Sheva's Promise Page 4

  My face and hands—my whole body—were burning like fire. Indeed, it was a marvel that I had held still in that hole so long. I tried to explain to them how I managed to hide myself, but they could not understand how I could have done it so quickly.

  Then the man said to me, “Since you have been saved here and they did not find you when they searched the house, you must remain with us. Our house will be blessed.” His wife gave me something to eat in a bowl, but I could not even swallow the food. I was much too upset by the experience, and I fell into a state of semiconsciousness.

  We could hear shots outside, not far away, though we were so far from the ghetto. I wondered why the sounds carried so far . . . The man said, “Perhaps I should not tell you this, but for the past several weeks the Germans have ordered trenches to be dug nearby, behind a brick factory. The Jews themselves had to dig these trenches, never guessing it would be for their graves. All the Jews had been taken there from the ghetto, and they are now being shot and thrown into the trenches.”

  What could I say to this? In silence I lowered my head and tears began to course down my cheeks. I had no strength to cry aloud.

  Now I recalled that for the past several weeks they had rounded up the men from the ghetto to do forced labor, to dig trenches. No one knew for what purpose, but no one thought that it would be for themselves. There were many rumors; some said that it was to make foundations for a new brick factory; others supposed that the trenches would serve to offset attacks if the Russians returned. Sometimes one would indulge in a morbid jest and say, “Maybe they are for us!”—never thinking that the jest would become a fact. In our flat, we kept silent. Once in a while we heard the cry of a neighbor’s child, but otherwise there was only a fearful quiet.

  I sat thus for a long while. I imagined that I had not heard right, that my confusion was due to a humming noise in my head—could it be a fever? Maybe I had suffered a mental shock, a brain concussion, a temporary paralysis—I no longer knew what was happening to me. At last, I sprang from the chair and said, “Please, give me a skirt and boots! I must go see what is going on out there. My family and all my friends are there—I must go! If they perish, my life isn’t worth anything anyway. I cannot sit here and do nothing. I must go.”

  But they did not let me go, saying that it was too dangerous. At the moment, however, I did not care if I would be shot and killed. I wanted to be with my people . . .

  Exhausted, broken, I crouched in the peasant hut until nightfall without a drop of water to moisten my burning lips. When it got dark outside, the shooting ceased. Now, I thought, I can go—it is all over. But “No,” they said, “you cannot go out there in the dark. Where, to whom, would you go? Stay here, you can return in the morning.”

  Because they were afraid that some of their friends or relatives might come to their house in the evening, they told me to go out to the stable and spend the night there. If there was a search, they could safely say that I hid myself there without their knowing.

  Stealthily, I ran through the darkness to the stable. I fell upon some straw near the cow stalls and lay there in the darkness, trying to sleep, to forget everything. But, unable to sleep, I huddled, frozen, through a night that seemed to have no ending. I envied the dumb cattle—they had more rights and freedom than we humans at the moment. It seemed to me that I’d rather be an animal, anything, than what I was myself. Can anyone sink lower than that in his own estimation? I could not believe that I could think this way . . .

  Eventually, the night waned and I heard someone opening the door to the stable. After a moment of fright, I made out the figure of the farmer’s wife. She whispered, “Don’t panic, it’s only me!”

  She looked outside, and then came back in again. “There is yet very little daylight, so when I leave you follow me to the house. I’ll cook some hot food for you.”

  I must have presented a haggard appearance when I entered their house, for she looked at me pityingly and said, “You look like a walking ghost. Here, drink something hot.”

  I took the cup of coffee she gave me and a piece of bread, but I could hardly swallow. She told me that last night some neighbors had come by and had told them that nearly three thousand people had been shot in the hours from morning until about four in the afternoon. They had heard moans and cries from the pits. The people were first stripped naked and then thrown into the pits, dead or still half-alive.

  While she narrated this, I tried with all my will to conceal my emotions, but finally I buried my face in my hands and burst out with loud weeping.

  “So I had dreamed,” she said, wringing her hands like a figure in a tragedy, “and so it came to pass.”

  Her husband came out of the corner near the bed and said, “You will stay here, and I will go to the town to see what is happening and whether the Gestapo have left. I heard there were about a hundred Gestapo there. After I return, we’ll decide what you should do. But I must wait until it is full daylight.”

