by Clara Kramer
‘We need to give them a bath.’ Then in a whisper, as he leaned into my ear, ‘No way in hell they’re staying here and don’t even ask. Not one word! Not one word out of your mouth about this.’ Zygush was dark and very Jewish-looking and no gentile family in their right mind would take in such an obviously Jewish child. There might have been hope to find a Polish friend to take care of Zosia, but how to even think of such a thing after what happened to little Moshele.
As I undressed them, Beck went downstairs. He returned with a washbasin and some bread, which the children devoured. Beck made several more trips up the stairs with buckets of hot water. Zygush took off his coat. He was a little Charlie Chaplin! Underneath were silk nightgowns, slips, stockings, brassieres, corsets and lingerie of all kinds. Even in the best of times, he was a skinny boy and I had wondered why he looked so stout in his coat. He had tied the nightgowns, slips and stockings into knots and struggled to get them untied. He was like one of the clowns at the circus: as soon as Beck and I thought we had all the garments, there were more hidden in pockets and even in his long underwear. I thanked God under my breath that Beck started laughing. Zygush grinned at Beck’s laughter.
‘Mama hid us up in the attic at the Judenrat. Mama and the other women used to dry their underclothes up there. I thought we could sell them. Did I do good?’
Beck agreed with a smile. Poor Beck. Every day, another life or death decision, relentless. And here he was on his knees, a raging argument and rising anger in his drink-ravaged face, which he tried to hide with a smile for frightened children.
Despite all this, he couldn’t stop himself from asking Zygush how they managed to avoid a town full of SS, Gestapo and Blue Coats. Zygush informed us: ‘We hadn’t seen our mama or anyone in days and days and we were really hungry when Uncle Dudio came and explained that Mama was hiding at the Melmans’. Uncle told us it was Sunday morning and all the goyim were in church so it was a good time to go to Mama. He said not to be afraid because there would be Jews hiding all over the place to help us in case the Fascists or the police saw us.
Whoever said the Jews went like sheep should know a story like this! The last 50 Jews out of 5000, armed with only their fear and hunger, risked their lives to save perhaps the last two Jewish children in our town. It was a miracle two Jewish children walked two kilometres in broad daylight and didn’t get arrested. Beck muttered that Dudio was damned clever. ‘The SS, Gestapo and the Blue Coats like their Sunday mornings at church after a week full of murder. And damn the priests that hear their confessions.’ He punctuated his statement with a giddy toast to Dudio’s bravery and a long drink from a glass of vodka.
Beck asked the children if anyone saw them. Zygush shook his head. Beck turned to me. ‘Burning’s too good for these clothes.’ I tried to read Mr Beck’s face as he stared at Zygush and Zosia, all protruding bellies and swollen joints. In my mind, I was saying, Please, please, please… I wanted to beg him, grab his hands and kiss them, but I knew if I asked he would say no. Without one more word, he turned and walked downstairs to get more hot water, yelling for Mrs Beck to make soup for the children. I prayed Julia would say something, but good a person as she was, it was Mr Beck who made the decisions of life and death for all of us. He was God in this house.
When he came back up, I was already cutting their hair and shaving their heads. Zosia had the most beautiful blond, curly hair that everyone, family and friends, fussed over. She wept inconsolably, still asking for her mother. Even in the bath, she held on to me. I kissed her again and again and again, told her that her hair would grow back as beautiful as ever and she would see her mother very soon. I also whispered in her ear that it was very important for her to be quiet, quiet as a mouse, and that we all played a game in the bunker of who could be the quietest mouse. I was sure she would be the best mouse of all. I said this for Beck’s benefit as well as Zosia’s. I knew what the rule was. I knew that a small child in a house of hidden-away Jews risked everyone’s life, especially the lives of our benefactors. I wanted to ask Beck with every fibre of my heart. But I also knew I didn’t have to. I knew he was in as much torment as I was. Maybe even more. We were testing his goodness and generosity and courage at every step of our confinement.
