by David Safier
Next to me, a woman started to cry, but no one in the crowd took any notice. Everyone was busy weighing their options. Even if most people didn’t believe the deportations would end in death, no one wanted to be sent off into an uncertain future with only a handful of belongings. In paragraph 3) it stated that only fifteen kilos of luggage were allowed per person. Even the horror of the ghetto seemed better than deportation to a terrifying and uncertain future in a strange and foreign country.
I didn’t care about the crying woman, either. I had to find my brother. Even if the Germans said that he was not a relative according to the order, Simon was our only chance of rescue. He had to help us. He had to get documents to protect us.
I set off in the direction of 17 Ogrodowa Street, the headquarters of the Jewish police, which also housed the SS. As I ran through the streets, I wondered if I should go home first, just to give Hannah a hug and tell her that everything was going to be all right, although I didn’t really believe it.
Hannah must be terrified. And worrying about her friend Ben Redhead, unless his parents were exempt from deportation. Who could stop her being frightened, except me? Mama certainly couldn’t.
Then I remembered how Papa had hugged me when we got back home on that cold November day after the German soldier had bullied us. He dealt with Simon’s injuries and kept stroking my hair with his rough hands and said, “Everything is going to be all right.” But his unhappy eyes showed that he didn’t believe what he was saying. The physical abuse had been awful, but Papa’s helplessness was even worse. It wasn’t fair of me, but the fact he had lied to me, even if he meant well, was the most terrible thing that happened that day.
The idea of lying to Hannah and her being really angry with me was unbearable. So I decided not to go home. Or at least, not until I’d spoken to Simon and he’d used his damned influence as a Jewish policeman—I hoped he hadn’t just been showing off to impress the girls at the Britannia Hotel.
It was difficult to get through the streets. Everywhere groups of people were standing around discussing what the notice from the Germans might really mean. As I passed, I heard that the day before, a group of some sixty Jews had been arrested, mainly well-known people including members of the Jewish council. The SS had taken them as hostages and was threatening to kill them if the ghetto population failed to comply with their resettlement demands.
Despite the threat of violence, no one considered the possibility that the Aktion, as the resettlement order was also called, would end in the death of the deportees. The general opinion was that about sixty thousand people would be resettled to work, and that the rest would be able to stay in the ghetto. So many people seemed to believe this, and I couldn’t stand my panic a moment longer, so I started to wonder if they were right after all. Maybe we weren’t all going to be killed. Maybe only a few people ended up in those trucks. Maybe Chełmno was actually made up by someone with a sick mind, and I’d been driven crazy by horror stories while I was reading the notice.
I imagined Hannah and Mama and me harvesting wheat out in sunny fields in the East. The fields would be beautiful. Better than the ghetto.
The idea of sun and plenty of space calmed me down a bit.
It was impossible not to start hoping again.
No one believed that the Jews would be wiped out, except people like Amos.
Because it was easier not to?
Or because it was just a figment of his imagination? Locking people in trucks to poison them with exhaust fumes … surely, not even the Germans could be that sick.
But it didn’t matter whether I believed we were going to be killed or not. I wanted to survive. So I had to do whatever I could. Even talk to my own brother. Beg, if necessary. For Hannah’s sake. For Mama. And for me, too. I didn’t want to. But I cared about surviving more than my pride.
I started walking faster now, and just before I turned down the street to the headquarters of the Jewish police, I saw the priests of the two Catholic churches, All Saints’ and the Church of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, being ordered to leave the ghetto.
Both churches were attended by Christian Jews who didn’t think of themselves as Jews at all, but who had been forced to wear the star just the same because of the Germans’ insane race policy. Most of the Jews in the ghetto, including me, hated these Jewish Catholics. I didn’t mind them getting extra rations from Caritas—but the churches had beautiful gardens and no one was allowed in.
There was only a single tree in the whole damn ghetto, and it stood in front of the Jewish council building. No wonder Hannah’s stories were always full of plants and flowers.
One time, Korczak had actually written to the priest of the Church of the Virgin Mary, asking if the children of the orphanage could visit its garden on Saturdays. He wanted them to get out of the cramped ghetto and experience a bit of nature. Some of the smallest children had never seen a garden. But the priest refused to grant Korczak’s request. Christian gardens weren’t meant for Jews, or certainly not for ones who weren’t of the Catholic faith.
What a lousy bastard.
Why didn’t someone deport him to the East?
No! I didn’t want that to happen to anyone.
Not even to some bastard who wouldn’t let Jewish orphans smell a flower just once in their lives.
There were maybe sixty people standing in front of the Jewish police building, and they were as loud as a crowd of ten thousand. Some of them were shouting for their relatives to be released from prison, while others needed paperwork to avoid deportation. And then there were people like me trying to find the Jewish policeman they were related to.
The crowd was kept away from the entrance by about ten policemen. They all wore different coats. But with their caps and boots, they still looked like a uniform force. They used their truncheons to beat anyone who came near the door.
