Clara's War (13 page)

 

Beck was our window to the world. He was our eyes and ears. And as much as I saw in his eyes that he would like to spare us the worst, he could not. Hiding us, feeding us, risking his life for us was one thing. But by sharing our grief, I think he had become one of us.

He told us that the common grave covered over with sand was heaving and that blood erupted from the soil. He told us that Mr Astman, the father of my best friend in the entire world, Genya, who lived across from the church that took in the Jewish girls to save them, had crawled out of the grave, not wounded at all. Not a scratch. It was a miracle. And, like
Hatikvah
, the song that so many of us sang on the path to our deaths, he had every reason to hope that he would be saved because a Polish man he knew found him. I didn't know if this man was a friend. I imagined Mr Astman crawling out of the grave, looking at a spring sky with trees starting to bud because it was too horrible to look around him, and seeing the face of a friend on the man who
found him. I could imagine this hope that springs forth into eternity because that is the direction all hope runs to; this hope that was destroyed in the moment Mr Astman saw his fate in this friend's eyes. He took Mr Astman to the police, where he was shot on the spot.

That evening, Mr Beck brought Herr Doktor Professor Steckel and his wife into the bunker. We were now 14. We had created more sleeping space in the area under Ala's bedroom: space in which to crawl and lie down. Herr Steckel was the only pharmacist in Zolkiew and so had been allowed to live outside the ghetto. This had saved his life. I had never met them before and they were an austere-looking couple. I didn't want to think they were haughty and stuck-up, but those were the words that came to my mind. What must they think of us in our rags with our faces and eyes swollen with hunger and grief; our limbs mottled with sores and infected scratches that oozed pus? Them in their clean clothes; he in his wool coat and wire-rimmed glasses and she in her mink coat, looking around the bunker, looking where to sit without fouling herself?

Beck introduced us, all of us. And there wasn't one word of solace, friendship, solidarity, gratitude or grief. They knew what had happened. Yet to look at them, they could have just arrived back from a vacation. Only money could allow them to look at us as if we were so beneath them.

I was smart enough to know Beck brought them here for their money. It was written all over their faces. There had never been any formal discussion between Beck and our families about money. The Becks had never asked us for payment in exchange for protection. All they wanted was for us to cover expenses for food. Not a zloty more. But from the very beginning our three families felt an obligation to give the Becks whatever we could because we knew they were risking their
lives for us. No matter how much we were able to give them, it could never be enough.

Beck was going on and on with a smile, extolling the Steckels, letting us know we were their last resort and that Beck had a moral obligation to save them. ‘How could I turn them away?' was what he said, and I knew there was no arguing or protesting. They were Jews. The Nazis wanted to kill them. We would make room. Life was very simple in the bunker. They had recently come to Zolkiew so I didn't know if they had any family or if they knew the positions my father and Melman and Patrontasch had held in our community. Or if they knew the breadth of my father's scholarship and generosity and the compassion of Mama. We who gave away most of everything, we had to provide for others. I could see the diamonds sewn in a special pocket in the lining of Frau Steckel's blouse.

Through it all my father started to explain how we took turns cooking, washing; he informed them of what the families kept to themselves and what they shared; where the buckets were; how they were emptied. Frau Steckel interrupted and said that Julia would be doing all their cooking. Okay. We all understood. It would be us and them.

We had to eat. It had been days since any of us had put anything in our stomachs. The women were ladling out the boiled potatoes onto our enamel plates.

There was a knock on the hatch. But even before Patrontasch opened the hatch, the smell of roasted chicken and pirogies assaulted us. I can't describe it any other way. Julia kneeled at the hatchway with a tray in her hand. Chicken, pirogies, vegetables and bread. Fresh bread. The tray had to be passed from hand to hand, from family member to family member. The tray had to run the gauntlet of starving human beings, past the noses of Igo and Klarunia, two starving children, to the Steckels, who took
the tray eagerly and started to eat without a word or a look at any of us. Why we didn't take their food, I can't tell you. But my father and the other men, their decency was transcendent. They knew we were all hungry and I'm sure felt that, in time, without urging or any coercion, the Steckels would share their food, at least with the children. Poor Igo and Klarunia, their eyes bigger than their shrunken stomachs. What must they have been thinking? We had our rules, and we had to live by them to ensure our survival. Sometimes they were brutal, as brutal as any Nazi edict. But at least they were ours. To deny these children a bite of their food told me everything I needed to know about the Steckels and their character.

