After ensuring that all women were accounted for, Willy locked the entrance and motioned for them to follow him. He brought us down one more level, where the walls were covered with mold and moisture and tremendous pipes ran along the walls, wrapped in some sort of insulation. At the end of this labyrinth, was a former boiler room, which was no longer in use.
“Sit down by that wall,” Willy commanded. The women dutifully obeyed, a sea of frightened faces. “I know you think you will have it worse if you don’t return to the ghetto tonight but I assure you, if you do so, you will most definitely die. The Aktion will continue throughout the night. The SS have orders to liquidate all ghettos in all occupied Eastern territories. The order for the executive action was given to the heads of the Einsatzgruppen by Reichsführer Himmler himself, just two days ago. What it means for you is that only a handful of skilled workers will be left alive – for now. All women, children, the sick, and the elderly are subjects for immediate execution.”
A collective moan echoed through the room. Some jumped to their feet and tried to run past Willy and out of the cellar – half of the women had children in the orphanage and elderly relatives in the ghetto.
“Sit down!” In the narrow passage, he was shoving them back toward the wall until the situation threatened to get out of hand. Pulling his gun out, Willy pointed it at the nearest woman’s stomach. “Sit down and shut up this instant, I said!! Don’t you understand what’s going to happen if they hear us here? We’ll all get shot; is that what you want?!”
Suddenly, he didn’t look any better than them, his forehead glistening with a film of cold sweat. It wasn’t the gun or the dreaded uniform that produced the desired effect; it was the inhuman, desperate tone of his voice, which was just short of begging. For the first time, through the crack of the carefully erected façade of a confident officer, one of the masters of the world, fear showed itself and it terrified everyone around into submission better than any gun would. If the officer was afraid, the business was indeed serious.
“Please, sit down and keep quiet.” He passed his hand, with the gun still squeezed in it, across his forehead, suddenly looking very tired. “All of your relatives are already dead. Your Sonderghetto has been liquidated. There’s nothing that can be done about it now. You can’t help the dead; you can only help yourselves as of now. Please, stay put where you are. Give me a few hours, just till the morning… I’ll tell you when it’s safe to come out…”
He didn’t know what else to tell them and looked at me helplessly.
“Herr Leutnant is good friends with Sturmbannführer Bröger, the chief of the SD here, in Minsk,” I turned to the women. “Remember how we were all afraid that the SS would shoot us all as soon as the heating season was over? Herr Leutnant kept us alive, didn’t he? Now, he’ll help us again but he needs you to stay as quiet as mice down here, do you understand? He’s risking his own life hiding you all here; please, please, stay put and quiet until either of us comes down here and lets you out. We’ll try to bring you food and water when it’s safe. My own sisters are among you – we’ll never just abandon you but please, stay quiet while Herr Leutnant is working things out with Sturmbannführer Bröger, will you?”
They murmured their agreement. Most still cried softly. In the corner, Liza was biting her nails to the quick.
“Do you know anything about the Judenrat?” she asked Willy, in a straightforward manner. She also couldn’t take the uncertainty any longer.
He gave her a pained look. Why are you asking?
“They executed Elder Yoffe; that’s all I know. The SS wanted him to assure the people that it was safe to board the trucks which they had brought into the ghetto and he instead told the people to run and hide. The SS shot him on the spot. I don’t know about the rest. Weinstein is alive though.”
“Of course, he is. Collaborating pig!” Liza spat out.
“If I find out anything tomorrow, Ilse will tell you the news.” He softened his tone, sensing her pain.
Liza smiled bravely at him. “Thank you, Herr Leutnant. Forgive me for the outburst. The nerves…”
He nodded his understanding.
“I’ll lock you here. Please, be as quiet as possible,” he asked them once again instead of a goodbye.
I kissed my sisters and Liza before following him outside.
“I can lock you here as well, if you think it to be safer than upstairs, in my office,” he suggested, fumbling with the keys.
“No. I feel safer with you.”
He brushed my cheek with infinite tenderness before turning the key in the lock.
“Thank you, Willy.” In the meager light of the cellar, he suddenly seemed aged by ten more years, only the eyes shone brightly, blue with the steel of resolution, just barely tinted with a shade of fear. “I know what it will mean for you if they find them.”
“They won’t find them.”
I didn’t know who he was trying to persuade more, himself or me.
“They will kill you if they find them.”
“It’s my life to live and my life to lose.” He cupped my cheek once again. “Be brave now, Liebchen. We have to hope for the best.”
With tears of gratitude, I nodded and kissed the hand which granted me life, which granted all of us lives – for a few days perhaps and probably, at the price of his own.
Chapter Eighteen
The shooting continued throughout the night. Tracer bullets were visible if we stood close enough to the window – the SS were shooting from their positions on the roofs, from watchtowers, at the unfortunates who crawled out of their hiding places hoping for the cover of the night. An animalistic, drunken howling of the Black Police pogromshiks drowned in the bloodcurdling screams of their victims – we could hear it all even through the tightly shut windows, streets away from the massacre itself.
