Clara's War

by Clara Kramer

  After two days in the bunker the reality of our confinement gripped us. The men’s optimism that the war would be over in a matter of weeks was gone. They had thought the German army wouldn’t be able to withstand the freezing Russian winter and would retreat. But they had been wrong. The Germans still held Stalingrad and were advancing in the Ukraine and the Crimea.

  The men followed the war with the interest and passion of the generals who were actually running it. Beck had an illegal radio in the attic that would result in his execution if found, but he was determined to know what was really happening in the war. He brought Patrontasch up from time to time to listen with him. Beck also brought the newspapers and the men would sit around them in a haze of cigarette smoke, charting the front lines on a map and circling the cities taken with a pen. But very little was happening to encourage us. They came down to tell us about a conference in Tehran where Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill were meeting to discuss the war. It wasn’t clear what they were discussing. Tehran was so far away, it might have been a tale from the Arabian Nights. The only thing close to good news was that the Russians were starting a winter offensive to take back Kiev, 500 kilometres away, and there were reports that the German advance had started to stall. But this was happening so far away. It didn’t seem like anything was going to change for us for a long time.

  We had prepared to come into the bunker for a few weeks. I hadn’t brought more than a few books with me. We hadn’t brought enough clothing or food or, most importantly, things for the Becks to sell. Our furs, Mama’s jewellery, the Persian carpets, the down comforters and bedding, the family silver and china were all safely hidden behind the false wall in our neighbours’ basement. We worried they might be stolen by the Nazis, but who knew if we would ever be able to enjoy them again? We were freezing and not more than 50 metres away was everything we needed to sustain us.

  Only Fanka Melman had brought china and silver into the bunker. I understood why she did it. Of course, it was very human for someone to want to have something personal, something of beauty with them. Poor Mrs Melman, driven to living below the floor of her own home. She was a tiny woman and perhaps it was her obsessive affection for her precious water pitcher that made her the object of some derision for us. Mrs Melman’s affection for, and devotion to, her pitcher, which would have barely raised an eyebrow in our former life, was now grating. I wanted to break the pitcher at times, smash it, and I’m sure Mama did as well. She laughed and whispered to Mania and me, ‘The thing should be in a museum the way she takes care of it.’

  Mama would now never say such a thing to Mrs Melman’s face, but Mrs Melman knew this was what Mama and everyone else thought about her. Before the war, such a remark would have been taken as some good-natured kidding and kibitzing among the women. I don’t know how many times I heard them in our kitchen laughing so hard they’re kvetching, they’re splitting their sides and they’ve got to loosen their girdles. If I walked in to see what was so funny, they’d laugh even louder because what they had been discussing was not something for my ‘little ears’ or ask me when I became such a koklefl: a ladle and the slang for busybody.

  But more than the lack of comfort or food or even the reality of the war, what gripped my heart and crowded my mind were the blistering recollections of the last ten days, from the akcja on 22 November, during which the Nazis murdered three thousand of us, to our frantic search for a protector and our desperate goodbyes to our families. In a town like ours, in the best of times, the death of one of us affected all of us. In our tradition, one death tears the fabric of the world. We were all connected. Through marriage. Through business. Through friendship. Through work. Through the dozens of organizations that sustained our community.

  Out of nowhere, Mama looked up at me and said, ‘Clara, you’re going to write a diary.’ I was stunned.

  ‘What for? They’re going to kill us anyway.’

  ‘If they kill us, somebody will find the diary and they will know what we went through.’

  Mama looked at me. She wanted me to start that moment. She found one of the pencils Mr Patrontasch used to chart the war and gave it to me. I had nothing to write on, but I didn’t even bring that up because I knew it wouldn’t make any difference to Mama. This was Salka the Cossack talking. I looked around and picked up one of my books and started writing in the margins. But as soon as I started writing, I embraced the task. It would be a record. It was something for me to do every day, something with purpose. It was a way of fighting back.

  While I was quickly filling the margins of my books, in those first weeks, we had to figure out a way for eleven people to live almost on top of each other in a space no larger than a horse stall. A set of rules evolved that had the authority of commandments.

