I considered carefully before responding, “he’s demanding but just.”
“Demanding?” He arched his brow, taking the chair next to me and laying out a stack of folders in front of him.
“He doesn’t like sloppy work. Typos that is.”
“Makes you retype the entire document until it’s perfect?”
I faked reluctance before answering, hoping for the needed effect. “He hits my hands with a steel ruler when I make them. Sometimes he hits me on the head too because he thinks I do it on purpose. Just today he told me that if I keep sabotaging his work, he’ll send me back to the brigade.” I lowered my eyes, brimming with tears.
Another hmm from Sturmbannführer, more thoughtful than the first. “That’s odd. He never appeared the type, to me, that would hit anyone. Let alone a woman.”
“Oh no, that’s not ‘hitting,’ it’s more of a…” I pretended to search for the right word, “disciplining, that’s what it is. It’s my own fault, too; I should have been much better at it by now but…”
“But what?”
“He makes me nervous when he stands above me like that. I keep fearing he’ll hit me again.”
“Are you afraid of him?”
“A little.”
He relaxed his posture a bit, seemingly satisfied. “I’ll talk to him. I’ll tell him to go easy on you.” He moved the folders toward me. “Now, let’s finish with this rotten business. These are the personal files of all SS men who have access to the ghetto. Go through them and tell me if you recognize any of them.”
He patiently waited while I was sorting out the files. It took me a good thirty minutes, perhaps more. There were so many of them, perfect Aryans, most of them of my age, looking smugly at the camera, proud and arrogant in their uniforms. I thought of adding a few of them to the small stack but decided against it. No need for anyone to catch me in lying if I happen to point out the wrong man.
“These twelve I recognized. They all came to our house, on a few different occasions. You can ask the women who live with me – they’ll confirm it.”
“I will. The Field Police doesn’t bring up anyone on charges unless it’s proven by multiple witnesses. Anyone else?”
“No. Not out of these files, no.”
“Any officers among them?”
“I think they were all privates.”
“Regular SS men?”
“Yes.”
He rose to his feet. I followed suit.
“You can go back now. I’m sure Schultz is looking for you already. And don’t be afraid to tell him that you were here helping me with things if he starts threatening you with that ruler again.” He even allowed a little smile onto his face.
I smiled timidly at his joke and wished him a good day before making off.
When I knocked on the door to Willy’s office, it opened within seconds. He pulled me inside and shut it closed before drawing me into the tightest embrace. I still felt his hands trembling as he patted my arms, shoulders, searched for the marks on my face.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, yes.” I rushed to assure him.
“One of my men told me that Schönfeld came here with Bröger. He heard you screaming.”
“Schönfeld twisted my arm,” I admitted.
“What did that bastard want?” His voice was steel now; eyes, hard as granite.
“He wanted me to tell Sturmbannführer Bröger that you and I… that we were lovers. I didn’t say anything, don’t worry.” I caressed his cheek with a smile. “I said you beat me with a steel ruler sometimes, so don’t get too surprised if Bröger brings it up.”
He covered my face with kisses. I looked at him in surprise when I felt wetness on my cheeks. He wiped his face quickly and offered me a somewhat guilty grin. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“I’m here. It’s all right,” I repeated again. The tears? Because of me?
He only shook his head again. “Usually, when Schönfeld leads people away, they never come back.”
Chapter Seventeen
Thunder rolled in the distance, following remote flashes of lightning. It hadn’t begun raining yet but the air was charged with electricity, dark violet clouds outside ready to burst into July showers and wash down the night. I lay awake again. One nightmare or another wakened me; I could never remember them once I opened my eyes with a start.
Willy stirred in his sleep – his arm must have gone to sleep under the weight of my head. I tried moving gently away from him but only found myself wrapped in his arms again.
“Stay, Liebe, stay,” he muttered through sleep, without opening his eyes.
