Clara's War

by Clara Kramer

  I must have fallen asleep at some point. When I woke the next morning it took a moment for me to remember why we were there. We gathered our blankets and made the long procession home, where we gathered around Dzadzio’s radio hoping to hear of a Polish counter-attack. But all we heard was bad news. The Germans were advancing as fast as the tanks could travel. The mounted Polish cavalry was fighting bravely for every metre of Polish territory, but they were outmatched. Poland didn’t have many tanks or aircraft, and most of the modern weapons we had produced had been sold to other countries.

  Every day that followed seemed to bring nothing but more bad news. Every night we made the trip to the orchard and watched the Nazi aircraft fly overhead, filling the sky like locusts. Every morning we made the walk home to listen to the radio. On 4 September, the Nazi troops cut off Warsaw. On 5 September, they crossed the Vistula into eastern Poland. And on 6 September, Krakow surrendered. Rumours poured in with more refugees. The Nazis were advancing. In some Polish towns the Volksdeutsche, ethnic Germans, who had been sent to colonize Poland in the 17th and 18th centuries, were greeting the Germans with flags and flowers. So were many Poles and the Ukrainian Nationalists. There was no more opposition.

  On 18 September 1939, the Nazis arrived in Zolkiew. But it was only the Wehrmacht and not a shot was fired. The German soldiers were polite as they wandered through the streets like tourists, climbing the wooden stairs of the castle walls, taking pictures of the churches, buying the inlaid birch boxes, lace tablecloths and napkins to send as gifts to wives, girlfriends and mothers. They showed off their weapons to curious boys and flirted with the girls. I only heard this second-hand from Manek, Josek and Papa. Mania and I were terrified and didn’t dare venture beyond the sheltered backyards of our street.

  Not one week later, we learned about a secret amendment that had been made to the original Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Hitler would now control the western part of Poland and Stalin would keep the east. Zolkiew was less than 100 kilometres from the Russian border. All the Jewish families of Zolkiew got down on their hands and knees to thank God for his mercy.

  Within days young Russian soldiers with cheeks like apricots from the Crimea marched into town to replace the Germans. For hundreds of years the Russians had dealt with dissidents by deporting them to the vast freezing extremities of their country where they would never be heard from again. The Tsar had deported so many Poles to Siberia that there were entire towns larger than Zolkiew there where only Polish was spoken. But if we kept to ourselves, and didn’t aggravate or oppose the Soviets, they would leave us in peace. We felt we could tolerate life under the communists. We would surely have to practise our religion in private, and we might have to give up our business, but we would be spared the persecution of the Nazis.

  Only Dzadzio cried like a prophet: ‘You don’t know who’s coming here! You don’t know!’ He despised the Russians. He had hated the tsarists and now he hated the communists. He had been captured in 1914 when he was a soldier in the Polish army and had spent six years in a Russian concentration camp, four under the tsar and two under the communists. He had experienced Stalin’s hell. Dzadzio knew that the Soviets were magicians, able to change the world with mere words. Invitations into threats. Plenty into hunger. Loyalty into fear. Smiles into lies. He never talked about what he went through in the Russian concentration camp. Not even to his wife. But Mama told me he still had nightmares. He would wake up screaming, covered in so much sweat that Babcia would have to change the sheets.

  A few days after the Soviets arrived, Aunt Rosa, her husband and their four children showed up on our doorstep with just the clothes on their backs. Our family was reunited. Whatever happened to us, we would stay together as a pack. That was our hope.

  Chapter 1

  MY GRANDFATHER

  From March 1940 to June 1941

  For those of us not sent to Siberia, the Russians had brought Siberia to us. Every bit of fuel, everything that could burn, even tiny birds’ nests, was sent to the front. I practically lived in my heavy grey Afghan coat lined with rabbit fur. That coat was my saviour. Thank heavens Aunt Uchka had married a furrier. Hersch Leib had had coats made for everyone in the family. We could have chosen anything, even a famous Zolkiew fur, so popular in Paris. But with the icy winds blowing off the steppes, nothing was warmer than Afghan lamb. So that is what my family wore.

