‘Look at what’s happened in Berlin!’ Papa still sounded furious. ‘Tens of thousands of Jews were arrested. What makes you think it won’t be the same here?’
Zaida’s voice rose. ‘But Romek, a third of this city is Jewish.’ I pictured his goatee beard waggling, his eyeglass falling onto his waistcoat like it always does when he’s upset. ‘There’s no way they can put a third of the city in prison.’
‘No?’ Papa still sounded angry. ‘Don’t be so sure. The Nazis are noted for their efficiency.’
‘So! What should we do?’
‘I kept telling you we should have left. Now it’s probably too late. At least we should be sending money to Switzerland.’
‘I think that would be wise,’ said Pan Isaac. Until recently he had been a successful banker. But the bans against Jews in Germany had affected his bank as well, and he was no longer allowed to work there.
‘Right now we need all our money to bring in more stock,’ Zaida insisted.
‘Maybe.’ A long pause, before Papa added, ‘Still, as a precaution, I think we must hide money somewhere in this house.’
‘I’m sure that isn’t necessary,’ Zaida said crossly.
‘The German army has already taken over Austria, and parts of the Czechoslovak Republic,’ Pan Isaac reminded him. ‘Germany has made it clear that Poland will be next. There are people in the streets demonstrating against Germany’s plans.’
‘But Britain and France are friends of Poland. They have promised to defend us if we should need it,’ Zaida insisted. ‘Surely, that will stop Hitler.’
‘Maybe. Maybe not. And without their help, our cavalry will never stand up to the Nazi’s armoured tanks.’
Lately, the streets of Warsaw had been filled with uniformed soldiers wearing flowing capes and polished knee-high boots. They were so handsome that Adam, my seven-year-old brother, dreamt one day of joining the Polish cavalry.
I strained to hear more through the keyhole, but the men’s voices had died down to a murmur.
Instead, I went into the kitchen where I found Mama and Elza preparing supper. Even with my blocked nose I could smell chocolate, cinnamon and other spices.
My baby sister Ryzia was on the floor playing with her favourite teddy bear. Mama looked up as I came in. ‘Hannale, why are you home this early? Don’t you have a gymnastic class?’
I pulled out a hankie and blew my nose. ‘Panna Margrete said my cold was too bad, so she sent me home.’
‘Drink some tea, and help yourself to some cake. That might make you feel better,’ Mama suggested. ‘And there is a parcel on the table for you. It’s from Nanna Goldberg.’
I had turned eleven the week before, so I knew it must be my birthday present. Mama’s parents, the Goldbergs, had moved to Paris three years ago. They always sent me wonderful presents: perfume, silk scarves, and lots of books.
I didn’t miss Mama’s parents all that much. Nanna Goldberg was amazingly critical. She never approved of Mama not employing a German governess to teach us ‘language and proper behaviour’. Nanna thought everything German was ‘high class’—their language, culture, literature, music—and she looked down on everything else. When I asked Mama why her parents hadn’t gone to Berlin where Nanna might surely have been happier, she told me her father did most of his business with France. He bought hats from famous designers and sold them on to the wealthy women of Warsaw.
I opened the present. There were three books and some soft, grey leather gloves. I held them against my cheek as I looked at the books. They were in French, a language I didn’t study. I was surprised they weren’t in German.
As much as I loved the gloves, and Elza’s chocolate and cinnamon babka, they were a poor consolation for missing my class. I loved gymnastics. I’d mastered sprinting down a runway, vaulting from a springboard over a wooden horse, and landing on both feet with arms raised. On the beam, I could run, skip and do forward- and backward-circles. Hanging from a bar with both hands, then only one, I could swing into different positions and loop over the bar. On the mat, I was able to manage complicated somersaults and spins.
Panna Margrete, my gymnastic teacher, often said, ‘Hanna, you have the ideal proportions for a gymnast. With more practice you will be good enough to enter some competitions.’ I was still only four-feet-nine and weighed eighty-five pounds. I looked a lot like Mama, though she was four inches taller. Our faces were upside-down triangles: we both had wide cheekbones and pointy chins, full lips, and dark hair. I really hated my hair as I could never coax it into a proper pageboy style, no matter how much I brushed it.
