I don’t really.
“Do we have to lie to survive?” I ask.
“We cannot tell people who we really are. That could mean our death,” answers Father.
The train’s monotonous rhythm is putting me to sleep. But Father’s watchful eyes tell me to stay alert. A peasant woman with a basketful of cackling chickens sits down near us. She smells of raspberries, even though they are not in season. A man across the isle reads a book, but every so often his bespeckled eyes look in our direction. The woman gets off at the next station.
I think of Basia. Somebody knew who she really was.
I think of Irka, and what might have happened if I had told her who I really was.
For the first two weeks in Gloskow, I don’t call my parents anything. I stop talking altogether. I listen and observe. Father has a job in the forest cutting trees; Mother cooks and cleans for the man who owns the house we live in.
Mother tells him that I have just been very ill, and that is why she isn’t going to send me to school. He doesn’t seem to suspect anything. There seem to be no other children or people around the place.
“Why don’t you talk?” asks my mother, who is used to my constant chatter.
“I am afraid to call you Auntie. It’s so strange, and what if I forget while the landlord is here?”
“Don’t worry, you won’t slip, and if you do, I will explain that you miss your mother so much that sometimes you forget I am your auntie.”
Little by little I start calling my parents Auntie Zofia and
Uncle Felix. Months pass, and we go about our chores, always tense and careful lest a slip is made and we are discovered.
Mother’s stomach begins to look as it did before she had Basia. When I ask, she tells me that she is three months pregnant. I can’t imagine having another sister now, in these awful times. I spend my days reading my few books over and over. The pages have become yellow and torn. I sit by the window and stare out at the white world, and daydream.
One winter day, three truckloads of German soldiers arrive and make their camp in the village not far from our house. They wander about, talking, laughing. One even smiles at me, and it sends shivers right through me. If he only knew.
Then one day, the sound of heavy guns can be heard in the distance. The German soldiers speed by our house in convoys of roaring trucks and cars. I am scared, but my parents are strangely cheerful.
“The Germans are losing the war and running,” says Father grinning happily. “The Russians will be here soon.”
When the news arrives that Warsaw has been liberated, Father decides to go there on foot to find us a place to live. We wait anxiously for his return as the winter days pass.
There is no food in the village. It was all taken by the Germans when they left. Our landlord seems to have disappeared somewhere. I descend to the cellar full of scurrying rats to look through the potato sacks. All I find is a rotten turnip. I throw it to the rats. I return upstairs to collect some old crumbs from the dining table to share with Mother. The thunderous sounds of guns are coming closer and closer. We are so hungry and cold that neither of us has the strength to move. We just lie in our beds.
All of a sudden a stillness descends upon the village. No more thunder. Soon we hear different noises outside: engines, and the voices of men shouting in a familiar-sounding language. It resembles Babushka’s language — Russian.
Suddenly our door is flung open, and a tall young man wearing a sheepskin jacket bursts into our room. He has a cap with sheepskin ears flapping about. Seeing us, he breaks into a grin, exposing a set of the whitest teeth.
“Zdrastvuite dzievotchki, hello girls,” he says in Russian. His black eyes flash at us out of a very dark-skinned face.
Mother gets up from the bed with difficulty. Using a mixture of Polish and mime, she tries to communicate with him. They establish that he wants Mother to cook for the officers of his regiment.
More soldiers arrive carrying chunks of lard, sacks of flour and potatoes into the kitchen. Soon Mother has made a potato soup and dumplings with onions fried in lard.
We eat with the officers in the large dining room. They have vodka, cigarettes and even a bag of candy for me. They toast their victory over the Germans.
Little glasses are filled, refilled, and raised in the traditional Russian toast to health — Za zdorove. The men down their glasses in one shot, and there is laughter and song. The young man who burst into our room picks me up and whirls me around shouting “Krasavitza!” — that I am a pretty girl.
The room spins.
We are free, free. The horrid war is over. I want to scream “Mama!” But I see the landlord. He must have returned and is staring at us. I trust no one. Perhaps it still isn’t safe for people to know our real names.
After the feast, Mother tells me to go and pack my brown suitcase. We’re leaving the next day for Warsaw.
The train station is crowded with the Russian army, triumphant with its victory over Nazis. The cars are packed with soldiers and, even though it is January, all the windows are open, filled with heads and waving arms.
“No civilians!” shouts a soldier in Russian, his rifle barring us from entering the passenger car. We hurry from one car to the other and are always pushed away, but we try once more.
“No civilians!” shouts another soldier.
“It’s all right, they’re with me,” says a loud voice from behind. The soldiers move away and make a path for an officer. He ushers us onto the steps, and we recognize him as one of the men who dined with us the night before. The soldiers let us pass. Mother manages her most beautiful smile of gratitude. The officer salutes us and disappears into a compartment, while we sit down on our cases next to the windows. The compartments are reserved for officers, while the corridors and other seats are for everyone else. There are few civilians aboard besides mother and me. The rest are women whose laughing and talking can be heard coming from the compartments.
The train pulls out of the station.
