The Darkest Hour

by Roberta Kagan

  Before Azriel and I married, the uprising was a part of our every thought. We were resistance fighters. But now, Azriel and I were more than just a young couple. We were immersed in our love for each other. He was worried about me being killed. In fact, he was overwhelmed with his fear of it. I knew he was unafraid to face his own death but he couldn’t bear to think of mine and he told me this several times. I would feel his body tremble as he wept during the night. I couldn’t comfort him in any way, as I was quite sure that death was inevitable. But as the days raced by, he grew more and more anxious.

  At the next meeting we attended, the entire plan was explained to us in full.

  ‘We still don’t have a great deal of weapons. So we will set up shooters in windows scattered around the ghetto. Our informants have told us that the Nazis are scheduled to walk in on the morning of April 19th. They plan to completely liquidate the ghetto. Once they are all inside our walls, we will begin shooting from all different directions. They won’t be expecting resistance from us and surprise is our greatest ally here. Because the shots are coming from all over the place, they will not know where to attack. If you are set up to shoot from a location, fire off several shots and make sure you hit your target. Then run like hell and get out of that apartment so that when the Nazis come running in they will find no one there. Be sure to take your gun with you; we cannot afford to lose a single weapon. Each weapon has cost us dearly. Is this all understood?’

  Everyone around the room nodded. There was a buzz of whispers then Mordechi raised his hands and the room was silent again. His voice was choked with emotion as he looked into each of our faces and began to speak again. ‘Well, here we go.’ He smiled and nodded in that special way that Jewish men have of making you feel like you’re an important part of their lives. Then he continued. ‘We have known that our uprising was coming for a long time. And, now that the time is here, I believe that I can safely speak for all of us when I say that none of us wanted this war. But if the Nazis think they are going to kill off the Jewish people without any resistance, we are about to show them how wrong they are. Tonight is very special, because not only is it Passover, but it could very well be our last. I don’t know if I will ever have the opportunity to see all of your beautiful faces together again, like this. But I want to say that if I am to die, I accept my death as a warrior rather than a sheep. I know each of you feels the same. So, with that, I want to say that it has been my greatest honor to know each and every one of you. After my family was killed, it is all of you, my friends, who have taken their place in my soul and in my life and become my family. My love, my admiration, and my deepest friendship are with each of you as we begin our fight tomorrow. May God be with us, my friends.’

  Mordechi left the stage and walked into the arms of the woman I knew he loved. Tears fell freely down my cheeks. He was right; this could be our last meeting. We were all so young and so full of life. It was hard to believe that we were about to walk into the jaws of death. Azriel embraced me. I had long since given up on the idea that it was wrong to show affection in public. I wanted to show my husband how much I loved him in every single second that we had left on earth together.

  ‘I love you,’ I said as I looked into his eyes.

  ‘I love you too, Ruchel. Did you know that your eyes are luminous when you cry? I don’t know how it’s possible, but it makes you even more beautiful than you normally are.’

  I touched his face. I had no words to say. My heart was breaking. I could feel it cracking like an eggshell. The pain of love and possible loss was almost unbearable.

  That night, we made love and then lay in each other’s arms. We never talked about the coming day. But the very idea of it lay between us like a black cloud.

  I knew that this would be our last night in our familiar apartment. The ZOB had informants who told them for certain that on April 19th the Nazis planned to liquidate the entire ghetto. And so everyone who was involved went into hiding including Seff, Azriel, and me. We had already staked out an underground tunnel where we would go if the fighting ceased for a time. It was the first night of Passover and I trembled as I thought of the angel of death. Would he pass over our door this time? I asked myself. But I said nothing.

