Clara's War

by Clara Kramer

  All Mama said was, ‘Meir.’ Then Papa was holding and kissing me and begging me to forgive him. There was nothing to forgive. He was exhausted. He was not able to mourn Mania. He felt responsible for her death and nothing would ever take that ache away. He would mourn her all his life. Mania’s death, a silent accusation, would stand between him and Mama to the end of their days.

  Mr Patrontasch took out his measuring tape and crawled across to us. He excused himself and measured how much room we shared. Then he measured every other family’s sleeping space in the main bunker. He opened his little notebook, licked his pencil and made some calculations while we all watched.

  ‘What’s fair is fair,’ he announced. ‘Everybody gets 35 centimetres in which to sleep.’ He grabbed a slat or two from each of the other three families and put them next to ours. Nobody said a word. When we went to sleep that night, it didn’t seem like we had any more room. Mania would have thought it hilarious.

  The Becks called a truce for Christmas. We were all lying on our pallets listening to the party upstairs. The radio was on and everyone was dancing. It seemed all of Zolkiew was above our heads. Beck’s family as well as Julia’s. Adolph. Krueger and Beck’s other police cronies. Professor Lang and Eisenbard. I couldn’t tell if there was another soul asleep; I assumed we were all awake. The pounding from the dancing feet seemed like it was inside my head. Earlier in the day I had been crying out of love and thankfulness for the Becks. But now the tears were falling because these people were happy celebrating while so many thousands were dead and dying. I heard Mr Beck’s feet crossing right above us to the radio. He turned the radio off and almost one by one the feet stopped dancing. Mr Beck said, ‘Listen.’ In the distance, I heard carol singing. I could picture them walking up through the snow, all bundled up against the cold, holding candles to light their way. From the sound of their voices I knew they were not far from the church where Mania had been captured. Her memory intruded on almost all my thoughts. As the carol-singers got closer and closer, I was able to recognize the song. It was Przybiezeli do Betlejem. It was one of the most beautiful of all Polish carols and one that Mania and I had sung together just one year before.

  By now I could make out the words of the carol-singers. But it wasn’t the Christmas songs we knew. And even worse, we could hear the Becks and Ala and all their guests laughing along with carol-singers as they sang in exaggerated, mocking Yiddish accents, laughing so hard at their joke that they could hardly get the revised lyrics out…

  Joy to the world, the Yids are dead

  Hung by their necks, shot through their heads

  Joy to the world, the earth is red with their blood

  It started as a trickle and now it’s a flood…

  Beck was howling with devilish laughter. Zosia and Zygush huddled in my arms, too frightened to talk. The Becks’ laughter only magnified our terror. I whispered in the children’s ears that it was all okay, but I didn’t believe it for one second. It was like one of those devil’s masses old peasant women loved to scare the local children with.

  Joy to the world, a present from our Lord, Jesus,

  I found under the tree…

  The dead bodies of a Yid family…mother, father, daughter, son…

  Killing them was so much…fun…

  We knew there would be no rest until the last bottle had been drained, the last toast drunk and the last dance finished. One by one the guests wandered off into the clean, fresh, winter night. Adolph lingered and lingered. After we had heard the door close for a final time, Beck sent Ala downstairs to bring us all up. He apologized profusely for having gone along with the singing. It had been an act. All the Becks were ashamed. That after all they had done for us, they would even worry about such a thing was a testament to their goodness. Mr Beck cried and apologized and kissed each of the children.

  The tree, with its boughs so fresh, filled the room with the fragrance of pines. The hundred candles resting on the branches were a choir of light. The children stared and stared. How dare this world be so different from ours in the bunker? Ala and the Becks had little bags of sweets for the children. The children forgot everything as each went through their bags piece by piece, making sure that no one else had one sweet extra. God bless the Becks to remember the children.

  The Becks’ truce continued through New Year, when they came down with vodka for the men and cookies for the children. Julia had good news. She had finally sold some of the sweaters I had knitted and had come to give my father the money. Mama beamed at me, and Papa simply nodded in approval. I wasn’t just his little girl any more. I felt so proud that I was able to help in a tangible way. Even Zygush thanked me. If only the day could have ended there.