Jews hitting Jews—desperate Jews.
It was obvious that I wouldn’t get through. The truncheon-wielding policemen seemed to be acting mechanically, not like real people. And they could have been breaking up tables and chairs or chests of drawers for firewood for all they cared, instead of hitting ribs and knees.
So I moved away from the crowd and stood near a couple of trucks with open loading areas waiting to take SS troops through the ghetto.
All at once, the crowd separated like the Red Sea for Moses. And the policemen stopped beating people back. There was a fearful hush when the door opened. Instead of Moses and his followers, a line of SS soldiers emerged.
People who had been trying to get into the building fled in every direction. Everyone knew: Jewish policemen beat Jews up, but the SS shot us.
I couldn’t move, I was scared stiff. A group of Jewish policemen marched behind the twenty or so SS men armed with guns and rifles, as escorts. And one of them—dressed in a light-colored coat, brown polished boots, and a peaked cap with a varnished visor that shone in the sun—was Simon.
He looked much younger than the other policemen. Although most of them would be about twenty years old, just like him. And like a lot of the SS soldiers, too. The only one who was older looking was the leader of the German troops, a blond man with a pockmarked face. He looked as if he meant business, and he had a whip in his belt.
It wasn’t intended for horses, though.
Simon tried to hide his lack of manliness by looking extra determined. Did he use his truncheon to beat Jews like the other policemen?
The troops marched toward the trucks. Suddenly, I was the only person left standing in their way.
I wanted to run away, but my legs still wouldn’t move. I’d frozen on the spot, seeing my brother together with the SS like this …
The Germans headed straight toward me. Led by the man with the whip. The soldiers all stared straight ahead. As if I wasn’t there. Or as if I were some kind of insect they would simply step on if I didn’t creep out of the way.
I wanted to run away, crawl away. I had to!
But I couldn�
��t.
And the soldiers kept on marching toward me.
The clump of heavy-sounding boots rang in my ears. I couldn’t hear anything else. The leader with the whip was only a short distance away from me. Was he a major, a lieutenant, an Obersturmbannführer? What did it matter, anyway?
His troops marched behind him, followed by the Jewish police. The leader looked at me and noted that I wasn’t going to move. He didn’t change his step, though, just stared at me coldly. No German was going to make way for a Jew. And suddenly, I realized that to him that was all I was—something in the way. The Jews were in the Germans’ way.
What did they want?
Utter supremacy? An Aryan world? Fortune? Or just a germ-free life?
Were we germs they wanted to be rid of?
As I looked into the cold, indifferent eyes of the SS officer, I finally understood that they would kill us all.
The hope I had tried to share with the other Jews in the ghetto was gone forever. This resettlement was not just another resettlement.
And now I was truly paralyzed! I tried to cry out to Simon to help me. He was my brother after all.
But I couldn’t make a sound.
The officer’s hand moved to his belt. Would he grab the whip? Or the gun?
The whip; please let it be the whip! I actually found myself hoping that he would strike me with the whip!
But his hand went for the gun.
All of a sudden, behind the soldiers, a Jewish policeman broke ranks and charged forward.
Simon!
Was he going to dive in front of the bullet?
Impossible.
But he was charging toward me yelling, “Get out of the way, you little shit.”
My own brother calling me a piece of shit!
“Did you hear me? Get out of the way!”
He pushed me aside, violently. I lost my footing and fell to the ground. I landed on my wounded arm and screamed. I was in such pain. I thought my stitches had ripped.
I saw black shiny boots, no more than twenty centimeters away.
I looked up panic-stricken. The SS officer had been forced to stop, with me lying directly in front of him. He pulled the gun out of its holster.
Simon bore down on me and shouted, “Move, move!”
Was he worried about my life or his?
He lifted his truncheon and …
… started to beat me!
My brother hit me!
He struck my shoulder, and I screamed in pain and anguish. This was my own brother wielding his truncheon on me and shouting, “Move, you little slut.”
And the truncheon thrashed down on my chest.
The blow resonated through the whole of my body. The pain was terrible, but I managed to obey and crawled out of the way. As fast as I could. Simon continued to thrash me with the truncheon—I wasn’t moving fast enough.
He hit my ankle this time. I cried out. My whole body seemed to explode in pain. Then my brother kicked me and I rolled out of the way.
Once I had been removed, the SS officer pushed Simon out of the way, put his gun back in its holster, and the troop marched on.
Simon’s blows had saved my life.
I lay bent double on the ground, holding my shoulder with one hand and my ribs with the other, as if laying on hands could soften the pain. I howled and moaned.
My brother was towering over me, panting, shaking, ugly with anger.
He didn’t look a bit like someone who’d just saved my life. The very opposite was true. He looked as if he was about to beat me again. He was furious because I’d put him in a position where he could have been shot.
The soldiers had marched past, the Jewish police following them. Simon had to get back in line, go on his way to help the Nazis carry out their awful mission. He would be involved somehow, and maybe even see children being shot.
