by Leon Silver
The colonel nodded to an officer, who produced bottles of vodka from a box and uncorked the first one. The colonel poured vodka into a mug and lifted it. The men jumped up, emptied their coffee mugs out the windows then stood at attention, waiting for their vodka.
‘Twoje zdrowie, Polska!’ The men threw back the vodka with set jaws and clear eyes.
The colonel started singing the Polish national anthem, ‘Mazurek Dąbrowskiego’ (‘Poland is Not Yet Lost’). The men placed hands on hearts and joined in. Tolek thought the song nothing if not appropriate on this day. Poland was in one of those European corridors where chunks were fought over and cut off for centuries.
The Germans, not to be forgotten in the sky above, chose that moment to attack from the west. Bombs strafed the building, the windows blew out and one wall collapsed. Tolek slapped on his helmet and dived under the heavy table, cringing at every boom. Decision time, make or break, stay or run. A pile of white-painted bricks and mortar smashed to the floor before him. He could smell the debris, see steam and dust in the sunshine where the wall used to be.
When the all-clear sounded, Tolek and the others crawled out and went outside, slapping the dirt from their uniforms. Many bombs had missed the army targets and destroyed houses, shops, cars and pushcarts. Dead people and horses lay in the ruins while others still ran. Tolek felt numb. How quickly I have become used to this carnage, he thought.
He took off his helmet and sat on the ground by the barracks while trucks were being assembled for the troops who chose to go into exile with the army. Many had already decided to quit the army and head back home – why stay with a defeated force? In a time of foreign occupation, their families would need them for protection and sustenance. And his family, his Jewish family, would now be exposed to German dictatorship and pogroms as the Jews in Germany and Austria had experienced.
Bewildered, Tolek watched his colleagues hustle to take off their uniforms, ripping them in their anxiety to be free. They climbed over the debris of the bombed-out houses and ran from room to room, searching for civilian clothes and travel items. One of Tolek’s Polish colleagues stripped the pants, shirt and jacket from a corpse missing half its head. As he rubbed wet blood from the shirt in a puddle – kneeling like a washerwoman – he looked up and met Tolek’s eyes. The man stopped for a moment, then stood up and walked on like any other fully clothed civilian with a wet shirt.
But the army was also getting new recruits. Tolek watched as five thin men in torn, striped rags edged their way towards the cluster of soldiers changing into civvies. Their eyes scanned everywhere for danger and their bodies trembled. Three had handcuffs dangling from a wrist and one hobbled in leg irons. A jail had been bombed or opened, or they had escaped from a transit truck. Now Tolek saw a sixth man, skirting in and out of destroyed houses, then appearing before them with a set of tools. Grinning, he showed his buddies heavy pliers and files.
As Tolek watched, the men set to work to free themselves. One of them flashed him a hostile look, his free hand tightening on an iron bar. Tolek smiled and shrugged – nothing to do with me, brother – the convict saluted, grinned and continued with his arduous filing.
Out of their restraining irons, the men picked up some discarded uniforms and became kosher Polish soldiers, just as Tolek had the day the war started. These criminals would now be evacuated across the border into freedom. No one would check their papers; the uniform was enough.
Tolek rubbed his immobile face to get some feeling back. Should I go home? I have to go home. They need me.
Captain Gultz – who had been attached to another unit in Lwów – joined Hertzcovitch, Singer and Tolek as they talked anxiously among themselves, deciding what to do. The three soldiers jumped up to salute, but he told them to sit down and joined them on the broken bricks. Very unusual.
The three waited, silent. Gultz was a Polish/German name but Tolek suspected it could also be Jewish. A Jewish officer in the Polish Army would be unusual, but not impossible. Yet this was not something a corporal could ask an officer.
Gultz stared down at the ground. He was old enough to be Tolek’s father. ‘I want to advise you three to stay with the army.’
‘But the colonel just said that it was okay –’
‘I know what he said,’ Gultz interrupted in a firm voice. He looked straight at Tolek. ‘That was for your Polish colleagues… It’s better for you three to stay with the army.’ He abruptly rose to his feet and then sat down again. ‘There are rumours… Jews are easy targets and the Polish people are angry about losing the war. Jews who are caught on the road in civilian clothes are being shot as spies – yes, Jews spying for Germany.’ He chuckled to himself. ‘If they show their army papers they are being hanged as deserters.’
