by Ehud Diskin
Our crew had managed to take out all the guards, but we’d lost two men during the assault. The survivors assembled in the dining room, and I divided up the treasure. Alec was guarding the hallway, so I took his share for him.
When we left the estate, I turned to my men, knowing what I was about to say wouldn’t be easy. “My brothers,” I began, “our mission is complete, and it’s time to go our own ways. I plan to leave this cursed land and go live in Jerusalem to help our brothers and sisters there build an independent Jewish state. It’s been an honor and a privilege to serve alongside all of you. I hope we meet again under happier circumstances.”
We buried our two dead and prayed for their souls. A quick embrace brought the years we had fought together to an end, and our group began to disperse.
Alec came over to me and put his hand on my shoulder. “I want to immigrate to Israel too, but I have unfinished business here. If I make it, I will look for you.”
I understood what he meant—he hadn’t finished exacting his revenge. I wished him luck, and we embraced. “I hope to see you in Israel,” I said.
He walked a few steps and then stopped, looked back over one shoulder, and saluted me. Something tightened in my chest. Pushing away the sentimental reaction, I nevertheless smiled and returned his salute, and then I quickly turned away to face my next task.
I walked over to Misha, Leah’s brother. He sat against the wall, brooding, stroking the barrel of his rifle. He had no doubt overheard my conversation with Alec.
“Do you want to join me?” I asked.
Misha remained silent and then finally began to speak, still staring down at his gun. “David, before we part ways, there is something that has troubled me for a long time that I must get off of my chest.” He paused, and then his blue eyes flashed up at me. “I’m angry that you didn’t protect Leah.”
I met his gaze without flinching. Of course, I had suspected he felt this way, but it was hard to hear it spoken aloud, since I blamed myself for Leah’s death. His next words seemed to echo my thoughts and surprised me.
“I don’t blame you for her death,” he went on, “but you were there, and you survived. Leah was the only family I had left. While we were fighting the Nazis, I could push it all down, but now I want you to know that I don’t ever want to see you again.”
I nodded, unable to speak for a moment. “I wish you luck” was all that I could manage to say. I had never told anyone exactly what happened when Leah was killed, and to do so at that moment would have sounded like an excuse and probably made matters worse. He didn’t respond, simply stood and walked away.
With the fighting over, the Russians occupied Minsk, and the Communist regime of the Soviet Union regained control over the region. They bulldozed all signs of Jewish life in the city, including the synagogues and rabbinical seminaries. I wanted to get out of there, and the sooner the better, but before I could make my way to Israel through Western Europe, I had to wait until the Germans were completely defeated. Leaving the war behind would mean leaving everything I had ever known behind as well, but I had a new goal, and I was eager to start working toward it.
Getting to Israel was not easy. I planned to make my way through Poland to Germany’s displaced persons camps. I had heard that the Jewish community in Israel was trying to bring Jews from these camps to their ancestral homeland, despite the objections of the British.
I reached Lublin, Poland, in August 1944, just weeks after the Russians had invaded. All I carried was a knapsack filled with my share of the spoils from Nikolai’s vault, a commando knife, and the Russian pistol my father had given me on the day we’d said goodbye. It was the only tangible memento I had from him.
I was in much better physical and mental condition than most of the Jews I encountered on the way to Poland. Those poor Jews, survivors of death camps, most of whom had lost their entire families, were stricken with hunger and illness, and their spirits were shattered. Society—the Germans’ perversion of it, at least—had completely broken down, and brigands were everywhere. But they left me alone, perhaps preferring easier targets. Once in the city, I used some of my newfound wealth to rent an apartment with three young Jewish men.
In January 1945, the Russian army reached Krakow. My three roommates and I left Lublin and made our way to that city, where we rented another apartment together. One day, I noticed a woman wrapped in a shabby blue coat, standing on the street and crying. She looked about forty years old and was short and thin, with brown hair that was starting to gray.