I don’t know where, but he found the children fresh, clean clothes. I helped them get dressed. Beck still gave me no indication what their fate would hold. Beck said he would burn their clothes outside. I could see Zygush’s eyes. I knew he wanted to go outside with Beck and watch. Witnessing an immolation of so hated an enemy would, I knew, be morbidly fascinating and satisfying to Zygush. Zygush! I was screaming in my head, for once in your life could you please restrain this incurable love of mischief! And don’t ask Beck. He looked at Beck and said nothing. Somehow he knew that his life was on the line and he was remarkably silent. Again, Beck looked at the pile of lingerie and underwear at the children’s feet and then at Zygush. I thought I saw a trace of a smile in Beck’s eyes. I tried to read him the way I would read a book or study a painting. Looking for any indication, hidden or otherwise, of what he was thinking. Sometimes his feelings poured out of him like sweat. But in moments like this I knew he didn’t want to betray a thing. In that moment, I had the giddy and absurd thought that the two of them had become a small army. General Beck and Private Zygush. Hatikvah! Hope! But then it was gone. Beck’s eyes were blank and empty. Empty of everything.
Without a word, Beck marched us downstairs and into the bedroom. He moved the bed away and Zygush watched, his big brown eyes wider and wider, as Beck removed the rug and knocked on the hatch. Zosia’s hand kept going to her shaved head and she continued crying even as I whispered that it would grow back prettier than ever.
Patrontasch opened the hatch. My mother, father and Mania were waiting, faces looking up in apprehension. Beck handed the children down to my mother, father and Mania, who embraced them and covered them with kisses. Beck and I hopped down into the bunker.
Before my mother could ask the question, ‘Do they know about their mother?’ I said, as if I was giving away a small piece of gossip, ‘I told them how Uchka was in Lvov with Rosa, and Zygush and Zosia can’t wait to see her!’ This was the lie that would be their reality until the end of the war. Until they found out the truth. What would they feel when they found out that their mother was shot one step outside their doorway as she was trying to bring them food? Would they hate us for the lie? Hate me?
Mr Beck found out from Dudio that poor Uchka had been going crazy knowing that her children were starving, frightened and alone two houses down the street where she had hidden them in the attic of the Judenrat. She knew it was risky to try to see them, but Dudio said she felt she had to take the risk. He and Josek tried physically to stop her and she fought them until Dudio realized he had to let her go. Josek said he would go with her. He wouldn’t let her go alone. As soon as Dudio heard them go out the front door downstairs, he heard two shots. By the time Dudio got downstairs, they were dead. He took off their coats. They were both shot in the head and he knew that their coats would keep one of the few remaining Jews warm. Beck also found out that as soon as Sluka heard that Josek and Uchka were murdered he threw away the child. That’s how Moshele had ended up in the common grave. For almost six months Sluka’s wife held this boy, fed him, changed him! How could she have allowed her husband to commit such a crime, a child who without doubt looked upon her as his own mother? The coward waited until the baby’s father was dead before he murdered the son. I had never heard my father speak of revenge before, but he prayed he would survive to see Sluka shot.
The Melmans and Steckels were looking at Beck to sentence the children to death, although I knew Mr Beck would never be cruel or callous enough to condemn the children to their fate in front of them. But the Steckels were shelling out good money to the Becks for their safety. Their zloty, deutschmarks and dollars were payment in full to get the children out of the bunker before a solitary cry gave us away. There was not a milligram of pity in th
eir eyes. I didn’t want to say it was hatred. I wanted to find fear and anxiety in their eyes, some kind of human emotion, but their eyes were cold. Beck looked right at the Steckels. ‘The children are staying.’ I don’t know how he made up his mind. Perhaps it was the hatred in their eyes that set Beck off or perhaps it was Zygush and his underwear that allowed him to leap once more into the abyss for us. Who even knew if Beck understood what he was saying when he said it. I thanked God for these words, because I knew once given, Beck would never take them back. With these four words he bound all our fates together as much as blood. For this one act, God should save and protect them.
