The soldiers were gathered into groups and told that they were surrendering to the combined forces of German, Hungarian, and Romanian troops.
Those in command said, “You should be proud of yourself,” and, “One day the courageous Red Army will live again,” and, “You will continue to fight the good Soviet fight for your people.”
The rank-and-file soldiers muttered, “Thank God,” and, “Anything but more fighting,” and, “Damn the Russians.”
Whether embarrassing capitulation or blessed relief, the plain fact was that the Germans had taken Kiev, and with it something in the region of half a million Red Army soldiers.
A strange, almost ethereal, sense of relief fell upon Mykhail. There were no bombs exploding left, right, front, and back. No aircraft fire strafed the ground in front of his eyes, no friends fell on him, grasping, their fresh wounds spraying blood onto him. The fighting had stopped.
The civilians of Kiev started to come out of their houses, like bemused pit ponies being brought to the surface. There was an air of normality—a peace of sorts. For the first time in months, Mykhail could relax. Yes, there would be a price for that. But so be it.
He was not alone in this release. Nobody seemed to be considering the practicalities of housing and feeding so many prisoners of war. Instead, there was only relief, and little of any other emotion.
The German troops approached warily. Arms were surrendered at gunpoint. Now Mykhail felt naked. There were raised German voices. A translator shouted out the orders in both Russian and Ukrainian, and they were all ordered to march.
Mykhail was lucky; he still had boots. Some of his comrades had to march across the rubble-strewn streets in blood-soaked rags or bare feet that were soon cut to shreds.
About a half-mile on, some of his fellow soldiers started talking and pointing up at the trees lining the streets. Some branches seemed to be bent vertically to point at the street below. Mykhail was confused.
Then he realized. They weren’t branches, but blackened objects hanging from the branches. And as the marching prisoners and escorts got closer, the reality became clear.
These blackened objects were the remains of soldiers—German soldiers—suspended from branches by their tied hands, hanging lifelessly, occasionally swinging and spinning in the breeze.
The entourage slowed to a halt. The Germans looked up, at first astonished, then gritting their teeth in anger.
Mykhail squinted to look more closely. The lower halves of the soldiers hung up in the trees were charred and shrunken.
“What happened?” Mykhail whispered to a soldier next to him.
“You don’t know about Stalin’s socks?” the man said.
Mykhail looked at him quizzically, then back up at the trees.
“Captured German soldiers. They tie their hands together over the branches, douse their feet in gasoline and . . .”
Mykhail’s stomach turned as he looked up. His weakened heart struggled to pump harder. He dragged his eyes away from the wizened forms hanging from the trees and looked down, a dribble of cold fear escaping from his mouth.
Then there was shouting. The Red Army prisoners turned to see the normally unflappable German soldiers arguing with each other as they pointed up into the trees. Scuffles broke out, some of them even raised their rifles to one another.
Then their weapons turned, and instinct took control of Mykhail. By the time he was conscious of what was happening he’d already hit the ground. Submachine guns had been let loose, powering vengeance into the Red Army. A body fell onto Mykhail’s legs, cracking his knees onto the concrete below. Another fell on his right arm and shoulder. He turned his head and met a face at close quarters. It belonged to a lifeless corpse, eyes bursting from its sockets in shock, blood pouring out of a neck wound.
And the shooting continued.
A shout rang out. “For Stalin’s socks!”
Mykhail closed his eyes and started crying. The gunfire continued. For a few seconds he considered getting to his feet—even charging at the German troops. At least that would end it. But even if he wanted to do that he couldn’t—he was pinned to the ground.
And then there were shouts in German, desperate and unrelenting. Voices were fighting bullets. Even Mykhail understood that they were ordering their troops to hold fire—and within thirty seconds the shouting had beaten off the gunfire.
Jackboots approached Mykhail.
“Those who are able, stand up.”
Mykhail didn’t move.
Louder: “Stand up if you can. It’s safe.”
Mykhail struggled at first, pulling his legs from under one corpse, pushing away the other. The German soldier grabbed his arm and helped him to his feet, but Mykhail stepped back—back toward the bigger mass of Red Army prisoners who had escaped the initial flurry of gunfire.
The Germans still argued, pointing and shouting. The prisoners steeled themselves to fall to the ground again. But no. Even the angriest of the German soldiers eventually breathed deeply, nodded agreement, and relaxed their weapons.
A few of them approached the prisoners.
“Wounded, come away,” they shouted.
Men holding their blood-soaked arms or limping from bullets to the leg went where they were directed, moving themselves to a grassy area to one side. “On the ground,” they were then told. “Face down.”
There were more whispers from the Germans. Some lined up in front of the main body of uninjured prisoners and pointed their weapons at them, holding them steady. Others approached the wounded.
In a short burst of gunfire all the wounded soldiers were shot dead, and below them the blades of grass were soon poking through pools of blood.
“We can’t carry any injured,” the German soldiers said, then picked their way through the mass of bodies lying on the ground, putting a bullet in the head of any that showed signs of life.
For a moment Mykhail envied those comrades. Perhaps he should have stayed on the ground.
