But my German isn’t as good as I think. I should have said Wirtschafterin, housekeeper. Instead, by answering Wirtschaft I am unintentionally asking for housekeeping work as a chambermaid in a hotel.
The SS man’s eyes light up. “Ach, wunderbar! I have a friend in Ulm who needs two Wirtschafts.”
Even though Ulm is quite a distance from the Swiss border, we are too exhausted to travel farther, and are thrilled for the chance to stay together, so we agree.
We get off the train with mostly women because so many of the Polish young men have already been taken as prisoners or forced laborers. Waiting at the station are hundreds of fat, well-dressed German men looking us over the way my tatte would look at the cows before buying the choicest ones to be slaughtered. A farmer immediately points at me, commenting on my healthy red cheeks, then examining my teeth.
But the SS man says, “No! She is already taken,” and then he waves to a man in the crowd.
We are introduced to Sigmund Schweibold, the owner of the Gasthaus zum Rotter Lowen. He is very happy to see the SS man and seems quite pleased with Sabina and me. We go to his hotel and restaurant and he takes us up to our room. We cannot believe our luck. The room is actually quite nice and again we feel relieved. It is on the top floor in a finished attic. We have a spacious room with three beds and our very own toilet and bath.
But in a moment our relief turns to panic. We learn that a Polish woman, Marysa, occupies the third bed; she will be working with us. We have come to Germany to escape the prying eyes of the Poles, and now we will be spending each day and night with one. What will happen to us if we cry out in Yiddish in our sleep?
Sabina and I are not quite sure if it is praying to our God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or kneeling and crossing ourselves and praying to the mother of a Jewish rabbi named Jesus, but three weeks later the owner’s wife discovers that Marysa is pregnant and has her immediately sent back to Poland.
Unlike her husband, Frau Schweibold is an ardent member of the Nazi party, but she doesn’t seem to have any doubts about Sabina and me. Now we have the bedroom all to ourselves. We are surrounded by unsuspecting Germans, and for the first time since September 1, 1939, we can take deep breaths and relax from most of our fears. There is a regular rhythm to the days and we settle in to a blessedly busy, boring, and safe routine.
One of my jobs is to serve breakfast—a lowly Pole would never be allowed to serve lunch or dinner. Plus I must remove the dirty dishes from the tables and clean the rooms. Then for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening I wash and cut the food and help in the kitchen. Sabina works all day cooking, and she is a very good cook.
The restaurant is famous for its potato salad. My job in the kitchen is to wash and boil the potatoes and then, when the potatoes have cooled, remove the skins and dice them. One might think I would soon get sick of potatoes, but I am so skinny and have been so hungry for four years that I eat as much as I dice. It is “one for the pot, one for Basia, one for the pot, one for Basia.”
A month after being here, as I am sweeping the second floor, I see the SS man from the train come into the lobby. I overhear him ask Frau Schweibold for the pretty blond Polish girl.
But she doesn’t want him distracting me from my work and gets rid of him. “She’s very busy right now. I can’t possibly interrupt her from her work. But I’ll let her know you were here. Goodbye!”
I suppose he had more in mind than simply being helpful when he got us these jobs. Fortunately he doesn’t return.
The next morning, as I am serving breakfast, a German soldier looks at my yellow armband with the P that shows I am a Polish worker and then smiles and winks at me. He says, “There must be some mistake, Fräulein. You can’t possibly be Polish.” For a moment, my heart stops. “You look so German and you speak so well.” I relax, smile back, and quickly go into the kitchen. Such a warm feeling of safety is flooding over me, a marvelous sense of security I have not felt since the war began. I look German. They think I am Polish. They have no idea that I am a Jew.
There is another worker at the hotel. A German girl, thank God. Her name is Maya and she lives with her parents on the outskirts of Ulm. She comes every day at nine a.m. and leaves by ten p.m. It is Maya who is fit to serve the German guests their lunch and dinner. Maya is a lovely young woman and always smells so good. She says her cologne is called Heliotrope and it has the same sweet scent as that fragile purple flower. Sabina is a few years older than I, but Maya and I are exactly the same age and temperament. We get along very well.