  I couldn’t have dreamed what Beck would tell us next. After refilling the vodka glasses yet again, he cleared his throat. ‘The Germans have requisitioned one of our rooms. They assigned two trainmen to live with us.’ Adding almost as an apology: ‘We didn’t have much choice. But don’t think this is so bad. We’ll be safer. Who would ever think you’d be here with trainmen living right upstairs! This is good. Really.’ Only Beck could be such an optimist and even I knew he couldn’t believe what he was telling us. We didn’t know if these trainmen who’d be our upstairs neighbours were the very trainmen who took our friends and families to the camps. Papa asked, ‘How long?’

  Beck shrugged. ‘Who knows. A few weeks. A few months. I just don’t know.’ That was it. He had told us what he had had to say. There wasn’t anything left to add. Even the vodka couldn’t soften the blow. He left us the bottle and retreated upstairs.

  Mr Patrontasch’s voice broke the silence. ‘Perhaps the time has come for us to consider the other option.’ I had never heard such bland statement in my life. His voice was emotionless. It was as if he were asking someone to pass him the bread. This was to be an adult-only conversation and I was asked to take the children to the furthest corner of the bunker.

  While Zygush started to read aloud from his book, I strained to hear the others. But it was impossible to make out more than a few things here and there. ‘We have no choice…’ ‘There’s no way we will survive this.’ ‘There’s still the can of petrol.’ ‘But we should spare the children as much as we can.’

  I saw Mrs Steckel’s hand grasp the vial of poison she wore round her neck. My mind was racing. Could Papa actually be asking for the poison for the children? After everything we’ve been through, after Mania and all she sacrificed for us, after all of this, could this be it? Was this the moment when the ‘if’ had turned into a ‘when’? Was there no remnant of hope left? Beck had sounded so optimistic. They couldn’t stop trusting him now. He had pulled us through so much before, he would get us through this too. I wasn’t ready to stop fighting. If Mania were here, she wouldn’t let this happen. How could my parents agree to this? Thoughts of suicide had passed through my mind, but now that it was being discussed openly, I wanted to scream NO! I wanted to scream it at the top of my lungs. But nothing came out.

  There was such pain in Mama’s eyes. She looked like she had when Mania had died. After that I couldn’t hear a thing. It wasn’t until Mr Melman was right next to us that I heard him say, ‘Clarutchka, we’re done.’

  I couldn’t bear to look at the others. I didn’t want to see the truth of it. I just held Zosia and Zygush close to me and listened to the end of their story.

  Chapter 12

  VALENTINE’S DAY

  January to February 1944

  Thursday, 1 February. Mr Beck was in the bunker today. He says he heard on the radio that there are conferences in London. They want to end the war in the middle of March in order to save the remainder of the Jews…Sorry, it’s too late, there will be very few Jews remaining when this is over. I can’t imagine there are more people like the Becks who save 18 Jews.

  Today is the first of the month. We have to pay. Everybody paid. Mr Patrontasch paid half, and mother gave her wedding ring. We didn’t sell it until now. Daddy thought Mr B
eck will not like it, but his generosity has no bounds. He didn’t say anything. Please God, bless him because a single human cannot thank him enough.

  How many times in the past year had I had to face the moment of my imminent death? Five? Ten? Twenty? Certainly more often than the times my belly was full. When I had to prepare, to picture the bullet and the flash of muzzle, or the axe or whatever weapon was at hand. To imagine the pain, the hell of being dragged through the streets and thrown on a train going to a camp. I had seen it with my own eyes. I was not a morbid girl, obsessed with her own death, but I was a witness. It was all there, more indelible than if it was etched by lightning in marble. And I had to weigh every second of life against every second of suffering. I knew there was no equation to give me an answer. I knew most of the suicides I had heard about were desperate reactions to imminent situations. Men and women running to the wire instead of to the marsh. Throwing a noose round the neck as the SS broke down the door. Taking poison in a cattle car already littered with corpses. Someone would have to inform the Becks. Someone had to convince the Steckels to give the poison to the children. It was one thing to contemplate taking one’s own life, but once it was decided, the how and when became matters of practical concern. We had no time. Mr Melman dragged the five-litre can of petrol out of its grave in the far bunker and left it there. But nobody was moving. Nobody was saying anything. The can was mocking us.

