“In my condition, huh? In my delicate condition?”
“Hold on. I didn’t mean…”
“The hell you didn’t.”
“You’re pregnant, you’re hearing stories about babies dying, you’re emotional…”
“Emotional! Are you insane? Are you saying that I should be indifferent, ambivalent, unaffected? Is that how you would be? Because I don’t think so. As a father-to-be, as a human being, you’d be just as disturbed as I am. Disturbed and furious.”
“Take it easy, Cat. I’m not trying to upset you, I’m…”
“Forget it.” She turned and left the room.
Liam sat in silence on the couch for several minutes and then went to look for her. He found her in the bedroom, sobbing into her pillow. He sat down and gently rubbed her back. “I’m sorry, Cat.”
“It’s not your fault. Karolina’s twins—there’s no way they survived.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
SATURDAY MORNING IN CATHERINE’S office. A pot of coffee, a few croissants. Lena was pensive. She stood at the window, sipped her coffee and gazed into the ether. “That January morning,” she said softly, “the miracle of birth, our belief in the future.” She turned and faced Catherine. “How naïve we were.”
“We have two more days to finish your story, Lena. I want to know the whole story, everything, before I go to court on Monday morning. Can we do that?”
“I don’t see why not. I remember it all like it was yesterday.”
Catherine picked up her notepad. “Good. Full speed ahead.”
“Karolina held the babies to her breasts. ‘Are they beautiful, Lena? Who do they look like? Do they look like their father? I think I see a little of my mother.’
“‘They’re the prettiest babies I’ve ever seen,’ Muriel said. ‘They look like two beautiful Polish babies. Two strong Jewish girls.’ We laughed.
“‘Lena, when you go to work today, be sure to tell Siegfried,’ Karolina said. ‘And write a letter to David. He’ll want to know.’
“I stood there taking in the incongruity of it all. The warm glow of this new mother joyfully introducing her new babies to the world, standing in stark contrast to her bleak surroundings—a corner of a converted warehouse, separated from the other residents by only a few boxes and hanging sheets.
“The January temperatures were unforgiving and the daylight was minimal. I bundled a few blankets and set them by Karolina along with fresh water and our little cache of food. Muriel and I helped her with her personal needs and changed the babies, but neither of us could stay with her during the day. The clinic was a few blocks away, and Muriel promised to check up on Karolina as often as she could. I couldn’t leave the shop until the end of my shift.
“As we left the apartment, Muriel pulled me aside. ‘We must get them to someplace warm. Those babies won’t survive the bitter cold.’
“‘What about the clinic?’ I said. ‘The clinic is warm.’
“Muriel shook her head. ‘Typhus. Diphtheria. Influenza. Even lice. There’s disease at the clinic every day. She’ll have to find some other place. Can Siegfried help us? He’s a German officer.’
“‘He’s not an officer, just an enlisted man, but I’ll talk to him this morning.’
“When we took our morning break, I found Siegfried and asked him to walk over and talk to me in the corner of the Shop. ‘The babies were born last night.’
“‘Babies?’
“‘Yep. Twins. Their names are Rachel and Leah, and they’re beautiful.’
“‘That is very wonderful. I will pack extra provisions for you today. Let me know every way I can help.’
“‘Here’s how you can help. Right now we need a warm place for the babies to live. The apartment we share is unheated and unhealthy.’
“‘Aren’t they all that way in the ghetto?’
“‘Of course, but the babies won’t survive unless we get them to a heated room. Maybe this is the time to get them to your mother’s.’
“‘That’s not possible. There’s no way I can leave.’
“I put my hands on my hips. ‘Siegfried!’
“‘I can’t take her now. I’ll try to think of something. Tell her.’
“‘Tell her yourself. Why don’t you come visit after work?’
“He quickly shook his head. ‘No, no. I can’t do that. They watch everyone very closely. I can’t go into the ghetto. They’ll ask why.’
“‘You’re a German. You can go anywhere you want.’
“‘No.’ He became extremely nervous. ‘N-not tonight. There is a detail. I am required to attend. Not tonight.’
