Clara's War

by Clara Kramer

  I also knew that Papa and Mama were doing their best to protect us not only from physical harm, but also from worry. But their words were small comfort in the face of the Nazis’ lack of opposition in Europe. Two years ago, it would never even have occurred to me to wonder about what war felt like. War was something in Tolstoy, not in my life. Nobody could have convinced me that despite the occasional pogrom, our little town with its five thousand Jews tucked away in Galicia wasn’t the best of all possible worlds. For 700 years we had been batted back and forth between a half a dozen countries and empires that were like cats playing with a ball of yarn. We changed nationalities like, in better times, Mama had changed dresses. Before I had always held the bookish belief that everything would work out in the future because it always had in the past, but now I had become somebody different, with different thoughts and different hopes. Even the small things in which I used to take so much pleasure, like reading or going to school, didn’t make the empty feeling in my stomach go away. Despite the spoonfuls of optimism my parents fed to my sister and me, my mind was spinning. How could I read a novel when Hans Frank, the Gauleiter (Governor General) of Poland, had declared, ‘I ask nothing of the Jews except that they should disappear.’ What had become of my grandfather? What was going to become of us? Surely our green knapsacks wouldn’t be enough to save us? We were stuck between two massively powerful nations, both of which hated us. The Russians hated us because we didn’t adhere to their communist principles, and the Nazis hated us because of our religion.

  Before the war, when the grown-ups spoke in hushed whispers, it was usually about a present for one of us, or some gossip. I never really cared much about either. Now I needed to hear every word, even if it brought demons into my sleep. The anxiety of not knowing was worse. I collected news, facts, anything that I knew I could rely on to be true.

  In the past year, France had been invaded, along with Holland, Luxembourg and Belgium. Italy and Japan joined Germany in forming the Axis Powers. Hungary, Romania and Slovakia had become German allies. And close to a million Jews had been sealed off in ghettos in Warsaw, Krakow and Lublin. The Allies had yet to make a single attack on the Nazis, who preened with their invincibility. Every apartment, every room in town, was filling up by the day with refugees from the Nazis. The horror stories were passed like the plague. Even my parents’ whispers couldn’t keep them from me.

  The only thing that kept me sane was going to school. The churches had large libraries, as did some of the schools. There were also private libraries. Almost every day I made the rounds. The former nuns and Mr Appel, the old Jewish man who ran the private libraries, expected me and saved books they thought I might like. This was the year of Victor Hugo and Charles Dickens; and of course the great Russian novelists, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dostoevsky and Gogol. I picked books by their length and their weight. The longer and heavier the better. More and more, I tried to shut out the world with literature.

  In the spring of 1941, almost a year to the day she was deported, I received a letter from my friend Sonia Maresky, in which she described the brutal and fierce cold, and the backbreaking work her family had to do in the coal mines. She wrote that the workers usually died within a year. The Jewish Community had got together to obtain permission to ship them matzos for Pesach. She ended the letter, ‘When this war is over only the korhany, the mass graves, will be a witness that there once were a people here.’

  In early May, Mama somehow finally found Commissar Wanda Vashilevski, who was very high up in the NKVD. That Mama even dared to contact the NKVD spoke of her desperation about her father. She told us that Commissar Vashilevski seemed like a decent woman. The commissar said to Mama: ‘I’m sorry for you. I’m not going to lie. You should know that only the official who ordered his arrest can release your father. But I will try. Only if he gets back will you know if I have succeeded.’ We had had a little hope, but Papa had warned that we couldn’t be certain if Vashilevski was honest or a thief.

  In the middle of June, Pan Ratusinski knocked on our door. He was a good-natured Polish peasant who had once worked for Papa. He had just been released from the Brigitka prison in Lvov, where he had been brought after trying to escape the Soviets and go to Romania. He told us that the prisoners had been kept in cells in alphabetical order. Just a few cells down from him was my grandfather. Not only was Dzadzio alive, but he was only 35 kilometres away. We prayed and thanked God for his mercy. It was a miracle. Mama brought Pan inside and made him tell her every detail. Pan Ratusinski told us that Dzadzio had been brought to the prison from a concentration camp in the east. We learned he was thin but in decent health, and with any hope, he might soon be released. Mama embraced Pan like a long-lost brother and put money in every one of his pockets before he left. Comrade Vashilevski, with the big or greedy heart, had come through.

