28 Days

by David Safier

  The soldiers had thrown firebombs onto the roof, too. Burning timbers rained down on us. But no one screamed, although everyone wanted to. Not even when the floorboards started to twist.

  “Over there!” Esther cried.

  Through the little window we could see SS men in the house opposite. Without hesitating, Esther, Rachel, and Avi, who were close to the window, started to shoot at the soldiers. They fired back without hitting anyone and then retreated. The exchange of fire diverted us from the fact that we were surrounded by the flames.

  Ben Redhead stormed in. “I think I’ve found an escape route into 37 Nalewki,” he said.

  “You think?” Rachel asked coughing.

  “I couldn’t go all the way. It would have taken too long. There’s not enough time.”

  “It’s better than nothing,” Rachel decided.

  We all left the attic slowly. Then went onto the stairs where you couldn’t see anything because of all the smoke and where breathing was virtually impossible. From there we went to another attic room where there was a little hole in the wall leading to the next house. This wasn’t one of the prepared escape routes. It was just a chance hole in the wall of a damaged building. The hole was so narrow that I thought at first we’d never fit. But, one by one, the fighters squeezed through. When it was my turn, I got stuck. I’d caught my shoulder and started to panic. I screamed, “I can’t … I can’t…!”

  “You can!” Amos shouted, and shoved me through the hole. I thought my shoulder would break, but then I stumbled into the house next door. Only, there was smoke there, too. The SS had set the building on fire as well.

  We moved forward, feeling our way rather than actually seeing anything, and held our breath so as not to burn our lungs. We managed to find another gap into the attic of the next house, but even here we still weren’t safe. The fire would jump to this house next.

  We climbed through a skylight onto the roof, and we stayed low and crawled to the next house—we didn’t want to be moving targets for the soldiers—then from there, we jumped onto the roof of yet another house.

  “There must be a bunker here somewhere,” Avi said.

  The members of the ŻOB hadn’t built extra hideouts. When the civilians had started digging out bunkers everywhere in the ghetto, we had concentrated on preparing for the uprising: getting hold of weapons, killing collaborators, training to fight … We hadn’t even thought seriously about additional hiding places. Why should we have? We had not expected to last more than a single day. No matter how much some of us had gone on about Masada, not even the most daring dreamers had any kind of pretense that we were in the same league as our ancestors in the fortress against the Romans.

  How I wished we were fighting the Romans. Their persecution of Christians seemed almost civilized in comparison to the Nazi persecution of the Jews.

  Was Avi sure there was a bunker here somewhere, or did he just have an inkling? We didn’t really want to know. We swarmed out of the house into the yard to hunt for a concealed entrance. And it was Esther who found the hidden door to the cellar. Without knocking or asking permission, we tore the door open and entered a stuffy bunker where about twenty civilians including a number of children were hiding. We all flung ourselves onto the ground, exhausted. Until now, I’d fought back the smoke in my lungs, but now I coughed and choked until I threw up. I couldn’t care less. We were safe for a moment. I hadn’t burned to death.

  “Get out!” a woman screamed at us. She was holding a starving child in her arms and was little more than a ragged skeleton herself.

  “Go away! You are putting us all in danger!” shouted a haggard old woman. Another one of the living dead.

  Before we could say anything, people started shouting at us from all sides. “We don’t want you here!” “You’ll be the death of us all!” “If the Germans catch you here, they’ll kill us, too!”

  It was unbelievable. We were fighting for the whole of the ghetto, and these people were so scared of dying that they hated us.

  From a corner where a number of children were gathered, a young man came forward and declared, “The fighters stay!”

  It was Daniel.

  60

  Even in the dim candlelight I recognized him at once, although his head was close-shaven and he was thinner than he used to be.

