Rabbi Lau tells the police that as soon as Rosh Hashanah is over, he will contact Mendel Wajshof, Heniek’s father, who is secretary of the Community Council. But right now he is required to lead his congregation in celebrating this sacred holiday.
The rabbi then takes the opportunity to ask permission of the Germans to hold services at the Great Synagogue that evening and for the next two days.
“Of course,” they say, glancing at each other. “No one will disturb your prayers.”
Then they remind him, again ever so politely, as though as a courtesy, about the six p.m. to six a.m. curfew, making the evening service impossible. For the first time in our lives, we don’t go to shul that evening for Rosh Hashanah services, nor do we go, after the end of curfew, for the morning service. Rebbitzin Lau says that only about thirty people were brave enough or devoted enough to be there that morning.
Thursday, after the morning services, the Germans come again and tell the rabbi that now they need one thousand workers every day, and if the Community Council does not gather the men, then the Nazis will, and we know it will mean brutal beatings and killings.
That afternoon, some Jewish men come to the rabbi to tell him they have seen piles of wood stacked up against the walls of the Great Synagogue and to ask should they try to remove the sacred Torah scrolls and other holy things before the Nazis burn the synagogue down. Rabbi Lau has already been summoned to meet with the new German mayor, Hans Drecksel. He says he will try to find out what the Germans have planned for the synagogue.
When the rabbi learns the purpose of the meeting he is rendered speechless. Drecksel demands that the Jews pay the Nazis twenty-five thousand Polish zlotys for the damages caused in the first days of the German occupation. This is the same extortion as when the Germans made the Jews pay for all the damages the Germans did during Kristallnacht. We will need a miracle to find all that money and, sadly, it seems that God and the prophets and the possibility of miracles are now very far away. The rabbi collects himself and tries to bring up the issue of the synagogue but Drecksel directs him back to Colonel Brandt at Wehrmacht headquarters.
Once he’s sitting across from Brandt, Rabbi Lau proposes that perhaps the Jews could be helpful by emptying out all the furniture and decorations from the synagogue, and then the Germans could use the building as a prison for all the Polish prisoners of war who are being kept in makeshift camps outside of the city. The colonel laughs and says that that was exactly his plan and that he had stacked up wood against the building so that we Jews could make the latrines for the prisoners. Latrines in our Great Synagogue! An exquisite synagogue built in 1791; famous, admired, and respected throughout all of Poland. Latrines!
That night a group of brave and devoted young men organized by Tulek Lau take as many of the Torah scrolls, candlesticks, and other sacred books and objects as they can carry out of the synagogue, put them into coffins, and bury them in the Jewish cemetery. Thank God no one found them breaking the curfew or saw what they were doing. As soon as this horror is over they will be able to dig them up. For now our most sacred objects are safe.
And the next day, Heniek comes to my house. What a joy and relief to actually see him and hug him and talk to him. We hold each other for a long time and some of my numbness disappears. He asks me to help him and his father and the Community Council to compile a list of all the Jews in Piotrków, their names, addresses, and properties. This won’t be a difficult task because the community has always been a city within the city. For centuries we Jews had our own census and tax records. It was compulsory that all Jews pay taxes to the Community Council, which in turn paid for the maintenance of the synagogues, the rabbis’ and cantors’ salaries and living expenses, the upkeep of the cemetery, the Jewish orphanage, and the Benevolent Societies. We have always taken care of our own because no one else would take care of us.
Pan Wajshof and some other men, Heniek, and I work the whole night into the next day copying down for the Germans all the information about the twenty thousand Jews of Piotrków.
As I am copying I am thinking, What are you doing, Gucia? You are collaborating with this evil enemy.
By dawn, even though I love and respect Heniek and want to help his father as much as I can, I decide I will not do this again.
