The Fires of Lilliput

by Michael Martin

  They listened to the L-rd’s Prayer and the rabbi blessed the wine again in his own way.

  “I’ve always thought it was a beautiful prayer,” the rabbi told Jakub that night. “You should hear it in Hebrew.”

  “Like your prayers?” Jakub said.

  “Yes.”

  “You know it?”

  “Yes,” the rabbi said. He recited the prayer.

  “avînu shèbaShamayim”

  Our Father who is in Heaven,

  “yitqaDash shemèkha”

  Let be hallowed Your name.

  “Tavo malkhutèkha”

  Let come Your Kingdom;

  “yé‘asèh retsonkha”

  Let be done Your will,

  “kemo vaShamayim”

  As in Heaven,

  “kén ba’arèts”

  So on Earth.

  “èt - lèhèm huQénu Tèn - lanu”

  Our appointed bread give us

  “haYom”

  this day,

  “uçlah - lanu èt - hovotênu”

  And forgive us our debts,

  “ka’ashèr çalahnu Gam - anahnu”

  Even as we ourselves forgive

  “lehaYavênu”

  our debtors.

  “ve’al - Tevî’énu lîdê niÇayon”

  And do not bring us into trial,

  “kî ‘im - haLtsénu min - hara”

  But deliver us from the Evil One –

  “kî lekha haMamlakha”

  For Yours is the Kingdom,

  “vehaGvurah”

  And the power,

  “vehaTif’èrèt”

  And the glory,

  “le‘olmê ‘olamîm”

  To the ages of the ages.

  Jakub said “Amein.”

  They saved the second part of Seder for the following evening.

  Nineteen

  Tuesday of Holy Week

  20 April 1943

  On this, Hitler’s birthday, the Germans issued an ultimatum to the resistance: lay down your arms or face annihilation. At 7 am, a detachment under Stroop blasted the fighters at Zamenhofa Street and took houses along Zamenhofa, Gesia, and Nalewki streets, driving the resistance from roofs and attics.

  The fighters drove Stroop back and he withdrew his troops beyond the ghetto wall. Armia Krajowa troops under Captain Henryk Wojskowy met ZZW fighters with smuggled arms and ammunition on Muranowski Square. Wojskowy’s men raised a white and red Polish flag alongside the white and blue Jewish flag on Muranowska Street.

  The Germans returned with flamethrowers later in the day and burned houses along Leszno, Nowolipie, Nowolipki and Smocza streets and retook the Schultz and Toebbens workshops. This day the fighters lost, by some counts ten, by other counts twenty-five men.

  AFTER SUNSET, RABBI CELEBRATED THE SECOND HALF of Seder with twelve people—three fighters had not returned. He poured water from a jug three times over each hand. He held his cleansed hands together and said, “Blessed are you, O L-rd our G-d, King of the universe, Who has commanded us about washing the hands.” He blessed the matzo and more radishes and passed the food around. The people dipped the maror in a peanut butter-like concoction, a makeshift “charoses.”

  “In the manner taught to us by the great Rebbe Hillel,” the rabbi said, placing maror and charoses and matzo together into a sandwich-like “korech” and with the others eating it with soup. Near the end of the meal, the rabbi broke the second half of the previous night’s matzo and gave it to the others. It was called “afikoman,” the last part of the Seder meal. They talked and ate the sparse feast and then rabbi addressed them to say Birkat Ha-Mazon —the after meal grace.

  “Chavarei n’vareich.”

  Friends, let us bless.

  Marian responded:

  “Yihi shem Adonai m’vorach mei-atah v’ad olam.”

  May G-d be praised from this moment through eternity.

  The others said:

  “Barukh ata Adonai bone v’rachamav Yerushalayim. Amein.”

  Blessed are You, Adonai, in compassion You build Jerusalem. Amen.

  They poured a third cup of wine and stood aside from the door to let the spirit of Elijah enter. Shosha raised her face and closed her eyes. When she opened her eyes she looked at Jakub and saw his hair waving, though the room was still and down here, there was never a breeze. She took her mother’s hand and directed Rebekah to look at Jakub. He looked calm. He moved his hair out of his eyes.

