I thought of Mama and Maria. What should we do? “So you think it’s better to try to escape than stay and wait for the war to be over?”
“We’re all living under their Hunger Plan, but you know they have worse intentions toward us Jews,” said Mr. Segal. “Your family might live through this occupation, but if even a fraction of the rumors are true, we need to get Jews out of here.” He held up Nathan’s new document. “With this, Nathan might live.”
“I wish there were a way to speed up getting these documents, then,” I said. “Can’t you get me photographs more quickly?”
“The more we make, the riskier it becomes,” said Mr. Segal. “Right now, we’re concentrating on young men and others we think the Nazis could target first.”
“I’ll do anything to help you,” I said.
“Thank you, Krystia,” he said. “And you know that we will do what we can to help you as well.”
Townsfolk and invaders slowly gravitated to the square as the town clock chimed twelve. I found a spot on the top step of the municipal building and waited there beside Mama, Maria, and Doctor Mina. Valentina and Petro Zhuk were about a meter in front of us, beside Mr. and Mrs. Segal. Up on the balcony of the Tarnowsky house, Frau Hermann stood with several of her friends.
Leon, Dolik, and Nathan had been assigned roadwork, and that made me worry. Would they be charged with treason because they didn’t come to the assembly? But just as I was thinking that, I spotted their work crew arrive at the edge of the square in a dusty column. That didn’t make me feel any less anxious. It would be so easy for the Commandant to crook his finger and order them killed. I said a silent prayer.
Just like the last time, the Commandant strode confidently through the crowd and planted himself in the middle of the square. In a firm voice he announced, “None of you gathered here is in danger today.”
Groans of relief rippled through the clusters of people. I barely had a chance to digest this statement when he continued. “Those sentenced to death for treason today are already in my custody. They will come forward now.”
The people standing close to the St. Olha Street entrance shuffled to one side at the sound of footsteps marching behind them. I stood on my toes and saw the police ushering a group of prisoners into the square. Murmurs of alarm arose from the crowd as the policemen positioned themselves in the middle of the square, then stepped aside to reveal their captives.
Disheveled men and women, in ripped and ragged clothing, hands tied behind their backs. One was a girl with a peasant skirt and Soviet army jacket—the same girl who had met us at the encampment.
“They’ve captured our Ukrainian insurgents,” whispered Mama.
And then I saw Borys.
I lunged forward, trying to push through the crowd. They could not kill Borys. I would not let them. But Mama wrapped her arms around my waist. “No, Krystia! Be quiet,” she hissed. “You cannot save him.”
“Let me go,” I shouted, trying to break free. “I need to get to him.”
Borys’s head jerked up at the sound of my scream. Our eyes met. He closed his eyes slowly, then opened them again, still looking at me, like in our staring game. I knew it was his way of saying good-bye. I flailed and pulled and tried to get out of Mama’s grip, but she held me firm.
The energy drained out of me and I leaned into Mama, willing myself to be still. “Borys, dear Borys,” I whispered under my breath. “You cannot die.”
I searched the faces of the other prisoners. Uncle Ivan had not been captured. Auntie Iryna had not been captured. I was thankful that they had been spared. But so many of the insurgents had been rounded up.
The Commandant paced in front of the group, then glared out toward the crowd. “These thirty-two men and women are guilty of anti-German activity.” He motioned to a couple of policemen. They stepped forward, carrying a large canvas bundle. “Open it,” he ordered.
The police revealed a collection of handguns and rifles. “These were stolen from Germans in an act of treason,” said the Commandant. “We know they are collaborating with the Jews.”
He turned to the police. “Take these traitors now.”
Mama gripped me as the police marched the prisoners out of the square and down St. Olha Street. When the Commandant had executed our Jews, it had been done in the woods beside the Jewish cemetery. Were these prisoners being taken to the woods beside the Ukrainian cemetery? Ours was behind the Church of St. Mary. That would mean Borys would be murdered nearly across the street from our house.