Papa was tall and stout, with thick strong dark-brown hair that sprang from his scalp like it had a life all its own, the same hair I inherited. He had charcoal eyes, a strong nose, full lips, and a bristly moustache that prickled when he kissed me. Like Zaida, he was always impeccably turned out. He’d say, ‘How can I sell Kaminskys’ clothes, if I’m not equally well dressed?’
My brother Adam was tall for seven and promised to be quite handsome when he grew up. He had fairer hair than the rest of us, hazel eyes and small features. Right now he was quite thin, but he was strong and wiry … I knew how strong he was because whenever we wrestled it was hard to beat him.
Ryzia was only ten months old and she took after Papa. She had the same thick dark hair, dark eyes, chubby pink cheeks, a dimpled chin, and a rosebud mouth.
Right now she was holding out her arms to be picked up.
I did and settled her on my hip.
Mama and Elza were cooking chicken soup with dumplings. As I watched Elza stir the pot, my mouth watered at the heavenly smell.
Elza was our housekeeper. Taller and sturdier than Mama, with a mole on her right cheek like a squashed raisin, she thought nothing of doing a hard day’s cleaning, washing, helping Mama prepare dinner, and then spending hours playing with us. I loved the way the skin around her pale blue eyes crinkled when she gave us her abrupt laugh. Mama was very fond of her. I think their friendship was unusual, as other families we knew frequently changed housekeepers.
I had known Elza since I was a baby. I knew she regarded us children almost as her own and would do anything in her power to protect us. She was the best person I knew. A real mensch.
Elza grew up in a farm not far from Otwock, twenty-four kilometres southeast of Warsaw, where she had to feed the cows, pigs and chickens, carry buckets of water and firewood into the house, and help out in the fields. No wonder she ran away. I think her parents had been unkind to her, because she often said, her eyes watering with emotion, ‘You Kaminskys are my family now.’
Before we left for upstairs, Elza slipped me two homemade cookies. Clutching the biscuits and with Ryzia on my hip, I set off, Mama calling after us, ‘Don’t get the baby too excited. It’s almost time for her bath and supper.’
Like many three-storey buildings in Nowy Swiat Street, ours had a cellar where we stored anything we didn’t use. At the front of the house was Papa’s study, the dining room and parlour with its armchairs, sofas, small and large tables. An elaborately carved silver samovar sat on the largest dresser. This samovar was only used when Mama held an ‘English’ afternoon tea where the most delicate sandwiches and delicious cakes were served. Me and Adam always looked forward to these as we got all the leftovers. When grown-ups drank tea brewed in that samovar, it was usually served weak and black, sipped with a cube of sugar or with a cherry or strawberry jam called varenyi.
In the furthest corner sat a baby grand piano. Though I took weekly lessons from Pan Schmidt, I was no natural musician. However, Mama performed well enough to give small recitals, and Adam had only to hear a melody to play it on his violin. Pan Schmidt claimed he was a ‘child prodigy’.
We each had our own bedroom. Plus there were two bathrooms: one for Papa and Mama, the other for the rest of the family. Right at the back of the house was the kitchen and laundry. Behind the laundry was the small room where Elza slept.
I peered into Adam’s room.
He was on his bed reading and didn’t see me. He had stayed home from school with a cold, which he’d obviously gifted to me. Then I took Ryzia into hers. We had just settled on the floor with her wooden blocks, when I heard a loud thud, then another, then another, each louder than the last.
My heart leapt into my mouth. My heart thumped against my ribs.
It took me a long moment to realise what was happening.
Bombs!
Warsaw was being bombed.
Sirens began to wail.
There was so much noise, I trembled and Ryzia burst into tears. As I tried to soothe her, Mama raced up the stairs calling for us to run down to the cellar. Papa, Zaida and Pan Isaac followed us. We could smell the smoke filling the streets. ‘Hurry! Hurry!’ Papa urged.
