I should’ve been terrified at the sight of the bomber, its sights already fixed on us, perhaps on the very building on which I stood. But I felt no fear. If we required such a response from the Germans, then this in itself was a victory. Perhaps on our own, the resistance fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto could not get the attention of the world. But we’d certainly demanded the attention of the Nazis, and their response surely would be noticed by the Allies.
Not in time to save us, of course. But maybe we’d prove to the world that the Germans could be defeated, that this war could be won.
Yitzchak bundled up our few remaining weapons while I took Esther’s hand to ensure we stayed together along the way. We hurried down the stairs, now on a race against a weapon that could flatten every building on this street.
It was obvious where the bomber would drop its load. We only had to look for where they were clearing the ghetto of Germans. Tamir directed us to find shelter in the bunkers as far from the north gate as possible.
But before we could join the others, Tamir grabbed Esther’s arm, nodding at the matchbook she was carrying. “I need that.”
“The matches?”
He cocked his head toward a warehouse behind us. “Nothing gets left behind for them to scavenge.”
Esther handed him the matches and then he ordered us to leave while he ran back into the fighting. We darted into the street, jumping over fallen bodies and debris, but I kept looking back until I saw a plume of black smoke rising where the warehouse had been. Judging by how fast the smoke was spreading, whatever was in that warehouse would be a total loss, a major blow to German supplies.
The Allies had done nothing for us, but Tamir had just done them a great service.
By then, the bomber had arrived over the ghetto. It was painted camouflage green with Nazi symbols on both wings, and trailed a thin line of smoke. I hoped we’d guessed correctly about where it would drop its bomb.
Two doors swung open from beneath the aircraft and three or four objects dropped, not three blocks from us. From here, they looked like oversized animal droppings, but when they landed, the ground beneath us shook twice. The first time from the explosion, and then again from the weight of buildings around the drop site collapsing.
Yitzchak took Esther’s arm to steady her, but I fell to my knees and immediately looked back for Tamir.
He still hadn’t rejoined us. I didn’t know if he was alive or if he’d been caught in that explosion. I didn’t know if all our people escaped the area, or if any of them were now trapped between the Germans and the downed building. There was so much I didn’t know.
Meanwhile, Esther pointed out an entrance into another bunker, one we had helped to build. It was behind a false brick wall in a former apartment but was accessed through an air vent. She crawled through first, then I followed, and Yitzchak went last. Esther shouted out our names in Yiddish to warn the occupants we were coming and not to attack.
When I emerged into the bunker, I stood against the back wall beside Esther, neither of us saying a word. Yitzchak started to speak when he came through but quickly fell silent. Both fighters and civilians huddled together inside, holding each other in obvious grief and utter despair. But it wasn’t about the bomber. Something else was wrong.
“What’s happened?” Esther asked.
“They found the hospital,” a man said, not even looking up at us. “They killed everyone inside. Revenge for our fighting.”
“They were all going to die anyway,” someone behind me said. “We knew that from the beginning.”
“It wasn’t that they killed the people there,” a woman added. “It’s how they did it. Pure evil, nothing less.”
I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know, or think about it. I took Esther’s hand again and whispered that the victims were at peace now.
But the mood in the bunker grew heavier with each passing minute. No one talked, no one looked at anyone else. We sat in silence to wait until we received orders otherwise. After an unbearable half hour, Yitzchak began singing. Softly, respectfully, in honor of our dead.
My brother’s song made me sad, but I also felt it healing me. As he sang, I took his arm and leaned against his shoulder, reminding myself to keep breathing. For now, that was all I could ask from my body—I was exhausted both physically and emotionally. Tomorrow would come far too soon, and when it did, I’d still have two good legs, a fresh supply of weapons, and an increased certainty that I was right to have come here.
When Yitzchak finished, we sang another song together, and then another. And when we became silent again, I felt a little better.
By eight o’clock that night, a note was dropped into the bunker inviting anyone outside who’d like to come. The Germans had left our part of the ghetto for the night and there was something out there that the ghetto commanders thought we’d want to see.
Yitzchak and I were among the first to leave, but once we got down to the street, many other people were already there. I followed their line of sight to the top of a building in Muranowski Square. Someone had placed two flags on the roof, large enough and high enough that they should be visible from most places in Warsaw. One was the red-and-white Polish flag. The other was the blue-and-white Jewish flag.
It was supremely defiant, and I couldn’t help but smile. No doubt it would add fuel to the Germans’ anger, and spirit to the hearts of Polish citizens. It simply made me proud.
Together, we gathered to say a quick prayer for the dead before returning to our bunkers, waiting on the streets to give time for the civilians to go in first. As they did, Esther turned to me and said, “I’d forgotten.”
“Forgotten what?”
She shrugged. “What it feels like to be free.”
Yitzchak chuckled. “We’re hardly free, Esther.”
“We’ve never been more free. Don’t you see? They don’t control us anymore. Since we already know how this will end, they can’t even use the fear of death against us. There is nothing more they can take from us, but today, we have taken their superiority, and their belief in our submissiveness. No matter how this ends, history will recognize today for its greatness.”