“‘Well, then, I’ll tell her you’ll come by tomorrow.’
“‘Um, yes, tomorrow.’ He nodded his head up and down in quick jerks and looked around the Shop to see if anyone was watching.
“At the end of the day, Siegfried brought a large package to me at my station. ‘I don’t think tomorrow will work,’ he said. ‘But I will find a way to see her sometime. We’ll talk tomorrow.’
“I was disgusted with Siegfried, but Karolina was unfazed. ‘Don’t worry, Lena,’ she said when I returned that evening. ‘Siegfried has to plan it all very carefully. He just can’t pick up and go. I’m sure he’s making arrangements to send me to his mother, but it must all be very secretive. He must hide it from his superiors, you know. He cares very deeply about us. Look at the wonderful provisions he sent today.’
“On that note, she was right. There was a week’s worth of milk, cheese, meat and bread. And even some fruit. Enough to send Siegfried to the Stalingrad front. Muriel came by that evening. She did her physical examination and pronounced that mother and babies were doing just fine. Karolina’s milk was coming in and the babies had a strong appetite. But she took me aside.
“‘What did Siegfried say about moving her?’
“I shook my head. ‘We can’t count on him. He won’t go to Bavaria now. I asked about a warm apartment, but I’m not hopeful. I tried to persuade him to come visit, and that’s where the conversation ended.’
“‘You need to be more direct. Confront him. It’s too damn cold to stay in this drafty, unheated building. Those babies won’t make it through January.’
“‘What about the other buildings? Many families are now gone. Are any of their apartments heated?’
“Muriel shook her head. ‘As far as I know, there is no fuel anywhere in the ghetto. It’s not allowed. None of the apartments have heat. Do you remember last winter? The ones who froze to death? Do you remember how many babies died?’
“‘I do. I almost froze to death myself.’ I pointed at Karolina. ‘She saved my life.’
“‘If our babies have any chance, they need to get to a heated room.’
“I knew what I had to do. ‘I’ll take care of it,’ I said. ‘I’ll talk to Siegfried tomorrow. Like it or not, he’s going to help. He loves Karolina.’ Muriel thanked me and left. That night, the four of us—Karolina, Rachel, Leah and I—all slept together under layers of blankets. Maybe I shouldn’t say slept. Still, even with all of us, it wasn’t really warm and I resolved that something had to be done.
“The next day at morning break, I went to confront Siegfried but I couldn’t find him. At the afternoon break, one of the other overseers told me that Siegfried hadn’t come in. He’d reported sick.
“Then I got an idea. That night I took Muriel to Yossi’s basement. ‘There’s a furnace down here, and the room’s pretty well insulated. If we can clean it up, it’ll be much warmer than the drafty dormitory. And if we can get some coal, it can be quite livable.’
“Muriel looked around and scrunched her nose. ‘It’s filthy down here. I see mouse feces. And besides, where do you think you’re going to get coal? There’s not a lump in the whole ghetto.’
“‘Leave that to me.’
“Early the next morning, I arrived at the Shop and cornered Siegfried. ‘We found a room with a furnace. A coal furnace.’
“He bit his lip and nod
ded. ‘So Karolina wants me to get coal?’
“‘Right.’
“‘It’s strictly verboten. There is a written order. If I got caught doing that I’d be court-martialed.’
“‘Siegfried, we’re in the middle of coal mining country. There’s coal everywhere you look. We’ll all freeze unless you get us a supply of coal. And we need it now.’
“He shook his head. ‘It’s very dangerous. For you too. If you’re found with coal, you’ll be punished.’
“I snarled. ‘Do it!’
“He rubbed his hand on his forehead. ‘I could try.’
“‘Try? You’ve taken on a responsibility here. You’ve made commitments to Karolina. She’s your fiancée.’
“‘Shh.’ He put his finger to his lips. ‘You can’t say that around here.’
“‘Karolina wants to know when you’re going to take her and the babies to your mother’s house. The ghetto’s coming down piece by piece.’
