28 Days
Page 12
But it didn’t last long.
I heard the sound of heavy boots storming our house, but not up the stairs. Instead they went into the back courtyard.
I held my breath and kept my eyes closed, hoping that the nightmare would go away if I refused to acknowledge it. As if that had ever worked!
A voice in the courtyard started shouting, “Everyone out! Now! And no more than fifteen kilograms of luggage.”
My eyes were wide open at once. I forgot all about the dream. Instead, I jumped up and dashed to the window, looking out into the courtyard. I hardly noticed Mama and Hannah sitting up sleepily. And I forgot about my aching body. There were ten Jewish policemen standing in the yard!
Their leader was a little man with a mustache that was almost as big as he was. It would have looked ridiculous under normal circumstances, or if he hadn’t been wearing a uniform. But in this case, his strange appearance made him seem more terrifying than a huge man with scars on his face would have been.
Half-naked, I dashed out of our hovel into the rooms where the people from Kraków lived. They took no notice of me. They were far too busy gathering up their belongings. Through one of the windows, I could look down into Miła Street. A crowd of Jewish policemen had fenced off the street. Some of them were guarding the doorways while others stormed the houses. No doubt in order to round up the people hiding in their homes, on the staircases and in the cellars. And then to load them onto the horse-drawn carts waiting, which would take them to the Umschlagplatz—the collection point where Jews were gathered for deportation—from where the trains headed east.
SS soldiers were standing in front of the carts feeding the horses. They left the Jewish police to round up the Jews. They preferred to look after their animals. The horses probably got better rations, too.
I tore myself away from the view and ran back to our little hole. I stared into Mama’s and Hannah’s shocked faces. Downstairs, the big mustache was yelling, “If you don’t come out, we’ll come and get you!”
What choice did we have? There was nowhere to hide. We should have converted a cupboard or prepared one of the rooms in the cellar ages ago. The attic wasn’t an option, because the police were bound to search there, too. It might have been possible for Hannah and me to climb up onto the roof despite my wounded arm and damaged ankle, but Mama couldn’t.
There was no choice. “Now,” I said to the others, “we’ll find out how much Simon’s permit is worth.”
Next door, we could hear the people from Kraków getting ready to leave. Some of the children were crying, but none of the grown-ups comforted them. The fathers simply mumbled their prayers.
Hannah was standing in the middle of our hovel chewing her nails. She’d never done that before. Frantically, Mama started picking up clothes and threw them into a large bag. We didn’t have a suitcase.
“What are you doing?”
“If they don’t accept the permit, then we’ll need clothes for the East.” She stroked Hannah’s hair. “It gets cold there in the winter. You don’t want Hannah to freeze, do you?”
The cold in the East wasn’t going to be a problem for us. If Mama guessed this, too, she preferred not to think about it.
I left Mama to pack and Hannah chewing her nails, although her left index finger had started to bleed. I ran my fingers along the rough surface of the wooden table. I needed to feel something that wasn’t fear. But then a foreign voice next door started yelling at the people from Kraków, “Faster, faster, faster!”
The voice sounded almost hysterical. Not very old, but harassed and out of control. A jumble of female voices protested; they hadn’t finished packing yet. Their men said nothing, and the policeman shouted, “I don’t give a damn. Move!”
Some of the women started to cry, too, and all of them—as far as we could judge from the sounds—were forced to leave the flat.
Mama was so shocked that she stopped packing. Although we couldn’t hear the policemen’s footsteps because of all the noise our neighbors were making, we knew that they would be in our room in a minute.
Out in the yard, a man whose voice I didn’t recognize was pleading, “These are my parents; let them stay with me.” But parents weren’t relatives, according to the Germans. The man started screaming. He was probably being beaten.
Above the sound of his wails, we could hear a women shouting, “But my husband works for Schulz!”
“Do you have a permit?”
“He has it with him at work!”
“Then you come with us!”
“No! No! He’s got a permit!”
I knew that voice. Wasn’t it the chemist’s wife who lived two floors down from us? Or old Schneidel, who used to give Hannah sweets when she could still afford to buy any?
Then, the door flew open and two Jewish policemen stormed into our room armed with truncheons. They were both young, like Simon. One had light brown hair that had stuck to the sides of his head in all the hectic rush, and the other was shaved bald beneath his hat. He’d probably been plagued by lice not long ago.
“Out!” the one with the sweaty hair yelled at us.
I stared at Mama. She seemed unable to move. Why didn’t she show him her pass?
“Move!” the one with the hair shouted, while the bald one lifted his truncheon. Hannah ducked to the floor. She was trying to make herself invisible.
But she couldn’t.
And Mama couldn’t manage to say anything. I burst out shouting, “She works for Többens!”
“Show me the permit!”
Mama still didn’t move. I grabbed the piece of paper from the table. The sweaty policeman looked at it. I hoped he wouldn’t notice that it was a forgery.
Suddenly, I realized that if Mama was really working at Többens, she should have been in the factory ages ago. Sewing coats and binding artificial flowers, or something. The police would know!
