I backed against the wall and pulled out my gun. I’d lost track of how many bullets remained, but I’d empty what I could on the squadron ahead.
“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!” The words were spoken in Yiddish and the accent matched. I didn’t fire, but I didn’t remove my finger from the trigger either. Not yet.
“You’re Chaya Lindner,” one man said. I only knew his last name, Pilzer. Or something like that.
I lowered my gun. “What are you all doing?”
Mr. Pilzer gestured to his group. “We’re going back up to the streets, to try to stop the flamethrowers. If we’re spotted, hopefully the uniforms will fool the Germans, or confuse them long enough to let us get close. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” It was such a relief to be surrounded by friendly faces, regardless of how they were dressed, that I forgot the pain in my leg.
“I thought you might be OD or Judenrat,” I said. “They’re helping the Nazis now.”
He frowned. “The Nazis must have decided they no longer need them. All of the remaining Judenrat and OD were shot earlier today outside Gestapo headquarters.”
“Oh.” That was all I could spare for them. I knew I should feel something more for those men, but I didn’t. They had bargained with a wolf, thinking that could save them. But in the end, the wolf always bites.
“You need to get out of this tunnel,” Pilzer continued. “The Germans know about it. That’s how we got these uniforms, but more will come through here.”
“Where can I go?” I asked. “Where is the fighting?”
“Go wherever there are no soldiers, and do what you can for as long as you can. We are losing the fight. Every minute that passes, more of us fall.”
We wished each other good luck before leaving. We said it. But none of us believed in luck anymore.
April 24, 1943
Warsaw Ghetto
Evening slowly approached, following a horrible, endless day passed in a literal haze due to the thick smoke around us, an unyielding, suffocating blanket. Fire roared from nearly every building within my sight, some with flames consuming whole floors at once, and some buildings where the flames had already hollowed out everything but the brick walls, leaving them as empty shells. I stared at the one where I’d hidden after leaving the tunnel, where I might still have been if Pilzer hadn’t warned me to leave.
I was in another building now, one of the few in this area not already on fire. I knew that was a risk, that it was surely one of the next targets for their flamethrowers, but it had offered me the best angle to continue to attack soldiers on the street.
So from a broken second-story window, I’d fired the last of my ammunition, and now I was waiting for an opportunity to escape and join the others … if there were any others. An hour passed, and then another, but whenever I looked out, SS soldiers seemed to be everywhere. I had to wait and hope this building would stand for as long as I was in it.
The SS was using the street in front of me as a collection point for captured Jews, both unarmed civilians and resistance fighters. The people were separated into two groups. Most of the civilians would live another day on their journey toward the death camps. The other half, mostly the fighters, would die here. At this point, I didn’t suppose it mattered which group they were in, not really.
And if I didn’t get out of here, they’d find me too. I crept to the main floor of the building, preparing to leave through a hole in the side of the building. A ten-meter gap separated me from the next place where I might hide. I waited for a distraction, taking advantage of the horrible moment that I knew was coming for those on the street. When the soldiers lined up with rifles aimed at the resistance fighters, I ran, faster than I thought possible, considering my injury.
But still not fast enough.
“You, girl!” I didn’t turn around, but I knew the soldier was shouting at me. I’d been spotted.
Shots fired in my direction but they hit the building, somewhere over my head. I turned around only long enough to see a handful of civilian Jews back on their feet, fighting with the Nazis. They attacked them for me, as a distraction, giving me a chance to live. Knowing what they’d done would cost them their lives.
The piercing shots of gunfire were the last sounds I heard before darting into the next available building, parts of which were still on fire. I hurried through it, choking on the smoke and dodging falling planks of wood, until I found an entrance to another tunnel. I hoped the Nazis hadn’t compromised this one too.
I climbed down inside, closing the latch overhead before too much smoke filled this small space. Then I curled into a ball, wrapping my arms around my legs and trying to keep my thoughts together. What now? Should I go left or right or back to the surface?
In the end, I didn’t go anywhere, because I didn’t know where to go. I had no more ammunition, no food or water. I didn’t know where Yitzchak was, or Esther, or any of the leaders who might yet have another strategy.
Except there were no other strategies, and maybe no more leaders. It felt like the Cyganeria attack all over again. When I was left alone with no idea of what to do next. Only this was far worse.
I closed my eyes to consider my options. There were no more options. Nothing I could do to help save the Jewish people. Or to save myself. Hardly a comforting final thought before I fell asleep.
April 25, 1943
Warsaw Ghetto
Chaya!”
I bolted upright, instinctively ready to take a swing at whoever was shaking my shoulder.
Esther was crouched in front of me with Yitzchak beside her. Both had smoke-blackened faces, but they were smiling to see me still alive. It was nothing compared to how I felt seeing them.
“You’re both safe?” I asked.
“Safe?” Yitzchak tilted his head. “You can’t be serious with that question.”
“The fires?”
They exchanged a glance, then looked back at me. “Everything is burning,” Yitzchak said. “Now they’re flushing out the bunkers by dropping poison gas grenades into the cracks.”
I leaned back against the tunnel wall and closed my eyes. “It’s over, then?”
