Such Good Girls (9 page)

But America’s door was not open very wide and would take only a fraction of Jewish refugees immediately after the war. President Roosevelt seemed far more concerned about not antagonizing the oil-rich Saudi Arabians than helping the remnants of European Jewry. The British were blocking immigration to Palestine.

The remnants of Laura’s family, Putzi and Zofia, would have to bide their time in a country now cleansed of Nazis but not of virulent anti-Semitism. The summer of 1946 suddenly provided ample proof that the war on Poles had hardly ended. The Nazis had come for people at all hours, but the Russians made them disappear quietly at night. One never knew who might be listening to you; Zofia learned to whisper, even among her friends. Anti-Jewish riots erupted in Kraków and spread. Every town had its violent incidents. On July 4, 1946, in Kielce, not far from Busko, Polish townspeople accused Jews of kidnapping a boy who had mysteriously disappeared. A mob proceeded to murder forty-two Jews, including two children and a concentration camp survivor. The boy turned up later, safe and sound; he had been off at a friend’s and afraid to tell his parents the truth. By the end of 1947, more than 2,000 Jews had been murdered after the war in Poland without any help from the Nazis.

The surviving Jews had crossed a great desert against all odds, dragged themselves to what they thought was safety, only to find themselves locked out of their own lives or staring into a newly dug grave.

Zofia remained unaware of the drama around her. The agricultural co-op organized an outing for employees and their families to the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa, a cathedral in the village of that same name. Zofia and the others rode all night in heavy rain in the back of a truck. To make matters worse, the windshield wipers didn’t work and the roads, cratered by bombs, provided endless rude shocks. Despite it all, when they arrived in the early morning and Zofia spotted the peacocks strolling the grounds, she was delighted. The shrine contained “the Black Madonna,” an ancient icon that would work miracles if people prayed hard enough. According to popular belief, prayers induced the Madonna to halt a Swedish invasion of Poland in 1655, and to drive the Russians out of Warsaw in 1920. Hitler took such beliefs seriously enough that, just to be on the safe side, he prohibited pilgrimages during the Nazi occupation. With the Nazis gone, Poles flocked once again to the cathedral to pray for their nation.

When Zofia’s group entered the cathedral to take early morning Mass, the walls were sparkling with silver and gold pieces that they were told represented the parts of pilgrims’ bodies that had been cured. It was magical. Zofia knelt before the famous icon of the Black Madonna holding baby Jesus, which was said to have been painted on a tabletop built by Jesus himself. She was transfixed. The photograph of the icon she bought that day was one of the few things she would one day carry out of Poland with her. She had never felt so safe before, although Czestochowa was just sixty miles from the town of Oswiecim, which the Germans had renamed Auschwitz.

In the fall of 1947, Laura heard there was a small window opening up for emigration—not for Jews, still stymied by strict quotas in America, Canada, and the British occupiers in Palestine—but for non-Jews with job offers abroad. By now Laura had in hand a letter from her mother’s sister Rosa and her husband, Emil Hoenig, in London, promising her and Putzi jobs as domestics. Soon after, she sat in a Polish government office with Putzi and Zofia, watching as the official studied their false identity papers.

“So you, Bronislawa, will work for your aunt and uncle, is that it? And they’ve arranged for you, Ksenia”—he said, reading Putzi’s Christian name off her document—“to work for another family?”

The women nodded.

“But you say that you’re sisters,” he said, tapping the end of his fountain pen against the blotter.

“We are.”

“But your last names are different.”

Laura stiffened. She had to think of something.

“Your last name is Tymejko,” he said, looking at Laura. Then he turned to Putzi. “And yours is Osoba. How can that be?”

“I can explain, sir,” Laura said. She paused, thinking about how Putzi looked so much more Slavic than she did.

“I’m waiting,” the official said.

“Well, Ksenia was an abandoned child,” Laura began. “My mother found her under a tree, in a basket, in Lvov when she was just three months old—and she adopted her. And we grew up as sisters. That’s the reason.” Laura shot Zofia a look that said, Don’t react or change your expression.

Zofia hardly needed the reminder. She sat still while the official quizzed her mother and her aunt, keeping her eyes on her hands, which were folded in her lap. Laura proceeded to tell a story that was impossible to follow.

