28 Days

by David Safier

  Papa knew, too. I could see it in his sad eyes. He was suffering far more than I was. I would have liked to cuddle him like he used to cuddle me if I had a nightmare. But this wasn’t just a bad dream we could wake up from. The German soldier made us march through the puddles, back and forth. We were a spectacle for everyone to see. The Polish pedestrians looked away, embarrassed, or most of them did. But some laughed, and one man bellowed, “The Jews are in the gutter at last.” While we were being humiliated, I pressed Papa’s hand and whispered, “I love you, no matter what happens.”

  Of course, I had no idea what was going to happen.

  I could hear the Germans’ laughter coming from the funeral. Apparently, they really were having a bit of fun with the mourners. Maybe they were making them dance. I’d heard about awful jokes like that.

  Whatever was going on, I couldn’t waste any more time. I grabbed my bags and ducked from one gravestone to the next, in the direction of the exit.

  One of the soldiers shouted, “Laugh!” And then I heard the tortured laughter of the people by the graveside. I couldn’t help them.

  This was the ghetto. This was my home.

  3

  Ignore, ignore, ignore.

  I hurried through the streets of the ghetto and tried to block out everything, like I always did, so that I could bear it all—the lack of space, the noise, the smell.

  Many, many people lived here. We constantly jostled one another, even though I tried to avoid physical contact with anyone. All the ghetto inhabitants did. The fear of catching typhus was painfully real.

  And it was so loud, not due to traffic—cars weren’t allowed in the ghetto—but because of the sheer number of people living here, talking to one another, arguing. There was always someone shouting. Either they’d been robbed, or conned, or they had simply gone mad.

  The stench was the worst thing of all. There were bodies lying in several doorways. This was something I never got used to. Many people didn’t have the money or the strength to bury their dead. They simply put them out on the streets at night, so that they would be disposed of like rubbish the next day.

  The corpses were stripped of their clothes overnight. I understood why: the living needed coats and trousers and shoes far more than the dead did.

  I ignored all the begging children I passed. Some were sitting listlessly on the curb. Others with a bit more strength tugged at my clothes. They’d have clawed one another’s eyes out for a single piece of bread out of my pocket.

  I wasn’t going to let Hannah end up like them.

  Ignore. I had to ignore the screaming injustice of it all.

  Apart from all the poor and desperate people in rags, there were rich people being carted to the delicatessen shops in bicycle rickshaws. A woman passed by, yelling at her driver to go faster. She was actually wearing a fur coat on a warm day like today. Still, despite the smell, I could breathe more freely here. Despite the cramped conditions, I could move without being terrified the whole time. There were no hyenas lurking in these overcrowded, stinking streets, waiting to hunt me down. I was among my own kind. People who were trying to keep their dignity somehow, despite everything.

  They wore decent clothes, kept themselves clean, and walked through the streets with their heads held high. They existed without hurting anyone. Without turning into animals.

  The ghetto had not managed to break all of us yet, not by a long shot. There were still good people. I wasn’t one of them, of course. The good ones were the teachers, volunteers working in the soup kitchens, and people like Daniel. Especially people like Daniel.

  I made my way through the masses and headed toward the little shop belonging to Jurek. The bearded old man was one of the few people who managed to endure the circumstances. He was often in a good mood, not necessarily because he made a living buying goods from me and the other smugglers, but because he had lived his life already.

  “I have had sixty-seven great years on earth,” he’d told me once. “That’s more than most people will ever get, be they German or Jew or Congolese. Even if the last years are more of a struggle, they don’t count for much.”

  As I entered his shop carrying my bags, the broken doorbell rattled instead of ringing and he was glad to see me.

  “Mira, my darling!”

  I liked the way he called me darling, although I knew very well that he called everyone a darling who brought him decent goods. I took a look at his display counter and made a mental note of the current food prices: An egg—three zlotys, a liter of milk—twelve zlotys, a kilo of butter—115 zlotys, a kilo of coffee—660 zlotys … If only I could smuggle coffee. The profits were incredible. But I needed more money first, to be able to buy some on the Polish side. The goods in Jurek’s shop were too expensive for ordinary people. Someone working in the German factories within the ghetto earned about 250 zlotys a month. So he could only afford about two kilos of butter and a liter of milk.

