by Leon Leyson
In the next days we heard that the train had gone to a camp named Belżec, where rumor had it people were being gassed. I remember wondering, How long will Tsalig be able to hold his breath in the gas chamber? Will it be long enough to survive? All I could do was pray that somehow my dearest brother had been spared or had found a way to escape.
I HEARD A SHOT AND then another. I felt A bullet whiz past my ear; it pierced the wall behind me. I quickly ducked into the alcove entrance of the nearest building, my heart racing. More shots rang out. Had I been hit? How would I know? I had once been told I might not feel it if I were shot. I only knew I was terrified. I banged on the door I was standing in front of and waited. What was going to happen next? Was the soldier reloading? Did he now have me in his sights? The door creaked open an inch. I pressed hard and pushed myself inside, begging, “Prosze, prosze.” “Please, please.”
“What were you doing out there?” the man asked gruffly as he shut the door behind me. I tried to answer, but I couldn’t get the words out. I stared at my shaking hands. There was no blood on them. I felt my chest, my legs, my head. I was alive. I had not been hit after all. Tears rolled down my cheeks. “I was trying to help,” I finally answered.
Earlier that evening my friend Yossel and I had carried an elderly woman on a stretcher to the ghetto infirmary, but we had made a dangerous miscalculation. We had waited too long at the infirmary with her before heading home and had stayed out past the evening curfew, the hour when all Jews had to be off the streets. To reach our apartment building, we had to round a corner by one of the ghetto gates where several guards always stood on sentry duty. As we ran as quickly as we could toward that corner, one of the guards lowered his rifle and aimed at us. Driven by instinct and fright, Yossel and I ran, splitting off in different directions, barely escaping the shots. The guard probably lost interest in us as soon as we disappeared from his view, but I wasn’t ready to take another chance with my life. I spent the night with strangers, curled up on the cold floor, terrified and very much alone, glad that I had not been shot.
When I finally made it home early the next morning, my mother flung her arms around me. Most of the time my mother kept her emotions under control, but in that moment she sobbed hysterically. The thought of losing another son was just too much for her.
The transports had emptied the ghetto of many of its inhabitants, including not only the Luftigs and my brother Tsalig, but also Samuel and Yossel’s father, Mr. Bircz, who had shared his family’s food with me. As a result, space was no longer an issue, but other dangers escalated. Hunger overwhelmed us all. Disease spread unchecked, weakening, crippling, and killing indiscriminately. There was an overpowering sense of futility. Bribes had not protected even the wealthier people in the ghetto. Everyone had lost someone they loved.
By this time survival was mostly a matter of pure luck. What worked in one’s favor one day might not the next day, or even the next hour or second. Some people still thought they were smart enough to outmaneuver the Nazis, that they could navigate through the maze and survive the war. Actually there was no sure way to make it through a world that had gone completely insane.
In late October 1942, news of another transport reached Schindler, so he kept his Jewish workers at the factory overnight instead of sending them back to the ghetto. He knew the fragile work permit was no guarantee of safety during the roundups. Pesza also spent the night at her factory, which meant my mother and I were alone in our apartment. My mother and Mrs. Bircz had devised a strategy they hoped would protect us. They decided to hide in plain sight, sweeping and cleaning the courtyard, looking busy and useful. Meanwhile, Mrs. Bircz’s sons, Yossel and Samuel, and I would hide in the crawl space of a storage shed behind our building. It was a tight fit, since there were only about ten inches between the rafters and the roof.
In the morning the ghetto reverberated with sounds of the Aktion, the roundup: gunshots, shouts in German, doors banging, and heavy boots on the stairs. My mother and Mrs. Bircz put their plan into action. They quickly began sweeping the courtyard as if their lives depended on it, which, in fact, they did.
