Resistance

by Jennifer A. Nielsen

  “We can’t climb this.” She held out her wrapped wrist. “I can’t—”

  “I’m going to push you to the top, and then you’ve got to help me get up too.” She started to protest, but I added, “You’ve got to do it, Esther. I don’t care if it hurts.”

  I did care, but that couldn’t be an excuse. Not now. It wouldn’t be long before a soldier was sent to check on the prisoners. Including the one left outside to freeze in the winter air.

  I clasped my fingers together to boost her up. Then she grabbed on to the top of the brick wall with her good hand and gasped in pain as she braced herself with her injured arm.

  “I can’t, Chaya.”

  I’d already climbed as high as I could on my own, but I lifted my hand to hers. “Take it.” I wasn’t offering sympathy now, or even mercy. “Now, Esther!”

  She squirmed around until the weight of her body kept her balanced on top of the wall, and propped her wrapped arm in front of the brick. Then she reached down with her good hand and took mine. She wasn’t strong enough to lift me, and I worried that I’d pull her down instead. But she was pressing into the wall with her injured arm, although I heard her stifled yelp of pain as she did.

  I climbed as fast as I could, skinning my elbows on the brick as I dug in to find every possible grip with my other hand. Then I reached the top of the wall and hoisted myself over. As soon as I let go of her, she let go of the wall and fell to the ground.

  “Esther!”

  I jumped down and found her on her back, clutching her injured arm against her chest. The bandage on her wrist had become twisted and was probably useless now. Wrapping my arms around her, I pulled her to her feet and led her down a side street. That was where I’d left the bike.

  It wouldn’t be a comfortable ride, but she could sit on the handlebars, keeping her balance with her good hand, if I drove carefully.

  Unfortunately, careful driving was not the priority. I needed to go fast, regardless of the pain it caused her.

  “I’m truly sorry,” I whispered. And then we were off. I pretended not to hear her gasps or pleas for me to slow down, and only pedaled faster. I had to.

  February 20, 1943

  Bolimowski Park

  Four separate times on our way out of town, we had to hurry off the bike to hide from Nazi vehicles that screamed past us, sirens blaring or with loudspeakers ordering every citizen into their homes. Every time we crouched in hiding, Esther began crying again, but I only scolded her, as sharply as I’d ever spoken to her before. It felt cruel to be so harsh—it was cruel—and I understood the tears, but we couldn’t allow anyone to hear it. After all we’d gone through, getting caught now was unacceptable.

  Finally, we were on the edge of town, and when I stopped in front of the snowman, Esther looked at me as if I’d gone crazy.

  “What are you … ? Oh.”

  By then, I’d kicked away at the snow, revealing our two bags, still intact, if a little more frozen.

  I started to sling her bag over my shoulder, but she said, “No, I can carry it.”

  “You’re hurt.”

  “My shoulder isn’t. Just help me.”

  So I did, remembering once again that Esther’s burden was every bit as heavy as mine. She was the one with the injury. She was the one who’d been kept in an open yard for a full day, tortured, terrorized, and almost certainly expecting to be dead by morning. Through all of that, according to the young soldier I met, she never told them a word.

  At the nearest crossroad, we abandoned the bicycle near a river. I tilted it visibly against a tree near the road. Then Esther and I planted tracks through the snow down to the river, suggesting we were moving in a direction leading away from Warsaw. I hoped that if we were followed, and we surely would be, this was where we’d part ways with the soldiers.

  I expected her to protest getting in the water. I saw how she was shivering already, and knew how chilled she must have been after so many hours outside. I hated that I had to make her do it anyway.

  And she seemed to understand that. With a flat voice nearly empty of emotion, she said, “I need help with my boots and socks.”

  I took mine off first, giving her as much time as possible before I knelt down and removed hers, tying the laces together for the boots to dangle from her shoulders. Then she followed me into the icy waters.

