One day Auntie Polina met me at our pasture with all of the food she could scrounge. “I wish I could have brought you more,” she said. “But we’re all suffering. Krasa is now completely dry. If I’m able to get you anything more, I’ll bring it to you.”
From one pocket she drew out a hunk of cheese and a cube of lard wrapped in paper. From a pouch under her coat she brought out a small jar of sunflower oil, six shriveled apples, and a palm-sized wooden box of honeycomb. I put all the cash I had in her hands, knowing full well that in the coming months this food would be far more precious than the money. I wrapped my arms around her. “Thank you, Auntie.”
I took the food back home, keeping some of it for us and hiding the rest for the Segals and Kitais. The question still remained: How would I get it to them?
Without the twice-daily trips to the pasture, it would be harder to check the hiding place for documents. And even if there were some, what would I do with them if I couldn’t make it into the ghetto? Maybe if I slipped out to the pasture every ten days or so, it wouldn’t raise the suspicions of our German neighbors.
Each day since the ghetto had been in place, I’d hidden across the narrow street and watched the police who guarded it, so I could figure out their routine. In the morning and at night when the gates were open and the labor crews were coming and going, there were maybe eight police on duty, but at other times there were only two. One would stay by the gate while the second would slowly patrol the perimeter of the ghetto.
After watching for three days, I knew I could count to one thousand from when the policeman rounded the corner to when he’d reappear on the other side. That was about nine minutes.
On the fourth day, I darted across the road once the policeman had turned the corner. I tugged frantically at various spots in the barbed wire, counting under my breath, looking for a section where the wire wasn’t completely secured and could be pulled wide enough apart to make an opening I could step through. I found a spot between the old candy shop and a bank, then pushed the barbed wire back in place and hurried away. That took about four minutes.
Now that I knew how to get in, I had to figure out when to do it. Dolik lived on the second floor of the old sugar beet factory, and I knew exactly where that was in relation to the candy shop, but there was no point in me sneaking in if everyone was out doing labor. The only time I could be certain that someone would be in the room was during the night.
The next morning I got up before the sun rose and put Mama’s wool coat over my skirt and blouse. Her coat was bulkier than mine and it gave me more places to hide food. In various pockets I hid the honey, three apples, a potato, a wedge of cheese, and an onion. If I got through, the Kitais and Segals would have enough food to supplement their rations for a number of days.
If I got caught … Well, I’d be just as dead for smuggling in a single potato, so more was better.
The street was dark and empty and my bare feet made no noise. Moving through the town square, I ducked behind the water pump as a policeman passed by. I got across the street from the ghetto and hid in the shadows, waiting for the policeman to appear on his route. When he rounded the corner, I darted across the road and quickly slipped through the gap in the barbed wire.
I nearly tripped over a ragged man sleeping on the ground, but caught my balance and felt my pockets to make sure none of the food had fallen out. Then I stepped over the man, keeping close to the wall of the old candy store. A policeman was patrolling the inside of the ghetto—and coming my way. I pressed myself into the shadow of the wall and tried to make myself small. He walked right past me.
The sugar beet building was just half a block away, so I walked quickly to it and pulled open the front door. The stench of sweat and disease was so powerful that it nearly knocked me over. Dozens of wheezing, coughing people huddled together all the way up the steps, many of them using their one suitcase as a pillow. Even in the darkness I saw more than one arm or foot wrapped in bloodied gauze. Like the man asleep on the street, these people must not have been able to find or afford a room in the tiny two-block ghetto. And by the smell, there was obviously no place to get clean.
I needed to look like I belonged, so I walked right in and tiptoed up the stairs, trying my best not to step on any fingers. A man roused groggily and pushed over to make room for me. I made my way down the dark second-floor hallway by feeling the wall, dodging more sleeping people crowded together.
I didn’t know exactly where on the second floor the Kitais and Segals would be, so I tapped on the first door.
