The Girl in the Green Sweater

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The Girl in the Green Sweater Page 11

by Chiger, Krystyna


  The men went two and three at a time, every evening after work, making ready. I do not think my mother’s father, Joseph Gold, took part in these preparations, but it was understood that my grandfather would escape with us into the sewer when it came time. This was where the men spent their time when they were not working for the Germans. Mostly they were moving the dirt and debris from the hiding place discovered by Kowalow, trying to make it habitable. There was so much silt and mud and cobwebs that it took a lot of effort, yet no matter how much they worked, there was no disguising this place for anything other than what it was—a small, disgusting chamber in the depths of the city’s sewer system.

  On these trips to prepare our hiding place, Weiss would once again claim a kind of control. He told the men what to do, where to clean, how to organize. It was, he wanted everyone to think, his operation. It was his hiding place, open only by his invitation. Most of the other men involved in this effort were friends of his, of one kind or another. And yet whenever Socha was present, the authority would shift to my father. When Socha was elsewhere, Weiss felt he was in charge.

  On one occasion, a group of the men crept into the sewer for a cleaning expedition when they once again saw the light from a lantern approaching from behind. Once again, they thought they had been discovered. They heard a voice command them to stop, in German. But the men did not stop; they ran. They shuffled along the edge of the Peltew, one hand pressing the wet stone wall behind them for balance. Just then, they saw another light in the distance, this time in front. They thought, We are caught! Trapped! The men did not know what to do. There was no place to turn. In front of them was the light from one lantern, behind them the light from another; to one side was the stone retaining wall of the sewer, to the other the killing white waters of the river.

  My father told me later that his instinct was to continue forward, but really it was instinct and logic both. One thing was certain, he said: the voice from behind was German. One thing was uncertain: the light up ahead could have been held by friendly hands or unfriendly hands. It was a mathematical decision, reached on an impulse but at the same time by the process of elimination: their only chance was to press ahead, and as it turned out, the lamp ahead was in the hands of Socha and Wroblewski. What a piece of good fortune—another of our many small miracles!

  There had been a big commotion on the streets of the ghetto following another small uprising. The Germans had discovered the body of an SS man hanging from one of the manhole openings. A group of Jews had banded together and attacked this German, who had apparently been alone at the time and was therefore vulnerable. The SS were searching the sewers trying to find the culprits. Socha and Wroblewski had gone down into the sewer to warn my father and the other men, who they knew would be preparing their underground hideaway.

  The sewer workers quickly explained to the group what was happening and pushed my father and the other men into an opening just off the main canal. It was fortuitous that there was such an opening nearby and that it would lead them back to the basement opening they had prepared. Already, the men had made so many descents into the sewer that they were beginning to know their way through some of the canals and tunnels. Berestycki was able to lead the group back to the tunnel they had dug through Weiss’s basement floor, where they sat and waited for word from Socha. At the same time, Socha managed to conceal the passageway the men had used to escape the canal, so the approaching Germans would not notice it in the near darkness. He and Wroblewski waited for them to approach, as if to receive instructions. They pretended to be in cooperation with the Germans and the other sewer workers conducting the search and allowed themselves to be led in some other direction to find the men thought to be responsible for the hanging. The Germans asked about the other group of men that now seemed to have disappeared from the canal, and Socha answered that it was another team of sewer workers off in search of their culprit. All of this my father learned the next day, when Socha returned to Weiss’s barracks basement for their next consultation.

  Socha told of the fear he and Wroblewski felt at the charade they created, because of course if the Germans had ever suspected they were not telling the truth, they could be blamed for the hanging of the SS man. This was the first time that Socha and his colleagues were made to realize how dangerous it was to associate with us. They knew it on one level, philosophically, but here it was presented in real terms. Kowalow and Wroblewski would actually press Socha into giving up the scheme of protecting us after this incident, but Socha would not consider it. He told the others that he would continue without them if he had to and that they would miss out on their share of the money. Apparently, this was enough to convince them to stay on. The danger was too real for any of them to ignore, but at the same time the money was too rich for them to turn away.

  Meanwhile, my father and the other men continued with their preparations. They worked their various shifts for the Germans during the day and then retreated to Weiss’s basement and to the chamber below at night. I do not know when they found time to sleep—probably they did so in shifts or not at all. Back and forth like this was how it went, leading up to the night of May 30, 1943. My father did not know when our party would at last have to disappear into the sewer, but he was determined that we would be ready. On this, the men could all agree, and our sewer chamber was as ready as it would ever be. There is only so much you can clean a sewer! The area had been swept. The men had stored their provisions—pots, pans, some canned goods—and they had prepared a small sitting area, using the left-behind planks of wood.

