by David Safier
Of course, these were silly fantasies like Hannah’s stories; I would never have been able to take Mama, Ruth, and Hannah to join the resistance group, and of course I was terrified of dying and even more scared of the torture chamber in Pawiak prison. There is no way I would have been able to stand the pain in real life. The Nazis wouldn’t need to beat the naked soles of my feet before I told them all the secrets of the resistance and betrayed all my comrades. Just that one thump on my wounded arm had almost been enough to make me black out.
And there was no way I could ever kill someone. No matter why. I could burn down houses. But shoot someone? I didn’t have the necessary cold-bloodedness for that. No, it had nothing to do with cold-bloodedness. One needed searing hatred.
29
It took two weeks for the planes to come back. My heart started jumping for joy when I heard the drone of their engines. I stood at the window and saw the skies over Warsaw glow red. And I had no fear. The Russians wouldn’t bomb the ghetto. We had the same enemy.
I hoped for more and more bombs, hundreds and thousands, the beasts would burn … then the first bomb hit the ghetto. I couldn’t believe it. This couldn’t be, it mustn’t be, these were our allies. It must be a mistake, a stray.
More bombs hit the ghetto.
I ran over to the others, and we stared at one another in panic. Where could we go to find shelter? We couldn’t leave the flat. No one could know that we even existed.
Desperately, I took Hannah and Mama into my arms, although Mama didn’t really have a clue what was going on. Ruth cowered at the other end of the room, under the table, as if that could offer some kind of protection against a bomb. It was no better than my protective arms.
A few minutes later the planes were gone and they took all our hope with them.
No one in the world cared about the fate of the Jews. We were being bombed, instead of the tracks to Treblinka.
The next day the German army surrounded the city in what was called a cauldron—or Kessel. We were doomed. There was no escape.
On the sixth of September, in the eighth week of the Aktion, Simon arrived at five o’clock in the morning. But he didn’t push the dresser back across our hiding place; he was totally hysterical. He couldn’t actually speak at first, but then he managed to pull himself together and started talking in jumbled sentences. “All the Jews left in the ghetto have to be outside on the street by six o’clock. Anyone with a numbered tag gets to work; everyone without a tag goes to the trains…”
“What sort of tag?” I asked.
“The tags!” he answered as if he’d explained already, and I was just too stupid to know what he was talking about.
“What do the tags mean?” I asked, and Simon realized that I hadn’t understood a word he’d said so far.
“There are yellow tags with numbers on them. They get handed out by the workshops and the Jewish organizations. The heads have to decide who is going to live or die. The heads of the hospital, the police, the Jewish council, and so on.”
Jews had to choose whose life was worth saving.
The Nazis always managed to dream up something even more twisted.
And it was always the same. Everyone hoped that they would be one of the last forty-five thousand Jews who got given one of the tags. The difference between life and death.
Without that hint of hope there would have been an uprising, I’m sure. But as it was, all the ghetto inhabitants used the time that was left to do anything they could—fight, beg, plea with their bosses—to get hold of one of the tags.
The beasts understood how to break any resistance before it even got started. Except in people like Amos.
“I didn’t get a tag.” Simon started to cry. “Five hundred tags for two thousand five hundred policemen…”
I stood beside my brother and felt terrible. It would have been the right thing to give him a hug, even though I couldn’t comfort him. But I didn’t want to. The beasts’ loyal servant had sent Jews to the camps, and now he was being sentenced to death. He should never have trusted them. Nobody ever should have.
“Hide with us,” I said.
I had no idea how that was supposed to work. There wasn’t any more room in the pantry. One of us would have to hide somewhere else in the house, and I had no idea where.
“No!” Simon cried.
“No?” I was surprised.
“They have issued new orders: Anyone found hiding will be shot on the spot.”
It was possibly still better than the gas chamber. But I was horrified at the thought of being executed like that.
“I am going to report,” Simon said. “When the Germans realize that I’m a policeman, and see how young and strong I am, they are bound to keep me alive even without a tag, because I can be useful.”
He still believed in the beasts’ mercy.
What a pathetic fool.
Simon pulled himself up to his full height, took a deep breath and let it out again, and then left the flat. Without saying anything. He was abandoning us, and I didn’t try to stop him. I didn’t even call after him to say goodbye. Just as he was no longer interested in our fate, I didn’t stop to think about what might happen to him. Instead, I wondered what would happen to us now. In my own way, I had abandoned my brother, too.
But there was no time to think about what I was going to do about food. I heard the stomp of boots.
Soldiers charged up the stairs and forced open the doors of the flats. Panicked, I hurried Hannah, Ruth, and Mama into the pantry.
“What about you?” Hannah asked from out of the dark.
“Someone’s got to push the dresser back.”
Hannah stared at me, terrified.
“I’ll find somewhere else to hide.”
“Where?”
I had no idea, but I said, “I’ll find somewhere.” I started to push the dresser across the opening again, but Hannah said, “Mira?”
“What is it?”
My little sister ran out to me and kissed me on the cheek.
