The Good Doctor of Warsaw

by Elisabeth Gifford

  CHAPTER TWENTY - NINE

  WARSAW, JUNE 1942

  Misha finds Stefa saying grace at breakfast with the children on the stage, dark rings around her eyes. This time the Gestapo’s slaughter has not ended after one night as it did in April. The shooting has continued night after night. Everyone lies awake listening, for the sound of a car drawing up, for the knock on the door.

  And finally the reason for the slaughter is becoming clear. Most of the smugglers have been wiped out. Mass starvation has begun to set in.

  ‘I’ve had to water the milk this morning,’ Stefa tells Korczak as he joins them. Korczak’s face is gnomish and withered, his collar too loose, his eyes grown large in the wasted flesh, bloodshot with fatigue. He looks nearer seventy than sixty.

  ‘But surely that counts as a crime.’

  ‘I don’t know what else to do. Milk costs more than liquid silver now that Misha’s unable to bring in supplies through Frydman.’

  Misha watches Korczak slide the bread from his plate onto Aronek’s who’s been watching it with an unrequited love. It’s gone in seconds.

  ‘Somehow we need to find a way to get food in from the other side,’ says Korczak. ‘I may know someone.’

  Korczak heads for the steep new wooden bridge over Chlodna Street that leads from the small ghetto into the large ghetto, a drab stream of people climbing up into the perfect blue sky above. As ever, the Doctor wears no armband.

  He makes his way with difficulty through the crowds bottlenecked on Karmelicka Street, keeping close to the wall in case a prison car comes careering down the narrow gulley overhung with iron balconies, the guard clearing a way with his nail-studded truncheon.

  On Tlomackie Street Korczak heads for the Great Synagogue. For a moment, standing in front of the wide steps and the enormous dome in the stuffy heat, he’s a boy of seventeen again, following his father’s hearse with the crowds of mourners in top hats or silk skullcaps and shawls.

  Now, the Great Synagogue is being used as a shelter for the thousands of refugees recently arrived from Berlin. They are healthy and well dressed, in much better shape than the ghetto’s long-time residents. And since they are able to lift a pick or shovel with vigour, and since they speak a good homely German, they are picked out first by the German guards for any labour outside the walls.

  Work outside the ghetto in one of the gangs of prisoners under armed guard is now almost the only way to a regular food supply; not only does it give a tiny amount of pay, but more importantly, it gives the opportunity to buy food in Warsaw and smuggle it back in through the gates.

  It’s almost impossible for a Warsaw Jew to get a place on the work gangs.

  Inside the Great Synagogue, the spiritual smell of wax candles and old books has been replaced by the odour of soil buckets and boiled onions. The ornate plasterwork is smoky with soot. The wooden pews on the ground floor and the balconies of the second floor have been partitioned with string and blankets to make living spaces for families. Compared to the other shelters – dying stations – it’s clean and the people still look neatly dressed, but the strain of hunger and insanitary conditions is showing, men who haven’t shaved, raised voices of women quarrelling over a pan, children crying. The start of a downward spiral.

  In the corner, Korczak recognizes his old friend from his days as a medical student in Berlin, the widow of a German Jewish doctor.

  She stands and takes his hands. She’s sorry her son’s not there to meet him, a fine young man of twenty, but he’s out of the ghetto, doing building work at the barracks.

  Yes, of course she’d be happy to ask if they could find space for some of Korczak’s boys.

  ‘And Dr Korczak, when do you think they are going to let us go home?’

  *

  Each morning after sunrise, Misha and three of the older boys, serious Jakubek, Mounius with his bright red hair, and little Dawidek, leave the ghetto under armed guard through the Krasinskich Gate. They pass the park where old men in wide-brimmed hats and side locks used to gather to discuss texts or read the paper, where women with boxy little baby strollers took the next generation for a walk in the fresh air under the green trees.

  It’s empty. Guards patrol the terraces of the palace in the middle of the park, now a German officer’s residence.

  Four abreast, their work unit walks along Dluga Street towards the familiar lanes of the medieval old town. No one greets these shabby men who pass like ghosts towards the bridge.