  The rabbi spoke of the great punishments that would be meted to their oppressors and the wrath of G-d as it was in the time of Pharoah. He led them in Hallel, the Psalms of Praise. He blessed and they drank a fourth cup of wine—now barely more than a drop—and the rabbi concluded Seder. “Next Year in Jerusalem,” he proclaimed. He was exhausted and retired early.

  Before sunrise, the rabbi awakened Jakub and handed him a purse that bulged softly. The morning was cold and they sat around a pool of hot coals in the bunker.

  “Open it,” the rabbi said.

  Jakub slipped his fingers in and spread the purse and saw four currencies: Polish zlotys, Swiss francs, American dollars, German Reichsmarks.

  “In case one goes bad,” the rabbi said. “That’s how I get them, from our friends.”

  “Thank you,” Jakub said. “My family and I are grateful.”

  “Your work here was finished some time ago,” the rabbi said. “I can get you back. You should go and go now.”

  Jakub considered. “I know,” he said. But the rabbi heard hesitation.

  “This isn’t your fight,” the rabbi said.

  “A friend who won’t fight for a friend is a coward,” Jakub said. He stared at the glowing coals in the dirt pit. “It’s not safe to leave now,” he said.

  “I can get you out,” the rabbi said. “It’s as safe as it will ever be.”

  “What about the others?” Jakub said. “Shosha, Rebekah, all the others?”

  “They won’t go,” the rabbi said. “Rebekah is waiting for her husband and honor forbids the rest.”

  “Can you write to mama? Send her this money?”

  The rabbi looked at Jakub, at his face and hair, at his shoulders and hands.

  “Yes,” the rabbi said. “I can get the money out.”

  “You have to do it soon—I need to let her and Karl know I’m all right.”

  The rabbi put his hand around Jakub’s knee. “You’re all right,” the rabbi said. “Your family will know. You can be sure of it.”

  Twenty

  Ash Wednesday

  21 April 1943

  Rebekah and Shosha spent the morning carrying grenades and petrol bottles to the first set of bunkers outside resistance headquarters. Shosha told the story of the rifle and Antek, how Jakub had snatched the rifle and aimed it proficiently and fired but how the Trawniki man was out of range. Michal Klepfisz heard the story. He was cleaning a rifle on a table and he asked to speak with Jakub.

  “Can you hold a rifle for a long time?” Klepfisz asked Jakub.

  “Yes,” Jakub said.

  “I’ve heard about your wounds.”

  “My wounds only hurt when they bleed, and they only bleed sometimes,” Jakub said.

  “You have an unusual condition,” Klepfisz said. “Rabbi explained some of it.” Klepfisz held up the rifle and looked through the site. “Could you stand guard? At the entrance, but you’d be inside and not the first defense.”

  “I could do that,” Jakub said. “Am I paid?”

  “If Rabbi made no arrangement, I’ll talk to him about it.”

  “I’d have to be paid,” Jakub said. “The money’s not for me—I send it to my family.”

  “It sounds like we have an adept ally in this fellow Chelzak,” Klepfisz told his group at the evening meal. “Not like some.”

  The men chuckled. “You mean Pszenny,” one of them said.

  “No. I meant me. I meant us. Pszenny tried.”

  “He should have tried earlier,” one of the men said. �
�Who can trust those AK bastards?”

  “I trust Wojskowy,” someone said.

  “Wojskowy’s all right,” Klepfisz agreed. “I know his family and him since a little boy.”

  HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT BROKE OUT across the ghetto in the afternoon. The fighters ran up to tanks and armored vehicles and dropped grenades into whatever crevices or openings they could find and ran for cover. A few men took bullets in the back and legs, and toward late afternoon, Klepfisz, known as Tadeusz Metzner outside the ghetto, took a bullet near his heart. He fell against a wall and another fighter, Zygmunt Fridrich, ran to him.

  “Go back to the bunker and get Marek,” Marek Edelman the doctor, Klepfisz told Zygmunt. “I can’t die now.”

  “It’s too dangerous.”

  Klepfisz grabbed the man’s shirt. “I can’t die now.”

  “I’ll be shot if I try to get there now,” Zygmunt said. “I have to wait.”