  Six months after the Soviets occupied Zolkiew we were still in the icy grip of our first occupied winter. The news on my grandparents’ radio was just as chilling. We despaired when the United States announced its neutrality. And even though England and France had declared war on Germany, nothing had been done about the occupation of Poland. All France did was invade a lightly defended area of Germany. They made it all of 12 kilometres before turning back. We had been abandoned.

  On most days after school, I would stop off at Uchka’s on the way home. I looked forward to sugar cookies, tea, and playing with Zygush and Zosia–especially Zosia. I had given up dolls for books when I was six, but I couldn’t get enough of her. Zosia liked to put her cheek next to yours and clutch your face when she was carried. I didn’t want to be any other place on earth when she did this. According to Uchka, I was Zosia’s little mother, her mammeleh.

  One day, when I went to Aunt Uchka’s, her house was empty. Before, I would have thought nothing of their absence, but now I immediately assumed the worst. I ran through the lanes in Uchka’s neighbourhood back to my house, praying to find them there. It was like a snow-covered maze behind my family’s oil-press factory. I cut through the alley behind the pink walls of the convent to my street. I rushed up the steps into the foyer that separated our flat from that of my grandparents’, stamping off as much snow as I could. Even with my fur hat still over my ears, my coat collar up and my scarf wrapped tightly round it, I could already hear the noise coming from the next room. Something had happened. Everybody was speaking all at once. No one noticed I had walked in the room. I was relieved to see Uchka sitting in the corner holding the children in her lap. It took me a while to realize that everyone was beaming.

  Mama finally sighted me. She rushed towards me with her arms out. ‘Who knew? Who knew?’

  I asked, ‘Who knew what?’ I couldn’t imagine what had put such smiles on their faces. But everyone actually looked happy, which surely meant that nobody had died or been deported. It finally hit Mama that I really didn’t know what she was talking about.

  ‘You mean the entire town hasn’t heard yet? Clarutchka,’ she said, every word ripe with pride, ‘out of all the children in Zolkiew, not only was your little sister chosen to sing the lead aria in the spring concert, but she was the youngest! Can you imagine? Mania! The youngest! And a lead aria! Who knew?’

  Never in a million years would I have thought I would be hearing Mama crow about this. Not now, not ever! Mania was always pulling rabbits out of the hat of her life. We didn’t even know that she had been asked to audition! I was as giddy as the rest of them. Who could have known that my little stick of a sister could really sing? We sang at holidays. We sang our children’s songs at school. But an aria? From a real opera? What a blessing to have such a talent in the family. We even temporarily forgot that the concert was to celebrate the superiority of the Soviet system. Even Dzadzio, Grandfather, who never had a kind word for the Russians, said, ‘At least they got this right.’ Apparently, the Russians knew something we didn’t about my baby sister. On the other side of the room, Mania was sitting on the baby bed where she slept. I could tell what she was thinking just by the look on her face. She would rather be out sledding while there was still snow on the ground and was ruing that she had brought up the concert at all. But it was like all the other things she had to confess to. Better to get it over with. Sooner or later Mama would have got it out of her anyway. She couldn’t see the glory in it. She had been told to sing, so she would sing.

  For the next three months, all we got was humming. Humming while she jumped rope. Humming whil
e she ran in and out of the house. Humming while my mama made her do the homework she hated. The one time Mama asked her to sing, Mania refused. She was as wilful as Mama, Babcia and Dzadzio. We would have to wait for the concert.

  The entire town was temporarily distracted from the Russian occupation. While waiting on the long lines which stretched outside the colonnaded shops, mothers bragged about the Ukrainian and Russian folk songs their children would be singing. There wasn’t a loaf of bread to be found, but the air practically buzzed with gossip. I knew they were secretly keeping score. Which song was longer? Whose child was singing the favourites? Who had a solo and who was in the chorus? What would the mothers wear?

