The Last Witness (12 page)

After eating the sandwich, Jacob let Father Kasinski lead him through a side door off the kitchen to an alleyway behind the church. They passed the garden with the pungent smell of onions, and then stopped in the middle of the alley where there was a manhole cover. Father Kasinski lifted it off and pointed into the hole. He said this would be a safer way to travel between the ghetto and Aryan section because Jacob wouldn’t have to sneak through the wall or go over the top. Then he led Jacob down a steel ladder inside the hole. At the bottom leading off in all directions were tunnels and sewers. It was an underground city. Father Kasinski showed Jacob how to get from directly below the Church of the Virgin Mary to a building on the next block in the ghetto. All he had to do was bring a stick so he could push up the manhole cover, but
when he tried, he couldn’t do that. He wasn’t strong enough, so Father Kasinski said he should come with a friend. Jacob immediately thought of Josef, who was bigger and stronger.

“How old is your friend?”

“Twelve.”

“Bring him with you next time. What is his name?”

“Josef Karasik.”

“He also needs a new name.”

Jacob was thinking. He wasn’t sure how to tell Father Kasinski what he wanted to say. “It won’t work,” Jacob said.

“Why not?”

“Josef doesn’t look like me but I know another boy with blue eyes and light hair.” Jacob said this boy was also twelve, but even bigger than Josef.

“You don’t have light hair either,” Father Kasinski said. “Would you like some?”

Jacob didn’t know what he was talking about. Father Kasinski took him back inside the church, sat him down in the kitchen and brought out a bottle. He poured the contents into another bottle with a spray on top and then he mixed the concoction he had created with tap water. Jacob watched as the water poured from the faucet. There was no tap water in the ghetto; there was no running water at all. In the ghetto, Jacob’s mother collected rainwater in barrels outside their building, so they could wash their hair and clothes, but here on the Aryan side there was plumbing. Father Kasinski said the clear liquid he just made was
peroxide
. He shook the bottle, told Jacob to close his eyes and then sprayed his hair with it. Then he ran a comb through Jacob’s hair over and over. Ten minutes later he had him rinse his hair in the kitchen sink. It was a miracle. Jacob’s hair was blonde.

“Now you have a new name, you have light hair and you have a safe way to get out of the ghetto and go back home as long as you bring a friend. But there is one other thing you need.” Father Kasinski dug his hand into his pocket and fished out a coin. “Take this. It’s Russian. And it’s gold.”

Gold?

“It’s worth ten Russian roubles which is a lot of money but I don’t want you to take it for the money. I want you to take it so you’ll remember that even during this darkest time you had a friend.” He put the gold coin into Jacob’s hand and closed his fingers around it. “Never let anyone know about this. You see, Jacob …” – he didn’t call him
Jacub
but Jacob – “… they would kill you for a
chervonets
. They wouldn’t care that you’re just a boy. That’s why I want you to hide it in your shoe. Inside the heel. Do you have glue?”

Jacob said his father had glue for fixing sewing machines.

“Good. Put it inside the heel then glue the heel back on the shoe.
Farshstaist?
”

“Ich farstai.”

Jacob gave him a smile and he didn’t know it then, but it was the only time Father Kasinski would ever see such a thing from him.

Now Jacob didn’t have to sneak through holes in the wall, and watch for the German Gestapo and Polish police. From what he could tell, one was as bad as the other. He saw them hit people with their truncheons and fists. He saw them hit men and women and old people and children. They were always angry.

There was a young Gestapo officer who always patrolled near the wall. He was short and squat with thick jowls, a wide neck, and a brown shirt that would look neat on Jacob’s father. He had a cap and looked like a schoolboy, but the black spider on his red armband – the
swastika
–
meant he was dangerous. He saw Jacob a few times, but never said a word. He stood with his feet pointed to the sides, one hand resting on his belt, a look of power and self assurance about him, and it was different from anything Jacob saw from the Jews in the ghetto. The Jews always followed orders. But even the young Gestapo officer gave way to the German soldiers, especially the older ones who walked like kings with their gray jackets, peaked caps and Iron Crosses hanging from their chests. Jacob figured all Germans were rich.