He continued to stare at the paper. Though not as if he was really checking it. More like he was trying to get away from all this madness for a second.
“We must go!” his bald colleague urged.
The sweaty policeman returned from the sanctuary of his mind back to reality. What was he going to say? Was he convinced by the fraud? Or would he make us leave?
He opened his mouth and said … nothing.
“Come on!” his comrade hurried him again.
“Your papers are fine,” he finally managed to say. He handed the document back to me. It was soggy where he had held it with his sweaty fingers. Had he realized that it was a forgery? Or that Mama should have been at work at Többens? If so, he had spared us on purpose. Perhaps he was relieved not to have to hound another lot of people into the yard. Perhaps it was a sign of humanity.
The policemen charged out of our flat. We stayed where we were.
We could hear police commands outside. And children crying. And women, too. And men. None of us dared go near the window to look down into the yard.
Mama crouched on the mattress and stared at the half-packed bag. Hannah cowered on the floor and bit her nails until they all bled. And I ran my fingers along the table. Back and forth, and back and forth, but all I could feel was fear.
19
About an hour later—or it could have been five minutes or more than a year for all I could tell because I’d lost all sense of time—I opened our door and went into the rooms the people from Kraków would never see again. All the time we’d had to share the flat with them, I’d wished the large family would disappear. Now they were gone, and it was devastating.
It looked as if a tornado had hit the room. Most of the furniture had been knocked over, clothes were strewn everywhere, and there were prayer books scattered on the floor, too. I’d never have thought that the deeply religious men would end up leaving them in all the rush.
I walked through the rooms like a sleepwalker, which is why I bumped my sore ankle against a chair. I was almost glad about the pain. It drew my attention away from the spooky atmosphere.
>
In the kitchen there was a piece of bread with a bite out of it lying on a plate. My stomach was rumbling. When was the last time I’d eaten anything? Yesterday? No. The day before that. I hadn’t eaten anything since I threw up all the apple juice.
I stared at the bread. I’d never stolen anything before. Was it stealing if I took something that had been left behind by someone who wasn’t coming back? Would that turn me into a thief?
No.
It wasn’t stealing from the living. Was it stealing from the dead? Was that worse?
But the people the bread belonged to weren’t dead, yet. They were at the Umschlagplatz. Or on a train heading east. On their way to the trucks of Chełmno. Or to work in the fields first. No matter where they were, it didn’t help anyone if the bread was left to go moldy. There was no need to feel bad about it.
Of course I felt guilty anyway, but I picked up the bread and bit a piece off.
I chewed slowly and looked round the kitchen. There was enough food here to last us a few days. We wouldn’t have to go out onto the streets. Not run the risk of being caught. That was wonderful. I almost laughed outright.
With bread in hand, I went to the stairs. There wasn’t a single soul to be seen. I’d never known it to be so quiet. There were abandoned blankets and clothes lying on the landings here, too. And more books.
“It’s like a deserted house,” I heard a voice calling from upstairs, and I jumped and dropped my bread. I looked up and saw Hannah leaning over the banisters, staring at the shambles.
“Damn, you scared me!” I scolded. But she still stared down the stairs looking disturbed. “Are we the only ones left?”
I hadn’t asked myself this question yet. There were so many flats in the building, and presumably there would be people with a permit to stay living in some of them. Right now, they were at work in the workshops and factories and would return to a deserted house tonight. And then they’d find out that their loved ones were gone. There were voices ringing in my ears, “My husband works at Schulz.” “Permit?” “He has it with him.” “Then you come with us!”
I was sure now that that had been dear Mrs. Seidel begging for release.
“I’m sure we’re not all alone,” I said to Hannah.
“But we’re more alone than we were,” she whispered.
I was desperate to make her feel better after all the horror. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s find some food.”
The people from Kraków had not just left bread behind. There was butter and even a bit of ham. And we stuffed ourselves, Mama, Hannah, and me. Watching Hannah eating until she had had enough for the first time in ages made me stop feeling guilty about stealing other people’s food.
“Will the Germans be back?” Mama asked. She pushed the larger part of her slice of bread across to Hannah without thinking, although there was more than enough for once. More than we could manage to eat.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “There are so many houses to be cleared. Why would they come back to somewhere they have already been?”
I felt fairly sure about that, and relieved. I would be able to rest and let my wounds heal as long as there was enough food. If we rationed it carefully, it could last at least a week. If I could find more in the other empty flats, we might last even longer. The best thing was that I wouldn’t have to meet any Nazis or see Shmuel Asher for a while.
“Can I have my own room?” Hannah asked with her mouth full.
I had to laugh. And straightaway I thought, I want my own room, too.
“Why not?” I said. “Take your pick.”
“Then I’d like ours,” she said.
She wanted her own space, but no change.
I looked at Mama, asking. She shrugged her shoulders and said, “I don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind, either.” Hannah laughed.
“I can take my mattress and move out,” Mama suggested.
“There’s a room with a bed next door,” I said. “You could have that.” But she shook her head. “I won’t lie in a stranger’s bed,” she said.
I could understand how she felt.