  The next morning, Mama took the first bus to Lvov and went to thank her and to try to speed up his release from there. Comrade Vashilevski did some checking and told Mama that there had been a mix-up with some of the paperwork, but that everything was fine. It would only be a matter of a few more days. Even though our patience was a frayed thread, we knew we could stand a few more days. Mama spent the rest of the day getting ready for Dzadzio’s homecoming, thankful to have something happy to prepare for, for a change. She cleaned the little apartment in our basement for him, washed and ironed his clothes, and bartered for a chicken for soup. I couldn’t think of anything else besides Dzadzio’s homecoming as I helped Mama with the chores. Mama knew that even after months in exile and prison, her father would be in a fury that the man who might have sent him away and deported his wife and daughter was living in his house. Mama was afraid of what he might do. Twenty years ago, her father had put aside the clothing of a Hassid and picked up a gun to fight the Russians. Only the fear of what the consequences would mean for us might temper his actions.

  We awoke the next day to a big commotion next door. Footsteps raced across the floor. Doors were flying open and shut. From our window we could see the Dupaks frantically loading boxes and suitcases into a Soviet army truck and then their children into a car. Stalina and Volodya looked sad and frightened, framed in the open car window.

  We looked on with a sense of relief as they emptied the house of all their belongings. Dzadzio would at least be spared one heartache and be able to move back into his house. Comrade Dupak kissed his wife and children and watched as the truck and the car drove off. He came to our door and told us he had sent his family east. Hitler had broken the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and had invaded Russian-occupied Poland. Shortly after that, Dupak left the house.

  In the span of a few seconds I had gone from fearing and despising the Russians for tearing our family apart to wanting them to stay. This could only spell disaster for us. This time it wouldn’t just be the Wehrmacht marching into town for a few days. We knew in terrifying detail what to expect. Rosa and the other refugees who had fled east had witnessed it all. It would be the SS, deportations and ghettos. The border to Nazi-occupied Poland was less than 60 kilometres away. And the general state of alarm up and down the street as the Russians packed off their families confirmed that no shots would be fired in our defence. We were being abandoned. Papa considered following the retreat; he went to see if it would be possible to go with the Russians. He came back soon thereafter saying it would be impossible. He had seen Malka and Rosa, two Jewish girls married to Russian soldiers, being helped on to trucks by their husbands, only to have the Russians wives throw them off.

  Papa was still talking when Uchka came running in the door in a panic. My uncle Hersch had been ordered to report to the plaza. The Russian army was going door to door, impressing every able-bodied man between the ages of 17 and 45. They would be going straight to the front. She was surprised that my father hadn’t been taken as well. We didn’t know why he hadn’t. We did think it might have been Comrade Dupak’s doing. Mama ordered us to stay inside the house. We couldn’t go to the plaza to say goodbye. U
ncle Hersch was hardly bigger than a rifle himself and had the same dark eyes and sweet disposition as his son, Zygush. It was hard for me to imagine a man like him fighting at all. Uchka told us later that they had marched through the gate near Paradise Hill, which had been named by King Sobieski because he thought it was the most beautiful place he had ever seen. I couldn’t imagine what Uncle Hersch could have been feeling as he was forced to stare up at the place where we had picnicked almost every Saturday and where his son had run wild through the thickly shaded forest, all the while marching with the army that had imprisoned his father-in-law, but was fighting the Nazi enemy. It was too much to digest. Poor Uchka told us how sad and excited the children had been. At only two and four years old, Zygush and Zosia hadn’t quite known what they were waving at or waving for, as their father, one of hundreds of stunned faces, walked towards oblivion. Uchka had tried to hide how frightened she had been, despite knowing that she was probably saying goodbye to her husband for the last time. It would have been so wonderful to be able to be proud of Hersch Leib, marching off to protect us and his country. But all we could think of was the Nazis, and what that meant for us.