JUNE 1943
I am getting fat from eating all those potatoes, so I decide to go on a diet. When I decide on a course of action, I don’t do things halfway. That is how I’ve always been. So I limit my eating very strictly. I guess this is too big a shock to my system, because my monthly periods stop. This worries me and I ask Frau Schweibold if she thinks this is a serious problem.
What worries Frau Schweibold is that she might have another pregnant Pole on her hands whom she will have to send back. She takes me to a doctor, and even though I know I can’t be pregnant I am still nervous that he might find something and she could send me back to Poland. But moments after examining me the doctor tells me to dress and return to the reception area.
With an amused expression on his face he addresses Frau Schweibold—right in front of me—and says, “There is no need to consult the laboratory for a diagnosis in this case. Fräulein Tanska cannot be pregnant because she is still a virgin.” And the doctor tells me to gain some weight.
It registers with me that I have enough food to eat and I have been worrying about getting fat instead of worrying about starving to death. After four years of fear and depression and fighting for my life or drifting in numb detachment, I am now secure in my daily routine, the constant supply of good food, and the certain belief that sooner or later the Americans will destroy the Nazi regime and end this horror. My work keeps me too busy to think. I live in the moment. And I am shocked to realize that I am actually happy in Ulm.
On Tuesdays Sabina and I have a half day off. After cleaning the restaurant and the hotel rooms, we often walk along the banks of the Danube River and go to a movie. Sometimes we wander to the magnificent Ulm Münster, their fourteenth-century Gothic cathedral with (they tell us) the world’s tallest church steeple. We sit in the back during evening service, looking at the wooden carvings, listening to the music, and practicing being Catholic. Every now and then we stand outside the old fourteenth-century Rathaus, the town hall, looking at the astronomical clock as it slowly counts the minutes and hours.
Three or four times a week we have to set an alarm to wake us at two a.m. so we can let the soldiers out to catch the three a.m. train. Because of the war and security, the front door of the hotel is locked overnight so that guests cannot leave unless one of us unlocks the door. Herr Schweibold has a contract with the Wehrmacht that makes his business very profitable. The soldiers get a room at the hotel, eat dinner, get drunk, sing their patriotic “Heil Hitler” and “Deutschland über alles” songs, get a little sleep, and then leave after we open the door in time for them to catch their train.
After six months of working hard all day every day and then getting up at two in the morning several times a week, Sabina and I are exhausted.
Maybe it’s reckless to challenge the boss when he could have me sent back to Poland in an instant, but I just can’t take being exploited like this anymore. We presented ourselves as workers, not slaves. I tell Herr Schweibold that I am just not able to go on like this and if I can’t get more sleep then I will have to find another job.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “Nobody wants that. My wife and I will alternate nights with you and Junka, and you will be able to get your rest.”
But after trying this for a little while, Herr Schweibold decides the extra money isn’t worth losing his sleep or losing us. He tells any guests checking in that they have to stay until the morning, and now we all sleep through the nig
ht and everyone is in a better mood.
As soon as summer comes I can’t wait to sunbathe. I have always been addicted to the sun. Now I spend each Zimmerstunde, our two-hour lunch break, on the banks of the Danube. Sabina stays in our room. She is not interested in making her skin darker.
The first time I walk along the river I see a mother duck followed by her six ducklings, and I have to hold back tears. What a surprise to feel such depths of emotion—I have kept my feelings suppressed for so long. But it reminds me of my family and of how every Shabbos, after our midday meal, my mother would take all of us to visit Uncle Josef and Tante Sura. Mama would lead, holding the baby and the next youngest by the hand, then two by two the rest of us would follow, just like those ducks. The jagged knife of reality plunges deep into my heart. The Mama I remember and most of those happy little ducks are dead. Will I ever wake up from this nightmare?