Yossel, Samuel, and I crawled up into our hiding place. With scarcely room to breathe, my friends and I tried to stay motionless and silent as we waited. Lying on a rafter, I could see only the floor of the shed below. All I could do was listen as screams and shots filled the air. The noise grew steadily louder as the soldiers neared our building. The German Shepherds used to ferret out people in hiding were barking ferociously. Their handlers ignored pleas for mercy and killed indiscriminately. I covered my ears, trying to block out the shrieks and moans and cries of “Please!” and “No!”
Suddenly my mother appeared in the shed. She had intended to bring us a teapot with water and then return to the courtyard; but as the Nazis approached, some sort of survival instinct clicked in. She set down the teapot and climbed into the crawl space with us. Packed tightly together, we prayed we would not be discovered. Then a horrifying realization entered our heads. We all stared down at the floor. In her rush to hide, my mother had left the teapot right below us. If the Nazis entered the shed, spotted it, and became suspicious, they would surely look up and discover our hiding place. We lay motionless for a long, long time. I closed my eyes, imagining bullets penetrating the rafters and tearing holes in me. We were such easy targets.
After several hours the screams stopped. Occasional shots rang out, but they came at longer and longer intervals. We seemed to have escaped the worst for now, but we didn’t dare move. When it grew dark, we heard a man’s voice in the courtyard, saying, “It’s safe now. You can come out.” My eyes met my mother’s. She whispered a barely audible, “No.” I understood immediately. It could be a trap. We would stay put.
That night a numbing chill descended on the ghetto. Yossel, Samuel, my mother, and I clung to each other in the darkness, teeth chattering. We lay awake, too frightened to sleep or give in to our need for a bathroom.
The following day the SS—an organization that began as Hitler’s personal bodyguard and grew to have vast authority over the “Jewish question”—continued to patrol the ghetto. We could hear the random shots, the dogs, the screams. My mother’s instinct had been correct. The Aktion was not over. I wasn’t sure I cared anymore. I was at my end. Hunger, thirst, and fear had thoroughly depleted me. All I could do was think of that teapot of water my mother had left on the floor below. I tried to convince her that I could jump down, grab it, and bring it back up without being noticed, but she would have none of it. Shivering from cold and fear, the four of us remained in our cramped refuge until dusk. The hours seemed interminable.
Finally we heard another voice in the courtyard. “Chanah Leyson,” a man called out. “I was sent by Moshe Leyson.” Startled, we stirred from our half-conscious state. I searched my mother’s eyes. She was unsure what to do. “Is Chanah Leyson here?” he asked again. “I work at the factory with your husband, Moshe.” Reassured by twice hearing my father’s name, my mother nodded to me, and finally, after almost two full days, we dropped down from the rafters. Pain shot through my legs as I landed on the floor. I grabbed the teapot and swallowed a few gulps of water before passing it on to Yossel and Samuel. Stiff and sore, the four of us emerged from our sanctuary exhausted, thankful to still be alive.
Her voice hoarse and weak, my mother called out to the man. “Here,” she cried. “I am Chanah Leyson.” She and the man spoke together quietly as my friends and I nervously surveyed the deserted courtyard. Were we really safe? Were we the only ones still alive?
Without a word, Yossel and Samuel dashed inside our building to search for their mother. Their apartment was empty; their mother was nowhere to be found. She had been seized in the roundup. Yossel and Samuel would have to rely on their own resources. They were not the only youngsters left to fend for themselves in the ghetto. Of course, adults helped them in many ways, but basically the boys knew that drawing as little attention to themselves as possible was their be
st chance of survival.
In the late evening, my father, David, and Pesza returned to our apartment with scraps of bread in their pockets. I tore into the food even before I hugged them, but forced myself to stop so that we could all share the meager morsels. My father delivered the latest news. He, David, and Pesza had been ordered to report immediately to the Płaszów labor camp, about two and a half miles from the ghetto. For the first time since our family had been forced into the ghetto some eighteen months before, the five of us still together were to be separated.
As the population of the ghetto continued to diminish, officials began to reorganize those of us remaining. In December, my mother and I were transferred from Ghetto B, the section where we had been living, to Ghetto A, the area now designated for workers. A barbed-wire fence went up, dividing the two sections of the ghetto. Then the relocation began. We were ordered to take only what we could carry and find a living space for ourselves in Ghetto A.