Beck continued to bring us news of the ghetto. Uchka and the children were still alive, as were Josek, Rela and Dudio. But over 4,500 Jews had now been murdered and the ghetto had been reduced to two streets: Perec and Sobieski. He said there were all sorts of rumours now being spread by the Nazis and their agents. The surviving Jews were in no danger. The murders were over and, on 6 April, bread and marmalade would be distributed in the ghetto. After the murders, that any Jew would believe such lies was impossible for me to accept, but I knew on that morning of the sixth, many of the remaining Jews would wander from their hiding places and assemble, exhausted in every way, wanting to believe that this time the Nazis weren't lying, at the same time knowing they were crazy to leave whatever shamble of a hiding place they had.

On the assigned day, as the remaining Jews assembled in front of the store on Sobieski Street, where the food was to be delivered, there was no bread and marmalade. There were only the killing squads from Lvov.

 

Beck couldn't go into the ghetto or knock on doors to find out the fate of our families. It was too dangerous. We didn't know where they were or if they were alive or dead.

That same night, Kuba and Artek, two of Patrontasch's brothers, arrived at the house. They had been able to escape from the camp at Mosty Wielke. At the same time that we were worried for Uchka and Josek and the children, I couldn't help being thankful that two of Mr Patrontasch's brothers had been returned to him. Kuba was a quiet boy who kept to himself, as silent as Gedalo, but Artek was like a part of our family too. He was Uchka's age and one of her good friends. He had had polio as a child and was balding and asthmatic and, in his own words, not much to look at. In the summers, since they were both asthmatic, he and Mama would often find themselves together at the same resort in the Carpathians, where there was fresh cool air far away from the baking heat on the western border of the steppes. The doctors used to laugh and say, ‘What woman wouldn't feel better taking the waters and getting waited on hand and foot for six weeks?'

At five o'clock every day at the spa, they danced on wooden dance floors laid in the park, with orchestras brought in from Warsaw, Prague or Vienna. Artek always begged Mama, who was a fine dancer, to dance with him so the other young women could see the bald little man with the withered legs was still good on the dance floor. The scheme always worked. Mama lost her dance partner for the tangos, foxtrots and waltzes that filled the crisp mountain evenings as the setting sun cast its golden light through the tall pines. These asthmatic dancers, perhaps cured more by the music itself, whirled and smiled through light and shadow. Swarms of tiny mites were turned into golden clouds and the pine and wild flowers scented the air. Artek and Mama dancing, more brother and sister than friends, co-conspirators in
a plot to make Artek more attractive. Mama would throw herself into such a task with joy. She loved Artek, and I knew they would have been showing her off in her silk and satin dresses, and how she would have loved the admiring glancing of the other women.

Now Artek was sitting in the bunker. He had witnessed Giza's murder in the 10 February
akcja
at Mosty Wielke and needed to tell us about it.

It was the same day that the SS officer named Hillebrandt had taken over the camp. His first order to his troops had been to surround the men's camp. Some of the men, including Giza's husband Meyer, ran off. Meyer was shot as he tried to jump over the barbed wire. His body was left there, bleeding. Then the Gestapo brought in the women and paraded them in front of the lined-up men. Many of the men saw their wives being led off to their deaths and were helpless to do anything with the Gestapo armed and waiting for them. Artek was in line with the other men. He saw Meyer killed and he saw Giza staring at her husband's body. Artek wept as he told us he tried to hide from Giza's eyes. He was ashamed he could do nothing to help her or Meyer. But she saw him and cried out to him. He had no choice. He had to step out of the ranks and go to her.

The rest of the men and women were marched away to another side of the camp where they were told to halt. Artek and Giza were left there, alone on the roll-call ground, guarded by a single SS officer, who somehow found the heart to let them say goodbye. Giza embraced Artek and she told him she loved him and began kissing him all over as if she were grasping on to the last acts of humanity she would ever express. She had no life left. Only her love, which she gave to Artek, asking him to give this same love to us, her loved ones who she knew were alive in a bunker. Artek said she wept and told him there was nothing left for her to live for anyway. She had just seen her husband killed. She asked Artek to
avenge their deaths. The SS officer allowed them to stand that way, holding each other and saying goodbye, for 15 minutes.

Then the Nazi told Giza to take her coat off. It was a beautiful coat, styled like a man's, of dark blue tweed with an Afghan lamb collar. Uncle Hersch had made it for her. The soldier liked it and she took it off. Giza was then taken back to the other women and Artek rejoined the men who remained in the camp. The women were marched out of the camp to the woods, where the SS had taken 20 men earlier that day and ordered them to dig the graves. Artek didn't know if the women decided themselves or the Nazis ordered them, but they marched to their deaths singing
Hatikvah
(hope).

