*
When he’s gone, Sophia sits by Marianek’s side until he’s asleep. Krystyna is helping her mother to bed, bowed and aged by years, it seems.
Sophia gets up and draws the blackout curtains.
Behind them night falls across the terrified and disorientated ghetto. How long will this cull go on before the Germans stop? Who will be taken? Where are they going?
‘But we need Pani Esterka back. Can’t you tell them, Pan Doctor?’ says Sara when Korczak breaks the news to the children as they gather around him in the hall.
‘The Germans won’t listen,’ Halinka tells her.
‘But why did they take her?’ Sara says, turning to Erwin who was last to see her.
‘Perhaps they want her to be a doctor for them,’ Halinka says.
Szymonek has a vital question. ‘Will they take you, Pan Doctor?’ he asks.
‘No, Szymonek. I promise I won’t be leaving you. We all stay here together and sooner or later the war will end. Sooner or later, the German people, the world, will understand what is happening in here.’
It’s getting late. The children pull the beds out and unroll the duvets in near silence.
‘Please don’t leave the ghetto tonight, Erwin,’ Halinka asks him.
He nods, wanting to stay and keep watch over the home tonight.
But as he goes up to sleep in the older boys’ dormitory in the ballroom above, he knows that he’ll have to go out again tomorrow night. They need bread.
*
Korczak takes down the blackout. A large pale moon, almost transparent, lingers on in the limpid morning sky. A chill wind comes through the gaps in the window frame, making bits of rubbish in the street swirl and drag along the pavement. What sinister happenings will today bring? Why can he do nothing to calm the madness all around?
Down in the main room Sara and Halinka are helping to lay the tables for breakfast up on the stage. Abrasha and Aronek hurry to finish their allotted chores, pushing the beds back, sweeping the floor, singing as they work, the alphabet song in Yiddish, ‘Oyfn Pripetshik’.
Korczak looks round with pride. Even though they have had to move from place to place, each more inadequate than the last, the home has carried on with its same routines and values, not because he has insisted on it but because the children have carried them with them.
And the future?
Szymonek and Mendelek are carrying large jugs to the table. Is he doing the right thing in keeping all the children together? Could he really let them go to strangers to hide in dark corners, afraid and in terrible danger? He still feels sure that the Germans will never touch the home. Too many Germans know and respect the home for that to ever happen. But all the same, he’s going to meet with a businessman called Gepner later and arrange to buy sewing machines, get the home registered as a workshop. A safeguard. And after Stefa’s sewing classes over the years, even he is able to sew on a button or mend a sock.
*
In the crowded kitchen at the commune on 34 Dzielna Street where Korczak and Stefa gave lectures on education and child care to a room of hopeful students just a few weeks ago, Tosia, Yitzhak and his dark-haired wife Zivia are now holding a meeting with other youth-group leaders in the ghetto.
Yitzhak is speaking.
‘It’s no good waiting for the Jewish Council or anyone else to join us in resistance. They still insist it will only make matters worse.’
‘And people tear down the posters we put up in the stairwells,’ adds Zivia. ‘They can’t believe that our warnings are true. They shout at us for scaring people.’
‘So it seems we’re on our own,’ Yitzhak carries on. ‘But whatever happens, we won’t let them take us. Whatever happens, we do not get on the trains. If you are taken in a round-up, you escape. If you are taken to the Umschlagplatz, get out of there. If you are pushed onto the trains, it’s your duty to jump out before you get to the last stop. We do not let them take us. Resist, even if it means a fight to the death. And fight we will.’
There’s a silence broken only by the cold rain.
‘And if we die, at least we will have sent a declaration to the world,’ adds Tosia, ‘that the Jews will not go like sheep to the slaughter.’
Yitzhak has sent a message to Misha to let him know what they intend.
But Misha can’t think like that. The youth movements are made up of young people without parents or children. Misha has too many depending on him to contemplate such a course of action.