  “If you wait, I’ll die.”

  “You should stop talking,” Zygmunt said. “You need your breath.”

  Klepfisz tugged at Zygmunt’s shirt. “Get him,” Klepfisz said.

  Klepfisz relaxed his grip. Zygmunt looked up the street and saw the wall curl around to an alley. He heard explosions and gunshots. He crept along the wall toward the alley. Klepfisz watched him. Zygmunt turned into the alley and saw smoke ahead. He looked back at Klepfisz and sank along the wall. He rested his arms across his knees and lowered his head into his arms where light punctuated darkness under his legs. He looked around the corner again at Klepfisz, who was still. He looked up the alley, toward smoke and noise. He leaned and laid his head in his arms again and closed his eyes.

  Klepfisz died with his eyes open. He looked surprised, Zygmunt thought, and like he was trying to say something. Zygmunt told everyone Klepfisz must have been hopeful because he had his fist clenched. Klepfisz had no family here so each person prayed in their own way. The evening meal was cooked potatoes and greens scrounged from deserted buildings, and a little bread. People gathered and bowed their heads. Rabbi lit a candle and led them in saying, “Honor to his heroic death. Honor to his holy memory. Honor to all that died a hero’s death today on the field of glory.” Rebekah and Shosha stood together and Shosha’s hands shook.

  “What do we do about shiva, Rebbe?” one of the men asked.

  “We keep this candle lit, and when it dies, we light another for seven days,” the rabbi said. “We are not able to bury Michal. We have no other practical way.”

  “Michal Klepfisz was a man of great honor,” Rebekah told her daughter. “He was a man I wish Lev Mordechai could have known.” Rebekah cried that night because she was remembering why Lev Mordechai did not know Michal Klepfisz.

  A RAGGED ZZW FIGHTER NAMED STURLAN came in from the streets late that night and went to the first authority he could find: Rabbi Gimelman.

  “Rebbe—Moryc is injured.” Moryc Zydowski was commander of the ZZW unit at Muranowski Square.

  “How so—how badly?” the rabbi asked.

  “Bad but not dire, but we’re stuck for now and we need supplies—ammunition especially.”

  “We’re low too,” rabbi said. “Who’s been supplying you?”

  “Captain Wojskowy,” Sturlan said. “From the AK unit on the other side.”

  “Can you get to him?”

  “Not with our men. We need someone fresh, not injured. That’s why I came.”

  “We can’t spare any,” the rabbi said. “We lost three last night, one tonight.”

  “I was thinking of Chelzak,” Sturlan said.

  “Chelzak?” the rabbi said.

  “He’s not one of us.”

  “So put him in harm’s way?” the rabbi asked.

  “No,” Sturlan said. “They’re afraid of him.”

  “Who’s afraid of him?”

  “The Germans and their helpers from the East.”

  “How do you know this? Who said so?”

  “They all talk of it,” Sturlan said.

  “Why in this weird, strange, screwed up world of ours would the Germans be afraid of Chelzak?”

  “Moryc says it’s because of the wounds. He says the soldiers won’t bother him. He says that’s why they let you come back unharmed.”

  “That’s crap,” the rabbi said. “I paid the right people.”

  “Sammern-Frankenegg knows about him,” Sturlan said. “He’s been hiding it from Stroop, but the men say Stroop has heard, but only a little.”

  The rabbi ran his hand through his hair.

  “The Germans would be happy to get him out of here, and he could contact Captain Wojskowy,” Sturlan said.

  “I’ll talk to him,” the rabbi said.

  The rabbi presented the idea to Jakub. “I hear they’re afraid of you,” the rabbi said. Wojskowy was Catholic, he explained. The Germans were mostly Lutherans, and the Trawniki men were mostly Muslims. They were all, apparently, superstitious. “Maybe we Jews are immune to you.”

  “I’ll go,” Jakub said. “Give me a message and I’ll deliver it.”

  “I think it’s a terrible idea,” the rabbi said. “The only way it makes any sense is if once you’re beyond the wall, you keep going.”

  “Will you send another letter to my mother?”

  “I will,” the rabbi said.

  “Telling her I’m safe and sending her the money.”

  “Yes.”

