More weeks went by without raids into the ghetto.
I was lulled into a routine of doing our daily chores, sneaking food and documents in when I could, and generally trying not to get noticed by the Nazis. Weeks stretched into months. But then in late July, the police stormed the ghetto.
Mama and I stood, numb with horror, as we watched them push forward a mother holding her screaming baby, and an elderly man bent over his cane. One young father held a toddler in his arms and gripped the hand of a slightly older boy. A policeman stood behind, nudging him forward with the tip of his rifle. There had to be a hundred or more men, women, and children forced into cars at the train platform.
“So this death camp in Belzec really does exist,” Mama whispered. We watched, stunned, as the train chugged slowly away. The faces of terrified Jews stared out of every window.
I did not see Doctor Mina or Dolik or Leon. I could only pray they were not among these doomed people. But from one of the windows, Mr. Segal’s eyes met mine.
I felt helpless. And angry.
For days after that mass roundup, extra police continued to be stationed around the ghetto. I didn’t dare go there for fear of being caught. I felt like such a traitor to my friends.
But then in the wee hours of the morning, about four days after that train had taken the hundred Jews, our front door squeaked open.
I scrambled out of bed.
Mama grabbed her pistol. “Stand behind me,” she whispered as she quietly pushed open the bedroom door and peered out into the blackness of the kitchen.
“Kataryna, Krystia, it’s me.”
Mr. Segal’s voice!
Mama put the pistol down and we quickly got dressed, then walked out to the kitchen. In the darkness we could make out Mr. Segal at our kitchen table.
“Michael! Thank God! How did you escape?” asked Mama.
“With this.” He held up one of the tiny hacksaws. “I sawed through the window bolt and shimmied out of the train car. A few of us made it out.”
“What about the Kitais?” I asked. “Were any of them on that train?”
Mr. Segal shook his head. “As far as I know, Dolik and Leon are both still in the ghetto. So is Doctor Mina.”
“Thank goodness,” said Mama, sagging down in her chair. “But what are you going to do now?” she asked.
“Could you …” He drew a deep breath. “Could you please hide me?” he asked. “I know it puts you at risk. But I can’t go back to the ghetto. I was selected for that train. If I’m discovered there, the Nazis will kill me. But that’s not what really terrifies me. They’ll also select others, even hundreds of Jews, as punishment for my escape.”
“Collective responsibility,” said Mama. “Ivan told me of a village that was burned to the ground because of one Nazi officer being killed.”
“Why were the Nazis after you in particular?” I asked.
“Forged documents were found in my coat.”
“If you stay here,” said Mama, “they will find you.”
“I’ve been thinking about that, Kataryna. There is a way to make a hiding spot that they wouldn’t find,” said Mr. Segal. “Your house is the same layout as our old house.” He gestured to our wood stove. “Beneath the metal sheet under your stove is solid earth. A hiding spot could be dug in there. The metal sheet would fit on top.”
Mama said nothing for a long moment. She closed her eyes. I think she was praying, because I could see her lips moving. One tear rolled down her left cheek. She opened her eyes and brushed away the tear. “I need to speak to Krystia in private,” she said. “This is a decision that we need to make together.”
Mr. Segal stood up. “Do you want me to leave?”
“Stay here,” said Mama. “We’ll talk in the bedroom.”
Mama put her arm gently around my shoulders and guided me back into the bedroom. She closed the door and we sat side by side on her bed. “Tell me truthfully, Krystia. What do you think we should do?”
“It’s a horrible thing to have to decide,” I said, leaning my head on her shoulder. “If we don’t do this, Mr. Segal will die … and so will many Jews who will be punished with him.”
“But if we’re caught, the Nazis will kill Mr. Segal, and might also kill us,” said Mama.
“Would they kill just us?” I asked. “What about this ‘collective responsibility’? Who else might they kill in retaliation for our actions?”
“Sometimes they’ll kill families of people who have killed a Nazi officer,” said Mama. “I don’t know if they do that for hiding Jews.”