Those assembled did not move and did not speak. The silence lasted for long minutes. Then all at once, the stillness was shattered by a violent crack of bullets from a few blocks away. The crowd erupted in sobs and screams.
Mama and Maria and I clung to one another and wept. Poor Auntie Iryna. Would she even know that Borys had been killed?
As the crowd dispersed, I walked with my sister and mother in numb silence, but when we got to our house, I couldn’t bear to go in. I crossed the road to the church instead and stepped into the cool darkness. I lit a candle and said a prayer for Borys and for the others who had been so brutally killed. I stayed there so long that the candle sputtered and died in a pool of wax. My throat was raw from weeping. When I finally stumbled out, it was nearly dusk. I had to go to Borys, to honor his memory.
I walked slowly through the graveyard to get to the wooded area. On my way, I stopped at the two fresh wooden crosses marking where Uncle Roman and Josip were buried. I searched through the earth and found two stones. I placed one on the shoulder of each of the crosses, then chanted under my breath the Vichnaya Pamyat. “Dear Uncle and Cousin,” I said, tears streaming down my face, “I remember and love you.”
I walked into the woods and easily found the fresh pile of dirt covering the newest mass grave. The Volksdeutsche with their shovels were gone. It was just me and the souls of the newly dead. I fell to the ground and scrabbled around with my hands until I found a smooth round stone.
I approached the mound and knelt in front of it, placing my stone at the edge and praying for Borys and all our insurgents. How long did I stay there, kneeling and weeping? Mama came and found me. She helped me to my feet and we stumbled home together.
That night in bed, Maria and I clutched each other and wept. I thought of that false passport with Nathan’s photograph and Bohdan’s name on it. All the people in today’s mass grave were Ukrainian. How much protection would a false Ukrainian passport get Nathan?
When I was little, Tato told me the story of a frog that was put in a pot of cool water. The pot was put on the stove to simmer, but it heated so gradually that the frog didn’t realize it was being cooked until it was too late. That’s how I felt about the Commandant and his plans for Viteretz. Each of his actions was worse than the last, but then we adjusted.
Gnawing hunger was now normal. People forced into sudden heavy labor was normal. “Subhumans” killed on a whim was normal.
We usually started back to school in September, but the Nazis believed that we “subhumans” only needed enough education to understand their orders, so the schools were closed to us beyond grade four. Anya, the priest’s wife, taught us secretly, but we still had heavy labor and all our chores to do, so learning became hard to fit in.
It made me sick to look at the Commandant or his wife, but whenever I was working in their house, I pasted a smile onto my face, dusting and polishing the pretty things I knew they had stolen from their victims. I listened in on conversations whenever I could, hoping to find out something that might help us stay alive.
Our old school had been repaired and painted by labor groups, and was now used by the children of the Germans and Volksdeutsche who administered our town. In the nice weather we’d often see them in their Hitler Youth uniforms singing Nazi songs or marching down the street. Marga was a student there. I’d sometimes pass her coming home in the afternoon, looking uncomfortable with her hair twisted into tight blond braids and her uniform so heavily starched
that the collar made a red mark on her neck.
The warehouse beside the school was the supply depot for the Volksdeutsche Liaison Office, where the food that had been taken from us was stored. It was also where the clothing and items taken from the executed were kept. As I watched endless wagonloads of goods arriving at that warehouse, it made me wonder if this same thing was happening in every town and city that had been conquered by the Nazis. I dreamed of breaking in and opening the doors wide, so that the stolen food and goods could be given to those who needed them so desperately.
The Nazis acted as if we needed lots of police, yet it seemed that their job was to terrorize us, not to provide law and order.
The police who most frightened me were the ones in gray-green uniforms. They came from Germany and they had guns. It was police like these who had executed Borys and our insurgents. There were uniformed Volksdeutsche as well, who also had guns. And Nazis had formed local groups of auxiliary police, so we had Polish, Ukrainian, and Jewish police who wore armbands instead of uniforms. Some of the Ukrainian and Polish police carried guns, but the Jewish police didn’t—only batons.
