The Girl from Krakow

by Alex Rosenberg

  “Are you sure? Really certain?”

  The young man became grave. “It was the worst moment of my life. I can tell you every detail.” His voice rose. “There was no child!”

  Rita wanted to exult. But she couldn’t. “Sorry. Let’s get back to you . . .” She picked up her pen.

  “Was it your child?” His anger had been replaced by sympathy. She nodded. “You should be glad then. We were all loaded onto cattle wagons for Auschwitz directly from the Aktion. I’m sorry, but your parents were selected immediately.”

  Suddenly Rita had the image. She would not allow herself to dwell on it for a moment. Not now. Perhaps later. “And you? What happened to you?”

  “I was sixteen. They took my parents and my younger sister. They put me on the fire brigade for Canada—that’s what we called the storage depot in Birkenau where they kept all the stuff they took off the people they gassed. Then they moved me around to some of the other camps. Then I was a cook for a while. That saved my life . . .” He looked down at his hands, all bones and protruding veins. “Fattened me up.” He laughed. “Then we marched for months back to Germany last winter.”

  “So, anyone to trace?”

  “I had some cousins in Nowy Sacz.”

  “I’m going back to Poland as soon as I can.” It was the first thing Rita said to Dani that evening. Working at separate desks in different barracks, they had not seen each other all day. Before Dani could ask, she explained what she had learned. “There is a chance, you see? He may still be alive somewhere.”

  Dani did not even pause to digest the news. She pulled a battered suitcase out from beneath her cot and unbelted it.

  “Don’t do it, Rita.” Thompson, the camp administrator, was considering the matter the next morning. “No passports, and anyway, the borders are closed between Germany and Czechoslovakia. No idea what the situation is at the Czech-Polish border. I’d wait till things get normalized more. Besides, we need you here.”

  Both women shook their heads. Dani spoke. “The longer we wait, the colder the trail gets.”

  “We? Are you both going?”

  “I never found out exactly what happened to my parents or . . . my brother.” Dani didn’t have a brother. Rita supposed the lie was just something Dani had contrived to add to her urgency.

  “Look, I’ll rough out some official-looking documents—authorizations, identities—on official letterhead. At least I can get you accommodation in Munich and Regensburg and travel authority for the railways. You’ll have to go through Regensburg to slip into Czechoslovakia. It’s the shortest path to Poland. I’ll give you the name of someone who can help on the Czech side.”

  “How do you know anyone?” Rita was surprised at the offer and the local knowledge.

  “Some of the Canadians have been helping refugees make their way to Palestine through Czecho’. I’ll trust you not to mention anything to the Brits.”

  Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, Augsburg, Munich—every station was seething with the flotsam of European humanity, climbing over one another on platforms, sleeping rough or waiting wordlessly for space on the roof of a train. Like so many ant colonies sending out and receiving foraging parties, from each station packed lines of refugees fanned out and funneled in. At each there was a UNRRA desk ready to help Dani and Rita, who pulled such rank as the uniforms they now wore could provide. At Regensburg they showed Major Thompson’s counterpart his letter of authorization. When the officer saw the name, he brightened.

  “We need to get across the Czech border. Can you help?”

  “Not too many people going that way, ladies. Most of the traffic is moving the other way, into the American zone. It’s not just Czechs, either. Mainly Poles, Ukrainians, Bulgarians, Romanians. A lot of them don’t seem to make it across at all. Passport checks by the Soviet frontier guards. Where are you headed?”

  “Katowice, in Poland, Major.”

  “I hope you’re planning on a one-way journey, ladies.” The women were silent, so the officer continued, “Look, are you girls Jewish? Because if you are, there are people in Prague who can help. There’s an office there set up by the Joint.”

  Rita and Dani asked the one-word question simultaneously: “Joint?”

  “The old American JDC. They’re supporting surviving Jews and trying to move those who want to go to Palestine.” But JDC meant nothing more to Rita or Dani than the word “Joint.” He tried again. “JDC—Joint Distribution Committee. Don’t know why it’s called ‘Joint,’ but they probably have field agents in Poland too. Here’s their address in Prague. Now let’s see about a truck to Elsarn; that’s the last town this side of the Czech border.”

