The Girl in the Cellar

by Gerda Krebs Seifer

  Hidden in the cellar, days blended with nights, and all sense of time was gone. I seemed to be floating in a kind of Neverland, full of terror and dread and worry for loved ones.

  One day I felt I couldn’t stay in that black, dank cellar any longer.

  I debated the pros and cons of leaving, knowing full well that leaving my prison was dangerous, but I found myself touching the lock, opening the door to the cellar, slowly walking up the steps and out of the long corridor, and then I was on the outside. The sun shone brightly and the sky was a deep blue. My eyes blinked, adjusting to daylight. Suddenly, there I was in the middle of the street, not knowing where to go or what to do; I had no plan in my mind. I was paralyzed. Often, older women would sit by their windows, curious as to what was happening on their street. Lucky for me, none of them looked out their windows that morning, except for the woman who was hiding me. She lived on the ground floor of the building and happened to look out of the window just as I found myself in the street. She ran outside, looked both ways to make sure no one saw her, ran to me, grabbed my arm, and dragged me back inside, hissing under her breath, “What do you think you are doing? Are you crazy? Do you want us both killed?” I remember repeating, “I don’t care, I don’t care.” I had hit a low point.

  She pacified me with a cup of tea in her kitchen and convinced me to return downstairs to the very place I’d just escaped. I let her lead me back down the steps to my dank cell.

  The next day or so, she came down the cellar steps, nervous and upset. She said the Nazis were combing the area for Jews and that I could no longer hide in her cellar. She was highly agitated.

  “Where will I go?” I asked, frightened. I had no options.

  She was in quite a state but replied that she’d think of something and return in a little while with a plan.

  When I went into hiding, my father gave me a single small diamond wrapped in a kerchief to keep tucked inside my bra so that I could use it as a bribe if I was found. The woman knew about the stone and at that moment she asked me to get it out. “We’ll wrap it up like a bandage around your knee for safety so you’ll be ready to go when I come for you.” Obediently, I gave her the diamond in the handkerchief. She tied it onto my knee and then left the cellar. I felt the handkerchief around my knee. The diamond was gone! I realized that she must have taken it, that she’d only been pretending to help me as a ruse. In the darkness, I swept the dirt floor with my hand but couldn’t find the stone.

  Later, when she returned to the cellar, she told me she had good news. “The Nazis left the area without searching our street. It’s safe for the time being, so you can stay.”

  In my most innocent voice, I told her that I couldn’t find my diamond anywhere. She exhibited no concern when she answered, “It must have fallen out. It’s around here somewhere. You’ll just have to look more carefully. I’m sure you’ll find it.”

  She then left in a hurry. I thought about the story she’d fabricated about Nazis searching the area. All to get her hands on the diamond. There was little I could do, certainly not challenge her story. My life depended on her hiding me, so I never mentioned the missing stone again. She wasn’t satisfied with the money my father had paid her—she had to have the diamond as well.

  After six endless weeks, the woman informed me that the akcja was over and that my father had sent for me, saying that I could safely return to the ghetto. Happy as I was to leave the cellar, I was nervous walking back to the ghetto. My knees buckled under me as we walked quickly, and I kept asking the woman how my mother was. “Fine,” she’d answer. “She’s fine.” Somehow, her answers rang more hollow each time she replied. My suspicions and alarm grew; I knew something wasn’t right, not right at all. At last we arrived at the ghetto.

  Daddy wrapped his arms around me in a warm hug. “Where is Mamusia?” I asked, my heart hammering in my chest. Daddy sat me down on the bed, and told me what I most feared to hear. He broke the awful news as gently as he could.

  My father had found cousin Richard a hiding place like mine. However, Richard was frightened in the hiding place and run back to the ghetto the next day. My mother had a hiding place for herself but wasn’t allowed to take Richard with her. So she had opted to stay with Richard in the ghetto. She had sacrificed her life for him. The Nazis rounded up my mother and Richard days later, as my father stood by helplessly, watching as an SS Commando prodded them out of the ghetto. Daddy would have willingly gone with them, but his decision was to stay alive to take care of me.