A few days later, the men were behind barbed wire.
This was a POW camp, but it was hardly a prison, merely an encirclement of fencing and armed guards. No buildings. No shelter. No sanitation. Food came only every other day, water only when it fell from the skies.
The sea of bodies at least provided a little warmth, much needed in the October chill. When the prisoners turned into corpses, their clothes were plundered. Occasionally those too weak to defend themselves were victims of the same crime.
Mykhail was lucky. A man next to him had a thick field coat but no boots. In the cold and wet, his feet got diseased, rotted, and soon afterward took him with them.
Mykhail took the man’s coat and covered his whole body up in the increasingly cold nights that followed. A youth of eighteen, his body seemed more resilient than most. Whenever food appeared at the gates he was one of the first to react. He was like the sturdiest of the litter: better suited to surviving, hence stronger, and hence more likely to stay stronger. Self-preservation was everything.
Yes, he was weak, permanently chilled to the bone, infected with scabies and God knows what else, but in a sea of rotting flesh he was strong—as strong as a farm horse.
Chapter 13
Warsaw, Poland, 1941
The night after Asher’s mama gave him permission to invite Izabella for a meal, he’d hardly slept for excitement, but still managed to find her within a half hour of leaving home the next morning. She was a couple of streets away from where she’d been before, and when they met this time, the timid numbness of his mind parted to make way for a confidence that surprised even himself.
At first he stood back for a few minutes, just watching her play that same tune. This time there was no vacant grin: his face held the smile of a young man simply enjoying the moment.
When she stopped for a break he approached her, clapping his hands in appreciation. She blushed, but also frowned in mock disapproval of his actions.
“Hello again,” she said.
Asher held out a hand. “Do you want me to hold anything?”
She offered him the violin and bow, which he took, showing great care.
“It’s very early,” he said. “When did you start playing?”
“Dawn—as soon as people appeared on the street. And I’ll go home at dusk.”
“I’m sorry I upset you yesterday,” Asher said. “I just wanted to know more about you.”
She gave him a coy, sideways glance. “What do you want to know?”
“Well, where do you live now?”
“With my aunt in the north of the sector.”
Asher nodded. “The one you stayed with while they were repairing the café?”
“How do you know about that?”
“I worked on the repair, remember? I heard your papa talk of you.” He noticed her smile drop. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Forget I mentioned your—”
“It’s all right. You helped him. I should be thanking you.”
“Oh, I made sure your papa thanked me; I think I ate my weight in cakes that day.”
They both laughed, although a glance at each other’s figures, their waistlines shrinking by the month, lent a bittersweet edge to their laughter which neither wanted to mention.
“Are you happy living with your aunt?”
Izabella grimaced. “Mmm . . . they’re nice, but her and her husband and four sons, all in one room? Let’s just say I don’t mind being outside all day. Besides, if I don’t beg, I don’t eat.”
“Doesn’t your aunt get the rations?”
“Not for me.”
“Really? You must suffer from hunger a lot.”
She nodded.
“In that case, how would you like to come to my home for a meal?”
“When?”
“Whenever you want to. How about today?” Asher peered into her eyes, trying to read what she thought of him, whether the lure was the food or spending time with him. It was probably the food, but that was understandable. “If it was up to me, you would come to our apartment to eat every day.”
“You have an apartment?”
“I’m sorry. A slip of the tongue. We used to have an apartment before we came to the Jewish sector. Now we have one room, and it’s very cramped with five of us sharing, forever getting under each other’s feet.” He checked himself. “Of course, not as cramped as seven would be.”
She shrugged. “It’s a roof over my head. I’m used to it by now.”
“So, you’ll come for a meal?” Asher said.
“Definitely.” She reached for her violin and bow. “What time?”
“Six o’clock tonight. Shall I come here for you?”
“Of course,” she said, drawing bow across strings as though warming them up.
Asher was conscious of his face flushing, and shifted from foot to foot, trying to quell his nervousness. “That’s good. I’ll come to fetch you.” He took a pace back.
“One other thing,” she said.
“What?”
“Your name?” she said. “You haven’t told me your name.”
Asher cursed himself. Now he could feel his skin almost burning with embarrassment. “I’m sorry, I should have said. I’m Asher Kogan.”
“I’ll see you here just before six, Asher. Now I have to work.”
She started playing, and Asher watched for a few minutes, closing his eyes once or twice to allow the music to permeate better, then turned and ran. He had his own begging to do.
Later that day, Asher turned up early, finding Izabella studiously caressing the strings of her violin as usual. She flashed him a coy grin but continued playing, and Asher lost all sense of time while he listened, unable to take his eyes off her—so much so that he was a little startled when she stopped and took three paces to stand face to face with him. She said hello, and he paused before returning the greeting, as though snapping himself out of a trance.
The reaction clearly puzzled Izabella. “I’m sorry, Asher. I thought you were taking me to your home for a meal today. Am I being presumptuous? Tell me if I—”
“No, no. You’re right, of course. It’s all been arranged. Follow me please.”
