The Good Doctor of Warsaw

by Elisabeth Gifford

  Czerniakow walks along the corridor to the head of all ghetto matters, Kommissar Bohm.

  ‘Is it true that deportations are to begin this evening, at seven-thirty?’ Czerniakow asks.

  Bohm too evidences surprise. ‘I can assure you that if that were the case I would certainly know about it. You may ask Hohman in the political section if he has heard anything about such rumours.’

  Hohman won’t see him, but his deputy is also astonished to learn of such rumours. ‘It’s utter nonsense. You have the Gestapo’s permission to issue a message through the Order Police that any such fears are groundless.’

  Still not satisfied and sweating inside his immaculate suit, Czerniakow directs his chauffeur to drive to the Bruhl Palace on Adolf Hitler Platz to speak to the man in charge of all Jewish affairs in Warsaw. Kommissar Auerswald too reassures Czerniakow that the rumours are completely false. He does have good news, however. The children in the prison are going to be allowed to move into the home Czerniakow is preparing for them in the ghetto.

  As Czerniakow drives back, he tries to feel reassured by this news, but his heart is beating too fast. His stomach knots with anxiety as the car drives in through the gates and the ghetto smells once again settle around him. All day asking questions, and still he has no answers.

  The following morning he’s in his office, trying to get the prison children released into a new home, when SS swarm over the building shouting orders, rounding up all the members of the Jewish Council. With no explanation the police bundle the council members into a van bound for Pawiak prison. His wife is also taken hostage, for what purpose it’s unclear, but she’s made to wait with Czerniakow in the office all day as he makes call after call to try and get the council members released.

  Late in the afternoon, he and his wife are allowed to return to their apartment on Chlodna Street, but the Gestapo make it clear that his wife is still considered a hostage.

  For what? What’s coming? He’s sure the Gestapo will keep the ghetto as a labour camp, but how many could they take away as unfit to work?

  He lies awake as terrible visions pass through his pounding head.

  And what about the children? Whatever happens, he will insist they are protected.

  CHAPTER THIRTY - TWO

  WARSAW, 21 JULY 1942

  Across the ghetto, no one is sleeping; they are all terrified of some nameless thing that is coming. Few people have dared to go out that day, the soldiers shooting at random. In the little flat in Ogrodowa Street Sophia and Krystyna are also sleepless, nerves jangling from the confused panic in the ghetto.

  The girls are drinking hot water flavoured with a few grounds of precious coffee dregs from Tatiana’s café.

  Misha has been and gone with a little bread. It’s so rare and expensive now that everyone is dizzy with hunger. He’s going to come tomorrow with more.

  ‘But what do you think they are planning?’ whispers Krystyna. ‘A labour round-up? A pogrom? Those rumours about Lublin’s people disappearing into thin air . . .’

  ‘Rumours. Look at all the new German workshops that have opened. The Germans would never be insane enough to squander so much labour.’

  ‘They can’t go on for ever. They can’t win, that much is clear now. If we can just hold out . . . Sophia, where do you think we will be this time next year?’

  ‘That’s only for God to know. I only pray that we will all still be together.’

  Outside in the darkness, there’s a volley of rifle shots and then complete silence.

  Sitting up in bed, Korczak lifts his head, hearing several shots. He makes himself carry on writing, recording the strange things that have happened each day.

  And what of the future? So many rumours and counter-rumours.

  Talk about the ghetto being dissolved has now also reached the other side of the wall. Some while earlier, disguised as a water and sewage inspector, Newerly entered the ghetto to bring Korczak out. Newerly was a close friend who had worked in both the Polish and the Jewish orphanages with Korczak, later taking over the running of the children’s newspaper for him. He had kept in contact with Korczak as much as was possible, but it had been some months since Newerly last visited the ghetto and he seemed deeply shaken by the state of the people on the streets. The children were very quiet and hardly moved about. Korczak saw in his face how he looked very ill and wasted, stooping over his cane, his uniform grown too large.

