Yellow Star
Page 2
is very, very large.
Dora had to lie
about her age
to get work.
She said she was fourteen,
although she’s really only twelve.
The Germans place greater value
on Jews who work,
my father told her.
So during the day,
when our parents work,
Dora watches me.
Then in the evenings,
she goes to work.
“Am I not valuable to the Germans?”
I ask Papa.
“You are valuable to this family,” he says,
“and that is enough.”
SUMMER 1940
The Fence
A fence has been built
around
us.
The ghetto is now a cage
with iron wires.
We are
sealed in.
Mother says,
“Good. Now we are protected
from the Poles.”
Father says, “No,
now we are at the mercy
of the Nazis.
They are holding us here until they decide
how they will
get rid of us.”
Hava and Itka
I have some new friends—
Hava and Itka.
We play dress up
with our dolls,
and sometimes
we play house.
A neighbor made us
three rag dolls
from stuffed sheets.
She drew the faces on with pencil.
We are learning
to sew
clothes for our dolls
from scraps of fabric.
Hava sews the best,
and Itka is the smartest.
Hava’s little brother
is dying of cancer,
so we often give Hava the
best scraps
to cheer her up.
Food
I am standing with my mother
in the long, long line that is
snaking up to the door
of the grocery.
We are waiting to buy
our ration of black bread.
Each person gets a certain amount.
Never enough, it seems.
I am thinking of the
coming summer,
when the vegetables
we planted in the tiny plot of land
in the backyard garden
will be ready to pick.
Then we can have soup
with our bread.
That will make Mother happy.
She tries to make up
new recipes
with such little food
(but with lots of salt,
for some reason there is always salt).
At the grocery,
there are vegetables.
Sometimes we can buy a small piece of meat,
which I later find out comes from horses.
On a really good day
the men Papa works with
gather together
and shake the flour dust
that has collected in their pockets,
flour spilled from openings
in the seams
of the fabric delivery bags.
They place the dust on a scale
and combine the flour,
then divide it equally
among the men.
(“It is important to be honest,” Papa says.)
Sometimes there is enough flour
for mother to make noodles.
I hope today is one of those days,
because before we have
even reached the front of the grocery line,
the grocer stands at the door and shouts,
“No more bread!
All out!”
Colors of the Ghetto
Papa and I are walking hand in hand to a place
where he does business.
The streets are so crowded,
it’s a wonder that we have enough
air to breathe.
As Papa pulls me along, I see
brown shoes, brown pants legs, brown dresses,
brown road.
I look up at the brown buildings
and the cloud of brown dust and smoke
that hangs in the sky.
Bright colors
don’t exist in the ghetto,
except for the yellow stars
and puddles of red blood
that we carefully step around.
“More shootings,” Papa says quietly.
His face is gray.
The Guard
Uniform. Boots. Gun. Cigarette.
The German guard
stands at the fence.
Dora and I must pass by him
on our walk to Aunt Sara’s apartment.
Dora looks straight ahead.
I look down at my feet.
Step, step.
Thump, thump, my heart is racing,
but my feet walk
as if they have nothing to fear.
I do not think of the things
I have been hearing,
like the story of a boy
who went out for bread
and was shot by a guard
who didn’t like the way the boy
looked at him.
Like the woman
who went crazy
and ran straight into the fence
and was shot.
Like the man who was
dragged off and shot
in front of his two children.
No one knows why.
All these stories took place
along the fence.
But there are many other stories
happening inside this fence, inside this ghetto,
that I cannot think about
right now,
because the guard is lifting up his arm
(To shoot his gun?)
to light his cigarette,
and I must keep walking.
FALL 1940
No School
Dora is particularly grouchy today.
She sits on her bed,
pick-pick-picking
at her fingernails.
When I say, “What’s wrong?”
she gives me a sour face,
so I back away,
but then she tells me that today
would have been the first day of school.
I remember
the first day of school last year.
Dora dressed up in a new outfit,
twirling in the kitchen with excitement
over entering the junior high.
Dora had a lot of friends,
girls and boys,
and teachers liked her, too.
