Once We Were Brothers

by Ronald H. Balson

  Catherine shivered and reflexively crossed herself.

  “As horrible as those statistics are, we now know that the German high command planned to murder millions more all throughout Europe. Records show that Himmler, at a meeting in his Wewelsburg castle in 1941, told his generals that the German master plan for the East called for the slaughter of thirty million Slavs.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “There is no way to conceive of the ends of the German genocide had they not been stopped.”

  Catherine shook her head and sat perfectly still.

  “Anyway, getting back to my story, in 1941 in Zamość, those without work permits were sent to Belzec to start building fortifications.”

  “Did your uncle and grandfather have work permits? Your uncle was disabled.”

  “Both of them had permits to work in my father’s glass factory. Of course, it no longer belonged to my father. It had been Aryanized, seized by the Germans and handed over to some German businessman, but the plant was being managed by my father’s former plant supervisor, so we were able to get permits for Uncle Joseph, who did accounting, and Grandpa Yaakov, who helped in the shipping department.

  “One morning in early spring, as Otto handed me a grocery bag in Belvederski Park, he said, ‘Ben, bad orders are coming down. The whole community is to be resettled. Tell your father I’ll come by at midnight. Tell him to get the family together. Get ready to leave.’

  “My father had also heard rumors. ‘We were informed today at the Judenrat that several thousand Jews from other regions are being uprooted and sent to Zamość,’ he said. ‘That may be what Otto is talking about. The Judenrat is to have the responsibility of absorbing these refugees into our community, although where we’ll get food and shelter for them, I don’t know.’

  “Later that evening, with the family all gathered and nervous as hell, Otto came to the house. He pulled a chair to the center of the room. I remember it struck me at the time that he had the look of the quintessential German officer – a handsome, square-jawed, well-groomed man, in his creased Nazi uniform, white silk scarf and polished boots.

  “‘I have heard from Berlin,’ he said. ‘Reischsfuhrer Himmler has selected Zamość to be the centerpiece of the new German territory, the General Gouvernment. He’s very fond of our town – in fact, he intends to change the name to Himmlerstadt. It is to be the first resettlement area for German nationals. All the Poles, not just the Jews, will be removed to make way for German settlers. Initially, the plan calls for all the Jews to be re-housed in New Town. Eventually, they’ll be moved to resettlement camps.’

  “My mother gasped. New Town was the poorest section of Zamość with dilapidated homes and buildings – a congested, blighted slum. Warehouses and factory buildings, many of them vacant or damaged in the bombing, added to the social disorganization. ‘What about our home?’ she asked.

  “‘It will be confiscated for use by others, mostly occupation forces, perhaps SS officers.’

  “My mother stamped her foot. ‘They can’t do that! This is my house!’

  “‘When is this going to happen?’ Father said.

  “‘Sometime in April.’

  “‘That’s just days away. How do they expect us to move our entire home in such a short period of time?’

  “Otto just lowered his eyes and shook his head.

  “‘Can you get us out of here, Otto?’ Father said.

  “‘I think so. That’s why I came. I have volunteered to take a shipment of wine and food south to an SS post at Debice tomorrow. I’ll have a covered truck. I can hide three people behind the crates of wine. If I drive again, I can take three more. I’ll keep trying to get the assignment and take all of you south to Uncle Joseph’s cabin in the mountains. Because it’s so remote, there are very few troops in that area. From there, you’re on your own.’

  “Uncle Joseph protested. ‘This is not good. We want travel papers to take the train to Turkey or Greece, or maybe to Spain. The cabin is small and has only the little fireplace. The villages are several kilometers away and we won’t have a car. How are we supposed to get food and supplies?’

  “‘You’ll have to fend for yourself. And you can forget about travel papers,’ said Otto, irritated at Uncle Joseph’s rejection of his offer. ‘The train is out, don’t you understand? You wouldn’t get as far as Krakow. Right now, all the Polish borders are closed. There are armed soldiers at every border crossing. All trains are required to stop at the borders and the passengers have to disembark to be examined for their identification. You’d be caught and shot.’

  “‘I don’t like it,’ Uncle Joseph said.