  Newerly spoke urgently to the doctor. He must close the home, then he and some of the other workers could escape. Maryna had prepared a hidden room for Korczak at the Polish orphanage.

  Korczak gazed at Newerly as if he was proposing some theft or fraud. ‘You want me to abandon the children, run away and save myself? Thank you, my friend, but the Germans aren’t unreasonable at heart. They will never let the orphanage be dissolved.’

  Now Korczak puts down his pencil and rubs his eyes. Newerly was quite wrong to think he would ever run away and leave his children.

  But he’s so tired. It’s an act of will each morning just to stand, put on his trousers, lace each boot, put one foot in front of the other.

  In the meantime, the German machine rolls on implacably.

  And what does he do in protest?

  He clears the table.

  No, no, people tell him, let me do it, Pan Doctor. And quite frankly, they’re telling him he gets in the way. But he likes to clear the table. It soothes him, all the little clues to the children’s character and disposition, a chair tipped over, a neatly stacked plate, a dented bowl. He refuses to put aside these human exchanges, these simple acts of care.

  It’s three a.m., time to catch some sleep. He checks on the children in the sickbay around him, turns out the carbide lamp and pulls his army blanket up round his shoulders.

  Tomorrow will be his birthday. He’ll be sixty-four.

  CHAPTER THIRTY - THREE

  WARSAW, 22 JULY 1942

  Czerniakow wakes in his apartment on Chlodna Street. The scenes from yesterday and the Gestapo’s arrests come flooding back. He dresses carefully, correctly, his uniform to do battle. Today he must get the men on the council released from prison. He drinks a watery coffee. He can hear a light rain falling. He goes to the window and his heart skips a ragged beat. Armed guards in black uniforms are stationed every hundred feet along the ghetto wall. Each one carries a rifle.

  The small ghetto is surrounded. His heart racing, he hurries down to the chauffeured car that waits in front of his building.

  ‘Who are they, sir?’ the driver asks as he turns the car towards the Chlodna Gate.

  ‘Ukrainians, I believe.’

  The driver studies his face in the mirror.

  By the time the car pulls up in front of the Jewish Council building, the rain has cleared, the air warm and damp. Across the road children are already in the playground, making the most of the quiet to enjoy the swings and the roundabout. He hurries in to begin making his first calls. As soon as he’s in the sanctuary of his office, the stained glass of the artisan’s window casting its soothing light – part of a scheme to pay starving artists – he wipes his neck with a handkerchief in the muggy warmth, picks up the phone to Gestapo headquarters. His secretary rushes in.

  ‘Sir, the Polish doctor who had a pass to come in and operate last night, the SS turned up in the middle of the operation and shot everyone there.’

  ‘They shot the patient? A sick man on the operating table.’

  ‘The doctor, the staff, the family. And sir, there are lots more reports of people being murdered last night. And arrests, sir.’ She places a list on his desk with an anguished and apologetic look.

  Czerniakow’s shoulders slump and he leans his arms heavily on the desk as he reads them. The news about the Polish doctor being murdered is shocking. Sickening images crowd before him as he picks up the phone and dials the Gestapo.

  A voice at Gestapo headquarters informs Czerniakow in curt tones that he can no longer speak to Oberscharführer Mende in
person. Kommissar Auerswald in the Bruhl Palace is also not available to speak to him.

  He replaces the receiver, blanked by the German authorities. What can he do now if they refuse to negotiate with him?

  He jumps, taut with nerves when the phone rings. It’s a call from the Jewish police near the Leszno Gate. The man is almost shouting.

  ‘Chairman Czerniakow, eight cars full of German soldiers have just driven into the ghetto. It says Pol. on the side of the cars. The streets are deserted here.’ There is the sound of engines roaring in the background. ‘Sir, there’s more coming in, different now. They’re in full battledress, sir, and there’s SS with them.’

  Czerniakow can hear the crack of gunfire. ‘What’s happening there? Hello?’

  ‘Sir, they’re shooting. My God, a woman on a balcony—’ The phone cuts off. No reply when he rings back.