“Now I’m here,” Dora says,
“working in a factory,
watching my baby sister.
I wonder if anyone from my old school
even notices that I am gone?”
My sister looks down at her hands.
Pick. Pick.
Kindergarten
Today
would have been my first day
of kindergarten.
I imagine shiny classroom floors,
sunny windows, a clean chalkboard,
and a smiley teacher
who says, “Welcome, Syvia!”
I ask Dora
to teach me the alphabet.
She takes a stick
and draws letters in the dirt.
Dora is not very smiley,
but she does say good
when I get things right.
It starts to rain. It is time to go inside,
but I slip in the dirt,
landing on my bottom.
“Uh-oh,” I say,
“I’ve wiped out A.”
I’m worried that Dora will yel
l at me
for getting muddy, but instead
she sits down, too, mud and all.
“What letter am I covering?” she asks.
“D,” I say (just guessing).
“Good,” my sister replies.
Then we both laugh,
feeling the earth squish beneath us.
Motorcycles
Vrrrroooommmm…sputsputspop…vrroomm!
Motorcycles race around the streets.
Nazi soldiers drive by our building,
trailing clouds of black smoke.
“They drive like crazies,” Mother complains.
Papa laughs and says,
“Why should people with no regard
for human life
follow the rules of traffic?”
Playing Games
Itka, Hava, and I
are standing by the windowsill
looking down
at a small group of boys
playing a game with stones.
Up. Down. Up. Down.
I don’t know the rules,
but it’s something to do with
tossing the stones in the air
and catching them.
“See that boy?” Itka points.
“The one with the black cap?
He is a smuggler.”
He sneaks
through a hole in the fence
and sells things
to the Polish people,
then brings things back
to the Jewish people.
“If he gets caught,” Itka says,
“the Germans will kill him.”
“They might torture him first,”
Hava adds.
I watch the boy play with the stones for a moment.
“Let’s play dolls,” I say.
So we do.
Making Clothes
Sometimes I help
the women in our building
make clothes.
They give me an old sweater
that has holes,
and I pull apart the yarn.
The women use the yarn
along with pieces of old fabric
to make dresses and sweaters.
They must find ways to be warm,
they say,
since winter is coming soon.
There will be no heat
in the building.
I feel the wool
thread through my fingers,
soft and thick and ready
to help.
WINTER 1940
Mourning
Hava’s brother died,
so we visit her family.
They are sitting shiva,
the Jewish mourning time,
in their dark apartment, lit only by a candle.
Hava looks very solemn.
Her mother is weeping.
“We are sorry for your loss,” Papa says.
I feel like I am suffocating in my too-small dress
and itchy woolen tights.
I have brought my doll, although
I see now it was a mistake.
Of course we will not play.
Not now.
I had to carry my doll in my arms
over to Hava’s,
because I no longer have a carriage.
Father chopped it up
to use for firewood.
People are dying in this ghetto,
not just Hava’s brother.
Nobody has died who is close to me—
my aunts, uncles, and cousins are okay,
as are my parents and sister.
But around us people are dying,
some even in my building.
There are many dark apartments in Lodz,
boxes of grief and fear.
When we are back home,
I close my eyes tightly,
and in my mind I see a giant bubble
floating down from the sky,
circling our apartment,
my family.
For a few moments,
I feel a little bit safe.
Rumkowski
On payday,
Papa brings home a little money.
Mother and Dora bring a little, too.
They place the bills in a small pile
on the table.
I pick up one bill.
It feels crisp and new.
It is “ghetto money”
with a man’s face printed on it.
Who is this man with the fluffy white hair?
“He is Rumkowski,” Papa tells me.
Rumkowski is the Judenalteste,
elder of the Jews.
The Nazis put him in charge
of running the ghetto.
He watches over the factories and the banks
and the post office and all of the food.
No one knows why this one man
was chosen to speak for all the Jews.
What we do know is that the more
“Rumkies” pile up on our table,
the more we will eat this week.
Rations
Ration cards
tell how much food and supplies
each person in the ghetto is allowed.