  “‘I don’t like it either,’ Grandpa Yaakov said. ‘I was born here and I’m going to stay here. No Nazis are going to kick me out of my country.’

  “‘You tell ‘em, Papa,’ Uncle Joseph said. ‘We have our work permits. We’ll keep working at the glass factory. Sooner or later the Brits will come and these thugs will get the boot.’

  “Otto looked to my father. ‘Uncle Abraham, can you make them understand?’

  “‘Maybe over time they’ll change their mind,’ he said, ‘but they have the right to make decisions about their own lives.’

  “Otto shook his head. ‘Well, let me take the women tomorrow. I can take Aunt Hilda, Aunt Leah and one of the girls.’

  “Aunt Hilda said, ‘Not me. I’m too old and I won’t leave Joseph. Take the young ones.’

  “Mother agreed. ‘Take Beka, Hannah and Ben. They should be the first ones out. They have their whole lives in front of them.’

  “The three of us immediately protested. None of us wanted to leave the family.

  “‘I’m staying with you,’ I said. ‘You’ll need a strong hand to help you move and survive in New Town. I’m grown now, Father, and I can protect the family.’

  “He put his gentle hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes and I knew, somewhere deep down, that he was casting me to sea and from then on I was to pilot my own ship. ‘That’s why you must go with Hannah and Beka. They’ll need your strength and your wisdom. I’m needed at the Judenrat and my absence would be noted. If I didn’t show up, they’d search for me. I should be the last of the family to leave Zamość.’”

  Ben paused his story and swallowed hard. He shut his eyes.

  “The girls are sobbing. Dr. Weissbaum holds Hannah in a bear hug, burying her face in his big chest. There are tears in his eyes, as well. ‘Abraham and Leah are wise,’ he says. ‘Let’s listen to them. As for me, there are only three doctors in our community and our existence worsens every day. I can’t leave our people now. You go with Ben and Rebecca. If something should happen here, at least the three of you will have made it out.’

  “‘No, please,’ Hannah cries. ‘I don’t want to leave you. Please, Daddy.’

  “‘It breaks my heart, Ziskeit, but I know it’s for the best. Mother’s gone. We have no home any more. You, my precious one, are all I have left. I’ve had a wonderful life. You deserve your happiness, a full and rich life. You and Beka and Ben, go and be safe. Go far from this town. I will stay and do what I can with Abraham.’

  “She cries. He smoothes her hair and wipes her tears.

  “‘Then it’s settled,’ says Father. ‘Otto, you’ll take the three children.’

  “Otto stands to leave, positioning his cap on his head. ‘I’ll come by at daybreak and stop the truck in front of the house. I’ll only pause for a moment, so be ready to jump in. Bring whatever you can carry in a bag, there’s not much room in the truck.’”

  Catherine set down her pen. “I know you must be tired, Ben, because I’m exhausted. I’m anxious to know what happens next, but we have to stop somewhere. Let’s pick this up tomorrow.”

  “I can’t. It’s Friday.”

  “Then let’s meet Monday and try hard to finish.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Chicago, Illinois November 2004

  “Now this is special,” Ben said, unloading a bo
x of bagels and assorted cream cheeses on the sideboard. “Fresh baked from Meyer’s Delicatessen. I took the ‘L’ out there early this morning. Got ‘em right out of the oven. You’re going to taste heaven.”

  “You’re wreaking havoc on my diet,” Catherine said, lifting dishes from inside the cabinet and setting them next to the cups. She sliced a whole wheat bagel and poured a cup of coffee.

  “Ben, your story is taking its toll on me,” she said, working her knife methodically, counterclockwise, carefully spreading a very thin layer of cream cheese over her bagel. “I’m putting in fourteen hour days trying to catch up. And when I finally get home I can’t sleep. I lie awake thinking about the death camps and the break up of these families that I’m getting to know.” She took a small bite of bagel. “Oh, my. That is good. Now you’re not only ruining my sleep, you’re ruining my figure.”

  “I don’t want to be indelicate, but you don’t look any the worse for wear.”

  “Thanks.” She smiled. “But, being immersed in your saga, it’s truly unsettling to me. I’m not naïve, I know the world is full of racial hatred, ethnic cleansing, and civil wars. But to marshal the world’s most powerful army in a sinister plan to conquer the world, annihilate tens of millions of people because of their race and then proceed to brainwash an entire populace….”

