Clara's War

by Clara Kramer

  Papa hadn’t been able to find anyone to help hide us. Neither had the Melmans or the Patrontasches. Having run out of options, the three men decided they needed to build a temporary hiding place in the crawl space under the Melmans’ house. Their house was the biggest of the three and would hopefully be able to hold all of us. Mr Patrontasch, who was a wonderful carpenter, built a jigsawed trapdoor in the bedroom’s parquet floor. When the door was in place, the seam, like the opening to a Chinese box, was impossible to find. The crawl space was too small for the grown-ups to enter so Mania and I, and Igo Melman and Klarunia Patrontasch, who were both eight, inched our way through the tight space. Our job was to hollow out a passageway to the far corner of the house where we would be able to dig a pit large enough for all of us to hide in.

  It was high summer and hot in the crawl space. There was no ventilation, so we were dressed only in our underwear. Mania and the other children always ran around in their undergarments through the baking hot days of summer, but I was modest and never took off my dress. Not once. But I had no choice now, it was just too hot otherwise.

  We dug for two weeks straight with our hands and then with pots and pans and shovels. My hands looked like those of a peasant, raw with blisters and broken fingernails, dirt wedged under the nails and tattooed in the lines of my palms. We had to dig to Mr Patrontasch’s exact specifications. We couldn’t take the dirt outside, so we had to lay it out evenly all over the rest of the crawl space. We worked by the light of kerosene lamps, which fought us for every molecule of oxygen. There were times I almost passed out. There were times I wanted to stop and weep. There were times when the dirt walls seemed to be caving in on me while I dug. I wished I was dreaming and would wake up with the lovely breeze of a summer morning cooling my sheets and pillow. But this wasn’t a playhouse and I was no longer a child.

  We were proud of the work we had done and yet looked at it with terror. The bunker was three metres square and a metre and a half deep. There was just enough space for the ten of us to lie next to each other. In the event that anyone should become aware of the trapdoor in the bedroom floor and enter the crawl space to look for evidence of people hiding, Mr Patrontasch designed a cover to disguise the underground bunker perfectly. First he constructed a square of wood, three by three metres square. On each of the four sides he attached planks a third of a metre deep, which made the cover look like an empty sandbox. We then filled the box with dirt and, when we were done, placed it over the bunker. It fit exactly. Once it was in place we couldn’t tell the cover from the dirt floor. We had built a tomb. Inside it we placed matches, candles and water.

  Our time was running out. Some nights Papa would come home from the factory almost in tears. The fact that Mama continued to spend money on the soup kitchen threw him into a panic. Mania and I would be in our beds, listening to the same argument, again and again. It was an argument born of despair rather than anger. The words weren’t spiteful or meant to hurt; I had never heard Papa’s voice so desperate. He was worried about our future and having the means to save our lives. ‘Salka, Salka, you’re killing me. As fast as I make it, you spend it. And more!’

  ‘We should eat when someone’s hungry?’

  ‘The Judenrat runs a soup kitchen.’

  ‘Oh well, we both know that there’s not enough to go around. They do the best they can, but their soup is like water. I don’t think you’d sit still and be happy if all Clara and Mania had was a bowl of watery soup a day. And what about the dozens of families too proud to beg? To go to the soup kitchens? They should go hungry too? Why? Because the men would rather see their children starve than accept charity. You’ll make more money.’

  ‘Salka!’

  ‘No more “Salka”! If God wants to strike me dead for feeding the poor, then let Him. In fact, I dare Him to!’ It was what she said to anyone who suggested she stop.

  That was the end of the argument. Papa knew there was no talking to my mama. My aunt Giza had said that she was a tzadakess, a righteous person, and God would protect us because of her.

  Once they stopped yelling and everything went quiet, Mania and I would fall asleep. Me in the same thick, dark mahogany bed that was as sturdy as any ship, under the same goose-down comforter that was so light it seemed to float like a cloud when you shook it out to make the bed. Mania lay in the little baby bed, in which she looked like a big doll. We looked out through lace curtains at our fruit trees. And despite the fact that we lived in a different world during the day, sleeping side by side brought us close in a way in which words are almost superfluous, perhaps even redundant. How could nothing, nothing be out of place in this house and outside the world be so upside down?

