The Girl in the Green Sweater

by Chiger, Krystyna

  The Ukrainians rounded up the top-ranking Jews in the city—the upper classes, the intelligentsia, the community leaders—and delivered them to the Germans. They worked off target lists of Jews and checked each name off the list as that person was captured. As a small child, from my window, I could see it was terrible. I was not supposed to watch, but I could not look away. With the help of the Ukrainians, I could see, the German soldiers were pulling the Jews out into the street and shooting them on the spot or taking them on the transport to the Piaski, the sand quarry northwest of town where Jews were executed. It was too soon for the establishment of the forced labor camp on Janowska Road, but already large numbers of Jews deemed unfit for work were being sent by transport to the concentration camp at Belzec.

  Within just a few weeks, the Germans completely reorganized life in the city. It was ordained that all remaining Jews had to wear a white band with the Star of David on their arms any time they were out on the street. There was a curfew, from six o’clock in the evening until six o’clock in the morning. Separate stores were established where Jews could shop for food and necessities, but only during the hours between two o’clock and four o’clock in the afternoons, at prices determined by the Ukrainians put in charge of the operation.

  I do not have any firsthand observations on what life was like in the city in the first days and weeks of German rule, because I did not go outside. I stayed in our apartment on Kopernika Street with my mother and brother, and I could see everything from our big picture window. One night, German soldiers came to search our building. They knocked first on the door of the elderly doctor who occupied the entire first floor. He had a big, beautiful apartment—ten rooms, the whole length of the building. They took him out into the street. Then they went upstairs and kicked down the door that corresponded to the doctor’s downstairs apartment. This was our next-door neighbors’ apartment, and the Germans went inside and collected those people as well. But we were spared, because the second floor was divided into two apartments and they searched only the one, thinking the layout was the same as on the first floor.

  It was, my father used to say, one of the first of the many small miracles that kept our family alive.

  Frequently, the Germans would come to inspect our building, and Galewski, the concierge, would stall them until my father could leave by the back entrance. He was a good man, Danusha’s father. He helped us many times. The Gestapo and the SS, they would come for inspection and ask, “Are there any Jews living here?” Galewski would shake his head, Nein! Then he would engage the Germans in conversation, knowing my father would have seen them approaching from our upstairs window. Galewski kept them talking, to give my father time to hide or to escape.

  Our building was adjacent to another nice building the Germans had commandeered as a kind of headquarters, so many of the highest-ranking German officers regularly walked our street. Many of them eventually came to our apartment, where they took turns picking and choosing among our artwork, our furniture, our silverware. All across the city, the Germans would take what they wanted and leave the rest, setting fire to the buildings after they had looted them. Here, though, we were directly across the street from an old palace that was now occupied by the Luftwaffe. The general of the Luftwaffe had set up housekeeping there, and there were other officers with the idea of turning our building into their living quarters, so they were not about to burn it to the ground.

  One by one the officers came to our apartment, and one by one they left with our nice things. It must have been heartbreaking for my parents to see all their worldly possessions being taken from them, but at the same time they were thankful that we were not being taken out into the street along with our things. Soon, all of our furniture was gone, including our piano, a fine August Förster, one of the best pianos ever made. My mother used to play for us, very beautifully, but the piano had been silent since the German occupation. Still, it pained her that this wonderful instrument would be taken from our apartment and that she would never play it again. The piano was claimed by a German officer named Wepke, a man who was acting as the interim governor of Lvov. The only solace was that Wepke seemed to appreciate how fine a piano he was about to receive and that he could also play it beautifully. It was the poetic way to look at the injustice, to see that at least the piano would be enjoyed and put to beautiful use.

  I have kept a picture in my mind of my brother and me sitting on the floor of our apartment, our furniture all but gone, the walls checkered with bright squares where our paintings used to hang. In another time, in another place, it would have been a picture of any two children, their household packed for a move out of town. I sat on the floor and watched and listened. I could see the shine of the piano pedals against the polish of the officer’s boots. Watching him play, listening to him, you would never think he was capable of cruelty. The splendor that spilled from his fingers! The joy! When he was finished, he stood and complimented my father on the piano. Then he made arrangements for the instrument to be transported to his apartment across the street. Before it was taken away, my father wrapped the piano carefully with a blanket pulled from our linen closet. It pained him to lose the piano, but it pained him more to see it damaged. He stamped it with his name—ignacy chiger—on the small hope that he would someday get it back, after the war. Always, he was thinking ahead to the end of the war. Always, he was hopeful, and so he put his stamp on everything.

  Before the piano was taken, another officer came to the apartment and admired it, but my father told him the instrument had already been claimed. My father leapt to his feet with misplaced pride. He said, “I am sorry, sir, but the piano has already been claimed by Officer Wepke.” In his voice, I could hear how pleased he was that our fine piano was the focus of so much attention.

  The second officer was very angry when he heard this, no doubt because Wepke had him outranked and also because he had gotten to the piano first. Afterward, my father admitted that it had been foolish of him to announce with such pleasure that the piano was not available, because this second officer could have easily shot him right there in our living room. It was just the sort of stupid reprisal he kept hearing about, and he regretted saying anything the moment the words left his lips. Luckily—another miracle!—this second officer did not take his disappointment out on my father, but contented himself with some of the remaining things that had not yet been claimed.

