The Girl Who Survived: Based on a true story, an utterly unputdownable and heart-wrenching World War 2 page-turner

by Ellie Midwood

  “I don’t speak Russian, or Byelorussian, for that matter,” she interrupted me at once. “I’ll never last there, in Minsk.”

  “We took that into account, don’t worry. We’ll place you together with an ethnic German family; they work with the underground as well and already agreed to it. They all speak German among themselves. The accent is different but you’ll just have to pick it up, practice a lot and try and speak like them. Back home, you used to mock Berliners so well; do you remember? I think you won’t have any trouble with picking up the ethnic Germans’ speech manner. As for your workshop, they’ll take care of it as well. The usual routine; you fell ill, you died of typhus. Dr. Kulik will sign your death certificate. The Housing Department will remove your name from the list. They’ve done it many times before; the system works, fear not. They won’t punish us because of you.”

  Lore considered for a very long time. “That’s why the dress?”

  “Yes. I’ll get you good shoes, too, in a couple of days. Maybe stockings, if Rivka’s connection comes through.”

  Lore only smiled and covered my hand with hers. “No need to bother, Ilse. I won’t go.”

  I had just begun protesting but to all of my protests she just sat there and looked at me with those infinitely blue Mutti’s eyes and smiled serenely until I finally realized that she wouldn’t be persuaded or frightened or threatened into escaping.

  “I’m not leaving you two here,” she said; a young woman, not a child any longer. “We’re all getting out of here, or we’re all dying here. I don’t see how I’d be able to live with myself if I survive and you two perish. No, Ilse, that just won’t do. I’m sure you feel the same. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have bought this dress.”

  That night, I went to tell Rivka not to worry about the documents for Lore and make them out for some small child instead, the one who couldn’t talk yet. The orphanage was overflowing with them; certainly, she’d find a proper candidate with ease.

  Liza met me at our usual “exit” and helped me pin their Soviet, empty yellow star to cover my German, with the word “Jude” in the middle, with it. Enough for patrols if they happen to cross our path.

  “Let’s hurry.” She put her arm through the crook of mine, leading me hastily away from the Sonderghetto’s side. “It looks like it’s going to rain. You don’t want to get caught in that nasty business; not in March, you don’t.”

  “Lore’s not going,” I informed her, missing a step in the dark.

  “Watch it.” She pulled me closer. “Don’t ruin your boots. If that sole comes off, you’ve had it. I don’t know about Germany but here in Byelorussia, the snow lies throughout the entirety of April at times. I doubt Schultz has a suitable pair of boots for you.”

  I left her friendly jest without comment. I suddenly couldn’t joke about him with the same ironic ease as before. It wasn’t Rivka who helped me get that dress; it was his doing, wherever he got it from and what tales he told the maker, I didn’t even ask him; I wouldn’t dare do something of that sort. I merely mentioned that Lore’s birthday was coming up and thanked him once again for the sardines he kept supplying us with daily and which we could trade for some flour and margarine and make a first-rate cake for her, thanks to his generosity. His eyes lit up; he was now asking me if she wore the same size as I did. I thought it odd but nodded my affirmation. Most of us wore the same size now – size 42, half-starved, half-worked to death. A week later, he presented me with this plaid masterpiece, lace, and good quality wool and the hem with some extra material, since Lore was still growing. I lost all faculty of speech. Schultz only smiled a bit embarrassingly. He knew all about what teenage girls liked for presents, he explained; he grew up with three of them.

  After that day, he had forever ceased to be a joking matter, a sentimentalist. He had become something entirely different but what precisely, that I was still yet to understand.

  “Did you hear what I said about Lore?”

  “Yes, I did. I thought she wouldn’t go but didn’t want to discourage you.”

  “Why did you think she wouldn’t go?”

  “Would you go?”

  I didn’t answer anything for a while. White clouds of vapor from our mouths shimmered against the yellow sickle of the moon. We crossed Komsomolskaya Street and strode resolutely towards Rivka’s quarters. “No. I wouldn’t go anywhere without them both.”

  “Rivka didn’t go either. She could have run together with her father when the whole affair had just broken out and there was a chance to escape the city. But she refused to leave her little Yasha and mother.”

  “Yes, I know. She told me.”

  “She trusts you.”

  “I hope so.”

  “I trust you too. Even though you sound mighty like the SS when you start yelling at the brigade to move faster.”

  I nudged her with my elbow in mock offense. She laughed, her white teeth gleaming in the darkness.

  Suddenly, as soon as we turned the familiar corner, the flood of light from the powerful flashlight – only the SS and the Gestapo had those – hit us in the face. Instantly blinded, I shielded my face with my hand, which was unceremoniously yanked down by someone with a submachine gun. Its muzzle was now prodding my stomach even through layers of a coat and two sweaters underneath. The flashlight lowered to my chest, in which my heart was beating itself with brutal force against my ribcage.

  “You two live here? Which floor? Apartment number?”

  I opened my mouth and slowly closed it again, feverishly trying to conjure up some Yiddish words. Nothing came to my mind with the best will in the world.