  Mania wanted to talk. ‘I’ve been thinking about going to the nuns. Lots of our friends have already gone.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘We’ll be safe,’ my sister argued. ‘Mama and Papa want us to be safe.’

  ‘I know they want us to be safe. But I’m not sure about going to the nuns.’

  Mania was capable of making big decisions, of rash actions, of decisive and independent thought. I was used to living in this protected cocoon of a world where Mama and Papa made all the major decisions for me. I was content not to question because I knew they loved me and had my best interests at heart. But now, in this ever-shifting world, Papa seemed overwhelmed. To go with the nuns would mean perhaps to lose them, perhaps for ever. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know if I want to leave Mama and Papa.’

  ‘Clara, everybody’s disappearing. Everybody’s going some place. We’re being murdered at every corner. We know what happens at the camps! We know what’s happened in other places!’

  Mania was honest, blunt and direct as always. If we wanted to go to the nuns, I know my parents would allow it. The decision was now mine to make. We lay awake a long time that night, but we didn’t say much more. Mania’s proposition was a weight on my chest and it crushed all the air out of my lungs so it was hard to breathe. Whatever happened, it would happen to us as a family.

  Shortly after that argument, the summer ended and the Nazis ordered us out of our house. We moved into Uchka’s tiny house, where she lived with Hersch Leib’s aunt, who raised him after his parents died. We didn’t talk about it; just like we hadn’t said anything to Josek about Rela having a baby. It was simply too painful to talk about. We didn’t sleep at Uchka’s, however. We started sleeping at the Melmans’ and going back to Uchka’s during the day. The Patrontasches slept there as well. We wanted to be prudent since we knew the Nazis preferred to come early in the morning, hoping to catch their prey disoriented and vulnerable.

  Papa spent all of September and October still trying to find someone to take us in. Even with all the families we had helped over the years, all the families we had employed, all the farmers we had given credit to and whose grain we had milled for nothing in hard times, we couldn’t find one person to help us. We understood their reasons and didn’t think any less of them. Josek and Rela were in the same situation as us. We built a bunker under the factory in case they would be forced to hide there. At least Uchka had managed to find a Polish family named Skibicki willing to take her and the children in. It was a relief to know that they would be safe.

  There were rumours of an akcja–a mass deportation or a slaughter. I don’t know where the rumours started or how they got to us. The town was full of rumours. Mr Patrontasch was an insomniac and seemed never to sleep at all. One day, 22 November, when we were still at the Melmans’, I woke up to Mr Patrontasch screaming, ‘Get ready! I just saw two trucks and the Gestapo and the Jewish Police! From Lvov! They’re heading into town.’

  While we scrambled to wake up and put on our shoes, he ran out again and came back just a moment later. ‘It’s an akcja! They’re driving us up the street!’

  I heard gunshots and the Gestapo running and yelling. Mr Melman ran out to warn his friends, the Britwitzes next door. They were sitting at their table, eating breakfast. They also had a bunker, but
the Gestapo was already banging on the front door. Mr Britwitz held his front door closed with his body until the family had time to hide. Then he let go and started running down the street away from the house. The Gestapo shot him, but his family was safe. Mr Melman was lucky to get out and safely slip back into his own house undetected.

  We didn’t have time to run to the hiding place in the factory. Instead we all crawled through the bedroom trapdoor to the tomb under the Melmans’ house. The darkness was suffocating. We couldn’t burn the candles we had stored; there wasn’t enough oxygen to keep them lit. I had never sat in the bunker even for a minute while digging. I wasn’t prepared for the closeness, the terrifying darkness and the smell of damp earth I inhaled with the thick air. As the bunker heated up with the warmth of ten bodies, my pores opened and sweat soaked my clothes until they clung to me, like a second skin.

