Resistance (6 page)

He was initially horrified and puzzled, then realized that this delegation had purposefully selected a time when the mayor was away. The public way in which this report was presented was
aimed at protecting the mayor from an unpleasant task. The accusers wanted Antoni, a stranger, to do the dirty work and not the mayor, who was one of them. Antoni reflected on the problem. “I could not denounce the Jews, who after all were not guilty of anything. . . . It crossed my mind to run away.” But Antoni realized that he had nowhere to go. His duties were to call the police, though he knew they would shoot the Jews. “I was vacillating, unsure, groping.” Finally he assured the group that he had accepted their report and would notify the police. The group left, apparently satisfied. “When they were gone, I decided to consult with a friend of mine, Wojcik, a local peasant, a decent good-natured person. I sent for him. He came and responded to the news with deep sadness. After all, he argued, they survived till now. What a shame to give them into the hands of the German murders.”

Wojcik came up with a solution, Antoni remembered. He told his friend to send someone trustworthy to the Jews and warn them to get out, and then give them instructions about a new hiding place deeper in the forest. They should wait there until someone contacted them.

That very evening we called the police and shared the report with them. We went to the hideout with the police. There, we were confronted by an empty place. A new report had to be written, which meant that the original report was false. When next day the mayor returned, he seemed very happy with the situation. This mayor was a decent, smart man. He must have guessed what happened. He seemed to be in high spirits, probably because he had avoided committing a horrible crime.

Antoni and Wojcik formed a bond over their successful plan. Eventually, they became the protectors and ultimately the rescuers of the “missing Jews.” The group included four women and three men, their ages ranging from twenty to thirty. They had been in hiding together for about a year. Occasionally, in the evening, one of these men would approach a trusted farmer to purchase some food from him. Antoni was vaguely aware of these transactions. By chance, here and there, he would meet one of them in a farmer's hut. He preferred not to ask about them. Secrecy went hand in hand with safety.

As Antoni and Wojcik became the official food suppliers for these hidden Jews, I asked him if they were reimbursed. Antoni
was taken aback by my question. “I could never accept payment for food from people who were forced to live under such dire circumstances. I simply could not do that!”

Antoni explained that the Germans had ordered the local peasants to supply the authorities with produce, and especially with luxury items such as meats, cheeses, eggs, and cream. The farmers resented these demands. They tried to sabotage orders by making sure that a substantial portion of their deliveries would miss their destination. Some of these goods stayed on the farms and were consumed by the farmers and their families. Some found their way to other Poles, usually those whom the owners liked. Antoni and Wojcik looked for safe ways to supply the seven Jews with flour and whatever else these suppliers could spare. Food found its way into the Jewish hideout in the nearby forest. Deliveries happened at night.

How did these self-appointed rescuers view what they were doing? When I raised this question, Antoni gave me a range of responses. He felt that his continuous involvements with risky AK operations helped him identify with the way the Jews felt. “The Nazis were trying to get me, so I knew what it meant to be persecuted. It was my duty to help, so I did.” He, too, was living in danger. To be sure, the village had welcomed him by offering him the position of the mayor's secretary. On the other hand, he was still an outsider.

The report about the Jews' hiding place pointed to the distinction the local people made between their mayor, whom they wanted to protect, and Antoni, who for them was the outsider. To those who presented the report, the Jews were even more outsiders, and as such had no right to live. Antoni refrained from telling me in detail the kinds of activities he pursued on behalf of the AK. I knew that with the Soviet takeover of this part of Poland, the Home Army had been made illegal. Even in 1978, with Poland still under Soviet domination, Antoni was cautious about revealing AK's secrets. As an AK member and former officer of the Polish army, Antoni was involved in illegal activities throughout the war. He was aware that the Germans were on the lookout for members of the Home Army.

Antoni was visibly uncomfortable when I asked him whether the Jews he had rescued were grateful enough. He said that he had expected no gratitude. Then he said that the Jews were very grateful, but that while the war was on they had no opportunities to
show their gratitude. It would have been very dangerous to have much contact between the hidden Jews and their protectors.