“No, the fighting continues,” Esther said. “But we have our next set of orders, directly from the top. We’re going back to the beginning.”
That got my attention. “What beginning?”
“We’re couriers,” Esther said. “We’ve done all we can inside this ghetto. Now it’s time to get out, and to take as many people with us as possible.”
I shook my head. “It’s different this time. The ghetto is surrounded. It’d be a miracle for any of us to find a way out.”
She took my hand and lifted me to my feet. “Come on, Chaya. I’ll show you! It’s time.”
My eyes narrowed until I finally understood. “Every day for a month I’ve asked if you delivered that package and you’ve said—”
“I’ve said no.” Esther smiled. “Until now.”
“Because you are the package to be delivered.” I stepped closer to her. “Or more accurately, you are the package that will deliver us from this ghetto.”
She nodded and looked over at me as we walked. “We’re leaving through the sewer lines. They’re a maze, and some lines have to be avoided because they carry too much water. But this is how I escaped the ghetto before. I know the way out.”
For the first time in days, hope seeped into me. “Then let’s go.”
Yitzchak climbed up to the street first, to make sure everything was clear, then helped Esther up, and they both helped me. My leg was stiff and sore, but the injury was healing. It hurt to walk, but I was steadier on my feet than before. I could manage the sewers. I was determined to.
However, once I was on the street, I forgot my leg entirely. The air was thick with black smoke, creating a morning like midnight. If we were careful, we could use the smoke to get from one place to another without being seen, or burned. The roar of the flames was as loud as a train and the
heat was nearly unbearable. Gunfire could still be heard in echoes around the ghetto, so I knew some fighting continued, but most of the resistance seemed to have already collapsed.
SS officers dotted the streets, staring up at the buildings, which were slowly crumbling to ash. I hoped no one had taken shelter in them, believing they’d be safe. Believing they’d survive right up until the moment fire shot through their windows.
I wondered how many fighters and civilians had been killed on the streets. How many survivors had yet to be flushed out from their bunkers? Those who already had been captured were here too, being divided just as I’d seen them last night.
Some groups were lined up against a wall, hands visible, heads down. Others were made to kneel on the stone street. Someone there spotted us, then quickly turned away, unwilling to give us up. I was sure they hoped we had one last grenade or round of weapons to frighten the soldiers away and give these people a chance to escape, but none of us did. Esther only led us out of their sight.
Between the buildings, where the smoke gathered thickest, I choked, my head already swimming from lack of oxygen. The scarf I’d used before had disappeared somewhere, but Yitzchak pulled some empty glass bottles from a bag he carried and pushed one against his face. “It’s not a lot of air,” he said through his jar, “but it will help.”
It did help, a little. At least I wasn’t directly inhaling smoke and ash, and death. It helped enough to get us to a sewer entrance on an abandoned street.
The entrance was missing its manhole cover. One side or the other had probably used it during what appeared to have been intense fighting here. I hoped our side had used the heavy metal cover, and in the best possible way. Yitzchak offered to go down last and when he did, I noticed he’d dragged a fallen tree branch over the open hole. It wasn’t a perfect disguise for our escape, but it was better than nothing.
Accessing the sewer line required a twelve-meter descent down a rusted ladder, every step darker than the one above it. The metal was cold and slimy, an immediate contrast to the suffocating fires above us, but it was no easier to breathe. The smell was worse than simple sewage. It was rot and decay and fetid air that felt like acid to my lungs. My leg protested the steady climb down, but I refused to fall or even to let it buckle. Each bend caused it to scream with pain, though, and I hoped it would carry me through the darkness below.
Twenty Jews were already waiting in the sewers when we arrived. Four men, seven women, and nine children. The only one I knew by name was Mr. Pilzer, the man who had worn the German uniform before.
“Only twenty,” I mumbled.
“Twenty,” Yitzchak said. “But we are not the only group. There are others. These are ours to save.”
Esther stepped in front of us. “Everyone listen carefully. The Nazis know about this route, so we must not do anything to alert them. No one talks or splashes or switches on any kind of light, not even for a blink. We’ll travel in a single-file line. Put one hand on the shoulder of the person ahead of you and keep your other hand on the sewer wall for balance. Beneath your feet it will be rounded and slippery. Choose your steps carefully. This walk will take hours. If you cannot do this, then do not endanger the rest of us. Does anyone need to leave?”
I’d never heard Esther speak like this. Yes, I’d seen glimpses of this person over the past few months, but she was in charge now, and she knew it. This Esther was going to lead us to freedom. I knew she would. The rest of the group seemed to trust her too, despite some of them no doubt having gossiped about her father before now.
No one left. No one said a word.
“Then let’s go,” she said firmly.
Esther took the lead and asked me to follow directly behind her. I knew it was because of my injured leg. She was worried that I might not make it. Frankly, so was I. It was already straining on the rounded paving stones. Yitzchak would be near the last of our group, and I didn’t like that at all.
When everyone was lined up together, we began to walk. Occasional bits of light filtered in through other manholes, but they were few and far between, and here, still inside the ghetto boundaries, any light was darkened by the smoke aboveground. Before we crossed beneath each manhole, Esther stopped us and looked up.