We sat, fully dressed, on the bed with our backs against the wall, a half-empty bottle of schnapps between us. It was impossible to sleep just like it was impossible to get drunk that night. No alcohol in the world would be enough to silence that orgy of death outside.
I put the neck of the bottle to my lips but couldn’t take another swig. I put it back, searching for his hand in the darkness instead.
“Talk to me, Willy.”
“What about?”
“Anything. Tell me about your childhood.”
He was quiet for some time, gathering his thoughts. It was difficult to concentrate on anything but the carnage outside. “Let’s see. I was born on September 3rd, 1899, much to my father’s delight. He’d already had three daughters by then and had all but given up hope that he’d have a son. Not that he didn’t adore them; if anything, I’d say they got away with mischief for which he usually administered me a veritable thrashing.” He smiled fondly at the memories. “He was a career officer, so I believe he only wanted a son so that he could discipline at least someone in his family. My mother, however, ruined even that idea for him; whenever I was caught at any mischief, she always took my side and my father loved her too much to insist on punishing me when she would ask him not to.”
“Did he serve in the Great War, your father?”
“He did and in the war of 1870 before that. I lucked out on the Great War’s account though. As soon as my infantry training finished as a new conscript, the Armistice was signed. I didn’t see any fighting at all. Only what happened later.” His voice took a different tone.
“Was it difficult for your family after the war?” I asked carefully.
He considered for some time before replying. “It wasn’t all that bad, I suppose. That is, it was worse for the others. Much worse. My father was fortunate enough to secure himself a position as a policeman through an old comrade and we weren’t starving at least. I was studying and doing odd jobs whenever I could. You don’t remember the twenties, I suppose? You were just a baby then.”
I shook my head with a smile. “No, I don’t. I remember starting from ’26 or ’27 and then it was already all
right. Besides, when you’re a child, you don’t really notice those things. Your head is full of air when you’re young and all you want to know is fun and games. Besides, we lived in a very small town surrounded by farmlands. My parents were grocers, so we never starved.”
“Small towns fared better than big cities. That much is true.”
“When did you decide to join the Party?”
I didn’t want to ask him that, yet I did. It was one of those truths that one better face, no matter how hurtful it may be.
“When I was told that the position of a customs inspector which I was eyeing was for the Party members only,” he explained almost apologetically. “It was 1933. Hitler had just come to power and they began securing it all starting with the government and on down. The customs department was on the priority list. I didn’t think it to be a big deal back then. I didn’t care one way or another about politics, you see. All I knew was that I was engaged to Hedwig and I needed a job to provide for us both. She had expensive tastes.” Another apologetic grin.
It was the first time we spoke openly about both – the Party and Hedwig.
“Women will be the downfall of you, Willy Schultz.” I nudged him with my shoulder in jest. Gallows humor, it surely was but he obliged me with a chuckle.
“So, it seems.” He circled his arm around me and pulled me even closer. “Tell me about your childhood now.”
“There’s not much to tell. I was born in Nidda in 1923, the middle sister of three but that much you already know. My parents were grocers and my best friend’s name was Ursula Bosch. Usch Bosch, she was called and she was a tough sort. She was very tall, taller than me even and very athletic.” I paused at the memory. “She was one of the few girls who still remained friends with me after 1935 and she would beat anyone who would be daft enough to tease my sisters or me in front of her, be it boys or girls.” Catching a blank stare from Willy, I specified. “The Nuremberg Laws. After they came into effect, we realized for the first time that we were actually Jewish, different from Aryan Germans. Before, we thought we were all the same. My family wasn’t religious at all; if anything, we even had a tree put up for Christmas every year. Though, it didn’t matter in the end. You probably didn’t pay much attention to any of that.”
“Not really,” he admitted, looking pensive. “I suppose one doesn’t pay attention to the matters that don’t concern them personally.”
“It wasn’t all too bad at first. We only had SA soldiers gluing papers to our store window from time to time, which we weren’t allowed to rip off under the punishment of imprisonment. You know, those posters that said ‘Jewish-owned business; don’t shop here’ and everything else to that effect.”
“There were plenty of those in Dresden as well.”
“Yes. People didn’t particularly care though; we always had the freshest produce and my parents were hospitable people and never denied anyone credit. So, people still shopped in our store till the SA destroyed it in 1938.”
“The Kristallnacht?”
“Yes. How was it in Dresden?”
“People thought the war had started. Then, Goebbels addressed the nation and reassured us that we had nothing to fear.” He paused before adding softly, “And that the Jews would have to pay for all the damage they caused.”
“Ironic, isn’t it?”
Willy sat quietly for a few moments.
“Why didn’t you emigrate after that?” he asked.
“We didn’t have any money. Only enough to move to Frankfurt. There, Lily and I worked as maids and later, in the factory. You know that part of the story.”
I looked at him. He sat in the darkness, with his brows knitted tightly together, as though trying to grasp something, to understand the inconceivable, to pinpoint the moment when everything suddenly got out of control and the point of no return was officially passed by both sides – the future murderers and their victims. The new Reich sorted us into two kinds and now he suddenly found himself among those who held an ax above our miserable heads.