  “Were you in Treblinka?” I asked. I was shocked and couldn’t help coughing again. Partly because of the smoke still burning in my lungs and partly because I remembered Ruth’s cough. She had got out of the camp because her lover had been prepared to pay for her. But no one would have paid anything for Daniel, and according to everything we had heard so far, no one was ever able to escape a concentration camp. Our scouts, who had approached Treblinka a few months back, had reported seeing prisoners running into the electric fences to put an end to their torturous lives.

  “I had lice,” Daniel answered.

  I was relieved at that. And I finally managed to stop coughing.

  Amos looked over at me. I’d told him as little about Daniel as I’d told Daniel about him. He didn’t join in our conversation and turned to look at the hysterical civilians who had crept into the corners of the bunker after Daniel’s intervention and were now staring at us with hatred, as if we were the ones trying to kill them.

  “You fight?” Daniel asked, looking at the gun in my hand.

  “Yes,” I answered, not sure what he would say. He wasn’t armed, so he obviously didn’t belong to the resistance fighters.

  “And you kill people.” It was as if he was disappointed in me.

  Who did he think he was? Why was he condemning me? I could just as easily judge him for not helping us. Daniel noticed that I was angry, and he softened his expression. “It is so wonderful that you are alive, Mira.”

  Of course he was right. It was silly to be angry. This was a moment of happiness. “You too, you too…,” I said, and we hugged each other. It felt very familiar.

  We didn’t let go until Amos came over to me and said, “I’m not sure how long we can stay here. At some stage soon, the Germans will burn down this house, too, and we will all suffocate in here.”

  “It will be your fault if they send us to the ovens!” the skeleton woman cried while her little boy stared at us as if his soul had been burned to cinders long ago.

  Before Amos or I could tell her to shut up, Daniel went to her and took the boy into his arms and promised softly, “We won’t die here.”

  The woman believed him. The child in his arms closed its eyes. Then I realized:

  In this bunker, Daniel was a young Korczak.

  61

  While my comrades gathered in a corner of the bunker and worked out what we were going to do now, I sat in another corner with Daniel. They didn’t mind. Not even Amos. It was so unusual, such an incredible piece of good luck to meet someone from the past, everyone was happy for me.

  “This is some Passover,” Daniel said, holding the sleeping boy on his lap.

  “How did you manage to survive?” I asked.

  “My girlfriend knocked me out.”

  I could tell by looking at him that he wasn’t angry with me anymore.

  “That was good of her…,” I said. I still didn’t know if I’d done the right thing back then.

  “Yes,” he said, and gave me a friendly, almost loving smile. “It was.”

  Another child was leaning against him. She was about eight years old and wore a ragged dress. Her hand was curled into a fist, as if she was holding something tight. She reminded me of someone.

  “This is Rebecca,” Daniel introduced us.

  “Hello, Rebecca,” I said.

  The little girl looked at me warily.

  “She doesn’t speak,” Daniel explained.

  Now I recognized her. It was the little girl who had stuck out her tongue at me in the orphanage. She still wore the polka-dot dress, only it was so filthy by now that the pattern and the color were gone.

  “Rebecca hid in the orphanag
e when the Germans came.”

  I didn’t tell her that she’d been very clever. But I thought so. It was much better than climbing into a cattle truck waving a flag.

  “What has she got in her hand?” I asked instead.

  “Her favorite marble. She never lets go of it.”

  The eyes of the girl glistened angrily, as if she wanted to scratch my face if I got too close to her marble. No, not as if. She definitely would.

  “Have you been together all this time?” I wanted to know.

  “I hid her and worked at Többens so that we both could get something to eat.”

  I wanted to know if he had tried to find me in the meantime. But then I’d have had to admit that I hadn’t tried to find him.

  “How about you?” Daniel asked.

  “After the Aktion, I joined the underground resistance.”

  “And Hannah?”

  I couldn’t say anything.

  “I … I’m sorry,” he said sincerely, and went to take my hand to comfort me. But I pulled it away. Daniel noticed that I was wearing a wedding ring.