The old soldier lifted his sharp blue eyes to regard the three. ‘It’s very dangerous – there is now no law on the roads nor in the villages. As soon as England and France stop talking and start fighting there will be a ceasefire. Germany can’t fight all of Europe. After the ceasefire there will be law again and you can go home.’
He got up and they jumped to their feet to salute again. ‘I would strongly recommend you stay with the army. I’ve heard stories… Germany has promised Ukraine their own state if they cooperate with the invaders, and the military wing of the Bandera faction of the Ukrainian Nationalists from Galicia and Volhynia have invaded parts of southeastern Poland. Gangs of them are hunting Jews down with dogs. They sleep in fields they… they hide and eat grass. The Jews are shot. To get back home from here you need to travel through their territory.’ He shook his head as though unable to believe his own words and returned to the trucks.
‘I’m risking it, going back,’ Hertzcovitch announced, jumping to his feet.
‘I’m staying for the time being,’ Tolek said, as though trying to convince himself. ‘What good would I be to my family if I’m murdered on the road? Europe isn’t that big, I can go back any time.’ He paused. ‘There will be a ceasefire – there has to be.’
Tolek and Singer helped Hertzcovitch remove his uniform and change into torn civvies. Then the comrades embraced for a long time.
‘Give Batya and Itskhok a big hug for me. Kiss Klara and Juliusz. Tell Klara that I’m still taking her advice and staying with the army.’ Tolek smiled painfully. ‘Maybe not for long. As soon as I’m back we will all get together and celebrate.’
Hertzcovitch forced a smile then took off, looking every part a vagabond. Tolek and Singer watched him with envy until he disappeared into the countryside.
Tolek knew exactly what to do now: he was going to seek advice from his family in Stryj. Solleck Nester, his father’s wise old cousin, lived there and he might have some fresh ideas of how to tackle the situation. Nester was the leader of the Stryj Jewish community and, with his wife, had been an honoured guest at Tolek and Klara’s wedding. Six months ago, Tolek had come by train to visit the Nesters, seeking advice on how to set up the dry-cleaning business Klara, who had a knack for sniffing out business opportunities, was eager to start. How the world had changed since then – now it was his job to go and tell them that they faced disaster.
Don’t think about that. Tolek willed himself to gaze at the Stryj River, where small boats overloaded with families and baggage were trying to escape by vigorously rowing around sunken vessels. He forced himself to visualise his wedding, the newly married couple, arms entwined, doing the rounds of the guests, stopping at the Nester family table for yet another l’chaim. A toast to life.
‘Industrious Tolek, marrying the perfect business-minded partner,’ Nester had joked, toasting them. ‘Marriage made in heaven.’
Tolek tried to bring back the essence of life with Klara before he was conscripted. Getting up every morning at four, going to the shop, starting the boiler for the collar-laundering machine. Then he lit the gas burner that heated the felt-covered double rollers. First the collars were washed then pushed through the double rollers two or three times till they came out cl
ean and well pressed. They were then folded down with a hand iron and packed in cardboard boxes for the customers to collect. He was doing it now, among the ruins, his hands, covered in the bombed walls’ plaster, folding down the ironed collars.
Tolek worked until nine, when Klara handed young Juliusz to his grandmother and came to take over. Tolek went home, put on a suit and tie and went to the law practice. Klara worked in the shop all day. Tolek returned at lunchtime so Klara could go to the hotel to cook them lunch and bring it back to the laundry shop, after which Tolek returned to the law office until five, when Klara locked up the shop and they went home for dinner, before returning to the shop until nine. What he wouldn’t give to be there right now. He even smiled, picturing himself, when all this was over, telling Klara how reliving their life together kept him going at this desperate moment.
Tolek stood, pulled up his army pants and smiled again, remembering Klara presenting him with the laundry’s weekly bottom line, her eyes shining. They’d kept delaying plans for their next child just a little bit longer to get the laundry fully established.
Just as well, Tolek thought grimly, not a good time to be pregnant or have a new baby.