Three centuries ago, Sobieski laid cobblestones in our town with the command that they welcome Christians and Jews equally. Our forefathers walked down these streets with a new hope, a
Hatikvah
of their own, that they could live and flourish and pray and raise their families here in peace. For most of those 300 years, Sobieski's legacy was a canopy, a
chuppah
, which wed us, Christian to Jew, and protected us. And now, blood washed down these same cobblestoned streets.

Before the day was over, we learned that Uchka, Josek and Rela were dead. Our mourning, our grief, would know no end. In whatever time we had left, our hearts would be rent, as our clothes would be rent.

Zosia's fourth birthday was on 6 April, the day she lost her mother. Mania and I decided that we would fast and pray until we knew what had happened to the children. And if God gave them to us, we promised to fast until our liberation.

10 to 17 April 1943

I
t had been several days since the
akcja
and we still hadn't heard what had happened to Zygush and Zosia. Our fasting and praying didn't bring the children to us. All the hopes I had had for the survival of our loved ones were now concentrated on Zygush and Zosia. Their survival might assuage some small portion of our suffering. If Uchka knew her children survived, she would accept the pain of her own death, would be at peace. Those two small precious bodies, if they survived, would mark some kind of victory over suffering and terror and senseless death.

I had got used to sitting on my pallet for long periods of silence. I always had my nose in a book. It was my escape, but
there was no escape now. Before Uchka's death and the last
akcja
, I could just about shut out the others and leap into another world beyond the 50 or so square metres of this one. But now I could not even read. The book lay on my lap, open. I looked at the pages but the letters didn't form words that made sense. I couldn't stop thinking about what had happened to little Moshele. I needed to talk. To my mother. To Mania. To anybody, but before I could utter even one word there were looks telling me to shut up, especially from Mrs Melman and Mrs Steckel. My mind started to race. He was such a darling little baby, all blond curls and blue eyes. I could still see the joy in my uncle Josek's eyes. Moshele, the first son born to a Reizfeld of Josek's generation! His
bris
was the last party we had as a family. As usual Mr Beck spared us no details. And as he was compelled to confess, we were compelled to beg for details. It was insanity. We hungered for every word. Wanting to hear every horrible word that painted the vivid pictures of these deaths. The colour of the sky, the weather, what they were wearing, last words, their expression, were they buried or left to rot, who was with them, how many died, did anyone survive and a hundred other questions.

Beck had told us a German SS officer came to the ghetto and asked for a volunteer to bury a Jew out near the marsh. Dudio offered himself up. He had never volunteered before, but for some reason a feeling came over him that he had to go. He didn't know why. The two of them walked to the marsh. As they got closer to the common grave, Dudio could see the rain had washed away much of the sand. Parts of bodies, arms and legs and the occasional face, were visible. Among them, Dudio could make out a red-faced, feverish infant boy with bright blue eyes and unmistakable blond curls. Dudio immediately recognized Moshele. The baby's cries were weak, hardly more
than a whisper, and he was choking and gagging on his own tears. It was a cold and raining spring day. God knows how that poor child was suffering or how long he had been there. Poor Dudio.
God heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds. God numbers the stars, giving each one their name…

He had volunteered for this mission knowing he would be burying the body of Jew, so that at least a fellow Jew and a friend could say a prayer for his soul. What Dudio hadn't prepared himself for was to witness this child's murder, his sister's son; a child he had held on the day of its birth, his
bris
and countless other times. The SS soldier swore and cursed as he shot little Moshele. He had enough human feeling to curse his fate that he had to commit such a crime, but not enough to save the innocent child. Who would have known? Dudio and this officer were alone. Nobody would have known.

Great is God and full of power, with wisdom beyond reckoning. God gives courage to the lowly and brings hope to the bereft.

As I sat and thought and prayed about little Moshele's short life…
Shield us from enemies and pestilence, from starvation, sword and sorrow. Remove the evil forces that surround us…

…I expected Mr Beck to knock on our trapdoor with a bottle in his hand, climb down and report upon the last moments of Zygush and Zosia. They were alone and probably starving, in a basement, an attic, a closet.
Shelter us in the shadow of Your wings, O God, Who watches over us, and deliver us, O merciful Ruler.