  “We’re further along the street, Herr Offizier.” Thankfully, Liza was already shoving her papers under the light of his electric torch, jabbing her finger at the house number. “That house over there on the corner is ours. It’s only six-thirty, Herr Offizier; we didn’t break the curfew, did we?”

  “Slow down with your jawing! I don’t understand your gibberish!”

  They understood everything all right, just never missed a chance to mock the locals’ language. Liza diligently repeated everything as slowly as possible.

  Someone pulled the front door open and the street was once again flooded in the light coming from the staircase. I instinctively shied away from two men in civilian clothes, who carried a body out, then – a second one, a child’s lifeless form. I recognized Yasha’s face. After that, Rivka’s turn came. Next to me, Liza clasped my wrist; her hand was trembling as well. My flesh crept with the dreadful realization that had we come twenty minutes earlier, our bodies would be lying here in the snow as well, riddled with bullets.

  They appeared to have forgotten all about us as they counted bodies laid out in the snow next to each other – nine overall. I didn’t see Boris among them. Soon enough, we learned the reason for it.

  “Do you know this man?” The same hand, which shone a torchlight in our faces, now held a picture to our eyes. Familiar, brooding features came into focus. It was him all right, Boris Makarsky, an unofficial leader of the Minsk ghetto underground.

  I took enough time to look at it and then shook my head slowly, in obvious disappointment. Liza nodded hers though, with enthusiasm.

  “He’s from the Judenrat. I’ve seen him there a few times. Don’t know the name though.”

  “Have you seen him around here? While you were walking here?”

  “No, it was quiet, Herr Offizier. We didn’t see anyone. It’s almost curfew; everyone’s at home by now…”

  “As you should be.”

  “Allow us to go?”

  “Yes, get lost.”

  In front of Liza’s apartment’s door, we held each other by the forearms, trembling like two rabbits surrounded by bloodhounds. A ceaseless torrent of frantic whispers followed; we didn’t hear each other, muttered something incoherently until someone opened the door downstairs and she quickly pulled me inside her apartment and shut the door after herself.

  It took us a while to calm d
own. It took even longer to process it all; dead Rivka, her mother, her son, Styopka-Kaznachey, Eli, Zyama, Abram… we couldn’t make out who else was among them.

  “Not Boris, though.”

  “No. Must have escaped. Ilse, stay with us tonight. You can’t possibly risk going back.”

  I shook my head. I had to risk it. “What if the midnight check happens and I’m not there?”

  We both knew all too well what it would mean for the rest, not just my sisters.

  “I’ll walk you back then. In a couple of hours. Even the Gestapo must go to sleep.”

  When, three hours later, she lifted the barbed wire at the place of my “exit,” I caught her whisper, barely audible in the wind. “Who do you think betrayed us, Ilse?”

  I looked at her, suddenly frozen in between two sides. “You don’t think it was me, do you?”

  Her remark about the SS was reverberating through my memory like some demented echo. I was the only outsider in their underground group. I was the only one who had enough sardines to spare; the German Jew and therefore, half-enemy, guilty by association.

  “No,” she answered at last. “I don’t think you would risk it.”

  I scowled. She shrugged with a small smile. “You know what they do to the traitors. War-time justice and all. If you were alone, it would have been an entirely different matter. You wouldn’t risk them going after your sisters though. Don’t worry, I’ll tell them that when Boris asks me about you. I know he will. Don’t fret. He’ll find the perpetrator eventually. And then, who knows? Maybe there wasn’t any perpetrator in the first place.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  She gave a shrug. “I mean, it could have been one of Styopka’s people who the Germans caught in the forest. They roughed him up, then promised to spare his life if he told them who brought him to the forest. He’d tell them all about Styopka and Rivka and Boris and what not, as long as they weren’t kicking him about with steel-lined boots any longer. We all like to think that we’re brave when it comes to such matters, but… have you ever been beaten? Really beaten?”

  I shook my head slowly. A couple of whacks on the back didn’t count as beating in this place. She meant the Gestapo and their beatings didn’t come close to the half-hearted slaps the SS awarded us here from time to time.

  “Neither have I. And to be completely honest with you, I don’t know if I’d keep quiet.”

  “You would.”

  “I wish I had your conviction.”

  “You would,” I repeated. “You have the requirements for it. You were raised to believe in a greater cause, in the sacrifice of one person for the sake of the others. When the time comes, you’ll see for yourself what I mean.”

  She only smiled at me pensively.

  Superintendent Richter stalked along the column, observing us from under the rim of his cap’s visor. April was approaching and the sun stood high, casting a shadow on his face. I don’t think anyone had ever seen him without that cap and therefore we only knew what the lower part of his face looked like; pale cheeks, sharp jawline, thin lips, either pinched tightly or shouting orders for yet another massacre. It could have been a massacre, today. A fine way to start a Sunday morning, in the SS men’s eyes that is.

  He stopped at last; lifted his gloved hand, calling for silence. Not that it wasn’t silent before. He merely wished us to stop breathing, no less; some of us did hold their breaths, against their own will.

  Superintendent began to speak.