  He spoke to me with kind concern, but I knew the enormous pain he had to have been feeling. I was feeling it too. Losing my precious mother was the worst thing that had ever happened to me, that worst thing that would ever happen to me.

  I froze. I was in shock. I lost time and memory. I can’t recall what happened immediately after Daddy told me the horrible news. I remember that he went to work every day, but I can’t recall what I did all day in that greenhouse. I know that I remained in the ghetto from the end of August when the akcja ended until the end of October 1942.

  From all the stories that circulated, my father came to the conclusion that most of the Jews rounded up in July and August—more than 65,000— had been sent directly to Bełżec, an extermination camp in eastern Poland. The Nazis wanted the area to be Judenrein, cleansed of Jews.

  The remainder of my time in the ghetto is a blank. My father was desperately trying to find another, more permanent hiding place for me. Everyone there urgently searched for ways to escape. My father’s work was still necessary for the German war machine, but sooner or later, all Jews would be rounded up.

  One day, Daddy spoke to a Jewish woman, who told him that she knew a Polish Catholic woman, Janina Tarasiukowa, who was willing to hide a Jewish girl for a price. Tarasiukowa was afraid to take in the son of the Jewish woman; he could easily be identified as a Jew because he’d been circumcised.

  Pani Tarasiuk had four children, including a newborn. Some years before, she’d given birth to an illegitimate daughter who had died in infancy. Had that child lived, she’d have been my age, so I took Alicja’s birth certificate and went to live with my new “mother.” Her family was starving, and she was unable to feed them, because she couldn’t go out to work and leave the baby alone. The Jewish woman told my father, “If I can’t save my own son, perhaps you can save your daughter.”

  There was no time for discussions, no time for other options, no time for other choices. My father decided that “becoming” Mrs. Tarasiuk’s illegitimate daughter was the best and only choice.

  And so I left the ghetto for good in October 1942. I became Alicja Szumlanska, the illegitimate daughter of Janina Szumlanska Tarasiukowa. Alicja’s birth certificate now became mine.

  Moving in and then living with Tarasiukowa as her illegitimate child, we planned our strategy very carefully. It was decided that the family would move into an apartment in a totally new section of Lwów, where no one knew us. The family consisted of me, Janina, two teen-aged boys, Jurek and Zdzich, four-year-old Cesia, and baby Andrew. Apartments were in very short supply due to bombings and lack of building materials. But as the ghetto was being liquidated, the empty buildings became available to the Christian population, while the wall surrounding the ghetto became tighter and tighter for those Jews still alive.

  While Janina desperately looked for new living quarters, I stayed in her tiny apartment, hiding by day in a wooden wardrobe. She feared that if any of her friends, acquaintances, or neighbors should by some chance drop in to “visit,” (not that people did much visiting in those days), they might find me not fitting in that scenario. Being savvy and street smart, Jurek and Zdzich knew that I was Jewish, and that I was supposed to be their illegitimate sister. Janina was sure that they would never be caught spilling the beans. Besides, they understood that my father was paying their mother to hide me, making it possible to keep from starving and put food on the table. Cesia, my little sister, had been told that I was her older sister who had bee
n living with relatives in Krakow, but I had come back to help my family.

  Our new apartment was located on the outskirts of the ghetto. It was a building that had perhaps twenty or more apartments and was filled with new Polish families. Janina quickly found a job in a meat factory, while I stayed home to take care of the baby, cook family meals, do the laundry and cleaning. I had no spare time, certainly no time for socializing with other girls, thus making sure that I got to know very few neighbors. I tried to have as little contact with other families as possible.

  Having been an only child, I knew little of dealing with siblings and less about caring for a baby. I had to learn quickly and use common sense, since nothing was easy to obtain in those times; everything was in short supply. One made diapers out of a spare bed sheet, and when they were soiled, they were not thrown out but were washed, boiled, and hung on a line to dry. I had to use my imagination to take whatever food was available and concoct it into a mushy, palatable meal baby Andrew could swallow, something nourishing, or else he’d cry.