  Crossing the river after so long, it’s a shock for Misha to breathe the summer wind coming clean off the water, to feel it passing over his scratchy skin and old clothes. What would it feel like to bathe in the river again, or to lie in a hot bath? What would it feel like to put on new clothes and stand on the balcony of an apartment looking out over the river with a cup of good coffee, contented and hopeful about the day ahead?

  They march through the streets of Praga to the old military barracks, now housing Wehrmacht soldiers. A man in a well-pressed uniform is leading a beautiful chestnut horse into stables with reverent care. The air rings with building work. The barracks are being refurbished and extended for their new masters.

  Misha and the boys are put to clearing rubble and carrying bricks. The German guards who look after them are young and not without human feeling for the Berlin Jews who speak their home language. It’s a relief to find that they are not vicious. They look the other way when the Berlin Jews take it in turns to slip off to do deals with Polish workers for food.

  Misha knows the area well. After a while, he too slips out through the gate to buy bread and potatoes from a shop on November Eleven Street. Looking at Misha’s battered clothes and armband, no one can fail to see he’s not supposed to be there. The elderly Polish couple who run it take a risk serving him, but they are kind, add in a couple of extra carrots.

  ‘You should come to the back door next time,’ the woman tells him.

  She looks at him with defiant eyes, fully aware that there’s a death penalty for helping a Jew now.

  ‘The Germans, they took my son away to a factory. They’ve stolen so many of our boys. That’s what they use us Poles for, you know – slaves. Just enough food, just enough education for our children to do their dirty work. Whatever you need, come to the back door.’

  Misha thanks her, then slips back into the barracks, warmed by the old woman’s bravery. He knows that there are thousands of Jews living in hiding in Warsaw, all depending on the kindness of Polish friends.

  But for every Pole willing to risk their life, there’s another willing to sell one.

  In the afternoon the men march back through Warsaw, the weather mild, the guards not especially vigilant. No one will try to escape. A wall of eyes surrounds the prisoners, Polish blackmailers waiting to rob and blackmail any Jew who might try and slip off their armband and escape into the streets of Warsaw. If you want to survive on the Aryan side, it takes a great deal of money to buy off the greasy palms.

  At the ghetto gates Misha and the boys wait with blank faces and sweating hands. The smuggled food is in the bottom of their knapsacks under the tools they had to supply themselves to do the Germans’ work.

  They pass through and walk home exhausted in the hot and crowded streets.

  Day after day, they walk back in through the gate unscathed, the food still there. Stefa has even designed flasks with false bottoms where Misha and the boys can hide valuable oil or margarine. But no matter how much they bring in, it’s never enough.

  Late at night, Korczak reads through his diary. He closes it, shocked by his disjointed thoughts. It’s nothing like his usual lucid prose, but then who can concentrate in this state of perpetual hunger? People constantly drift off halfway through a sentence, forget what they were going to say. He lies down under his old army blanket. All he dreams about now is food, and so vividly. Raspberries and cream. Goose cooked in Marsala. He’s only ever tasted champagne twice but after the war he intends to have it every day. And trifle and
cakes for the children – their first meal as soon as they get home to Krochmalna.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  WARSAW, JULY 1942

  Misha wakes to the sound of sobbing. Aronek has had a nightmare almost every night this week. Misha goes over to find the child sitting up, fists in his eyes and his large ears pink in the lamplight.

  A rifle retorts through the streets. Aronek’s eyes lock onto Misha’s, filled with fear and questions.

  ‘I’ll stay here until you sleep.’

  ‘I thought Aronek’s nightmares had stopped,’ Korczak says sadly when Misha gets back to the ghetto the following afternoon. ‘It’s hearing rifle shots every night, so many deaths, it’s taken him back to the terrible things he saw living on the ghetto streets before he came here.’

  ‘But what can we do? With the arrests and shootings each night, what do we tell them about what’s happening?’ asks Misha.

  ‘We can’t lie to them. They’re not stupid. Their diaries are full of stories of smugglers being shot, people fighting for bread. They need a philosophy to help them come to terms with the death around them, just as much as the adults do.’