  At four in the morning we walked carefully, silent as mice, through the dark streets to take our place at our assigned post. Mordechi had arranged for Azriel, Seff, and me to work as a team. We were to be together at the same post when the attack began. The three of us all had our schedule memorized. It was best if we all knew exactly what we were to do next rather than just relying on one of us to remember. Mordechi told us to wait until the group of Germans was right in front of the building where we were stationed before we started shooting. Once we were fairly sure we could get a good shot, we were to shoot several times. As soon as the Nazis started running in the direction of the shots, we were to escape through the back door and walk two blocks to the next apartment where we would wait until the Nazis came down the street. Then we were to shoot again and escape again. There were many groups of partisans throughout the ghetto who would all be doing the same thing to confuse our enemy. We wanted them to think we had more people, weapons, and ammunition than we actually had.

  The voice of a single nightingale broke the silence of the night. It reminded me of the way that the sound of the shofar breaks through the silence during the prayers on Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. His sad, solitary voice haunted me in its raw beauty.

  ‘Listen, Azriel. It’s a nightingale.’

  ‘I hear it.’

  He touched my cheek.

  ‘The poor little bird sounds so alone. Maybe it’s lost and it’s singing so its mate can find it.’

  ‘Ruchel?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If something should happen to me and you survive, God willing, I want you to think of me whenever you hear a nightingale and know that my spirit is with you and I am nearby.’

  ‘Azriel, stop, please.’

  ‘Will you just promise that you will do that for me?’

  ‘Yes, a nightingale. Yes, of course,’ I said.

  Azriel and I didn’t speak. Instead, we sat by the window holding hands and watching the stars and the moon. I leaned my head on his shoulder. Hours passed. Then bits of light began to flicker over the horizon. Azriel spoke in a whisper, ‘It’s almost time.’ He said to both Seff and me, ‘No regrets?’ His voice was hoarse and filled with emotion.

  ‘None,’ I said.

  ‘None,’ Seff repeated.

  ‘I have none either. And even though we have lived through the worst hell imaginable, because of you Ruchel, these last few months have been the happiest days of my life.’

  I was so choked up with uncried tears that I couldn’t speak. I just squeezed his hand. He knew I was crying inside, but I refused to let the tears flow, so he raised my chin to look into my eyes.

  ‘I love you,’ he said.

  I hugged him hard, with all my strength.

  Chapter 6

  I don’t know the exact time that the Germans began walking through the ghetto to round up the rest of us Jews. It must have been sometime before noon. I heard them before I saw them. My hands were cold and they trembled as I held the rifle. I looked at my hands; they were small with very white skin. With these hands I had cared for my friends’ children, I’d helped my mother make matzo ball soup, I’d washed and scrubbed clothes and floors, but I had never fired a gun. I didn’t trust myself not to miss, but I had to try.

  To kill a man is the worst sin a person can commit. Those words went through my mind as the first shot rang out. I gingerly peeked out the window. The Nazis knew they’d walked into an ambush. They began firing at the location where the gunshot had originated. But then shots rained down on them from across the street. I heard a loud explosion and saw orange flames of fire rise in the distance. I assumed that one of the ZOB must have thrown a Molotov cocktail. The band of Nazis began looking around frantically, trying to find the sni
pers while their bodies were falling to the ground like ragdolls. But try as they might, they were unable to figure out our plan. They just assumed that there were large groups of resisters at all different locations. They didn’t realize that there were only a handful of starved but determined Jews running from location to location in order to keep throwing them off guard. Azriel raised his gun and began shooting. I know he hit one because I saw the man fall. I gasped. I couldn’t help it. I felt the bitter taste of bile rise in my throat. But instead of running away, I raised my gun and took aim. Tears wet my cheeks, but when I saw the Nazi clearly in my sight, I forced myself to squeeze the trigger. I don’t know if I hit him because Seff was firing too. But he fell.

  We continued shooting for several minutes, minutes that felt like they would never end. I fired, men fell. But mercilessly, I don’t know if I killed anyone because there were shots being fired from all directions. At the exact time we had been scheduled to leave, we moved carefully behind the buildings to our second location. And so Seff, Azriel, and I continued navigating our scheduled path through the back alleys and underground tunnels in the ghetto.