  It came up past my knees, but the cold enveloped me entirely, instantly sucking the breath from my lungs. I began shivering, and had taken only a few steps before my feet were too numb to feel the river rocks below. With every stumble and slip, I warned Esther to be careful, but seconds later, I’d slip again, making myself wet even above the water level. Ice seemed to have moved inside my veins, requiring more effort with each step. All I wanted was to give up this ridiculous plan and return to land, but it wasn’t safe. Not yet. I tried to tell Esther it’d be okay, but my teeth were chattering, and I couldn’t form the words.

  And maybe it wouldn’t be okay, because we had a lot farther to go until I was sure they’d have quit tracking us. Every time I looked for an exit point, I saw where we’d leave footprints in the snow, or crush the first tender grass blades of the new season, or drip onto rock. We couldn’t get out until I was sure we were far enough away.

  A few minutes later, Esther mumbled, “P-p-please, Ch-chaya.”

  I glanced back and her lips were almost blue. I suspected mine were the same. Whether they’d follow us this far or not, we had to get out now, or we never would.

  I stepped onto a frozen bank and helped her from the water, where we stood on a fallen tree branch to let our feet dry. While they did, I pulled her toward me, holding her in the same way my mother used to hold me when I’d wake up from nightmares.

  Esther had spent the past day living a nightmare, no doubt. I folded one hand around her back and with the other, I brushed her hair, letting her bury her head against my shoulder. She sniffed, drew in a sharp breath, then began sobbing. This time, I didn’t stop her.

  “Think of warm things,” I whispered after a few minutes. “Apple tea, fresh-baked bread. Matzo ball soup.”

  “Warm baths,” she replied, calmer now. “Wool blankets. Reading with my family in the evenings in front of a fire.”

  That wasn’t what I’d meant for her to remember, and those same memories left me feeling emptier than before. But at least she wasn’t shivering as much.

  I took the boots from around her shoulders. “Your feet should be dry. The sooner we start walking, the sooner we get our blood moving again.”

  Walking might stave off the hypothermia. It might get us another few kilometers closer to Warsaw. It wouldn’t erase the last twenty-four hours from Esther’s mind. She wouldn’t look at me directly, and when I did catch her eyes, swollen and red from crying, a haunted glaze took over before she turned away and shuddered. I couldn’t begin to imagine what she’d gone through back there.

  Or worse … I could imagine it.

  We walked for a couple of hours, at a brisk pace to keep our blood moving. The road wound into a forested area, thick enough with trees that the moonlight became filtered with long, dark shadows. As quiet as it always was at night, this place made me feel closed in. My instinct to find routes for escape was stronger than usual.

  Maybe for good reason. Although the trees offered countless places to hide, the snow was deep around them. We’d never wade through it in time to dodge a passing car. Even if we did, we’d leave tracks.

  “Walking upriver won’t fool them for long.” Esther had clearly been sharing my thoughts. “We need to get out of here as soon as possible.”

  “The partisans hide in forests like these,” I said. “So the Germans avoid them. We’re safer here than we were before.”

  The first part was true. Poland was dotted with thick patches of forest, areas that the locals knew well. It was a natural hiding place for partisan fighters, and, I’d heard, even for members of the Polish army who continued to fight despite being abandoned by
their government.

  The second part was based on hope more than fact. I’d heard stories of German patrols who were ambushed in the forests, so I couldn’t imagine anyone relished orders to search the woods. But Esther was right that they would look for her—and whoever helped her to escape. Soldiers would be ordered in this direction.

  I tried to pick up the pace, but no matter how tired and cold I was, Esther was worse. She hadn’t stopped shivering all night, and she was holding her injured arm against her chest, bracing it with her good arm. The bandage that dangled from her wrist was useless, but she wouldn’t stop and take the time to let me rewrap it.

  “Want to talk about it?” My voice was gentle, urging her to talk.

  “No.”

  “I know you didn’t tell them anything,” I continued. “That must’ve made them angry.”