  The next day, the piano delivered, Wepke sent an officer back to our apartment with a package for my father. It was our blanket, along with a bottle of wine and a note of thanks for the piano. I was six years old, still a child, and even I could recognize the absurd mix of humanity and inhumanity. It was a curious gesture of civility, we all thought. My father wrote about it after the war, how it was strange to find decent people among such animals. That such a people, with such a high culture, could do such terrible things . . . it was unthinkable.

  With our piano now in the possession of such a high-ranking officer, we were left alone for a few weeks. My parents took the opportunity to distribute some of their possessions among their few Polish friends. Silverware, china, jewelry, some furniture . . . whatever the Germans had not claimed for themselves, my parents gave away to non-Jews, with the hope that we might recover the property or that it would at least be enjoyed by someone of our choosing. All along, I had been watching the officers take my toys, and it made me very sad. I wanted to cry, but already I knew not to cry. I did not fight or protest. We gave my dollhouse to my friend Danusha. It made me happy, to see her with my dollhouse. She had always admired it, and I knew we could not take it with us. It was still not clear where we were going, or when, but it seemed a certainty that we would not stay on in this apartment much longer.

  One day, while my father was out seeking provisions, another set of officers came by to consider our remaining possessions. My father liked to take pictures. He had a very good German camera, a Leica. The camera was still in our apartment, tucked away in one of my fathe
r’s bookcases, and one of the officers saw the camera and prepared to take it. Next, he examined some of the beautiful books still on the shelves of our library. My mother noticed him admiring one book in particular, a fine collection of photographs. He turned and asked my mother if he could take it. He did not have to ask, but he asked.

  “No,” my mother said, “it belongs to my husband. I will have to ask him first.”

  The officer smiled, a devilish smile. He said, “I can take it without his permission.” He said this with some good cheer. Then he paused for a moment, and his smile deepened. “But I will wait for your decision,” he said.

  When my father returned later that afternoon, my mother told him what had transpired. He was very angry at my mother. He said her head was in the clouds. “He asks,” he said of the German officer, “you give it to him.” It was a simple equation, as far as my father was concerned, an obvious transaction. He did not like that my mother had put our family at risk.

  The next day, the officer returned. He was still in good cheer. “So,” he said to my mother, “what have you decided?”

  My mother apologized and gave him the book. “It is yours, of course,” she said. The officer took it gladly. He was very polite. Then he told my mother that the Luftwaffe was planning to commandeer our apartment the following day. He did not have to give us this information, but he did it as a kindness. He said, “Tomorrow, they will come and you will have to leave. Whatever you still have, you must pack.”

  There was not much to pack: a single suitcase filled with clothes, some pots and pans. The soldiers and officers had picked our apartment clean. There were no toys left for me to take, no dolls, no special playthings to keep me amused or distracted. Even if there were, I do not think we would have taken the trouble to pack them. My parents did not explain why we were packing or where we were going.

  Before we left, my father made an inventory of everything the Germans had taken. He wrote who got what, and where he had stamped his name. He also recorded the names of our Polish friends who had come to collect what was left. And then we prepared to leave. We stood in our kitchen for a moment, before embarking. There was our one suitcase. There was my brother in his stroller. There was a bottle of milk, which Pawel would need for his supper later that night. I pushed the stroller as we left. Always, I liked to push the stroller. It made me feel all grown up. My parents walked a few steps behind. It was the first time I had been outside since the German occupation, and a part of me was glad to be in the sunshine. Around every corner, I imagined Baba Yaga, the witch who haunted the stories I heard as a small child. In my imagination, I was running through the big, open fields of wild sunflowers once more, with my friend Melek at my side. I was afraid, but I was trying not to be afraid.

  In museums, you can see photographs of the dispersed Jewish families of Eastern Europe, put out on the streets with all of their worldly possessions. This is the picture we must have made, the four of us, shuffling along Kopernika Street with no clear destination. My father must have known where we were going, but he did not say. We were going, just. And as we walked, Pawel started to cry. I did not like that he was crying. My parents were nervous, because we were out on the street and vulnerable, and their nervousness became my own. I kept whispering to Pawel to be quiet. I was thinking about Baba Yaga, thinking about my dollhouse, thinking about our dog, Pushek, whom we had to give away. It was a lot for a little girl to keep on her mind.

  Still, my baby brother kept crying, and so my whispering grew louder. Soon, I was yelling at him to go to sleep. I was so angry. I started shaking his stroller, I was so angry. Finally I said, “Close your eyes forever, already!”

  As soon as I said it, I regretted it. I felt so terrible. I was six years old, my brother was two, and I knew this was not something a sister should wish upon her baby brother. Probably, under normal circumstances, this is something a sister might say to her brother all the time and it would be nothing, but these were not normal circumstances. I knew this was not something you say when the Germans and the Ukrainians are taking Jewish children off the streets, when they are liquidating the city. My words hung there in the bright afternoon sunlight, stinging me, making me feel guilty.

