So, the months had passed, crawling by with agonizing slowness as she tried and failed to get into the ghetto. She had hoped she would hear from the resistance. If she knew how to get ahold of them, she could press to use their contacts to secure her a pass. She didn’t know if that was even possible, but they seemed all knowing and must have resources she did not possess herself. Unfortunately, they had not given her any means to reach them. She would have to wait until they contacted her again.
“Are you still pining after that Jew?” her mother asked her, pulling her abruptly out of her thoughts.
“Mother, watch your mouth,” she said irritably.
“It’s been months now. They closed off that wall and there isn’t anyone that’s going to come out of there. The Jews are done in this country. You should be thankful, when they cut you off it saved your life. You aren’t breaking the rules anymore so they’ve no reason to arrest you. They’ve saved your soul too. You are a married woman, after all.”
“There’s nothing going on between Adam and me,” retorted Irena. “And Mietek and I are separated, as you well know.”
“Separated isn’t divorced,” quipped Janina. “And you’ll find no bishop to annul your marriage. You’re stuck, and you’ll stay stuck.” Her mother’s lips curled into a self-satisfied smirk.
“I wouldn’t need a bishop, only the courts.”
“You don’t mean you’d go against your faith? To marry a Jew? What’s become of you?”
“I might ask the same of you,” Irena snapped, dropping her mother’s plate down so hard on the table that it bounced. “Where is your passion for the cause? For our socialist future?”
Janina shrugged. “Those were your father’s dreams, not mine. They died with him, as did my future. All I have now is my faith, and these scraps of food you give me.”
“I give you everything I have,” Irena barked in response. “Do you know what would happen to me if I was caught taking this extra food? They’d line me up against a wall.”
“Fine words,” her mother responded. “You’ll risk everything for a bunch of strangers—people who aren’t even our kind, but it’s too much to ask to do a little for your own flesh and blood.”
Irena rose. “This conversation grows tedious.” She strode to the door, snatching her coat from the rack. “I’ll be home this evening. I’ll try to bring something home for dinner.”
“Don’t bother,” her mother said. “I wouldn’t want you to take the risk. I’d rather starve.”
Irena stormed out into the snow and the cold. As if she didn’t have enough to worry about! She bottled her anger. She wouldn’t give her mother the dignity of adding to her worries.
She arrived at her office. When she reached her desk there was a note asking her to visit Jan as soon as she arrived. She felt a surge of excitement. This must be about the transfer she’d requested. She removed her coat and took the note, climbing up to the third floor and down the hallway to the corner office occupied by her supervisor. His secretary greeted her and then knocked at the door, informing him that Irena was here to see him. She was ushered in immediately.
Jan looked a decade older. He’d lost weight and his forehead and temples were lined with fatigue. Irena knew that even more than her, he’d fought for more than a year now to try to hold together a fragile system of social welfare with ever decreasing resources and constant changes from the Germans. Worse yet, the Nazis had raided the department multiple times and arrested some of his best people. Irena was surprised he hadn’t been taken himself, as the Germans thrived on collective responsibility.
“Irena, how nice to see you,” he said.
“Thank you. What can I do for you?”
He picked up a file and flipped through it. She recognized her application for transfer. “Do you want to tell me about this?” he asked.
“Certainly,” she responded. “I have been thinking about things, and I believe it’s time for a change. I know food is a priority, but disease is an even bigger problem. I was hoping I might be able to help our department more if I’m identifying outbreaks and assisting in containing and preventing them.”
“Nonsense, Irena,” responded Jan, eyes watching her over his glasses. “I know exactly what you are doing. You want a way into that ghetto, and you figure this is your ticket.”
She acted surprised. “Why would I want into the ghetto? There’s nothing for me there.”
“Do you take me entirely for a fool!” he retorted, his voice rising. He leaned forward. “Now listen to me, Irena, I know all about the game you were playing with the Jews. The false records, the food shipments.”