  Needless to say, the hours of waiting seemed to never end, but there was nothing else that I could do but sit. About ten that morning, the farmer returned and assured us that the Gestapo had left the town. The ghetto, he said, looked like a battlefield; the streets were filled with corpses and the road leading to the village was strewn with bodies. He doubted if anyone was left alive. He said that in the pits nearby there were nearly three thousand dead bodies, left where they had been shot yesterday. The Gestapo had done its work and had not even bothered to cover the pits.

  I said very little, for words were useless. I put on the peasant skirt and the pair of worn-out boots that they had given me, thanked them, and went out, promising that I would return and repay them for their kindness. I took the road to the ghetto. There was no need to hurry now, for there was no one to run to, and besides, I had no strength left. Passersby took no notice of me, for I was dressed like any peasant girl. I was sure that no one recognized me. Then, in the distance, I saw the figure of a girl, also wearing a shawl, with a package under her arm. Something about her walk was very familiar, and I hurried to get close enough to recognize her. To my surprise, I saw Tyla Nemeth, who lived in the same house as I. I called out her name.

  She replied in astonishment, “Sheva! Are you alive? Go home quickly. Let your mother and sister see you are alive!”

  It was such a blessed relief to know that they too were saved that I began to cry. “How did they escape? Tell me!”

  Tyla was obviously nervous and impatient to be on her way. In a few words she told me that her father had been rounded up with the others in the marketplace, brought to the pits, stripped naked, shot, and thrown into the mass grave. During the night, when all was quiet, he had summoned the last remnants of his strength and had thrown off the corpses that had fallen on top of him in the pit. Then, naked as he was, he had run to the nearest house for shelter. The Gentile owner of that house had taken pity on him. In the morning, he had gone to the ghetto to let the Nemeth family know that he was alive and that they should bring him some clothes. That is all that she told me before we parted, because—she said—I would hear the rest from my mother and sister directly.

  Now, as I hastened to the ghetto, I beheld scenes of incredible horror. The city was deadly still. The streets were empty. When I reached the ghetto I saw corpses lying on all sides. I’ll never forget! Near the old courthouse lay the body of a teenage boy whom I recognized—he was Margulies’ son. He had been shot, his head frozen to the icy ground. The boots had been pulled off his legs by some ghoul . . . A little further on lay the body of a big man, stretched out on the pavement. I knew him very well; it was Mr. Huter. His son was a very good friend of mine. His body was frozen to the ground. My heart contracted with grief, remembering how much he loved his only son and how proud he was of him, and now his son was gone and so was he.

  But the most horrible scene of all met my eyes as I finally neared my home: There in the street lay a woman’s head, its gray hair frozen to the pavement. The forehead was
bashed in. To my great surprise and shock, my cousin Anka was standing before the skull, her own head bowed, lamenting, “Mother, Mother!” When she saw me, she began to scream, “Sheva, Sheva, look what they did to my mother!” I joined in her lamentations, almost hysterical in our sorrow, for it was the head of my father’s sister that I saw before me on the ground. Shaking like a leaf, I walked into the hallway of the building, and there, to one side, lay the body of an old woman. I recognized it as the mother of a Mrs. Felker. My heart throbbing wildly, I put my hand on our door handle, feeling that my head could not contain all these horrors around me, and that I could expect yet more to come.

  When I opened our door a heavy, excremental odor hit me. Rose was sitting in a chair, her hair matted with filth from the outhouse. As soon as she saw me, she started crying, “Mamma, Mamma, Sheva is here, she is alive!” Then, turning to me, she asked, “Where were you? Where were you?”

  Her body showed bruises, and the stench was so unbearable that I became nauseated. Mother was helping her clean up, and to my surprise she did not show much emotion. This wasn’t like our mother. The whole scene suddenly made me cry, cry as loud as I could, and I threw myself on Mamma’s shoulder. “Mamma, Mamma, what is going to happen to us? We are alive, but what is next?” I wailed.