  Rule number one: Mr Patrontasch was the only one allowed to open or close the trapdoor. For some reason, when he closed it, the door went smoothly into place without a squeak. When anyone else tried it, the door protested with noises that could mean death.

  Rule number two: Privacy and propriety were now things of the past. The ‘bathroom’ was in the trench around the corner from the main living space. The first time I used the bucket, I was mortified. A few days later, there was no sense of embarrassment.

  Rule number three: Always be polite. A new formality emerged in our relationships. We had known each other as long as anyone could remember, but now everyone was a Mr or Mrs, and every request was preceded by ‘if you please’ and ‘would you be so kind…’ All this transpired within moments of our arrival.

  Rule number four: No complaining. Not about the cold, the damp, the dirt. Mrs Melman made one comment about the filth and the looks she got made the rule clear.

  Rule number five: Each family was responsible for their own food and water. We’d take turns to use the hotplate. We wouldn’t share. The men felt this would prevent tension among the families.

  Rule number six: No talking unless it was absolutely necessary. Even when only the Becks were in the house and there was not an absolute need for silence, it was a matter of discipline. As it was, we could hear the footsteps upstairs like they were inside our own brains and we could also hear the Becks’ conversation. The wooden floor above us acted like a sounding board, collecting the sound waves and magnifying them down to us. We could hear every word. We could even hear a light switch go on above our heads. Who knew what our conversations sounded like upstairs? There were neighbours on both sides of us, not more than 10 metres away, and we never would know if they were outside in their yards, or close to the Becks for one reason or another. There was only one way to be sure we would not be discovered: silence.

  The main living space we had created was immediately under the Becks’ bedroom, and was no more than three square metres and a metre and a third high. The planking of the parquet floor above acted as our ceiling. When we had begun work, it was crisscrossed with generations and generations of spider webs. The recesses that edged the floor above us were used to store our clothes, which we rolled up in bundles and tied with twine. The flagstone foundations, which followed the map of the house room by room, were our walls. Right behind the hatchway to the trapdoor we dug out a space for a wooden plank table, which was used for food preparation and storage. On the wall to the left of the hatchway and along the adjacent wall was our sleeping area. We had made platforms of dirt, which we covered with planks. On top of the planks, we placed our straw mattresses. The Patrontasches were on the wall next to the hatch. The Melmans and our family were on the adjacent wall. During the day, we would roll up the mattresses to give us room to sit and eat with the plates on our laps.

  Opposite the hatchway was another flagstone foundation wall, which ran under the centre hallway of the house above. We built another small plank table for a hotplate against the stone wall here. We didn’t want the hotplate anywhere near a surface that could catch fire. We had taken out enough of the stones to create a ‘doorway’ to the corridor between the two support walls, which formed
a tunnel, a metre and a half wide, under the hallway above. To the left of the tunnel, we placed our pails for refuse. Further down the tunnel we had made another ‘doorway’ on the right that led to the original bunker with the dirt cover.

  One morning, shortly after Klara joined us, Mr Patrontasch woke up as if his mind was on fire. Without a word he grabbed the shovel and started digging a small hole in the very centre of the bunker.

  Nobody said anything but we all watched with curiosity. Anything to break the routine was appreciated, and short, round Mr Patrontasch digging with the fury of the possessed was very much out of the routine. We had our Talmud of understandings down in the bunker. Since we were three families living on top of each other, when one of us scratched their head, dandruff from all filled the air. If one of us set our foot on fire, nobody would have blinked an eye. So for a long time we just watched, through a haze of the men’s cigarette smoke, Mr Patrontasch digging with the smile of a self-satisfied genius on his face. His wife, Sabina, couldn’t take it any longer. ‘I’m not going to even ask what you’re doing. Just tell me what you’re planning to do with the dirt?’ But Mr Patrontasch didn’t answer and took out a tape measure, gauging the depth of the hole. He grunted and kept digging.