“Don’t blame yourself for anything,” I answered his unspoken pleas. “You couldn’t have possibly known where all this would lead you, in the end.”
“Do you know what interested me the most in 1938?” He spoke at length. “How wonderful the new autobahn was because I had just bought a new car and loved taking it to the countryside, to take my jacket and tie off and drive as fast as possible along that endless road. Another big problem was where to go for summer because Hedwig wished to go on a cruise in the Mediterranean and I wanted to go to the Baltic Sea. I let her have her way after all and spent all two weeks cursing myself and her because it was hot and humid like in a sauna and I can’t tolerate the heat. Then, one of my sisters had her fourth child and named him after me – felt sorry for me most certainly. I always loved children yet didn’t have any myself. And so, I was rather too preoccupied with being a spoiling uncle to notice that the world was ending for certain people around me and I hadn’t the faintest idea. Not even that; we preferred not to see it. Businesses closed, then reopened under a new name; people just disappeared – our own neighbors sometimes. We shrugged it off and preferred to think that they moved to a different city or a different country perhaps. The genocide was starting under our noses, yet we thoroughly pretended that we didn’t smell anything. How terrifying it is, Ilse! How positively terrifying!”
It was, the way it started and the way it was ending now – in the massacre right outside our windows.
At dawn, silence at last. It was only interrupted by the odd crackling of automatic rifles – the SS was finishing off whoever survived the night in their hiding places. Unshaven, with bloodshot eyes and wrinkled uniform, Willy motioned for me to follow him downstairs. The building was deserted still – the officers never bothered waking earlier than seven.
One step at a time, we were making our way to the cellar. After talking the entire affair through last night, Willy came to the conclusion that there was no explaining – neither to Bröger nor to anyone else for that matter – what he had done. There was only facing him directly and taking the gamble.
“Aren’t you afraid?” I took his hand. Today, it was warm and steady.
“I’ve been allowing them to intimidate me for too long,” he spoke with calm resignation in his voice. “A seventeen-year-old girl – Masha Bruskina – I still remember her name, a Jewish partisan, wasn’t afraid of them when she stepped on the gallows. I had just arrived in Minsk and the first thing I saw was three teenagers, two young men and a young girl, being led through the street with placards around their necks: ‘We are the partisans who shot at German troops.’ My staff car couldn’t pass through the thick crowd and the driver stopped right across the street from the Minsk Kristall, a distillery plant in front of which the gallows had been erected. My first day in the city and I was watching an execution. Do you know what stunned me the most though? The girl’s face, calm as it could be, as though it wasn’t her neck that was being put in the noose. She wasn’t afraid and I couldn’t understand it back then. We had been taught to live with this fear, to constantly watch ourselves, what we do, what we say, just not to end up like her. I thought her to be mad then; now, I think of her as a hero. If more of us refused to be intimidated by them, this all wouldn’t have happened. So, no, Ilschen, I’m not afraid. If Bröger shoots me, let him. I’d rather die than continue living like a coward.”
Down in the cellar, the women looked as though they hadn’t slept at all, eyes red and weary, hair and clothes in disarray. Without saying as much as a good morning, Willy motioned them silently after himself and headed for the same exit through which he’d let them in the day before. Liza, an irreplaceable leader in front of the column, hesitated before coming out.
“What do we do now?” she asked Willy.
“We walk out and act as if we belong there,” he replied simply.
He led the brigade himself to their usual working place in front of the building and waved them to the flow
erbeds. “Well? What are you waiting for? Go ahead, pick up your tools and get to it. There’s still time for you to use the facilities and wash up before everyone wakes up but as soon as they do, you all must be right here, where I can see you.”
Stumbling and unsure, the women spread out among the flowers, digging aimlessly, with trembling hands, into the earth. After observing them for some time, Willy lowered to the ground and leaned against the building’s wall. His eyes were closing; he dug the heels of his palms into them and rubbed them vigorously. I stood next to him, deadly tired yet inexplicably alert.
The first people appeared in the street. The first officers made their way through the carefully organized pathways framed by blossoming flowers, hurrying to a neighboring building with a report. Willy straightened out and watched them, like a hawk, with his hands clasped behind his back. The blue-clad ones from the Luftwaffe saluted him and shook their heads while rolling their eyes emphatically as they passed us by. What a damnable night! Blasted SS and their Aktion! I barely slept an hour, their annoyed expressions read. The gray-clad ones from the SD were still curiously absent, most likely either busy planning yet another massacre or sleeping off the previous one.
By lunchtime, Sturmbannführer Bröger stepped out of the staff car, scowled at the brigade incomprehensibly and made his way toward us, still standing at our post.
“Heil Hitler, Schultz.”
“Heil Hitler, Sturmbannführer.”
“Where did these come from?” A nod in the women’s direction.
“You gave an order yesterday not to let any working brigades back into the ghetto until you’re finished there and there were no more trucks left to transport them to your special camp,” Willy answered. “I only followed your orders.”
“Those orders were for factory workers and suchlike.” Bröger grinned.
The Girl Who Survived: Based on a true story, an utterly unputdownable and heart-wrenching World War 2 page-turner Page 17
