Yellow Star
Page 9
Who betrayed us?
No one knows.
Later I am told
that almost everyone came running
as soon as they heard
the children were in danger.
(Many did not even know we were there,
that any children were left.)
Later I understand what happened.
There would have been trouble
if the soldiers had taken the children.
Some say the soldiers were going
to shoot us children right there
on the spot,
but they realized
that would have caused total chaos
in the ghetto.
The grown-ups saved us.
Many of the grown-ups
who had protected us
were the parents
of children who had been put on the trains.
They were the parents
of children who got sick or had starved
and died.
The twelve of us,
in a way,
were their children, too.
Later I have time to think about these things
and wish I could have said
Thank you
and
I’m sorry your child couldn’t be here, too,
safely encircled
for that moment.
But in that moment
all I could do was cry and tell myself,
I’m alive.
I’m alive.
Upstairs
A few days have passed
since the Nazis found us.
Now I get to be upstairs in the women’s building.
No more cellar!
Why did the soldiers
allow us children to live?
At first I was happy to be spared,
but then I thought of how the Nazis
would surely return.
Baby Isaac, the girl with the nervous hands, the boy
who talks about food—
all of us are up here
with the grown-ups.
There is no furniture.
Just cots set up for sleeping.
No tables or chairs.
We eat sitting on the floor.
But I do not mind—it is better than the cellar.
Dora says that the Nazis
are leaving us here for now
because they need the grown-ups to obey orders,
to do their dirty work.
If they took the children away now,
the adults would rebel.
Enough is enough, the grown-ups say.
Harm the children and there will be trouble.
But Dora is worried
that the soldiers haven’t come back.
It might mean
that the Nazis
know that we’ll all be dead soon anyway,
so why bother.
Winter Is Coming
There is a broken window in this room.
Frost patterns etch the glass
around the hole.
Someone takes a blanket
and covers the window up.
The weather has turned sharply colder.
The women are anxious about
winter.
We have no heat,
no hot water,
little food.
The grown-ups’ words keep worrying their way
into my mind.
Words like “survive another winter” and
“freeze to death” and
“starve.”
Tossing and Turning
The Germans are losing the war
and the soldiers are pushing the workers to move
faster, faster,
finish cleaning out this ghetto!
It is snowing and cold and
I am having trouble sleeping.
I cannot stop thinking about the Nazi
who pulled me from the cellar,
who kicked me
but did not kill me.
I could be dead right now
or I could be taken away
on a train,
riding with the other children
and all the furniture and belongings that were
taken out of empty ghetto homes
and delivered to Germans
who say that nothing belongs to
Jewish people anymore.
Not even their own children.
I toss and turn on the cot,
until Dora kicks me
to make me stop.
Her kick is gentle, though, unlike that Nazi’s
that gave me bruises.
WINTER 1945
The Soldier’s Story
I help Mother wash the dishes.
It is hard to get them clean
with only cold water.
My hands feel like ice.
Papa comes in
from his day’s work
and tells Mother something
I cannot help overhearing.
Today a German soldier
who was drunk
came up to Papa and some other workers
and said,
“You Jews. You think you are so smart.
But not smart enough to know
that you are all going to be shot
in the cemetery.
Bang! Bang! Dead Jews just falling everywhere.”
Then the soldier laughed and stumbled away.
Mother keeps rinsing a dish.
“Should we be worried, Isaac?”
she asks.
“I don’t think so,”
Papa replies, scratching his beard.
“He was very drunk.
The men think he was lying,
just trying to provoke us.”
Papa sees me and stops talking.
“How was your day, Syvia?”
he asks.
I say what I always say.
Fine, Papa.
And I pretend I did not hear
anything.
Two Large Holes
The next day everything turns upside down.
Very large holes.
That is what the Nazis
have told some of the men to
make in the cemetery.
Here are shovels,
the soldiers say.
Go dig two
very large holes.
Papa is not among the men
out there digging
He is busy talking to everybody.