Without a moment’s hesitation, I grabbed the precious parting gift that Mr. Luftig had given me, his thermos. I also carried a jacket and a blanket. It broke my heart to leave behind Mr. Luftig’s treasured pipes. Before we left our apartment, my mother had me help her drag out the pieces of our furniture we hadn’t used as fuel to the balcony and push them over the railing. The cabinet, table, and chairs splintered to pieces as they crashed to the concrete courtyard. My mother had decided she wasn’t going to leave anything valuable or useful to the enemy if she could help it. Once again I was impressed by my mother’s cleverness and courage. It felt so good to do something against the Germans, even if the only thing we could do was destroy our own possessions.
My mother waited until the very last minute to cross over to Ghetto A, rushing back to our building one last time for a cooking pot, which she wrapped in a sheet. I could hardly believe that she would take such a risk for a mere pot, but going back for it gave her one more moment to survey her kitchen and what had been our home.
Initially, we found no place to stay in Ghetto A. Door after door closed in advance of our arrival. Every apartment was filled to capacity. Eventually we found two spots in an attic. We squeezed into a space with other relocated workers from Ghetto B, sleeping in rows on the floor. My mother and I shared a single blanket. Our situation now made our room with the Luftigs seem like a mansion by comparison.
Somehow, in these terrible circumstances, my mother and I found the will to persevere. We had to keep going for each other. Each morning my mother went to her cleaning job, and I went to the brush factory. When we said goodbye, I wondered if it might be for the last time. Every time I returned from work and found her there waiting, I felt there was still hope. Each night we prayed that my father, David, and Pesza were safe, that Hershel and our extended family were still secure in Narewka, and that Tsalig had somehow escaped and found a safe hiding place.
Then, in March 1943, the Nazis liquidated the entire ghetto. All of us remaining were to be sent to Płaszów. At least, that was the rumor. Honestly, I was glad to be leaving, thinking that once again the five of us would be together. I had no concept of what Płaszów was. I felt a naïve confidence that because I had a real job, I was protected. On the day we were to be transferred, the Germans ordered us to line up in groups according to our work assignments. My mother stood with the cleaning women; I stood with my group from the brush factory. I saw my mother pass through the gates without incident; when my turn came, a guard yanked me out of line. He clearly thought I was too young and too puny to be useful. “You’ll go later,” he said, pointing me toward a group of other children gathered off to the side, out of the formations. My work permit was useless.
I found my friends Yossel and Samuel already there. In the chaos of our move to Ghetto A, I had lost track of them. They had managed to survive on their own without their parents, but now we were all caught in limbo. They whispered to me, “We’re going to hide like we did before. You should come with us.”
I thought about going with them and returning to our narrow hiding place in the rafters of the shed, but something stopped me. I’m not sure why I felt the pull so strongly, but I knew I had to be with my mother. She and I had been through so much together. She was my strength and I was hers. So I told Yossel and Samuel, “I’m going to try something else.”
I spotted another group of workers and attempted to blend into their ranks. Once again we inched toward the gate of the ghetto. And once again, as I came close, the same guard spotted me and pulled me out, shoving me away from the departing group. Although I knew it was risky, I loitered as close to the gates as possible, waiting for a moment when I might be able to dart through them. At long last, the guard was called away. I saw my chance and joined another group. With a lump in my throat, I moved forward, closer and closer to the exit, desperately hoping the guard would not reappear. As I reached the gate, two officers waved me through, and I was now among those headed to Płaszów. My heart was racing. All I wanted was to see my family again, no matter what the situation.