She was taken aback. He knew? She tried to deny it. “I never—”
“Don’t lie to me! I know exactly what you were doing and how you were doing it. It was a miracle you weren’t arrested when we were raided. I thought you’d doomed yourself and likely me too. But you’re a clever one, Irena. You managed to mask your little deception so even the Germans couldn’t sniff you out. But that’s over now. The Jews were cut off when they sealed that damned ghetto. I’m not going to let you risk your own life, and the lives of our department, by letting you have access to them again.”
“But sir—”
“Silence! There is no argument I’m going to listen to. We have enough problems out here among our own people. God knows there isn’t enough food, enough medicine. These damned Germans want to exterminate us! I’m no anti-Semite, Irena, but they are not our own people, and it will be a miracle if we survive another winter under the Nazis, without spreading ourselves still thinner by trying to help those poor Jewish souls.”
“If I did go into the ghetto, it would only be a little—”
“There is no little to spare. I’m talking about the survival of our race. If I had the resources, I would help them, but I don’t, and I can’t risk more of my people trying to give them something that I don’t have to provide. Now look at me, Irena.”
She was flustered but she met his eyes.
“I want your word that you will focus on your duties. You’re the best I have at food distribution. I want you to put all your energy into those contacts in the country. Bring me more food, more wagons. Find me more families to feed—Polish families. I need your help to get our people through this crisis. Will you help me? Will you give yourself fully to our cause?”
“I’ll have to think about it,” she said finally.
“You do that, Irena. Think long and hard, because if you refuse, I must remove you from your position. I don’t know if anybody else can give me what you have, but I can’t let you kill us all. If the Germans close us down, and they’ve been damned near doing it for months now, then our people will get nothing. Thousands of families will starve. Polish families. And it will be on your head!”
“I understand, sir. Is that all?”
“Yes, that’s all.” He stood. “Please, Irena. I don’t want you to go. We need you. Poland needs you. Let the Jews take care of themselves. Their fate is with the Germans, not with us.” He took her hand, his eyes compassionate and friendly.
“Thank you, sir, I’ll give you my decision by the end of the day.”
She stormed out of the office, ignoring the secretary as she left. When she’d departed, she sprinted to the women’s bathroom. Ripping open a stall door, she fell to her knees, vomiting violently into the bowl.
How could he do this to her? He was going to fire her? For what? Trying to save people’s lives? What difference did it make if they were Poles or Jews? They were all citizens of Poland. They were all under the Nazi yoke! Why couldn’t he see with open eyes? The Germans planned to kill them all, to grind them into dust so they could make a new world for the Germans alone. If the Poles let the Jews die, Adam, Ewa, and Ala, they were simply hastening their own destruction. She couldn’t let that happen. But what could she do? He wanted her commitment. She didn’t care about that. They were just words. But if he’d already known what she was doing, then he must have ways of
tracking her. And he’d watch her twice as closely now!
There was nothing she could do. The resistance had asked her to keep feeding the Jews, but several months had passed now since she’d been able to do so. She was clearly far down on their list of priorities. She was going to have to sit back and do her job and wait for something to change. In the meantime, Adam was behind those walls. So were Ala and Ewa. Who knew what was happening to them!
She shook her head, wiping the tears from her cheeks. She wouldn’t do it. She wasn’t going to wait and see. With new resolve, she turned and headed back upstairs. She stormed past Jan’s secretary and burst through the door, slamming it behind her.
“What’s the meaning of this?” he demanded, his face a mask of fury.
“You are going to get me into the ghetto.”
He sputtered and his face flushed. “I can’t believe you, Irena,” he said, reaching for his phone. “I see I have no choice but to terminate—”
“You’re going to do what I ask if you cherish your safety.”
He lowered the phone, his eyes widening. “Are you threatening me?” He rose from his desk. “Get out!” he demanded.