  After a few more shovels, he measured again and, not paying any attention to any of us, he put his feet in the hole and gradually unfolded his squat body until he was standing straight, his head just beneath the roof of the bunker. This could have been a scene from a silent movie. But it wasn’t. It was our life. I felt like applauding, and we all had to take our turn standing in the hole. To unfold my body, which had been compressed like a little concertina for days, was a pleasure I was never required to experience before. I wouldn’t have got any exercise except for Julia, who thank God brought me and Mania upstairs once a week to help her clean. Scrubbing floors. Cleaning the kitchen. The bathroom. I didn’t care. It was all gold to me.

  The first time Julia called us upstairs to wax the floors, Mania and I got down on our hands and knees with big sheepskin buffers that went on our hands like mittens. Ala came home from work and saw us on our hands and knees and gave us a smile.

  ‘That’s not how it’s done.’ I wasn’t an expert on polishing floors, but I certainly had an idea how it was done. The first thing Ala did was turn on the radio and find a station with dance music. Then she took off her shoes and put her feet in the buffers and started to dance to the swing music on the radio. Mania and I followed her example and we started dancing, alone, with each other, shyly at first, faster, slower, comically, showing off, dancing wildly and madly until we were too exhausted to move another step and the parquet floors gleamed. Julia rewarded us with rolls and with fresh cold water from the well outside. The food I would share with the children downstairs, but the water I savoured for myself.

  And once in a great while we went upstairs to wash our hair. I cannot tell you how much pleasure that gave us. The smell of soap and the luxury of hot water were almost too delicious to bear. Julia poured hot water over my head and dug her fingers into my scalp. I wished it would never end. Downstairs, water was measured in teaspoons, and usually cold; we often had to make the choice between drinking and washing. But upstairs a white-tiled wood stove threw off warm dry heat and the smell of fresh baked bread, borscht and mushroom and cheese pirogies filled the air. Even if it was only for a few minutes, it was enough for me.

  Our family, with the exception of Mama, who had asthma and a thyroid condition, had always enjoyed the best of health. I used to take this for granted. But with an epidemic in the ghetto, and with eleven of us living on top of each other, washing once a week, breathing in dank, mouldy air, I was concerned about Mama. We had been lucky enough to live with a hospital just on the other side of the backyard, as well as plenty of doctors only a short walk away. But now if there was a medical emergency there would be no doctor, no hospital. We hadn’t even an elementary first aid kit. But so far, Mama didn’t even have a sniffle or a wheeze. She wasn’t hot when we were cold or cold when we were hot. Her throat wasn’t sore; her poor muscles didn’t ache; her hair wasn’t dry or falling out; she wasn’t even cranky. All of us were the picture of health.

  We had got into the habit of expecting to see Beck once or twice a day. He, not Julia, who couldn’t climb into the bunker, brought us our food most of the time. I could tell he enjoyed the company of the men and he loved to talk. But he rarely said much to the children. I was intimidated by him and nervous to be around him, no matter how comfortable he seemed. I was afraid of saying something that might upset him or in any way jeopardize our place in the bunker. Of course, I didn’t think I had ever said anything in my entire life to upset a grown-up. That was Mania’s job. But I could tell he noticed me and made a silly comment or two about me always having my nose in a book. My reaction was embarrassment. I just wasn’t used to strange men talking to me. I was starting to realize just how sheltered I was. The adults I had conversations with were my family, my teachers and friends of my parents. Even though Zolkiew was populated with hundreds of Becks, up close he was as exotic as a lion to me.

  In the middle of December, Mama started worrying that we didn’t have proper presents to give the Becks for Christmas. We went through our things and nothing seemed good enough. They were risking their lives to save us and we didn’t have anything decent to give them.

  A few days before Christmas, Mr Beck knocked on the hatch, his blue eyes twinkling with mischief. There was something about this war that spelled adventure to Beck, and if there was anything that gave us hope, it was this sparkling look in his bright if often bloodshot blue eyes. He invited me and Mania, Igo and Klarunia upstairs without telling us why. When we didn’t budge, he insisted. ‘Hurry, hurry, hurry…’ Mania was up in a second. Mr Patrontasch shooed Klarunia up the hatch while Beck leaned down to help us up, one by one. My mind was racing. It was Julia who asked me up to clean. Neither Beck nor Ala ever asked me up. What did he want? Did I have to go? Of course I did, and I let his strong hand haul me up like a sack of grain into the aboveground world of polished parquet floors and oriental carpets where we had once been at home. It felt especially foreign to me today because it was Beck bringing me here and not Julia.