  “Angry?” She snorted. “Angry is where they started, before putting me in a dark room where everyone was yelling and if I looked away, someone slapped me or hit me to get my attention, and they were telling me what would happen if I didn’t talk. But I kept reminding myself that even if I did talk, they’d still hurt me, maybe even kill me. I really believed that, Chaya. I believed that I’d never get out of that room.”

  She went silent for a while, long enough that I wondered if I ought to say something. But I figured if it was me, I’d need time to work through all that had happened, at my own pace. So I stayed silent.

  Finally, she continued. “After an hour, I started to think that it’d be all right if they did kill me. Maybe it’d be better. Then they … did this.” She nodded at her arm. “It hurt so much that I screamed, loud enough to scare them. Suddenly, I wasn’t afraid anymore. I was the angry one, more than any of them. I said, ‘You want me to talk, then I’ll tell you this! The reason I ran away is because I have typhus and I didn’t want to infect anyone. But I’ll gladly infect all of you!’” Esther straightened her posture, clearly proud of herself. “Then I sneezed on them. A big, wet, slobbering sneeze.”

  I respected the courage it must have taken to do that, and the cleverness for having thought of it in the first place. No doubt that had ended the questioning. “That’s when they brought you outside?”

  She went quiet again, and I didn’t think she’d say anything more. Then, in a whisper, “One of the Gestapo raised his gun and I closed my eyes for what was coming. I knew it was coming and that it’d hurt, but maybe not as much as the pain I was already in. I know that’s cowardly, Chaya, but it’s how I felt.”

  “Nothing you’re describing to me is cowardly.”

  She sniffed, then added, “Someone told him something in German. I couldn’t understand it, but he hit me with his gun and I realized he’d been ordered not to shoot. I sneezed again and again until I could see them getting nervous. Finally, they ordered me to be tied up outside while they figured out what to do next. I knew that I had to be patient out there, and not fall asleep in the cold. And I knew that you’d come.”

  “I would have come sooner, if I could have.”

  “But you did come.” With her good hand, she squeezed mine. “And at least it’s over.”

  I kept hold of her hand, to warm her frozen fingers, to offer what comfort I could. In the gentlest way possible, I said, “It’s not over, Esther. We still have to get to Warsaw.”

  She must have forgotten that, because her shoulders slumped and she shook her head. “I don’t want to go anymore. I can’t.”

  We stopped walking and I turned to her, wishing I could take her pain away. “It’s all right, you’ve done enough. I’ll find a safe house for you in the next town, a place where you can stay until this war is over. Do you still have the package they wanted you to deliver? Give it to me. I’ll get it there safely.”

  She nodded and a single tear rolled down her cheek. Then she swallowed her emotions and looked up at me. “I have to be the one to deliver it. I promised I would, and I’ll keep that promise.”

  “Then I’ll keep my promise too,” I replied. “I’ll get us to Warsaw.”

  Her eyes brightened a little. “I’m glad you were the one chosen for this mission.”

  I smiled back at her, surprised to hear my own answer. “Me too. I’m glad it was me.”

  February 20, 1943

  Bolimowski Park

  No matter how tired we had become, the night crawled on, as endless as this road, yet there hadn’t been a single place safe enough to stop and rest. With no shelter and such deep snow, I worried that eventually we’d lean against a tree, promising ourselves not to sleep, and never open our eyes again.

  Hoping it would keep us going, I turned on the radio, keeping the volume as low as possible. Since it was after midnight, it played mostly popular German music, although the upbeat songs were interspersed with newsbreaks.

  The Germans claimed a major victory over the Americans in Tunisia. I vaguely knew where Tunisia was, and I didn’t particularly care. Why couldn’t they report any losses, just once?

  During the next newsbreak, we learned that a high-ranking Nazi named Joseph Goebbels called for “total war” against the Allies. Esther looked over at me and frowned. “What does he think has been happening for the past two and a half years?”