In fact, it was only after the war was behind them—and the Soviets had taken over this part of Poland—that the Jews learned that Antoni and Wojcik had been their rescuers. Antoni insisted that they were grateful. After the German retreat, he said, “I was invited to their home. For quite a while, I did not even tell them that I was involved in helping them. To be sure they knew in part, the next day, what had happened when they had to relocate. But there was no time to explain the details.” In a way, gratitude was a luxury that no one could afford.

I asked Antoni if he ever regretted his involvement with the rescue of Jewish lives. His answer was insistent. “I never regretted this! I did what I should have done. I could not have lived with myself had I not done everything in my power.” When touching on the protection of wartime Jews, he felt constrained about talking openly until quite late. Not until 1975 did he talk about the war years. “Up until then, most of the people who denounced the Jews were still alive,” he told me. “As long as the people were still alive, I did not want to talk about it to hurt them. I did not want to be a witness. Besides, I was afraid to respond to questions about my AK involvement.” But word about his activities began to spread at his workplace, and things became uncomfortable for him. “This is what prompted me to admit publicly that I saved Jews during the war. Bringing this into the open helped stop all negative whisperings about my wartime conduct.”

When I raised the subject of Polish anti-Semitism, Antoni replied that it was merely a part of life. The Poles felt inferior to the Jews, many of whom had become successful in business and in institutions of higher learning. “I am a Pole, but I have to admit that Jews are more capable than Poles. Maybe not all of them but many are. When Jews perform more demanding tasks, then they are better at it than Poles, who seized upon anti-Semitism as a way ‘to eliminate competition.'”

Without asking whether he shared that feeling, I asked Antoni how he felt about his rescue efforts during the war. “Today I would have done exactly the same thing. For sure I could not act in any other way. Besides, I was not alone. There were quite a number of people who helped Jews. I knew an old bachelor, a Pole, who kept four people in a cellar. There were many more Poles who risked their lives to save Jews in a variety of ways and never spoke about
it. On the other hand, I also know that some Poles were following German orders and were harming Jews.”

What both Zygmunt and Antoni underplayed in our conversations was the danger they had put themselves in by helping Jews. There was no direct benefit for them to do it, and they consistently put their own lives on the line. The Germans were merciless in the treatment of Poles who took in the Jewish cause. They had to fight a two-front battle—against the Germans, of course, but also against a good number of their fellow Poles, who simply could not understand why there was any moral imperative in assisting Jews.

Now we turn to a young Jew and his experience with resisting the Nazis. Ephraim (Frank) Bleichman was seventeen when the Germans occupied his small town, Kamionka, home to about a hundred Jewish families. The closest big city, Lublin, was some twelve miles away. Ephraim was the second-eldest son of eight children in a Jewish Orthodox family. Except for Ephraim's older brother, the rest of his siblings were considerably younger. As with most other Jewish parents in Kamionka, the Bleichmans were deeply religious. Also, like most Jews of their generation, they viewed the German occupation as a temporary setback, something which in due time would be redressed by God. Despite the continuously expanding brutality, their trust in God's wisdom persisted.

The younger generation was less complacent. Their confrontations with the new reality did not increase their trust in God. Quite the contrary, the youth of Kamionka were restless. Searching in vain for solutions, they soon became frustrated. They believed in self-reliance but were at a loss as to how to effectively channel their mounting frustrations, or what form their resistance should take.

Among the many restrictive German rules was an order to create the aforementioned Judenrat, or Jewish Councils, and a Jewish police force. These two bodies had to cooperate in carrying out the orders of the occupying forces. One of these requirements called for a steady quota of Jewish laborers for work outside their community in camps, factories, and in maintaining or building roads. Many such laborers had disappeared without a trace. Disturbing rumors about their fate soon began to circulate. One day a group of Jewish laborers returned to Kamionka in a most deplorable condition. Practically all of them were covered with bruises and wounds, inflicted either by brutal work supervisors or by horrible
working conditions and probably both. These laborers were unable and seemingly unwilling to talk about their experiences—but they did not need to. Their physical and emotional state spoke more loudly than any actual stories could have. In dire need of care, most of them found solace in their family homes. Despite all this, German pressure for the delivery of more young Jewish laborers did not cease.

