I Shall Live (6 page)

I sat in a state of shock, realizing that this was their way of preventing a Jew from getting the prize. To give it to another student would have been impossible, a travesty of justice; therefore, ours was the only class without a prize. My parents were saddened, but not surprised. Father said to me, “This is our fate, and we must deal with it as best we can.”

This incident had a profound effect on me. It made me very bitter, and when the sophomore year began in the fall, I had lost all interest in my studies and didn't bother to do any homework. This caused no difficulty at first, because by this time the teachers assumed that I knew all the answers and seldom checked up on me. I actually was ahead of the others anyway, so I could afford to coast for a while. I even stopped reading books, and instead played a lot of ping-pong, read the newspapers, and listened to the radio with great interest.

Hitler was now the undisputed dictator of Germany. Many, if not most, Jews had begun to realize that this former “painter,” the butt of many jokes and initially not taken seriously by most Germans and
other Europeans, was now becoming a serious threat to our very existence. Polish anti-Semites were encouraged more and more by the example of their powerful neighbor to the west, and talked openly of the necessity of finding a “solution” to the Jewish “problem,” which meant nothing less than finding a way to get rid of the Jews altogether. Signs reading “Jews to Palestine,” even “Jews to Madagascar,” appeared everywhere. Palestine was not a realistic possibility, because the British had no intention of letting any substantial number of Jews into their protectorate, but the Madagascar option was widely discussed. This former French island colony is located east of Africa, not far from the equator, and consists mostly of tropical jungle—a highly unsuitable spot for mass immigration from Europe. It was symptomatic of how desperate the situation in Poland was becoming for Jews that some of them considered the “Madagascar option” as a feasible possibility.

In 1938 Uncle Morris came to visit us again. This time we were expecting him, and after he spent a few days with us, Father took him for a week's vacation to a spa. This was shortly after Chamberlain's visit to Hitler in Munich, from which he had returned to England waving a piece of paper signed by the Führer and proclaiming that he had achieved “peace in our time.” Chamberlain then stood by and watched helplessly as the German soldiers trampled brutally over what was left of Czechoslovakia.

The morning after Morris left, I spoke with Father about Hitler and the threat he represented to our future. I was eloquent, talking about Hitler's concentration camps. I said I was convinced that the invasion of Poland was inevitable and imminent, and that I thought we should all go to America.

Father agreed with me about the approaching danger, but felt that it would be very difficult for him to begin a new life elsewhere. All his roots, his business, his friends, and most of the
family were in Poland. “How can I now, at the age of fifty-six, start from scratch in a foreign land, without understanding a word of English?”

I sensed that I was making no headway, and in desperation I did something I had never done before: I threw myself on the bed and started crying almost hysterically, repeating over and over, “But you don't understand. He will kill us all. He will kill us all.”

Surprised at the intensity of my feeling, my parents looked at each other, not sure how to handle the situation. Finally Father sat down on the edge of the bed, put his arms around me, and said, “I cannot go, but if you feel so strongly about it, I will send you to America to study after you graduate from the gymnasium.” I realized then that it was useless to try to change Father's mind, and I never brought up the subject again.

In fact, although a few families in Hrubieszów had relatives abroad and the financial means to emigrate, only one family actually did so. Dr. Grynspan had a very successful medical practice and his family had lived in Hrubieszów for generations, but one day he and his wife and children said farewell to their relatives and friends and left for Argentina. This event was much discussed by the Jews of Hrubieszów. Some felt that the doctor might well prove to have been the smart one in the end, but no one else followed his example. I admired his courage and wisdom, and wished that my family would follow the Grynszpans' example.

By now I was well into my junior year of gymnasium, and still riding on my reputation as a good student. Then one day, when our history teacher asked me to lead a discussion on a subject we had been studying for weeks, he discovered that I was totally unfamiliar with it. He was shocked and angry that he had let me get by with bluffing for so long, and threatened to fail me. He notified other teachers of his discovery as well, and suddenly I was in trouble.