For the past week, Mania and I had been reciting these prayers, which my father had taught us: a prayer for those who suffer a major loss, and a prayer begging God for protection. Over and over, together; we whispered them; we mouthed the words; we said them silently staring at each other; we said them
before we went to sleep and when we woke up. We knew we were annoying everyone in the bunker. Those of us who felt guilt at the decision not to allow children in the bunker were especially affronted. They knew who they were. Mama screamed at us (as much as she could scream down here) and begged us to stop our fast, which we started as soon as we heard about the
akcja
. She begged my father to make us stop. ‘It was a sin to fast if we were in danger of bad health,' he argued. He told us that the Talmud said we could give to charity after we got out of the bunker instead of fasting and praying. Mania told my mother we might not get out of the bunker, and this was not something my mother needed to hear when she just got the news her sister, her brother and nephew were murdered and nobody knew if Zygush and Zosia were alive or dead. The grief was thick, a fog we couldn't see through, as heavy as a blanket of wet snow, a fog that attacked limbs and lungs so it took effort to move or breath or speak. My poor mother. I don't know how she could find the will to keep living, never mind peel potatoes, make tea, clean the crumbs from the dirt floor and wash the dishes.

I was reciting the prayers now, silently.

A knock on the door shattered my thoughts and prayers and brought back the knot in the stomach that arrived at every knock. If the Eskimos could differentiate between hundreds of kinds of snow, it was the same for us and knocks. Mr and Mrs Beck, their sisters and brothers, in-laws, friends, Ala's boyfriends, Schmidt the German policeman, the SS who came for drinks and cards, the Blue Coats, all had distinct knocks. But even if it was one I recognized, I was still terrified that I might be wrong. Mr Beck's familiar step crossed the floor. Nobody moved or breathed. My mother had been peeling potatoes and sat frozen, only a potato peel dangled from her peeler. Mania grabbed my hand as the
door opened and we heard a voice…a familiar, small voice straining to sound all grown-up and serious. ‘Dudio said our mother was here.' Oh God, it was Zygush, he was alive!

I could barely hear Beck's voice as he whispered harshly, ‘Get in here, before anyone sees you.'

Dear, dear Zygush. I could practically see the serious expression on his tiny old-man face, which he had had even as a baby, as he said, ‘If you don't have room for me that's all right. I can take care of myself. Please, Mr Beck, please just take care of my little sister, Zosia.'

Mania threw her arms around me in relief and whispered
praise God
over and over, while there was a communal wringing of hands as to what could be done with four-year-old Zosia in the bunker. Zygush was old enough to be counted on to be quiet. But of course we couldn't condemn Zosia to her death and take Zygush without his sister. How I hated the Nazis for making us even think such a grotesque thought. Immediately, there were looks being exchanged and hushed words, too shameful to be uttered out loud. Yet. They were gathering their courage. I knew what Mrs Melman was whispering in Mr Melman's ear; Mrs Melman, who woke up every day and accused us with words or her eyes of stealing her water. And the Steckels, who were as cold as ice in their silence, were even more so now. But I didn't have time to think, because even as Beck was crossing the bedroom and banging on the hatch, I was looking deep into my sister's eyes, which were filled with a joy and gratitude I had never witnessed in my entire life. The joy of thanksgiving, creation and answered prayers were in those dark shining brown eyes. Patrontasch opened the hatch. Beck's face was even more swollen and red than usual. I wondered how he could see us, his eyes were so puffy. He was hungover and angry. I started to say something, but he cut me off. ‘Not a word! Not
a word from any of you. Clara, get up here.' I didn't know why Beck called for me instead of my mother or father, but Mania looked at me: ‘Make it all right.' God help me. Whatever would be pleaded, begged or argued on the children's behalf would be pleaded, argued and begged by me.

I crawled up into the bedroom and he slammed the hatch door down after me. He wouldn't look at me, perhaps to avoid seeing the pleading look in my eyes. I followed him up the stairs into the attic where Zygush and Zosia stood, dressed in their coats and hats and scarves, so bundled up they could hardly move. They both ran to me and embraced me, happy to be with someone in their family, relieved for one small moment to be safe, even if it was an illusion they weren't aware of. I had to hold my emotions in. I was afraid I would scare them to death with what I was feeling. Through the layers of clothing, Zosia's half-starved body was shuddering against me, crying and stunned, not understanding what was going on, looking over my shoulder and all around the small room for her mother.

Zygush said it for her. ‘Where's Mama? Why can't she come up here? Dudio told us she was here. Where is she?' Little Zygush looked at Beck and then at me. Beck didn't know what to say, but he looked at me to tell them something.