Professor Steckel couldn’t get a single word out before Beck cut him off. ‘Throw the children out? If God brought them here, who is Beck to turn them away? Whatever will be will be.’ It was Beck who brought God into the conversation and it was through the miracle of Beck that God had answered our prayers. The children were with us. Part of Uchka was now alive and in my sight and arms, and even if we perished we would perish together. My prayer was answered.
I saw Mrs Melman holding her tongue. Steckel couldn’t help himself. ‘I don’t think it’s wise—’
But Beck was quicker. ‘You don’t like it, you know where the door is…and don’t you dare insult me with money.’
Thank God the children didn’t hear the exchange. They were too busy getting kissed and hugged by my mother and Mania. My mother was immediately moving the pallets around so the children could sleep between us.
In a few minutes Julia brought down their soup and for once the Steckels could watch while someone else enjoyed a meal. Zygush, alert, looked around, taking in his surroundings. Zosia was exhausted, more concerned with holding on to Mania.
Zygush stared at Klarunia Patrontasch across the bunker. I knew he didn’t care for the girl, who was a year older than him, and took every opportunity to torment her in some way. I knew he would do the same in the bunker. The same brave boy who marched down the middle of a town full of Nazis and told Mr Beck that he could take care of himself was thinking he was going to make Klarunia’s life a living hell. I whispered to him, ‘It’s very important we all get along down here. No being mean. No teasing her. Understand?’ He didn’t answer. ‘Understand?’ He finally nodded. But that wasn’t good enough for me. I made him promise. We were now 13 in this tiny corner of the bunker.
As Zosia’s eyes were closing from exhaustion, a full stomach and relief, she noticed Mrs Steckel on the other side of the bunker and called out, ‘Aunt Giza!’
I explained: ‘That’s not Giza. That’s Mrs Steckel, the pharmacist’s wife. He makes the medicine that makes you better when you’re sick.’
Zosia was insistent. ‘It’s Aunt Giza.’
The pharmacist’s wife was annoyed already.
‘It’s not Aunt Giza, Zosia,’ I said.
‘Well, Clarutchka, the other name is way too long and too hard for me to say. I’ll just call her Aunt Giza.’
Mrs Steckel was about to say something, but even she knew to keep her mouth shut, at least for a little while.
Zosia looked at Mrs Steckel for another few seconds, ‘If she’s not Aunt Giza, but looks like Aunt Giza, then I know Aunt Giza is still alive.’ I was stunned that a four-year-old child could look for signs that her loved ones were still alive. Zosia lay down on a pallet and fell asleep almost immediately. Nobody told her that Aunt Giza had died.
As much as we mourned our lost family, the survival of these two children brought all of us such joy and relief.
The next morning, everyone except Zygush was still asleep as a faint light came in through the tiny opening that Patrontasch would fill with brick as soon as he awoke. The light was mine to enjoy for a few more moments as I was writing in my diary, trying to put into words my gratitude for Mr Beck, because I knew this might be the only chance I had. In the few moments we had upstairs, cleaning, it was an adventure. Upstairs, there was never the quiet moment just to talk without the fear of a knock on the door or a strange face in the window.
Zygush was staring at my sleeping sister. He pulled a feather from his pocket–where he got a feather, only God knows–and started to tickle Mania under the chin. She brushed at her chin with her hand and rolled over. Zygush waited a moment and tickled her under the chin again. Mania again brushed her chin.
I knew I should put a stop to Zygush’s game, and he was now very excited, but quietly so, for the moment. He moved his hand out ever so slowly above her chest, barely breathing, and tickled her again with the feather. This time, Mania’s hand darted out like a snake and grabbed Zygush’s hand.
The commotion woke up Mama. She looked at Mania and Zygush and the first words out of her mouth were: ‘Clarutchka, I think it will be your job to be the schoolmistress.’
‘Me?’
My father opened his eyes and said, ‘We were talking about it after you fell asleep last night. The children need to learn to read. You know what the rebbe says: “When we had to choose between building a sanctuary and a school…All you need to pray is ten men…If you have to build one thing, build a school.”’