  He rises from his desk fired with determination. He’ll drive to the Bruhl Palace immediately and speak to Auerswald in person, but there’s the sound of vehicles drawing up beneath the windows in a squeal of brakes and shouting, doors slamming. A rain of heavy boots comes up the stairs. The children’s voices in the playground across the street carry through the open window, a scent of summer on the air.

  Ten SS men burst into Czerniakow’s office. He recognizes SS Sturmbannführer Hofle from the Lublin ghetto. Czerniakow met him briefly a few months ago when he and his officers paid a short visit to the ghetto.

  It’s clear that the Lublin men are now in charge. Mende and Brandt from the Warsaw Gestapo follow close behind.

  Czerniakow stands, trying to show as much composure as he can.

  ‘Disconnect that telephone,’ Mende orders curtly. Hofle settles in the armchair opposite the desk, the leather of his long coat creaking. He does not remove his saddle-shaped hat. He sits down, crosses his legs in a relaxed, authoritative manner and taps a polished boot up and down in the air. Czerniakow watches how the stained-glass window casts patches of colour on the floor. Outside, one of the Germans waiting in Mende’s open-topped car has a record player, a Strauss waltz playing. From the playground opposite, the children’s voices drift in like faraway bird calls.

  All pretence at not knowing what is happening now gone, Mende barks out his orders. ‘You will close the playground and send the children home. Listen carefully to the following instructions and make no mistake, they must all be complied with. Starting today, all Jews must be evacuated from the ghetto and moved east. By four o’clock today six thousand people must be waiting at the Umschlagplatz ready to be loaded onto trains.’

  ‘But how can I? It isn’t possible,’ Czerniakow stammers.

  Hofle stares at him from behind plain, round glasses. He has the face of an irritated bureaucrat, eager to finish the day correctly and go home. He gets up and places a written order for the deportations on the desk in front of Czerniakow.

  ‘The trains are ready. There are to be no exceptions. Sign the order and give this information to all Order Police who will implement the instructions for deportation.’

  ‘Where are you taking them?’

  Hofle rises up in a fit of temper. ‘I don’t understand why you think you have permission to question me. You will comply with orders one hundred per cent or your colleagues in the prison will be shot. I think that’s clear.’

  Czerniakow listens to a faraway ringing in his ears as he reads through the report. He must not allow himself to react to Hofle’s anger. He slows his breathing, remains studiously calm and begins to try to widen the categories exempt from deportation. ‘It says workers and their families and the Jewish Police are exempt, sir? Could we also allow an exemption for the Craftsmen’s Union and their wives, and for apprentices?’

  Hofle shrugs. ‘That is possible, yes, they may be exempted.’

  ‘And I see, sir, you are exempting the sick in hospital. Might we broaden that to include children in orphanages who are also defenceless and in our care?’

  Here Hofle’s patience snaps and he takes the paper back abruptly.

  ‘I will reconsider the matter of the children, provided that you agree to have six thousand people ready in the Umschlagplatz every day.’

  ‘But if I can’t find that many people willing to go?’

  ‘Then your wife will be shot.’

  The Gestapo leave, their boots thundering down the wooden stairs. Czerniakow sits alone in his office, their smell of leather and hair oil lingering in the room. He draws a sharp breath to counter the rising nausea now accompanying his blinding headache. He has to think. He has to act. He must focus on what he can do to stop the children getting on the trains. Surely the Gestapo must give an exemption for the children, please God.

  He walks across to the open window. The swings are empty, nothing but a dusty wind blowing across the concrete under the morning sun.

  All day, Czerniakow works to get the rest of the hostages released. At the same time he follows the reports on the number of people at the Umschlagplatz, knowing that if they fall short of the quota, the hostages will be shot. And he sends messages and makes phone call after phone call, trying to find out if permission has come through to get the orphans an exemption.

  At their headquarters the Jewish police are given their orders and the number of people each one is required to bring to the yard next to the trains, the Umschlagplatz. There will be executions if the quota is not filled. They fan out into the ghetto and make up the required numbers by taking the homeless from the streets and the shelters, and the prisoners from Gesia.