She ignored his order. “I have connections. With the resistance. They want me helping the Jews. If I don’t have a pass by the end of the week, I am going to go to them, and I can’t vouch for what they will do to you.”
He shook his head in disbelief. “You’ve lost your mind, Irena. You’re threatening me with the Polish resistance? You’re damned lucky I don’t report you to the Germans right now! Get out of my office! You’re dismissed from your post!”
She fled back to her office in shock. He’d called her bluff. Now she had nothing, no access to the ghetto and not even her job. She reached her desk and began collecting her personal belongings.
She heard a knock at the door. Jan was there. He refused to look at her. Reaching out, he handed her a document. “What is this?” she asked.
“Your pass,” he said. His voice was mechanical and emotionless. “I’m naming you an inspector for communicable diseases in the Jewish Quarter. You will begin your duties immediately.”
Irena couldn’t believe it. “Thank you, sir! You have no idea how—”
“Don’t thank me, Irena,” he said, his voice a menacing whisper. “If you’re caught doing anything wrong, it will be on you. You’ll get no help from me or this office, do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And if you ever threaten me again, you’ll lose your job that day, whatever the consequences.”
“I understand, sir.”
Jan marched out without another word. She felt the sting of his rebuke, but it was nothing compared to her sweet elation. She had won! What’s more, she was going to the ghetto! It was too late today, but she would be there first thing in the morning. She had official license to visit every day, from now on. She would see Adam by this time tomorrow! She’d abandoned her faith long ago, but she found herself head down, thanking the universe, or God, or fate, for bringing this miracle to her.
* * *
Irena stood at the corner of Gsia and Smocza streets, frozen in stunned silence. Snow covered the pavement, four or five centimeters thick. Frozen drifts of a meter or more hugged the buildings. Everywhere she looked she saw suffering she’d never encountered in her life. The first thing she’d noticed on arriving in the ghetto was the density of the population. She remembered how packed the quarter had felt before the wall went up, but it was now far worse. There were people everywhere, shoulder to shoulder, pushing past each other, sometimes violently, as they scrambled through the snow and the cold wherever they were going. Each person wore the star of David now, a blue star on a white background in a cloth square, on the upper right arm.
A few meters away from Irena, a mother and her child sat in one of the drifts. They were clad in rags. The child was barefoot in the snow. The little girl’s eye sockets were sucked in so deeply she looked like a living skeleton. Neither could move or seemed to have the strength to beg. The only way Irena could tell they were alive was the shallow rise and fall of breath beneath their thin shawls.
She approached them and reached out, dropping the few zlotys she had with her into the open hand of the mother. She didn’t even have the strength to close her fingers around the money. The crumpled notes lay there for a few seconds, and then blew off in the wind, to be picked up by a mob of desperate pedestrians that fought over this pitiful scrap of currency. A man rushed forward, arms swinging, knocking people out of his way until he grabbed the zlotys. He laughed maniacally and sat down, notes grasped firmly in his hands, gibbering to himself.
There were starving people everywhere as she walked along. Worse yet were the dead. Every block there was at least one body lying on the pavement, naked except for newspapers covering them along with a thin layer of snow. The pedestrians ignored these corpses as if they didn’t exist, but Irena could not stop staring at them.
There were police and soldiers everywhere as well: Germans, Polish in their blue uniforms, and the Jewish police with their yellow Stars of David on their caps. Irena noticed that the Jewish police looked well fed, and not affected by the terrible conditions as much as the rest of the population.
Here and there she observed civilians who also seemed to be getting along well. She spotted a family crossing Gsia near Zamenhofa. The father led the mother and two young children through the crowd. They were dressed in warm furs and hats. They wore gloves and boots. They held their heads high, as if they were above the crowd, beyond it. Irena wondered how this family had managed to maintain their health and their position amidst the chaos of the ghetto.
“Help me.” A young man stepped in front of her, his hand out. “Spare some zlotys.”