Yitzchak smiled beside her. “You’re right. Perhaps we have already won.”
I took both their hands, drawing us into a circle. “Tomorrow will bring a new day of freedom, then. Whatever else it brings, we will never live in a finer time.”
April 20, 1943
Warsaw Ghetto
The second day of fighting was also the fifty-fourth birthday of the Führer, Adolf Hitler. For his birthday, he would likely have sausage and potatoes and a hearty slice of birthday cake to go with a glass of wine. He would dine seated on a padded chair with his closest friends and dogs nearby, and be surrounded by high-ranking Nazis who would assure him that the genocide of the Jewish people would be complete any day now. And they would toast to that.
I woke up determined to disappoint him. So when we heard a vehicle driving through the ghetto streets, I reached for my gun. But Yitzchak’s quick peek from our bunker informed us that this was not a soldier, only a man in a black coat with a loudspeaker. His car stopped thirty meters from our bunker, making it easy to hear his introduction of himself as a member of the former Judenrat. Or, rather, making it impossible for us not to hear him.
I scowled and checked the ammunition I’d loaded into the gun last night.
“My fellow Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto, listen to me.”
I snorted with disgust at the mention of his fellow Jews. We were nothing of the sort. “Is it your father?” a man near us asked Esther.
Others within our bunker must have been wondering the same thing. Or, at least, they leaned forward to hear her answer, failing to notice how her back stiffened and fists clenched. As far as we knew, Esther’s father was dead. That man couldn’t have known how unkind his question was.
After a few shallow breaths, Esther shook her head. “But I know his voice. I know him. They must be forcing him to do
this.”
The Judenrat official continued, “Lay down your arms and surrender. If you refuse, the ghetto will be razed to the ground. My friends, I beg you to surrender or everyone here will die.”
Everyone here will die? Yes, perhaps we would, but what did he think the consequences would be if we surrendered? We would not give up so easily.
I looked around at the others within this bunker, most people leaning against the walls, grim-faced and with heads hanging low.
“Well?” I asked. “If you want to leave, now is your chance. Although you must know where you will go from here.”
They all knew. No one moved.
I creaked open the door of our bunker to get a sense of what was happening in other areas of the ghetto. The streets remained silent, except for the lone car escorting the Judenrat man.
Then a single shot was fired from a building overhead. It hit the car, which might not have been the intended target. But it was a decisive answer. Our official refusal of his generous offer to go to the death camps today. But thank you for asking.
Within an hour of his hasty departure, the Germans returned. This time we met them at Muranowski Square with fresh Molotov cocktails and a renewed determination to make yesterday’s fighting seem like a warm-up.
We also had two stolen machine guns, each one capable of firing six hundred rounds of bullets per minute. These guns could chew up concrete streets faster than the Germans could escape on them, emptying our ammunition so fast it would sound like pulling a zipper.
Esther and I watched it unfold from a building overlooking the square. When we could help contain the retreating soldiers, we did. She filled each bottle with flammable liquid, lit it, then immediately passed it to me for throwing. My arm should’ve been getting tired, but if anything, each throw felt stronger than the one before. Our side was taking casualties today, but so was theirs. After an initial skirmish, they backed off to regroup. It wouldn’t last long, but it did give us time to collect our wounded.
Which was the beginning of one of the first truly awful choices we had to make. We were ordered onto the street, now strewn with far too many of our own, either dead or wounded. I didn’t know where to begin.
Because who should we help? Our medical supplies were limited. We had only a few civilians in this part of the ghetto with any significant medical training.
“Not everyone can be saved,” Esther whispered.
She was right. Some of our fighters had wounds too serious for us to treat. Maybe we could make them comfortable, but nothing more. When the Germans returned, the dead would have to be left behind, unburied, unceremoniously abandoned. But who of the living could we save?
I hated this.
Reluctantly, we entered the streets, each breath drawing in the chemical residue of the explosions, the odor of sweat and fear, the smell of blood. From my position, I saw at least twenty fallen Jews. Half were already dead, or so near to it that I already knew they were beyond help. But close by was a woman with a gash on her arm, the same one who yesterday morning had celebrated the German blood in the streets. It was easy to send her back into the bunker. From there, the decisions became harder.
I knew very little about medical care, and apparently no one else had any better understanding of what we should do. How should we choose? Would we save one life at the expense of another?
To my right, a man was lying on the ground with some sort of head wound. If it was wrapped, could we stop the bleeding, or did the damage run too deep for the few bandages we had? To my left, a boy near my own age seemed to have a broken leg. It wasn’t life-threatening, but we had no way to set the bone. When it came time to evacuate the bunkers, would he be left behind anyway? Or would we have to risk two other lives to carry him out?
I didn’t know. How was I supposed to know?
I was a courier. I was the person who figured out ways for people to live. Not the person who decided which people must be left to die.
Esther walked toward the man with the head wound, the most serious of the injuries around us. “I’ll stay with him as long as I can, or until it’s no longer necessary.” She sat beside him, putting his head on her lap and talking to him. Whatever she was saying, the tension seemed to leave his body.