  The Russians had taken every car, every cart and every horse. Zolkiew was in chaos. Every day, more and more Russians left. They packed up everything they could take with them: sewing machines, scrap metal, lumber, bathtubs, grain, desks. It seemed the entire contents of our town were being passed in front of our window. Comrade Dupak showed up again with a muzzled German shepherd. He had come for his things. The Nazis were close to Lvov and he would be leaving. He told us he had enjoyed living next to us and hoped we would meet again after the war. He said dasv’danya earnestly and shook my father’s hand.

  Not long after he left, the streets were filled with panic and weeping. At first we thought the Nazis had arrived. But then we learned that before leaving, the NKVD had emptied the local jail. The political prisoners were shot and then attack dogs were let loose on them. The dogs were tearing the faces off the prisoners. I couldn’t believe that Comrade Dupak had done such a thing. He was such a nondescript man with his thinning hair and pleasant smile. As soon as Mama heard the horrible news, she began to fear the worst for her father. She had been trying to find Wanda Vashilevski for days, only to learn that she had fled with the others.

  There was no way to know now if Dzadzio had been released or if he was alive. We couldn’t bear to think what could be happening to him. And there was no longer any way to get in touch with Josek and Giza, who had remained in Lvov the entire year. There was nothing for Mama to do but wait. She had confidence that her brother would try his best to find out what had happened to their father.

  Two weeks later Josek came home with Giza, a new wife, Rela, and several of her relatives, including her brother Dudio. The grief in their faces told us what had happened to Grandpa, and also what our own fate would be.

  Josek told us that Lvov had been in chaos as well. The army and the commissars had been throwing civilians off the trains and shooting them if they didn’t move fast enough. Every car, truck and wagon had been appropriated for the Russian flight east. A day later the Nazis had arrived. One of the first things the SS did was to go through the streets recruiting Jews for work in the prisons. Josek had gone, hoping to find Dzadzio.

  He told us that the smell of death on entering the prison had been overwhelming. There had been bodies in the corridors, in the cells, in the courtyard. Just as in Zolkiew, the last act of the NKVD before leaving had been to murder and disfigure all the political prisoners so that the approaching Nazis wouldn’t be able to identify them. They were protecting their own necks, but they let the real criminals, the murderers, the rapists, the thieves, all go.

  We knew what was coming next. After the NKVD had shot the prisoners, they let the dogs loose. The beards of the Orthodox had been shaved when they were first imprisoned, so we couldn’t even bury another Jew in my dzadzio’s place. Josek and the others carried the bodies outside to the courtyard where families wandered among the corpses trying to find their loved ones. There were over 3,000 corpses. Many were children. Some were pregnant women with the bellies and breasts cut open. There were nuns and priests. Josek and the other Jews dug mass graves in the Ukrainian cemetery. They threw the bodies in and covered them with lime before they filled in the graves. But the burials were going too slowly for the Nazis. They ordered Josek and the others to simply cover the bodies with lime as they lay in the cellar and to brick up the doors and windows. Perhaps Dzadzio’s remains were in a mass grave. Perhaps they were in the cellar of Brigitka prison. We would never know.

  Only a few days later, the Ukrainian Nationalists with the encouragement of the Nazis murdered 4,000 Jews in Lvov. The Ukrainian Nationalists thought that all of Galicia belonged to them. They felt that the Poles and the Jews were invaders of their homeland. Stalin had starved millions of Ukrainians to death and so the Nationalists celebrated the Russian retreat and welcomed the Nazis as their saviours and allies. Josek, Rela and the others were lucky to get out with their lives and to reach Zolkiew safely.

  Our grief was beyond any words. It brought with it the gathering sense that our lives were out of our hands. It felt like a storm pulling together, the sky growing increasingly dark. It didn’t seem like anything in this world would make sense any more. Later we found out that all the old-time officers like Dzadzio who had been taken east and put in a concentration camp had been released and reunited with their families. The Soviets had decided they were too old and sick to give them any trouble. If Mama hadn’t moved heaven and earth and spent so much money trying to save her father, he might now be safely in Kazakhstan with his wife and family.