Without her explanation, I understood. We didn’t want to trek a group of twenty-three people beneath a squadron of soldiers. One of them was sure to notice the movement, or hear the soft splash of water. It was the sole reason that I was glad for the fires. They were loud enough to give us better cover than we otherwise might have had.
It wasn’t long before I lost track entirely of how far we’d gone and where we might be in relation to the ghetto. We must still be inside, simply based on the smoke that continued to trickle in, but whether we’d gone a half kilometer or three times that, I didn’t know. At least everything was going smoothly.
That is, until a cover opened behind us. A German-speaking soldier was midway through a casual explanation of what he was doing. “… occasionally throw in a little poison gas, in case there are any Jews.”
And a grenade dropped, trailing tendrils of poisoned white smoke.
April 25, 1943
Warsaw Ghetto
A child coughed near the back of the line as her nostrils picked up the first waft of poison. As innocent as it was, even that simple cough threatened us all. If Esther hurried us forward, the soldiers directly above us would hear our splashing. If we moved as slowly as we had before, the gas would claim every one of us.
I felt a break in our chain somewhere behind me. Esther turned and waved an arm, hoping to silently calm everyone, but no one was paying any attention, if they could even see her.
Then I heard a splash, and in the light beneath the manhole, I saw Mr. Pilzer’s body go down. He didn’t fall like a dead body would. Instead, he used himself as a shield from the gas, deliberately spreading out his clothes to contain as much of the smoke as possible.
It was one of the most heroic things I’d ever seen, and this after living a month in an entire ghetto full of heroes.
“Go,” I hissed at Esther.
We returned to our single-file line, hurrying onward. Steadily moving forward, trying not to think about Mr. Pilzer, or, rather, thinking so intently of him that we seemed to form a silent pact that his death would not be in vain. We would escape the ghetto, and once on the Polish side, we would find a safe place for everyone. I knew how to find safe houses. I’d done it before, I could do it again, for all of these people. And in honor of the man we left behind.
Gradually, the smoky manhole covers offered us tiny glimpses of sky and fresh air. I wasn’t sure how long we’d been walking, two or three hours at least, but every part of me was soaked through, my injured leg throbbed, my muscles were sore, and I was chilled to my core. A small price to earn our lives back.
When I couldn’t contain myself any longer, I whispered in Esther’s ear, “How much farther?”
“We take the next left turn, then walk straight for about an hour until the line hits a dead end.”
I smiled. “Dead end? Did you really just say that?”
“Shh.” She stopped walking and our line came to a halt. None of us were moving. The water should be still too, but it wasn’t. Something splashed behind us.
We weren’t alone.
Occasionally, a low-ranking Nazi was sent into the sewers to ensure nobody was using them for escape.
We weren’t alone, and we all knew that was why. Although the sounds behind us were still far away, they seemed to be coming closer.
Esther drew in a slow breath. Resolute, as if she’d already decided what must be done.
No.
No.
“Do you remember my directions?” she whispered.
“Don’t ask me that, Esther. You must lead us out of here.” The tears filling my eyes stung them, worsening the pain inside me.
“This was always my mission. I always knew if it came to this moment, what I’d have to do.”
> How could she sound calm, even as the reality of our situation was crushing my heart? I gripped her shoulder, needing her to feel my desperation. “I’ll go. Not you.”
I’d meant what I said and even turned to go, but she grabbed my arm. “Last time I was here, it cost people their lives. Now I’m here to save lives.”
“No, you can’t—”
“They knew my father, so I can talk to them better than anyone.” She pushed a small folded paper into my hands. “That must be read on every underground radio station you can find. Promise me, Chaya.”
I shook my head, feeling desperate. Feeling more helpless than I ever had before. “Please don’t go.”
“One more thing. A truck will be waiting at the exit in a little over an hour, arranged by the Polish Underground. But they’ll only wait fifteen minutes. You must hurry.”
The splash of footsteps was coming closer. She squeezed my hand and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. “We are couriers, my sweetest friend. Didn’t we always know the risks? Go now. We can still save these people.”
She pushed past me and disappeared into the darkness. I gritted my teeth for the courage to take my first step forward. But it didn’t come. I couldn’t leave her, not after all we had gone through to get this far. Not after I had learned to love Esther like a dearest sister, like a most trusted friend.
I was the one who was supposed to save her.
But she was saving me instead.
We waited there in absolute silence. Thick tears rolled down my cheeks, blinding me inside a black tunnel where I was nearly blind anyway. I heard only the splash of her footsteps away from us, and the heavier footsteps of the soldier who had followed us.
Then the splashes stopped. They had come face-to-face.
“My name is Esther Karolinski,” she said. “My father was a member of the Judenrat and he served you well. I’m afraid I’ve become lost in these sewers. If you will take me back to the surface, I will gladly surrender. There are rats down here and dead bodies filled with disease.”
At best, that was a half-truth, but she was hoping to spook the soldier who found her. They hated the sewer lines, knowing they were used by underground fighters who waited for an ambush opportunity.
Resistance Page 25