“He started to twitch and he tensed up, clenching his fists. ‘I can’t do it right now. I can’t do it right now. I told Karolina that’s our plan for the future, when the war is over and everything settles down.’
“‘That’s not the way she heard it.’
“‘How would I get her to Bavaria? I can’t even get there myself.’
“‘You have ways. There are always ways. You’re a German. You have to get us out, all of us: Karolina, Muriel, me, and the babies.’
“‘I can’t. Stop making demands on me. You’ll all just have to make do for now, like all the other Jews in the ghetto.’
“That infuriated me. I clenched my teeth. ‘Like all the other Jews? Listen, Siegfried, I’m not making a casual request. This is a demand. You’ll have a supply of coal, in a bucket, here tonight. Understand? Otherwise, I’m going to bring those babies to the Shop tomorrow morning to get warm and I’m going to tell everyone that you said it was okay.’
“‘I didn’t say it was okay.’
“‘Really? And I’m going to tell everyone that they’re your babies.’
“‘My babies? Why would you do that? I’ll be sent straight to the Eastern Front. Are you crazy?’
“‘Maybe I am. But those babies will die if we don’t get coal. And maybe Karolina will die too. And I’m not going to let that happen. So, you bring a bucket of coal to the shop tonight. Are we on the same page here, Siegfried?’
“He gulped hard. ‘You are definitely crazy. You’ll get us all killed.’
“‘I’m not going to watch those babies freeze to death. You get the coal or I’ll bring them all here tomorrow, so help me God.’
“He sighed and nodded. ‘I’ll have it for you after work.’
“I don’t know where I found the courage, but I pointed my index finger and popped it on his chest. ‘And you find a way to get Karolina to your mother’s. I know you care for her, or at least you said you did at one time. I don’t know why, but she cares for you, Siegfried. Don’t disappoint her.’
“He nodded. ‘I do care for her. What you say, it’s unfair. This is a war and I’m a soldier. If I were discovered, it would be disastrous for both of us. I’ll get coal and food for you to take back to her, but that may be all I can do right now.’
“That night, Muriel and I scrubbed down Yossi’s basement and disinfected it as best we could. We found an abandoned dresser in an empty apartment and converted two of the drawers into cribs. Siegfried delivered on his promise. After work there was a bucket full of coal and another bag of provisions. All it took was a few pieces of coal and the little room warmed nicely. Later that night we moved Karolina, the two babies, all of our things and me into that little furnace room. With the bed, the cribs, a dresser and our few possessions, you might think the room was quite crowded. We considered it cozy.
“Karolina was overcome with emotion. She couldn’t thank us enough. Lying there in that little room, tears in her eyes, a baby on each arm, that was all the thanks we needed. We told her that Siegfried had supplied the coal and food at great risk to himself, and that he was elated to hear the news.
“‘Does Siegfried want to come and see the babies?’ she asked.
“I shook my head. ‘He thinks it’s too risky at this time and doesn’t want to put you in danger. But he still plans to bring you to his mother’s.’
“Karolina smiled. ‘You don’t have to lie for me,’ she said gently. ‘I don’t expect him to keep his word. Maybe if times were different, we could’ve made a nice life together. He’s not really a Nazi, you know. He was conscripted. He’s just a farm boy. He doesn’t know a Jew from a lamppost.’”
TWENTY-NINE
THE NEW SHOP FOREMAN, Major Fahlstein, was an older man with gray hair and large, round eyeglasses. He came by my station a few days after the twins were born and asked me about Karolina and why she wasn’t coming to work. ‘I need her,’ he said. ‘She’s one of my best.’
“I stopped short of telling him about the babies. Families with babies were the first ones on the list. I’m sure he knew Karolina was pregnant, but he probably didn’t know when she was due. ‘She has a bit of the croup,’ I said, ‘but she’s recovering nicely and I expect her back to work within a few days,’ even though I didn’t know if she’d ever come back to work. Who would care for the two newborns? Who would feed the babies?