Some people say that the Nazis
just want to frighten us
so that we will finish the cleanup faster
and make them look good to their
Nazi bosses.
But even if this is the truth,
the Nazi plan is working.
Everyone is terrified.
When the diggers finally come back to the
workers’ buildings,
they say the ground was cold and hard.
The job took all day.
They tell us that they heard the soldiers talking.
They said it will happen tomorrow.
Tomorrow all the Jews will be killed.
Double-Checking
The panic I hear
in the grownups’ voices
makes me want to curl up into a ball
and cover my ears.
We are all going to die!
There is nothing we can do!
“Quiet!” says my papa,
and everybody falls silent.
“First thing,
we need to find out for sure
if this is true
or just a cruel hoax.”
Papa asks for volunteers.
Many men stand.
Papa chooses two to go outside.
“Take the trolley
to the red house
where the soldiers live,” he says.
“If anyone sees you,
tell them the trolle
y was not working
and you had orders to fix it.”
Two men on foot, Papa explains,
might look like people escaping
or spying—
but in a trolley?
Who would be sneaking around in
something so large and obvious?
“Go see if you can learn anything
at the red house,”
says Papa,
and the men are out the door.
It was smart to take the trolley,
I think, looking at my papa,
so brave and in charge.
It would take a long time to walk
to the red house.
The trolley is faster.
And then the two men are back,
and everyone finds out
that there are many, many
new motorcycles
parked outside the red house.
All the lights in the house are on.
“It seems that they have brought in
more Nazis,”
Papa announces grimly.
“Enough men
with enough guns
to shoot eight hundred people.”
Eight hundred Jews.
Us.
Everybody is silent again,
thinking their own thoughts.
Bombs!
BOOM!
What was that?
BOOM!
A loud noise outside.
It sounds loud but off in the distance,
like thunder—
but thunder in January?
“Bombs!”
someone cries.
It is the war.
It has come here.
They are bombing the Germans!
They are bombing Lodz.
This is good news for Poland,
but not so good for us.
What if the planes drop the bombs on us?
BOOM!
Trapped
A woman screams and runs to the door,
trying to run outside,
but the door will not open.
Someone else looks out a window
and sees motorcycles driving away.
The grownups check the other doors.
Locked!
Locked!
The Nazis have locked us all
inside!
We can’t escape!
We will be trapped in here all night
until the soldiers come
to take us to the cemetery!
I cling to Dora,
who clutches my hand hard.
There is so much noise
because of the grownups shouting
and the bombs dropping.
Then a voice raises
above the panic
and says something
that makes the room go quiet.
“I have a key.”
The Key
Dora whispers in my ear,
“I know that man.
He’s called the Director.
People hate him because he works for the Nazis,
even though he’s Jewish.
He sucks up to the soldiers
all the time.”
The Director kept talking:
“I took this key yesterday,
from an office
when I was at work.”
The Director holds up the key.
I am not too far away from him.
I can see his hand shaking.
“I am going to be in trouble for this,”
he says
and puts the key in the door.
“Go!” he shouts.
“Save yourselves!”
He pushes the door and
flings it wide open.
Running in Circles
Some people run outside right away.
“Wait!” Papa yells to the rest.
“Let’s organize in groups
to decide who is going where!
Our chances will be better
than if we just scatter like loose chickens.”
Our group includes my family,
baby Isaac and his parents,
and a few others.
“I remember where there’s a good cellar,”
Papa tells us.
“Go grab some bread from the kitchen
and jugs of water.
Then we’ll go to the place I’m thinking of.”
Soon we have bread and water
and are ready to go.
We race outside,
but after just a few steps,
everybody stops.
The snow!
The snow is so deep,
it is hard to lift our feet.
“They will see our footprints
in the snow.”
Papa groans.
“All they’ll have to do is
follow our footprints
and find us!”
We stand there for a minute,
like statues in the snow.
Then Papa comes up with an idea.
“We’ll run in circles
so our footprints are all mixed up!
Come on, everyone,
go this way and that way.”