Most Warsaw houses were built to withstand the long, cold, dark winters. Roofs were steeply pitched so snow could easily slide off, and there was often a crane to help lift heavy furniture to upper floors. Windows were small, set inside thick triple-brick walls, surrounded by embrasures, and double-glazed. One window swung in, one swung out; this to keep out the intense cold of a European winter. Each apartment had its own metal cast-iron heaters fuelled with coal or coke, and covered in polished tiles. The wealthier the house, the more elaborate these were. Floors consisted of wide strips of polished blond wood covered with patterned rugs and carpets to provide extra warmth.
Every street corner in Warsaw had a cafe where writers, musicians and artists used to meet because many of them could only afford to live in tiny, badly heated rooms.
Crouched in the cellar, I thought of our beautiful city, and what must be happening to it. When I couldn’t bear to think this way anymore, I closed my eyes and clutched Zaida’s hands. Zaida had come to live with us when my bubba, his wife, died. Whenever I was in trouble, or hurt myself, he was always the first to comfort me. He was never shy about showing how much he loved his grandchildren.
Only this afternoon Papa had been warning Zaida of the German threat to Poland. Now the Luftwaffe’s bombs had succeeded in convincing us that all was about to change.
Next morning I asked Mama if I could go to my best friend Eva Lublinski’s house. I was worried that she and her family might be hurt. Mama had tried phoning them, but the line was dead.
Mama shook her head. ‘It’s not safe. I can’t let you wander the streets, or even go to school. Not until we know what is happening. I don’t want to let you, or Adam and Ryzia, out of my sight.’
Over the next few days we spent a lot of time in the cellar. It was early September, and thankfully, still quite warm. We filled wooden boxes with tins of food, bottles of water, candles, and other essentials. I took some of my favourite books and a pack of cards. Whenever things got me down I played Patience. One of Grandma Goldberg’s presents was a tiny pack of cards that fitted inside my pocket. Concentrating on a game helped me stay calm.
Mama and Papa and Zaida talked together in hushed voices about what they thought was happening. As I wanted to know, I listened as hard as I could. Mama kept saying, ‘We should have gone to my parents’ in Paris.’
Papa shrugged, ‘Too late now.’
Just as they promised, Britain and France declared war on Germany in response to the Nazis’ invasion of Poland. Hearing this came as a relief. Britain and France had helped to defeat Germany in the last war, twenty years ago. Maybe that would happen again?
‘Germany is different country now though,’ Papa warned. ‘Hitler has been building up his forces for years. And the German people’s devotion to him is beyond measure. We’ve all seen the way millions turn out to his rallies, and just to see him in the streets. But the Nazis aren’t an army plucked from the people at the last moment like ours. They’re highly trained professionals.
‘I still find it hard to understand why those Berlin Jews admired Hitler’s new order,’ Papa went on. ‘Didn’t they listen to what he was saying? It took Kristallnacht for this to really sink in. Shops smashed, people attacked, and deported to prison camps. The Nazis made no pretence as to what they hoped to achieve.’
Though Zaida couldn’t argue with this, he kept insisting, ‘In the end they can’t win. The final triumph must always go to a just cause.’
When the planes came at night we stayed awake listening to them circle the skies above our city.
‘Why do they fly around like that?’ Adam asked.
‘They’re getting their bearings,’ he explained.
Then the bombs began to drop.
Things began to get worse. And quickly. The only way we knew what was going on was from what we heard over the wireless. These broadcasts informed us that German armoured units had reached Wola, an area in the west of the city, and that the Polish navy, which had been anchored at Gdynia, had taken refuge at a British naval base.
Papa was told he had to join the Polish forces for compulsory military training in the east. All able-bodied men were conscripted to try to keep the Germans out. Papa had to leave without delay. Over one hundred thousand Polish soldiers were ready to defend our city.
We listened to the wireless almost non-stop. We cheered when we heard our army had stopped the German advance. We were so thrilled—and so proud of Papa, fighting to protect Poland.
Then the news changed. Our city was under siege. The Germans were surrounding Warsaw.
We spent days and nights in the cellar. The air raids and the shelling from heavy artillery guns didn’t stop. We could hear high-pitched bursts of gunfire repeating in the distance: ‘Ack-ack-ack-ack-ack, ack-ack-ack-ack-aack.’
I asked, ‘What’s that sound, Mama?’
‘Anti-aircraft guns,’ Adam answered for her.
Elza fretted about food. She insisted on leaving the cellar to get provisions from the kitchen.