  Finally, after hours of fighting, the Nazis retreated. I looked at Azriel and mustered an exhausted smile. He kissed me and held me tight. We were both covered in sweat. I cannot tell you how much I wished that this would be the end of it but both Azriel and I knew that this was not over. I looked down at the street and saw the bodies of the Germans lying in pools of blood. No, this was not the end. Hitler would never stand for it. The Nazis would be back.

  I was right. The Germans returned but this time Hitler sent a troop of his trained soldiers, heavily armed, and ready to fight. At the time, I only knew what the Resistance was doing, but years later I learned that when the troop of soldiers arrived, it was because Heinrich Himmler had replaced Obergruppenfuhrer Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg with Polizeifuhrer Jurgen Stroop. Stroop had experience fighting partisans.

  It took one of their specially-trained army battalions to battle a handful of emaciated Jews. So much for Hitler’s superior race.

  But I must tell you that once Stroop and his platoon of soldiers came, things got worse and fast. He commanded his troops to burn down the buildings in the ghetto one by one. They meant to either smoke us out or burn us to the ground. The air was filled with thick black smoke that mingled with angry orange flames that hissed like snakes. All of this destruction was set against a beautiful blue spring sky. We were forced to abandon our original plan. Now we moved quickly to fire shots from any building that was still standing. Then, several days later, on May 9, we met up with another bunch from our group. There had been three of them; only two were left. That was terrible to see, but the news they gave us was even worse. They told us that the previous day, the Nazis had captured the ZOB headquarters. Mordechi, along with many others, was killed. Azriel took the news hard. I had not seen him cry openly in public before that day. Yet when he heard about Mordechi, he sat down on the concrete floor in the basement of the building where we were hiding and wept like a child. My heart ached for him. My heart ached for Mordechi and his girlfriend. My heart ached for all of us because we were Jews.

  ‘Olew Hascholem’, I said. It means he should rest in peace.

  ‘How is your ammunition holding up?’ asked the man who told us about Mordechi.

  ‘We are almost out,’ Seff said.

  ‘Everyone is almost out,’ the man replied, shaking his head.

  ‘So what happens now?’ Seff asked.

  The man shrugged and said, ‘Several of the resistance fighters were able to escape through the sewers.’

  ‘Escape to where?’ Azriel asked, and he suddenly looked as if a candle had been lit in his eyes.

  ‘Into the forests, at least that’s what I heard,’ the man said.

  Azriel was quiet for several minutes. Then he turned to me.

  ‘I want you to go with Seff. Seff, take her through the sewers and get her out of the ghetto into the forest. I will finish up here and meet you both as soon as I can.’

  ‘NO,’ I said. ‘I won’t leave you.’

  ‘You will. You must. Do as I ask, Ruchel. Please. If you ever wanted to make me happy you would do this for me.’

  ‘Come with us,’ I said.

  ‘I can’t. Not yet. I have to finish what we started. I promised Mordechi and I can’t go back on my promise. Especially not now.’

  ‘You will die here for a promise?’

  ‘I will come as soon as I can.’

  ‘Azriel, don’t be ridiculous. Come now.’

  ‘Ruchel, I can’t. I have to live with myself and a man is nothing if he has no character. If his word has no meaning he has no substance, no purpose for being. Do you understand me?’

  I started to cry. ‘You’ll die here. I know it.’

  ‘Please, respect my wishes. Go with my brother. He will watch out for you. Will you grant me this one wish, please?’

  I was weeping but I nodded.

  Azriel grabbed me and held me so tight to him that I thought my back would break. I could hardly breathe and yet I didn’t want him to let go, not then, not ever. I felt my tears wet his shirt. He kissed me and the tears on our faces mingled together.

  ‘I love you with all my heart,’ he said.

  Why God? I thought. Why? But I said, ‘I love you and I always will.’

  ‘Go now. Hurry. Take her, Seff.’

  Seff and Azriel embraced. ‘I’ll take care of her, Azriel,’ Seff said. Azriel nodded. Seff grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the room. I turned one last time to see Azriel pick up his gun. He looked at me and our eyes met. Then he blew me a kiss.