  “You must be wondering why I’ve gathered all of you here today, both German Jews and the Ostjuden.” A long, meaningful pause. Except for the birds, screaming wildly overhead, the silence was perfect. We were awaiting our verdict. “The first announcement I’d like to make is the following; there will be no more pogroms, so you have nothing to fear. Except for individual types of Aktionen, during which we’ll be weeding out criminal elements from your midst, the SS won’t conduct any other kinds of operations.”

  Someone from the Ordnungsdienst, the ghetto police, began clapping enthusiastically – a habit from Soviet meetings, no doubt – but quickly ceased and pulled his head as far into his shoulders as he could. An SS man shifted a submachine gun on his shoulder and cast an inquisitive glance in his superior’s direction. Superintendent Richter waved him off with languid grace. He was feeling generous with us today.

  “As I said, there will be no more pogroms. However, in return, I expect something from you and that something is cooperation. You will cooperate not only with the new members of the Judenrat, yes, the ones appointed to the executed traitors’ positions but you will also cooperate with the Gestapo agents in their search for the criminal elements, as well as your local ghetto police. We have beheaded your underground; soon, we’ll finish off the lowest ranks. It would be in your interest to aid us in this task. Whoever makes an anonymous report and helps us uncover the remaining criminal elements, will be generously rewarded.”

  With a bullet in the head, I mentally finished for Richter. He was wrong on one account; they didn’t “behead” anything. Yes, they executed a few members, a liaison with the Russian side, her son and elderly mother, but they still had neither Boris nor even Efim, the underground printer and they knew it. Yesterday, they issued an ultimatum that the residents of the ghetto must turn at least Boris in; otherwise, they’d execute the entire Judenrat (with the exception of their newly appointed people, of course). People hesitated, exchanged hushed remarks, but Boris was still missing, carefully concealed somewhere under the Gestapo’s very noses.

  “And do yourselves a favor and forget thinking about running off to your forest friends.” Richter meant partisans, no doubt. His mouth twitched in disgust as he spat out the last two words. “All that agitprop from your so-called leaders is nothing but empty promises. They tell you what suits them. I’ll tell you the truth, no one waits for you on the other side. No one wants you there. Are you aware of all the instances where your praised partisans scorned and laughed at your miserable lot that showed up in the forest? If they made it that far, that is. Sometimes, your Military Counsel, which used to work in the city – yes, used to as we have eliminated nearly all of them in the course of the past two weeks – used to purposely send your people in a false direction so that they’d fall into our hands, instead of making it safely to the forest. That much your underground leaders didn’t tell you, I bet.”

  He snapped his fingers, and a disheveled man was instantly produced in front of us, framed by two SS men towering over him. He stood, stooped and trembling, twisting his cap in his hand. Faint yellowish bruises were still visible on his face, but apart from that, he appeared to be unharmed.

  “Tell them what the people from the Military Counsel told you,” Richter commanded.

  The man cleared his throat, threw an anxious gaze at the crowd in front of him. “They told me that the partisans didn’t want us among them. They said, Jews make miserable and cowardly fighters and are only a liability in a partisan war. They said they’d rather work on ‘liberating’ their own Red Army POWs from the camps for them to join the ranks than bother with the Jews.”

  The hard mouth curled upward in satisfaction. Richter seemed pleased with what he’d heard. “Well? Now that one of your own kind has told you the truth, do you finally believe it? We are not your enemy. We provide you with work, food, and shelter. Outside, you’ll die. Cooperate with us and you’ll live. You may join your people now.” He motioned to the man with the cap. “So that next time anyone wants to open their mouth and accuse the SS of their violent behavior, you’ll remind them how it was the SS that granted you your life, not the partisans and certainly not the communists.”

  Richter turned sharply on his heel. The music began blasting at once, “Blue Danube”, almost offensive in its unsuitable sentimentality. The SS stayed and made sure we listened to it to the end.

  Chapter Eleven

  April 1942

  “Do you think the partisans really don’t wish to acc
ept us?”

  I had this conversation a day ago, with Liza. But Liza was Jewish, just like me. I wanted to ask for a German’s opinion.

  Schultz smeared a fat layer of butter on top of the bread and added an even fatter one of jam to it. It was dripping onto the plate as I accepted it into my hands. Our breakfasts had become a usual morning routine by now and he had all but persuaded me and quite chivalrously at that, that I was doing him a huge favor – oh no, it was not charity at all; he really did detest eating alone.

  “No. I think the SS want you to stay put where you are, that’s all,” he replied calmly.

  “Because they still need us as workers?”

  “That and also because once a ghetto Jew escapes into the forest, he becomes a partisan. And they fear those worse than the plague.”

  “Do you think Superintendent Richter will go through with his threat concerning the Judenrat? Will he really shoot them all and all because of Boris?”

  “They have just executed over five thousand people. What do you think?”

  “What would you do if you knew where Boris was? Would you come forward? Just to save the others’ lives?”

  Schultz looked at me. “Do you know where Boris is hiding?”

  I shook my head. A few weeks ago, I wouldn’t even contemplate discussing anything of this sort with someone wearing a uniform. With Schultz, everything was somehow different. I trusted him, despite my better judgment but I did. It was my profound conviction that he wouldn’t betray me even if I said that I knew where Boris was.