The older boy who came with Jacob the next time was Shimek Goldberg and he didn’t take kindly to Father Kasinski. He said it was fine if the priest gave them food and didn’t tell anyone how they came through the sewer into the Aryan side, but he said not to trust him.

“He is a priest and he hates you because he thinks you killed Jesus,” Shimek said.

Jacob didn’t know what Shimek meant. He only knew that Father Kasinski was kind to him. Then one day there was another roundup in the ghetto. The Gestapo, aided by the ever-present Polish police, went door to door and marched off with men. There was no rhyme or reason to it. They went into one building, but not another. They took Shimek’s father, they took Josef’s father and they took Jacob’s father, too. No one knew where they were going.

“A klog iz mir!”
cried Jacob’s mother, who went hysterical after the Gestapo walked off with Samuel. She pounded her fists against her head until her skin turned blue. She was several months pregnant by this time and feared she would never see her husband again.

Jacob had told his parents about Father Kasinski. He had to after the blonde hair, but he never told them about the sewers. They thought he was still going through the wall.

“I will ask Father Kasinski about Papa,” Jacob said to his mother.

When Jacob told him what happened, Father Kasinski said he would ask around and a few days later Jacob’s father came back. He was wearing the same clothes – the same pants, shirt and
jacket – but they were creased and dirty, and if he had style when he left he didn’t have it now. He didn’t say where he had been, but was glad to be reunited with his wife and son. Even if it was the ghetto.

The next time Jacob and Shimek came up through the sewer, Father Kasinski was waiting for them. He said he had to speak with Jacob, so Shimek went on alone to the Aryan side.

“It’s getting more dangerous for you and your family,” Father Kasinski said. “It’s getting more dangerous for all Jews. You must start learning.” He took Jacob into the kitchen and closed the door that led to the chapel. “I want you to listen carefully,” he said and then he spoke a language Jacob never heard before.

“Ave Maria, gratia plena …”

It rolled off his tongue like music. The last word he said was ‘amen’ and Jacob knew that from his Hebrew prayers.

“Now you say it,” Father Kasinski said.

“Say what?”

“A-ve ma-ria …”

“A-vuh ma-reeyaa.”

“… gratia plena …”

“Grah-teeya play-na.”

“Good.”

Father Kasinski said learning this prayer was important. He said it could even save Jacob’s life. It was Jacob’s first Hail Mary and he learned it quickly. Father Kasinski said he would teach it to Shimek as well, but Shimek wouldn’t want anything to do with it.

From that day on, every time the two boys came up through the sewer Jacob went into the kitchen with Father Kasinski to study, while Shimek headed off to the Aryan side. Jacob would eventually join up with his friend before coming back several hours later, and the boys would then return to the ghetto. One day Father Kasinski said Jacob had to be baptised. Jacob asked him why.

“To protect you.”

Inside the empty church, he took Jacob to the altar where he had him bend down and kneel. He poured water – holy water he called it – over his head. “I baptise you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Father Kasinski said Jacob was now a Catholic, but Jacob insisted that he was a Jew.

“You are forgetting something,” Father Kasinski said. “When you are on the other side you are a boy named Jacob who is a Jew but here on this side you are
Jacub
and
Jacub
is a Catholic. Now say it.”

“Ave Maria, gratia plena …”

Jacob knew it perfectly and in this way he learned about being a Catholic. He also learned the words to the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. Much to Father Kasinski’s delight, he had many questions. One of them was this business about forgiveness. Jacob asked whom he should be forgiving. Father Kasinski said he should forgive anyone who sins, so Jacob thought of the German Gestapo and Polish police.

“Should I forgive them?” he said.

“You should forgive anyone who has forgotten how to behave like a human being.”

“Even them?”

“Even them.”

“What about people who steal? Like
Jacub
.”

Jacub
had become Jacob’s alter ego. Another person.

“
Jacub
is only trying to feed his family,” Father Kasinski said. “It is not stealing to try and stay alive.”

“Should I apologize to Shmuel Zelinsky for taking his coat?”

“You should apologize and also ask for his forgiveness but I think he will understand.”