  Esterka, with her slender face and curly hair, her thick cardigan with its large buttons, a stethoscope always round her neck, is checking through the contents of the medicine cabinet nearby. Korczak turns to her and calls her over.

  Esterka sometimes reminds him of his younger self, a newly-qualified doctor, dedicated to children. A difficult life, but a beautiful life. She also shares Korczak’s love of literature and theatre.

  ‘Esterka dear, didn’t you say you’d seen the children’s play by Tagore, the Indian poet?’

  ‘Yes, The Post Office. I saw it in Warsaw a few years ago.’ She closes the cabinet and comes to sit at the table on the stage with Korczak and Misha. ‘I thought it would be morbid, about a child who dies, but it was poetic, uplifting.’

  ‘Perhaps it might help the children.’

  Esterka nods. ‘I think it could. And we certainly aren’t short of scenery here,’ she says, gesturing to the oil-painted backdrops stacked at the back of the stage. ‘Pan Doctor, you know I’d love to help organize auditions, even put the play on.’

  ‘Who better than you? I’m grateful, dear Esterka.’

  *

  The lead part of Amal the orphan boy is given to Abrasha with his long-lashed eyes and sensitive musician’s face. Halinka plays his mother, a poor peasant in an Indian village. The role of doctor goes to serious Chaimek with his glasses and a bow-tie borrowed from Korczak. The king’s messenger is Jerzyk with his loud, clear voice.

  Sophia comes to help make costumes and paper marigolds for Sara who is to play the flower girl. The rest of the children form the audience, watching the dress rehearsals and giving Abrasha advice on the most convincing way to die.

  Szlengal the poet and star of the Little Review show at the Stuka café writes the invitations to an event that will be ‘not so much a play as an experience and a mirror to the soul – being the work of children’.

  The hall fills with guests: Yitzhak and Zivia from the young people’s commune at Dzielna Street are there. Krystyna appears, taking off her apron, and joins Sophia and Marianek. She kisses his dark hair, so like Sabina’s.

  The lights dim. In a faraway village in India, orphan Amal meets his new parents and explores the forests and fields around his village.

  But Amal becomes sick and must stay in bed in a tiny room with only a small shuttered window. He longs desperately to run through fields and forests once again. One night, as he struggles to finally open the shutters and let in the light of the stars, the passing watchman has good news for him: one day he will leave the room and find freedom again.

  But instead, Amal gets sicker. As he lies in his bed, his head droops, his arm falls to the ground and Amal dies. As his family weeps, his little friend the flower girl arrives and places marigolds on his bed.

  ‘Don’t be sad,’ she tells them. ‘Amal is only sleeping. Soon the king will come and Amal will wake up. Then they will leave together for a wonderful land that no one on earth has ever visited before.’

  The children in the front rows are very quiet. Perhaps they have forgotten that it is Abrasha and Sara in curtains and make-up, as they watch the sleeping Amal with thoughtful expressions.

  Behind the children, the adults are also very still, many openly crying, everyone a little hungry, everyone exhausted. For several moments longer the room remains in a quiet hush.

  Then applause. The lights come on. The children come back to take their bows, and the room fills with chatter and smiles.

  Korczak joins Stefa at the back of the room, clapping hard. ‘If only we could stay here like this, Stefa, in a new play, one of our own choosing.’

  Czerniakow has arrived late and appears at Korczak’s side, joining apologetically in the applause.

  ‘I’m sorry to miss it,’ he tells Korczak in a low voice, ‘but I’ve been besieged all day, people wanting to know if this is true, if that is true. Are trains waiting to deport them somewhere? Are we going to be sent to the east, to Russia?’

  ‘Are we?’

  ‘Kommissar Auerswald assures me not. And only yesterday two Germans came to me, placing a very large order for boots. Would they do that if the quarter were being dissolved? The Germans are desperately short of labour now. They must need the Warsaw Jews to work for them, that’s the only rational conclusion.’