  Seeing her unnatural apathy, her face so distorted and despairing, pained me deeply. Mother’s face was always so gentle, so delicate, and so beautiful. But not now. Now it was changed, hard. I realized that the akcja had affected her. She could adjust to almost any situation in life, but it seemed that this was too much. I could, despite my efforts, evoke no sign of responsive emotion from her; there was no expression on her face, and she seemed turned to stone. And no wonder: she had been outside and had seen everything with her own eyes.

  In an attempt to divert her thoughts, I tried to explain how I managed to save myself. Then Rose said that as soon as I had left the outhouse she had locked herself inside and when she saw the Gestapo searching in the storehouse near the latrine, had quickly unlatched the door to make it appear that there was no one there—and had jumped into the opening of the cesspool, holding on to the rim of the toilet seat and to the protruding stones in the wall. Even so, she had been immersed in the excreta up to her chin.

  There Rose had stayed through the night. Around dawn, she recognized the voices of some of our neighbors in the yard—and then she heard Mother crying for us. She realized that the akcja was over at last! But her strength was used up, and she felt that she would soon sink completely in the filth. She began to scream for help. In a little while Mother and the neighbors pulled her out—and here she was now, trying to clean herself of the unspeakable dirt . . . My sister, who was always so fastidious and neat!

  Mother was saved by a quick-thinking neighbor who had pulled her into the cellar while she had been looking for Rose and me. The neighbor’s foresight proved to have been their salvation, for the Germans seldom dared to enter a cellar for fear they might be attacked by someone hidden in the darkness below. They only came as far as the door, looked inside and yelled, “Juden heraus!” They fired some shots at random; one woman who stood near my mother had been hit, but Mamma and the kind neighbor were hidden behind a heavy door and had escaped unharmed.

  After I had heard this story, my mother sighed deeply and seemed about to say something, collecting all her strength to form the words. “Yes, we are safe,” she said slowly, “but I am far from happy, for this is only the beginning of a greater tragedy . . .” Her voice trailed off weakly, but after a while she continued: “Happy are those who have already been taken and killed. Nothing good awaits us here. Our death will be even worse.” She became lost in her thoughts, finally breaking out into violent sobs. We let her cry. Rose and I looked at each other, and at her, and we knew how she felt, knew it as sincerely as if we had looked straight into her soul. We were her life, and now she had to stand by and watch us being brutally destroyed. I could read her thoughts as though in a mirror. People used to say to our mother, “You have lost a husband, but you still have two brilliant jewels.” And now? Her plans, her years of sacrifice and devotion—everything lost! And worst of all was the great fear of what tomorrow might bring. These thoughts, these unspoken words, were clearly etched in my mother’s sorrowful face.

  Weeping piteously, I rested my head on her shoulder and spoke to her as gently as I knew how. “Mamma, you’ll see. We will get rid of the Germans yet. We won’t give in. This blow was unexpected. But you’ll see, Mamma, something will have to be done. The world wouldn’t let this happen. There are Jews everywhere; there are Jews in America. If news of what is happening to us reaches them, they will do something . . . And Mamma, where is your faith in God? You always used to say that He was with you. And, you see, he has saved us, after all!”

  Changing the subject abruptly, I asked, “Have you heard anything from Uncle Hirsch?” My sister immediately added, “And Chaimek and Glickel, and the children? Or have you heard from our father’s brothers and their families?” Again I could not believe my ears when Mother said, dispassionately, “The less we know, the better. There is no difference either way. You saw your aunt, your father’s sister—so you can imagine the others.” I could not understand how my mother did not seem to care what happened to Chaimek, our precious favorite!

  Without even taking time to have something to eat, I said, “I must go and see what happened to them. I promise I’ll be back soon.”

  So I left the house, hoping to return with good news. I walked with a slow and fearful step. Occasionally a wagon laden with corpses rumbled by. The Germans apparently had given orders to remove the dead from the streets of the ghetto. This was accomplished through the Jewish militia with the help of conscripted Jews, who transported the corpses to the Jewish cemetery. Some bodies were frozen to the ground so solidly that they had to be dug out with shovels along with the earth.

  The little houses in the ghetto stood as if in a desert, forsaken, icicles hanging from their eaves. Many doors were shut tight, enclosing the panic-stricken inhabitants within an illusory feeling of security. Some doors were wide open—the people who once had lived in those houses were no longer there; they had been taken away to the mass graves. From time to time I saw somebody stealing along the walls, like a thief.