  At midnight they were following a farmer down a dry two-track lane through rising summer wheat, pale in the half moon. The track wound into a copse of trees, and then they found themselves creeping through the knee-high stalks in a newly cultivated field until they reached the first trees of what was a thick woods.

  Following the farmer they clambered over a wall made from five hundred years of stones laboriously dislodged and moved to the edge of the field. He stopped. “You’re in Czecho now. There’s your path into Zelezna. You’ll have to hitch a ride into Smolov, but there are lots of farmers that’ll take a couple of girls like you.” He held out his hand for payment. Dani reached into her haversack and handed him a carton of Camel cigarettes. Best currency there was in circulation.

  Prague was far beyond the writ of the UNRRA. It had been occupied by Russian forces, though most of the units were already preparing to pull back to Poland. But the Joint—the JDC—was clearly visible in the main waiting room of Prague Central Station. The desk could have been mistaken for a UNRRA operation: lines of inquirers, Joint workers passing among them, others behind the desk collating lists, checking for names, organizing housing, transport, documents. Rita and Dani held back. They knew from experience that these workers wouldn’t give any priority to a couple of well-fed, healthy-looking, cleanly clothed women.

  When the woman at the desk finally had a moment, she spoke. “We can put you up for a day, girls. It will be cramped. Tickets to Brno are possible, but you probably won’t have any seats. From there anywhere in Poland won’t be too hard to reach. There are even seats going there.” She looked at Rita. “Are you really Jewish?”

  “Yes, why do you ask?”

  “You both look pretty healthy.” She looked at Rita. “But it’s the Bavarian peasant braids pinned up the side of your head, I guess. Probably saved your life. With your German it was a great disguise.” Then she confided what she’d really been thinking. “Not a very popular look these days in Prague.”

  Getting to Katowice was as easy as expected. The Joint office in the train station was not hard to find either. Now they were supplicants, like a thousand others on line, and they waited their turns. Finally Rita found herself standing at the counter. Her form was in her hand, filled out: maiden name, Feuerstahl, married name, Guildenstern—it had been five years since she had written it or even thought of herself as Guildenstern. No need for Trushenko on the form at all. How strange. Birthplace: Gorlice, Last Polish residence: Karpatyn. She pushed the form across the counter, and now suddenly she knew how the others had felt, many hundreds, perhaps even a few thousand people, who had stood expectantly across from her in the Frankfurt UNRRA office. They would watch as she moved a finger or a pencil down one list after another, moving from clipboard to clipboard, looking up occasionally to see a face hoping against hope. Nine times out of ten, she would disappoint them with, “Sorry, no one by that name on our lists.” Now it was her turn to feel the emptiness of being a castaway, a sole survivor, tossed by the currents in a sea of hollowed-out faces washing up at tracing desks all over Europe. The woman behind the desk had a “United Kingdom” shoulder flash on her sleeve. “You speak English?” Rita nodded but drew Dani forward. “We’ve been working for the UNRRA for three months.”

  “Sorry. Nothing under Feuerstahl. Very unusual name. Let’s see about Gui
ldenstern. Another uncommon name. Makes things easier.” The woman went back to her first list. She smiled and looked at Rita with a rare look of pleasure. “Well, this is unusual.” She didn’t appear to recognize the conflicted look that began crossing Rita’s face as she conveyed the information. “Guildenstern, Urs, Karpatyn, Colonel, Medical Corps, Northern Army Group, Soviet Forces, stationed Third Evacuation Hospital.” And now her voice rose so that coworkers and supplicants on line turned their heads. “Current location: Katowice, Poland. You’re practically on top of him. Your husband?”

