My Mother's Secret (6 page)

O
ne day, a German officer gathers us in the open square within the ghetto and announces that they need workers for a brick factory. No experience is required and the workers will be given food for their families. This is the best news we have heard in some time.

My brother and I look at each other. Very quietly he says to me, “We don't know if this is true or not. Only one of us should go.”

I have to agree.

He continues. “You already have a job, Bronek. I should go.” He doesn't have to say what else is on his mind because I already know what he is thinking:
I trust you to protect the family
. His thoughts remind me of my mother.

That night, Ely, one of the men who works with me at the factory, comes to our house. His voice is shaky when he asks, “Bronek, can I speak to you privately?”

I answer, “Yes, of course,” and we walk over to a quiet corner in the room.

He says, “I can't feed my family. I am watching my wife and daughter slowly starve to death. You know they only give us enough food to feed ourselves at the factory. I can't save enough to keep us all alive for much longer. If I could go to this brick factory and get enough food for my family, it would really make a difference. Can you help me, Bronek? Can you tell the supervisor tomorrow that I was sick and couldn't make it? They will believe it if you tell them.”

At the factory, I had become the unspoken leader for the Jews from the ghetto. Whenever the supervisor needed anything done, he came to me and I organized the jobs. I conveyed a sense of confidence that I didn't have but knew was essential.

What Ely was asking was dangerous and would risk my position at the factory if we were found out. I wanted to help him, but I couldn't. It was not because I was afraid of what would happen to me. It was what would happen to my family without me.

“I'm sorry, Ely. I want to help you, but I can't.”

He doesn't answer; he just looks at me with hope that I will change my mind, and that's worse.

As I see the slumped shoulders and the fragile frame of a good man leaving my house, I think I should run after him and tell him, “Yes, I will help you,” but I don't.

Early the next morning, we go to the pickup spot in the square. There is already a large crowd of men anxiously waiting.

Dawid whispers to me, “I hope they can take everyone.”

When the trucks arrive, men are shoving each other to get to the front of the line. The brick factory is outside of town, so it will be late when they return. From the square, I wave to Dawid and then walk with some of the men to our job.

Ely walks with us and doesn't look at me.

Someone says, “Life is hard.”

I agree, but what's the alternative?

•   •   •

W
HEN
I
RETURN
that evening, the sun has already gone down.

Many of us gather in the square to wait for the trucks to return. Although no one says a word, you can feel the tension as time goes by.

It's dark when the silence is broken by the sound of the siren that signals curfew. Everyone has to go home. That's when we hear the guttural wail of a desperate woman. It's a sound that can only come from agony, sorrow, and despair.

We have all been betrayed.

There are no trucks returning.

My eyes water, and then uncontrollable sobs break from my body. My knees give, and I sink to the earth. It feels like someone has torn the limbs from my body. I can hardly breathe. The crying and hysteria all around me seem like background noise.

I
t's not until later that we find out the truth.

There are people who come to the ghetto to trade for food and medicine. Their prices are steep, but they justify this by the risk they take and the bribes they pay.

One of the traders tells us what really happened. “Don't you know that the brick factory was bombed months ago? Your brother and the rest of the men were lined up against the wall and shot. Their bodies are still there with the broken bricks.”

Oh, Dawid, this is not how we envisioned our lives would end, and it suddenly hits me that I must move quickly. Time is running out.

I need to get the rest of my family out of here.
Think clearly; don't panic
, I say to myself.
Find a place to hide
.

I know at least twenty men who have worked for me. I am also close to the owner of the farm. I need to find someone who will help us.

Why didn't I think of this earlier?
I ask myself this question over and over again because it might have meant saving my brother. But guilt is a luxury I cannot afford while my family still needs me, so I shrug it off.

During the day, I walk as close to the edge of the ghetto as I can without arousing suspicion.

Is there a place for all of us to escape?

I need to find a spot that is not too far from where we are living, since it is dangerous to be out past curfew.

I also need a location where the guards have less focus. My usual exit is too far for my family to make it by hiding in between the shadows of the buildings.

After sizing up the situation, I realize that there is no choice but to cut the barbed wire to make our exit close to the house. Since we will never be using that escape route again, it won't matter that the guards see it the next day and realize that we have escaped. It's not good for the people left behind, but we can't think that far.

Late at night, I continue to sneak out where the ground is lower.

I am careful because sneaking out of the ghetto is punishable by death. In fact, soldiers are instructed to shoot anyone who even looks like he is trying to escape. If I die, I know that Walter, Anelie, Biata, and Bryda have no chance.