“I don’t understand,” the man said. “Why didn’t your mother give her your last name?”

“Oh, that. Well, sir, Ksenia went through a rebellious phase when my mother told her she was adopted, she didn’t want to be a Tymejko anymore. You know how teenagers are. She decided her last name would be Osoba, the name of her close friend, and later she changed it legally. Our mother was not happy about it, but what can you do?” She turned to her sister.

“Yes,” Putzi said, nodding.

The official turned again to Putzi. “Your mother, the one who took you in and raised you, she must have been very upset with you.”

“Yes, she was.”

“My sister is very stubborn!” Laura said with a laugh.

Zofia looked up only when the man suddenly addressed her.

“Young lady? Did you know that your aunt was abandoned as a baby?”

Zofia nodded.

“Excuse me?” the official said.

“Yes,” she said softly, although it was all news to her.

She must have done the right thing, because the man looked at all three of them, stamped the papers on his desk, handed them all to her mother, and said, “I don’t like it, but off you go!”

They left the office with precious permission to leave the country. Having jumped that first hurdle, Laura now had to travel to Warsaw to obtain work visas. Uncle Max had told her to see representatives of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society there, who were doing their best to help tens of thousands of displaced Jews to emigrate. For once she wouldn’t have to pretend she was Bronislawa Tymejko, a Catholic. She would only have to prove that she was Jewish, not so easy for someone holding only false papers, but at least she could speak Yiddish. Or could she? While preparing for the trip to Warsaw, she realized to her horror that she couldn’t remember more than a word or two of it. Nor could she recall the names of her two brothers, or of her parents—and not even the name of her own husband! It was as if she had been in shock since 1939 without even knowing it. The war seemed to have leveled her Jewish identity as surely as the Germans had leveled Warsaw. Now that she was about to become a Jew again, she had forgotten what it meant.

“Putzi,” she said, “I can’t remember my husband’s name!”

Her sister looked at her blankly.

“Oh, come on,” Laura said. “You too? What’s happened to us? Can you name our siblings?”

Putzi opened her mouth slightly, as if about to say something, then closed it again.

“I can only come up with Manek,” Laura said.

“Well,” Putzi finally replied, “don’t ask me.”

Laura didn’t think such a thing possible—that the same brain that had dissembled and connived and fought to stay alive could not now produce the most basic information about her own life. While she had used every ounce of energy to endure one horrific hardship after another, she hadn’t been aware of the cost, that her previous life was being amputated. Fortunately, only a few days later in Busko-Zdrój, she ran into a Jew she’d known in Lvov, and the strangest thing happened. The man’s face was like a window through which she could suddenly see her past. Her husband Daniel Schwarzwald and his parents. Her parents, Josef and Mina. Her grandparents Moses and Sarah, and Mina. Her brothers Edek and Manek and sister Fryda. All gone now. She could see Daniel’s parents’ Lvov apartment, where they had lived for a year as newlyweds while waiting for their furniture to be made. Putzi, however—maybe because she was much younger and had less to remember—continued to block much of it out, and for months after Laura would patiently remind her of what had been.

The train to Warsaw was crowded and smelly, and when Laura reached the city she couldn’t find a place to sleep—an unhappy reminder of her arrival in Kraków with Zofia six years before, robbed of their luggage and having to scrounge a bed for the night. Warsaw had been reduced to a pile of rubble by the retreating Germans in 1944, and only a few sections of the city had since been rebuilt. Laura spotted a fellow Jew from the old days in Lvov, but after locking eyes briefly, they both looked away, still afraid to draw attention to themselves even though the Nazis were long gone.

Laura made her way to the Hebrew Immigration Aid Society, armed with her most valuable possession, a diamond crescent pin, hidden in the heel of her shoe. It was always a good idea to be prepared with a bribe, but nothing could shorten the lines of people outside the Immigration Aid Society, and eventually, she gave up in despair. Her second trip to Warsaw proved equally unsuccessful. But on the third try, in January 1948, her luck changed. This time she was carrying three visas when she returned to Busko. She and Putzi were registered as “maids” and could remain in England only as long as they earned their living as housekeepers—Laura for her aunt and uncle and Putzi for another Jewish family of the Hoenigs’ acquaintance.