“What do you want?” asked a man’s voice.
“I’m looking for the lady doctor,” I said. “I’ve injured my arm.”
“She’s at the end of this hallway, on the left.”
When I got to the proper door, I tapped firmly, then stepped in.
Moonlight streamed in through a high window, illuminating the six shapes huddled together for warmth on the bare floor. Each was dressed for winter—shoes and overcoat and all.
Dolik sat up, rubbing his eyes. “Krystia?”
I stepped over to him and knelt so we were eye level. “I’ve brought food,” I said. “But I don’t know when I’ll be able to get more.” I pulled the items out of my pockets and thrust them into his hands.
Nathan sat up and yawned. Leon woke up too. “You could have been shot, coming in here,” said Nathan. “Or robbed, once you got inside.”
“Well, I wasn’t shot or robbed,” I replied. “But it’s risky. We’ll have to think of a better way, if I’m able to get more food.”
What we decided was that I would wait across the street on the days that I had food or documents. We agreed on four thirty in the morning as the best time, and I would only go out on the mornings when the moon was bright enough for them to see me from across the street. The six of them would rotate turns, so that someone would be at the gap in the loosened barbed wire at the appointed time.
But when was the next time I’d be able to find food to bring? If ever?
Germans celebrate St. Nicholas Day on December 6, instead of December 19 like we Ukrainians do, and the Commandant’s wife had decided to hold a party in the house for the officers’ children that day. Each was to be given a small wrapped box filled with candy, and even though I was no longer allowed to work in the kitchen, I was one of the maids selected to sort the candies and wrap the boxes. My stomach grumbled painfully as I placed small pieces of chocolate and three sugar-dusted squares of Turkish delight into each of the boxes. How I wished I could pop just one candy into my mouth.
Frau Hermann had warned us, though. “I am keeping track of every single candy,” she said, “so don’t bother trying to steal it.”
Later in the day I carried a tray laden with cheese and sausage slices and listened to the children’s parents chatter about mundane things. As my feet pinched in the stiff leather shoes and my shoulders ached from the weight of the tray, I tried to concentrate on the threads of conversation, hoping to pick up something useful.
My ears perked up at the mention of silk stockings. A group of women, all wearing bright dresses, stood in the corner of the room discussing the best place to get stockings.
“My brother is stationed in Lemberg and he buys them on the black market for me,” said a woman in green chiffon. I knew Lemberg was the German name for Lviv.
“He goes into a back alleyway to buy stockings?” asked a pink-clad woman.
“Well, not him personally. One of his Slav workers gets them.”
“Ask if he can get me a couple of pairs,” said a third woman.
When I got home after the party, I told Mama about what I’d heard. “We should sell the stockings—the ones from Auntie Stefa—in Lviv,” I said. “There’s a whole box full.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” said Mama. “I didn’t want to try selling them around here because the Nazis would just find our box and confiscate them all.”
A few nights later Mama took a dozen of the stocking pac
kages and wrapped them in a thin length of cloth. Maria and I helped her bind them to her back, winding the cloth around her waist snugly so it wouldn’t show through her clothing.
“But what about your cleaning for Frau Hermann?” Maria asked.
“Krystia will have to take my shift,” said Mama. “If Frau Hermann notices, tell her I have a bad cold and don’t want to make her sick.”
There was a light tapping at the door. Mama opened it and a young man and woman stepped in. “Girls,” said Mama, “this is Tadeusz and Sofia Podorski. We will be sneaking onto the freight train to Lviv tonight. I should be back tomorrow, or the next day at the latest. Don’t worry about me.”
She kissed us each and was gone.
Of course we did worry. Once Maria and I finished our chores, we wrapped ourselves up in our comforter and lay in bed, listening for the rumbling sound of an arriving train, and willing Mama to be on it.