  “You … you got married?” he asked, and although he tried not to let it show, he was hurt by that.

  “Not really,” I said.

  “What do you mean, ‘not really’?”

  “It’s a disguise.”

  “But the two of you…?” He pointed toward Amos, whom he had rightly assumed to be my “husband.”

  “Yes,” I said. “The two of us…”

  Daniel was upset.

  And I was upset, too. Had he expected me to go on loving him forever, even though I thought he was dead?

  “Are you going to join our fight?” I asked. I didn’t want to talk about Amos and me.

  “No,” Daniel said immediately.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t believe in killing.”

  “You don’t believe in killing? You don’t believe in it? Well, the SS does!”

  “I know.”

  “And a least we can give our people some dignity by defending ourselves!”

  “There are more important things than dignity.”

  “Name me one! Just one!”

  “Survival.”

  I shut up for a moment, but I simply couldn’t understand it all. “You would have gone to the trucks,” I said, “and then, all of a sudden, your survival is more important than everything else?”

  “No, not mine,” he answered, and hugged little Rebecca. So she was the reason why he wouldn’t fight? As if the two of them could ever survive! Should I say it out loud? But the girl was so small. So frail. It would be awful to let her know that we were all about to die, including her. On the other hand, there was no point in lying, even to a child. She must know? At least she must have sensed it.

  In the end all I said was, “We are all going to die. The question is, how?”

  “Die like a hero?” Daniel asked sarcastically.

  “If that’s what you want to call it.”

  “It’s what the underground newspapers say,” he retorted. “There’s nothing heroic about killing people.”

  “Oh yes! It’s far better to climb into a cattle truck with a flag held high, isn’t it?” I answered angrily.

  Daniel got angry now, too. “Korczak was there for the orphans until the very end. And that is a lot more than you’ll ever do.”

  I’d gone too far. I had no right to attack the old man. And perhaps, just perhaps, Daniel was right. Perhaps it really was the bravest thing to die with loved ones, instead of with a gun in hand.

  Would I have had the guts to die by Hannah’s side? Or would I have run away, given the opportunity?

  “I will do everything I can to make sure that she survives. We don’t have to die,” Daniel explained, looking at Rebecca, who was busy staring at the treasure lying in her open hand. A blue and white marble.

  This little girl was the only survivor of Daniel’s orphanage family. She was his sister. That was why he couldn’t bear to think that he might lose her, too. I could understand that. If Hannah were still alive, I would feel the same.

  “You could defend her better with a gun,” I said quietly.

  Daniel just shook his head. There was no point in talking about it. I scrambled to my feet and went back to my comrades. They had decided that we should spend the night looking for food and that we needed to contact the other groups.

  Rachel called me over. “See if the coast is clear.”

  Amos jumped up, “I’ll go,” he said.

  No way! I was a fighter. Just like him. Not some princess who needed a prince to protect her.

  “I’m going!” I said determinedly, left the bunker, and went upstairs. Most of the windows were still intact here, and I stared out at the street cautiously. There were no soldiers to be seen. But, of course, I couldn’t see the whole street. I’d have to go outside for that.

  I drew my gun—not because I hoped to defeat a whole SS patrol single-handedly, but perhaps the weapon would allow me to get away in an emergency. But … if the Germans saw me, I mustn’t run in the direction of the bunker or I’d be leading the SS to the hideout. If I was captured, the SS would definitely torture me until I betrayed my comrades. And the civilians. Amos. Daniel.

  Before that happened, I’d use the weapon on myself.

  Carefully, I crept out the door. The air stank of smoke. Farther down the street, ashes glowed on the remains of a house that had been completely destroyed by fire. Only the foundation was left. There was no one to be seen anywhere. I went as far as the next crossroads just to make sure. No SS. And I couldn’t hear any sounds of tanks or cars. I looked over to Muranowski Square. The flags were still flying high. The ghetto still belonged to us.