Family planning could take a hiatus, but business couldn’t. What did his tatte say? A business can’t stand still or it goes backwards? After visiting the Nesters in Stryj for two weeks to learn the business, Tolek had ordered an expensive Italian dry-cleaning machine on borrowed money. The machine had arrived the morning he was drafted. Unless it had been hit by bombs, it was probably still in its wooden packing crate at the rear of the laundry, bathed daily by Klara’s affectionate gaze.
Tolek shook away the images as he made his way to the cousin’s house. The town was unrecognisable from his recent visit. Here, too, most of the bombs had missed military targets, devastating houses and small businesses. Dazed people emerged from hiding places to sift through the smoking rubble and drag out the wounded and the dead. There was wailing and anger at the Germans, but also at their own Polish forces. ‘Why?’ a woman cried at Tolek from a smouldering ruin. ‘Why didn’t you protect our town? It’s all your fault. You should have shot the planes down with your rifle.’ Hostile eyes followed Tolek from the bombed-out houses; he was the only soldier walking the shattered streets. And he was cursed with that handsome Semitic profile that all the young Jewish women of Bóbrki and Lwów loved and Poles of other persuasions hated. Head down, he hurried on.
As Tolek burst into the Nesters’ house in his helmet, uniform and holding a rifle, the occupants’ faces went blank with terror. The room was dim – all the lights were out and the blinds drawn. Tolek felt the silent air around him as heavy as at a wake. Sad-looking men were packed into the room; women and children must be crowded in another. In the centre one candle flickered on a small table. It threw a clairvoyant-like glow on Solleck Nester’s grey face. Solleck, the head of the family, was transformed: a stooped old man, eyes bulging with fear, mouth clamped shut.
Did these people know that Poland was surrendering? How could he tell them that? Tolek’s eyes widened with a sudden terrifying vision: German soldiers gunning these people down; the next crop of souls, like others all over Poland, awaiting the Grim Reaper.
Slowly, trying to control his voice, Tolek told the gathering of that morning’s announcement. The war was lost for Poland. The military were about to surrender. Then he added, ‘What shall I do, cousin Nester? Tell me what to do, Rebbe Solleck?’
‘You can’t stay with us,’ Nester told Tolek. ‘The last thing we need is a Polish-Jewish soldier hiding among us.’
‘Oh, the uniform.’ Tolek dismissed it lightly with half a smile. ‘I can take that off in a minute.’ He started unbuttoning the battle jacket.
Nester reached out and stopped him. His hands were cold. ‘That’s much worse. We’ll all be shot for hiding a deserter.’
‘You don’t understand, it’s all right. The officers this morning told us that it was quite all right to take off our uniforms and put on civilian clothes.’ When Nester stared hard, Tolek added with a laugh, ‘Really, some of my colleagues have already changed, dumped their rifles and uniforms and are on their way home. I thought that maybe I could stay here until the expected ceasefire.’
Cousin Nester waited silently, his red-rimmed eyes drilling into the soldier’s, and Tolek’s smile evaporated. The flickering candle created ever heavier shadows on Nester’s unmoving face. His skin grew darker by the minute; shadows stacked up, layers over layers.
‘Your Polish colleagues are changing into civilian clothes and are going home?’ he finally asked Tolek in a singsong lilt with a hint of acid. Nester turned to the rest of his people, and repeated the question louder, with a comical smile. Then his voice broke and he started weeping and, like a child, wiped his tears with his fists. ‘The officers told you it was all right.’
Tolek had come for conversation, consultation, for solace among his own kind. For a steadying influence. Just someone to talk to. But his father’s cousin, in a voice etched from cold marble said, ‘From the first drop of a German bomb the Jews have lost what little civil rights they had in Poland.’
Tolek winced. Of course he knew all that. He was stupid to have come. He felt like blocking his ears.
‘The Poles are at home, you, a Jew…’ Unable to find the correct word to describe Tolek’s naivety, Nester shook his head. ‘The Poles are in their own land, their own backyard, their own towns and countryside. You… are nowhere.’ Then he added as though to himself, ‘So are we – nowhere.
‘How can you compare yourself to the Polish soldiers, in or out of uniform? A Jew’s existence in Poland is as fragile as that flickering candle. That was in a secure Poland, before the war. Who cares about a few candles being extinguished in the midst of a war? Who takes notice?’ He smashed his hand down on the candle, knocking it to the ground, then spoke through the darkness. ‘The Ukrainians are already looting, burning and massacring Jews. They would not even need the handy excuse of shooting you as a deserter.’
