by Leon Silver
It was a long time before the trucks were directed to a holding place in the woods near the town of Debrecen. As hollow as Tolek was inside, getting out of the cramped truck and stretching his legs felt good. The soldiers sat down on the wet grass among the trees, broke out their rations and prepared a meal. Sitting on his own against a tree, Tolek gulped down the cold meat concoctions. At the age of twenty-nine, this was his first time out of Poland – his illustrious debut to international travel.
Laughter broke out among the soldiers. It was two of the Jewish soldiers’ tormentors, Nowak and Kowalski. They whispered to a group nearby, pointing at Tolek.
Tolek looked around for his friend Singer but he was nowhere in sight. So he picked up his open can, rifle and pack and strolled into the woods, hoping to escape before the louts could get to him. Nowak and Kowalski, however, followed and called out. Tolek looked around but, finding nowhere to run, he stopped and waited for them in a clearing.
Tolek thought he could smell Nowak and Kowalski as they approached. Or maybe it was just his fear.
Nowak pointed his rifle at Tolek’s stomach as he advanced. ‘Put your hands up and give us all your money.’
Kowalski smiled smugly, taking courage from his friend. He too waved his rifle near Tolek’s nose. ‘You’re a Jew. All Jews have money.’
No one else was around; it was as though they had stepped onto the stage of an amphitheatre. After a moment’s hesitation, Tolek gave them all he had in his army pants, about sixty zlote.
They laughed in his face. ‘You must have more, Jew.’
Tolek emptied his pockets to show them he didn’t. They took his watch and other things of value – a flashlight given to Tolek by Lonek; a two-bladed folding knife, a gift from Ijio – from his pack, then told him to remove his uniform. They stole everything, including his rifle, and laughed as they left him shivering in the Hungarian cold in only a shirt and boots.
‘Hey, colleagues, stop! My colleagues, come back… You haven’t robbed me enough!’ Tolek burst out, angry, indignant. Suddenly, more than ever since the war had started, he realised the danger that some Poles would be to the Jews. How could his own compatriots do this to him? He hated their guts. Traitors. It was bad enough getting pushed around and abused, but would this continue throughout his service? Maybe he should go home.
They came back slowly, pointing their bayonets at his stomach.
‘Come closer, my colleagues, my countrymen, my comrades in arms…’ he was shouting, face red. ‘Please excuse me, my compatriots… I’d forgotten another ten zlote in my shirt pocket.’
Tolek dug into the pocket, took out the money and threw it in their faces. Nowak and Kowalski jumped back, rifles at the ready. ‘Take it, my colleagues,’ he spat the words. ‘My friends, my countrymen.’
Kowalski bent down and collected the money. Nowak lifted one finger and pointed it at Tolek in warning.
A paralysis overtook Tolek. He felt so alone in the world. If his fellow soldiers, wearing the same uniform, had done this to him, who would protect his family?
Collapsing against a tree, half-naked, cold and hopeless, Tolek dozed off.
* * *
He was woken by terrible screaming, more devilish than human. Tolek crawled closer to the sound over the cold grass, hiding behind a tree so he could see into a clearing.
A Polish Army uniform had been thrown on the grass. Not far from the uniform, three soldiers – strangers, he hadn’t seen them before, they were not in his convoy – loomed over another man. They were laughing. As Tolek watched, they raised their bloodied bayonets and the screaming began again.
Tolek recoiled. No. No. Leaning back against the tree, he prayed with all his strength that he would not be found by the monsters with the bayonets. He longed for a mist to hide him. He had already lost so much, but if those torturers found him, he would lose so much more…
In this state, silent and immobile, Tolek drifted once more into a terrified sleep.
When he woke, he was disoriented and freezing. He tried to recollect what had happened. He remembered the trucks arriving outside the town across the Hungarian border. He remembered the two goons, Nowak and Kowalski, following him into the forest and robbing him of his clothes and money.