A school? That’s why I loved my father. We were scared to death, hiding in a four-foot-high bunker with dirt walls and slowly starving to death, mourning our relatives, and the way my father phrased the task is that we were going to build a ‘school’. It was a task in the coming months that I would take very seriously, as much necessitated by Zygush’s low tolerance of boredom and the need to keep the children occupied and quiet as their need to learn. Such was my father’s wisdom. Teaching the children would benefit all of us in the bunker. People who had normal lives had schools; therefore we would share this normality with them. And if a school implied normality, the everyday preparations of lessons implied that children needed to learn for a future, and if they had a future, then we all had a future. And who could not watch with joy the face of a child as he learned to read?
Left to himself Zygush would find the one thing to do to drive every grown-up meshuggehdik. The only toy he had was a small penknife which he repeatedly threw into the dirt, hundreds of times already and he’d only been up a couple of hours. Zosia held on to a small piece of bread, wanting to eat it, but not knowing when the next piece of bread would be on the enamel plate my mother gave her…Mrs Melman and the Steckels looked at poor little bald, skinny Zosia as though she were a bomb, ready to go off and kill us all. Keeping the children busy would keep us all busy.
The school would start tomorrow. We still had to worry about what to do with the children that day. I don’t remember if it was me, Mania or Lola who came up with the idea of our doll factory.
We supervised the children as they cut people and animals out of our old newspapers filled with news of German exploits. They coloured the newspaper dolls with my blue pencil and pens that the men allowed us to use, which was no small gift because ink was precious. We scoured the bunker for candle drippings, scraping the wax from the wooden pallets, shelves and our enamel dishes. We kneaded the scavenged wax in our hands. Once the wax was soft, we showed the children how to make a base for their paper dolls that allowed them to stand.
Zygush had made a soldier, Zosia a milkmaid, Klarunia a mother and Igo a dog.
We worked for hours, and now we had the satisfaction of watching the children playing quietly with their new toys. Nobody said anything, but as we watched, we thought that perhaps having the children here wouldn’t be our death sentence.
I didn’t know what or who started it.
Little Klarunia was yelling at Zygush, ‘I’m the mummy. You all have to listen to me!’
Zygush pointed his soldier’s paper rifle in Klarunia’s face. ‘If you boss me around, I’ll shoot you.’
Klarunia burst into tears. I told Zygush to be nice to her for a change. Zygush complained that Klarunia was always bossing him around. Klarunia said that Zygush needed someone to boss him around because he was a troublemaker and everybody said so and besides she was older. The bunker was s
uddenly very small. The Steckels couldn’t find anything better to do than stare at us and the children as if we didn’t exist at all. As many years as I’ve lived, I’ve never seen such coldness towards other human beings. I’m sure if the Steckels weren’t there, we could have just distracted the children or they would have got bored or Klarunia would have retreated to the arms of her mother. But that look from the Steckels that went from my parents to the children to the Melmans and the Patrontasches was a lit match.
As Zygush informed Klarunia that at least he wasn’t a crybaby, she threw down her doll and informed Zygush that she wasn’t going to be the mummy any more. She took Zosia’s milkmaid doll and little Zosia started crying. Eight-year-old Igo picked up his dog, shoving it in their faces. Mania and I tried to intervene without raising our voices and alerting Mr Beck upstairs to this commotion that could be our ticket to a camp. But the children paid no attention. Patrontasch grabbed his daughter and slapped her across the face. I felt the imprint of his hand on my own face it was so hard. Poor Patrontasch wore the face of a murderer. He was not a man ever to hit a child. He loved poor Klarunia, whom he had always spoiled. She was an only child and had never quite learned how to be happy or get along with other kids. In Klarunia’s world, Zygush’s arrival was another blow. The war, the Nazis, life in a bunker, starvation and now Zygush. His arrival made her beloved father raise his hand to her. She was inconsolable. Zygush was stunned. He didn’t live in a world where parents struck children and I could see the knot of guilt in his throat. Can you imagine? With all he’s been through, to have this final remnant of his innocence ripped away.
Mr Patrontasch apologized and put his arms around his daughter. He said, more to himself than anyone else, ‘After the war, I’ll spoil her again. Just like I used to.’