  We stayed there for two days, with no pail for our refuse, a few pieces of bread and a little water. There wasn’t room enough to move. When things seemed calm upstairs, Mr Melman and Mr Patrontasch crawled outside to see what was happening. They scrambled back after just a few minutes. The akcja was still on. They had killed Mr Lockman, a neighbour who tried to escape. We sat another night in the bunker. At dawn, Mr Patrontasch’s younger brother Laibek walked by the house. He knew we were in here and whispered that it was over and that the train had left already. We sat for another hour to be sure before going out.

  Our city was in desperate mourning. Carriages loaded with dead bodies were taken to the cemetery. Everyone was in shock as they described family members who had been killed while trying to run. Or else they had been shot trying to get up when they were told to kneel in the centre of the town. Or they had been shot while jumping off the trains. Or else they had been shot when betrayed by the Poles whom they had begged to hide them.

  Aunt Rela lost her mother, brother and sister-in-law. Mr Patrontasch lost his youngest sister Pepka (the girl Josek had flirted with before marrying Rela) and her child. She had been running to the house of a Polish friend who had promised to hide her, but the friend didn’t let her in when she got there. Papa’s friend, Mr Taube, saw her lying in a puddle of blood. They went for her body, but couldn’t find her again. My friend Klara Letzer and her family were taken, but she and her mother had managed to jump off the train and make it back. Her father was shot and killed as he tried to escape.

  We were thankful that all of us had survived, but didn’t know what to do next. It was only a matter of time before they returned to get those they had missed. Mania looked at Papa. Even she didn’t have a word to say. The nuns were just up the street. We could see the steeple of the convent from where we were. But we didn’t talk about the nuns any more. Our only hope was to find a Polish family willing to take us. But my father had already exhausted that avenue again and again.

  We went back to Uchka’s. She was in the same bad straits as we were. After the akcja, the family that was going to hide her had got cold feet. But she told us that one of her Polish clients from another town had offered to take Zosia, thinking that she could pass for a Polish child without any trouble at all. The woman loved Zosia because she was such a delightful little girl. Uchka gave Zosia to the woman at the train station, and was going to spend the night in Lvov before travelling to her home town. Zosia cried and cried as she was separated from her mother. Uchka felt as if her heart was ripped out, but she was grateful to know her daughter would be safe.

  The next morning the woman brought Zosia back to Uchka. Zosia had sobbed all night and couldn’t be consoled, she said. She wanted her mother.

  While my father looked in vain for a place for us, the Nazis announced they had taken Stalingrad, the city Stalin named in his own honour and the very symbol of the Soviet empire. Papa knew the Soviets had to defend this city with all their might. If Stalingrad fell, there would be no hope for us.

  A new decree followed shortly thereafter. All the Jews in Zolkiew were ordered to be in the ghetto by the first of December, only a week away. We knew the ghetto would be the end of us. There was nowhere to hide there. Two days after the decree, there was a knock on Uchka’s door in the evening. Papa opened it to find Pavluk standing on the step. He was a strong man whose giant hands were curled around his hat. His pants were shabby and he wore a soiled homespun linen shirt. He had one of those big moustaches that so many of the Ukrainian peasants had. Pavluk was a murderer. After being released from jail he had come to the factory looking for a job. Papa had gone to my grandfather to ask his advice. Dzadzio hadn’t hesitated for a second. He said, ‘Hire the man. I promise you, you will have a grateful man your entire life.’

  Pavluk told Papa he wanted to hide us. Papa didn’t say a word. He just took Pavluk’s hand and invited him into the house.

  ‘Thank you. You don’t know what this means to us. But we can’t.’

  I didn’t understand why Papa was refusing the offer. Mama, Mania and me all looked at each other and at him. I could see the protest forming on my sister’s lips. Her dark eyes expressed the most profound disappointment. Papa went on in a kind voice: ‘You have six children, Pavluk. And your house. Two rooms with no place for us to hide.’ As much as we wanted him to say yes, we knew Papa was right. We couldn’t put six children at risk. Out of all the Poles and Ukrainians that my family knew and had helped for generations, Pavluk was the only one who had come forward to help us.