  Of course, my father did not share any of these details with his seven-year-old daughter. I did not know that he was planning for us to hide in the sewer. I did not know fully where he went each night with the other men. I could guess that he was preparing some sort of hiding place, probably like the hiding places he had been preparing for me and my brother for the past year and more, but the sewer was never discussed in my hearing. Also, I understood that these other men were involved in some sort of larger plan and that Socha and his colleagues would also be participating, but that was all I knew, so it was a great surprise to me when I was awakened by the tumult of the final liquidation. Such chaos! There were people running everywhere. There was noise all around. There was such a terror that I started to cry. It was not like me to cry, but still I cried. This night was different. This night was the worst.

  I was already dressed. I was wearing a simple white blouse and a dark skirt, with my beloved green sweater to keep me warm. Already, the sweater reminded me of my grandmother and what we had lost. There was nothing really to prepare, nothing to pack. My parents simply awakened me from my fitful sleep and told me to follow them. I remember insisting to my mother that I wanted to wear my white-and-blue sandals. I thought they were so pretty. She wanted me to wear my heavy boots. “The place we are going, you cannot wear sandals,” she said. I asked her where we were going, but she could not answer. What could she have said? In the end, though, she let me wear my sandals. What did it really matter?

  I took my father’s hand, and he led me toward the small basement hiding space where the tunnel had been dug. I said, “Where are we going?”

  He said only, “Don’t worry, Krzysha. It will be okay.” He was comforting me, soothing me, telling me only as much as I needed to hear, each step along the way. In his voice I could hear the same reassuring tone we had grown accustomed to hearing from our new friend Socha, and I believed it, that we would be okay. I was scared, a little, and crying, a little, but at the same time I trusted my father and Socha to take care of us.

  I will never forget the panic I felt that night when we finally descended into the sewer. It was a panic shared among the surviving Jews who must have known this was their final hour. Our final hour. Throughout the ghetto, there was a pandemonium of the kind I have never experienced since. People running for their lives, screaming for their loved ones, fleeing in terror. It was something no child should have to experience, this me
asure of alarm, and the most unsettling piece was that we had all known something like this was coming. It was in the air and all around. And yet when the moment was upon us, it was as if it had come from nowhere. We were prepared and unprepared both, and while we were in its middle there seemed no end to it.

  In the quiet just after the absurd concert in the gymnasium, the Ju-Lag had been quickly surrounded by SS, Gestapo, and Ukrainian militia. Perhaps the music had had the desired effect, because many of the Jews in the ghetto were caught off guard. SS Obersturmführer Grzymek had ordered heavy trucks to be driven into the camp, to transport the people who were to be rounded up for execution. We had seen these trucks before, but never so many, all at once. The noise of the trucks outside the thin wooden walls of our barracks was sickening, not only because of the noise itself, but because of what the noise represented. The previous actions had all been terrible, but this final action was terrible and more. There were not so many Jews left in Lvov to begin with, and here the Germans were out with a show of force that seemed to have us substantially outnumbered. There were more of them than there were of us, it seemed, and they also had guns and grenades and leather crops and other weapons to use against us. It was an excessive display, a brutality on top of a brutality. Everyone was running, pushing, crying. It is a wonder that my parents were able to hold on to us children, let alone keep us safe and whole.

  I still had no precise idea where we were going. I held my father’s hand as he led me to the small basement alcove where he had done his digging, and then I watched as he began to slither into the small hole he and the other men had dug into the floor. Someone held a lantern to light our tiny space, but there was barely enough light for me to recognize all the people. I could see my uncle Kuba. I could see my grandfather, my dziadziu. I could see Berestycki. I could see Korsarz, the Pirate. Weiss and his fellows, I could not make out in the commotion. Already, I had decided that I did not like these men. The others who had come and gone from Weiss’s basement to discuss these secret plans, I could not say for certain which of these people I saw on this night. My goodness, there were so many people. More than I had ever seen in this particular barracks. Some I had never seen before. There was Weiss’s wife and mother and daughter. Apparently, he meant to escape with his entire family. And there were others who were drawn to the sewer as a means of escape. They had thought of this on their own, without any help from my father’s organized group, without any digging or preparations or protection from Leopold Socha and his sewer worker colleagues. For us, it was a calculated plan; for the others, it was a last resort, a shared desperate measure.

  I was confused for a moment when my father disappeared through the hole in the basement floor, into a shaft about seven meters in length, and down to the floor of the sewer. I could not see him in the darkness below, so I called out to him. He called back to me. His voice sounded so near, near enough to touch, but I could not see him. He was urging me to follow him, but I could not. I was frozen with fear. I was with my mother and brother. Korsarz was trying to gently push me through the hole to the chamber below, but I was pushing right back, maybe not so gently. He was encouraging more than pushing, but I was resisting with all of my strength. I did not want to go. I did not like that I could not see what was at the bottom of the shaft. I did not like all the noise and confusion. I did not like being pressed together with so many people. My father was trying to be encouraging, trying to ease my concern, but there were so many people yelling at me in the basement, telling me I was taking too long, that I was holding up the line, that all I could do was stand there.