  Jurek looked into my bags and said, “You really are my darling!”

  This time he said it in a way that sounded different. Perhaps it wasn’t just meaningless chitchat. Perhaps he really did care for me the most.

  After we’d sorted out what I would keep for my family—eggs, carrots, a little bit of jam, and a pound of butter—he took a bite of puff pastry and decided what he was going to pay me. Normally, he gave me half the amount he would get by selling the goods himself. I hadn’t found anyone who would pay me more. I was no good at selling anything myself, and the longer I held on to the goods, the more likely they were to be stolen.

  Jurek took some money out of the till, which was covered in a thick layer of dust—he didn’t care much for cleaning—and put the banknotes into my hand. I counted them to make sure he hadn’t slighted me and was surprised: He’d given me far too much money. At least two hundred zlotys too much. I would be able to buy coffee next time, after all. Had Jurek made a mistake? Should I ask? I decided not to. I needed every zloty I could get. If he’d got his sums wrong, then it was his own fault. And he could absorb the loss, anyway.

  “I didn’t get it wrong,” he said, laughing. “It’s all right.”

  Damn! My face was like a book; everyone could see what I was thinking. Or at least crooks like Jurek or the leader of the szmalcowniks could. I needed to do something about that!

  “You wanted to give me more?” I didn’t understand.

  “Yes, because I really do like you, Mira…,” the old man replied, and stroked my cheek. It wasn’t an indecent gesture. It was kind, almost fatherly. He wasn’t expecting anything in return for his money. I’d heard a rumor that Jurek had never been interested in women. He preferred men.

  “Anyway, money is not going to be worth anything, soon.”

  Why did he say that? “You mean because of inflation?” I asked, confused.

  The prices kept going up in the ghetto, month by month. An egg had cost a zloty at the beginning of the year, and it was worth three times that now.

  “No, that’s not what I meant.” Jurek laughed, and then he said something that frightened me. “You should enjoy life while you still can.”

  What did he mean? Of course I risked my life every time I went over the wall and it had been a close shave today—close wasn’t the right word—but I wasn’t going to get killed. I was going to be even more careful and better prepared.

  “I’ll be all right,” I said.

  “I’m not talking about that,” he sighed. “Things are going to get pretty nasty around here soon.”

  “What do you mean? What did you hear?”

  “Oh, I have been hearing things, bad things…” Jurek didn’t want to say any more.

  “What things?” I asked again. “Who from?”

  “From an SS man I do business with.”

  Although I liked Jurek, I hated the fact that he did business with the SS. “What did he tell you?”

  “He was dropping hints, saying that our peaceful life here was going to be over tomorrow.” Jurek’s laugh
ter turned bitter. “As if you could call this a peaceful life.”

  “What do you think he means?”

  “I’ve no idea. But I’m expecting the worst.”

  I was worried. Jurek was usually so optimistic. It wasn’t like him to take gossip seriously. There were often rumors that the Germans were about to murder us all. That it wasn’t enough if half of us starved to death. But they were just rumors. And Jurek didn’t normally pay attention to stuff like that.

  “Nothing’s going to happen,” I said. “The Germans need us to work.”

  Thousands of Jews worked as cheap labor in the ghetto factories and produced all sorts of things for the Germans: furniture, airplane parts, even German Wehrmacht uniforms. It would be foolish to do without them.

  “Ah yes, they need us for slave labor,” Jurek agreed. “But do they need four hundred thousand of us?”

  “And they keep bringing in Jews from all over the place,” I continued to argue. “If they’d wanted to kill them, they’d have done it before they left home.”