  I held her thoughts inside me for some time. If the Nazis had been holding back on their full power, then I couldn’t imagine what total war would look like. That bothered me far more than I could ever let on, but it left my stomach in knots.

  As the first hints of dawn finally began to peek through the trees, a new announcement came over the radio. “Amon Goeth has been assigned as commandant of a new labor camp now under construction in Krakow.” My ears pricked up. I’d heard that name before, associated with other concentration camps in Poland. This man had been trained in death, trained in murder, and if he was being sent to this new camp, then he was one of their “best.”

  That was where my parents would undoubtedly be sent, as soon as the camp was completed.

  I snapped off the radio and we walked in silence until my thoughts were so flooded with images of my father and mother that I could hardly stand it anymore.

  It was a relief when Esther said, “We missed Shabbat last night.”

  “I was busy rescuing you last night.”

  “I’ve never missed a Sabbath before. Never.”

  “God will understand, Esther! He understands why we missed Shabbat, and why I wear the crucifix. He understands the gun inside my bag, and if I have to use it again, then I hope He will understand that too, because every single day, my first thought is how to keep us alive until I have the very same thought again the next day.”

  She fell silent, then said, “We’ll celebrate next week.”

  We might. I expected by then we’d be in Warsaw, possibly in a fight for our lives with the other resistance members. I hoped God would understand that too.

  “What would your plans have been if there had been no war?” I asked.

  Esther shrugged. “I would have wanted to get married, perhaps, in a few years. There was a boy who went to the same synagogue as me. He was handsome.” A beat passed, then, “He was sent to Belzec. I’m sure he’s gone by now.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  She looked over at me, barely able to keep her eyes open, yet the sadness registered clearly in them. “I can’t have hope for everyone, Chaya.”

  If this was a chance to find out more about her past, then I had to ask. “Who do you have hope for, then?” She looked away, tightening her lips. I added, “I hope to one day know for sure what happened to my brother. Even if it’s terrible, I need to know his fate.”

  She took that in with a quiet nod, but her thoughts had drifted away from me, until she said, “I had a brother too, once.”

  Had.

  Once.

  “Are they all gone?” I asked. “All your family?”

  “My brother fought in the Polish forces when the Germans attacked. As for my parents …” She drew in a tense breath. �
�The Nazis murder us many times over. They take our ability to worship properly—a spiritual death. They separate our families—another death there. They kill our dignity, our will to live, and finally they take our lives. The question isn’t whether my family is gone. It’s only a matter of how many deaths they’ve suffered so far.”

  After the effort she’d made to avoid discussing her family with me, she’d just revealed more than she might have intended. Sometime since the war began, Esther became separated from her family, but she did not know their fates. Just as I didn’t know about my brother.

  I thought of my parents again, trying to picture them on their wood crates in that apartment, side by side. I wanted to have hope for them, I really did. But I thought of the way Esther described the many deaths of our people. I wondered if my parents had suffered too many of them for their hearts to continue beating.

  “What about you?” Esther asked. “If there had been no war, what would you have done?”

  “I’d have tried to enroll in a university,” I said. “There is so much about the world I want to understand. I would have liked to spend the rest of my life learning.”

  “Maybe you still can, when this is over. What would you study?”

  I opened my mouth, but nothing came to mind. I wanted to answer, to tell her everything I could be if the world would only give me a chance. But for as hard as I thought, my mind remained empty.

  How could that be? I did have plans before the war, grand and ambitious plans, hopes and dreams that seemed too bold to be spoken aloud.

  And now, I couldn’t even think of a single specific subject I would want to study.

  Worse still, I knew why.

  It was because joining the resistance had required me to accept the likelihood of my death.

  Chances were that I wouldn’t survive this war. Which meant there was no point in making plans for the future, or even thinking about it.

  I spoke to Esther of hope for our loved ones, yet I didn’t even have hope for myself.