  Rita nodded. The woman lowered her voice. “But this is strange. The file says ‘seeks information about parents presumed dead’ . . . but nothing about ‘spouse.’ I am going to check the files in the cross-index.” She turned away from the desk and moved toward a back room. A few minutes later, she returned to the desk, frowning. Rita had remained mute the entire time. “Coincidence. Can’t be who you are looking for. Or else it’s a cock-up in the files. We’ve an entry back there for a Guildenstern that lists a wife, Karla, citizenship USSR, child, Saul, born Moscow, 1944.” She looked up at Rita, ready to ask more questions. The woman stopped when she saw the look in Rita’s face. It was literally a blank. Rita stood her ground, mulling over the information, testing out the emotions it elicited in her, inwardly standing back and observing how the news sat with her. Then she moved back from the desk a few paces, still thinking things through.

  Now it was Dani’s, or rather Dani Cohen’s turn. The Karpatyn lists were still in the Joint officer’s hands. “Let’s see, lots of Cohens here. Michael and Deena? Both taken to Belzec. But then we also have a Michael Cohen, from Karpatyn, registered at the ‘Joint’ field station in Rzeszow, daughter Dani. Is that you?”

  “Could be my father. Must be my father! Rzeszow—where is that, please?” Dani asked anxiously.

  “It’s the last town in Poland before you get to Lvov, L’viv now, on the other side of the Soviet border. There were a lot of Home Army forces fighting there, first against the Germans, then against the Russians. Shall we send word, or do you want to go? Getting there would be pretty tricky for a woman.”

  “Why?”

  “A lot of Soviet soldiers between here and there. They haven’t seen a woman looking like you in a few years, and their officers aren’t much interested in discipline anymore. Probably not much sympathy for Polish Jews among the local peasants. And no direct rail service yet. I’d stay here, and we can send word. If it’s your father, we can probably get him transport here.”

  Dani gulped. “Yes, please. Right away.”

  “Where are you two staying?” the woman asked, looking at their information forms.

  “We just arrived from Prague,” Rita said. “We were working in the Frankfurt UNRRA office”—Rita looked around—“doing this.”

  “I guess you better stay with the Joint staff. We have a billet across the street from the station.”

  “Thanks. One more thing.” Rita bit a lip and continued, “I’d better look up this Colonel Guildenstern. He’s probably a relative of my husband’s.”

  She looked back at Rita and down to her clipboard. “Third Soviet Evacuation Hospital, center of town. I’ll get someone to take you.”

  Rita had to wait twenty minutes or so while they tracked down Lieutenant Colonel Guildenstern. It gave her time to go over several different conversations. Most of all she wanted to avoid falseness in the initial exchange. She wondered whether there was any chance the tone of the meeting could be businesslike. After all, they were adults, and neither should have to explain himself or herself to the other. Yet the prospect was fraught with potential for recrimination, she knew. Her complaints would be obvious. But so would his, especially when it came to Stefan. And he would be right, she thought. Her action had sacrificed their child.

  Standing at the flaps of the large field tent—lend-lease and marked with the now familiar white star in a broken circle of the US Army—where the evacuation hospital’s administrative unit was housed, she saw him at a distance, still too tall and too thin, picking his way awkwardly through the muddied truck ruts, slipping and grabbing hold of parked vehicles, taking salutes with a slightly flustered motion of a right hand to his cap. It was clear that three and a half years had not produced a military officer. So much the better, she thought. He climbed with some relief onto the duckboard five meters from the tent, pulled his tunic down below his Sam Browne belt, and pulled off his forage cap. Seeing Rita, he could not help breaking into a smile. Her immobile face quickly melted his smile away. He came in, and they took two seats at a desk, facing each other in the shadow of the ill-lit tent.

  She spoke first. “Almost four years.”

  “Three years, eleven months, three weeks, and one day.”

  Had he just made the calculation, or had he been keeping count all this time? She knew the answer.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  So, you survived,” he stated.

  Was this observation a reflection of his surprise, disappointment, or just the potential for complication he now faced?

  All she could say without showing anger was, “As you can see.”

  “I had no idea . . . how?”