  ‘Azriel,’ I called out to him one more time in sheer desperation. I wanted him to lay down his gun and come with us. But he just looked at me and smiled. It was the saddest smile I have ever seen.

  ‘Ruchel, when you’re out in the forest and you are free and safe, listen for the song of the nightingale. When you hear it you will know that I am there with you.’

  ‘You aren’t coming, are you, Azriel? You’re going to stay here and fight to the death.’

  ‘If a man doesn’t stand up for what he believes is right, how can he live with himself?’

  ‘But what about me? What about Seff?’

  ‘Go, be happy. Someday, a long time from now, tell your grandchildren about me. Tell them I was a strong Jew. Tell them I died fighting for our people.’

  ‘Azriel . . ‘ I cried, but he turned away.

  ‘Seff, get her out of here now. Take her and go. Hurry . . . go while you still can.’

  Seff pulled me quickly out of the room and then down three flights of cracked wooden stairs and out of the building.

  I wanted to break free of him and run back, but Seff held tightly to my hand. He continued to pull me until we found a manhole in a back alley. He looked both ways. No one was around. He slipped the top off and almost pushed me down. Then he followed and replaced the cover. We were in complete darkness. The stench of human waste was overpowering. I felt myself gag. Then I vomited but Seff didn’t give me time to recover. Even as the vomit spewed out of my mouth he was dragging me through the filth and muck. It seemed like a lifetime that we were buried in that grave of a sewer system, wading through the most disgusting things I’d ever known. My skirt and my shoes were covered in waste, but nothing stopped Seff. He wouldn’t listen when I cried that I couldn’t go on. Instead, he just kept pulling me. Finally, we emerged into the river and into the light. The smell of the sewer lingered in my nose even though we washed ourselves the best we could in the river water. Then we ran as fast as we could into the protective arms of the waiting forest.

  It was days before we found clean water in a small pond. We drank and washed. Then Seff and I walked. I had never really talked with Seff before this but there was no one else left for either of us and so we began to converse.

  ‘I was a teacher at a gymnasium in Warsaw. I taught mathematics,’ he told me.

  ‘
I was a protected, sheltered Hassidic girl from a small village outside of the city. Never could I have imagined my life would be like it has been.’

  ‘I don’t think any of us ever dreamed that we would have lived the lives we’ve lived.’

  I nodded.

  ‘My brother loved you very much.’

  ‘I am angry with him. Why didn’t he come with us? Why, Seff? It doesn’t make sense to me.’

  ‘It would if you grew up with Azriel the way I did. He was always an idealist. He got in trouble for speaking his mind all the time when we were children. Our parents would get so angry with him. Then when he found Zionism, that was it. Azriel was hooked. The only thing he ever loved as much as his dream of a Jewish homeland was you.’

  The tears hurt in the back of my eyes, but they did not fall. I wondered if God gave a man a certain amount of tears to cry in his lifetime and when he’d cried them all, then all that was left was pain. ‘And now, Azriel is gone forever. You know something, I just realized that I haven’t heard a nightingale since we got to the forest.’

  ‘Maybe you weren’t listening?’

  ‘Possibly not,’ I said.

  It was difficult finding food. We stole from farms when we could. Many nights we went hungry. In the winter we nearly froze to death. If it hadn’t been for the kindness of a Polish farmer and his wife, we would have. Then that spring, we came upon a group of partisans who were living together in the forest. Seff and I joined them. Azriel had taught me the basics of firing a gun. But amongst these partisans, I learned how to fight. My body, which had always been slender, became hard and lean. Seff and I grew to be good friends. He was like a brother to me and I was heartbroken when he was killed. It happened when a troop of German soldiers sprung a surprise attack on us in the middle of the night. I had been away from the main camp when we were attacked. You see, I used to go out alone when everyone was asleep and talk to the stars, pretending that Azriel was up there somewhere and he could hear me. When I heard the shots and commotion back at the camp, I hid because I had no weapon with me. After there was silence for several hours I gingerly returned to find that so many of my beloved friends had been killed. But, for some very important reason, a reason I did not understand at the time, I had been spared.