  “Not just race, Catherine. Religion, national origin. How would you characterize the Slavs? Gypsies? Moors? All the lines get blurred. There are many races practicing Judaism, just as there are diverse races that belong to your church. There are Negro Jews in Ethiopia and Middle Eastern Jews in Iraq. There have been Jews in Japan since the 1860s. Poland was fractionally Jewish, but there were still three-and-a-half million Jews living there in the 1930s”

  “But still, today, living in America, it all seems so incomprehensible.”

  Ben raised his eyebrows. “Incomprehensible because we’re Americans? Land of the free and home of the brave? Let’s not kid ourselves. We’ve authored our own chapters in the history of shame, periods where the world looked at us and shook its head. Early America built an economy based on slavery and it was firmly supported by law. Read the Supreme Court’s decision in Dred Scott. We trampled entire cultures of Native Americans. ‘No Irish Need Apply’ was written on factory gates in nineteenth century New York.”

  Ben shook his head. “We’d like to think we’re beyond such hatred, but the fact is, we can never let our guard down. That’s why this case is so important. To you and to me. It’s another reminder of what can happen when evil is allowed to incubate. Find a reason to turn your nose up at a culture, to denigrate a people because they’re different, and it’s not such a giant leap from ethnic subjugation to ethnic slaughter.”

  Catherine nodded and picked up her note pad.

  Zamość, Poland 1941

  “Beka, Hannah and I packed our knapsacks in preparation for our escape to the mountains – a few changes of clothes, portions of meat, cheese and bread – enough to keep us going for a little while after we got to the cabin. Early the next morning, before the sun rose, we waited by the window. We had stayed up through the night saying our goodbyes and assuring one another that we’d all reunite soon.

  Soon we saw a covered truck drive slowly up the street and flash its lights. My father pulled me aside. ‘Ben, I guess you know how grave the situation is. We may not all survive this war.’

  “‘Don’t talk like that. Please. We’ll survive. We’ll all make it. The girls and I will be waiting for you at Uncle Joseph’s.’

  “‘Ben, if you’re safe, if no one bothers you and if the Germans don’t come into the Podhale District, stay in the cabin. Wait out the war. But if you’re threatened in any way and you get the chance, take the girls make a run for it. The Tatras can be crossed in the summer into Slovakia and thence south through the countryside to the sea, although you must be mindful that no place in Eastern Europe is safe. Slovakia is no friend. We hear that the 55,000 Jews in Prague are in as much trouble as we are. Stay clear of the Slovakian cities. Trust no one. Restrict your travel to the country roads. Make your way into eastern Hungary and down to Yugoslavia, to the coastal city of Split. Here is the name of a contact in Split who will help you get to America.’ He handed me a folded letter of introduction.

  “‘Father, don’t worry, we’ll wait for you.’

  “He smiled, gave me a kiss, stuffed some money into my pocket and bid me goodbye.

  “We climbed into the back of the truck, each of us with our small knapsack. With a gaping hole in my heart, I watched the only home I’d ever known fade into the misty daybreak. I can still see my mother with her hand on the windowpane.

  “‘Stay low behind the boxes and cover yourselves with the tarpaulin until we’re out of town,’ Otto said as the truck rumbled along the city streets.

  “Once we left Zamość and were on our way through the countryside, we sat up to talk. Otto was paranoid, like a drunk driver trying to make it home on New Year’s Eve. He gripped the wheel so tightly, his hands were white.

  “‘You don’t know what I’m risking for you,’ he said. ‘I could lose everything, my position, my rank, even my life, if I’m caught.’”

  “To be fair, Ben, wasn’t that true?” asked Catherine.

  “Would you say something like that to your brother and sister? Your position? Your rank?”

  “No, I guess I wouldn’t.”

  “We figured that the trip to the mountains would take about ten hours if we went non-stop. It was Otto’s plan to drop us at the cabin and then double back to Debice, two hours away. We stopped only to relieve ourselves by the side of the road.