One time after many hours in the Aryan side Jacob was back in the alley behind the Church of the Virgin Mary. He didn’t go into the sewer with Shimek, but marched straight into the church where he saw the priests. He asked for Father Kasinski and a moment later he appeared. He took Jacob into the back and shut the door. Jacob was very upset.

“I cannot forgive the Gestapo,” he said and the tears streamed down his face. “A man was walking on the sidewalk and they told him to walk in the gutter where all the Jews have to walk but he said he wouldn’t do that anymore so they shot him. They shot him right on the sidewalk. I watched him die.”

Father Kasinski cradled Jacob’s head in his arms. The boy wasn’t even five years old. He should be in school, but there wasn’t any school for him. Father Kasinski held Jacob until he stopped crying, ruffling his fingers over and over through his blonde Aryan hair.

……………………………………………………………………….

The sewers were another world where it was always dim. The only light came from light bulbs hanging from above, but they were spaced apart from one another so the shadows followed you wherever you went. Dim was good because it meant perpetual night and the night offered
protection, but it was always cold and damp. Jacob came to know the sewers below the church very well and how to follow them into the next block where the ghetto began. Beyond that there were no sewers at all because the ghetto was the oldest part of Lodz. The best thing about the sewers was that no Gestapo or police watched your every move. The worst thing was the rats.

Father Kasinski gave Jacob long, wool underwear and boots to keep warm, and they helped as long as he stayed dry. The first time Jacob ventured into the sewers with Shimek he was walking on a ledge where everything was wet. He slipped and fell knee-deep into the water. It was cold and dirty and it stunk. He regained his footing just when a hideous creature – half a meter long from its nose to the tip of its tail, and with flashing teeth and whiskers – scurried right in front of him on the ledge. From that moment on, Jacob kept a watchful eye out for the rats.

July came and his mother was almost bursting. The baby was due any day and Jacob’s parents were trying to hide the pregnancy. If the Germans knew a woman was expecting, they would take the baby at birth, and that was why his mother stayed indoors. The only people she ever saw besides Jacob and Samuel were her sister Gerda, her niece Zivia, and her nephew Romek. There was talk of a midwife, but then word might get out about the baby. Another pregnant woman had been taken away from her family and never seen again. There was talk about this place
Chelmno
where they say Jews were being exterminated.

“With the Gestapo it is best to think the worst,” Jacob’s father said and he asked about the sewers. He said they should leave their flat and escape to the sewers before the Gestapo come for them. And so, a decision was made. The Klukowsky family – Jacob, his mother Bela, his father Samuel – and the Zaltsman family – Jacob’s Aunt Gerda, and his cousins Zivia and Romek – would move to the sewers. One man, two women, one of them about to give birth, and three children.

Zivia was ten and showing signs of blossoming into a young woman. She looked like her mother, Jacob’s Aunt Gerda, but without the cold stern spine of a Jewess who had lost her husband and was left lonely and bitter to fend for herself with two children. Jacob figured Zivia, who was six years older than him, was wise. She could prepare food and clean and look after her little brother Romek. No one had to tell her to do these things. Romek was also older than Jacob, but shy and withdrawn, and he never joined his younger cousin on his trips to the Aryan side. He was too big to get through the hole in the wall and lacked the daring of older boys like Josef or Shimek or the curiosity of younger ones like Jacob. Besides, he had an older sister who watched out for him. But there was another reason Romek never went to the other side.

He looked Jewish.

Jacob was the first down the ladder. He knew the way into the sewers. Then it was Zivia’s turn and then Romek’s, and for them this was an adventure. They hadn’t been out of their flat for months. Next came Jacob’s Aunt Gerda, but she found it awkward stepping down the ladder. Then Jacob’s father went, followed by his mother, who was nine months pregnant and with a belly so big she couldn’t face the ladder and had to climb down backwards with her hands behind her, feeling blindly along the railing. By the time she got to the bottom rung, she was practically sitting on her husband’s shoulders.

Jacob knew of a small compartment and this was where they set themselves up. The only thing they brought with them was old blankets. When his mother was on her back on a bed of blankets, Jacob took his father through the sewers until they were directly below the Church of the Virgin Mary. Then he took him up the hole to meet Father Kasinski. Samuel had known about the kindly priest, but not about his son’s baptism or the Hail Marys.