  Thousands of Jews from Czechoslovakia and Germany had been brought into the ghetto over the past few weeks. The German Jews wanted nothing to do with us Polish Jews. They thought they were something better. A lot of them were tall with blond hair and blue eyes and looked German; some were even Christians who were simply unlucky enough to have a grandfather they might not have ever known who happened to be a Jew. The Germans had allowed these Christian Jews to bring a priest along, to hold services for them in the ghetto. What must this be like for them? They had gone to church every Sunday, and then they were chased out of their homes, had to wear armbands with the star, and were dragged to this hell, simply because they’d had a Jewish grandfather or grandmother! The God they still believed in had a very strange sense of humor.

  “It would make sense,” Jurek agreed, “to kill the people where they live.”

  “But?” I asked.

  “The Nazis have their own special logic.”

  Suddenly, I remembered the soldier beating my father because he had not greeted him. How he would have been struck just the same if he had greeted him. Yes, the Nazis had their own sick logic all right.

  And yet, it didn’t feel as if something catastrophic was about to happen. “It won’t be so bad,” I said to myself as much as to Jurek.

  Jurek forced a smile. “Does that mean you’ve decided to give me my money back?”

  “I can buy coffee on the Polish side,” I said, and sidled toward the door.

  That made him laugh properly, again. “Mira, you are my one and only darling!”

  I left Jurek’s shop and joined the crowds outside. For all the stink and lack of space and noise, the ghetto was so alive that I couldn’t imagine it ever dying. For each person who died now, three new ones were forced into the ghetto. As long as there were Jews, there would always be a ghetto.

  I decided to let the rumors lie and concentrated on life instead of death: I was on my way home to cook my family a lovely omelet with fresh eggs.

  4

  I had only gone a few meters when I saw a dirty little man in rags jumping around on the street. It was Rubinstein.

  Hundreds of thousands of people lived in the ghetto, but there were three people everyone knew. One was despised, one revered, and one made everyone smile. That was Rubinstein. He pranced about in the street like a clown or like a madman, maybe. He leaped in my direction and stopped right in front of me with a sweeping bow, as if he were a nobleman and me a princess. And he greeted me with his favorite words: “All the same.”

  Of course, my common sense told me that people were not all the same in the ghetto, but every time I heard Rubinstein saying or shouting these words, I wondered if he might be right, after all. Especially now, after what Jurek had just told me. We all shared the same ghetto hell, the same fear of dying. Didn’t that make us all the same? Whether we were rich or poor, young or old, sane or insane?

  And weren’t the Germans in the same boat, despite all their power over us? They could still lose this war they were fighting—they hadn’t conquered the whole world yet.

  Anyway, Rubinstein was the only person in the ghetto who wasn’t afraid of the Germans. When he met SS men he jumped around them in just the same way he jumped around us. He would point at them and then at us and keep saying “All the same,” until the Germans started to laugh and joined in, chanting “All the same,” too. They probably thought it was funny, but perhaps deep inside they could sense that they were just as vulnerable as we were, although they would never admit it.

  Perhaps Rubinstein wasn’t insane after all. Maybe it was wise not to be afraid of the Germans. Maybe our fear amused him in the same way that his madness amused us.

  Now Rubinstein suddenly laughed out loud. I followed his gaze: At the end of the street a group of SS men were out on patrol. Rubinstein was the only Jew I knew who could laugh when he saw SS soldiers. He bounded on a few meters until he landed in front of Jurek’s shop and started shouting loudly enough for the old man to hear through the window. “Hitler stinks!”

  I could see Jurek flinch behind his dusty till.

  “Hitler,” Rubinstein shouted, “gave his dog a good old bone!”

  Jurek started to panic. The pedestrians around us all hurried away from Rubinstein. I started to feel worried. What happened if the SS men heard this nonsense?

  I looked around, but the patrol hadn’t noticed the madman yet—he must be mad; why else would he do something this insane? And so I stayed, wanting to see what would happen next, and forgot the most important rule of survival. It is never, ever a good idea to be too curious.