  Chapter 2

  A PLACE TO HIDE

  From July 1941 to November 1942

  There is terror and panic in our city. The Jews are building bunkers of all kinds: underground, double walls, anywhere they can find a spot to hide. Others are looking for help from the gentiles. Others are crying in despair about the loss of their loved ones…There are rumours they are being poisoned with gas. Others say they are being electrocuted, burned or shot with guns. One thing is for sure, there is no return from there.

  I was beginning to count the dead.

  Wilek. Dzadzio. The sons of Mr Malinovski, who lived directly across the street from Mr Melman and a few doors down from us, had shared the same fate as Dzadzio. I knew this was just the beginning. The Nazis would be in Zolkiew any day, any hour.

  We didn’t leave the house any more, except for Papa, who continued to go to the factory. The peasants were trying to bring in as much grain as possible before the Nazis came. Papa knew every zloty might save our lives and so he worked the press around the clock. Nobody had to forbid us to go out in the streets. Even Mania stayed indoors on these glorious summer days, staring out of the window. I couldn’t concentrate on my books. Nobody was in the mood for talking. Mama cooked. We made our beds. It was all we could manage. We knew we were facing some inevitable catastrophe, yet we couldn’t do anything but wait. The moments were painfully endless. It felt like in a dream when you were are trying to escape some unseen horror, but as you start to run the ground swallows your legs and all your screams are silent. We were all restless. At night, I could sense Mania up next to me and hear Mama and Papa tossing and turning across the room.

  Early in the morning of 5 July 1941, we were woken from our pathetic sleep by motorcycles roaring down our street. They were soon followed by trucks and then by soldiers marching past our window as if we were marshals in a parade. It was the Wehrmacht again. Papa went out and reported that, like in 1939, they were roaming around town, snapping pictures of the castle and churches like tourists. They were handing out candy to the children and cigarettes to the men, assuring the anxious townspeople that we had nothing to worry about. But still we didn’t venture out of our door. Two days later, Papa rushed over from the factory to tell us that the Gestapo and the SS were arriving. He had heard that our Grand Rabbi, revered
over all of Eastern Europe for his piety and knowledge, was planning to wait for them with the members of the Kahala, the Zolkiew Jewish Council, at the entrance of the town only a kilometre away from our house. They were prepared to beg and bargain for our lives. We waited for the results of this meeting, but were not optimistic. We didn’t have to wait long before we heard shooting. The sound of the machine-gun fire was no louder than champagne corks. Even the ensuing wailing and crying was faint. But they were as loud as they needed to be to inform us that our nightmare had arrived.

  We heard that the Grand Rabbi had hardly got a word out before the SS officer shot him. The accompanying members of the Kahala were arrested, including the father of Giza Landau. The SS officer then drove to the synagogue and ordered his men to strip it of every bit of gold and silver and anything that was valuable. A crowd of Jews gathered in the streets and watched in horror as the crowns on the Torah handles, the Torah covers embroidered with golden thread, the candelabras and the inlay on the pillars were packed into trucks. The many Hassid and Orthodox tore their clothing in mourning at the desecration. They knew they should have been hiding, but they couldn’t help themselves. When there was nothing left to steal, the SS ran through the sanctuary pouring petrol on the benches, railings, prayer books, Torahs, the tallith, anything that would burn. The walls inside and out were also drenched with petrol. When the fire was lit with dozens of torches and the SS machine-gunned the huge windows to feed the flames with more oxygen, the Sobieski Schul erupted. It was a spectacle as the flames raced up the walls and shot out of the windows. Once everything made of wood and paper had burned, the flames on the walls died out. The paint had been seared off, but the building stood. The SS officer became furious and ordered his men to throw the lamenting Jews on the embers to feed the fire, as if the heat of burning Jewish flesh would be enough to turn brick to ash. A Wehrmacht officer driving by in his Mercedes reacted in stunned horror. He ordered his men to pull the Jews from the flames. The SS officer was outranked, so a few Jews were saved for who knows how long. As soon as the Wehrmacht left, the SS tried to burn the synagogue down a second time, but the walls still held firm.