His face was tanned and relaxed against the whiteness of the pillow. A strand of hair fell over his forehead; soaked with a metallic glint of the lightning, it shone silver for a few moments before the darkness absorbed the room once again. I brushed it away gently and drunk in his features – the man who loved me more than he loved himself.
“You are getting out of here and I am coming with you,” he said to me with grave resolution in his voice not two days ago. He wouldn’t listen to my protests. No, he didn’t care one way or another he would be considered a deserter. No, he didn’t care that he would never see his Fatherland again. No, he didn’t care if the partisans decided to kill him. “As long as you’re alive and I’m with you.” That was all that mattered. Everything else was dead to him; the family, the army, the loyalty.
He blinked his eyes open and grinned at me.
“What are you up to, Ilse Stein?”
“Just watching you sleep. Like you always watch me.”
“How do you know I watch you?”
“I feel it.” I brushed my fingers on his chest.
“Another thunderstorm?” He was looking at the open window. A curtain was floating in the wind like the great sail of a ghost ship. The time and the matter didn’t exist any longer. We were the only people alive in the entire universe. “Come close to me. Why is your body so cold?”
Perhaps, because I’m already dead.
I only smiled and draped my leg over his. “I’m always cold. That’s why I need you to hold me.”
“I’d hold you every night if I could.” I leaned my face toward him so he could kiss me in the way that would make me forget everything, for a few moments at any rate. “I’ll hold you every night once we’re out of here.”
“You promise?”
You and I, we both know that it will hardly work, but say the words, lie to me, tell me about the future that will never come true.
“I swear.”
He sat up with me still straddling him and put his lips on my breast. I lifted my hips up when he reached down and drew in my breath as he slid inside of me. I needed this tonight, needed to feel alive again, for one more night at least.
I didn’t tell him how, two days ago, as I was marching together with the brigade back to the ghetto, Schönfeld emerged out of nowhere, seized me by my arm and pulled me to the sidewalk, on which we weren’t allowed. People parted upon seeing his uniform – even civilians didn’t wish anything to do with the dreaded SD.
“Twelve of our men were brought before the court-martial for the Rassenschande yesterday,” he growled, his voice full of venom. “This morning, they were executed.”
I was afraid he’d break my arm if I implied that they got what they deserved, so I kept my mouth shut.
“Twelve of my men are dead because of you.” His face was suddenly split by a vicious grimace of a smile. “You watch what I do to your people now.”
With that, he shoved me back toward the road. I ran as fast as I could to catch up with the column.
July 28, 1942
I didn’t hear the first shots due to the noise of my typewriter. Only when the trucks with wailing people sped down Sovietskaya street, did I yank the curtain open and shuddered at the sheer number of them. Some men tried to jump off and were mown down by the machine gun fire at once – the SS escort was more than vigilant. The civilia
ns scrambled out of the trucks’ way, out of the SS troops’ way, as far as possible from the Black Police shouting loudly in Lithuanian as they savagely clubbed the ones, who were only wounded, with their batons.
I rushed to the office and tried the front door – it was locked, as always. After the incident with Schönfeld, Willy positively refused to leave any chance for the situation to repeat itself. I heard the people running to and fro in the corridor; where Willy was, it was anyone’s guess.
Back in his bedroom, I pushed the window open and leaned outside, hoping to locate my brigade. At the end of May, when the need to heat the complex of buildings had disappeared, Willy came up with quite an arrangement for them; they were gardeners now, cultivating and creating the most beautiful floral ensembles around the Government Building and various adjoining headquarters. To the SD commanders, who took to the idea rather dubiously at first, he soon proudly demonstrated a Großdeutschland Adler arranged out of decorative bushes and flowers, which could now be seen from Sturmbannführer Bröger’s window. Bröger beamed and thought it to be a delightful idea and toasted to it, with Willy’s imported French cognac. Both of my sisters joined the brigade as well, on Willy’s insistence. “It’s easier to keep an eye on them this way,” he explained in an off-hand way. It’s easier to save their lives once the SS come, he actually meant.