So we go in circles,
spreading ourselves out but still
following in Papa’s general direction.
Stomp! Stomp!
I am getting tired.
My breath comes out in foggy puffs,
but I keep moving,
and then
we reach a road
where the snow has melted.
There are motorcycle tracks
in the mud,
but when we walk,
the ground is so frozen,
our feet do not leave prints.
No more circles,
just straight running now.
The booming sound has stopped.
The ghetto is still, quiet.
Across the Street
“Not much further now,”
Papa says. “Almost there.”
Soon we are standing behind
an apartment building.
Papa leads us to the back door.
It is open.
We all go inside our new hiding place.
No lights.
I can’t see very much.
No heat.
It is as cold as outside.
Then Uncle Haskel peers through a front window
and exclaims,
“Isaac! Are you meshuggah?
We are directly across the street
from the red house!
From the Nazis!”
“Ah,” my Papa says,
“where do you think the soldiers
will be least likely to look?
Right in front of them!
This way, too, we will be able to keep
our eye on them.”
It is good to hear the grownups
laugh a little,
even though I’m cold and tired
and a little confused.
Flour House
This building is where Papa used to work.
It was used for flour storage.
Sure enough,
when the men look down in the cellar,
there are bags of flour.
At least we’ll have that to eat,
the grownups say,
but no one looks too happy about
having to eat dry flour.
There are shades on the windows,
perfect for blocking us from the
Nazis’ view.
Papa cuts out a tiny hole
in one of the shades,
so we can check on the soldiers’
comings and goings.
I wish it weren’t so cold,
but we can’t use the oven to warm up
because the Nazis would spot the smoke
from the chimney.
We huddle together for warmth.
For now we ar
e at least safe,
safe in our flour house.
We don’t hear any more loud booms that night.
The Icebox
Our bread and water
have run out
after only a couple of days.
Flour cannot be swallowed very well
dry.
It is an icebox in here.
We watch our breath
form clouds,
as we try to survive minute by minute,
breath by breath.
The Nazis are still out there,
only footsteps away.
As another night falls on the ghetto,
I think about how easy it would be
to fall asleep and just never
wake up.
I wonder if it is warm in heaven.
Being Brave
I am having trouble sleeping tonight.
Dozing off and on,
listening to grownups snoring,
the wind whistling through cracks in the walls.
Then I hear something else.
Boom!
What was that sound?
Did I imagine it?
Am I dreaming?
Nobody else is awake.
Just me.
Boom! Boom!
There it is again!
A little louder!
It’s the bombs,
and it sounds like they are getting closer.
zzzzmmmm, zzzzmmmm!
Another noise
coming from right outside.
I am so drowsy, my head feels foggy, like I might
drift into sleep.
It would be so simple to just stay tucked between
my parents,
safe in the warmth of their bodies,
but something tells me,
Stay awake! Get up!
I think it is my gut.
I get up off the floor,
my legs and arms stiff and cold.
I step over sleeping bodies
and go to the window
with the hole in the shade and
peep out.
The Nazis are jumping on their motorcycles!
They are zooming away
from the red house!
Papa!
I try to yell, but nothing comes out.
My throat is dry from no water.
My legs crumple under me, and I fall to the floor.
Boomboomboom.
The noise is getting louder. I think of all the times in my life I have had to worry and wonder and wait for somebody else to save me, and this time I know it is up to me.
I am brave, I remind myself.
Remember the pears.
I pull myself up a bit
and crawl across the hard floor on my knees,
over to my family.
I shake Papa
as hard as I can,
and he is awake.
“The Nazis.” I struggle to get the words out.
“They are leaving!”
Boom! Boom!
Papa jumps up fast and yells,
“Everybody wake up!
Wake up!”
Walking Out
The building starts to shake
with loud screaming noises
right over our heads.
“The planes!” Papa shouts.
Everyone is awake now and standing.
“They are bombing the ghetto!
Get out of the building!”
Mother and Dora rush over to me