For working, Papa, Mother, and Dora
get one bowl of thin barley-bean soup,
a slice from a loaf of bread,
a little vegetable (often beets),
and brown water called coffee
every day.
I get scraps they have saved
and pieces of food the neighbors give me.
A growing girl needs food, they say,
as they slip me bits of things
that do not taste at all
like the food Mother used
to cook at home.
Before.
Sweet pastries, soups thick with meat and noodles,
chewy bread with fruit spread,
even green beans.
I used to not like green beans,
but now I’d eat them all up.
A Big Girl
Dora has been switched to the day shift
at the factory,
so during the afternoons,
when everyone else is at work,
I have to spend time in neighbors’ apartments.
I am allowed to leave our place
and walk down certain hallways and knock
on certain doors,
and someone else’s grandmother or aunt
will let me in.
“You can do this now that you are a big girl
of six years old,” says Mother.
“I am six?”
Yes, I’m told.
Your birthday was last week.
Oh. Well…
Now I can show Hava and Itka my new age,
using the fingers of my two hands
or counting the points
on my yellow star.
Six must be a very important number!
Chills
I do not like winter in the ghetto.
There is too much cold and
not enough food
and no one is in a good mood.
Sometimes when Dora is bored or annoyed,
she pokes me with
a wire hanger.
“If you don’t do what I tell you,” she hisses,
“the Bad Men will get you.”
A couple of times she does this after my bedtime,
her shadow looming over me,
her warning chilling my bones.
It is rare to feel warm in the winter.
Part Two
During 1941, thousands of Jews from other countries were moved into the Lodz ghetto. They came from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Luxembourg. Conditions in the already overcrowded ghetto became even worse. Many people died of illness, including typhus fever. Others froze to death. The worst problem, however, was starvation. The average daily food ration per person was about 1,000 calories. The quali
ty of food was very poor. Dirt, ground glass, and other particles were found in the flour, and the only food available was often rotten.
With fuel in short supply, the winter was especially harsh on ghetto residents. The people of Lodz were struggling to stay alive. On December 7, 1941, the United States entered the war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Soon after, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. While the world war raged outside, the “war” inside the Lodz ghetto against the Jews grew worse.
SPRING 1941
Live for Today
Life goes on in the ghetto.
Spring breezes blow through
the wire fence.
The mood becomes brighter with the sun.
Life goes on in the ghetto.
There are weddings and dances and songs.
Mothers take their new babies
outside to show them off to the neighborhood.
Pink faces swaddled in blankets stitched with
yellow stars.
Life goes on in the ghetto.
The grown-ups here have a saying:
“Live for today,
for tomorrow we may fry in the pan!”
Missing
Hava is missing.
She went for a short walk on the street
and never came back.
Gone,
vanished,
disappeared.
Where is she?
What happened?
Did someone take her?
Is she still alive???
Why Hava???
The ghetto holds its secrets tightly
and shrugs its shoulders
when asked questions.
Tea with the Queen
Itka comes over to my apartment,
but we don’t say much.
Our dolls do the talking for us.
Itka’s doll: Where is our friend today?
My doll: I don’t know.
Itka’s doll: Perhaps she had another engagement.
My doll: More important than our weekly tea?
Silence.
Itka’s doll: I bet she’s meeting with the queen!
My doll: Of course! Tea with the queen is a good
reason.
Our dolls nod, satisfied.
Itka and I sit on the bare floor
imagining royal velvet-cushioned chairs
and jewel-encrusted teacups
and Hava and her doll nibbling finger sandwiches
between sips.
Of course, deep down we know
that there is no queen
inviting little Jewish girls to tea.
Two Sides
It is bedtime, but no one is getting ready for bed.
My parents are arguing in the kitchen area.
Dora and I listen from the sitting area.
Mother says,
“Syvia is not to go outside
without one of us with her.”
She bangs a pot with a spoon for emphasis.
Papa says,
“Impossible. She can’t stay inside all those hours
while we work. It’s too hot, too lonely.”
Mother says,
“But it’s too dangerous
any other way.”
They go back and forth—yes, no (bang),