We are surrounded by Russian soldiers, standing up, sitting or lying on the floor. They shuffle about, and mill back and forth practically stepping over us. Some smoke, drink or sleep. A few have their arms or legs in bandages, and moan in pain. The car smells of sweat, vodka, nicotine and blood.
Once it becomes dark outside, the only light in our corridor enters dimly through the dirty glass windows of the compartment doors.
Mother and I sit on our suitcases in a sea of cigarette butts and empty vodka bottles. The soldiers who have been drinking begin to slur their words and fall over each other with silly laughter. Mother keeps her back to the wall of the train. I am scared.
In front of us, the compartment door opens onto the corridor, and our friend, the officer, comes out. He is short and stocky, very dark, with thick black eyebrows. He pushes his way through the litter towards Mother, and addresses her in broken Polish.
“My dear lady, you should not be sitting on the floor in your condition. Why don’t you come into my compartment?
I have just got rid of the other officers!” He laughs. “Come, come,” he urges, helping Mother stand up. She does it with difficulty, as she is now six months pregnant.
“But my daughter must come, too. I will not go without her,” says Mother firmly. He looks at me and hesitates, but finally agrees that I can come along.
It is sheer heaven in the compartment. It has soft seats, and I can just sink into them instead of bracing myself up on a little suitcase. Mother sits on the other side with the officer, who moves closer and closer to her. She pushes him away. Even on the opposite side I can smell alcohol on his breath.
“Maybe a little food?” he asks.
Maybe? Mother and I haven’t eaten all day.
He brings out a can of sardines, a hunk of sausage and a loaf of bread. We eat hungrily. He moves very close to Mother again, and pours her a glass of vodka. She refuses. He begins to down one vodka after another, and suddenly grabs Mother and starts kiss
ing her. Mother jumps up, grasps my hand and pulls me out of the compartment. We return to our old place. Luckily our suitcases were left alone.
The soldiers are now really drunk. They laugh continuously, pointing at us and at the officer’s compartment. After five minutes, the officer comes out again; his face is red and angry. He walks up to Mother and starts touching her. I scream. He recoils. He advances again and I scream louder. He goes back to his compartment, but tries again later. I scream and scream. My throat is on fire, but I must save Mother from this ugly creature.
Eventually half the car is snoring. The officer stops bothering us. The trip seems to take forever; the train stops frequently and stands at the station for long periods of time.
Blessed daylight comes at last. One tired pregnant lady and a little girl with a very sore throat arrive at the Warsaw terminal.
CHAPTER 13
The Ruins
(WARSAW, 1945)
I AM TWELVE years old.
Warsaw is in ruins. Brick, stone and broken glass lie everywhere in the streets. Twisted steel hangs from buildings ravaged by fire and bombs. Staircases dangle in mid-air.
People walk cautiously, for unexploded bombs lurk among the ruins waiting to blow off a child’s foot or hand.
Drunken Russian soldiers paw helpless women on the streets. Other soldiers lie wounded in the corners, huddled against pieces of concrete or wood. Some are still bleeding and look half-dead.
The streets are so grotesquely changed that it is difficult even for a Warsaw native to distinguish one from the other. There are no cabs, streetcars or telephones; only army trucks drive on the roads, while masses of civilians wander on foot. We walk for what seems like hours.
Unable to take another step, I pause and sit on my suitcase. “Where are we going, Mama?” I ask.
“Papa and I promised that if he doesn’t return to Gloskow within a certain time we’ll meet at our old address on Aleje Jerozolimskie,” she replies. “He is supposed to come there every day to look for us. It’s not far from the train station, but it’s hard to find my way in all this rubble. Just be patient for a little while longer.”
When we have rested, we pick up our suitcases and walk on. With swollen and aching feet, we finally arrive at our old apartment building. Amazingly, it still stands, although it is without windows and fire has blackened its walls.
We walk into the courtyard. The once beautiful garden is covered in snow. Father is nowhere to be seen. Mother decides to wait for him in one of the empty apartments overlooking the courtyard. Dusk approaches and we are almost frozen but glad to be off the street. People can be heard roaming around in the building, but no one bothers us. Mother and I huddle together to keep warm. Half asleep, half awake, I hear a noise.
“Here you are, you two! Wake up!”
It’s Father, smiling and happy to see us.
“Come, I’ve got a royal carriage waiting for you outside,” he says.
Dazed, unable to utter words through our cracked lips, we climb into a broken dorozhka, which is pulled by a horse. Parts of the side have been gouged, but the wheels are still good. Everything seems different, except the driver with a whip in his hand, and a heavy dark-blue jacket and matching cap with a brim, slanted over a tanned wrinkled face. Just like the one before the war who drove Mother and me to the dressmaker.
“I don’t guarantee that he will take us all the way,” says Father in good humour. “I found him soon after I returned to Warsaw. He and his horse were starving. I brought them food and drink and persuaded him to come with me.” Father climbs up next to the driver, and the horse ploughs through the debris-laden streets for hours. Periodically someone jumps onto the side of the carriage, rides a way, then jumps off.
“The fact that Mama is pregnant justifies our use of the carriage,” Father explains from above. “So don’t feel guilty.” We finally arrive at an apartment building on Lwowska Street, one of the very few streets that were not destroyed.