  Now, as I neared my goal, I walked through narrow, twisting lanes to the Wieners’ home, on a small hill near the powerhouse. My heart beat more rapidly the closer I came. At last I stood in front of the house. The door was closed. I hesitated on the threshold, looking in at the windows, wondering whether I should enter. Everything was turned upside down, some of the pillows ripped open, goose feathers on the floor. I called and called, thinking that perhaps they were hiding, but there was no answer. It puzzled me that someone had closed and locked the door—who could have done that unless there was a survivor? I called again with growing apprehension, but receiving no answer, I slowly descended the hill.

  Tears bedimmed my eyes. I could not believe that of the entire family—five adults and three children—not one was left, that all had been murdered within one day.

  But then I felt a flicker of hope, for at that moment I recalled that my uncle and Aunt Wiener were on very friendly terms with a Polish woman who lived on the Aryan side near the ghetto and who helped them occasionally with gifts of food. I knew her, too, and it occurred to me that perhaps they had found a hiding place in her home. I tried to remember exactly where she lived as I crossed the boundary of the ghetto to go in the direction of her house. Ah, it was there! I knocked timidly upon the door and after a while a frightened voice asked, “Who is it?”

  Bending over and placing my lips close to the keyhole, I whispered, “I am a relative of the Wieners.”

  The door opened and I saw the pale, very sad face of the woman. From her expression I could read all I needed to know. “They are dead, aren’t they?” I managed to say. “Can you tell me anything more?”

  She began to cry, and our tears mingled i
n mutual sorrow. She took me by the hand and led me toward the barn. There, close by, lay two bodies—my uncle Hirsch and Chaimek his son . . .

  “Chaim!” I cried. “Chaim, why didn’t you stay with us!” Now, in death, he had attained the stature of a martyr—no longer did I call him by his childhood name. But my words were futile, my tears useless now. He looked so innocent, lying there; he was still wearing the sweater and hose I had given him two days ago.

  The Polish woman was lamenting, “Such good people! Such decent people! And they perished so miserably . . . From my window I saw how the Gestapo ran after them. Little Chaimek was crying, and his father tried to hold him close. Then they started to shoot. First, they killed the father, your uncle. Then Chaimek cried out, ‘Daddy!’ so they hit him with the butts of their rifles. He fell across his father’s body and was shot to death. What a terrible thing!”

  “And what of the others?” I asked. “Do you know anything about the rest of the family?”

  “Yes,” the woman replied. “They took Mrs. Wiener and her daughter to the market square. The others, I believe, were saved—thank Heaven! But I don’t know where they are now. Their son-in-law, Shloma Handschau, was here with his older boy, and he mentioned that Mrs. Wiener’s sister—who now shared the apartment with them—and his little boy had gone into hiding and survived. Oh, God, help us in these terrible times!”

  “God help us!” I echoed, and as there was nothing else to do I thanked the good woman for her efforts and sympathy. Once again I looked upon these two innocent victims of terror, and in numb grief, turned to leave the tragic scene.

  I hastened home, without stopping to see my father’s family, to tell my mother and Rose what I had seen and heard. It might be some small consolation to Mamma to know that one of her sisters was still alive, and that Handschau and his children were saved.

  But how could I break the news to her that Uncle Hirsch and Chaimek, and the entire Wiener family were murdered? We loved Chaimek so dearly! It was hard even for me to realize that my Aunt Ryfka and Uncle Hirsch and their children were dead. All the way home I seemed to see them before my eyes . . . Uncle Hirsch, who was like a father to me: When I was a little girl he used to take me on his knee and let me sip a small glass of vodka with sugar. I’d dip the cubes of sugar in the spirits and crunch on them; every time I swallowed a morsel, he threw another sugar cube into the glass. As I grew older, he’d let me write the addresses on the cases of butter that he had to ship out; and for this “work” he’d give me spending money—two, or three, or even five zlotys. And whenever I had a bad cold and had to stay in bed, Uncle Hirsch would come immediately and bring me chocolate, halvah, candy—and Aunt Ryfka, such a good soul! And Glickel, their daughter . . . all gone now! My heart remembered and nearly broke with grief. All of them, my dear ones, all gone—in one day!