While the older generation of Jews continued to await God's intervention, the young became more convinced than ever that they themselves would have to come up with their own solutions. The experience of the Bleichman family in large part reflects that of most Kamionka Jews. Mr. Bleichman, Ephraim's father, had been barred from earning a living as a wood merchant. He was coerced into hard, humiliating work for which he received no payment. Ephraim was then caught by the Jewish police and sent off for compulsory labor. He began his work in a group of young Jewish laborers, on a nearby private farm. There he had to collect and pack a variety of produce into boxes, destined for German consumption. The labor was accompanied by incessant beatings and cursing by their Gentile supervisors. Requests to visit the outhouse were met with vigorous punching and crude swearing and name-calling, as if no Jew were entitled to such a privilege.

With each passing minute, Ephraim was more determined to make this first day of compulsory labor his last. Indeed, beginning the next day, Ephraim disappeared. The Judenrat and the Jewish police searched for him eagerly. Familiar with his surroundings, he received help from many friends, both Jewish and Gentile, who conspired successfully to hide him from the police.

With increasing food shortages, Ephraim became preoccupied with easing his family's hunger. He considered contacting some of his Gentile friends to see if he could purchase food from them and resell it at a profit. He was confident that he could do that because of his appearance: he did not look Jewish and was completely fluent in Polish. One day, he mounted his bicycle, ripped the compulsory Star of David band from his arm, and disappeared into the countryside, which was off-limits to Jews. Avoiding busy roads, he visited his Gentile friends who welcomed him warmly. They were happy to sell him their produce, milk, bread, flour, vegetables, and much more. Their prices were fair. They even helped him attach his purchases to the bike and volunteered important safety tips on how to avoid encounters.

When this new entrepreneur reached the Jewish territory, he divided his purchases into two parts. One part he sold to some of his fellow Jews at a profit. The rest he kept for his family. Satisfied with the outcome of this first venture, he repeated these transactions with some regularity. Although his parents welcomed the extra food, they were concerned for their son's safety. Ephraim tried to alleviate their worries by minimizing the dangers, even denying there were any. In turn, knowing how stubborn their son was, his relatives eventually stopped objecting. News about Ephraim's illegal transactions reached the Judenrat. The police increased their efforts to arrest this flagrant renegade. Knowing that Jewish functionaries were out to capture him, Ephraim became more innovative. A cat and mouse game ensued, with Ephraim taking refuge in one safe haven after another, with his Jewish and Gentile friends and a variety of family members, close and distant.

By 1942 rumors reached the Jews of Kamionka that they, like so many Jews in the region, would be soon transferred into a specially created Jewish ghetto. They heard about small Jewish communities that were being moved into larger ghettos. For the Bleichmans these rumors took on special meaning. Ephraim's parents knew how deeply their son valued his freedom and that he would never voluntarily relocate to a ghetto. Deportation to a ghetto would cause a family split. This expectation remained a painful possibility; it was too painful even to talk about.

The summer of 1942 brought the official news that all Kamionka Jews would be transferred to another community where, with other Jews, they would work and live in peace. This was soon followed by an announcement specifying the time and place of assembly for relocation. The Kamionka Jews were told to bring only a limited number of belongings, to make the move easy. Noncompliance carried with it the death penalty. At the designated time and place the Bleichman family showed up as ordered. The majority of the Kamionka Jews obeyed, but some of the younger unmarried men, including Ephraim, and a few young women did not. “From the beginning I knew that I wouldn't let them kill me,” he told me, “and that I would not submit.”
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