Risking all of our lives each night, I visit the homes of my friends.

The stories are unique, but the pattern is the same.

“You know I want to help you and your family, but we can't risk it.”

Everyone is sorry, but no one is sorry enough.

The penalty for hiding Jews is death—not just to you, but to your entire family.

In many ways, I could not blame them—even if I wanted to.

O
ne night, I am sliding under the barbed wire again when a German soldier unexpectedly comes around the corner of a nearby building. I freeze and am almost sure that our eyes meet, but it's dark. For some reason, he turns around to walk in the direction that he has just come from.

I am shocked. Did he not see me?

I keep going. What choice do I have?

It feels like a small lift to evade the soldier, but I don't feel too victorious because this is my last chance.

I have exhausted every friendship.

Almost begging my friend, I do the one thing that I know scares people.

I sound desperate.

I can't help it because I am so very desperate at this point. My friend is practically pushing me out the door for fear that someone might see me at his house.

Walking back toward the ghetto, I think of Ely and feel all alone in the world.

I walk along the river, where there is light reflected from the moon.

I start talking to my mother.

I say that I have no more ideas and that I need help. I turn to my mother as I would have done when I was a young child.

I am walking past something familiar, Street of Our Lady, and then it hits me.

This is the street that Franciszka lives on.

Franciszka is a woman who raises chickens and grows vegetables on her small piece of land.

We met her a few years ago when my brother and I, in our wagon, saw her walking with a basket of eggs and a heavy sack of vegetables to sell in the market. She smiled up at us, and even though it came from an old body, her eyes were vibrant and full of energy.

We made room and gave her a ride.

From then on, she waited for us every week when we went into town for supplies.

She gave us carrots because she was a proud woman and didn't want a free ride.

•   •   •

I
KNOCK ON HER DOOR.

It must have been sometime around two in the morning. I don't know what I expected. I knew her, but only superficially.

After a few minutes, a familiar voice comes through the wooden door. “Who is it?”

“It's Bronek, Franciszka.”

She opens the door quickly and ushers me in.

She whispers, “My daughter is asleep.”

I look at her. How funny that I used to think of her as a poor woman living in this small wooden house. She looks like a queen in a castle to me now. What I would have given to be able to live here with my family.

I look at those eyes and say, “Do you remember me, Franciszka?”

She says, “Yes, of course. You and your brother.”

Her voice is purposely low, so I continue in a whisper as well.

“Franciszka, Dawid is dead. He was shot by the Germans. Please help us. We have nowhere else to go. You are my last hope.”

I tell her that I have a wife, two children, and a sister-in-law.

•   •   •

P
EOPLE ARE LIKE WATER
in a pond where you cannot see the bottom. You think you know where it is shallow and where it is deep, but it's only when you have to dive in headfirst that you find out where it is truly deep.

These are unreasonable times with severe punishment for providing help, however small, to a Jew. Giving a piece of bread or water to a Jew has become a death sentence in Poland.

Knowing this, Franciszka, a woman I barely know, agrees to hide us above her pigsty in the animal shed attached to her house.

I can't believe it.

I was not expecting such a response.

She has an idea to use hay as a barrier that we can hide behind.

“Give me a week to clear out the space slowly, so no one will be suspicious,” she says.

I feel that there is goodness in the world after all, and it's embodied in this small, white-haired woman sitting in front of me.

“What about your daughter?” Perhaps that is why we are whispering.

“She'll be fine. She's like me.” I take that to mean that compassion is a family trait.

I run back to the ghetto. A man with hope moves differently than one without—so I am floating all the way.

The moon seems brighter, and I am certain there are more stars in the sky than before I met Franciszka.

T
he next morning, we are awakened by screaming and gunshots.

There is a raid on the ghetto.

They are rounding people up in the same trucks that took my brother.

I know what this means.

I take my son and hide him in a woodshed, telling him to stay quiet until I return. Only six, he understands that his survival depends on it.

My wife, sister-in-law, and I, with the baby in one arm, climb a steep ladder leading to the small opening of an attic.

There is pandemonium below.

Then the baby starts to cry.

My wife looks at me with helpless panic. She tries to rock Biata and cradles her against her chest, but nothing works.

We had moved the ladder away from the entrance of the attic to deflect attention, but someone is moving it back and climbing up—someone who speaks German.

It's a Polish police officer working with a German soldier below. He looks at my terrified wife and whispers, “Do you want to go with your baby?”

