by Clara Kramer
‘Mama, please, you can’t get sick. You can’t get sick.’ I grabbed her hands and tried to push up her sleeves so I could see if there were pustules on her arms. Mama pushed my hands away, grabbed me by the neck, forced me through the door and threw me out. She threw me so hard I fell down several of the steps. If I hadn’t caught the banister, I would have fallen all the way down.
Mama was frightening me. She seemed like a crazy woman. Mama would never scream at me. But this woman was still yelling: ‘You think I can leave her? You think she’d leave me? You think you’d leave Mania? You think she’d leave you? GO! Go home before you get caught! Does your father know you’re here?’
All I could manage was a nod. Mama was shaking her head, a look of non-comprehension, more a look of bafflement turning her flushed face a nauseated white. ‘He let you go? He let you go!’
I nodded. Mama didn’t say another word. She didn’t tell me if she was sick or not sick. She didn’t tell me if Uchka would live or die. I couldn’t see Zygush and Zosia. I didn’t know if they were in that sick room or if they were safe somewhere else. She didn’t tell me if she was going to come home or stay in the ghetto. Without a word of goodbye, without a kiss or a nod or a touch, she walked back inside and shut the door.
I stared at the door. Mama had never spoken to me with such fury. Her commands were usually delivered with pats and smiles and kisses. She never had to raise her voice to me ever. I don’t know if it was that I was such a docile child or lived in a benevolent world, protected on all sides from anything that might hurt me. But now I had to walk down the stairs, through the frozen streets to my father and sister without my mother. I had never considered for a moment that Mama wouldn’t come back with me.
In the street, Ala saw I was alone. I told her Mama wasn’t coming. She took my arm and started chatting again. Again we were two girls without a care in the world. On the way back, I didn’t hear a word she said. I was scared to death and crying, the tears freezing on my face immediately. But I didn’t care about that. I didn’t know if I would ever see Mama again. I didn’t know how to tell my father and sister. And despite my grief and fear for Mama’s life and Uchka’s, all I wanted to do was get back to the bunker where I would be safe. And I was not ashamed to have such selfish thoughts.
When Ala unlocked the door, Beck was waiting for us. ‘Better get in before the entire Gestapo sees you!’ he said angrily. Ala kissed her father and pulled me over to the stove where we took off our gloves to warm our hands. Ala kept chatting, treating our misadventure as if we had been out buying a fish at the market.
Whatever anger Beck had felt had disappeared now that his daughter was home safe. ‘Look at you both.’ His hands were feeling his daughter’s nose and ears and warming them. ‘Icicles. There’s soup. Have something hot.’
But I didn’t wait for the soup. I went straight to the hatch and knocked, whispering, ‘It’s Clara.’ The hatch opened right away and I saw my father’s face right behind Mr Patrontasch’s and Mania’s right behind him. I didn’t have to tell them as I climbed down into the bunker alone.
My father wanted to know how she had looked. I told him that she had looked fine and that I hadn’t seen any signs of the disease. Later when we had all gone to bed, Mania whispered into my ear, ‘Was she really okay? Is she still alive? I know you. Maybe you were afraid to tell Papa.’ I told her how mad she had been and that she had thrown me down the stairs by my neck. I could see that Mania was trying to conjure up Mama whole and healthy as if the image would be enough to sustain us if she never came back to us. There was a smile as Mania thought about how angry Mama must have been at our father for having let me go.
I tried to fall asleep, but it was impossible. I was not tired at all. I wanted to sleep so that I could stop thinking what a world without Mama would be like.
Chapter 6
THE FINAL SOLUTION
February to early April 1943
It’s the 20th century. It’s unbelievable. They pulled trucks below a window and threw the people and children into the trucks. Some of the Gestapo were using axes. One of them hacked to death Nusick Lichter, a 12-year-old boy, a nephew of the Patrontaschs. The rest of the Jews were herded to one street, Josek, Rela and Uchka and the children were lucky this time.