The gardening brigade observed the movement of the trucks, with their tools still in hand, exchanging wary glances. One of the Lithuanians with the Black Police armband strode toward them. The supervising policeman from the Ordnungsdienst showed him some paper, pointed at the Government Building, then at the women again, moving the paper closer to the man’s face. The latter stalked off, disappointed. I could almost hear the collective sigh they all released.
Rapid bursts of gunfire and screams now echoed through the streets, coming from the ghetto itself. Soon, blasts of exploding grenades joined in, accompanied by the maddened howling of the dogs. I shut the window closed and sank to the floor right under it, my hands rising to cover my ears of their own volition. That’s precisely how Willy found me when he returned to the office, his face as white as chalk.
“What’s happening?” I barely heard myself say.
“I don’t know. An Aktion.”
He stood in front of the window. His boots were covered in dust.
“Have you tried going there? Are they liquidating the ghetto? Are they going to kill everyone?” I raised my head to look at him but he was still staring straight ahead, his brows drawn tightly in concentration. Not getting any reply out of him, I tried again, “Willy, was there any kind of order? Is this the end? Is this because of me? Schönfeld said that because I reported those SS men to Bröger, he’d do something horrible to my people now. Is this all truly because of me?” I felt as though my nerves would snap any second now.
Willy’s hand found my shoulder and squeezed it slightly – that was all the reassurance he could give me, as of now.
“Why would you put such a silly idea into your head? It’s not because of you and it’s not Schönfeld’s doing. His rank is not high enough to sanction anything like this. There must have been some high order from above. Don’t fret; you’re safe here,” he said, at last, his voice as weak as his promises.
I pulled my knees toward my chest and hugged them tightly.
“If Schönfeld comes here—” I began.
“Schönfeld won’t come here,” he interrupted me at once.
“If he comes here or one of his people,” I repeated, catching his wrist, “I want you to do it.”
He stared at me in horror.
“I want you to do it, not them,” I tried to smile pleadingly through the tears. “I want you to shoot me. Don’t let them take me away. They will hurt me. With you, I know I won’t feel anything.”
He sank to the floor next to me as though his legs refused to hold him. He found my hand and kissed it softly.
“If it comes to that,” he spoke, suddenly very calmly, like a man who had finally looked death in the face, “we’ll both go, together.”
I wanted to protest something, to talk him out of it but one look into his eyes was enough to understand everything. He couldn’t shoot at the enemy, as a pilot, choosing to get shot at instead and crashing several aircraft just to avoid taking another man’s life – Otto told me that himself; would he really be able to execute a woman he loved in cold blood and live with himself after that?
The shrill ringing of the telephone in the office pulled harder on the nerves, already strained to the utmost. Willy watched it ring with suspicion, then decided that it would be worse not to answer it altogether. His posture visibly relaxed after a few moments. He gave me a reassuring smile. It’s not for me then that they’re calling; not yet. A few more minutes to live. A few more hours if I’m fortunate enough.
Hours dragged on, interminable, full of unbearable tension, interrupted by the odd phone calls and visitors who brought reports, which Willy threw irritably, without reading, onto his desk until it was littered with them. The people are dying in their hundreds outside and they worry about spare airplane parts! The sun was rolling towards the west, still high enough to offer salvation. The wait was growing intolerable. The uncertainty was impossible to bear any longer. He would try to go outside and see what the SS’s exact orders were, he explained, putting his gun into my hands.
“Do you know how to shoot it? No? It’s easy. Click this safety catch off – now it’s cocked. Then, all you have to do is pull the trigger.” He held my face in his hands as though memorizing it for the time being. “There are eight bullets inside. You have seven to spare for their stomachs. Got it?”
I nodded and bit my lip not to break down. He needed me to be strong for him, just like I needed him to be courageous. He kissed me, desperately and deeply, as if for the very last time and quickly stepped out of the door – while he still could bring himself to leave me. The key turned in the lock. He showed me where to aim if they began breaking it in his absence.