  I was not the only one unwilling to go into the sewer. Weiss’s wife and daughter also would not go. They realized where they were going and what misery awaited them there and refused to descend through the hole the men had dug. Weiss went anyway, leaving behind his wife and daughter. This was something my father could never understand; it would color his thinking about Weiss for the rest of their time together, that he would abandon his family in such a circumstance.

  Meanwhile, Korsarz kept up with his pushing, a little less gently with each moment that passed. My mother was trying to be patient, but she quickly ran out of patience. It could not have been easy for any of them, this escape, and I was certainly not making it any easier, until finally I dropped to the cement floor and dangled my legs through the hole. I was only seven years old and fairly slight of build, and I could see that it would not be easy even for me to fit my way through the small, jagged opening.

  I went first, followed by my brother and then my mother. My father reached up to grab my legs, and I made a small leap into his arms. Then he set me down on the muddy ground at my feet and turned to grab little Pawel. Someone held a small lantern, but still I could not see very well. I held fast to my father’s coat as he reached to collect my brother and then my mother. I did not want to lose him—it would have been too easy to be separated in all the excitement. I was crying, screaming. Pawel was crying, screaming. If I listened carefully, I could make out the cries of other children. This surprised me. I had thought Pawel and I were the only children left in the ghetto, because it had been so long since I had seen another child, but these voices were unmistakable to me. I heard them crying, screaming, and wondered where they had been hiding.

  Probably this happened in just seconds, this climbing through our basement floor to the sewer below, but it was an agonizing few moments. There was my hesitancy, and the refusal of Weiss’s wife and daughter, and then everything happened quickly. The people kept coming through the small opening into the sewer, but also they kept coming through other manhole openings on the street. They did not care about disappearing undetected through some secret shaft. All they wanted was to disappear, and they were quickly spilling into the pipes and tunnels of the sewer, like rushing water. The Germans knew that people would seek asylum in the sewers, so they ordered the Ukrainian militia to throw grenades through the manhole openings. Up and down the streets of the ghetto, the Ukrainians were prying open the manholes and dropping grenades into the sewer below, setting off a series of explosions that surely left dozens of Jews dead.

  The noise of the explosions. The darkness. The scary noise of the rushing water. The terrified screams of so many desperate people confined into such a desperately small space. The echo. It was beyond imagining. And just then, at seven years old, clutching tightly to my father’s coat, I could not comprehend it. What would make such a noise? I wondered. What was happening?

  Somehow, through the darkness, my father managed to move along the ledge of the main canal, which was directly alongside the opening he had dug through Weiss’s basement. This was even more terrifying because of the enormous sounds of the rushing Peltew. It was like Niagara Falls, the way the noise bounced from the pipes and reverberated in the echo. A horrifying clamor! Oh, I was so scared! It could have been anything, this noise: a hundred rushing trains, a thousand waterfalls, a squadron of German fighter planes . . . My father had been along this main canal several times already, so he knew what we would find, what we would hear, but he did not tell me or my brother what to expect.

  I remember the hard edges of the stone wall along the ledge above the Peltew. The ledge was narrow and slippery, and I pressed as close to that wall as I could. At one point, my uncle Kuba lost his footing and fell into the water. My father lunged to save him, and when he did he lost the small knapsack he was carrying with some of our possessions. Probably this was the knapsack with my boots, because I did not see my boots after this and I was left only with my sandals. My father did manage to rescue Kuba, however, so it was a good trade. We counted ourselves lucky yet again, because all around us people were slipping and falling into the water and they were not being rescued. The currents were swallowing them up.

  My father walked in front of me, holding my hand. My mother was behind me, holding my brother’s hand. I kept asking, “Where are we going? How much longer?”

  My father kept answering, “A little bit lon
ger, Krzysha. A little bit longer.”

  At one point, I was moving so slowly that my father lifted me up and put me on his shoulders, which must have been very difficult for him to do as he shuffled side to side above the river. I do not know how long we walked in this way. Maybe for ten or fifteen minutes, but it seemed like hours. Finally, we came to a bridge, which led to the other side of the river, where my father and the other men had prepared our special hiding place. Unfortunately, there were so many people in the sewer that we could not safely cross the bridge to our own haven. It was at this point that we lost contact with my grandfather. My mother, she was so upset when she realized Dziadziu was no longer with us, but probably she thought we had just been momentarily separated and he would meet up with us later.

  There was such a surge of people, such a rush of activity and tumult. My father must have considered our circumstance and recognized that if we headed for our underground hideaway, we would have been followed by a mob of desperate people. We would have all been trampled! Or we would make such a noise that our voices and clambering would be heard on the street above. Either way we would have been doomed, so we kept walking. Probably my father was thinking we could double back once the surge of people had dispersed deeper into the sewer. Still the people kept screaming and crying, and still we kept walking, right past the hiding place my father and the others had worked so diligently to prepare.

 

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