But who was left to kill in our family? Maria had escaped; my cousins and Uncle Roman had already been killed. And Auntie Polina was Auntie Iryna’s distant cousin by marriage, so not really family at all. I only had two relatives left who were at risk.
I raised my head from Mama’s shoulder and said, “Auntie Iryna and Uncle Ivan … would they be punished if we’re caught hiding Mr. Segal?”
Mama’s eyes narrowed. “Your aunt and uncle have been risking their lives, defying the Nazis, all along.”
I realized the truth of Mama’s words. And it wasn’t just Auntie Iryna and Uncle Ivan. Borys had defied them as well. And in our own ways, Mama, Maria, and I had been defying them too.
“I think we should hide Mr. Segal.” My heart was pounding at the thought of this huge decision.
Mama leaned her head against mine. “If we do this, you must live with Auntie Polina for a while.”
In my mind I saw my parents’ wedding photograph. Tato wasn’t here to protect Mama anymore, but I was, and I would never abandon her. “I’m not leaving,” I said in a voice that I hoped sounded firm. “Besides, it would raise suspicions if you were living here on your own.”
“You are a brave girl,” said Mama. “I’m proud of you.”
We sat on the bed together in silence, letting the magnitude of our decision sink in. Then Mama said, “We should tell Mr. Segal.”
“One more thing,” I said. “If we dig a hole for Mr. Segal, can we make it big enough for Dolik, Leon, and Doctor Mina?”
Mama reached out and grabbed my hand. She gave it a firm squeeze. “Since they will kill us for hiding one Jew, we may as well hide four.”
We walked back to the kitchen.
“We will do this, Michael,” Mama said. “But we’d also like to hide the Kitais.”
Mr. Segal’s shoulders shook with emotion at Mama’s words. It took him a moment to find his voice. “Thank you,” he said.
“Can you give me three days to prepare the hiding place?” asked Mama. “Meanwhile, you need to disappear.”
Mr. Segal slipped out.
The next morning, Mama went to find Uncle Ivan to help dig the hiding place.
It is not an easy thing to dig a hole in the floor of your kitchen without enemy soldiers and enemy neighbors noticing the extra activity and all the new dirt. It was hard-packed clay under the stove, and even Uncle Ivan was covered in sweat from the effort of chipping away at it.
The Nazis were on the lookout for fresh piles of dirt because they knew that there would be townspeople who would risk the danger in order to save their longtime friends and neighbors. My job was to fill my pockets with dirt and then go outside to dispose of it. Krasa’s manure pile hid most of the dirt, but I also sprinkled it into the garden and onto the ground and then walked on it so it blended in. I got rid of more in Krasa’s pasture, and still more in the graveyard behind our church.
But it was a lot of dirt.
Uncle Ivan rigged the hiding hole in such a way that between Mama and me together, we could push the stove and metal plate over to one side a bit, to make a big enough opening for Doctor Mina, Mr. Segal, Dolik, and Leon to climb into it. He also made sure to leave a gap behind the stove so they’d be able to get fresh air while they were hiding.
We put straw down on the bare dirt floor, and a blanket over the top of that, then pillows. It looked like a horrible place to stay. I could only imagine how awful it woul
d be with four people crowded in and the stove on top of it.
Mr. Segal came back to us three days later.
“We haven’t been able to tell the Kitais of our plan yet,” Mama told him.
Mr. Segal stayed down in the hole for the entire day and into the night. Once it was dark out, Mama and I pushed the stove to the side so he could get out. He gulped in the fresh air, then collapsed onto a kitchen chair. Mama gave him some milk and a bowl of kasha.
“It must be awful down there,” I said as I watched him eat.
“Right now,” he said, smiling sadly, “for a Jew, that hole is the best place in Lebhaft.”
I had not been able to get over to the barbed-wire fence since Mr. Segal had come to our house. Word of the Belzec death camp had spread, and many Jews were trying to escape. The Commandant dramatically reinforced the ghetto patrol.