  ‘You know, some of the young people are convinced the Nazis mean to dissolve the ghetto and worse.’

  ‘Yes, they came to me again. This talk of armed resistance from the youth movements.’ He glances over at Yitzhak who is talking with Misha. ‘It’s madness. It would bring disaster on us all. I’m in the middle of some delicate negotiations to get more of the men released from prison. They will be able to live in the work camp, not far from here, Treblinka. The Germans need men for labour, you see, but as for clearing the whole ghetto . . .’

  ‘I suppose that’s all the Jews have become in this giant German enterprise of war,’ says Korczak. ‘Not people but a commodity. No need to give us sunbathing on beaches, or pleasant naps or games of bridge, just footwear, clothes, tools, a little food to do our work. We’re hands and feet to keep the German machine functioning.’

  Czerniakow nods lugubriously. ‘But come what may, I’ll make sure the children are safe. These little ones will see the future. I’ll make sure of it. And now I have a meeting with these cameramen the Germans have sent in. They’ve brought in all sorts of things to my office from the synagogue – rugs, paintings, a menorah candle that dripped wax all over my table because they thought my office didn’t look Jewish enough. They’re not interested in filming the orphanages or soup kitchens. They only want to film pictures of wealthy women next to starving beggars. And now they want to stage a ball to show how we’re living it up in the ghetto. We’ve been ordered to provide food and find women with long gowns, with me as chief guest. Well, I shan’t be going to that, I can tell you now.’

  Later, as the children settle for bed, Korczak walks through the halls and stops by Aronek’s bed.

  Aronek is sitting with his arms around his knees, rocking a little, a furrowed brow.

  He looks up at Pan Doctor sitting next to him in the dark.

  ‘Are you afraid of death, Pan Doctor?’

  ‘Nothing ever dies. Even our physical body goes on to live another way, the same atoms in a new shape, as a flower, as a bird. And I believe that God loves us, and that love never dies.’

  Aronek presses his lips together and thinks about this. He nods his head. ‘My mother loved me,’ he says gruffly.

  ‘I know she did, Aronek.’

  ‘If I had a father, he’d be like you, Pan Doctor.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY - ONE

  WARSAW, 20 JULY 1942

  In spite of Czerniakow’s official assurances, the rumours of deportations continue to fly through the ghetto. Is it true that trains are waiting to take s
ixty thousand people away to build fortifications, or to build a new work camp for the Germans? Is it true that if you have a certificate proving you have work in the ghetto you won’t be taken?

  Czerniakow wakes on Monday having slept little that night. First thing, he takes his chauffeur-driven car to the Gestapo headquarters in Szucha Avenue to try and find out what is happening. He’s used to the Nazis’ techniques of deception but if he can ask enough people, then at least some picture might emerge between the evasions to let him see what is really afoot.

  Jews are no longer allowed to be on Szucha Avenue. Czerniakow feels apprehensive as he steps out of the car and walks past the sentries into the Gestapo building. Inside, he heads for the department in charge of the ghetto and is shown into SS Sergeant Mende’s office.

  In a bow-tie and a pressed suit, with a triangle of white handkerchief showing at a precise angle above his top pocket, Czerniakow stands at the required respectful distance from Mende’s desk. A headache is already building behind his broad forehead.

  ‘Sergeant Mende, the quarter is in turmoil as a result of wild rumours about deportations. May I ask if there is in fact any substance to the rumour that the Jewish quarter will be cleared today?’

  Well built and tall, Mende has the mild face of a man who has never hurt a soul. His white gloves are placed neatly on his desk next to a stamp album. ‘I can assure you, I have heard nothing,’ he replies calmly. He turns to his aid, SS Lieutenant Brandt, a sour and obese man who is sitting in a chair, cleaning his nails. ‘Have you heard anything about this?’

  Brandt scowls and shakes his head.

  Mende gives a definitive nod of his head to indicate that Czerniakow is dismissed but Czerniakow remains in front of his desk.

  ‘Could such a thing happen in the future, Herr Mende?’

  ‘I repeat. We know nothing of any such a scheme.’