  It didn’t matter that Zolkiew was a speck on the map of the world, or that our house was on a dirt road covered in dust in summer and mud or snow in winter. Mama and her sisters always dressed as though they lived in a capital city like Warsaw or Vienna. Aunt Giza was the only who had actually lived in Vienna, and then only for a year. Although Giza reigned queen of the undergarment, even Dzadzio recognized Mama as the true Coco Chanel of the family. Whenever he wore out the elbows in his only sweater, my mother Salka had to be the one to pick out a new one; no matter that it would only be a mispucha–a relative by marriage–of the same charcoal grey sweater he bought every five years. September would bring Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah and the catalogues that arrived by mail from Paris, Berlin and Vienna. We would sit at the big kitchen table, catalogues everywhere, armed with scissors. Mama would have me cut out the bodice from one, the material from another, the skirt from a third, the collar from a fourth, ribbons from a fifth and put them together. She and her tiny doll of a dressmaker, Mrs Hirschorn, were thick as thieves. The two of them plotted out the family wardrobes for weddings as if they were military campaigns. Whenever Mania and I would show up in a new dress at the social hall we would see our friends wearing copies within weeks. Mama never said one word about how this pleased her.

  But that was before the Soviets. Silk, satin, taffeta, sequins, feathers and lace were all one-way tickets to Siberia. Rough, olive green uniform wool was the fabric of this season. The peasant look was more than fashion; it was a matter of survival. Some of Mama’s friends had even started to wear clothes that had once belonged to their cleaning ladies. Mama’s beautiful silk dresses were now locked up in the massive mahogany armoire that had outlasted most of the governments of Europe. But like any mother whose daughter was making her debut, Mama wanted to look as proud as she felt. So after many hours and too many cups of tea, the Reizfeld sisters had decided that it was ‘kosher’ to wear the prettiest of their schmatas, rags.

  Mania and I didn’t even have that much of a choice. Lead aria or not, Mania was stuck wearing the navy blue sailor suit that was our school uniform. As was I. As was every other girl in Zolkiew. To compensate, Mama ironed so much starch into the uniforms they could have walked to the concert on their own. Our hair got the same treatment. Mama washed and rewashed Mania’s dark hair until I could almost see my face reflected in its shine. It was one thing to argue with Stalin. It was another to argue with Mama.

  When the day of the concert finally arrived, our little house was like a teapot filled to the brim with boiling water. The door flew open. Little Zygush had arrived, with Zosia on his heels. Nobody had ever taught him to knock. A knock was an insult. A knock said someone wasn’t talking to somebody else in the family. Uchka followed just in time to see her children jumping up on me, like they always did. But today was not about fun and games. Before I could even give them a kiss, Mama was yelling at me from across the room. ‘What’s going on? Do you need a written invitation? And take the kinder with you.’ She was telling me I better get dressed and bring Zygush and Zosia with me. I had, however, been dressed for hours.

  Little Zosia, with her blond curls, black eyes and sweet disposition, was no more trouble than a little doll you sat on your bed. But for Zygush, small and dark-haired like his father, I needed a chair, a whip, a cage and a leash. He was already climbing me like his favourite walnut tree in the yard.

  Dzadzio, dressed in a black suit and white shirt, the uniform of the orthodox Jew that he wore every day of his life, was the only quiet person in the room. As proud as he was of my sister, he refused to go to the concert. He and Babcia would stay at home. I could see the regret in his eyes, but his heavy black shoes were planted into the Persian carpet and he wouldn’t budge. Ever since he had been captured by the Russians in 1918, he had refused to breathe the same air they did. Mama knew enough not to argue about matters of principle with her father. She respected him and knew his deeds were truth.

  Every few minutes, Mama would drop what she was doing to fuss over Mania. Her fingers straightened Mania’s collar and lingered on her shoulders. I could read Mama’s mind. Through a caress of her hand, she prayed to imbue Mania with every ounce of her will, if such a thing were possible. Because today, for the first time in her life, Mania would be on her own. Mania knew what was at stake. The show was to ‘honour’ the Russians’ ability to turn us, the children of corrupt capitalists and religious fanatics, into proper little Stalins and Lenins. And if we were really good students, into spies, informers and party members. She knew her teachers had agonized over the choice of singers. She knew they would watch white-knuckled and teeth clenched. She knew it all. Even at 11 she knew. Nobody had to say a word.

  Mania had to run a gauntlet of hugs, kisses and pinches on the cheek before she could leave. Mama had parked herself at the front door. She straightened Mania’s dress one more time. She made sure Mania’s French knot was secure. She puffed out the ends of the red bandanna around Mania’s neck. ‘Stay still already!’ Mama moaned. Mania was a racehorse at the starting gate. She had to be at the opera early. ‘Enough already! Stop being such a nudge!’ Babcia took Mama’s hands off Mania’s shoulders and guided my sister on her way with a kiss.