“Can I help you?” I asked her in Russian.
She sobbed louder. “No one will help me,” she said in broken Russian. “I’m a Jew.”
“I’m a Jew too. My name is David,” I said in Yiddish. Her eyes widened. An able-bodied, well-nourished, and well-dressed Jew was not a common sight.
“I’m Nelka,” she said. “I returned here just a few days ago, after spending several months at the Auschwitz death camp. When the Germans fled, they took with them any Jews still alive, with the intention of killing them elsewhere. I’m one of the very few who managed to escape. My husband and two children were murdered in the gas chambers.” Her face contorted for a moment, and I looked away. Her story was one I had heard many times before. She regained her composure and went on, her voice trembling.
“We had a beautiful apartment here in Krakow before the war. When I went to the apartment yesterday, a young Polish couple was living there. I told them that the apartment used to be mine and asked if I could spend a few nights there, as I was homeless.” Her lower lip began to quiver. “The woman yelled at me, ‘Beat it, dirty Jew!’ Her husband said it was a shame the Germans didn’t kill us all; then he said he was going to get an ax to kill me himself.”
I asked her to point out the apartment to me.
“What for?” she asked.
“Maybe I can do something to help you,” I said.
She hesitated for a moment and said, “You look like a strong young man. Perhaps they’ll have more respect for you than for a weeping Jewish woman.”
She showed me her building and pointed out her apartment, which faced the street. I convinced her to come with me to my apartment to get warm. There I introduced her to my roommates and told her to wait for my return.
I walked back to the building Nelka had shown me and knocked on the door of her apartment. “Do you understand Russian?” I asked the man who answered.
“Yes,” he said, “but I have no use for Russians. I suggest you get out of here before I beat you bloody.”
“This apartment belongs to Jews who lived here before the war,” I began, and as he picked up an ax from behind the door, I kicked him in the knee. He crumpled to the floor.
Before he could get up, I drew my pistol and fired at him twice. He fell dead on the floor. His wife came running from the kitchen with a big knife, shouting hysterically, “I’ll kill you, filthy Jew!” I shot her too.
I stared down at the two, feeling little, except perhaps a sense of justice for Nelka and others like her. After a moment, I roused and went through the man’s pockets. I found a set of keys and left the apartment, locking the door behind me.
As I walked down the stairs, I thought about what I would do with the two dead bodies. I headed around the back of the building and, surveying the backyard, decided I could bury them there. I planned to come back that night with a shovel.
When I returned to my apartment, Nelka ran to me as soon as I walked in the door. “Where have you been?” she asked, her eyes wide with fright.
“I had a long talk with the couple who chased you away,” I said. “I told them you have connections with the police and that they’ll be showing up there tomorrow to force them out. It seemed to scare them, so I offered to pay for their move if they left willingly. They agreed and asked for two days to get packed. You can stay with us until then.”
Nelka’s face lit up, and she hugged me. “It’s a miracle, and you are a real angel! I hope I can repay you one
day. After all I’ve been through, I didn’t think I’d ever meet someone like you.”
That night, I returned to Nelka’s apartment with a shovel to bury the bodies, but when I approached the building, I spotted a Russian-made ZIS truck parked on the street and changed my mind. During my three years as a partisan, I had taught myself to drive using stolen German vehicles and had become an expert at hot-wiring them.
I opened the truck’s door and leaned under the steering wheel to cut and strip the wires. In a matter of moments, I got the vehicle running. I moved the truck to the front of the building and went up to Nelka’s apartment. I wrapped each of the corpses in a rug, tied them with rope, and loaded them into the truck. I also grabbed four large bricks from the courtyard.
From there, I drove to the Vistula River. It was late at night, and the riverbank was deserted. I stuffed two heavy bricks into each roll of carpet and threw the bodies into the river. Then I drove back to Nelka’s neighborhood, parked the truck a few blocks from her apartment, let myself back into her place, and cleaned up the bloodstains. I got home just in time to go to bed for an hour.