Tatte wants to open the butcher stores but Mama begs him to wait one more week. The days become endless, melting into each other with new horrors and rumors. We all begin to lose track of the time. At some point between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Nazis come to our apartment building and drag out four tenants from the third floor. The men are returned the next day horribly beaten. We, and they, have no idea why they were taken and treated so brutally, but, thank God, they were returned and they are alive.
Each day I stand in line hoping to find potatoes and bread to buy. Yesterday an older woman in front of me started sobbing and wailing. She asked if we had heard the news. On the second day of Rosh Hashanah, some Germans had gone to a small Hasidic synagogue and had forced, at gunpoint, about twenty-five of those most devout, older Jews out of the synagogue. They were pushed into trucks, defiling this sacred holiday by riding in a vehicle, and then the old Jews were forced to go to the public toilets and clean them with their prayer shawls. Another woman said she had heard that some of the Nazis have been tearing the beards and peyos (side curls) off the old Jews, leaving them in agony, the skin of their faces in shreds, dripping blood. Another woman moaned about how the Germans came and shot the mezuzah (small decorative scroll containing Torah excerpts) off her door. How convenient for the Germans that by obeying the biblical command to affix these sacred markers to our doorposts, we make their job of finding us easier. I am praying that these are just bubbe meises, old wives’ tales. I cannot yet believe that humans can do this to each other.
Tatte has decided to reopen the stores. First he has to go find out if the man who sells the cows is still in business and if the shochet is still there to slaughter the cows in the kosher manner. He also has to see if the two stores have had any damage from the bombs. It is hard to do this without Wojcek and the horse and carriage, but somehow Tatte is successful and he comes home happier than we have seen him since September 1.
Everything is in order. He has bought a cow and it has been slaughtered. He has had the front part of the cow delivered to the kosher store for Mama and the back part of the cow to the non-kosher store for him. They will reopen the stores in the morning.
The clock tells us the time, but like in a bad dream, the days no longer have a beginning or end. We drift through each nameless day.
It is two p.m. and we are sitting down to a dinner of watery potato soup with a little bit of meat and bones from the butcher store. The bread is very bad. The baker apologized. There is no way to get white flour anymore and he is doing the best he can. But this black coarse bread makes us want to gag.
Suddenly we hear what sounds like a train rushing up our stairs, and the crystal chandelier sways and clinks noisily over the dining room table. There is a loud pounding on our front door and loud rough German voices screaming, “Schnell! Schnell! Open the door now!”
Beniek and Josek and Idek rush into the bedroom and close the door. Hela grabs Marek, holding him tightly, and Regina goes to the door. Five men in black uniforms with red swastika armbands rush into the room, guns pointing at us.
We do not move. We do not breathe. We look at our bowls of watery soup.
They grab all the silverware from our places and stuff it in a large bag. They rush to the breakfront and open the drawers and find the rest of the silverware. They toss our sterling silver tea and coffee service, which is on top of the breakfront, into another large bag. It was my parents’ wedding gift from Uncle Josef and Tante Sura. They storm into the library and the bedrooms, not even noticing my brothers. They do not want Jews right now, just Jewish property. Seeing my tatte’s special, favorite chair, a beautiful carved mahogany armchair upholstered in a rich royal blue Belgian velvet, two of t
he soldiers lift and carry it out the door and down the stairs. These Nazis are animals but they do have good taste.
The others follow with their filled bags and slam the door.
I don’t think any of us has breathed. I am outraged yet helpless.
They have guns and power and we have watery potato soup and dry black bread. Mama bursts into tears of relief and hysterical laughter. She had hidden her grandmother’s silver Shabbos candlesticks in the laundry basket and they are still safe, buried in the dirty clothes. Those candlesticks are the most precious property we have and so we feel that we have triumphed over the Nazis. This time.