  Young “Alice” had to learn fast, because my new mother, Janina, could not tolerate my mistakes. She really was a mean, greedy woman, demanding and impatient, though she needed me almost as much as I needed her. I had no choice but to obey her.8

  In late 1943, a stranger arrived at our door. It was Kazimierz Tarasiuk, Janina’s estranged husband, who had been released from a German prison, having been captured by the Nazis while serving in the Polish army. Janina had been separated from him before the war, because there was no divorce among the Catholics. Having returned to Poland, he wanted to see his children, and, frankly, he had no other place to stay. His children were three years older since he’d last seen them. Additionally, there were two strangers in Tarasiukowa’s apartment: a Jewish girl pretending to be Janina’s illegitimate child and baby Andrew, whose father was unknown to Mr. T.

  It was agreed, that Mr. T would tolerate me, let me stay as part of “his” family, and not report me to the police. He turned out to be a very decent, honest man, a true “mensch,” a much better human being than his wife. He also promised to adopt Andrew and give the baby his last name, providing that Janina would not see her lover again. She made the promise.

  Although my existence with Tarasiukowa seemed quite secure, there were instances that might have become dangerous.

  On one occasion, a nosy neighbor chatted with Janina in the corridor and remarked that I did not look at all like her. Such a comment was not an innocent remark. People were deeply suspicious then, and the neighbor may have suspected that I was a Jew living on false papers. Luckily, my “mother” had the presence of mind to reply to the neighbor that I resembled my father, and that Mr. T was not my father—a statement that put an end to the conversation.

  On another occasion, another neighbor or possibly the same neighbor made the comment to Janina that she’d watched me doing the washing. “Alicja wrings the laundry like a Jew,” she said, obviously insinuating that I was Jewish.

  Had the neighbor reported us and had her assumption been proven correct, she might have received a bottle of liquor, some chocolates, a loaf of bread, or a used army jacket for her efforts and following Nazi orders.

  After all, it would only have been a Jewish life for one of the wonderful prizes—and one fewer Jew to bother them, even if they didn’t know their victim.

  As Jews were eliminated constantly, ghetto borders got smaller and smaller. Poles moved into the dwellings, newly emptied of Jews. Thus after a few weeks, the Tarasiuk family, myself included, moved into an empty apartment in a different section of the city near the ghetto.

  Janina started me on a crash course in learning Catholic prayers, hymns, and holy days. I had to be well versed in prayers like The Hail Mary and The Lord’s Prayer, reciting the rosary, and many Polish saints, in case I were questioned or tricked by nosy people. I learned my lessons fast and well. I didn’t know a tenth about my Jewish religion as I knew about Catholicism, but I knew that Jesus was a Jew, a fact that was never mentioned. One could wake me up in the middle of the night and I’d be able to answer any Catholic questions or recite any prayers.

  Every so often, Tarasiukowa would send Jurek or Zdzich to the factory where my father worked to collect payment for my keeping. They were good kids, by and large, and quite trustworthy.

  Cesia, though, was more of a problem. Sometimes she’d hiss at me, saying that I was not her sister. If someone overheard her, it would be fatal for all of us. She was a mean child, and I had trouble handling her. I had to share a bed with her, which she wet every night, only to claim that I was the one who’d done it.

  I had to take care of everything—cooking, cleaning, washing laundry, and taking care of the baby. Because my housekeeping duties kept me very busy, I had no time to go out with other young girls, and that suited me just fine. Staying home was the safest place for me. And the neighbors believed that I had no time to go out or socialize.