When I got up in the morning, Nelka served me a breakfast of bread and margarine. She was giddy with anticipation. After she’d spent another day with us, I offered to escort her back to her old home.
When she stepped inside, there were tears in her eyes. After checking every room, she landed in the kitchen. “Apparently, the couple living here weren’t such bad people after all,” she said. “Look how much food they left for me. Thank you so much for convincing them to leave.” Then she added, “I have an idea. Why don’t you and your friends move in with me? This is a much larger and more comfortable place than the one you’re living in now, and you’d save on rent. I’ll cook for you too.”
“That would be wonderful,” I said. “And if someone asks about the couple who used to live here, just say you paid them to move out.”
This was the beginning of a quiet and peaceful period in my life. Nelka was a wonderful cook, somehow managing to make the powdered eggs and turnips that we subsisted on palatable. But I had no intention of staying in Poland or even in Europe. I wanted to leave this cursed continent as soon as I could and begin again in Jerusalem.
I MET BRIGITA FOR MY second session two weeks later, over another cup of tea. She asked me to tell her about my experiences following the Russians’ recapture of Minsk, and I decided to answer her in detail. She listened without saying a word, but I could see the astonishment on her face.
“I’m troubled by all the killing,” she said. “You grew up in a warm home, with loving parents, and all of a sudden you and your family were treated like animals, hunted and persecuted by the Germans. Survival in a world like that requires that you fight back. The barbarism of the Germans caused many to lose all semblance of humanity and morality.”
I didn’t respond, and she continued. “You perceived your vengeance as justice for your loved ones, and meting out that justice diminished the intensity of the anger and frustration you felt as a result of your helplessness. You proved to yourself and to the Germans that you could rain down pain and suffering on them just as they had done to the people you cherished. The question is, do you want to continue living this way? Vengeance can become an obsession, a way of life. Are you still fighting?”
“All I want to do these days is rest,” I said.
I could tell from the look on her face that she wasn’t convinced. After a few moments of thought, she said, “The British have no desire to kill us merely for being Jews. They want to keep control, and so they oppose a national home for the Jewish people and they arrest those who interfere with their regime. But this is nothing like what happened under the Nazis. You must have heard about that sniper who injured three British soldiers at the Schneller Barracks a few weeks ago. I’m not a pacifist, and I can understand the need to fight one’s enemies, but we have to preserve our morality too.
“I adamantly oppose that sniper’s actions, because it’s clear to me that those three soldiers were injured only because they happened to be there, not because they did something that warranted the attacks upon them. On the other hand, this Officer Greene who was recently killed on the street had a reputation for cruelty against the underground. If you do join the underground and want to live with your conscience, my advice to you is to target only those who harm Jews and to kill only when it is an operational necessity.”
Her powers of perception were unnerving. For a moment, I imagined she could hear exactly what I was thinking and see what I had done in the past.
“Thank you for your advice,” I said in as calm a voice as I could muster. “I’ll do some thinking, and I’ll be in touch with you again soon.”
As I walked home, I thought about what she had said. Anyone who hadn’t lived through the hell that my friends and I had endured would have a hard time understanding our feelings. But Brigita seemed unusually wise, and I decided to take her advice and be even more discriminating with my targets. Fortunately, Sergeant Perry fit her rules perfectly. But I had yet to locate him and was feeling frustrated. I mulled over my options.
IT HARDLY EVER SNOWED IN Jerusalem, but on February 17, 1946, snow blanketed the city, covering the roads, trees, and rooftops in thick white sheets and forcing the schools to close, much to the delight of the children. I went to the Cohens’ store that day, where I ran into a smartly dressed, auburn-haired woman. She didn’t have a particularly pretty face, but her provocative figure was most distracting.