Izabella put her violin in its case, and Asher insisted on carrying it for her. They walked side by side, Asher talking about the room his family lived in, Izabella nodding agreeably. Whenever their arms brushed together he paused, his heartbeat quickening. Once or twice their hands touched, Asher feeling her warm flesh for only a second. As they approached the apartment block he felt the urge to gently place his hand over hers, which he resisted, although the mere thought made him lose the thread of what he was saying.
They arrived just as the bowls were being laid out on the table, and there was enough time for brief introductions to be made before the soup was served.
“It’s a lovely room you have here,” Izabella said as they all started eating.
“Oh, it’s not much,” Asher replied. “We used to have an apartment with two bedrooms.”
“We used to have a farmhouse,” Rina added from the sidelines.
“Asher told me,” Izabella said, smiling sweetly. “But this is still a nice place. You have light, a table, it’s clean. It’s so much better than . . .” Her sentence trailed off to a sigh.
“Better than what?” Asher asked.
Rina hissed his name from across the table.
“What?” he hissed back.
“Don’t be rude to our guest.”
Asher wanted to tell his sister that Izabella wasn’t their guest, she was his. But he noticed Izabella and Rina exchange a glance. Rina gave her head the slightest of shakes to show despair at her brother, making Izabella smile.
“You’re right, Asher,” Izabella said. “This is better than where I live.”
“So, where do you live?” Keren asked.
“The other side of the sector,” she replied.
“Whereabouts?” Papa asked. “I might know it.”
“I don’t think so.” Izabella took a spoonful of soup and picked up a chunk of bread. “You have better food than me too. This soup is delicious, Mrs. Kogan. You have potato, carrots, and even a little onion in here. And the bread—oh, I can’t remember the last time I held fresh bread in my hands. Where did you get this from?”
“That’s a good question,” Papa said. He turned to his wife. “Golda, where did you get this from?”
“The oven,” she replied.
“No, I mean—”
“Izabella,” Rina interrupted sharply, “tell us about your family. They live in the Netherlands, don’t they?”
Izabella told them what she knew, which wasn’t much because she hadn’t heard from them for such a long time, but she said she missed them terribly and hoped that one day, when the country was free again, they could all live together once more and make up for lost time.
The mention of the country being free again kicked off a heated discussion between Papa, Rina, and Keren, leaving Mama to gather up the empty bowls while Asher and Izabella did little more than listen, occasionally glancing at each other.
Not long after that, Izabella stood up and reached for her violin case.
“Are you going so soon?” Mama said.
“I’m afraid so,” she said. “But I can’t thank you enough for your food and hospitality. I haven’t felt so welcome in a long time.”
“You deserve it,” Rina said before anyone else could speak. “Nobody deserves to starve and nobody should have to beg.”
“Nevertheless,” Izabella insisted, “I’m very grateful. You’re a kind family.”
“Asher,” Rina said, “aren’t you going to walk Izabella home?”
“There’s no need,” Izabella said.
“I’d like to,” Asher said. “Please.”
Izabella paused, as though carefully weighing the offer up, before accepting.
“Only halfway, though,” she said to Asher as they left the apartment block a few minutes later.
“Don’t you want to show me
where you live?”
She stopped walking and turned to him. “It’s a horrible place,” she said, holding his hand and squeezing it. “So please, turn back when I ask you to.”
Asher nodded, his mind busy wondering whether she really was holding his hand or he was imagining it. A quiet “Yes” was all he could manage.
“Your sister Rina is a very confident woman, isn’t she?” Izabella said as they started walking again.
Asher paused before replying. “Sometimes having her as a sister is difficult,” he said. “Not that I don’t like her. It’s just that often I prefer the company of Keren. She’s easier to get along with.”
“I can see that, but I like both of them. I like all your family.”
Asher almost said he’d like to meet Izabella’s family one day, but thought better of it, and soon Izabella stopped at a street corner. She told Asher once again how much she’d enjoyed the meal and meeting his family, then reached up on tiptoes to give him a kiss on the cheek.
He stood, open-mouthed, and touched a fingertip to the spot where those petite strawberry lips had been, feeling the ghost of her warm kiss. This time there was no wondering; she definitely had kissed him.
“Now go,” she said.
“Are you sure you’ll get home safely?”
“I walk these streets all day, Asher. Just go, and I’ll see you soon. I promise.” She smiled the happiest smile Asher had seen on her since the days of Café Baran, then she ushered him away with one hand. “Go!” she hissed, starting to giggle.
Asher took a step back, then another, then turned and started running, not stopping until he got back home. The first thing he did there was ask Mama whether he could invite Izabella to eat again. She raised an eyebrow but agreed.
Asher saw Izabella during the next week, but didn’t dare make any physical contact, preferring to simply look and listen. Whenever she had a break from playing the violin they would sit and talk. They discussed the old days in free Warsaw—the glory days of Café Baran. Asher told Izabella more about his life before Warsaw, of days on the farm in Dyovsta with his old friend Mykhail, of mornings toiling in the sun and afternoons fishing in the nearby river. In return, she told him of her childhood days in Warsaw, when her two brothers and sister lived with them, before the specter of German invasion became an imminent threat and they’d fled to the Netherlands.
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