  Rabbi explained the particulars and where to find Wojskowy. He explained which train to take back to Marienburg and when it departed.

  “After you see Wojskowy, you go and you keep going,” the rabbi said. “I don’t want you coming back. I want you home.”

  “How do I get out?” Jakub said.

  “With me,” the rabbi said.

  JAKUB CHELZAK AND AZAR GIMELMAN WALKED past soldiers who knew Jakub from descriptions and gendarmes who had received cash from the rabbi. The soldiers—mostly boys—stepped away, walked to the other side of the street, and gawked, but no one said anything to either man, nor laid any hand upon them. Three men prepping artillery stopped and looked at Jakub. Other men said things under their breath, but when the rabbi looked at them, their faces and mouths looked reverent, not obscene. The rabbi stopped at the Leszno gate and brought his palms together on Jakub’s cheeks.

  “You understand what to tell Wojskowy?” the rabbi whispered.

  “Yes,” Jakub said.

  “Then go with Him.”

  The men hugged and the rabbi turned back. Jakub waited until his friend disappeared through an alley. Outside the gate, a handful of SS stationed on the Aryan side stopped Jakub but German soldiers on the ghetto side whistled and yelled and waved them back. One of these soldiers ran up to Jakub, grabbed his hand and pulled up his sleeve to expose the remnants of the wound.

  “Sehen Sie!” the ghetto soldier said.

  “Er ist nicht ein Jude,” said one of the SS. “Wie heisst du?”

  “Jakub Chelzak,” the ghetto soldier interrupted.

  One of the SS men lifted his side firearm to Jakub’s cheek.

  “Verboten,” the ghetto soldier said, and put his hand on the barrel.

  “Verboten? Naa!”

  “Es ist verboten, um Jakub Chelzak zu beschädigen!” the soldier said. “Es ist verboten, um mit er sogar zu beeinflussen oder zu sprechen!”

  “Auf wessen Aufträgen?” said a second SS man.

  “Sammern-Frankenegg,” the soldier said.

  Without telling Stroop, Sammern-Frankenegg had forbidden offensive activity near or around the ZOB headquarters. He assumed Chelzak would be leaving soon because he knew—the entire ghetto knew—that Chelzak had come to save a dead woman. The boy soldiers wrote home about it—the whole strange situation. Sammern-Frankenegg was not superstitious, but many of his men were getting letters and notes in care packages from worried mothers and grandmothers and aunts warning their kin not to harm this man. Sammern-Frankenegg saw it spelled out in one typewritten letter. “I don’t know anything about h
im, but from what you’ve written, it’s probably best to avoid him.” An uncle agreed, advising in long hand—“just do what she tells you. We want you back in one piece.”

  That Chelzak was permitted to bottleneck the ghetto offensive would have infuriated Stroop, an atheist, but the situation was convoluted. Many of Sammern-Frankenegg’s men relied on the rabbi for income to supplement meager Army pay and regretted how mutual survival in the bowels of Hell had devolved into Final Liquidation. Himmler could come in here and wave his hands around and act important, but in the end Berlin was far from this god-awful, filthy, and demoralizing place. Even hard core SS who refused bribes looked away from the other men, many of them young with families, who took money from the Jews in return for life and liberty at critical moments.

  Not every German was an anti-Semite, either. In fact, the rapacious hatred of the Jews that drove the liquidation seemed ill advised and strategically suspect to many in the Wehrmacht. The closest ideological link between many Germans and anti-Semitism was the idea that Jews killed Christ, a tired dogma reinvigorated with obscene illustrations and jingoistic diatribes in pulp German fiction. Now, a man who bore the wounds of Christ walked among them. To the Christian anti-Semites, to harm this man would be to emulate the Jews who had harmed Christ. To the superstitious, Jakub Chelzak was a mystical presence who might command unearthly powers. To skeptics and pragmatists, Chelzak was of no consequence. To Sammern-Frankenegg, Chelzak was a problem that would resolve itself quickest by departing the ghetto unmolested.

  The SS man standing with Jakub whistled and waved at a young corporal mulling beside a staff car parked down Leszno Street on the Aryan side. The corporal got in and drove the car to them.