  We knew what would happen. Our suicide would murder the Becks. That was something we would never do. There was nothing to do but face the arrival of our new guests and go on.

  As much as I tried to prepare myself for the arrival of the trainmen in the next few hours, I realized there was nothing I could do. I was already practised in the ways of hunger, thirst and silence. I had trained my digestive system to wait long periods of time before relief. I was able to sit without moving for hours and to sleep with pain. I could endure maddening rashes and prickly heat without scratching. If more of these qualities were required, I prayed I would find the will to continue. I could even control my fear to a certain degree. But what the trainmen were bringing was an unabated and continual terror of being discovered and eventual but certain death. Under such circumstances, would I, and we, be able to fight to the end, bitter or sweet? Even as we thought about ending it all, if we didn’t act as if we were going to survive, there was no chance at all.

  We were all waiting with desperate apprehension. It was as if the men were already here. Nobody was taking advantage of the last minutes of freedom; we were frozen. Then there was a knock at the door. We listened as Mr Beck invited the two strange voices and footsteps into the house. If there was any tension upstairs, we couldn’t feel it. It seemed like a social call, with the requisite exchange of niceties and social decorum, rather than the Nazi imposition it really was. Beck had the vodka out and Julia offered the traditional bread and salt. I recognized the flirtation in Ala’s voice as she told them a little about Zolkiew. I could tell that there was a huge gap in their ages. One seemed like a young man, almost a teenager, while the other’s voice was much more manly.

  As they chatted, I could tell that Beck had a plan behind his gracious welcome. He was fishing for information about these men’s schedules to minimize surprises. He commiserated with them about their long workdays and their extended trips. Their schedule was erratic. We heard that sometimes they’d be working a few days; sometimes just overnight. And then there was a little laugh at the expense of German efficiency. Sometimes, they wouldn’t be going anywhere for days. I was listening with big ears. We all were. What would we do if they stayed at home for days? It was already hard enough to keep still and avoid detection when Adolph stayed overnight, or during those endless parties. But days on end? I didn’t see how we would manage to cook; to empty the pails; to get our food from Julia; to do all the meagre but essential things our lives had been reduced to.

  They never volunteered to the Becks any details about their jobs. I didn’t know if they were merely being cagey or if there was something in particular they were hiding from the Becks. All we knew was that they were trainmen. In times of war, a title was all you got, details were hushed over whenever possible. Everything I knew about the Nazis, and especially the trains, filled me with dread. There had been all those broken bones and the gunshot wounds of the jumpers. And then there was the terrible story that Beck had told us. Apparently the Polish trainmen working on the deportation trains and the trains that went to Belzec and Auschwitz would get off several miles before the camps. The Nazi trainmen would then take over for the final miles. I didn’t want the men upstairs to be ‘those’ Germans. I wished they might be simple workers, mechanics or oilers, anything but the men who drove my people to their deaths. I didn’t know what the others were thinking as these men made themselves comfortable and I heard their heavy bodies (they had to be heavy from the way the bedsprings creaked) flop down on the bed. But as their big hobnailed boots hit the floor, I wondered if these pleasant gruff voices indeed belonged to the men who drove the trains to Belzec and Auschwitz. And if they did, how could they laugh and groan with such contentment on the Becks’ freshly washed sheets?

  We did our best to organize our lives around the schedule of the trainmen. When they left the house, Beck would watch them walk down the street until they were out of sight. Then he’d knock on the door and, like our own little army, we’d charge into action. Patrontasch would rush upstairs to empty the buckets. Julia would hand us down the food and Mama would start cooking. Julia could only take our food orders in the rare moments when they weren’t here, so we had to cut our rations to almost nothing. A cup of ‘coffee’ and a slice of bread in the morning. Watery soup for lunch. And one potato, the size of a walnut, for supper.