  “Blind luck, inefficiency, indifference, and a little help from people who had no reason to help. Never mind. I am here.” She remembered how glad she had been to be rid of him there on that platform in Karpatyn that day in late June 1941. It would be the very falseness she wanted most to avoid were she to now recriminate him for desertion. Yet the temptation briefly overcame her. “Were you really so sure I hadn’t survived, or weren’t you very interested in whether I had?”

  “What do you mean, Rita? That’s very hard.”

  “Your inquiry sheet at the Joint office . . . it was just your parents’ fate you were interested in, not mine, not even Stefan’s. And unless their records are wrong, you have married some woman in Russia and had a child. All that without much of an inquiry about whether your wife or child were still living . . . that’s what I mean.” It was all exactly what she had promised herself she wouldn’t do. Rita raised both her hands. She was about to apologize and try starting over when Urs’s unemotional demeanor broke down completely.

  “How dare you say such things to me. You who traduced me before the war and sent my child away so that you could survive during the war.”

  That she was guilty of adultery did not trouble her, but the apparent obviousness of her guilt in Stefan’s death overwhelmed her. Rita began to sob.

  This Urs hadn’t intended either. He handed her a handkerchief.

  She took it for a conciliatory gesture and began to explain. “It wasn’t like that. Gorlice was not ghettoized, people were not suffering, there was food, no Aktions. No transports to the extermination camps. All that was happening in Karpatyn. I thought he’d be safe.”

  “I understand.” He seemed sincere.

  “But Urs, he never got to Gorlice. Stefan was taken by a woman, a courier for the Home Army. When my parents were sent to Auschwitz, there was no baby with them. I was told by someone who was with my parents when they were taken and who somehow survived the camp.”

  “Stefan couldn’t have lived, Rita.” Urs was moved by her explanation but unwilling to accept even the possibility that Stefan had somehow survived.

  “I don’t know. But that’s why I came back, to try to find him. I looked for him in the Warsaw ghetto just before the uprising there. They had no record. Who knows? He might be in a convent or with Polish people somewhere.”

  “No.” Urs was shaking his head.

  “What do you mean, no?”

  “The new government at Lublin has secured lists from all the churches, the convents and the Catholic orphanages, underground organizations, tax registries, of the names of children kept or hidden during the war. They are to be returned to their parents if still living. There is no child of the name Stefan Guildenstern on any of these lists. Since I got here, I’ve been kept informed regularly of additions
to the register.”

  Rita sighed. “I see. Well, congratulations on your marriage. I don’t think we need to go through a divorce. Our marriage was dissolved by the war. I will never make any claim based on it.” What she really thought was that the marriage was dissolved long before that, but there was no point in being provocative. “Urs, your child has every moral right to legitimacy. Don’t give our past together another thought.”

  “That is very generous. Still, I’d like to explain.” Rita shook her head as if to say, no need, but he continued. “Karla is a girl I met in Moscow in ’43, after we heard that the Karpatyn ghetto had been . . . liquidated and everyone sent to Belzec. Anyway, she became pregnant, and I had to marry her. She was willing to have an abortion, but it was illegal.”

  “Illegal?” Rita observed. “But you could have done it without risk, no?”

  “No, I wouldn’t, I couldn’t. I won’t break the law or the Hippocratic oath. I was never built like your—” He sought the right word: friend, lover, partner in adultery? Finally he just settled on the name. “Like Gil Romero.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He spent most of the war in Moscow performing abortions for hard currency and gold.” The contempt was evident.

  “How do you know?”

  “My wife gave birth to our son in Moscow Maternity Hospital Number 6. Romero had been working there for two years when she was admitted. He was away when my wife delivered. But everyone in the hospital, at least all the doctors, knew he was performing abortions for hard currency.”

  “He wasn’t caught?”

  “No one understood why he wasn’t. So many people knew, somebody must have talked to NKVD or even just the Moscow militia police. It wouldn’t have been safe to know a thing like that without telling the authorities. He must have had important protection. That is what the doctors thought.”