  Janina was not a nice person. She took the few pieces of my mother’s clothing I was able to bring and fashioned an elegant outfit with a nutria collar for herself. She wore that outfit all through the war while my heart broke, seeing her wear it. She’d shout at me, scold me, curse me, and criticize me. She called me stupid and dumb. That kind of constant brainwashing was enough to make me despondent and more depressed. I sometimes wondered why I’d never been called stupid before I’d come to live with her. I lost confidence and became completely dependent on her. Even so, I was alone, friendless, with no one to talk to. I’d just lost my mother and had to behave like a normal, happy teenager, performing duties that were new to me. By trial and error, I had to find food that could be mashed and easy for the baby to eat, such as potatoes, carrots, and milk—if we were lucky to get it. Food was scarce then, and one had to use creativity. Soap was scant and of poor quality, so I had to use elbow grease to scrub laundry on a washboard with cold water, lugging heavy pails of water up three flights of steps. Every household chore was an undertaking, but I didn’t mind hard work and I learned fast. Even so, I lived in constant fear that someone would come to our apartment, someone I’d known under different circumstances, who would recognize me, and I’d be arrested.

  One day, Daddy sent instructions for me to come with one of my “brothers” to the factory. We met in a little room where no one could hear us; he told me that he had obtained false papers of a Volksdeutscher and that he’d rented a secret room on the “outside” where he would stay after the ghetto was liquidated. When he felt that the situation had calmed down, he planned to dress in lederhosen and a Tyrolean hat, go to the railroad station, buy a ticket, and board a train to Germany. Dressed that way with his Aryan looks and perfect German, he had a good chance of never being questioned and living in Germany until the war ended.

  Then he showed me a little white pill that he kept in his belt buckle—cyanide, the fastest acting poison. Daddy said that if he got caught, he wouldn’t let the Germans torture or kill him. He also told me he couldn’t write to me anymore, because it was too dangerous and getting mail would create questions and suspicion. During the war years, people didn’t write letters and receiving mail from other countries created curiosity and suspicion. He told me to be a good, brave girl and that we were going to see each other after the war. I hugged him and kissed him many times, and then I left the factory.

  When I first went to live with the Tarasiuk family, I received short letters from my father. I always destroyed the letters after I read them. One day, the letters and the money for Janina stopped coming; the news was that the ghetto had been completely liquidated. There was no more ghetto and no more Jews in Lwów.

  My life with Tarasiukowa was not only difficult because of food shortages and a scarcity of necessities but I was living with strangers, with whom I had nothing in common. I missed my father and mother so terribly.

  Our new apartment was located near the ghetto where Nazis were constantly rounding up Jews. Often during the day, I’d hide behind
a curtained window, watching as Jews were driven in trucks to be shot or transported to concentration camps. I watched SS commandos going to and from the ghetto. I hid from view and watched Jews being led to Piaski or to be gassed. I never discussed with the family what I saw through the window. I was living a constant lie. On some occasions, I saw groups of Jews led out of the ghetto, carrying bags and suitcases, headed to the railroad station that would take them, I later learned, to Bełżec. At that time, I thought that their carrying luggage gave them a glimmer of hope, and that perhaps, just perhaps, they would be resettled somewhere. Neighbors in our building talked about these activities like it was a normal occurrence. After every akcja, Poles would run to the empty apartments to plunder furniture, clothing, and valuables left behind by the Jewish families, whom the Nazis rushed from their rooms as quickly as possible. Poles and Ukrainians would sell their newly acquired loot on the black market, not in the least concerned about people who’d had to abandon their possessions and march off to their deaths.

  One day, Jurek or Zdzich brought back a comforter or pierzyna from an abandoned apartment. It was in great condition, large and light, full of goose down, but also full of lice. We had to throw it out because we had no way to disinfect bedding.

  Once in a while I had to leave the apartment in order to show the neighbors that I was just like any other teenager and needed to be out. Usually, I made a big production of my outing, making certain that neighbors saw me leaving the building. I always took Andrew with me in my arms. If I saw a familiar face in the street, I’d hide my face behind the baby’s. Often I went to church, the safest place to be, and after all, I was a good Catholic girl. I frequently suffered from nightmares. I grieved for my mother, crying quietly into the covers to hide my emotions. I did my best to behave like a normal teenager, as if I truly belonged to the family Tarasiuk.