon with firewood from another of Mr. Poplowski’s kennels, in case the Germans stopped us. It was a rare farmer to venture from one country to the next in search of fallen branches, but Anton’s alibi was better than nothing, and dry wood a useful bartering commodity as winter approached.

  When the wagon was piled high, the two brothers stiffly bid each other goodbye, no love lost or indeed gained during their brief reunion. I thanked my host for saving my life, a fact he swatted away like a troublesome fly. Nevertheless, I succeeded in shaking the man’s hand, then fought off Polo’s slathering embrace one final time. Mr. Popolowski led the dog round the back of his cottage, leaving Anton and I alone.

  I cleared my throat. ‘I’ve thought about what you said last night.’

  ‘You can spare me the lecture. I know it was crass.’

  ‘Not at all. You were right.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  It was not as if Anton’s proposition was entirely new to me. During the evening of my snatching in Wilno, the kindly processing officer at Lukiskes prison had professed astonishment at my fair features and the proficiency of my spoken German. Later that same night, my cell-mate Ronen Kesselman had suspected me of being an undercover Gestapo spy, placed there to lure a confession. Now, for the third time in as many months, my looks had been called into question.

  In the cold light of day, I knew Anton was right.

  God had not blessed me with a superfluity of gifts. To fail to take advantage of the one I had - my ability to disguise my true identity with relative ease - was more than foolish, it was potentially fatal.

  ‘I accept your proposition,’ I told Anton. ‘From this point forward, I will not admit to being a Jew.’

  A flock of geese honked from the woods, in seeming mockery.

  ‘If… If you’re sure.’

  I ignored the geese. ‘Quite sure. Were it not for your brother’s cognac, I believe I would have come to my senses far quicker.’

  ‘Well, I must say, that is a relief.’

  ‘A relief for whom?’

  ‘For us both.’ Anton fastened the catch at the back of the wagon. ‘I was just about to ask you to hop under the wood pile. You can ride up front with me now.’

  South of the forest at the tiny village of Kushna, our conversation turned to the particulars of my new identity. Anton’s wife came from Hambug; he proposed that for the duration of my stay, I was to claim to be her city cousin, Damian Plotz. I confessed that I knew the Hamburg area well, having worked in Kiel for the best part of a decade.

  ‘As a shoe-maker?’

  ‘In my former life I was a university professor.’

  ‘Good God. That won’t do at all. A German academic grubbing in the fields of Poland – who’d believe that? No, no, you have always been a cobbler. Easier that way. I’m sure Hana can provide the name of a Hamburg shop owner who’ll confirm your employment, should it come to that.’

  ‘Thank-you.’

  ‘The most successful lies are always sprinkled with just the right amount of truth. The trick is, knowing how much.’ After a thoughtful moment of silence, Anton added, ‘Kiel, eh? I wasn’t so wide of the mark after all. We must take that as a good omen.’ He dropped his voice as if the Gestapo might be hiding in the hedgerows. ‘What about your family, where are they?’

  ‘My mother and sister were living in Cracow during the invasion. I haven’t heard from them since.’

  ‘You’re not alone on that front.’

  ‘It is they who are alone. My father never returned from fighting in Siberia when I was a child.’

  Anton did not need to reply. We both knew how hard it was for families to get by, even before the war. Without a male bread-winner, the task was often insurmountable. Fortunately the Sieglers had a secret weapon in our midst: Shoshana.

  ‘You should know that I have pledged to find them,’ I said. ‘After I have worked to repay my debt to your family, I must be on my way to mine.’

  ‘You have no debt to repay, Jozef. If you want to be on your way tomorrow, it will be with my blessing.’

  11

  Anton was true to his word. Even so, I ended up staying in Lublin several weeks longer than I’d anticipated. When I eventually left, it was dressed from head to toe in the uniform of my enemy, an SS Oberführer called Harry Mohnke.

  This book is an attempt to record the chain of events that led to that singular incident coming to pass. At the time, I was convinced that I had no choice. Having already adopted one false identity, I found it remarkably easy to assume a second. But first I would like to express my gratitude to my new Polish hosts, and to say a word as to their own struggles.

  The newly christened Damian Plotz arrived at the farm shortly before 11.00pm that Monday, greeted by his cousin, Hanna, and her three delightful daughters, drowsy from their unusually late night. The middle girl Barbora had agreed to forsake her room to bunk with Radka, the youngest, kindly vacating a bed for me. For the duration of my stay, not one of the girls remarked on the indignity of having a Jew sleep between their sheets.

  Indeed, with the sole exception of one night in the barn, surrounded by the reek of gasoline, nobody ever referred to me as anything other than ‘Cousin’, ‘Dami’ or ‘Mr. Plotz’, although there were certain undeniable signs that the eldest daughter Eva suspected –and, if I may be so bold – yearned that I was not a blood relative. Perhaps the younger girls had never been told the truth about who I was or where I’d come from. Whatever the family knew, they were so convincing that at times I forgot any of us were acting. I suppose that was the point. If the Gestapo ever found me, everybody would be put to death as punishment, even the children.

  The house I was welcomed into was large and clean and untroubled by twentieth-century fads of convenience. Little had changed since it was built some eighty years previously, by Anton’s great grandfather. Downstairs was still lit with oil lamps, candles for the bedrooms. One sink under the kitchen window for washing up, washing clothes, and washing ourselves. The lower half of the kitchen window was patterned with clouded glass so people walking along the garden path would not glimpse anything untoward. The Popolowskis were fortunate to have a water tap over the sink. Most of the villagers still used a well. The toilet was a wooden hut at the bottom of the garden between two pine trees. To go, one sat on a wooden plank with a round hole and a bucket underneath
. Back in the house, Sunday night was bath night – I had missed it by a day, and would have to wait a week for the next. I resolved to leave for Cracow the following Monday, clean and presentable for the family I still hoped to find.

  On my first morning, Anton awoke me at dawn to fetch the cows and help with milking in the barn. High on his tractor, we set out across the fields into a white October sun, tracked by meadowlarks and the prancing family hound. The beautiful and obedient sheepdog Persha was supposed to drive the cows, but her mastery of the creatures did not extend to Fresians. She was no good with the sheep, either, I was soon to learn. The Poplowskis were sentimentalists, and could not bear to let dear Persha go. In addition to the cows and sheep, the farm had a few pigs, some sheep, a lot of hens, a varying population of cats, and two Jewish brothers stashed in a bunker under the floor of the milking barn.

  In the excitement of arriving, I had forgotten about the ‘real Jews’ who also shared my new home. It was only when, after the last udder had been squeezed and Anton sent the grumpy Fresian on its way, that my host took a broom, swept a patch of straw from the floor, then bent down, sprung a padlock and opened a trap door. He lowered a pail containing a freshly-baked loaf and a bottle of water, and thirty seconds later, hauled it back up empty, closed the door, covered it with straw and set the milking stool over the top.

  I accompanied Anton everywhere those first couple of days, eager to help, whether it was feeding the fowls and collecting eggs, repairing the battered ploughs or rescuing a sheep that had fallen into a bog at the bottom of the hill and was unable to right itself. I have never slept so well as those nights, such was the wearying physical exertion of the day-lit hours. The farmer’s life was something completely new to me. I began the week marvelling at my host’s kinship with the wild creatures on his land, his knowledge and poetic commentaries on the weather, the wide blue skies, the brilliant sunshine, the changing winds and panoramic views. But it didn’t take long to see the harsh reality behind the bucolic charm.