I didn’t know the Podorskis personally, except that they were brother and sister. Their family was Polish and they had been wealthy before the war. Their father was one of the first people the Soviets killed—hanging him in the town square. Their mother had been sent to a labor camp in Siberia. What were they selling on the black market? Perhaps some jewels and antiques they had been able to hide away? As in Mama’s case, it was better to trade anonymously in the big city, because otherwise their precious items would be confiscated.
I was glad that Mama was able to travel with two other people, and people who knew the black market, but I couldn’t help but feel uneasy the whole time she was gone.
Three nights later she stepped into the house in the wee hours of the morning, so covered in a thin layer of coal dust that when she smiled at us, it looked like her teeth were floating in the air. Maria and I jumped out of bed and threw our arms around her, not worrying about the dust we were getting all over the place, just thankful that she was safe.
“Was the trip a success?” I asked.
“It was,” said Mama. “Look what I got.” She took a cloth bag from inside her blouse.
I picked it up. “Buckwheat?”
“Yes,” said Mama, her white teeth grinning. She emptied one of her pockets. “I’ve got two big bags of it.”
Buckwheat kasha was filling, and when boiled in water it expanded, so just these two bags would make many meals. We kept one of the bags for ourselves; the second was for our friends in the ghetto.
Mama woke as I was leaving to take the buckwheat there. “Wait, Krystia,” she said, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. “Where are those small hacksaws?”
“They’re here,” I said, reaching for them on a high shelf. “Why do you want them?”
“Take some to the ghetto,” said Mama. “I overheard conversations while I was in Lviv. Something about deportations. If the Nazis start deporting Jews by train, these would come in handy.”
I took two of the tiny hacksaws and slipped them into my pocket, then hugged Mama before I left.
Nathan looked at the hacksaws quizzically when I passed them through the barbed wire. “Do you really think they’re going to deport us?” he asked.
“Maybe not,” I said. “But Mama overheard something about deportations.”
“With a hacksaw like this, I might be able to saw through a bolted-down window or door if the Nazis sent me away by train.” He slipped them into his pocket.
I passed him the buckwheat kasha next.
Nathan poked some money through the gap in the barbed wire. “Thank you, Krystia. Anything you can get, you know we’re grateful for. And we saved some of what you brought us the last time, for Chanukah.”
The Commandant had a different plan for Chanukah. He announced that unproductive Jews were to be sent to a labor camp. He claimed this was to alleviate the food shortage and typhus risk in our town.
On December 16, the second day of Chanukah, the gates of the ghetto were opened and police swarmed in. They brought out more than a hundred screaming, weeping people, mostly toddlers and older women. They were loaded onto horse-drawn wagons and surrounded by gun-wielding police. We watched in despair as those wagons passed down our street and out of town. How could any of them possibly escape? The hacksaws were useless against all those armed police.
I searched each face as the wagons drove by, but couldn’t see Nathan or Dolik or Leon. But Mrs. Segal was on the last wagon. She sat still and dignified, clutching her cane as she was driven past the house where she used to live.
Our friends were not taken to a work camp. They were not deported. They were shot dead just a few kilometers out of town.
Mrs. Segal’s death made me even more determined to do everything I could to help the rest of her family live.
Mama made another trip to Lviv just as 1942 began. She had hoped to sell the rest of the stockings, as we had no food left. The chickens had stopped laying eggs in the cold weather, the tin of pork from Frau Schneider was long gone, and so were our precious jams and pickles. Maria and I worried about Mama, but we also waited in anticipation. Would she bring more buckwheat kasha? Maybe something better?
But when she returned two nights later, her face was black with bruises. Her coat was ripped and her pockets were empty.
“I had sold all the stockings,” she said, “and I was coming home with salt pork, biscuits, and cash. But I was robbed on the train.” She slumped down into a kitchen chair.
I held a cool cloth to Mama’s face and Maria made her linden tea. We tried to comfort her, but all three of us felt defeated. That food was supposed to get us through the rest of the winter. What could we possibly do now? There was nothing else to sell and nothing we could barter for food. All we had to live on was the daily ration of one piece of bread, and water from the pump.