As I walked out of the ghetto with its tombstone-crowned walls and along the streets of Kraków, I was dumbfounded to see that life seemed just as it had been before I entered the ghetto. It was as if I were in a time warp . . . or as if the ghetto were on another planet. I stared at the clean, well-dressed people, busily moving from place to place. They seemed so normal, so happy. Had they not known what we had been suffering just a few blocks away? How could they not have known? How could they not have done something to help us? A streetcar stopped, and passengers boarded, oblivious to our presence. They showed absolutely no interest in who we were, where we were going, or why. That our misery, confinement, and pain were irrelevant to their lives was simply incomprehensible.
As we neared the Płaszów camp a short while later, I was still overjoyed I had succeeded in leaving the ghetto. All that mattered to me was that I would be with my family again. As I entered the chaos of Płaszów, I saw before me a world far worse than I ever could have imagined, far worse than I ever thought possible. Stepping through those gates was like arriving at the innermost circle of hell.
MY FIRST IMPRESSION OF PŁASZÓW as hell on earth never changed. I only needed one look to see that this was an entirely foreign place. No matter how difficult life had been in the ghetto, at least outwardly it had appeared a familiar world. Yes, we were packed like sardines into too few rooms, but those rooms were in normal apartment buildings. There were streets and sidewalks and the sounds of a city beyond the walls.
Płaszów was an alien world. It was built on two Jewish cemeteries that the Nazis had desecrated and destroyed. It was barren, dismal, chaotic. Rocks, dirt, barbed wire, ferocious dogs, menacing guards, and acre after acre of drab barracks stretched as far as I could see. Hundreds of prisoners in threadbare clothing hurried from one work detail to another, threatened by gun-wielding German and Ukrainian guards. The moment I entered the gates of Płaszów, I was convinced I would never leave alive.
Immediately, the guards divided our group by gender. I shuffled into my assigned barracks on the men’s side of the camp. My hope of finding my family plummeted when I learned that I was to stay there indefinitely. I had no idea where my father and David might be. With only my precious thermos bottle, my legacy from Mr. Luftig, and my blanket, I crawled onto a narrow wood shelf and lay down. Famished but with no prospect of food, in a cramped room filled with strangers, mercifully, I quickly sank into the oblivion of sleep.
All too soon lights flashed on. Although it was still pitch-black outside, guards beat with their sticks on the bunks and shouted at us, “Steh auf! Steh auf!” “Get up! Get up!” It was time to assemble for work assignments. Half asleep, I got down from the shelf and joined my group along with row upon row of prisoners from the other barracks. We stood in the dark and cold for hours; we were counted, counted again, randomly abused—verbally, physically, or both—threatened, counted again, and finally assigned to work. The work was both menial and dangerous. Most days I hauled
lumber, rocks, and dirt to build more barracks. At the end of the day we received a pitiful portion of watery soup. Then I returned to my shelf in the barracks for a few hours of restless sleep before beginning the ordeal all over again the next morning.
The room where we slept was so crowded that if I left to use the latrine, I would lose my spot. When I returned I had to elbow my way back into my space. One night as I stumbled back into my bunk, I found my blanket was gone. I had stupidly left it there, and another prisoner, perhaps even colder and more desperate than I, had taken it. I was left to wrap my arms around myself, think of my mother’s embrace, and will myself to sleep.
Then the miraculous happened. Some of the men who had begun to watch out for me told me where the Schindler Jews had been assigned. I resolved to search until I found my father and David. This was not an easy decision. I had to be alert every second. If I were spotted, I could be killed; but my yearning to see my father and brother overpowered reason. Weak as I was, I stole away, determined to find my father and brother. Finally, totally exhausted, when I thought I would have to abandon my search, I opened one more door.
There they were.
I had never thought of my father and brother as beautiful, but right then I thought they were the most beautiful people I had ever seen.
When they recognized me, they were as excited as I was, hardly daring to believe that I had made it out of the ghetto. “We thought you had been deported,” David said. As he spoke, I saw pain and helplessness in my father’s eyes as he realized how weak and emaciated I had become. We talked in whispers for a few nervous minutes. As I left, my father promised that he would ask Schindler to hire me. Meanwhile, he cautioned, I must stay where I had been assigned and avoid attracting any attention.