  “We were a few miles outside Łysa Polana, about a half hour’s drive from the cabin, and feeling pretty good when we suddenly encountered a roadblock. Two Wehrmacht soldiers walked up to the truck, one on each side. The girls and I huddled in the back under the tarp.

  “‘Good afternoon, Scharfuhrer,’ one of them said. ‘Let’s see your papers. Where are you headed?’

  “‘I’m headed to Debice,’ Otto said in German, handing his papers through the window. ‘I have a delivery for SS Sturmbannfuhrer Kolb.’

  “‘Debice? You passed the cutoff to Debice a hundred kilometers ago.’ There was silence for a moment and then we heard, ‘Please step out of the truck.’

  “‘I was told to take highway 12,’ Otto said, stepping down from the driver’s seat onto the gravel shoulder. ‘I must have missed the turn in this pigshit country.’

  “‘What are you delivering to Debice, Scharfuhrer?’

  “We heard Otto chuckle. ‘You look like a nice fellow,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you a little taste.’ He climbed into the back of the truck, pulled two bottles of Riesling from the crates in front of us and crawled back out.

  “‘Don’t say where you got this or it’ll be my ass,’ Otto said.

  “The soldiers thanked him profusely and said, ‘Turn around and head back about two hours, my friend. Take the cutoff at highway 23.’

  “Otto turned the truck around and drove out of town, sweating buckets. Once around the curve and out of sight, he pulled over next to a stand of trees. He was breathing heavily.

  “‘Everybody out. You’ll have to walk to the cabin. I can’t risk going back.’ We clamored out of the truck and I walked over to the window to shake his hand. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to get the rest of them up here, Ben. This is way too dangerous.’

  “I thanked him, told him he’d think of something and watched him drive away. The girls and I quickly got off the road and ducked into the forest. It was almost nightfall and there was a chill in the mountain air. As far as I could figure, the cabin was a two day walk.

  “Although it was early April, there were still patches of deep snow in the high country, especially in the thick parts of the forest, and we hadn’t prepared for such a hike. The snow caked in through the tops of our shoes, soaked our socks and froze our feet. Our cuffs were heavy with snow, ice and water. Nevertheless,
we had no choice but to plow ahead, taking care to stay clear of the roads and the German patrols. Unsure of the countryside, we tried to navigate by the stars, stopping as little as possible. We knew if we were discovered, picked up without papers, knapsacks in hand, it’d be all over.”

  “How far was it to Joseph’s cabin?” asked Catherine.

  “Maybe fifteen miles but the terrain was wooded and hilly. Uncle Joseph’s cabin lay in a valley just outside the village of Łysa Polana, a few kilometers east of Zakopane and just north of the Tatra peaks. The range divided Poland from Slovakia with rugged granite mountains that reached over 6,000 feet. Today there are border crossings for the skiers and hikers. The town of Zakopane was then and still is a popular European ski resort.”

  “Ben, I’m wondering how your father thought your grandfather and uncle could make the passage?”

  “It was a plan of last resort. I think all he was trying to do was to get them to the cabin to wait out the war, but in retrospect, I wonder whether he ever really believed they’d leave Zamość.

  “Anyway, for the three of us, it was tough going in the dark. The rocks twisted our ankles, the brush scraped our legs and the pine needles were sharp. Each of us stumbled several times and Beka had a bad fall. We made a couple of miles that night and decided to bed down in a small clearing until dawn, using our clothing for makeshift blankets and huddling together to share our body heat. By the morning, we were stiff and cold and ready to move on.

  “The trek was easier during the day. We could navigate by the mountain peaks and the sun was warm. We followed trails through the pines until we hit the outskirts of Łysa Polana. From there, we found the old dirt road and reached the cabin by late afternoon.

  “The old wood hut with the sharp peaked roof was a welcome sight. Naturally, it was shuttered and locked, but I knew Uncle Joseph kept a key on a shelf in the shed. I retrieved it and opened the creaky door. No one had been inside for a few years. There were cobwebs everywhere and we could tell that small mountain animals, field mice, marmots and chipmunks, had been tenants in our absence. The furniture was covered with sheets but everything had a layer of dusty film. The girls immediately set to cleaning, while I went to gather wood and water. We boiled the water from the stream and kept a good supply in jugs.”