  Beck led us out of the bedroom and across the corridor up to the closed bathroom door where Julia and Ala were waiting. With a flourish, Beck opened the door. My eyes went straight to the window that was high enough not to be curtained and filled the eggshell blue room with the melancholy winter light of late afternoon. But a splashing in the tub quickly drew my attention back down. Swimming in the full bathtub was the largest carp I had ever seen. It had to be 8 kilograms. Christmas in Poland without a carp was unthinkable; even the scales were passed out and kept as good-luck charms. This one was a beauty, fat and sleek. The dorsal fins were the bluish grey of dried lavender and the side fins were bright orange and red like Chinese fans. In the years before the war, the streets would be filled with fishmongers with live carp swimming in washbasins, buckets and small tanks, anything that could hold a fish. Little Igo and Klarunia couldn’t believe its size. The fish was almost as big as they were. It was too big and good-looking for them to afford. We asked Mr Beck if he had caught the fish.

  ‘Better you shouldn’t know.’

  Julia was now curious. ‘You didn’t catch it?’

  Beck shook his head. He was either teasing us or he didn’t want his wife to know where he got the fish. But she was persistent. ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘From Von Pappen himself.’

  We couldn’t believe what he was saying. Von Pappen was the German SS commandant, Beck’s boss and the most feared man in Zolkiew. It was he who had created the ghetto, ordered the murders, extorted our money. Beck had met him through two of his card buddies, Krueger and Schmidt, who were German policemen. Beck had presented himself to the commandant as a loyal Volksdeutscher and Von Pappen had given him the job of overseeing the German army’s alcohol supply. It was like giving the
fox the keys to the hen house.

  Julia persisted. ‘A gift from Von Pappen?’

  ‘Not exactly a gift. Let’s just say I caught it from the commandant’s cook.’

  Beck refused to give a straight answer. All he would say was that Von Pappen was without his Christmas carp and we were going to eat it. I didn’t know if Beck had got Von Pappen’s carp because it was his way of asserting his independence and authority, or simply because it gave him pleasure. Whatever the reason, Mr Beck grew taller in my eyes in that small bathroom.

  From my few brief interactions with Beck, I was beginning to understand that he was full of contradictions. He had a reputation for anti-Semitism, but he never acted with anything but friendship towards us. The only word I could think of to describe this rough-hewn man was charming. He was charm itself to every one of us. He was not supposed to be educated, but he was a proud patriot and had well-thought-out opinions on everything, which displayed his hatred of the Nazis, the Ukrainians and anyone and everyone who abused their power or authority. To listen to him talk about greedy landowners and the corruption in government, you’d swear he was a communist, but he hated them as well.

  Beck let Julia lead us back downstairs and as we went down the hatch, she invited us to their Christmas dinner. I hadn’t even thought about an entire dinner. I thought we would get some scraps, some leftovers. But of course Beck wouldn’t show off the delightful carp just to taunt us. I wasn’t ashamed of my reaction, but I had forgotten what it was like to be given such a gift by a non-Jew. For three years I had become more and more of a shadow, a broken heart, an empty stomach, the single monochromatic thought of survival, and here was this woman who wanted me at her Christmas table. The invitation reached my ears in an alien language. ‘Why? Why were they doing this?’ I silently asked myself. For a moment, and only a moment, this one sliver of light engulfed the darkness. A feeling of joy, which I had felt so often in my life and which had fled from the Nazis, was briefly back. I experienced a powerful sense of gratitude, peace and trust. The carp in the bathtub had become a token of the Becks’ commitment to our lives. I also knew that I would love this fish, not because of where it came from or what it signified, but because I was hungry. It would be pickled like herring; jellied in aspic and deep-fried like catfish. But the more I had looked at the carp in the bathtub, the more I thought about the Christmas dinner and wondered what we had that could possibly demonstrate even the smallest part of our gratitude to the Becks.