Mr Beck was kind enough to keep running back and forth to the ghetto to keep us informed of Uchka’s condition and how Mama was faring. He told us of waiting outside the ghetto for hours and hours, drinking and talking to the policemen and his friends while waiting to get a word from Josek. He tried to cheer us up with the news that the Russians took back Stalingrad in the bloodiest battle of the war. But Stalingrad was far away and we were more concerned with the people who died in the ghetto every day. Beck watched as they were piled on to carts and pushed to the cemetery; he looked to see if Uchka or Mama were on the carts, buried under the bodies on top. He waited for the news of which Jews had died so he could report to us that Mama was still alive. Josek told Beck that he and Rela were trying to find someone to take care of Uchka so that Mama could leave. We were lucky that the ghetto bordered the main street of Zolkiew, otherwise Beck wouldn’t have been able to spend so much time within sight of Uchka’s window while drinking and gossiping with his friends on the way home from work.
Although Beck would share with us everything he learned, he always reminded us that there was no way he could let Mama back into the house. Each time he said that the survival of the group was more important than the life of any single person, I felt like screaming at him, as well as at Mrs Melman and Mrs Patrontasch, who whispered to each other after each report. But on the outside I was a vision of calm. We became even more formal with one another, addressing each other with titles. I knew the rules, and I did not argue, beg, plead or bargain for Mama’s life. I was cooking our potatoes, doling out the water instead of Mama, washing the dishes, putting away our pallets every morning when we got up, but it felt worse than a lie, it felt like I was betraying Mama. The days blurred together as I went through the motions. Mania and I whispered at night to each other and we prayed.
Three days after my journey to the ghetto with Ala, we heard the front door open and Beck’s steps coming towards the hatchway. He wasn’t alone. He knocked on the trapdoor and Patrontasch hurried to open it. Mama was staring down at us. Beck helped her down and we were in each other’s arms. The four of us. I just said ‘Mama’ over and over again. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mrs Melman about to say something, but before there was a word, Mr Beck’s voice was invoking a certain authority. ‘Not a word. If God chose to bring her back, then it’s His will. Not a word.’
Then he went. There was no discussion of typhus or lice or soaking Mama in disinfectant, although she did go upstairs shortly after she arrived to take a bath. She told us that sick as she was, Uchka was saying she couldn’t die and that Zygush and Zosia were her medicine. She told us that Beck didn’t move from across the street for hours at a time and she thanked God for him. Then she asked my father where he got the money to buy soup for Uchka and the others. Every day Josek had brought a pot of soup for them saying it had come from us. My father hadn’t given Beck a zloty.
Upstairs Beck started humming a popular German song, ‘All’s Well That Ends Well’. This tune would become his trademark, the signal that everything was all right; that the Nazis were gone; that we could talk; that whatever danger we faced was no longer a threat. To hear him whistle that tune lifted my heart almost as much as Mama’s return because in its simple melody was a promise that all would be okay; that Beck’s faith was greater than ours; that despite his reputation and his sins that were the source of so much gossip and disdain, he was proving himself to be not only a mensch but a tzadik, and that when he said we were in God’s hands it wasn’t an expression of, or a longing for, faith, but faith itself. I thanked God for Mama and that He had given us Beck.
After hugging us and telling us over and over how much she had missed us, Mama looked around the bunker a
nd laughed. ‘How I missed this place!’ This was the funniest thing any of us heard since we came into the bunker and, in that moment, everything was forgotten. I no longer hated and resented the other families. We were united once more. That night Mania and I both slept with our arms around our mother.
One day after Mama’s return, Josek brought Rela to the bunker, with Beck’s permission. The uniform protected Josek, but life in the ghetto was worse than they had expected. Josek promised to watch over their son and bring Rela news of him through Beck.