Then with a shock he recalled that terrible screaming. In a daze, Tolek wandered back to the clearing. He did what he could to return his murdered colleague’s humanity, stolen by the fiends who had killed him. Tolek wanted to apologise for what had happened, but found he was unable to put what he had seen into thoughts much less words.
Finally, Tolek turned from the body to gather up the dead man’s Polish helmet and uniform. He put them on, then left the clearing and wandered through the forest. The uniform was stiff and alien. The only feeling he could identify was one of faint nausea.
He waited until dark, then found his way out of the woods and into a small Hungarian village. Bearded Jews in long black coats and fur hats trudged to synagogue and Tolek realised it was Erev Yom Kippur, the eve of the Day of Atonement, the holiest day. With other Polish-Jewish soldiers, Tolek stumbled into the small synagogue, and the rabbi asked the community to look after them. He had the vague feeling he should be comforted by the community’s generosity, but the torture he had witnessed in the forest had annihilated his senses. He barely listened as the prayers were reeled off mournfully, but the leading rabbi battling to steady his shaking voice brought Tolek slowly back to himself. He watched the rabbi lift his bewildered eyes from the scroll, searching the desperate parishioners’ and soldiers’ faces. He couldn’t hide the truth. Poland today, Hungary tomorrow – they were right in the German bombers’ path. There were no guarantees that, as this year’s life script ran out, this community would be included in next year’s biblical calligraphy. They prayed to be rewritten into the book of life for the next twelve months.
Tolek prayed now with closed eyes, gripping the open Bible in his hand. This time next year, he saw himself back at home with his family, feasting, praying, fasting, feasting again. Celebrating life. Lighting the two candles after the Yom Kippur feast. ‘Blessed are you, Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, who has kept us alive, sustained us, and allowed us to reach this moment.’ Klara covering her eyes with her hand, but always – since she had joined the family’s first Yom Kippur – giving Tolek a sideways grin.
After the service, Tolek was further consoled by invitations from the local men to come home, and stayed the night with a hospitable family.
The next morning he was back in the synagogue. Rumours were rife. Russia had invaded Poland from the east, occupying Lwów, Bóbrki, Stryj and all of Eastern Poland. Already there were stories of trainloads of Polish prisoners of war heading for Siberia. Most were civilians, kidnapped off the street in towns to be repopulated by Russian peasants. Tolek’s homeland had been cut in half and divided between Russia and Germany. Tales abounded of right-wing Ukrainian gangs from Galicia and Volhynia catching Jews on the roads and massacring them, some with Polish help.
Tolek and a few of his colleagues decided to wait until the next day before making up their minds whether to stay in exile with the army or go home. Now the journey would be even more dangerous: they would have to cross back over a Hungarian–Polish border heavily watched on both sides. The soldiers returned to their Hungarian hosts’ homes for a second night.
Attending synagogue for the breaking of the fast the following morning, Tolek prayed. He gave thanks that he had stayed with the army, but also asked for direction – perhaps he could now go home? What a sad choice to be making on Yom Kippur. He believed Russian occupation of Poland would be better than German. The Russians were not as openly anti-Semitic and there were many Jewish communists among them. After the service, he and two other soldiers returned to their host family’s home and had the traditional shot of śliwowica plum brandy with rye bread and herring, then chicken soup with noodles and roast goose to break the fast. But the atmosphere among these strangers was tense; the meal bore no
resemblance at all to the happy, sumptuous occasion Yom Kippur had been back home. Even though Tolek had virtually fasted for two days, he now ate very little. What were his family doing, were they also sitting around a table laden with food and missing him?
One of his fellow soldiers, a single man, had decided to try and make it home. He would change to civilian clothes and sneak back into Poland, hiding by day, travelling at night, walking the whole way. The second soldier, with large family at home, had decided to stay for the time being.
Tolek asked the returning soldier to wait until the coming night. He went back to the synagogue and remained all day, arguing with himself and praying for guidance. The desire to go home gnawed at him, but would he make it, or die on the road? He thought of what he had seen in the forest, then locked the incident away in the deepest part of his mind. He placed Juliusz’s sketch of his family into the prayer book, studying it as he mumbled. For the Jews, the Russians had to be better than the Nazis. Definitely.