“It’ll be great.” Hannah was so pleased
It was crazy. We had food and space. We hadn’t been so well-off in ages.
20
Daniel came to visit us as often as possible. Though, unfortunately, it wasn’t very often. Each time when we kissed each other goodbye, Hannah said things like, “Not now, there are children present,” or, “you’re drooling, it’s disgusting,” or, “can you stop chewing each other’s faces?”
Watching us made her miss her boyfriend, Ben Redhead, more than she did already. He hadn’t been back. Had he been taken? Or did he think Hannah was long gone on the trains because our house was one of the first to be evacuated? Was he crying his heart out every day? But why hadn’t he come back to see if he could find her? Couldn’t he bear to know the truth? Or didn’t he love her anymore? What did I know about fifteen-year-old boys and their feelings?
My sister got more and more unhappy every single day. She was so sad that sometimes she forgot to eat, but she never left the flat to go and look for Ben Redhead.
“I won’t go out into the streets,” she explained. “I’m not like the children in the stories. They are always walking into dark forests and haunted houses, even though everybody has warned them not to, and look what happens.”
In the ghetto, it wasn’t just the Jewish police who forced people to go to the Umschlagplatz now. The SS had taken over with groups of helpers from Latvia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Men who had been willing to join forces with the German conquerors as soon as their countries got occupied. For pay, a uniform, and power over the Jews!
These men could let their hatred of the Jews run free at long last. They couldn’t understand more than a few words of German or Polish and, of course, no Yiddish. So they ignored the official permits, which meant nothing to them. And they were immune to all the desperate pleas they couldn’t understand, “This permit says that me and my children are exempt from deportation.” “I work for the Jewish council.” “You must ask! Please!” And even if they had been able to understand, they couldn’t have cared less. Just as the Germans didn’t give a damn if their helpers were ignoring all the certificates and permits they had issued. The permits and passes were the latest gigantic farce.
One was only safe if there was work and housing in the barracks on-site. The German industrialists like Többens and Schulz took bribes from desperate souls who sold their very last possessions to be allowed to work as slaves. For a nine-carat diamond, you could get the whole family a space in the barracks—if Többens deigned to do so. He asked for a hundred thousand zlotys per person. I’d never seen that amount of money in one pile, ever, let alone owned that much. I hadn’t met the despicable slave driver Többens yet. I liked to pretend that if I did meet him, I’d spit in his face, instead of giving him my last penny. But the truth is, I would probably have thrown myself at his feet and begged to be a slave in his factory to save my family.
Anyone who couldn’t find a job as a slave tried to hide. Or hoped that they wouldn’t be among the thousands of Jews deported every day. It was only a matter of time before the orphanages would be next. I still hoped that Korczak and his children would be spared, because the whole world had heard of him. But I knew that it was useless. The world didn’t care about us.
“Since Czerniakow’s death, Korczak has had no contact with the Jewish council,” Daniel said, sounding worried. It was one of our peaceful moments. When we cuddled on my mattress.
The leader of the Jewish council had swallowed cyanide when the Aktion started, because he didn’t want to help the Nazis send children to their deaths. At least, that is what people were saying. So old Jurek had been right all along. Czerniakow had really believed that he could make some things better for the Jews. And when he realized that it was useless—that his whole life was useless, in fact—he killed himself.
“But Korczak keeps getting
offers to be smuggled out of the ghetto. The foreign Jews are actually pressing him hard, and have collected a large sum of money for him. But he says that he would prefer to accompany his orphans to their deaths and…”
“Shh,” I said, and put a finger on his lips.
I didn’t want to talk about death.
All I wanted was to stay lying on this mattress forever. In this room. Secluded from the world. In Daniel’s arms.
But of course that wasn’t possible. At least not if I didn’t want my family to starve.
I’d got it wrong. The food in our house hadn’t lasted long, because of course we weren’t the only ones raiding the empty flats. On the one hand, there were people like us who had been left behind, and then there were also homeless people who searched through every cupboard looking for food. I actually had to chase two people out of our own flat.
Simon didn’t come back once during all this time. He obviously felt that he had done enough for us. Or he was far too busy beating Jews to death. Probably both. No matter what the reason, I had to go and find my brother and make him get food for us.
On the eleventh day of the Aktion, I went outside for the first time. My injuries were all nearly healed, and my ankle was no longer swollen. I was surprised when I stepped outside. It was so hot. The sun burned down. Had there been anything green in the ghetto, it would have been parched dry by now.
It wasn’t just the heat that made the ghetto seem different from a few days ago. Before there had been a depressing veil of hopelessness hanging over everything, but now there was a heightened sense of fear. Panic-stricken people hurried down the street, looking tormented, looking for work, looking for somewhere to stay. Fleeing from resettlement.
Not far from our house, I saw an elderly man with unnaturally blond hair who looked familiar somehow. I needed a short moment before I realized who was hurrying along.
“Jurek?” I called.
The man looked round. It really was Jurek. His smartly combed hair wasn’t gray anymore. It had been dyed, and he had shaved as well. He looked about ten years younger, though, of course, he was still an old man.