Auntie Polina visited a few days after that, her body so weak that she leaned heavily on a walking stick. It must have been sheer strength of will that got her to our doorstep. As we gathered close to the warmth of the wood stove, she reached into the depths of her pocket and brought out a dry wedge of cheese the size of her palm. “This is all I can spare,” she said. “It will be hard for you to get through the next few months, and for me as well.”
“Let us hope and pray that we all survive until spring,” said Mama. “Is Krasa in good health?”
“She is,” said Auntie Polina. “And Lysa is with calf as well. We just need to hold on for a few months. There will be greens and berries in the spring. And lots of milk.”
But as bad as it was for us, it was worse in the ghetto. I had seen with my own eyes how crowded the Jews were. Dolik had told me that the only way to get extra food, besides what I got to them, was to buy it from the Judenrat, and the prices were steep. Many of the Jews were far too poor to pay for a room or extra food to supplement their daily slice of bread. Many had already starved or frozen to death. I dreaded hearing the squeaking wheels of the corpse collector’s wagon, taking the dead out of town to a burial pit.
Mama cut our wedge of cheese in half, and I took one piece to the ghetto at the appointed time. It was Dolik who met me in the moonlight, and much as I was glad to see him, to know that he was still alive, my heart ached at the raspy tremor of his voice. The barbed wire had been fastened back down, so I tossed the cheese over the top of the fencing.
He caught it and slipped it into his coat pocket. “Thank you, Krystia.”
“I don’t know how we’ll make it through the winter, and I won’t be able to bring you any more food until spring.” I didn’t want to cry, but I couldn’t help it. I felt as if I carried the weight of the world on my shoulders. I was desperate to help my friends, but at this point I could barely help myself. The whole situation was utterly hopeless.
“Krystia, take this,” said Dolik, shoving a few coins through a gap in the barbed wire. “Maybe you can buy some food from the Nazis. You need to eat too.”
It made me feel guilty to take his money, but I knew he was right. “Thank you,” I said, putting the coins in my pocket. And as I did, I r
emembered what else I had to give him. I drew the latest forged documents out of my coat and poked them through to him. I also gave him a vial of painkillers from his mother’s box of medicines.
“This is good, Krystia,” he said. He drew a roll of undeveloped film out of his pocket and passed it to me.
I was about to leave, but Dolik said, “When you come next, can you bring sulfa from Mami’s medicine box?”
“Yes,” I said. “What does it look like?”
“It’s a powder in red tins,” he said. “Bring as much as you can carry.”
“I will.”
Just before I left, I held my hand flat against the barbed wire. He did the same. Our fingers and palms touched.
“Be safe,” I said.
“You too.”
Our entire exchange had taken less than two minutes. I hurried back across the street before the policeman finished his route. I silently darted from one building to the next on cold bare feet.
But a few steps away from our front door, a familiar voice said, “Krystia, what are you doing out?”
It was our next-door neighbor Petro Zhuk, the policeman.
“Morning chores,” I said.
His flashlight pierced the darkness for one brief moment. “Chores?” he asked, directing the light at my empty hands.
Petro was no Nazi, but still, the Commandant was his boss. His job was to look for smugglers and food hoarders. Thank goodness I was no longer carrying the cheese. But if he found the film I would be in trouble.
“I was just going inside.” I took a step toward the house.
“Krystia,” he said, “you know I can’t make an exception just because we’re neighbors. Raise your arms.”
His hands moved down the front of my coat and over my skirt, pausing when they reached the roll of film that was shoved in the pocket of my skirt. I took measured breaths and willed my heart to stop its wild pounding.
The silence between us hung in the air.
Then he said, “You can go now. But please realize that if the Nazis knew what you were doing, you would be shot. And if they thought that I was bending rules for you, I would be shot.”
Don't Tell the Nazis Page 10
