by Ann Arnold
The two parents ignored the giggles coming from the corner of the paddock behind the hay. This game of Manek hiding so he could spend more time with the horses had been going on all summer, and at this point they were used to it. There was plenty of news from Tarnow of bad things coming. Better their oldest child take all the time he could to enjoy life.
“What did the Rebbe say?”
“He knows less than we do,” Israel shrugged.
“What do we …”
“Sala, we do what we planned,” Israel stated emphatically. “We have no choice.”
“But how?”
Israel smiled again and Sala felt she could breathe a little easier at the confidence in his gaze. “We stay together, my love. This is what we do. This is what we always to do in order to survive.”
She bit at her lip. “We should have gone to America—”
“There was no time to join your brother and sisters there. And besides, we love Brzostek. This is where my father, mother and grandfather are buried. This is where our friends are. This is where we’ll stay together. We’re far from the railroad. The Germans don’t want anything to do with our little village.”
“Our little village is filled with Jews.” Sala’s dark eyes were shiny with worry.
“We are a community, Sala. Our neighbors love us.”
“They love you. They tolerate the rest of us. I can only pray love will be enough.”
“Love is always enough.” Israel turned to the hay bales and crossed his arms over his chest. “Now, Mendel, did you hear your Mamusia …”
A roar filled the sky. Manek came out from the hay with his head tilted all the way back as he stared into the blue expanse above them. “Poppa, what are those birds? I’ve never seen such birds. They are so large and noisy!”
“Planes?” Sala gasped.
“War planes,” Israel stated. He drew his wife closer to his body and his eyes continued to stare at the planes and the direction they took.
Manek couldn’t stop watching the sky, fascinated by the great winged beasts that just changed his idea of all that was in the world. “There are so many of them, Poppa. They blot out the sun.”
Animosity between Poland and Germany stretched back centuries. However, recently, the increased talk of the rise of the man called Hitler had everyone on edge. Jews in particular were starting to feel the restlessness and danger around them. Israel’s own two sisters, who had moved to Magdeburg years before, had written that conditions for Jews were deteriorating. One of his sisters had written a few years back that she and her family had decided to leave Germany for Palestine. Another sister and her husband had left Germany as recently as a year ago, coming back to Poland. They spoke of soldiers in brown shirts and Kristallnacht, a night when synagogues, homes, and Jewish-owned businesses were plundered and destroyed in a Nazi-inspired pogrom.
Manek and his parents continued to watch as one wave after another of war planes continued to roll past them. Manek stepped closer to Israel. He wished to show them how brave he was and how grown. Though he believed he was old enough to be with the men, the little boy still stayed near his Poppa so he could put his arm around him, too. He might wish to prove he is grown, but nothing was better than his father’s embrace. Israel was brave, wise and kind. Sala knew Manek wished to be all those things as well.
“What do we do?”
Israel squeezed his wife’s shoulder. “What we discussed. Sala, I’m not worried. We’re far away from the big towns. It will take forever before the Germans even think of coming here.”
“You are an optimist.”
“That is not a crime. What are you?”
“A wife and mother.”
The smile they shared lasted a few moments longer than usual, which surprised Manek. He was used to his parents being special with each other, but lately, their hugs lasted longer. They looked at each other as if they were afraid this was the last time. In Manek’s world, there had always been Schonwetters in Brzostek. There would always be Schonwetters here.
“Come, Manek.” Mamusia followed her command with a firm hand on the back of his neck as she dragged him to the house.
She gave him a small basket, pointed him to the first row of flowers, and then disappeared inside to get his sister. He was not allowed near the vegetable garden, where lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes were grown, not after the last time when he had tried to help and only succeeded in ruining a section of the plot. Normally, he hated to be relegated to the flowers, but Manek’s mind continued to teem with thoughts of the planes he’d seen. “What did it mean? What was going to happen? And when will I get to ride on one?”
When Sala came back out with Zosia, she also carried her good coat and sewing kit. Placing the toddler on a blanket, she settled in a chair and laid out needle and thread. Manek watched, puzzled, as Sala turned the garment inside out and started to work on it.
“Mamusia, what are you doing?”
“I need to put in some new pockets.”
“Why?”
“This must happen to all of our coats,” she explained. “It’s to hide special things. To keep our secrets. You must never tell anyone, Manek. Promise me, please, or I will not let you spend time with the horses anymore.”
This was the most dire punishment she could inflict on him. His father taught him about honor. If he gave a promise, he had to mean it. “I won’t, Mamusia. I’ll never tell anyone.”
“You are a very good boy.”
Manek smiled, and Sala swallowed hard as he became the embodiment of his father before her eyes. She hunched over her sewing so he could not see the tears. Silently she prayed, “He’s a child. Please God, let him have his time to be a child.”
She knew now it was not going to be a good year after all.