After the woman had finished packing her shopping bag, Mr. Cohen said in a fatherly tone, “Be careful not to slip on your way home, Sarah.”
I smiled at her. “He must like you,” I said. “Mr. Cohen has never shown the slightest bit of concern for my safety.” She looked right through me and left the store.
“Hey, Don Juan!” Mrs. Cohen barked. “You flirt with every woman you meet in here, but I suggest you leave her alone. Her boyfriend is a big shot in the CID, and you may get more than you bargained for.”
I took a second to realize what she was saying, but once it clicked, I mumbled an excuse about leaving the heater on and raced out the door with my shopping basket still on the counter. When I got down the front steps, I saw Sarah strolling up Zephaniah Street.
I followed at a quick pace but kept some distance so she wouldn’t notice me. She turned left onto Amos Street, and I watched her go into a building about one hundred yards from the corner. I crossed the street and then stopped, making a show of shuffling through my wallet while actually keeping an eye on her building. After a few minutes, I saw Sarah open the curtains of one of the windows on the second floor.
My heart filled with joy. I had just been given a gift from heaven. Finally, I had gotten a break. I could now start planning my next course of action.
9
“ON RED DAYS OF RIOTS AND BLOOD”
(FROM “UNKNOWN SOLDIERS,” A POEM BY AVRAHAM STERN, 1932)
When I got to work the next day, I pulled Max aside.
“I’m really sorry, but I’m feeling sick. I’ll work today since it’s last minute, but I think I need to take the next few days off.”
“Damn, a coward and lazy too,” Max muttered. “Okay, then, go home early, but you can only have two days.”
“Thank you,” I said.
When I told Shoshana I wouldn’t be at work for a couple days, she immediately grew concerned.
“I’ll come take care of you when I get off work. I’ll bring you some food.”
“You know how much I enjoy your company, but I need some time to myself,” I replied. “I’m just feeling run-down, because I’m not getting enough sleep—my nights are haunted by bad memories.”
“I totally understand,” Shoshana said, glancing away. “The same thing happens to me at least a few times a week.”
I bent and kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll talk to you later,” I promised.
“Get some rest,” she said with a smile, then moved to a
table full of customers.
My plan over the next two days was to study Sergeant Perry’s routine and scout out the area around Sarah’s apartment and the neighboring buildings. The next morning, I went to Amos Street, looking for a place where I could keep watch without drawing any attention to myself.
It was a relatively warm winter day, and the sun was shining. On my third pass around the block, I noticed an elderly man soaking up the sun on the second-floor balcony of a building almost directly across from Sarah’s apartment.
“Good for you, finding time to sit back and enjoy the warm sun,” I called up to him.
“Find the time?” he said. “I’m a pensioner, so I have nothing but time.”
“I’m a new immigrant who’s trying to get to know Jerusalem.”
“Instead of shouting to one another, why don’t you come up and join me? We can have some tea and cookies and talk a little.”
“Gladly,” I said, and I climbed the stairs to the second floor. The man was waiting for me in his open doorway.
“Baruch,” he said, holding out his hand.
“David,” I responded, and we shook hands.
Baruch appeared to be in his late sixties. He was a tall yet stocky man, with a bald head and a wrinkled face. He ushered me into his kitchen, and I watched in silence as he stuffed leaves from a package of Wissotzky tea into a silver tea strainer and then retrieved a steaming kettle. He poured the boiling water into two glasses, dipping the tea strainer back and forth into both. Then he reached into a cupboard for a packet of Froumine cookies and arranged them on a plate.
“Let’s sit on the balcony and enjoy our tea in the sun, before it disappears behind those clouds,” he said.
I followed him to the balcony and glanced over at Sarah’s building. Baruch’s apartment was at an angle from hers, but I could see it well enough. He kicked off the conversation by telling me that his wife had died a year earlier, and he was lonely. From time to time, I nodded or hummed in agreement, keeping an eye on Sarah’s apartment all the while.