But Tolek couldn’t bring himself to return – the risk of failing to reach his family was too great. That day after dinner, the bachelor, with warm hugs from his friends, headed off to Poland.
Tolek and the remaining Jewish soldiers walked to the railway station, where many other stray Polish soldiers had gathered. There were announcements that a train would come to take them south to an internment camp near the Yugoslav border. This depressed Tolek even more: he was moving further and further away from Poland, his home and his family. The platform was crowded with groups of men, officers and soldiers from other units who had crossed the border into Hungary on their own. Obviously the news of the coming Polish surrender had spread like a forest fire. Tolek examined the faces in the crowd: Nowak and Kowalski were there. He locked eyes with Nowak, who nudged Kowalski. They unshouldered their rifles, and Tolek looked away. When the train came to take the soldiers to a new assembly point, Tolek made sure he was in a different compartment.
On the plus side, a few men from his original outfit were happy to see him, especially Lewandowski and Szymanski, two of the sympathetic faces from the water well. They slapped Tolek’s shoulders and offered almond cake they had ‘just stumbled on’.
For two days they travelled, eating food offered by the Hungarian Red Cross and sleeping on the crowded compartment floors. It was early morning when the train – now packed with Polish soldiers – arrived at the internment camp organised by the Hungarian authorities. Tolek and his two new Polish friends walked in full uniform from the railway station to a disused chicory factory complex, which was surrounded by a high fence. There were guards on the front gates and a row of soldiers lined up in front of the army’s First Aid station. Tolek realised one of them was the sharpshooter, Singer, whom he hadn’t seen since before he was robbed. He walked over and grabbed his friend for a hug.
Singer whispered into his ear, ‘Every night, in every hall, we’re picked on, beaten up.’
‘Only the Jews?’
Singer nodded.
Tolek looked at other Jewish soldiers in the line. Most of them had bruised faces and swollen black eyes.
Rubbing his face as he absorbed this new danger, Tolek went to check in. He passed a Hungarian Red Cross vehicle and realised that the first thing he had to do was secure his safety in this internment camp. He knew just how to do so. His boss, Schrenzel, had always sent him to resolve the trickiest situations: charm receptionists at the document archives to allow him access to files reserved only for government representatives, or make casual friends with young, newly appointed off-duty judges. This situation was no different.
He went to a tap, washed his face, combed his hair and tidied up his bedraggled uniform, but unfortunately there was nothing he could do about his stubble. Then he approached the Red Cross vehicle. The man and woman staffing it were attending to a small group of soldiers so he waited in line. When it was his turn, Tolek put on his best smile and asked the woman if he could send mail to Zagreb in Yugoslavia and to Bóbrki in Poland.
‘Sure you can, soldier.’ The woman smiled back and handed him two blue airmail letters. They would supply the stamps. ‘Zagreb is easy, takes no more than one or two days.’ Then she shook her head with doubt. ‘Occupied Poland is a different matter. We have sent letters but very few replies arrive back.’
Tolek nodded and thanked her. He took the airmail paper and went into his allocated hall, where he was reunited with the remnants of his original outfit. There were comfortable cots, about eighty to a hall, and as soon as Tolek was assigned his bunk, he asked who ran the hall. He was directed to two tough-looking guys who sat behind a desk.
The soldiers smiled and nudged each other as he approached, no doubt setting him up as a target for that night’s beating. What could he do? They didn’t even need to check his papers, he just looked Jewish.
Tolek laid the blank airmail letters in front of the baffled men. ‘I am so happy to be reunited with my Polish colleagues that I feel obliged to do something for my compatriots in arms.’ He waited until they exchanged looks. ‘Today, right now, I’m going to write – through the Red Cross – to my family in Zagreb and ask them to send me cigarettes, food, money, even chocolates, to give to you to be divided among my colleagues.’