One day, as I am sunning myself by the river, two SS men approach me and ask for my identification papers. I answer that I left the papers at home. As usual, when I leave the hotel, I don’t wear my yellow armband identifying myself as a Pole. The last thing I want is to attract the attention of any Poles living in Ulm.
“Where are you from?” one of the SS asks gruffly.
“Poland,” I answer.
“Don’t you know you must always wear your armband whenever you go out?” he snaps.
With no time to carefully choose my words, I snap back as if affronted, “I didn’t think I’d have to wear it when I’m half-naked. It would ruin my suntan!”
The two men laugh and relax. “Well, from now on wear your armband,” one of them says, and they walk away. It is only then that I feel afraid, and I shiver lying there in the bright sun.
I remember the time I went with Sabina to register for work at the Arbeitsampt when the Volksdeutsche signing us up suspected Sabina of being a Jew. Then, too, looking the woman straight in the eyes, I operated on instinct. I acted like I thought her question was stupid and snapped back at her. Remembering that, I start to feel the warmth of the sun and I am relieved to realize that when it comes to saving my life, Basia is more brazen and quick on her feet than Gucia could ever have been.
AUGUST 1943
I use the address that Uncle Josef gave me for my cousin Janek in Poland. I write to him as Basia and, carefully choosing my words, tell him only of my good fortune to be working for the wonderful Germans and that I have a job in Ulm. I soon get a letter back. We are very discreet and write often, trying to sound the way Poles would speak. At one point Janek asks me to send him two pairs of used work boots for my two brothers and it gives me hope that Josek and Idek are still alive, but I worry about their situation. Before, even when they were doing forced labor at Bugaj, Idek and Josek always had clothes on their backs and shoes on their feet. What kind of conditions could they be living in now that they would need old work boots? I send the boots and also some fresh apples. Janek later writes to thank me for the boots, with no mention of the apples. They must have been stolen at the post office.
SEPTEMBER 1943
A car horn is blaring in the driveway. Herr Schweibold goes running out of the lobby, down the stairs. I peek out the kitchen window to see a large, rotund German man getting out of a black Mercedes. He is tall and well-dressed, with a large black mustache like a walrus and a mop of black hair on his head. He rushes to Herr Schweibold and they warmly hug each other, talking, talking, talking. He goes back to his car and takes out a suitcase and a briefcase, and arm in arm they walk up the stairs into the lobby.
“Basia,” Herr Schweibold calls to me.
I come from the kitchen, quickly swallowing the potato in my mouth and drying my hands on a kitchen towel.
“Basia. Here is Uncle Fritz. He is our most special guest.”
And when he says the word special, his left eyebrow goes up and his right eyebrow goes down. “Uncle Fritz will be staying with us for a few days and he will want his coffee hot and black at exactly 7:40 tomorrow morning. Of course you will clean his room spotlessly, as you always do,” he says to me very intently.
“Junka,” he bellows, and Sabina comes running from the kitchen. “Junka, this is our Uncle Fritz and he is our most special guest. He will absolutely love your apple pancakes. Be sure they are ready for him at eight tomorrow morning.” And they go off, arm in arm, chatting, into the library.
I get up extra-early to be sure that the coffee I make for Uncle Fritz is hot and black, but not as black as the coffee I made for Heniek and my friends from Hashomer Hatsair (where are they now?). I am surprised to see that Maya is in the kitchen and the water is already boiling. I wonder what this means. She lives so far away; there is no way she could have gotten here so early. She barely looks at me.
At nine o’clock I clean Uncle Fritz’s room. There is a faint smell of heliotrope perfume in the air.
Uncle Fritz comes every few weeks. Some of those times Maya climbs into bed with me in the middle of the night. She is disgusted that Uncle Fritz is unable “to perform” and so she leaves him snoring in his bed.