“I don’t have any,” Irena responded, starting to move around him. He blocked her.
“Your zlotys.”
“I told you, I don’t have any. I gave them away.”
He grabbed her wrist, squeezing and twisting. She gasped at the pain. She searched this way and that, but nobody was paying any attention to them.
“Your zlotys now.”
“Irena!” She heard a familiar voice and turned to see Ala hurrying up to her. Her friend wore a heavy blue wool coat and a white nurse’s hat. Her eyes flashed steel. She screamed at the young man in Yiddish. Irena caught some of the words but didn’t understand everything that was said. The youth hesitated, responding with a few words but he was cut off by Ala, who pressed in, grabbing Irena’s arm as if she were a possession and pulling her away. The young tough held on for a moment more before releasing her and disappearing into the crowd.
“Ala, thank God you’re here.”
“What are you doing in the ghetto?” her friend demanded. “You have to be careful. He could have picked you to the bone.”
“I have an epidemic pass,” Irena responded.
“What do you know about disease?” Ala asked in surprise. “You’re a food distribution expert.”
“It was the only way I could get back in.”
Ala laughed at this and threw her arms around Irena, holding her close for a few moments. “Well, I’m glad you’re here. Whatever the reason. I’m on my way to see Ewa, will you join me?”
“Ewa?” Irena’s spirit soared. “She’s okay?”
“She’s alive, at least. She’s helping Dr. Korczak at the orphanage. I’ll show you.” Ala turned and marched down the sidewalk, weaving in and out of the mass that pressed around her. Irena followed, falling behind at first until she learned how to maneuver in the crowded space.
“Look at you,” Irena said, her eyes running the outline of Ala’s uniform. “You’re a nurse still?”
Ala smiled grimly. “The nurse in a way. They’ve named me chief nurse of the ghetto.”
“Congratulations.”
Her friend scoffed. “It’s hardly a privilege. We have plenty of doctors and nurses but hardly a drop of medicine. There are five hundred thousand Jews wedged
in here. Disease is rampant—although the greatest killer is starvation. The Germans don’t give us a tenth of what we need to survive. The Judenrat keeps pushing for more food, but the Germans refuse. Something about shortages due to the war effort. Is it the same in Aryan Poland?”
Irena shook her head. “They’ve cut back, but nothing like this. We can’t get meat generally, and hardly any eggs, but there’s plenty of vegetables and bread. What you can’t get with your ration card you can find on the black market, if you’re careful.”
“It’s the same here but worse. A fraction of the families have enough wealth or connections; they get a better share of the rations, or buy what they need on the market. There is smuggling everywhere.”
Irena was surprised. “Smuggling into the ghetto? Even with the wall?”
“Hundreds do it every day. The Germans hunt them, usually shooting them on the spot. But there are too many. Look, just there,” she said, pointing at a streetcar passing in front of them. As Irena watched, the car slowed down. A young man on the trolley threw several sacks toward the crowd, where they were caught by waiting people with arms outstretched. These men turned and ran off into the masses. Irena observed a German policeman across the street who had watched the whole thing. He nodded to the man on the trolley and then turned around, ignoring the crime.
“That German looked the other way.”
“Yes. He’s probably in the pay of the smuggler.”
“I would never believe a German would accept a bribe,” said Irena.
“Oh, they’re human enough, at least some of them. And thank God for that. Without the smuggled food we’d all already be dead. But the distribution is uneven. As always, the wealthy and powerful prosper and the poor suffer and die.”
“It’s not fair.”
“True enough, Irena, but it’s the way of things. Let’s go.”
They continued, making their way toward the southern section of the ghetto, the “little ghetto.” Finally, they arrived at a large building at 16 Sienna Street. The orphanage was a five-story limestone structure with steps leading up to the first floor. Dozens of windows faced the street and Irena could see faces poking out from behind curtains, watching them as they climbed the stairs into the entranceway.
Irena's War Page 12