  “Hitler is making love with his own hound.” Rubinstein wouldn’t give up. Jurek grabbed a load of food from the shelf: ham, bread, butter, and dashed out to Rubinstein. He thrust it all into his arms and hissed, “Shut up!”

  Jurek was terrified that the Nazis would come and shoot Rubinstein, and then shoot him, too, because someone had been shouting obscenities outside his shop. Even though the old man believed that we were all going to die soon, he didn’t want to be executed today.

  Rubinstein grinned at Jurek. “I like jam, too.”

  “You little…” Jurek glared at him.

  I understood what was going on here: What Rubinstein was doing was the most insane way to blackmail someone.

  “I could tell everyone that you’d like to sleep with Hitler, too.” Rubinstein grinned even more broadly. The old shopkeeper couldn’t say a word.

  Rubinstein turned around to face the soldiers, cupped his hands round his mouth like a megaphone, and started to shout. “Jurek wants to…”

  The SS soldiers looked in our direction. Suddenly, I panicked. I was such an idiot. I should have been gone ages ago.

  Jurek put his hand over Rubinstein’s mouth and hissed, “You’ll get your bloody jam.”

  The blackmailer nodded happily. Jurek took his hand off Rubinstein’s mouth, and the little man pressed a finger to his lips, to show that he was going to be quiet now.

  The SS men looked away. Jurek caught his breath, charged into his shop, and came back out with a large jar.

  I had never been so happy to see a jar of jam in my life.

  “Strawberry!” Rubinstein was delighted and opened the jar right away. He grabbed a handful of jam and stuffed it into his mouth with pleasure.

  There are prettier sights in the world. Rubinstein smiled at me and offered me some, too. I looked at Jurek. I didn’t want to be rude, but I hadn’t had strawberry jam for ages; it cost almost as much as butter on the black market. The old man looked at me and sighed.

  “It’s all right, Mira,” he said. “At least he’s stopped shouting.”

  As soon as Jurek had disappeared into his shop, I put my hand into the jar and stuffed a huge helping of jam into my mouth. I didn’t care if Rubinstein had already stirred it with his filthy fingers. It tasted amazing.

  While I was enjoying the glorious, sweet, fruity flavor, I realized tha
t Rubinstein probably wasn’t mad at all, he was simply ingenious.

  “Maybe I could be your apprentice,” I joked.

  “Then,” the man joked back, “I’ll show you how to get the richest Jews to give you a five-course meal.”

  “I’d really like to be able to do that,” I laughed.

  A madman’s apprentice! And I’d wanted to be a doctor.

  Rubinstein put his tongue into the jar and started to lick the sides. Now I didn’t think I’d have any more.

  “Do you really think that we’re all the same?” I asked.

  He took his face out of the jar and answered, while red blobs of red jam dripped down his chin.

  “Of course I do, and we are all free, too.”

  Was he being ironic?

  “But that’s ridiculous,” I replied.

  But Rubinstein turned dead serious all of a sudden. “No, it’s not!”

  He wasn’t a madman anymore, or a clown. He was suddenly a man who saw the light.

  “Everyone is free to choose what kind of human he wants to be,” Rubinstein said, looking straight into my eyes. “The question is, little Mira, what kind of human do you want to be?”

  “One who can survive,” I answered quietly, fending him off.

  “I’m not sure that’s enough to justify life,” he answered. He wasn’t laughing at me, but he was smiling. Then he bounded off with his bounty and left me wondering what kind of person I wanted to be.

  5

  I climbed up the stairs of 70 Miła Street. It was terribly crowded. Not because too many people were heading back to their flats at the same time. No, for lots of people, the staircase was all they had. Whole families slept on the stairs and landings, ate their rations sitting on the steps, and stared listlessly out through the broken windows no one ever repaired. When the Nazis set up the ghetto, they didn’t care whether it was going to be big enough for all the people it would have to hold. There weren’t nearly enough flats. Which meant that many people lived in every room of every house, and in the rafters, on the staircases, or in the cold damp cellars. And now, in the spring of 1942, the numbers were actually increasing every day, as more Jews were brought in from other countries.