SEPTEMBER 25, 1939
Rebbitzin Lau comes to tell us that the rabbi has just returned from a very disturbing meeting with Mayor Drecksel. Today was the deadline to deliver the twenty-five thousand zlotys demanded. The rabbi and the Community Council had done what they could to raise the money, and the rabbi carried a briefcase filled with donated jewels, gold, and cash from the Jews who could help. It was far from twenty-five thousand zlotys, but the mayor seemed pleased. Rabbi Lau then asked the mayor if the curfew could be shortened and could something be done to better protect Jewish public institutions and people. The mayor thought this was a wonderful idea and said that he thought this could be best achieved by forming a Jüdisches Wohnviertel (Jewish residential district), that all the Jews of Piotrków would move to one area of the city—for their safety and protection.
The rabbi is very frightened. The mayor is suggesting the establishment of a ghetto.
The Ghetto
Ghettos in the various cities were not all organized at the same time, but at different periods. Venice and Salerno had ghettos in the eleventh century, and Prague is said to have had one as early as the tenth. There were ghettos in Italy, Bohemia, Moravia, Austria, Hungary, Germany, Poland, and Turkey. They were chiefly an outcome of intolerance, and oppressive conditions were often added to compulsory residence within the ghetto … The French Revolution (1789), which proclaimed the principle of freedom and equality, first shook the foundations of the ghetto, and the general uprising of 1848 throughout Europe finally swept away this remnant of medieval intolerance. In the whole civilized world there is now not a single ghetto, in the original meaning of the word.
—The Jewish Encyclopedia, 1906
OCTOBER 8, 1939
Less than two weeks after the meeting with Mayor Drecksel, what the rabbi feared comes to pass. Piotrków has the dubious distinction of being named the first ghetto in the German-occupied territory. As part of this new order, Mayor Drecksel establishes the Aeltestenrat (Council of Elders), or as we call it, the Judenrat (Jewish Council). Everyone is afraid of what this means, but then we are more hopeful when we learn who is on it. Drecksel appoints twelve members from our Community Council, including the rabbi, but to his relief, not Heniek’s father. And on October 28 it is official. The Germans have marked off the boundaries of the ghetto with bluish-gray signposts. On each is the word ghetto. Above the letters are a skull and crossbones.
Zalman Tannenberg is appointed chairman of the Judenrat. He turns out to be an able leader and often finds a way to circumvent the worst of the Nazis’ edicts, so we start to feel a little less tense about it. But then we feel betrayed when he makes an unthinkable decision. He sets up a Jewish police force (Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst), Jews to oversee other Jews, responsible to the Germans. We are afraid it will become a tool for the Nazis to use against us. Who are these people who would volunteer to collaborate with the enemy? I suppose they are just humans who want to protect themselves and their families. Maybe they think they can help us with the Nazis. In protest, the rabbi resigns from the Judenrat.
We learn from Heniek that the cities of Łódź and Kalisz have been officially designated as parts of the Third Reich, meaning that they will soon be Judenrein—clean of Jews. Soon no Jews will be permitted to live there anymore. Jews would pollute the city. All their property will be seized.
The next day Heniek comes with more news. Piotrków is designated part of the General Government. We are under German administration, but we are not annexed as part of the Third Reich, and so we are more independent. That means Jews can live here and, I guess, our pollution of Piotrków is fine.
Tatte and Mama come home ashen and shaking. Mama is in tears and Tatte looks as if he might cry, too. Some Nazis had come to the non-kosher shop and told him it was now officially closed. Just like that. They took away all the meat in a truck and smashed the front windows and the glass of all the counters. Tatte rushed as quickly as he could to the kosher butcher shop and got there just in time to be with Mama when the Nazis came. We are horrified, but we thank God that our parents are alive and unhurt.
Although Heniek’s father is not a member of the Judenrat, he is committed to tikkun olam and still feels a moral and civic duty to continue working on behalf of the community. He and his colleagues are trying to help find housing for all the Jews who are escaping from Łódź and Kalisz. It doesn’t matter if they own properties or businesses. They must surrender everything to the Reich. So many are fleeing with whatever possessions they can fit in a single cart or on their backs. Everything left behind will automatically become the property of the Germans and the Poles. Well, maybe Krysia and Janova will benefit from these Jewish losses. As I learned in first grade, sometimes one person’s misfortune is another’s good luck.