  To the rest of the ghetto, it looks like an exercise in clearing away the unproductive.

  Sophia stands with the crowd in front of the poster that has appeared on the wall, trying to make sense of it, feeling the ground give way. So this is it. It’s begun. Around her the ghetto seems to have been hit by an electric current, people hurrying off to try and arrange work permits, others wringing their hands.

  Police are emptying the shelter of the well-dressed German Jews who arrived so recently. The people line up in orderly rows, four across, and march with dignity towards the freight yard where there are trains waiting to take them away to labour camps.

  What if the Germans decide to divert Misha’s labour unit there too, without him ever coming back to say goodbye? She spins round, not sure where she is, what to do.

  Then she snaps to. She can’t afford to panic. What she has to do is find work permits for her parents. She sets off at a run, not even sure where she should go.

  By the time Misha and the boys return through the Krasinskich Gate late in the afternoon, the ghetto is in an uproar, people running to and fro, crowds gathered around notices posted up by the Gestapo, reading the announcement with cries of disbelief.

  ‘They’re sending us to work camps,’ one woman tells him. ‘But what does that mean?’

  ‘If it says to take seven pounds of luggage, food for three days, then that must be a good sign,’ another woman replies.

  Is this the beginning of what Yitzhak warned them about? Misha steps closer to read the notice. Anyone with a work permit and their family will be exempt. So Sophia will be safe on his permit. And Krystyna’s at the café. But the others?

  He watches a cart rumble past, loaded with sick and elderly patients in hospital gowns, some crying or moaning with pain. Yelling to the boys to carry on, that he’ll follow them to the home later, he runs to Sophia’s flat to see what can be done about finding work permits for her parents.

  The streets are in turmoil, people with anxious faces running to and fro to find work permits of any description. He passes long queues of people with drawn faces besieging the new factories.

  Sophia meets him at the door. Marianek is clinging on to her in response to the tense atmosphere.

  ‘Have you seen the notices?’ she says. ‘It’s happening.’

  ‘You’ll be on my work permit as my wife, so you’ll be safe. And Krystyna should have a certificate from Tatiana’s café, but your parents . . .’
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  ‘My parents are queuing at the new boot works, but what can they do?’ She goes to the window and stares out along the noisy street. ‘It’s such bedlam. Do you think they stand a chance there?’

  ‘Let’s hope they do. I’m going to run to the home now to see all’s well but I’ll be back later, or first thing in the morning before work.’

  ‘Yes, you must go,’ she says but her eyes fasten on him with panic. He picks up her hand and rubs her clenched fist against his lips. With a small noise she presses into his chest as his arms encircle her, Marianek looking on with a puzzled frown. He bursts into tears as Misha goes out of the door.

  Mr Rozental returns shortly afterwards.

  ‘Tomorrow. I’ll definitely find something tomorrow. But I need to get my breath a while.’ He sits by the table, one arm resting on it for support, stripped down to his vest, ashen white. He breathes raggedly for a while until the colour returns to his face.

  Sophia gives him a glass of water and watches him closely while she cooks a pan of potatoes, the same meal they have eaten all week. No butter but at least they have salt.

  A little while later Mrs Rozental returns. ‘Nothing. They closed the queue as I got there, everyone shoving and shouting like madmen. And this in the twentieth century. Of course, if you have money to hand over it’s a different story. Some people will be rich by the end of today.’

  Krystyna bursts in, looking as if she’s run all the way, her face moist with warmth, her hair blown from its clips, relieved and triumphant. ‘Here, Mama, you are now a brush-maker at the factory on Swietojerska Street. I got a permit through someone in the café, not cheap, but it will cover you. And if Mother has one, then Father is exempt too.’

  ‘Krystyna, you are such a clever girl.’ Mrs Rozental examines it, looks alarmed. ‘But what do I do with it?’

  ‘You go to the factory every day,’ says Krystyna, ‘and if they have some materials you may even make some brushes.’