May 20, 1940
The Germans came and took all of the color from the world. Their gray uniforms seemed to suck all the vivid beauty from the countryside in which she was born. Israel still believed in the kindness and loyalty of the townspeople. Yet as the demands of the occupiers grew in intensity and frequency, she could no longer agree with her husband’s positive outlook. To her, every face had a dark cast to it. She feared enemies everywhere, lurking among even her oldest acquaintances. The warnings from her mother and grandmother were always foremost in her mind. Stories of the Russians and their persecution during World War I, the brutish behavior the soldiers had freely inflicted on Jewish women. Her mind kept reviewing her family’s warnings, as well as the long walks she once took with her grandfather, through the forest, far from another soul.
Israel was such a good-hearted man, he always saw the best in those around him. He trusted completely in his faith and God. Sala, on the other hand, at an early age had been taught to pay attention to everything around her, and to never trust anyone at face value. She had grown up with religion, but her mother had always told her that God does not put food on her table, hard work does. Her long walks with her grandfather were laden with subtle clues on how to survive, what to look for, and how to live off the earth. She did not even realize she was learning valuable life lessons. She only knew how happy those shared moments were for her.
The peace she felt in those days was only a refuge, however, from the horrors overtaking them now. Considering the news they were occasionally able to catch on Rebbe Wolkenfeld’s radio and from the friends who worked in the army barracks, they were relatively blessed. She was not displaced from her home, and although it was not much, she was still able to provide some food for her children. The Germans treated her people as a slave labor force. Wizened scholars and trades people dragged into fields to work land they received no benefit from. Even her husband and her brother were regularly lined up to toil at paving roads and building walls. All to help the Germans, their enemy, strengthen the grip they were using to strangle her homeland.
To make matters worse, they were using the Schonwetter home as their gathering point. When they first came to town, they had spent time figuring
out the lay of the land, and they ended up on her doorstep to announce that they were now in charge. They would be using the nicest house, including her beautiful gardens and yard, to determine the fate of her neighbors and loved ones. Each day they would come and separate the men into different groups. Some would be taken out on wagons to work far from home, while others worked tirelessly in their own backyard for the benefit of their enemy. Each day they would go out to work, and each night return, drained.
The effect on Israel was immense. His once jovial attitude was replaced by despair and fatigue. He used to love going into the fields, working side by side with his crews. Now he dreaded getting out of bed. He would wake each morning not knowing if he would be sent to the fields to work, or have to endure the hardships of manual labor repairing a nearby road. He would return in the evening, barely having eaten all day, drenched in sweat and wearing a look of defeat in his eyes.
To make matters even worse, if that was possible, the Germans had relocated Captain Zeidler and his wife to Brzostek to be in charge of the regional Polish police and monitor matters. The couple had taken an unusually keen interest in her Zosia. All that blonde hair, and those beautiful blue eyes she had inherited from Israel, were like a magnet to the couple. Their constant visits with chocolate and gifts for her baby girl worried Sala beyond words, but what could she do?
The only consolation she had was that her parents had passed away before Manek was born to not have to endure these terrors.
Sala stood outside on her porch, watching the men in the fields across her home. Her husband and brother were hard at work as always. They were easy to distinguish even from this distance due to the bright yellow stars they now wore on their chests. Last November the Nazis had ordered that all Jews in Poland had to wear them, and their little house, usually so filled with laughter, was strangely quiet that evening. She had stayed up all night having to sew them on their clothes. The Pilats, who rented a room in the home and were more like family than boarders, stayed far from her place by the fire. She wiped away the tears in her eyes at the memory of one of their six children asking why the Schonwetters were getting gold stars and what they did to deserve it.
Little did the young realize the badge was a way to mark them.
They were such good people, the Pilats. When she had first married Israel, and moved into his family home, she never would have imagined she would gain such a wonderful extended family. If only they could go back to the way they were, when the biggest difference between them was the number of children they had.
The winter had been long and lonely. Spring was a blessing, a chance to replenish the food that had evaporated from the larder.
Behind Israel, walking with the same lolling gait, his hands crossed behind his back as he studied the dirt beneath his feet, was her Manek. Her little boy was growing fast into a man, one with her dark coloring. They stood out from the blonde-haired Polish people as bright as the lights on the Germans’ automobiles. It made her even more scared.
Watching her husband and brother run over to where one of the men was trying to move a stump from the additional field, she prayed this would be a great harvest. They’d need the food. The Wehrmacht, Germany’s regular army, was a great ravenous beast, always in need of more supplies. Not only did they fail to pay for their bounty, but Israel would even give them gifts each time they came to keep them satisfied and happy. Most of what they’d harvest would go to feed their oppressors.
They were not what kept her up at night, however. Even during this nightmare they were still able to get news, and none of it was good. As scary as the soldiers were, the SS were a fresh depth of terror. Descriptions of their dark uniforms and even darker tempers filled her with fear she could not describe. They were known as brutal soldiers that spread terror wherever they went. She had heard from Israel’s sister of the terrifying way they had come into her hometown just before she and he husband decided to leave for Poland.