She only has a minute to make a decision that no one could make in a lifetime.

She gives him our baby.

Descending the stairs, he says to the German soldier that he has found an abandoned baby.

“Doesn't matter,” says the soldier. “We'll get the mother later.”

I think that had it not been for our son, she would have gone with our baby.

We stay hidden for a while even after the noise has died down and all the trucks have gone.

We know that you can never be too careful.

How do you move when you feel like you can't go on?

You think of someone who needs you more.

We find our son asleep in the woodshed, and we move on.

In the middle of the night again, I make the trip to Street of Our Lady with my wife, her sister, and my son, all so solemn now that you would think we were going to our death.

Walter whispers to me, “I saw them take Biata, Papa. Will they come for me too?”

I look down at the angelic face asking me a question that no child should ever have to ask, and I say to him, “I will never let that happen, Walter.”

•   •   •

F
RANCISZKA IS SURPRISED TO SEE US,
and although she is not ready, she does not turn us away.

I help clear out the upper loft, and we move in.

She asks about the baby, and when I tell her what happened, she lets out the loudest wail.

We are all touched by her reaction, but at the same time we hope no one heard her cry.

I have nothing to offer Franciszka for taking us in, and I remember all the times that we took her carrots for the wagon ride.

F
ranciszka keeps three pigs in the shed, and this is more clever than you might imagine. Pigs make noise and that covers up mistakes that we make, such as coughing, sneezing, and even talking, which can be heard by a visiting neighbor.

The German soldiers don't know who is Jewish, and they don't know who would be hiding them. It would be a neighbor or a friend who would give you away for a small reward.

Franciszka cooks all the food in one pot and takes it out to the shed, as if she is feeding the pigs.

To cover our waste, she mixes it with the waste from the pigs and shovels it out.

I see Franciszka with enlightened eyes now. This is the savviest woman I have ever known.

One night, she tells us that she is having a dinner party for some Germans and that we need to be especially quiet. Dinner for Germans? She has chutzpah.

That night we are all terrified to breathe. We hear music coming through the walls of the house, and although it is a refreshing break from the constant noises made by the pigs, we are on pins and needles and have a hard time enjoying it. What seems like an eternity later, the sounds die down and Franciszka comes through the shed with a pot of leftovers. In that pot is the most delicious sauerkraut that I have ever tasted.

•   •   •

T
O PASS THE TIME,
we play cards, and I teach Walter to play chess. It's not a time for frivolous purchases, but Helena uses some of the money she earns from her job to buy this game for him. It seems so unreal to me that these kind people could be executed for helping us.

I teach Walter various strategies, and he's a quick learner. The happiest moment of his deprived childhood is when he beats me at chess one day. We learn not to speak, but I can read his joy by the big smile on his face. It's both touching and sad to me.

He deserves so much more than this.

Anelie carries the memory of Biata with her constantly and is not able to get over the guilt. She has nightmares and we are afraid that she will shout out in her sleep. Bryda never recovers from the loss of Dawid either, but she doesn't have the emotional breakdown that Anelie suffers.

We take turns watching over Anelie while she sleeps to make sure there are no outbursts that would give us away. I miss Dawid as well, but feeling sorry for myself won't help my family, so I refuse to let those feelings in. When I close my eyes I focus on happy memories of him before the war.

It's very tight in the loft, and most of the time we spend just sitting. We take turns massaging each other's legs and shoulders so they won't become stiff. We don't speak. Walter tells me things with hand gestures, and we create our own language this way.

There is a small window in the loft, where we can peek out from behind the heavy curtain. We rotate spots so that someone can sit beside the window each day. It's important to have something to look forward to, however small.

From the window, we can see the apple tree that Helena told us her brother planted.

When the apples begin to ripen, she picks them for us.

We know it's very special.

Walter likes to count the apples on the tree. We compare our numbers and spend hours verifying who is right. Although it's just something to pass the time, it's still a game. We make up games to keep Walter as amused as possible.

One of our favorites started when I did a shadow puppet on the wall. This game is played with animal shadows created from our hands and fingers.

We don't know where she got it, but Helena gives Walter a piece of chocolate for no particular reason. Walter looks at me for approval and when I nod, he gives her a big hug and thanks her in a whisper.

He looks at his treasure, not believing it. If he could jump up and down, he would have.

She looks genuinely happy at his response.

We turn down Walter's offer to share and watch with amusement as he breaks off a fingernail piece to enjoy each day.