‘No, Elza,’ Mama protested. ‘It’s just not safe.’
‘It’s no use sitting here to slowly starve,’ Elza argued. ‘I’d rather take the risk of a bomb falling on my head.’
‘Let me go, Mama,’ I begged. ‘I’m quick.’
Mama shook her head very fiercely.
‘No,’ Elza declared. ‘It’s my job to look after you, and I won’t let a few Nazis let us go hungry.’ Without another word, she disappeared up the cellar steps.
She returned soon after carrying some bread and cheese. ‘There’s dust and ash everywhere,’ she reported. ‘But otherwise nothing a broom won’t fix.’
I wasn’t sure if our neighbours had been as lucky.
After the bombing didn’t let up for more than a week, Elza insisted that she must go to check the state of the city.
The wait for her to come back seemed endless. It was only an hour or so, but as every minute ticked by, we hoped and prayed she was safe. We could hear planes droning overhead and bombs falling.
Just as we were starting to lose hope, she emerged at the top of the stairs. Her face was grim as she reported what she’d seen. ‘There’s piles of rubble, everywhere, buildings gone, and worse. Two houses at the end of northern end have gone, and the houses on either side of us are damaged.’
‘Oh, no,’ Mama cried. ‘The Balinskis?’
Elza nodded sadly. ‘I saw young Dominik. The family are all right, they are staying with Mr Balinski’s sister. Dominik and his father are working as volunteers, putting out fires. They are desperate for help.’
‘I could do that, Mama!’ Adam cried.
‘No,’ Mama said firmly. ‘You’re too young.’
Adam looked disappointed.
A few days later Elza ventured out again. We had almost run out of water and the taps no longer worked. I don’t know what we could have done without Elza. She had become our lifeline.
She returned holding a half full bucket and saying, ‘This is all I could find. Then she grimly added, ‘The Nazis have destroyed all the waterworks.’
‘Then we will have to make do,’ I said decisively. ‘Won’t we, Mama?’
Mama didn’t answer. But Zaida did. ‘Yes, we will.’
/> The fighting went on throughout September. On the 28th, the word spread that Poland had surrendered. We had no idea what would happen next, or where Papa was. Three days later, there was an urgent knock on the door.
‘I’ll go,’ Zaida said.
As the door opened we saw Papa—his face grey with exhaustion, his hat, coat and boots covered in grime, but he was all in one piece. We were so relieved to see him, we couldn’t stop crying. Even Zaida’s tears ran into his beard.
Papa looked at us amazed, then said, ‘Don’t tell me you’re crying because I came home?’
We couldn’t stop hugging him.
‘What happened to you?’ Mama cried.
‘Yes,’ Zaida echoed. ‘Tell us everything.’
Papa sank onto a chair and looked around as if he couldn’t believe where he was. ‘The German army surrounded the city,’ Papa explained. ‘The Luftwaffe bombarded not just us, but strategic targets—barracks, factories, hospitals. They got the waterworks too.’
We all nodded. ‘Elza told us,’ Mama said.
‘We fought the best we could, but the Polish army was hopelessly outnumbered. And the Russian army was advancing from the east. We didn’t stand a chance, especially given the state of the city, and we knew it. We would have to surrender. Once we realised this, we started to hide some of our weapons and ammunition. Maybe we will get a chance to use them to fight back again. I hope so.’
‘But we heard that most of the Army has been taken prisoner. How did you escape?’ Mama wanted to know.
Papa smiled grimly. ‘Hiding behind a bombed-out building. I waited a long time before I dared think it safe to come home.’
‘Thank God,’ Mama whispered. ‘We thought we’d never see you again.’
After the surrender, things seemed to quieten down. Mama insisted I go back to school. Luckily my school had survived the siege. Others hadn’t. I was anxious to see my friends, Eva in particular.
We’d been best friends ever since we met on our first day there. Eva was slim and a full head taller than me. She had straight blonde hair, blue-green eyes and small features. She didn’t look the least bit Jewish. I knew some of the boys in our class really liked her, because they did stupid things, like toss pencils and rubbers at her, and show off in the playground when they thought she might be watching.
My Holocaust Story: Hanna Page 2