Tolek closed his eyes. He hadn’t wanted to believe what Captain Gultz had told them. Had wished it was exaggerated.
Avoiding the battery of eyes, Tolek touched Nester’s shoulder in farewell, put on his helmet, picked up his pack and rifle and left. He dragged his feet back to the barracks through the bombed-out town, covering his nose against the stink of smoke and burning fuel. Everywhere, dazed people sat on the rubble. He saw dead bodies covered in charred rags laid out in rows, and fire brigades pouring water on hissing ashes.
Tolek knew from his tatte all about the horrors of the Great War: the trench warfare, the thousands of soldiers killed. But this war was turning into a massacre of civilians. War from the air was less discriminating, it destroyed everything.
He passed a small town square. On the rubble of a destroyed house a woman sat hugging a limp child to her chest. He thought of Klara and Juliusz… Had Bóbrki been bombed? There were no military installations near there, as far he knew. But what about passing columns of military trucks, or retreating army setting up camp? Was the central square in ashes? What of his parents, his two brothers? The memory of Klara’s caress throbbed on the back of his neck.
Tolek slung his free arm across his face. Had he truly believed his father’s cousin would come up with a magical solution? No, he hadn’t. The visit had just been something to keep him busy while he struggled with his decision. There were only two options: stay or go.
At the barrack gates – one of them blown off – the trucks were being loaded. A soldier from his outfit, Kubiak, a Catholic Polish friend from Lwów, ran up, cursing. ‘I’ve been looking for you since the bombing stopped, Tolek.’ The man’s lips were dry and he was wearing hastily assembled civilian clothes. He carried a parcel wrapped in newspaper tied with a string. ‘Where have you been, you idiot?’ he yelled. ‘We haven’t much time. We’ve got to get out of here before the army changes its mind. Why are you still in that ridiculous uniform?’ He tugged at the ja
cket sleeves. ‘Get rid of this. Let’s go, we’ll get you civilian clothes and steal food from bombed shops and go home together.’ The man danced around Tolek, unbuttoning his uniform.
Tolek laid a restraining hand on his shoulder and shook his head. ‘I’m not going.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m staying with the army!’ Tolek suddenly yelled. ‘A few days, see what develops. What good am I to them if I am chased by dogs and end up dead in the flooded field?’
Kubiak stopped moving and looked at him as though he was deranged. But they shook hands and hugged and Kubiak left, merging into the landscape like a fox. Carrying a message to Klara that Tolek was going into exile with the army.
3 Into exile
Tolek Naftali Klings sat on the back of the Polish Army truck, stooped, squinting and cold, his senses dulled. If he were wounded, he’d watch himself bleed to death. Who was he now, sitting with his feet in dirty army boots, dangling over the rusty tailgate a few inches above the road? He should be wearing polished shoes, his law-clerk suit with a white shirt, colourful bow tie and pocket hanky. He should be rushing home after work, sweeping up Juliusz, the little boy gushing, Tatte, Tatte, Klara watching them with a smile as thick as butter. Her love surrounding them like a safe harbour.
It was colder than it should be – the freezing September matched Tolek’s mood. Not only was he abandoning his country, he was also leaving his family in a place increasingly hostile towards Jews. As Gultz and Nester had agreed, there was no law left in Poland to protect the Jews. He thought of clinking vodka glasses with his father after a successful night in the restaurant. His mother, Lieba, sneaking a home-cooked biscuit into his briefcase. Youngest brother, Lonek, asking advice on his university studies. Middle brother, Ijio, sneaking in late after hours in the billiard hall, while Tolek was still cleaning the restaurant. Klara setting the table for family dinner…
An army truck roared past, bringing Tolek back to the real world. With a deep sigh, he pulled up his legs as the truck’s tailgate was slammed into place and bolted. He watched the passing scenery, the fields, the shattered towns, as the convoy of a dozen trucks crossed the Polish–Hungarian border. The villages on this side had escaped harm; Hungary was not yet involved in the war, but the general belief was that Hungary would soon join Germany. Hungarian civilians looked pityingly up at the soldier-refugees as his comrades in arms hummed and talked in enforced cheerfulness.