Even walking on the street became hazardous. Once I was coming home from the Commandant’s when an elderly Volksdeutsche man—I think he was the new postmaster—shook his cane and cursed at two young Polish women as they walked past him. I didn’t know either woman’s name, but I recognized one as a bakery clerk. The other looked as if she could be the clerk’s younger sister. Both kept their eyes cast down as they passed the man, as if trying to ignore his harsh words. A Nazi policeman was passing just then and he stopped, looked from the women to the old man, and asked, “What did they do?”
“That one, she’s a traitor,” said the man, pointing at the older of the two.
The policeman pulled out his gun and shot her in the skull. She crumpled to the ground.
I stood, frozen in place, as the younger woman knelt and cradled her sister’s bloodied head. “Why did you shoot her?” she shouted at the policeman. “She did nothing wrong.” The policeman raised his gun again and shot her in the head too.
I thought maybe the man who had accused the woman would be horrified at the violence he had caused, but when I looked at his face, all I saw was a satisfied smirk.
The policeman looked at the man, then at me—the other witness to what he’d just done. He raised his gun and aimed it at my head. “Leave.”
In a haze of shock, I walked right past the two dead sisters and the smirking man. When I got home, Mama held me in her arms as I wept. “I didn’t help them, Mama,” I sobbed. “I just stood there, watching.”
“What is it you thought you could do?” she asked. “The women were already dead. And the policeman very nearly shot you.”
Her words didn’t make me feel any better. I went to the bedroom and ran my fingers over Mama and Tato’s wedding portrait. Tato stared out at me, and I felt the disappointment in his eyes. He had wanted me to be brave, to do what was right, but instead I had walked away, not even saying anything to the policeman.
I clasped the portrait to my heart and lay down on the bed, not to sleep, but just to think. Mama was right—I knew that. If I had intervened, I would have been shot. But there had to be a way to fight back. We were doing what we could, but it wasn’t enough.
It was nearly dusk on the last Monday of September and we needed more water. “Go with your sister, Krystia,” said Mama. “I don’t like either of you being out alone this late.”
As we carried the water pail to the pump, I glanced over at Maria. It’s funny how you can live with someone, even sleep in the same bed, but not pay attention to the subtle changes that happen over time. I hadn’t really looked at Maria since the Hunger Plan had started. I still thought of her as my chubby-cheeked baby sister, but her face now looked almost gaunt. I glanced down at our two hands side by side, holding the water pail. They looked like leather on bone.
“Do you feel the hunger?” I asked her.
“Not usually,” Maria said. “Except at night. I guess it’s because there’s nothing to take my mind off it then. I get up and drink some water. That usually helps.”
“I wish there were something we could do to change this situation.”
“Me too,” said Maria. “But I feel so powerless.”
When we got back with the pail, I was surprised to see Dolik, Leon, and Nathan just coming home from the labor they’d been assigned. Maria chatted with Nathan, and I met up with Dolik before he went into his house. “The police kept you working for extra hours today.”
“It’s to make up for time we’re taking off. Tomorrow at sunset, Yom Kippur begins,” he said, running his fingers through dirt-encrusted hair. “We’ve been given tomorrow and Wednesday off.”
I knew that Yom Kippur was the holiest day of the year for Jews, and that it was mostly spent at synagogue. “It’s encouraging that the Commandant has given you time for Yom Kippur,” I said. “Maybe things will start to get better now.”
But the next morning, another poster was nailed to the church door. This one read: All Jewish males are ordered to report to the town square at noon today.
Most people who weren’t Jewish stayed away from the square at noon, for fear of being targeted by mistake, but I had to go. I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else while the fate of my friends was at hand. Mama felt the same way and so did Maria, so we stood together with the Kitais and the Segals.
When the Commandant walked through the crowd, he paused, his eyes on Mama. His brows creased as if in thought, but he said nothing. He continued to the center of the square.