Father tells us how lucky he was to have met up with some old friends, who asked him to serve in the legal department of the new provisional Polish government. This position has merited him a place to live and money to buy food.
That night, safe in our new apartment, I sleep my first night in freedom. Mother tells me afterwards that I slept for a day and a half.
Four months later, a round-faced baby girl is born. We call her Pyza. Mother is quite ill afterwards, so Father hires a hefty girl from the country called Marysia to do the housework and help with the baby. The presence of a new baby is like the beginning of a new life for all of us. She almost becomes our second Basia, and some of the gloom is dispelled.
In the meantime, Warsaw is awakening from her nightmare. Polish people who love their country set about restoring her to life.
We love Poland and Warsaw, my family and I, just as much as the Christian Poles do. We watch joyfully as order sets in, more and more each day, defying the ruins. The rubble is being cleared away and schools open. I start attending grade seven. When I am not in school, I roam the streets, watching the reawakening with fascination. I ride the streetcar from one end to the other. The conductors come to know me, and don’t even bother to ask for money. Sometimes I am accompanied by Marysia, as Father doesn’t like me to be on the streets alone, particularly after dark. Marysia loves men, and many soldiers stop her on the street. When she goes off with one, she makes me promise not to tell my parents. While she is away, I continue my daily exploration of the city.
The Polish spirit is surfacing. The pulse of the city beats again, and songs are composed in dedication. The Poles sing an ode to Warsaw:
Warsaw, beloved Warsaw
City of hopes and dreams
Oh how I long
To see you again
I’d give up my life for you …
At the same time, we begin to learn the tragic truth about the fate of Poland’s Jews during the war, as the people emerge from the cellars and attics, and return from concentration camps.
Friends from before the war come to visit my parents. They sit around our dining room table for hours discussing the horrors of Nazi crimes, which they call Genocide. They tell us about their relatives who boarded the trains to the so-called labour camps and never returned. These labour camps were really death camps, they said. When the Jewish people arrived there, all their possessions were taken away and divided into heaps of glasses, shoes, suitcases and other items. Then they were told to undress and take showers. Upon stepping into the showers, they were gassed to death. Millions died that way at camps called Auschwitz, Treblinka and others, where Jews themselves were ordered to dig mass graves.
Someone mentions a familiar name: Dr. Janusz Korczak, the gentle doctor who ran an orphanage in the Ghetto. I still remember him on his balcony watering flowers. They say that Dr. Korczak and his two hundred orphans were put into cattle cars and sent to a camp called Treblinka, never to be heard of again.
Mother has not been able to find any of her relatives. She knows that some of them were sent to concentration camps, and haven’t returned.
My parents always send me to my room when these discussions begin. But I eavesdrop. It seems that the war has not ended for the Jewish people.
In the meantime, my solitary excitement of roaming the streets is short-lived. Father forbids me to go out on my own, except to school and back. The streets are dangerous because of pilfering and drunken soldiers.
I hate school. It is boring and monotonous. They make us memorize masses of history, geography and literature straight out of books, then recite these passages word-for-word, without any explanation, discussion or understanding.
I make friends with a pair of blond, blue-eyed, Gentile twins, named Lola and Maryla. Both have brown, decaying teeth that smell awful, the result of an illness during the war. They are bright and kind, and one day they invite me to their house for tea after school. I don’t ask Father’s permission because I know he will refuse.
The street a
nd the number of the building are easy to find. I open the gate and go through into the courtyard. I cannot believe it. The building on the inside of the courtyard is almost totally destroyed. No one could live here. I must have made a mistake. Then I see the number of their suite on the wall, with an arrow pointing at an apartment high up off the ground. Hanging in mid-air are staircases supported by a wall only on one side.
No elevator of course. That means a climb to the fourth floor. A sign in the courtyard says, THIS BUILDING IS DECLARED DANGEROUS AND MAY ONLY BE USED AT YOUR OWN RISK. I debate with myself. I promised to be there, didn’t I? I am not a coward. At least I don’t think I am. Father wouldn’t be afraid if he promised, and neither would Nina Dzavaha, my storybook heroine.
I proceed carefully towards the staircase. It swings as I place my foot on the first stair. What if it falls, with me on it? It continues to sway all the way up, and when finally I reach the top I feel weak with relief. I try not to think of having to go back down.
I am greeted at the door by the twins.
“You made it, brave girl. Come on in,” they say.
We sit at the table, while their mother serves us tea and cookies. She is a slight lady, with nervous hands. She doesn’t sit with us. We talk for awhile, and the twins tell me that their father went to fight with the partisans, and never came back.
“We don’t know whether our father is dead or alive,” they say.
Father! the word registers in my mind that I must be home before dark, and here it is getting dark already. I collect my hat and coat, thank them for everything, and take a deep breath. One of the twins laughs. “Don’t worry, we do this several times a day. Just take your time walking down,” says Maryla, and closes the rusted door.
The building is dark and silent; there isn’t even an electric light in sight. With each step I take, the staircase swings and creaks.
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