I loved her so much.
One floor down, the soldiers were shouting something in Ukrainian.
I pushed the dresser back in front of the hiding place as fast as I could and hissed to Ruth, “Don’t cough, for God’s sake don’t cough.”
I dashed out of the kitchen and tried to think where I could hide. I would run up to the attic. Perhaps I could climb out onto the roof.
I was about to open the door when I realized that the men had already reached our floor. There was no chance of getting to the roof now. And there was nowhere I could hide. They were going to find me and kill me.
Unless, unless …
I ran into the sitting room and grabbed an empty suitcase that the family from Kraków had left behind. I threw a few of the clothes lying around into it at random and closed the suitcase. I heard our front door being flung open violently. The SS men shouted their commands, words no Polish Jew could understand, though the sense was perfectly clear.
With suitcase in hand, I ran to the door and reached it just as the men stormed in with their guns drawn. There were three of them, all blond, all of them with angular chins, all in their early twenties. For a second they stopped, surprised to see me.
“I was just on my way to report,” I lied.
The Ukrainians couldn’t understand what I was saying. The man right in front of me pointed his gun at me. So did the other two. As if it would take more than one bullet to kill a Jew.
With beads of sweat on my forehead, I pointed at my suitcase and repeated what I’d said slowly and clearly. “I was just on my way to report.”
The Ukrainians were still pointing their pistols at me; I couldn’t convince them. They were going to shoot me in a minute if I didn’t do anything. But there was nothing more I could do; I couldn’t even think straight, I was so scared.
I could see the Ukrainian in front of me start to squeeze the trigger.
“Umschlagplatz!” I screamed hysterically.
“Umschlagplatz!”
They must be able to understand that, surely!
The soldier’s finger relaxed, and he lowered his gun. The other two followed suit. They had understood after all. I suddenly realized my whole body was shaking. I could only hope that Ruth wouldn’t cough. She stayed quiet. Well done, Ruth!
The soldiers made a sign for me to follow them, and I left the flat. I was on my way to the gas chambers. But Hannah, Mama, and Ruth were still safe.
30
It was a beautiful morning.
It was an awful morning.
Ten thousand Jews were forced to walk along Miła Street in the warm light of the September sun, toward the gates that the Germans had erected. We moved forward slowly. Very slowly. The Nazis and the owners of the workshops were waiting at the gates, and decided according to the tags which way we had to go. One gate meant life, the other one meant death.
Every person caught in this human cauldron was stricken with fear. Including the Jews with the tags. We had got to know the Germans well enough by now to know that they would be the first to break their own rules for no apparent reason. A tag handed out by them was by no means a guarantee of safety.
The streets were lined with Ukrainians, Latvians, and Germans hitting people with truncheons or whips. There was no chance that anyone in the terrible procession was going to fight back. The crowds of people stuck in the cauldron were far too disturbed for that. I could hear a man shouting at the gates, “I don’t want to work! I said I don’t want to work!”
That surprised me. Someone was actually willing to go to the trains?
“I’ll stay with my children!”
Then he went quiet. Probably they’d let him have his last wish. He was just another Jew who was going to be gassed, as far as the Nazis were concerned. With his children! Who cared?
A woman walking beside me in the cauldron was carrying a sleeping baby in her arms. I could see that she was wearing one of the treasured tags round her neck. Her life would be saved. But not the life of her child. The woman noticed me staring at her. She had heard the man shouting to be allowed to go to the gas chambers with his children, too. Quietly, she said to me, “It’s always possible to have another child.”
I didn’t know what she meant at first.
“But if I die with the child, I can’t bring new life into the world.”
She was willing to leave her baby. And she’d worked out reasons to convince herself. Reasons that sounded more like life than death.
I felt sick.
I looked away and tried to see if I could spot Hannah, Mama, or Ruth anywhere in the cauldron. I didn’t see them. Good. There was still a chance that they might be able to survive somehow instead of me.
I didn’t bother looking for my brother, though. He must be heading toward the Umschlagplatz, too. I couldn’t see why the Nazis would allow anyone without a tag to remain alive. The one time their rules always applied was when they were intended for killing Jews.
I was stuck in the cauldron for about two hours before I reached the selection area. When I reached the SS man, I wasn’t even nervous or afraid. I already knew which way he would send me. There was no hope left. I felt stunned and as heavy as lead. I didn’t look up at him. Without a word, just with a small hand movement, he signaled for me to walk through the gate that led to death.
As I stumbled toward it, the woman with the child was still beside me. The SS man saw her tag, and she was allowed to live. Without a word, she handed me her sleeping baby. I was to take it to death instead of her.
Before I could say anything, she was gone through the other gate. I had the choice of being there for this stranger’s child. Being there for it in its final hours, no matter how hard that might be. Or just laying it down there on ground. Where the soldiers would either shoot it or simply trample it to death with their boots.
What kind of person did I want to be?