Even if Simon wouldn’t be shooting, he would be an accomplice.
My brother—who had just beaten me to save my life and hated me for it—was a culprit.
And as I lay on the ground in front of him whimpering, I hated him, too. With all my might. For everything he did to others and for what he had done to me.
He hissed at me, “I’ll come home and help, later.”
Another time, I might have gasped—“stay away!”
My will to survive was stronger than my pride.
And Simon was the only hope we had.
That made me hate him even more.
He climbed into a truck with the other policemen. As the trucks roared off, no doubt to start rounding up the first Jews to be deported, the exhaust fumes reached my nose.
A whiff of Chełmno.
16
The bruises from Simon’s beating hurt terribly. Luckily, the wound on my arm hadn’t broken open. But my ankle caused me the most problems. When I got back to Miła Street, I had to force myself to climb the stairs step by step. And by the time I got to the door of our flat, it was throbbing so badly that it felt like some ball-shaped being with a life of its own attached to my leg.
I opened the door. The family from Kraków were a bustle of activity. None of these people worked for the Jewish council, the police, or for one of the official workshops of the Reich. So they were all getting ready for the deportation. The men by praying, the women by packing their shabby suitcases and trying to work out which of their belongings to include in the fifteen kilograms the Germans allowed them to take with them.
I wanted to yell at them, “What does it matter what you pack when you are all going to die?”
And I would have liked to shout at their Orthodox men even more, “What are you praying for? There is no one up there listening to you.”
But what good would that have done? They would never have believed me. And even if I managed to convince them of the terrible fate the Nazis had in store for them, what were these people supposed to do?
Fight? Like at Masada? These women? With their praying men? And their good little girls who were helping to pack the suitcases? Or the little boys with the long side locks hanging down in curls, playing with a ball? None of them were fighters.
The only people who could really fight were young men and women. People like Amos or his girlfriend Esther. Or …
… me?
Not me. I had to look after Hannah.
I felt like sitting down with these men and praying that my sister might survive. I didn’t really believe in God anymore, but a small part of me didn’t want to give up all hope.
Suddenly I realized that I didn’t know a single Jewish prayer by heart anymore.
Only the Catholic prayers I’d learned as a disguise when I was smuggling. Oh, the Orthodox men would be delighted if I joined them and started reciting the Magnificat. I laughed bitterly.
An ancient lady wearing a head scarf saw me and looked dismayed. I stopped at once. I didn’t want her to think I was making fun of them. I lowered my head and limped past them and felt like an old woman myself. Not just because of my battered body, but also because it was so hard not to warn these people of their fate. Even if they wouldn’t belive me.
I went through the door into the hovel that had turned into a haven all of a sudden. I never wanted to leave it again.
For once, Mama wasn’t lying on her mattress; she was sitting at the table instead. Presumably, she had been waiting for me. After all, I’d disappeared in the night. She must have thought that I’d been caught smuggling. When she saw me, she heaved a sigh of relief.
Hannah looked up from one of my English books—Alice in Wonderland. She wasn’t simply trying to learn English from the book like me, she wanted to see how the great storytellers constructed their tales, even though she could only understand a tiny part of the plot in the foreign language.
The two of them weren’t the only ones who had been worrying about me.
“There you are!” Daniel cried, relieved, but not failing to notice the state I was in.
“Well spotted,” I joked weakly. I
was trying to make them think things weren’t all that bad.
Daniel smiled to please me. One of the great things about him was that he knew when to keep quiet. He didn’t ask where I’d been or who or what had done this to me.
Although of course he desperately wanted to know.
And he certainly didn’t make any accusations along the lines of “I warned you not to go smuggling.” He’d never have thought of doing that. He just put his arms around me and held me tight.
I started to cry.
Because my own brother had beaten me up. Because the people from Kraków were going to die. And because I’d read in the German’s eyes that I wasn’t even human, as far as he was concerned. None of us were. Not even Hannah.
I couldn’t stop crying.
Daniel hugged me. Without him I would have broken down completely.
I continued to sob, until he started to say, “It’s going to be all right.”
“No,” I said, and broke the embrace. I didn’t want to hear him lie. I didn’t want to feel angry with Daniel like I had with my father.
Hannah came over and exclaimed, “You look like someone chewed you up and spat you out.”
I actually laughed.
“What happened?” Mama asked. She looked as if she didn’t really want to know.
I decided I’d give them an abridged version. I said nothing about the aborted smuggling mission, though I did find myself wondering what I was going to tell Asher. Because, deportations or not, the mafia boss would want to know what had happened.
But he would understand, wouldn’t he? Considering the changed situation? On the other hand, the Ashers of this world hadn’t got to where they were by being particularly understanding.
Instead, I told them how I’d gone to the headquarters of the police to try to find Simon and that I’d bumped into the SS troops there. I also told them that a Jewish policeman had attacked me—a half truth was the only way to explain my condition—but, of course, I didn’t tell them that my own brother had beaten me this badly.
“Did you see Simon?” Mama wanted to know.