Come what may, he must be there to make sure the children and Sophia survive these dark times, begin a new life after the war.
And at the end of the day, he too simply can’t believe in the pessimism of Yitzhak’s reports.
CHAPTER THIRTY - SIX
WARSAW, 3 AUGUST 1942
Sophia paces the room. Krystyna leans out of the window, watching along the street. The German guards have almost all left the ghetto and people have begun to appear on the streets, desperate to get out at last and begin to trade for food. Clothes, jewellery, shoes, everything’s on sale, prices dropping fast. Food is what everyone wants, and prices are rocketing for the little that makes it in now. She’s hoping to see Mother returning home from the brushworks on Swietojerska Street, threading through the crowds, but there’s no sign of her.
‘Perhaps they’re making everyone sleep at the factory tonight,’ says Krystyna. ‘Don’t you think that’s it, Sophia? Or perhaps she’s having to do a night shift. Or perhaps there was a disturbance on the street and it wasn’t safe to leave.’
Sophia gives her a wan smile. It’s not long till curfew when the street will rapidly empty. She’s never been this late before.
Lutek has already been to see them and returned to his workplace barracks where he is now obliged to sleep. He has to hurry to bring food for Marianek and see him briefly each afternoon.
No one goes out in the morning. That’s when the Germans from Lublin drive around the ghetto for the day’s Aktion, selections and round-ups – new words that are now on everyone’s lips.
Krystyna gives a whimper. ‘Where can she be?’
There is no way they can find out. The room is filled with anxiety, with the absence of her mother. If only Misha were here, his warm arms around her. She knows that he will have gone straight from his work detail to the orphanage tonight, but she needs to see him, to know that he is safe. She has to stop her body from rising up and running through the streets to find him.
She stands by Krystyna at the window, resting her head against her shoulder in a numbed silence. ‘She could still come,’ Krystyna whispers.
And even though they know it’s too late, long after curfew as night falls over the ghetto streets, they are still listening for her weary tread coming up the stairs, her little sigh as she sits down and pushes off her battered shoes.
Where is she?
*
In the morning Krystyna hurries to work at Tatiana’s café early to get a message to Misha before he leaves for his work unit. The brush factory is opposite the gate he leaves by each morning.
He promises he’ll find out what has happened.
But standing in rows waiting to go out of the ghetto gate, there’s no chance for him to slip across and ask at the factory gate. He can see shoes scattered along the street, a heavy silence from behind the factory wall. His heart contracts with fear.
The guard gives a signal and they leave the ghetto in formation, shovels over their shoulders. The sun finally comes out and Misha works in the sudden July heat, next to the barracks wall, filled with foreboding.
He can hear the slow clack of trains going past. He stands and shades his eyes against the bright sky. Realizes he must be hearing trains that are coming from the ghetto.
As soon as Misha arrives back at the Krasinskich Gate that evening, he sees someone he knows waiting to go in to work at the brush factory and hurries over to ask if he’s seen Mrs Rozental.
‘Helena Rozental. Don’t you know? There was a select
ion here yesterday. She was taken away to the trains with the others. She’ll be long gone now, if she’s still alive.’
Up in the apartment, he finds Sophia and Krystyna racked with worry.
His face announces the news before he can speak. The two girls hold on to each other.
‘They had a selection at the brushworks.’
‘Well, let’s go to the Umschlagplatz,’ says Krystyna, looking for her shoes. ‘We must get her back, now.’
‘Krystyna. It happened yesterday. You have to understand. She’ll be gone now. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’
Marianek watches in alarm as his two aunts gasp with sobs.
A knock on the door. It’s Lutek. He picks up Marianek and rocks him, hides the child’s face in his shoulder as he listens to the news. Then he turns abruptly to the girls.
‘You have to pack some things, quickly.’
Krystyna looks at him aghast, her face wet.
‘Now? What are you talking about?’
‘A friend in the Order Police says this building’s slated to be cleared in the morning. A selection. There’s an apartment in a block on Zamenhofa Street that’s just been cleared. You’ll be safer there. But we must go now, before curfew.’