  Like everything else I thought we couldn’t adjust to, we somehow adjusted to life with the trainmen. I couldn’t call it will or even resistance. We somehow just managed to do what was needed at any given moment. Stay still when the men were upstairs, and concentrate any necessary movements into the hours they were away. Despite my unbearable terror, knowing those Nazis to be upstairs, I’d eat my beloved potatoes and continue to breathe the fetid air. I had read the word ‘fetid’ in I don’t know how many novels, and I could now proudly say I finally understood the concept in all its foul glory. We’d live on, from meal to meal and day to day, until we were either liberated or killed. A few weeks ago the others had discussed taking our own lives, but now, after hearing the fits and starts of the Soviet advance, we had begun to hope that there would be a life for us after the war.

  But most of all, we were hungry for news from Beck. If the Russians advanced a few kilometres or had just taken Szeptowka, a town on the way to Lvov, there was enough hope to keep me going for a few more days. And when the German press reported that the Russians were making a push from Rovno in the direction of Lvov–God! What joy! Lvov! To hear the name of Lvov mentioned on the radio made the idea of our liberation a reality. And when Beck told us that ten German divisions, all of 200,000 men, were surrounded near the Dnieper river and were doomed, I prayed with all my heart and soul for the very Russians who had killed my grandfather.

  In Zolkiew, the news was also encouraging. Julia told us that Pan Domrecki, who was notorious for being one of the nastiest collaborators, was getting ready to leave. Domrecki had sold out, for zloty and vodka, dozens of Jews and the Poles who had protected them. He and his thug friends would patrol the railroad tracks looking for jumpers. When they found a Jew, they would pretend to offer help. Instead, they’d bring them straight to the SS. They would show up later at the alcohol depot where Beck worked, exchanging their chits for blood vodka. I felt as if I could cut every Nazi henchman and collaborator to pieces. Beck said he knew who every one of these bastards was. If Domrecki and those other bastards were running, it surely meant the Russians were winning the war. The hope egged us on. We had been subsisting on so little, but now the good signs were close. But all in all they didn’t change anything in our
lives. We couldn’t look to the future with longing because we needed every fibre of will and concentration to be focused on whatever task lay at hand.

  The deportations and the deaths continued. It was no wonder we were all going crazy. We were on a seesaw of emotions. Mama fainted almost every time there was a knock at the door. She would faint every time Beck or Julia told us of the brutal end of yet another friend. When she had come to again, Mama would say, ‘Write, Clarutchka, write.’ If every Jew in Zolkiew was destroyed, there would at least be my diary to tell the story. Mama made Beck promise that nothing would ever happen to the diary. She didn’t have to add, ‘If we died.’ We all understood.

  From time to time, Mr Patrontasch would grab a piece of paper and write down all sorts of equations and columns of numbers. When he was done, he’d tell us that we had been down in the bunker for 31,536,000 seconds. He’d have this satisfied expression on his face as if he had just discovered the meaning of life. And then he’d record the number in a little book. Lola wrote from time to time, but didn’t show us what she was writing. Of course, we didn’t ask. And the women, especially when there wasn’t a crumb for a cockroach to eat on the dirt floor, would start exchanging recipes. They’d argue about whether black or golden raisins were better for noodle puddings. Or how to make the lightest sponge cake. And how much honey to put in the chewy raisin cookies I adored. It was the meshuggenah driving the rest of meshugge.

  Finally Papa couldn’t take it any more. ‘If you balabustas, good homemakers, are such geniuses in front of the stove, why don’t you bake us a honey cake out of potato peels?’

  All this absurdity meant one thing. We were still alive.

  I kept on reminding myself of our good fortune, even when it had been 20 below zero outside for weeks and the trainmen hadn’t budged from their chairs in all that time. They would just sit and sit and sit, reading the newspaper and listening to the radio. Every second of their relaxation equalled agony for us. Sometimes I thought I could even hear the pages rustling when they turned them.