31
I walked to the Umschlagplatz with thousands of other people, holding the baby in my arms. I had left the silly suitcase standing somewhere ages ago. There wasn’t anything in it that would have been any use to either the baby or me. What do you need in a gas chamber?
The little thing was sleeping in my arms. It hadn’t noticed that its mother had given it away yet. How was the woman going to be able to live with her decision? Would she really bring new children into the world in the unlikely event of managing to survive the war? Would they be a comfort to her for having sent her firstborn to the gas chambers?
Lulay, lulay …
I wouldn’t ever sing that song to the child, no matter what.
As I thought about the woman, I realized that I was never going to be a mother. Not that I’d wanted to be one; I was still too young. But apart from this baby who was going to die, I would never hold one in my arms. Never hug my own child.
Was that the worst thing about dying? To have no future?
When we reached the Umschlagplatz, I hugged the child closely. The place was at the very edge of the ghetto and was surrounded by a high wall. There was only a small entrance at one end. Through which we were forced, squashed, and beaten.
The place was totally overcrowded. Everywhere, there were despairing people sitting next to their few belongings. They were squatting in urine and feces. If there were toilets anywhere, then there were nowhere near enough for all these crowds of people. The stench in the air was bitter. I would have liked to put a scarf over my mouth, but I didn’t have one.
There was almost no one left with the strength to comfort anyone. Children were crying; couples sat listlessly beside each other. There were bodies everywhere—people who had slit their wrists with knives or razor blades.
The Umschlagplatz could rightly be termed hell, but it was just a taste of what was to come. The real hell was waiting in the camps.
The crowds of people pushed me toward the center of the area. The baby I was holding woke up and started to cry. I hoped it wasn’t hungry.
I started to rock it gently. “Hush, it’s all right … everything is fine…”
That was ridiculous, of course. Korczak would probably have said something like, “You’ll soon be in a better world…,” but I couldn’t say that. I didn’t believe in God anymore. How could I? There would be nothing after death for me or the baby or anyone here.
It would have been better if the Ukrainians had shot me. And if I’d allowed them to kill the baby at the gate. The little thing calmed down and went back to sleep. A small miracle in the middle of hell. I concentrated on listening to the child’s breathing. I hoped it would distract me from my fear. I tried to breathe in time with the child. Was it a boy or a girl, I wondered? I didn’t dare look to find out. I was afraid I would wake it up again. But I decided I’d give it a name before we died. What would I call it if it was a boy?
Daniel?
Amos?
Captain Carrot?
I started to laugh and cry all at once when I thought of him. I wasn’t going to see Hannah ever again.
I saw a doctor in a white coat. She was giving exhausted children something to drink. She looked feverish and haunted herself. I didn’t think anything of it at first, but when I looked at the children again—I’d stopped crying about Hannah by this stage and had managed to pull myself together—I realized the doctor had not been handing out water: The little things were lying lifeless on the ground, one in a pool of urine. She had given the children poison. Probably cyanide.
The doctor had put them all to sleep as gently as she could, to spare them the horror of Treblinka. She was even more caring than I had supposed.
If I saw her again, I’d ask for cyanide for the baby and for myself, too.
I pushed my way through to the edge of the space with Amos—yes, I’d decided to call the baby Amos for now, and if it turned out to be a girl, then I’d call her Amy. I concentrated on the child’s breathing again and tried to forget about everything else as best I could.
I reached the wal
l, found a little spot, and sat down exhausted, even though there were feces nearby. The afternoon sun was shining brightly—like some sick joke.
The baby started crying again. No matter how much I rocked it, I couldn’t calm it down this time. It had realized that I wasn’t its mother, and it was hungry, too.
A gaunt man sitting in a pool of urine next to me said, “Either you make it shut up or I’ll thrash it against the wall!”
He was serious.
I stood up and moved away. I popped my little finger into the baby’s mouth, which calmed it down for a moment until it realized that my finger wasn’t its mother’s breast and it started to cry again. And it stank. It needed its diaper changed and to be cleaned, but how was I supposed to do that without another diaper or water or anything?
The crying got to me, and I started to hear all the other noises going on around me because I could no longer concentrate on the baby’s breathing. I heard the most despairing wails, “Water, I need water!” Desperate self-hatred, “Why did I leave him? Why?” Useless prayers, “Schma yisrael adonai elohenu adonai echad,” and screams and yells: “Mama! Wake up! Please wake up!” “Mira, is that you?… Mira … Mira!”
Mira?
Someone meant me!
I turned round. There was Amos. Wearing the uniform of a Jewish policeman. He wasn’t a policeman—he must be in disguise! And he had one of the lifesaving tags! It was bound to be a forgery. What was he doing here? He risked being thrown into the trains, tag and all.
“You’ve got a baby?” Amos asked me, surprised.
We were on the verge of hell and he wanted to know about the baby?
“It’s not mine,” I answered.
He nodded, didn’t ask anything else and looked around instead. For soldiers who could catch him? Or for something else?
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I’m looking for Zacharia.”
The guy who had slit open my arm was caught in the cauldron, too.