Not two weeks later, a very anxious Zofia had to leave Wacka and her other friends behind and board a train to Warsaw with her mother and aunt, en route to Gdynia, the Baltic Sea port and the waiting M/S Batory, a luxury liner that, like the three of them, had seen better days. The Batory, named after the sixteenth-century king of Poland, was as lucky to have survived the war as Laura, Putzi, and Zofia. The ocean liner started making the run from Gdynia to New York in 1936, but from 1939 till the end of the war she was a troop transport and a hospital ship for the Allies. In the summer of 1940, she secretly carried most of Britain’s gold reserves to Montreal for safekeeping. Two months later, she carried another precious cargo—700 British children—to Australia. She was involved in the evacuation of Dunkirk, the invasions of Oran, Algeria, and Sicily. She was under attack many times from German planes and submarines but escaped with only minor damage. In fact, her nickname after the war was Lucky Ship.

Zofia boarded with a small suitcase in one hand and her three-inch Steiff bear, named Bear, in the other. Halinka, unfortunately, hadn’t made it. She had slowly fallen apart after the war. Much of her hair had fallen out, then one of her eyes refused to open anymore, and soon Halinka was lying awkwardly in the corner. By the time they left for Gdynia, she had disappeared altogether.

On the Batory, Zofia shared a third-class cabin with her mother and aunt in the bottom-most part of the ship, which turned out to be a blessing: the Baltic crossing was very rough, and the rolling of the ship was less severe below the waterline. The waves could get so high that they sometimes crashed onto the deck, and seasickness was rampant among the passengers. Most of them stayed in their cabins for the whole voyage, unable to carry on a conversation, let alone indulge in the copious amounts of food served at the daily buffet. Despite their comparatively unrocky accommodations in steerage, Putzi and Laura were as nauseated as everyone else.

Everyone, that is, except for the seasoned crew—and the eleven-year-old Zofia, who was strangely unaffected by the endless rolling of the huge vessel. The girl, who had last tasted an orange at age six, now had hundreds of them to choose from, along with numerous varieties of bread, cheese, and sausages. Oh, and there were five types of herring and a dozen different desserts. Other than the odd passenger who ventured in during a momentary hiatus from vomiting, Zofia had the dining room all to herself.

This cheered the food staff to no end; they were overjoyed that someone was eating and kept applauding Zofia’s appetite and her hardiness.

It wasn’t just the dining room either. The entire ship became her private playground. Zofia had a grand time exploring every public corner of the immense Batory, and none was more impressive to her than the bathrooms. All she had known in Poland were outhouses; Zofia and her mother had shared one with the mayor of Busko-Zdrój, no less. Between the bountiful food and the sparkling bathrooms with flush toilets, Zofia felt she had died and gone to heaven. A heaven that kept heaving back and forth, but a heaven nonetheless.

In Southampton, Laura disembarked and stood on the pier overcome by emotions that had been bottled up for years. Only now that she was actually free did she begin to register some new measure of the horror she, Zofia, and Putzi had survived, and also the true miracle that her own courage, strength, and luck had somehow carried them through. Laura felt as if some literal, physical weight had just been lifted from her shoulders, and the tears, which she hid from the others, came.

Then the impossible happened. Even though the three of them had finally made it to freedom, disaster loomed again in the form of an immigration official who didn’t seem to want to let all three of them into England together. He scowled at the Christian identification papers that had passed muster with dozens of Nazis. He and dark-eyed, dark-haired Uncle Emil, who had traveled from London to greet his relatives, were shouting at each other in English while Laura and Putzi tried—and failed—to follow the argument. Zofia, frightened by this latest complication, sat very still. Laura suddenly interrupted the men, talking urgently and firmly in German. Uncle Emil tried his best to keep up with her as he translated for the official.

“She says that either all three of them must be admitted to the country, or none of them. Now she’s saying that for any of them to be separated is unthinkable after what they have been through… . And if they return to Poland, they will be imprisoned for the crime of trying to escape to a non-Communist country. Do you want to send us back to prison or worse, she’s saying, after everything we’ve been through?”