‘We can’t leave here. Mother’s things,’ says Krystyna, looking around. ‘We can’t just leave them. And Father’s books.’
‘Lutek’s right,’ says Misha gently. ‘We’d better hurry. I’ll come with you as far as the flat, make sure you’re in safely.’
Stifling sobs, the girls begin to pack a bag.
‘Only what we can carry,’ says Sophia flatly, eyes blurring with tears as she fills a bag with Marianek’s clothes, what food they have left, bowls, spoons, a knife. The photograph of Misha and her on the steps of the house at Little Rose summer camp.
Glancing round the room at their few possessions, still redolent with so many memories of her parents, Sophia closes the door and taking Misha’s hand follows Krystyna and Lutek with Marianek down the stairs.
The building on Zamenhofa Street has been ransacked by looters, windows left open, torn eiderdowns and bedding spilling out. Across the courtyard, bloodstains and odd shoes.
Lutek leads them up the stairwell to the top floor and unlocks an apartment. Inside it is stuffy with the day’s heat, oppressive with silence. On the table, there’s a pot of soup. Sophia puts her hand on the side. It’s still warm. She takes her hand away as if burned.
Where are the people who were about to sit and eat it?
Misha puts down the girls’ rucksack and checks out of the window along Zamenhofa Street. Once again people have come out in the late afternoon to try and buy food, but already the street is beginning to thin out and empty for curfew.
‘Keep the door locked and don’t let anyone in unless you know who it is. They’re going to move police into this block soon so it won’t undergo a selection again,’ Lutek tells them. ‘But you should find somewhere to hide, a wardrobe, the loft hatch, in case . . .’
He passes his hand over Marianek’s dark hair, smooth as silk. ‘I’m sorry,’ he tells him. ‘Papa has to be away again.’
Lutek leaves for the German boot factory where he’s now registered, Misha for the home to join the boys ready for work next morning.
Misha lingers a moment longer, not wanting to give Sophia up as she rests in his arms. He kisses her once more, twice, then quietly leaves and closes the door.
After he’s gone, Sophia shoots the top bolt shut. The apartment is weighed down with an ominous quiet. Even Marianek makes no sound. Krystyna curls up on a rumpled bed, eyes open and dry.
Sophia sits down by the lukewarm soup and ladles out a small bowl of it for the little boy, but she can’t eat any.
She can’t let herself think or feel until Marianek is asleep. Only then does she sit staring across the room, her limbs broken in pieces, longing for Sabina to walk through the door, to feel the comforting press of her father’s hand on her shoulder, to hear her mother’s voice once again.
The light is fading. Krystyna too is asleep. Sophia sinks into a stranger’s sheets. She lays her cheek on a pillow, another’s must lingering on the cotton. She tries to remember what it feels like to have Misha’s shape next to her in the darkness. She stretches out her arm but touches only air and her hand drops back onto the thin blanket.
Around them, the rest of the ghetto huddles behind closed doors, hoping they can make it through another day, hoping that the Gestapo’s labour round-ups will end soon.
CHAPTER THIRTY - SEVEN
WARSAW, 5 AUGUST 1942
Misha’s determined to find a small cake, or something at least, for Sophia’s birthday. As usual, he and Jakubek, Mounius and Dawidek leave early to report to Krasinskich Gate. Stefa waves them off as she sets out plates and mugs for breakfast on the stage and the children tidy away beds in the main area.
As is his custom, Korczak kisses each of the three boys and Misha on the forehead before they leave for work outside the ghetto.
‘Bless you and may you have a good day as you work,’ he says. ‘Come back to us safely.’
As they cross the courtyard the air is still cool but soon the heat will begin to build and press down on the stone-bound streets like yesterday.
Misha turns to give one last wave, but Korczak has already gone inside.