Mr and Mrs Beck weren’t just our protectors, they were also our messengers. They even went to Mosty Wielke from time to time to check on Giza and Meyer for us and to relay news. Giza told Beck that every time there was a call for deportations, the German Commandant Krupp would stand up to the SS and not let them have even one of his Jews. ‘The work was important to the army. They are all skilled workers. The production schedule doesn’t allow him time to train new people,’ and on and on. Jews in every village in Galicia were being exterminated but the Jews of Mosty Wielke were safe. Then Beck told us that in early February the commandant had been replaced by an SS officer. Within days, he had murdered 1,500 Jews, Giza and Meyer among them. We were inconsolable. Giza, who loved the theatre and performed in every amateur theatrical in Zolkiew, whose laughter rivalled Uchka’s, whose round face and dark eyes were as warm as any stove and as sweet as the darkest chocolate was dead. It was hard to imagine our world without her. Just like after every other calamity, Mama said, ‘Write, Clara, write!’ There was simply nothing else we could do. This sense of loss and amputation was now our way of life.
A few days later, Julia’s sister, Maria, came over, hysterical. She lived in the Beck’s old house outside of town. We could hear every word she was saying as she spat out her story in gasps and halted breath, her voice rising in panic. The Nazis had knocked on her door looking for the Becks and the Jews they were hiding. Thank God, she hadn’t been home. She had missed them by minutes and only found out from a neighbour. The police had left without searching the house once they had been told that the Becks no longer lived there. Maria had taken a short cut and run through the woods to warn us. I knew the woods and fields this poor woman had crossed, slogging through snow up to her knees, soaking and freezing her feet. The large expanses of fields would have exposed her to any German or Ukrainian policeman, who, if they had seen this woman running across an empty field, would have stopped her to question her. But even with the short-cut, the Nazis in their cars should have beaten her here.
Then we heard the banging, the pounding on the door, with the Nazis screaming, ‘WIR SUCHEN JUDEN!’ Julia’s sister slipped out the back door as fast as she could. Patrontasch extinguished the light and we sat in the dark silence, each of us alone with their terror. I held my sister’s hand. We were afraid to breathe. Every noise from the rooms above sounded louder than usual. I silently prayed that when the Nazis came downstairs for us, they would shoot us. I prayed for the Becks. I didn’t know how they were facing the Nazis or what they were thinking or if they were cursing us.
I heard Ala’s light step across the floor and the door open and then her voice, in its fearless 18-year-old breathiness, say, ‘What can we do for you?’
I had no idea what the faces of these Nazis looked like. ‘We’re looking for Jews. We know they’re here.’ And then Ala was laughing, almost giggling. ‘Jews? Here? Don’t you know who my father is? He despises Jews. Go to any tavern in town and ask how Beck feels about Jews!’
Sweat fell from my forehead into my eyes. The policeman’s voice was threatening. ‘You have one chance to survive. Where are the Jews?’ Ala was laughing, actually laughing. ‘All right, all right, I’m Jewish, can’t you tell, take me away.’ The policeman wasn’t amused and threatened her with arrest. Ala’s voice was contrite now. ‘I’m sorry. The idea is just crazy. You think I’d be joking if there were Jews here?’ Julia was frightened now, with more reason than the Nazis might suspect. She was asking them to forgive Ala because she was just a girl. But Ala still wouldn’t be quiet. ‘Oh, Mama, it’s just that we never get any visitors and I was just kidding with our guests. But why would they think a loyal Volksdeutsche family would harbour Jews?’ The German said, ‘We’re not at liberty to say.’ And this remark seemed to set Ala off.
‘You have no idea what it’s like for us. The Poles, the Ukrainians, everybody’s informing on each other. Twenty years ago, somebody buys a sow. It’s barren. And now, 20 years later, the seller of the barren sow is guilty of hiding Jews. Oh my God! Look at the time. I’m late for my job at the post office. May I go?’
Then we heard the second policeman speak for the first time. His voice was young, melodious, and I could hear that he was taken with Ala. ‘I’m sorry for the inconvenience…We’ll leave. We have other reports to check.’
Ala didn’t miss a beat. ‘Then are you walking to town? Perhaps I can walk with you.’
After a few more flirtatious words, the policemen left with Ala and we heard the door close.