We knew their precious mother was dead, and they didn't. But I knew Beck didn't want me to tell them and whatever lie I made up would be the one we had to live with. I had never lied to Zygush or Zosia before, and it would be a lie we would have to keep up every day in the bunker if Beck relented and allowed them to stay.

I don't know why I said what I did, but I heard my voice as if it were someone else speaking in a reassuring, matter-of-fact tone: ‘Your mother had to go to Lvov…you'll see her as soon as the Nazis leave Lvov.' The news hit Zygush like a hammer.
His face went from joy to despair. Zosia burst into tears. She was crying that she wanted her mama. I held her as Beck looked on. The more she cried, the angrier Beck looked. I whispered over and over that it was all right and she would see her mother very soon. I told her that she was safe and my mother and father were downstairs. I didn't know what else to say. Beck's usually expressive face was now a wall. Zygush put his arms round Zosia and in his stoic little voice also told her it was going to be all right. He'd take care of her until they got to see their mother.

Beck was still silent. Instinctively, he took off their hats, revealing two heads full of lice. His face went from red to purple. His hands were shaking and veins were throbbing on his forehead and his neck. I knew what he was thinking. Lice! Eighteen people living in close and barely sanitary conditions. The typhus epidemic that was doing the Nazi's work in the ghetto could kill us all. The children could already be infected. Cleaning them up was a matter of survival, even if they had been in the house for only five minutes. He must have realized the impression he was making and somehow found a smile for the children.

‘We need to give them a bath.' Then in a whisper, as he leaned into my ear, ‘No way in hell they're staying here and don't even ask. Not one word! Not one word out of your mouth about this.' Zygush was dark and very Jewish-looking and no gentile family in their right mind would take in such an obviously Jewish child. There might have been hope to find a Polish friend to take care of Zosia, but how to even think of such a thing after what happened to little Moshele.

As I undressed them, Beck went downstairs. He returned with a washbasin and some bread, which the children devoured. Beck made several more trips up the stairs with buckets of hot
water. Zygush took off his coat. He was a little Charlie Chaplin! Underneath were silk nightgowns, slips, stockings, brassieres, corsets and lingerie of all kinds. Even in the best of times, he was a skinny boy and I had wondered why he looked so stout in his coat. He had tied the nightgowns, slips and stockings into knots and struggled to get them untied. He was like one of the clowns at the circus: as soon as Beck and I thought we had all the garments, there were more hidden in pockets and even in his long underwear. I thanked God under my breath that Beck started laughing. Zygush grinned at Beck's laughter.

‘Mama hid us up in the attic at the Judenrat. Mama and the other women used to dry their underclothes up there. I thought we could sell them. Did I do good?'

Beck agreed with a smile. Poor Beck. Every day, another life or death decision, relentless. And here he was on his knees, a raging argument and rising anger in his drink-ravaged face, which he tried to hide with a smile for frightened children.

Despite all this, he couldn't stop himself from asking Zygush how they managed to avoid a town full of SS, Gestapo and Blue Coats. Zygush informed us: ‘We hadn't seen our mama or anyone in days and days and we were really hungry when Uncle Dudio came and explained that Mama was hiding at the Melmans'. Uncle told us it was Sunday morning and all the goyim were in church so it was a good time to go to Mama. He said not to be afraid because there would be Jews hiding all over the place to help us in case the Fascists or the police saw us.

Whoever said the Jews went like sheep should know a story like this! The last 50 Jews out of 5000, armed with only their fear and hunger, risked their lives to save perhaps the last two Jewish children in our town. It was a miracle two Jewish children walked two kilometres in broad daylight and didn't get arrested. Beck muttered that Dudio was damned clever. ‘The SS, Gestapo
and the Blue Coats like their Sunday mornings at church after a week full of murder. And damn the priests that hear their confessions.' He punctuated his statement with a giddy toast to Dudio's bravery and a long drink from a glass of vodka.

Beck asked the children if anyone saw them. Zygush shook his head. Beck turned to me. ‘Burning's too good for these clothes.' I tried to read Mr Beck's face as he stared at Zygush and Zosia, all protruding bellies and swollen joints. In my mind, I was saying,
Please, please, please…
I wanted to beg him, grab his hands and kiss them, but I knew if I asked he would say no. Without one more word, he turned and walked downstairs to get more hot water, yelling for Mrs Beck to make soup for the children. I prayed Julia would say something, but good a person as she was, it was Mr Beck who made the decisions of life and death for all of us. He was God in this house.