I helped carry the boy with the broken leg back to the bunker, but by the time we emerged, the sound of vehicles rumbled into the ghetto. They were back.
Yitzchak handed me my knapsack, filled with what remained of my allotment of weapons for the day. There were fewer than yesterday, which meant I had to be smarter, bolder.
Bold enough to attack the armored vehicle lumbering down this street, looking like a cross between a tank and a Maybach car. The gunner sat up higher than the driver, with a long-barrel machine gun capable of shooting through an entire floor of an apartment building in only seconds.
It could kill hundreds of us, even thousands, before the end of the day.
We had to stop it.
Just after it passed me, a sniper from somewhere above found the gunner, who keeled over his gun, dead. The vehicle stopped as its driver realized they had been targeted, making it easier for me to dart out from the alley where I’d been hiding. I already had a grenade in hand, pulled the pin, then tossed it into the gunner’s open hatch. I began counting: 3 … 2 … 1.
Although I was running away, the explosion knocked me off my feet. My ears rang with a high-pitched squeal, but I knew enough to get up and run. I was barely up again before another armored car arrived, larger than the one I’d just attacked. It rolled almost directly ahead of me on the street, seemingly unaware that I was there, and immediately began pummeling the apartment buildings surrounding us. I fell to the ground, almost exactly where I’d helped the boy with the broken leg, covering my head with my arms, screaming against the deafening noise of shattering glass and wood. Brick shrapnel flew around me like thrown confetti, some of it landing on top of my legs and back. I didn’t know how many of our resistance members were already stationed inside the buildings, or how safe it would be for them to escape. These buildings were already dilapidated. Bullets would bite through them as though the walls were made of paper.
When the gunner paused to get into a new position, I ran farther from the vehicle, my ears still ringing violently from the blasts. I stayed low as I headed toward the nearest building, hoping I hadn’t been spotted. Hoping even more that Esther and Yitzchak were blocks from here by now.
Down a narrow alley between buildings, I found a trash bin made of thick metal. Maybe it wouldn’t be thick enough, but it was the best of my options. I dove in, covering myself with the garbage and pushing it all in front of me as if that might make any difference. I gagged from the putrid odor but forgot it entirely only seconds later when the machine gun began firing again, somewhere near me. Near enough that I was sure the gunner had spotted me, but wasn’t sure exactly where I’d gone.
It’s impossible to know how long it went, maybe fifteen minutes. Maybe half a lifetime. Even fifteen minutes with a gun like that, and he probably turned the buildings into Swiss cheese. They just might collapse on their own.
What if Esther and Yitzchak were in one of them? What if they were trapped or injured or out there searching for me? I had to know.
It terrified me to come out, but I had to know.
Cautiously, I emerged from the trash bin. Smoke lingered in the air and the street echoed with collapsing pieces of the targeted buildings. The one behind me was full of holes, but I darted inside anyway. It seemed to be empty, but I knew people had hidden in here earlier today. Where was everyone?
The fighting had stopped on the streets, and when I peered through a hole, I understood why. German soldiers had arrived, hundreds of them. They were sweeping through the buildings and dragging our fighters out with them, forcing them onto their knees in long rows on the streets.
I counted the number of captured men and women. Ten, then twenty. Forty and growing. I didn’t see Esther or Yitzchak. But they were st
ill bringing people out.
Worse, another squadron of Germans came from deeper in the ghetto, escorting with them long lines of civilians. I didn’t know if they’d figured out how to breach our bunkers, or if these were Jews from the wild territories. It didn’t matter. They kept coming, endless lines of my people, hands on their heads, marching to their last moments of what little freedom we’d had these past few months. Each was placed on their knees, row by row by row.
Then the corner of my eye caught a bit of movement. A fighter rose from her knees with a gun she must have been hiding before. She took aim at one of the commanding officers and fired, hitting him squarely in the chest.
Immediately, another officer gave the order to shoot, and every Jew on the street was killed.
Every. Single. One.
I crouched low, closing my eyes tight and covering my ears with my hands. But no matter how hard I pressed them in, trying to block out the brave final words of Shema Yisrael, it wasn’t enough.
Just as our manpower was not enough. Our weapons were not enough. Our help from the outside was not enough.
And death. How could the Nazis still have not had enough of death?
April 20, 1943
Warsaw Ghetto
By midafternoon, I began to see the first major flaw in our plan. We’d expected hand-to-hand combat with the Germans. Expected them to separate as they searched the apartment buildings, one room at a time. In that way, we would divide and conquer. Hence, the knives and sharpened sticks and wires.
But with one armored car, they’d made an entire street corner uninhabitable and instantly killed several hundred of our people. People who never had the chance to fight close up.
People who never had a chance to defend themselves. We knew this was how it would end, didn’t we?
I knew it, and I didn’t. I had never expected the scent of death to be so raw, the very air around us as brittle as ice. I never expected to be one of the fighters still on my feet when so many others, far more experienced than I, had fallen.
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