I began studying day and night, frantically trying to regain the ground I had lost. My parents were surprised and troubled to learn of my drastically lower marks. In the end I managed to get promoted to the senior year, but for a while it was touch and go.

Our last summer before the war we spent in Domaczów, a resort deep in the woods about a hundred miles north of Hrubieszów. There was some talk of an impending German attack, but most people dismissed it from their minds. Our villa was surrounded by trees and I enjoyed myself lying in the hammock, reading, swimming, and playing poker with the other kids. We returned home in the middle of August. The radio and newspapers were full of rumors of concentrations of German troops on the Polish border. Hitler was rattling his saber and demanding Danzig and the “corridor.”

On August 23 Germany and Russia stunned the world with the announcement of their “nonaggression pact.” We couldn't believe it. Polish Communists who had been rotting in Polish jails for years and had been taught by their leaders that Hitler and fascism were the devil incarnate were bewildered by the sudden flip-flop. White was black now, and black was white. Colonel Józef Beck, the Polish foreign minister, was seeking a peaceful solution, but the country was in a hopeless position. England and France, unwilling to subject their people to mass destruction in a war that promised to be even more savage than World War I, were searching desperately for an honorable way out, all the while knowing deep in their hearts that there was no way to deal with Hitler except by going to war.

On August 28 German troops moved toward the Polish-Slovakian border, effectively surrounding Poland on three sides. On August 30 the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop presented Nevile Henderson, Britain's foreign minister, with a sixteen-point memorandum that amounted to an ultimatum demanding Poland's
capitulation to all Hitler's demands. That same day Poland ordered the mobilization of the Polish army. On August 31, on direct orders from Hitler, the Germans staged a phony “Polish attack” on the Gleiwitz radio station in Upper Silesia. The attack was carried out by German soldiers dressed in Polish army uniforms. This charade provided Hitler with the “proof” of Polish “provocations” he needed to present to his own country, and gave him an excuse for his impending invasion of Poland.

Western civilization thus saw itself slowly slipping into the abyss of the greatest catastrophe in its history, fully aware of what was happening, yet totally unable to do anything to prevent it.

I remember the morning of September 1, 1939, very well. After days filled with tension, the German army attacked Poland. The Polish state radio announced the news with bulletins that spoke of German assault forces, led by tanks and supported by Stuka bombers, penetrating Poland's frontiers from the north, west, and south. The bulletins emphasized the brave resistance of the Polish army, and even reported a counterattack by the Polish cavalry, which supposedly had advanced into German territory, but we were skeptical about the latter.

It was a depressing morning. We all knew that we were in for very tough times, but it was Mother especially who, perhaps thanks to her feminine intuition, sensed the enormity of the impending disaster. The minute we heard the news she began weeping and sobbing, which was very uncharacteristic of her. “This is the end,” she kept repeating. “This is the end of everything.” But she soon stopped crying and became our positive, energetic Golda once again. From
her experience in World War I she knew that food and fuel would soon become scarce, and she set about at once to lay in supplies of these and other necessities.

The German radio was boasting of deep penetrations by German armor, but most people dismissed this as propaganda. The hope we clung to was that the Polish army, which, although inferior to the Germans, was famous for its patriotic bravery, would be able to hold off the Germans long enough to give the Western powers time to mobilize, come to the rescue, and crush their common enemy.

We assumed that Hitler, who had begun building up his military machine only in the last few years, would be no match for the combined Western forces; we believed that Churchill's repeated warnings of the huge increases in German armed strength were exaggerated. England and France we thought of as lazy giants, who at the moment were pacifying Hitler in order to prevent bloodshed, but whose powerful armies, once unleashed, would dispatch the Germans with one swift mortal blow. We were hoping that after the fiasco of Munich and all Hitler's broken promises, the Allies, faced now with the invasion of Poland, would see at last that the only way to deal with him was through force of arms, and would immediately declare war on Germany.