  Pavluk was upset that he hadn’t properly thought through his plan for our survival. He muttered, ‘I want to do something, anything to help.’ Mama was moved by his sadness. Even though we had already put everything of value we had left behind the stuccoed false wall in the basement of our spinster neighbours, Mama gave him two down pillows and a featherbed to keep for us.

  Our down bedding would survive the Nazis.

  Chapter 3

  THE HOUSEKEEPER

  End November to the beginning of December 1942

  There are terrible tragedies, unbelievable tragedies…a stone would cry, but I’m sorry to say, the Gestapo is not touched by Jewish tears. They shoot at the people who jump indiscriminately, old or child…Carriages bring dead bodies that were killed on the spot trying to run, or trying to get up when they were told to kneel in the centre of the city. Also the people who were killed while jumping off the train and the ones that were betrayed by the gentiles.

  There was nothing more to do. There were just a few days left. We would have to find a place in the ghetto. My father’s brother David had found a studio, but he had six children and there would be no room for another four.

  Aunt Giza had got married to a man named Meyer. They had left Zolkiew for the tiny little farming town of Mosty Wielke. There was a work camp there that was considered safe. The German commandant Krupp protected the Jews. He made sure they had enough to eat and that they lived as normal a life as possible.

  Josek and Rela had found a place to live in the ghetto, but they were afraid for their little Moshele. Thankfully, because of his fair skin and blond curls, they were able to find a Polish peasant named Sluka who was prepared to take Moshele in exchange for money. Josek had secured a job as a Jewish policeman, which would allow him to leave the ghetto and check on their son. Uchka and the children were going to live with Hersch’s aunt, who had found a place on Turiniecka Street, which marked the border of the ghetto. One side of the street was the ghetto. The other side belonged to the Poles and Ukrainians. We were all packing, and Papa did all he could, searching everywhere for somewhere we could hide.

  It was late November, Uchka’s yard was barren and the house exposed. Through the window I could see Bolek, a boy from school, coming down the lane with his horse and cart made from scavenged wooden planks. Bolek was a year ahead of me and his sister, Anka, was in my class. They were both small for their age, a couple of pixies with reddish hair, green eyes and noses covered with freckles. I was surprised when he stopped the old horse in front of Uchka’s house. He jumped down and with the expression of a little m
an walked into the house. Bolek didn’t say ‘Hello, Clara’ or even acknowledge with his eyes that I was there when he stopped right in front of me. He simply picked up a wicker trunk that held our belongings and carried it out as if he were retrieving something that belonged to him. He loaded it on to his cart, which was already filled with dressers, trunks, lamps, chests, rugs, beds and bedding.

  We watched with resignation. There was nothing we could do. Bolek could have done whatever he liked with us. This child, no bigger than a Bar Mitzvah boy and with skin as smooth as a girl’s, could have just as easily come in and beaten or shot us. Nobody would have lifted a finger. Without thinking, I followed him outside. I surprised myself when I heard my voice asking, ‘Please, Bolek, there’s a wooden box with pictures in it. Can we keep it?’ He hesitated, then opened the trunk and took out the box. He still hadn’t said a word, but he finally looked me in the eye. The box was hand-carved from Russian birch and inlaid with an intricate pattern. He could tell how valuable it was. I didn’t care about the box’s value; I just wanted to keep the photos that proved that our family had once existed in an almost divine state of happiness and love. Our life was all there. The weddings, the brises, vacations in the Carpathians, trips to Rosa’s in the country. And even the picture of the four of us on our way to Paradise Hill. There were dozens and dozens of photos.

  Bolek stared at the box as if it had been in his family for years, and then handed it down to me. He left with his carriage, stopping at another house down the street. This theft was just one more humiliation in the chain that started with the armbands and there seemed like there would be no end to it.