  I watched as Mania walked down the street. But the walking lasted only until she came to the orphanage for Jewish girls, just two doors down. With a look back, a smile and a wave, Mania sprinted off. On any other day, Mama would have run after her with a rag and a tin of shoe polish. Mama’s mouth hung open, but the words died in her mouth with a sigh. Tonight she just stood there and watched her daughter run down the street and out of sight.

  An hour later, about 25 of us trooped off to the opera house in the sweet spring evening. The Russians hadn’t managed to take away the fragrance of the lilacs and send it to the front with everything else. If Mania and I had been alone, the walk would have taken no more than 12 minutes. But now we were a herd of cattle, shuffling along at a grazing pace. I looked back and watched Mama and her three sisters walking arm and arm, as was their custom. There were a half a dozen crossed conversations going on. My family couldn’t walk and talk at the same time. We would walk a few steps, one of us would greet a friend and all 25 of us would stop. We managed just a quarter of a mile in a quarter of an hour.

  As we reached the sports field there was a sea of girls in their blue sailor suits and red scarves, the uniform of the Russian Girl scouting movement, of which every able-bodied girl in Zolkiew was a proud member, whether she liked it or not. It seemed the entire town was flowing like a river up the street and towards the doors. Everyone had had the same idea: to be there early to get the good seats.

  Our opera house, the Eagle, had been freshly painted. Large banners announcing the concert had been draped from the frieze. I had never seen so many cars in one place. The street was filled with cars that had been waxed to an inch of their lives. Each one had its own detachment of soldiers to make sure little boys like Zygush didn’t commit acts of sabotage by getting fingerprints all over the finish. The cars belonged to the commissars who had taken all the big houses on Railroad Street, just outside the castle walls and across the street from the park. The previous owners were dead or in Siberia. If I wasn’t worried about his safety, I would have let Zygush get his fingerprints all over the cars.

  Papa
greeted friends who no longer could be trusted. Friends who informed on other friends. Jews who informed on other Jews and sent children to die in Siberia. There were even children who informed on their parents. My father shook their hands and laughed at their jokes as they discussed the glory of the evening. Papa said that snubbing such ‘old’ friends amounted to suicide. My dzadzio would have slapped their faces and told them to go to hell. Under the banner, I saw the political officers who roamed the hallways of our school from time to time, smoking cigarettes with their comrades. I knew even children couldn’t escape having a file. When we sang ‘The International’, ‘May Day Morning’ and ‘The Partisan Song’ at school, I tried to pretend they were just songs. But I felt I was denying my religion in a way I didn’t when we sang Christmas carols.

  I saw all my friends from school with their families and wanted to run to my three best friends, Giza Landau, who was also my second cousin, Genya Astman and Klara Letzer, but Mama told me to hang on to Zygush and Zosia. Mama who always told me how smart I was could in the next breath treat me like I was an absolute child. The officers waved at us students and without a thought tossed their cigarettes on the stone steps that had been washed and swept and polished by a troop of peasant women

  Outside, an army band played as we advanced through the crush, trying to stay together. Inside, another army band was playing. Zygush and Zosia were hypnotized by the chandeliers throwing off pools of dancing light. The best seats had already been cordoned off for the officers and officials and their families of the Russian army, the communist party and the dreaded NKVD–the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs, which ran the Gulag for Stalin. We fought our way upstairs and found a row of seats in the balcony. Zygush had to touch every red velvet chair on the way. From where we were sitting, we had a direct view of the orchestra and the boxes. Some of the Russian wives were wearing lingerie. They couldn’t even tell the difference between a nightgown and a dress. These poor women, many from beyond the Urals, many from villages without a phone or even a road, assumed the stylish silk garments, decorated with lace décolletage, could be worn on the streets of Paris, Budapest or Berlin. Here I was, in this balcony, literally looking down my nose at these women glowing with pride. I wish I could say my cheeks burned with shame. Communism had given these women better lives. Many of them were friendly. Many were kind. I went to school with their children. Yet we were so frightened of their husbands that not one soul in Zolkiew dared tell them they were wearing lingerie.