  Mercifully, my parents did not hear—they were a few steps behind—and I did not tell them. Pawel must have heard, because he immediately stopped crying, or maybe he quieted because of the tone of my voice. He never said anything. He was so young, but he was speaking in full sentences, so he might have said something. But he was quiet. Suddenly, I leaned into his stroller and started kissing him and hugging him. My parents, looking on, must have wondered what had come over me, but I did not say. Already, I had my inside life, the thoughts and dreams and hopes and fears I did not share with anybody.

  Two

  THE GIRL IN THE

  GREEN SWEATER

  My father did not know how miserable the conditions would be for us at Zamarstynowska 34 until we arrived. He had arranged the room through the Judenrat, a Jewish council that operated like a kind of relief organization for the Jewish community. There were Judenrats all across Poland. It was an organization of Jews, for Jews. In one way, it offered relief and support and an important link for Jews anxious to keep connected to one another; in another way, it offered the Germans a kind of bridge between the Nazi government and the ghetto population. The Germans encouraged this arrangement, because they were able to use the Judenrat to communicate with the Jews and to keep us organized, but at the same time it was a useful resource for the Jews as we struggled to survive. My father always said it was a confusing irony, that an organization dedicated to helping an oppressed and persecuted people could at the same time be used to make it easier to oppress and persecute the people it was meant to serve. It was like a helping hand, except that the same hand that lifted you up might also hold you down.

  Yet for certain things, like finding an apartment and helping to locate family members and other Jews, the Judenrat was a valuable resource. Someone gave my father the address on Zamarstynowska Street and a man’s name: Bahrow. That is all. I do not even know if we ever met this man, Bahrow, but we were meant to ask for him. He would tell us where to go. We walked for a long time, maybe a half hour. I was happy to be outside in the bright sunshine. I had missed the fresh air, but I wanted to know where we were going. It was a long walk for all of us, with all of our things.

  There was a bridge that crossed Zamarstynowska Street at the center of town; in a few weeks, the bridge would mark the entrance to the Juden Lager—or Ju-Lag, for “Jewish Camp”—the ghetto area where the Jews who had not been killed or sent to the camps were forced to reside. It would become like a camp itself. Zamarstynowska 34 was located on the near side of the bridge, outside the area that would soon be our ghetto. I looked to the other side of the bridge and wondered what horrors were waiting for us there. I wondered how it could be any different, any worse. Our side of the bridge was bad enough. Even a small child knew to be anxious and afraid.

  How we got to Zamarstynowska 34 was another in our long list of small miracles, because it was indeed a small miracle that we found any place at all. Palace, hovel . . . it did not matter. Everyone was desperate for a place to live, so we were lucky to have a roof over our heads. My grandfather had been elected one of the local representatives of the Judenrat, and he knew someone who lived in the building, so he helped my father with the arrangements. We did not know what to expect. What we found was a horrible, dimly lit room, overcrowded with displaced Jewish families. There was one bathroom for maybe twenty people. We were all refugees of one kind or another, thrown from our homes and stripped from our lives.

  We were assigned to one room with three or four other families. All these years later, I do not remember the first thing about these families. There must have been some children among them, but I do not recall playing with anyone. There was no real atmosphere for playing. I played with my brother, Pawel. We invented little games we could play in our heads. I told him
stories. Always, we were talking, talking, talking. Sometimes we included Melek in our talking. Already I had brought little Pawel into my imagination and introduced him to my friend, and together we were in our own secret world.

  We did not take any toys with us when we left our apartment on Kopernika Street. No dolls. Nothing. All I had were the clothes on my back—my cherished green sweater knitted for me by my grandmother—and a change of clothes in the one suitcase we all shared. There was nothing to do but sit and wait for my father to get back. Each day, there was someplace he had to go, to work or to find food. Each day, we waited for him. He was very careful, leaving the apartment. The Ukrainians controlled the streets. He would go through back alleys to get where he was going. Sometimes the Judenrat would arrange a special place where Jews could get food and basic supplies. Word would spread among the Jewish community, and the men would zig and zag through the back streets to avoid capture. Sometimes they did not make it back.

  Coming from our grand apartment, where even under the Soviets we were able to meet our essential needs, this was a big change. At Kopernika 12, our comings and goings were not so restricted. Our living conditions were not so miserable. The conditions at Zamarstynowska 34 were terrible. Filthy, foul-smelling, suffocating. There was no furniture, except for maybe a few mattresses and some chairs. My father was working as a carpenter and had access to tools and materials, so he built a table, which we shared with the other families. There was one window, but my mother would not let me near it. Also, I was not allowed to go outside. This, of course, was not such a big change for me, because I had not been outside during the German occupation except to make the long walk to Zamarstynowska Street, but at least at home I was able to look out the window. Without my window, I would not know what was going on outside unless news of it was brought inside, and usually my father would not bring such news home with him. He and my mother tried to protect us from our dire circumstances, but I was learning to eavesdrop on their hushed conversations. Sometimes my parents spoke to each other in Yiddish if they did not want me to understand what they were saying, but eventually I learned to speak Yiddish. Eventually I heard everything.