The closest I got was across the street from the ghetto. I could see Dolik standing there, but with the police passing about once a minute now, even if I got across, there wouldn’t be enough time to explain our plan. So the next night I brought a written note and timed my crossing to the one-minute gap. I shoved it through the barbed wire, then immediately walked away without saying a word. Two nights later, Dolik and Leon managed to sneak out of the ghetto and reach our house.
“But where’s your mother?” I asked when they arrived.
“Mami is staying in the ghetto,” said Dolik, his voice faltering. “We couldn’t convince her to leave her patients.”
It made me proud, the act of defiance that we kept from the Commandant. Sometimes, I thought I would burst from the secret. It felt strange to carry on with our usual chores as if enemies didn’t live all around us. And as if no one lived under our kitchen floor.
To divert suspicion, Mama asked Frau Hermann to hire her back—and she did. But Mama’s hours were briefer and she mainly did the laundry. “I prefer that,” Mama told me. “Because now I rarely encounter that evil man.”
The people who had been given the Kitais’ old house began buying our milk. Frau Lange was the gymnastics instructor at the school for Germans and Herr Lange worked as a town administrator. They seemed like intelligent and cultured people and they brought with them cases and cases of books, most in German, but some in other languages too. They also had a wireless radio. Most of the time they would listen to music, but I was able to overhear some of what was happening in the war, which in August was mostly about the German army heading toward Stalingrad.
Frau Lange was about six months pregnant, and now that her stomach bulged out, the principal felt it would be indecent for her to work at the school come September. I would go over to their house for about two hours a day to help her get things in order for when the baby arrived. Day by day, Doctor Mina’s old medical office was slowly transforming itself into the baby’s nursery. Frau Lange had particular taste and only chose the best for her new baby, but as each item arrived—the cherrywood bassinet, the ebony chest of drawers with a marble top—I wondered where it had come from. Were the old owners now in a slave camp or ghetto? Or had they already been killed? Frau Lange seemed cheerful and oblivious, and I held my tongue. But my stomach felt tied up in knots whenever I was in the Lange house. How could they seem so normal, even almost nice, yet live like vultures—benefiting from the destruction of others?
I tried to keep the bigger goal in mind. This job would help me escape notice. If I were working for Nazis, who would suspect that I was hiding Jews? But the other reason I took the job and Mama took hers was that we were feeding five people. We had to buy food to supplement what we could grow or gather. And we had to do this without raising suspicions.
One good thing about starving for so many months was that our stomachs had shrunk, and not just mine and Mama’s, but Mr. Segal’s, Dolik’s, and Leon’s. That meant that the five of us could feel quite full on the portions eaten by one or two Germans. And Frau Lange took such a liking to me that she used her influence in the Volksdeutsche store to buy extra rations. These she would give to me as my pay instead of money.
Every day as I went through my chores, I thought of Dolik, Leon, and Mr. Segal crammed together in the darkness under our kitchen floor. Did they ever panic, wanting to thrash around their arms and legs? I didn’t want to ask them, because maybe thinking about it would make it worse for them. But if it were me down there, I’d want to scream. I couldn’t imagine how awful it must be, cooped up like that for all the daylight hours.
In some ways it was probably better that Doctor Mina hadn’t come, because there was barely room for three people under our floor, let alone four. And it made me wonder whether Doctor Mina’s seemingly harsh decision was really made to keep her sons more comfortable and safe.
My favorite time those days was after dark, when Mama and I pushed the heavy stove to the side so our friends could squeeze out. Leon usually climbed out first, and I’d grab on to his arms so he wouldn’t fall; he was so stiff and weak from not moving all day. Dolik was next, and then Mr. Segal. Once they were out, we’d push the stove back into place. That way, if someone came unexpectedly, the three could hide under the bed, or climb out the bedroom window and go to the root cellar or into the shed, or hide behind the manure pile.
After they had a chance to walk around our kitchen to get the kinks out, we would eat together. Things had to stay tidy, so that we wouldn’t be scrambling to put away any telltale extra dishes if someone came to the door unexpectedly.