  62

  That night we learned of the losses the other groups had suffered but gave one another courage as we ate; we had survived two days already; we had defied the Germans for two days and we’d manage a third.

  Early in the morning, we moved into position on the fourth floor while the civilians stayed in the bunker. But we didn’t engage in any fighting. There were only a few sporadic sounds of shooting in the ghetto.

  “The Germans don’t dare fight anymore,” Esther said around midday, looking pleased.

  “We’re not that lucky,” Amos answered.

  Of course he was right.

  Half an hour later, we heard the sound of trucks. One of them stopped farther down the street. SS men jumped out, too far away for us to shoot. The soldiers rolled barrels in front of the houses.

  “Those are barrels of gasoline,” Amos realized.

  The soldiers got back into the truck, threw burning torches, and then raced away. The barrels caught fire and exploded. Within seconds, the first houses went up in flames.

  “Oh no…,” Esther gasped.

  No one else said a word.

  Civilians ran to the windows and out onto the balconies of the burning houses. There was no choice but to jump. The SS men had gathered in front of the burning buildings and took turns shooting at the civilians as they jumped. When they hit someone as they fell, the SS all cheered. Someone earned an especially huge cheer when he shot a mother holding her baby.

  An old woman fell from a balcony onto a heap of burning rubbish. But she was injured and couldn’t get down. She was on fire in a matter of moments and screamed and screamed, begging the soldiers to put her out of her misery, “Shoot me, please, please, please, shoot me!” But the soldiers didn’t do her the favor. They preferred to shoot the jumping Jews. That was as much fun as a shooting stand at a fair for them.

  We watched, shocked, unable to move. Rachel was the first to find her voice again. “We need to get closer.”

  But before we had time to get close enough to shoot the bastards and be shot ourselves, soldiers went from house to house and threw firebombs into the doorways.

  I grabbed Rachel. “We’ve got to get the civilians out of the bunker,” I said. “They’ll set this house on fire, too!” I was mainly wor
rying about Daniel and his little sister.

  “You are right.” Rachel nodded. Her desire to seek revenge was not as great as the desire to help others.

  We rushed down to the cellar and just as we tore open the door to the bunker, we heard an explosion. The Germans had thrown a firebomb into our house.

  “Hurry up!” Rachel called to the civilians. “We have to get out of here!”

  The next moment, a hand grenade rolled down the cellar steps.

  “Take cover,” Amos yelled.

  We all ran. Most of us ran back into the bunker. Only Esther … Esther headed for cover in another room in the cellar. The grenade rolled in that direction and exploded.

  “Esther!” Amos screamed above the noise of the explosion, and ran out of the bunker through the flames to help her. But all he found was her body, torn to pieces.

  Amos screamed like an animal.

  “The stairs! My God! The stairs!” Avi yelled.

  The soldiers’ grenade had destroyed the cellar stairs. Above us the house was on fire and we couldn’t get out! We were trapped in a hole in the ground like rabbits in a blocked burrow.

  “We’ll burn to death! We’re going to burn to death!” Avi screamed hysterically.

  “We need a ladder or a plank or something!” Rachel shouted. She was the only one who seemed to be able to think clearly.

  We all started looking. Except for Amos, who stood staring into the flames where Esther’s body was burning.

  “Amos!” I shouted.

  He didn’t react.

  “Amos! We need something to help us get out of here!”

  Slowly, very slowly, he managed to tear himself away from the terrible sight.

  In the bunker, people were starting to scream. Daniel tried to calm them down. “We’ll get out,” he kept saying, “we’ll find a way out.”

  But it was no use. There was nothing he could do. The people were panic-stricken.

  “This’ll do!” Ben Redhead shouted. He pointed at a long plank that was lying in a corner. We propped it up where the steps had been just two minutes earlier. It stood upright at an extremely steep angle. You couldn’t just run up it; we were going to have to climb up the plank to get out.