“It has come to my attention,” he said, “that the Jews of Viteretz have been hoarding gold. I hereby demand one kilogram of gold to be collected from them.”
This statement was met by shocked silence. The Commandant paced up and down, then stopped again. “Where is the head of my Judenrat?”
There was movement in the crowd just behind us and Shimon Cohen stepped forward.
“Herr Commandant,” he said, his eyes fixed on the toes of Commandant Hermann’s leather boots. “We are very poor in this town. I cannot imagine there being a kilogram of gold in this entire region, let alone Viteretz itself.”
“I don’t believe you,” said the Commandant. “Now, Mr. Cohen, please have the forty finest Jewish men of Viteretz step forward.”
Mr. Cohen’s eyes widened at the order, and at first he said nothing, but I could imagine the thoughts that were going through his mind. Everyone who had been singled out in this way had ended up being murdered. Should Mr. Cohen really call up the finest Jewish men? But if he didn’t do exactly as the Commandant ordered, would the results be even worse?
Mr. Cohen’s body was shaking as he stumbled over some names. As the men came forward, even I knew that he had spared the finest. He hadn’t named Mr. Segal, and he hadn’t named the rabbi. The forty men he did call to the square were good citizens, but they were mostly elderly, and more than one seemed to be in very poor health.
“These do not look like your finest, Mr. Cohen,” said the Commandant as he strutted in front of the forty doomed men. “Why, you didn’t even call up Mr. Baruch, who is on the Judenrat with you.”
He scanned the crowd again, then his eyes lit up. “There you are. Mr. Baruch, please come and join these fine men.”
The crowd parted, and Mr. Baruch reluctantly came forward.
“No need to look so frightened,” said the Commandant as he stepped in front of each man and gazed into his eyes. “You are just my hostages.”
He gestured to a row of armed policemen who stood at attention at the back of the square. “Take these men to the city jail.”
The policemen surrounded the forty-one men and escorted them away.
“Now, Mr. Cohen,” said the Commandant. “I will release those men once you have given me the kilogram of gold. You have until tomorrow, at sunset.”
I don’t know how he did it, but somehow Mr. Cohen collected the one kilogra
m of gold. People gave up their wedding rings, family heirlooms, cherished old coins. I was desperate to help, but we had no gold.
Mr. Cohen turned it over to the Commandant—all of it.
At dusk, as Yom Kippur began, the men were loaded onto trucks, driven to the outskirts of town—and shot.
Throughout the fall of 1941 I felt like the world was closing in on us. The streets now bore German names. So did the stores. Even our town was no longer Viteretz. The Commandant renamed it Lebhaft. Both words meant “breezy,” but the wind that blew through now was filled with fear.
When I was out on the street, I’d keep my eyes cast down whenever I passed someone who was German or Volksdeutsche. Most walked by as if I didn’t exist, and that was fine with me. One exception was the new blacksmith. Often, when we passed on the street, Herr Zimmer would bow his head slightly and say under his breath, “Greetings, Fräulein Krystia.”
I wondered if he could get in trouble for being so polite to a Slav, but he only greeted me that way when no one else was around.
On a chilly afternoon as I was coming home from the Commandant’s, I decided on a whim to stop by the blacksmith shop.
“It’s nice to see you, Fräulein Krystia,” he said. “This is a good place to get warm on a cold autumn day. Come and sit.” He pointed to the stool in the corner. The same stool I used to sit on to watch Tato work, so many years ago.
I perched on its edge and a sense of peace washed over me. It wasn’t just the warmth of the coal fire in the forge, it was the memory of when Tato was still alive, and when there was no war.
Herr Zimmer pulled his visor down, but before he could continue his work, I said, “Thank you, Herr Zimmer.”
“For what, Fräulein?”
“For treating me like a human.”
He lifted his visor again and looked at me. “These Nazis,” he said. “I don’t agree with them.”
His comment surprised me. The Nazis had given him my family’s blacksmith shop. They had given him part of a house on this street as well. If he didn’t agree with what they were doing, why was he going along with it?
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