Beck left the house shortly after Ala. When he returned, he came immediately to see us in the bunker. He told us that we would have to leave. He had no choice. We could see the torment on his face, the deep sadness. He had to think of his family. Papa told him that under these circumstances there was nothing else the Becks could do. Beck left to get Josek to take us back to the ghetto. There was no place else to go. Nobody got hysterical or cried. We knew that this moment was coming sooner or later. We were drained and exhausted. The conversation with Beck had taken less than a minute. Never had a death sentence been delivered with so much kindness.
We had barely started to gather up our things when Beck knocked on the trapdoor again. We were shocked to see Melman’s half-brother Gedalo Lauterpacht instead of Josek with him. Beck looked at all of us with eyes that were burning more than usual. ‘We’re all in God’s hands. You can stay and Gedalo will be joining you.’ I didn’t know if he was a madman or a saint, but we would live another day. He got his bottle of vodka and the men drank.
What we didn’t know was that Julia’s sister had been hiding Gedalo and his brother Hermann, as well Hermann’s fiancée Lola Elefant and her little brother Icio, when the Nazis had come to her home. Gedalo told us that Hermann, Lola and Icio had gone to the ghetto, and he had come here.
The situation in the ghetto worsened over the next few days. They stopped letting anyone out. Even policemen had to have a special paper in order to leave. Then on 15 March, two trucks of Gestapo arrived and took away all the people from morning Appell to Janowska camp in Lvov. We heard the details from Lola, who had been able to escape. A few days after the deportation, Beck brought Lola to us.
The sight of her hair caused a communal gasp in the bunker. When she took off her hat, snow-white hair tumbled out in an avalanche. She was only in her twenties. Lola started to tell us in a voice no louder than a whisper what had made her hair turn white.
When she, Hermann and her brother Icio had returned to the ghetto, they had been told that the Nazis had designated Zolkiew an official labour city. This would save all their lives. The Nazis had increased the number of Jewish policemen to help run this large labour detachment and had organized rehearsals to demonstrate the skill of the Jewish workers to the commandant. On the morning of the 15th, the Judenrat encouraged all the men to look good for the selection, where they would be given ‘W’ (Wehrmacht) or ‘R’ (Rüstung) patches. Close to 700 men, fathers, husbands and sons, had gathered in the square and were marched to the sports field next to the theatre where Mania had her concert.
Lola said that in her heart she knew something was wrong. Hermann had told her to stay in the apartment, but she left and was in the street, watching. Suddenly the gates to the ghetto had opened up and her heart had stopped. Hundreds of German police and Blue Coats had rushed through the gates, surrounding the men and forcing them into a tighter and tighter circle. An official car had driven up, followed by a convoy of trucks. SS
General Katzman had got out and watched as the Blue Coats and German police mercilessly beat the men into waiting trucks.
Lola had seen them push Hermann into a truck. He had looked up to catch her eye. That was the last time she saw him. She hadn’t been able to find Icio in the chaos. After the convoy had left, the women had rushed the Judenrat, screaming for answers. Lola said she had felt the ground slipping from under her feet.
For days and days she had been too grief-stricken to sleep. She learned that the men had been taken to Janowska camp. On the day of their arrival, a Jew had killed an SS guard. Two hundred of the new arrivals had been gunned down. Lola didn’t know if her fiancé or her brother were alive or dead. Finally exhaustion had overtaken her and she had collapsed. When she woke up, her hair had turned white. She hadn’t known what to do with herself. She hadn’t been able to stand looking at the walls of her family’s flat. She said there were too many ghosts and too much grief. She had gone outside and had walked the perimeter of the ghetto, back and forth.
After an hour, she said she had heard her name being called. She had turned and seen Mr Beck standing by the fence. He had come to find out how they were. He whispered for her to come that night; that he’d be waiting for her. She had no idea he was so honourable.
I had my family with me and together we could mourn Dzadzio, Giza and the others, but Lola alone held the memory of her family. There would be no shiva, there would be no funeral for the people she had lost. The only thing she could do was write in her diary what had happened to her family on the night of the November akcja, and then one day find the strength to tell us.