Korczak finishes watering the pots of flowers at the back windows and moves to the front balcony. Hanna from the sickbay goes with him, holding tight to his hand. If he lets go, he thinks she will simply stand still, white and anaemic with hardly enough energy to smile. He lifts down one of the pots of red geraniums so she can carefully add a little water.
A small brown sparrow whirrs down onto the balcony ledge, and they look up entranced. So rare to see a bird inside the walls. He thinks of the sparrows that used to gather at his attic window at Krochmalna Street, almost invisible in their whirr of wings, the breadcrumbs in their beaks seeming to levitate away magically. He and Hanna hold their breath, willing the bird to stay, but it darts round the flower and is gone.
Korczak returns the geranium to the windowsill. Down by the wall he can see a guard standing legs apart, holding a rifle. He’s one of the new ones, a black-and-yellow uniform. The young man looks up and eyes Korczak stonily. Korczak smiles back. Even now, he won’t let himself hate, become like them.
In the hall they join the children at the tables, standing while Stefa gives thanks, then settle down to eat with a syncopation of chairs and chatter.
*
Halinka wonders when Erwin will appear. He’s out of the ghetto almost every night now with a couple of the other boys, bringing in bread. She fills Szymonek’s mug with milk that’s almost all water. Szymonek drinks deeply, puts down his mug and leaves a thin moustache of transparent white on his top lip. The other children laugh and Szymonek wipes it away, happy with his joke.
Sara pushes back the ribbon in her hair. Halinka helped her tie it, but it keeps slipping down. Next to Sara’s plate is a small doll made of hardened plasticine. Sara likes whispering secrets to it when she thinks no one is looking.
On the other side Aronek is explaining to a new boy how they all help with the chores here, not just the girls. Abrasha is humming a tune he’s been making up. He says he’s going to call it the wind in the trees. Halinka thinks it sounds nice and each time she hears it, she can see the poplar trees down by the river, silver and green running through the leaves like water in the sun.
The sound of a whistle. Halinka jumps and looks up to see a German officer in saddle-shaped hat and black riding boots, standing at the back of the hall. Another blast and he’s shouting. ‘All Jews out! Alle Juden raus!’ The children have stopped talking. They’re looking to Korczak and Stefa for an explanation. Outside, a dog is barking.
Korczak cannot understand what he sees now. He and Stefa exchange a long glance filled with grief and shock and a determination to protect the children as best they can now. The terrible moment they never believe
d could happen has arrived.
Then he’s moving quickly towards the officer. All depends on calming the situation down. He’s seen what happens if violence erupts among the guards, people thrown from windows . . . Up close, the officer smells of shaving soap overlaid by the sickly smell of the mothballs the Germans use for their uniforms.
‘Please, shouting will only make the situation more difficult,’ he tells the officer. ‘If you would give me time to talk to the children, calm them down, and to get their things together then we will assemble outside quietly.’
‘You may have fifteen minutes. But first you will provide the register with the names of all children and staff.’
In the hall Stefa claps her hands. ‘We will be going on a trip today, outside the ghetto. So you must all go quickly and get ready. Put your shoes on. Your teachers will tell you what else you will need to carry in your knapsacks.’
‘But Pani Stefa, we haven’t finished breakfast,’ says Szymonek.
‘Go now, Szymonek.’
Startled by this urgent note in her voice, the children rise from the table, milk half drunk, bread uneaten.
Korczak comes back in. Her eyes fasten on his with hope but he shakes his head almost imperceptibly.
Korczak takes her hands. ‘I’m sorry, Stefa.’
‘Dear, dear friend,’ she says.
One last squeeze of her hand on his and then they break apart, hurrying to ready the children as calmly as possible.
As fast as they can, the teachers fill metal flasks with water. But the German guards are waiting in the doorway and the first children are already hurrying out to the courtyard. Abrasha carries his violin, Halinka her soap from Erwin, Sara has her plasticine doll. Aronek takes the postcard that Korczak gave him for waking up on time for a whole week.
The Good Doctor of Warsaw Page 20