Łódź is only twenty-six kilometers away, so some people will start arriving as soon as tomorrow. Rebbitzin Lau is already clearing out her dining room for our relatives from Kalisz to move into. It has a door opening directly onto the hallway, so the Laus can close off the other door from the rest of their apartment and at least the two families will have some privacy. But I can’t imagine all seven of them in one room. There’s Mama’s brother Mendel Libeskind and my aunt Sprintza; their son Elkanah, his wife, Dora, and their child; and their oldest daughter, Hinda, and her husband. I guess they’ll have to share our toilet or use the outhouse. The rebbitzin stays calm as usual, so positive and practical and comforting. She says how lucky we are that our apartment building is within the ghetto boundaries and that none of us will have to move. She is right. It could be far worse. All Piotrków Jews who live outside the boundaries of the ghetto must leave everything they have, just like the people from Łódź and Kalisz, and move into the ghetto. I suppose it comes naturally to Chaya Lau, after all her years as the rabbi’s wife, to help people keep their spirits up. But I wonder what the rebbitzin really thinks and feels deep down, in her private heart and soul.
I remember how in happier times we always looked forward to visits from Mendel and Sprintza because they were so much fun. Mendel never had much to say, but that was a good thing because Sprintza had more than enough for both of them. She was a little dynamo, a real force of nature, short and fat, not even as tall as Regina, who was only ten the last time they came. Sprintza took over every room she entered, but no one minded, not even Mama, because Sprintza was so good-natured and funny.
I love to laugh and can overlook a lot if someone is funny. Heniek’s wit is what made me fall in love with him. Making people laugh has never been my talent, at least not on purpose. But sometimes I can be funny by accident. After Mendel and Sprintza’s last visit I was telling Heniek that Mendel is afraid of Sprintza. He asked me how could I tell and I answered, “When Sprintza speaks, Mendel trembles.” This cracked him up, which then cracked me up. He said the words sounded almost biblical, and it tickled him to picture Mendel looking down at Sprintza, who maybe comes up to his chest, and shaking the moment she opens her mouth. It became a kind of inside joke for us, something we could always use to make the other one laugh. I know that this time it will not be that kind of visit.
The next day, thousands of people—Jews, old and young, sick and well, bearded, with yarmulkes, and clean shaven—wheel their carts onto our streets. They are sobbing and praying and it is a nightmare. All the pinching I do cannot wake me up.
Mendel
and his family arrive. They come pushing a wheelbarrow loaded with their things, looking exhausted and sad and shocked. Their flat eyes stare into nothing.
I see Heniek, and we hug but we are both in such shock we can no longer feel ourselves or each other. The sparkle has gone out of his eyes. More of his beautiful curly brown hair is falling out.
The next day Heniek comes with the first good news we’ve had since September 1. He has just heard that Baila Reichmann’s construction supplies store is to be kept open. The Nazis need those materials and are keeping Leon and Baila in place to provide them. The Reichmanns have been designated essential workers and, for now, are safe.
The worst part of this new life is the utter helplessness—not knowing what is to come, knowing only that nothing we do matters. Yet my restless mind cannot stop churning, looking for a way out of this quicksand. With the good news of Pani Reichmann, I can clutch on to this thin thread of hope. Here is a problem I can put my mind to solving. Maybe we can find a way to be essential, useful workers as well. It may be no more than a game I play in my mind, but it keeps me from going crazy or exploding in rage.
Suddenly I’m struck by the bitter irony. A few short years ago, when I was in torment over whether to quit Hashomer Hatsair, I decided that subjugating myself to some outside authority’s dictates over my life’s work—especially if I thought those dictates stupid or unjust—would be an intolerable punishment. Now to be an essential worker who is told what to do is my deepest wish.
Claiming My Place Page 10