He returned in the evening, pale as death, and began rummaging through the drawers of his desk until he pulled out a ring with several keys on it.
“Ilse, you’re going to have to come with me.” The keys jingled ever so slightly; he clasped them in his fist to stop his hands from trembling. “They will listen to me better if you’re with me. They trust you.”
“Who?” I still held his gun clumsily pressed against my stomach. I’d spent the entire day in this position, with my arms wrapped tightly around my waist for I could swear I would fall apart if I let go of myself even for an instant. He took the weapon from my hands. It was wet with perspiration.
“The brigade. We need to hide them for tonight. The SS are taking skilled workers in trucks to some special camp they installed next to the ghetto, supposedly to keep them separate from the others while they clean the ghetto out but whether it’s true or a trick of some sort one can only guess. I’d rather keep them away for the time being.”
“Where are you going to hide them?”
“In the cellar. It’s big enough.”
“Won’t you get in trouble if they find out that you’re hiding the Jews?”
He hesitated with his response.
“Those SS men got executed for the Rassenschande after I told Bröger about them. Is it worse of a crime than that, what you’re planning to do?” I pressed.
Anyone found guilty of interfering with the SS Aktionen or aiding or concealing any person of Jewish nationality is subject to immediate execution; we knew the words by heart now for they glared at us, in angry black letters, from every corner of the ghetto, from every corner of every street in Minsk. Was it meant only for the eyes of the civilians or the occupying forces as well?
He was silent for a very long moment. “No,” he said at last with a ghost of a smile, not having the heart to tell me the truth. “It’s nothing, what I’m planning to do. Just a minor misdemeanor.”
He’d get shot if they found out; that muc
h was clear. What was also clear was the fact that he knew it and purposely chose to go through with the risk, much like he used to do with the enemy fliers, by offering them his aircraft to strafe instead of doing away with theirs.
I caught his sleeve when he was already at the door.
“Ilse, your sisters are there,” he reminded me softly, “and Liza.”
He was so much calmer than me, so much braver.
“What about you, though?”
“Don’t worry about me. I know my way around their laws.”
“Willy, let us all go with the trucks. Maybe there is indeed a camp and we all carry the cards of skilled workers—”
“What is this? Defeatist talk, Ilse Stein. We’re having none of that tonight. No taking chances, little soldier; not on my watch. Tonight, we all live. Understood?” He smiled at me in spite of himself. I nodded, putting on a brave face for him.
I didn’t ask any more questions, only followed him along the corridor, down to the ground floor, then – even lower, into the damp and barely lit cellar. We walked through its maze for a good few minutes until he pushed the door open and whistled softly into the staircase. A hint of freshly-cut grass and earth wafted through an open door – it must have led to the outside, at the back of the building.
Hurried steps followed Willy’s signal. I recognized Stepan and Liza as their leaders. Liza rushed to hug me tightly. Soon, the cellar was full of women, all two hundred of them. I kissed both of my sisters with immense relief.
After ensuring that all women were accounted for, Willy locked the entrance and motioned for them to follow him. He brought us down one more level, where the walls were covered with mold and moisture and tremendous pipes ran along the walls, wrapped in some sort of insulation. At the end of this labyrinth, was a former boiler room, which was no longer in use.
“Sit down by that wall,” Willy commanded. The women dutifully obeyed, a sea of frightened faces. “I know you think you will have it worse if you don’t return to the ghetto tonight but I assure you, if you do so, you will most definitely die. The Aktion will continue throughout the night. The SS have orders to liquidate all ghettos in all occupied Eastern territories. The order for the executive action was given to the heads of the Einsatzgruppen by Reichsführer Himmler himself, just two days ago. What it means for you is that only a handful of skilled workers will be left alive – for now. All women, children, the sick, and the elderly are subjects for immediate execution.”
No Woman's Land: a Holocaust novel based on a true story (Women and the Holocaust Book 2) Page 16