Sala feared their true enemy was still on their way.
Suddenly, she realized she could no longer see her son basking in his father’s shadow. A whinny echoed on the breeze, and she could vaguely make out Manek climbing up on the seat of the wagon. Israel yelled and started to run toward the horses, but Sala knew he would be too late.
Manek raised the reins, flicked them in the same fashion as his father, and gave a mighty roar.
The horses, overjoyed to finally be freed to do something, immediately responded. It was a young team, filled with the energy bursting from the muscles and bones of youth. Their first lunge threw Manek back and they went running. Sala’s heart pounded so hard, she could feel it throughout her body.
A roar filled the air. The sound of a multitude of large engines coming down the road heralded the arrival of more Germans. A never ending wave of them.
Sala watched, helplessly, as Israel ran after the racing wagon. Her only son had stood up in the seat, yelling and laughing, as the horses started. Then Manek lost the reins with the first lunge of the wagon. He was now simply holding on for his life.
One heartbeat.
Sala swiftly recognized the row of cars coming down the road. They were filled with the black uniforms of the SS.
Another heartbeat.
She could trace the line of the team of horses cutting across the road, straight to the barn where they knew they’d be fed, watered and rubbed down. Her fists tightened, nails cutting into her palms, drawing blood.
Sure enough, just as her mind’s eye drew it, the team of horses raced straight for home, nearly clipping a uniformed soldier on a motorcycle. She didn’t think. She couldn’t. She leapt in front of the team and wrenched the wagon to a stop. She knew what she had to do.
She snatched her child from the seat and dragged him down to the ground. She couldn’t acknowledge the stunned horror on Manek’s face. His open mouth, the hurt in his eyes, the evaporation of his father’s smile.
“What were you thinking? How dare you touch your father’s wagon?”
Behind her, she could hear the motorcycle come to a stop.
“I have told you to stay away from the horses.” She pulled him up, dragging him by the elbow. “I’ve warned you no good comes from your tricks.” She shoved him violently. “You have to learn, Manek.”
A hand stilled her fist, which was clenched in despair. Looking up, she gulped at the hardness in the SS officer’s gaze, and noticed the embroidered eagle that looked ready to fly off his perch and swoop at her. “Your boy almost killed me.”
“I know.” She shook off the soldier’s hold so she could reprimand her stunned son again. His cheeks were bathed with tears and—was that blood? Sala felt the gorge choke her. She’d never raised her hand to anyone, much less her own child. This was her baby, her precious son. His face, the betrayal in his eyes, his astonishment. She whacked his backside. Better her hand than the soldier’s fist. Or God forbid, the SS officer’s gun. “That’s why I’m beating him. How dare he endanger your life and the horses?”
Somewhere she could sense Israel and David were witnessing her greatest shame. Pulling Manek up again, she turned him around so she could strike his backside another time.
Feeling the soldier’s eyes on her, boring through the clothes on her back, she continued to strike her child.
“Okay, okay.” This time when the arm covered in the black and silver of an officer stayed her actions, the eyes she looked into had softened. “Enough. Just make sure he’ll never do such foolishness again.”
“I will. Thank you, sir.”
Sala remained frozen, her sobbing son draped over her arm. She waited, her heart sickened, her stomach a pit of acid. It took all her strength to not double over and retch right there and then. They all stayed as still as statues as the soldier got back on his motorized horse and rode after his friends. Her shame increased as she saw the horror in her husband’s and brother’s faces. Manek stayed on her arm, crying and shaking.
“David, take my son inside and help hi
m clean up.”
Manek was extracted from her hold by her brother, who never once met her gaze.
When she heard the door close behind them, Sala ran to the side of the house to the well. The bucket already had water in it, so she plunged her hands inside. The freezing water chilled her fingers, sending needles of ice into her bones. She kept plunging her hands into the water, rubbing them. Blood. There was blood on her hands. Her child’s blood? So much blood. Oh God, what if she hurt him?
Israel tried to draw her away from her washing, but she shook off his hold. She had to get her child’s blood off her hands. “Sala ...”
Shaking her head, she continued to wash her hands, trying to clear them of the red stain of her guilt. “I had to do it,” she whispered. “He would have killed him. You know he would have killed him. You’ve heard what they do, and they’re allowed. He would have killed our child.”
“I know.” He tried to pull her away from the bucket, but Sala would not be moved. “He was SS, Sala. He would have killed Manek and the horses, and been commended for it. I know you did the right thing.” She continued to scrub. “Sala.” He plunged his hands into the water with hers and forced her fingers to unclench. “It’s your blood, not his. He’ll be fine. Please, Sala. He will be fine.”
“How?” Her entire body shook with the sob that almost jackknifed her into the well. “How will any of us be fine, again?”