“Another deportation came and fourteen hundred more Jews were lined up and marched to the trains. There were very few children left in the ghetto. Families with little children had already been put on the list for deportation and sent out. By February, the only people immune from deportation were the members of the Judenrat, the doctors and nurses of the clinic, and the most productive seamstresses at the Shop. Everyone else checked the board each week, praying that their names would not be on the list.
“The winter of 1942 to 1943 brought major changes to Chrzanów. Orders came down to clear out and destroy the ghetto, orders in compliance with Reinhard Heydrich’s implementation of the Final Solution: strong and healthy Jews living in ghettos were to be sent to slave labor camps. The rest were to be sent to one of the six extermination camps: Sobibór, Chelmno, Belzec, Treblinka, Majdanek, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Transports were to begin immediately. Of course, deportations had been going on in Chrzanów for months. Now there was an observable increase.
“The winter of 1942 to 1943 also impacted the German presence in Chrzanów. Before the winter, our town was crawling with German soldiers, SS officers, and Gestapo, filling the square, the restaurants and the bars, and harassing us on every corner. Now there were noticeably fewer Germans in the square. We didn’t know it at the time, but it was due to the carnage in the eastern campaign.
“Hitler’s Russian strategy was a disaster, which most historians regard as the turning point in the war. The Wehrmacht suffered over a million casualties in 1941 to 1942 in their unsuccessful drive to take Moscow. After the army’s retreat, Hitler changed his strategy and in 1942 sent his armies south to take Stalingrad and the rich oil fields of the Caucasus.
“The Battle of Stalingrad was the bloodiest of the war. One million Russians died. Eight hundred and fifty thousand Axis troops died and what was left of the German Sixth Army surrendered. The city of Stalingrad was bombed to rubble. Total lives lost in the battle exceeded two million. When news of Germany’s defeat and surrender at Stalingrad spread across the world it had an emotional effect. To the Allies it was a sign that Russia was a powerful and competent ally and that Germany could be defeated. To the Germans it was demoralizing.
“For us, totally uninformed about the progress of the war, the winter brought an increased demand for wool coats and a sharp reduction in the German presence in Chrzanów. Week by week we’d see the number of young German soldiers in our shop decrease. Rumors spread that things were going badly on the Eastern Front and that’s why enlisted men, especially those who worked in the Shop, were being redeployed.
“Because of the need for coats, Major Fahlstein received permission to keep o
ne hundred Jewish women free from transports to work in the Shop. I went to him and asked if he intended to keep Karolina and me.
“‘Where is Karolina?’ he said. ‘I would keep her if she’d return to work. She’s one of my best. But she’s been out for almost a month.’
“‘She’ll be back in a week or two.’
“‘Not good enough. Either she comes back on Friday or I’m releasing her name for resettlement.’ I started to object, but he turned and walked away.
“Friday was just two days away. Karolina was healthy enough, but what about the babies? She couldn’t leave them alone. There was certainly no day care in the Chrzanów ghetto, and no babysitters. In fact, it had been strongly against Judenrat policy to conceive any children since 1940. That night, I asked Muriel to meet with Karolina and me in the basement apartment. I had a plan.
“‘Major Fahlstein says that he’ll only keep Karolina if she returns by Friday,’ I said. ‘We know we can’t leave the babies. The only solution is to juggle our shifts. I can stay on the day shift. If we can get Karolina assigned to the evening shift, I can watch the babies until she comes home.’
“‘What about shift change?’ Karolina asked. ‘There’s an hour when neither one of us will be here.’
“I looked at Muriel. She nodded. ‘I’ll cover the hour.’
“The next day at the Shop I informed Major Fahlstein that Karolina would be back and that she preferred the evening shift. He was delighted. He was getting one of his best seamstresses back, and one who even volunteered to work the evening shift.
“Muriel was a godsend. Not only did she help us with the babies, but she found baby supplies in the abandoned apartments. She brought over several one-piece outfits, little pink bodysuits, baby blankets, hand-knit sweaters and two coats. She also found three baby bottles and an assortment of nipples to feed the babies when Karolina was at work.
“‘Where did you get all this stuff?’ Karolina said.
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