This time a more positive smile passed between the men. ‘We are very happy to have you back with us, brother Klings.’
‘This will be a gift from all of my Jewish compatriots in camp.’
One of the men nodded with understanding. ‘We cannot speak for the other halls, but in this hall the Jewish soldiers will be our dear compatriots.’
Tolek went back to his bunk and wrote to Ludwig Voyanoff in Zagreb, the cousin of his boss, Schrenzel. When Ludwig and his wife, Stella, similar in age to Tolek and Klara, visited the Schrenzels in Lwów, they had spent a few days at the Klings’ hotel in Bóbrki free of charge, and had become good friends. The plan had been to return the visit in Zagreb, but that would now have to wait till the war was over. Tolek asked Ludwig to urgently send him all the goodies he had offered to the hall’s criminal hierarchy. He also asked Ludwig to get in touch with Klara and his family. There was no doubt in Tolek’s mind that Ludwig would help. He certainly would have done the same for Ludwig. Apart from being good friends, they were from the same tribe in times of international troubles.
Tolek then wrote to Klara and asked for urgent news of how they were doing. He told her to write to him and also to Ludwig Voyanoff. Tolek kissed both letters before he handed them over to the Red Cross. The woman smiled at him.
* * *
Life in the internment camp wasn’t bad – if you weren’t Jewish and didn’t worry about your family at home. The food was reasonable and there was one day’s leave a week in the nearby town of Nagykanizsa. The soldiers were escorted there in groups of ten by a sleepy Hungarian soldier, left on their honour for the day, then escorted back. On his third day in the camp, Tolek handed over an unopened parcel from Ludwig Voyanoff to his hall’s leaders, containing cigarettes, food, money, even chocolates, urging them to distribute its contents among their Polish ‘brothers’. Tolek and the Jews in his hall were now under protection and no one could harm them. At night, there were still the barks of ‘Zyd! Zydzi!’ as the Jewish soldiers in the other halls were picked out for beatings. Every morning, Jews lined up at the camp’s medical centre with bleeding faces, waiting to be smeared with black iodine. Tolek tried to get Singer into his hall but there were no vacancies. He advised Jewish soldiers to write to Jewish charity organisations in Budapest and Zagreb and ask for help. He guaranteed them that they would get parcels of food and cigarettes. Some did and Tolek saw one food parcel arriving through the Red Cross. But Jews still lined up in the morning with bruised faces.
Tolek and Singer sometimes sat outside in the cold with cups of hot chicory coffee, chewing over plans for escape from the camp before they were overrun by the invading Germans or Russians. The talk among the soldiers was that Hungary would not resist for long the pressure of
openly joining the Nazi forces and the interned soldiers would be arrested by the Hungarian Army to be handed over to the Germans. The Jews in the camp knew what would happen to them if that were ever to happen. Tolek, however, knew that Germans weren’t the Jewish soldiers’ only danger, and not even their most urgent. For while he escaped the nightly beatings, Tolek remembered the evil his fellow Polish soldiers longed to carry out on their Jewish colleagues. The horrific scene in the woods kept hammering at his brain, seeking to be aired, and he had to shut his mouth literally and metaphorically to stop it leaking out. Talking about it would mean it had really happened. And what good would knowing of such horror do his fellow Jewish soldiers when they could not escape the camp?
The weeks passed, and one day Tolek noticed maps of Poland had been stuck up around the camp. They confirmed that Germany and Russia had signed a non-aggression pact, dividing Poland between them. Russia had all of Eastern Poland up to Wilno and Białystok and down to Stanisławów. The division was along the old Curzon Line, which had been drawn up by the British Foreign Office during the Great War as the demarcation line between the Second Polish Republic and the Soviet Union, virtually partitioning Eastern Poland to Russia. That division of Poland had never happened, but it was clear the old plans had made it easy for Russia to get what they wanted from Germany now. It looked like the Russians were there to stay; he really needed to get back to his family – preferably as a victorious Polish soldier.