MAY 1944
Sabina and I have been in Germany for more than a year. We are safe and full of food. We heard that before the war there were only five hundred Jews living in all of Ulm. Of course they and the synagogue are long gone. But this fact, that there were hardly any Jews in the city, makes us feel even safer. The people in Ulm do not know what a Jew is. Sabina and I are so busy each day that we have no time to think about anything besides what we are doing. This life is so simple. Our only decisions are what to do during our lunch break and on our half day off each week. We give the boss our tips because we don’t have enough free time to spend even our measly wages. And we are sure that after the war the deutschmark will be worthless. The fact is, even though we are often exhausted, we have become used to our lives and are even, I have to admit, generally content.
But as safe as we feel, we yearn to know when the world will return to normal. I read the newspapers every day and know that the German words are lies. I know that the Americans are strong and that they will defeat the Nazis, but how much longer will it take?
The Allies are now starting to bomb Germany. We have had a few bombings already in Ulm. Maya sometimes spends nights at the hotel, not wanting to be out after dark.
JUNE 1944
The night bombings have become more and more intense. The siren blows and we wake up and struggle out of bed, grab our suitcases, and run down to the cellar. Then at dawn we go to work. Some nights we are so exhausted we don’t even bother to get up but just sleep through the air raid.
JULY 1944
It is the middle of the night. A siren blares and we wake up. Sabina and I decide to stay in bed. We’ve spent so many nights needlessly awake in the cellar when nothing ever happened. But this time Herr Schweibold is pounding on our door. He insists we go to the cellar now! The planes are very close.
Huddled down in the cellar, we hear them directly overhead. There is a tremendous crash, an explosion, and the ceiling of the cellar is raining pieces of plaster on our heads. And then, FIRE! Fire everywhere, smoke and plaster and screaming and running and I grab my suitcase and I can’t see or breathe and someone grabs my hand and coughing and choking we run to the outside. We run and run and there are bombs exploding and fire everywhere. There is no moon and the only light is from the fires that are burning through the streets of Ulm.
It is Maya who has grabbed my hand. She yells that we must run to her family’s house outside the city.
But Sabina. Where is Sabina?
I panic. I run off searching for her. I scream for her in Polish, in German, and without thinking, in Yiddish.
I scream: “Junka!” and “Sabina!” and “Sabineleh!” but she is nowhere. Maya runs after me and again grabs my hand and pulls me along.
Losing Sabina
Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who i
s alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!
—Ecclesiastes 4:9–10
JULY 1944
We run through the night, two young, frightened girls running from Death. I don’t know how long we run but after a while we outrun the chaos and arrive at Maya’s home.
Maya’s parents are overwhelmed with relief to see her. They are kind and openhearted people. Maya has spoken nicely of me and they tell me that I am welcome to stay with them as a member of the family. They are poor but they treat me like a daughter and share their food with me, even though I am a Pole.
I stay here for a month, helping as much as I can with the housework and food preparation each day. Then one night I am awakened from my sleep by someone climbing onto the cot where I sleep. It is Maya’s father. He whispers in my ear that I must not say a word, that I owe them for the food and the shelter, that he will make me very happy. I am frightened, but even more outraged. I kick him hard and slap him in the face and run to the outhouse, where I lock myself in until dawn. Then I sneak into the house to grab my suitcase and walk back to Ulm. I know the hotel is closed, nearly demolished the night of the bombing, so I go straight to the Arbeitsampt, where I am first in line. I tell them I have lost my job because of the bombing and need new work. I ask if they have a record of my cousin, Janina Sieracka, whom I lost during the bombing, but they say no.
They send me to a restaurant on the other side of Ulm. The place is absolutely filthy. I have a small room the size of a closet, but it has a bolt on the door, so no one can get into my bed. My job is similar to what it was at the Gasthaus zum Rotter Lowen. I peel potatoes and peel potatoes and peel potatoes.
Then one day I cut my left thumb badly. It does not heal but becomes red and swollen and throbs all night and the nail looks strange. After two weeks I can’t stand the pain anymore and go to a doctor. He tells me that I have a serious infection and might lose my thumb. He operates on it and I am sent to recover at a clinic for foreign workers run by the Catholic Church, with a special barracks for Poles. My worst nightmare, to be with Poles.
Claiming My Place Page 15