But September 1 and then 2 passed, with no declaration of war from either France or England. We were shocked and frightened, unaware of the frantic efforts on the part of both countries during those two days to persuade Hitler to halt his advance into Poland—efforts that were unavailing. Hitler, exhilarated at the success of his Blitzkrieg, would not be denied his victory. Finally, on the afternoon of September 3, England, convinced that she had exhausted all possibilities for a peaceful settlement, declared war on Germany, and a few hours later France followed suit.

A tremendous wave of relief and joy surged through Poland.
Now the great armies of the West would teach Hitler a lesson. Most people believed that Western arms superiority was so overwhelming that for all practical purposes the contest would be over before it had properly got started. Hitler had bluffed and lost. We expected to see him on his knees any day now, suing for peace.

But amidst our rejoicing, news from the front continued to be ominous. Polish communiqués were vague and confusing, but it was clear that the Germans were advancing rapidly, and shortwave radio from the West seemed to confirm German claims of victory. We began hearing horror stories of German Stukas attacking peaceful towns and strafing civilians, singling out the columns of refugees that were beginning to jam the roads. Our euphoria over the entry of the Western powers into the war soon gave way to the immediate problem of what to do in the face of the approaching Germans.

German planes began to appear in the skies over Hrubieszów, often flying so low that we could see the black crosses on their wings. For several days that was all they did; at first we ran for cover, but after a few overflights without incident, we assumed that we were safe, especially since there was neither industry nor Polish army units, at that time, in Hrubieszów.

On September 7 or 8 I was walking through a field about half a mile from home when I noticed a single plane flying toward me. I assumed it was German because by then the Polish air force had virtually ceased to exist, but I didn't run for cover because there was only one other person anywhere in sight, and surely the two of us didn't present enough of a target for the pilot to bother with. Suddenly I saw the Stuka go into a dive, with a horrifying, ear-splitting shriek. I threw myself on the ground as the
rat-tat-tat
of bullets tore through the air. My heart was pounding wildly. As the sound of the plane faded in the distance, I stayed frozen on the ground for several minutes, afraid it might return. On reaching home, I learned
that the same plane had made several other strafing runs over Hrubieszów. Fortunately, only a few people had sustained any injuries, and all of them were slight.

Refugees fleeing the oncoming Germans began to appear on the roads leading south and east through Hrubieszów. A few drove cars, some had horse-drawn wagons, others walked. The wagons had obviously been loaded in a hurry; piles of mattresses, trunks, loose clothing, boxes, umbrellas, even pieces of furniture were all heaped on every which way. The wagons were so overloaded that there was no room for anyone to ride on them; even the driver walked alongside, holding the reins. Only small children occasionally sat on top of the piles of family belongings. Those who had no transportation either for themselves or their possessions walked, carrying large packs on their backs. From time to time we saw Polish soldiers, some in groups, others singly, many without weapons, walking dejectedly along with the civilian refugees. Once or twice high-ranking officers drove by, but even they had lost all their usual dash and bravura.

On September 10, 11, and 12 the stream of refugees rose steadily, the most-traveled roads becoming flooding rivers of humanity. People pushed and shoved, cursing the owners of wagons that had got stuck in the mud and were blocking the road. Children were crying, and often people knocked on our door asking for food.

What were we to do? All of us were at home, except for Fred, who was in Warsaw. We had to decide whether we should join the masses fleeing the Germans or stay where we were. There were arguments for either alternative, and we spent many frantic hours weighing the pros and cons. On the one hand, we all knew that as Jews we were in great danger. We had the example of Hitler's treatment of the German Jews to warn us of what we could expect: “Crystal Night,” when Jewish shops had been smashed, the concentration camps, all
had been well publicized. At the very least, all Jews would suffer great hardships, with beatings, confiscation of property, even atrocities, and some would certainly be sent to concentration camps.