After we ate, Mama and Mr. Segal would sit at one end of the table, talking quietly about the war and any news that Mama had been able to gather or the things that I had heard on the wireless. On rare occasions, Uncle Ivan or Auntie Iryna would come by, and then the whispers got even more intense.
Dolik and Leon and I played cards, usually a game called Remi, which Leon often won. Then I’d tease him. “Remember when you used to follow Maria around like a puppy?”
“I did not,” Leon protested. “I was just trying to help her.”
“Better a puppy than being mean,” said Dolik.
“Who are you accusing of being mean?” I asked.
“You, and you know it,” he said. “It was like you couldn’t stand the sight of me.”
It seemed like a lifetime ago when I had been so aggravated by Dolik. Now he was my best friend. “Do you want to know the truth of it?” I asked him.
“You were jealous of me?” asked Dolik, grinning.
“I was. But not so much because you had shoes and nice clothing. I was jealous because you had a father and I didn’t.”
Dolik blinked in surprise, then picked up the deck of cards and shuffled them. I could tell that he was doing his best not to weep. “I hadn’t thought of that, Krystia,” he finally said. “And unfortunately, now we’re even.”
One night, to pass the time, I gathered up all our family photos and shared them with Dolik. We didn’t have many, but there was one of Mama and her siblings as children—Stefa, Kataryna, and Ivan all gazing at the camera with serious eyes, wearing old-fashioned clothing. Uncle Ivan was the tallest, one hand resting protectively on the shoulder of each of his sisters. Auntie Stefa and Mama looked almost like twins, except Stefa was taller.
Dolik ran his finger over the photograph. “You’d never know it by looking at them as children that they’d all grow up to be so brave.”
It must have been terrifying for Auntie Stefa to leave behind everything that she knew and travel across the ocean to start a new life. Uncle Ivan too—to defy not one invader, but two, by trying to build an army in the forests out of nothing. I had only thought of it as scary when Mama would sneak into Lviv to sell things on the black market, but Dolik was right—it was brave.
“Your father was brave,” I said. “He was one of the first to stand up to the Commandant. And your mother too. Think of how many would die in the ghetto if she hadn’t decided to stay and help.”
“I wish I had photos,” said Dolik. “We took some to the ghetto with us, but they’re s
till there. I’d give anything to see my father’s face again.”
I got up and rooted around on our shelves, then came back with colored pencils and paper. “Your father gave these to us,” I said. “Let’s make portraits on your father’s paper.”
Dolik took a piece and held it to his face, inhaling deeply. “It still has Tate’s scent.”
Dolik drew an outline of his father’s face and added the black-rimmed glasses and the wild hair, but then he pushed it away. “I can’t do it,” he said.
I pulled the paper over and added a few more details—Mr. Kitai’s lips that were always a moment away from smiling. The crinkles in the corners of his eyes. His skinny neck. I passed it back to Dolik.
“You forgot his shirt collar,” he said, drawing even more details.
We drew a picture of Doctor Mina. Leon put down the book he’d been reading and picked up a red pencil. “I’m drawing you,” he said to Dolik. “Why don’t you draw me?”
And as they drew each other, I made a portrait of Maria. Was she still alive? And what about Nathan? I wished there were some way to find out about them both.
In the evenings we embellished the portraits and made new ones. In the mornings I would put them on a high shelf underneath our family Bible.
Leon particularly enjoyed looking through the real photographs of my family. He was struck by how closely my Auntie Stefa resembled Mama. “If this war ever ends, you should find Maria, and the three of you should go to Canada and live with your Auntie Stefa,” said Leon. “That would be an adventure.”
“She invited us to do that,” I said. “But I’d miss you and Dolik.”
Leon grinned. “Maybe we’ll come too.”
With Doctor Mina still in the ghetto, I would have liked to take food to her and see how she was doing, but Dolik said that one of her old patients who was in the Judenrat was getting her food. “And hiding us is risky enough,” he said. “You don’t want to call more attention to yourself.”
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