Gertruda's Oath: A Child, a Promise, and a Heroic Escape During World War II (21 page)

Her cheek burned and she put her hand over it.

The officer punched her in the chest. A sharp pain sliced through her body. She was still silent, which made him even more furious. He kicked her and pulled her hair brutally.

She groaned in pain but remained adamantly quiet. If she told the truth about what she had done in the ghetto, that would have been the end of her and of Michael. That thought gave her new strength. She felt that no torture in the world could break her.

The Germans thought otherwise. Torture was always an effective tool to break those who were being interrogated. Gertruda’s torture went on nonstop until she passed out. When she woke up, she
found herself lying on a hard mattress in a detention cell. She heard the sighs and voices of her cellmates. She couldn’t see a thing in the thick darkness. She was in terrible pain, but her fear for Michael’s fate was even worse. Ever since the war had started, she had been able to cope with every difficulty, overcome every obstacle with her strong will, her love for the child, and her determination to keep the oath she had sworn to his mother. She hoped that all of that would keep her going this time, too.

The hours seemed like days. She had no idea what time it was, whether it was day or night, or what had happened to Michael when he woke up and didn’t find her at home. Suddenly the door opened and a jailer called her name.

“Come,” he said.

She heaved herself up from the mattress. Her whole body hurt. She was sure her torture was about to continue, longer, more tormenting. The jailer led her to the office, made her sign a release, and sent her home.

She rushed to the street, not believing that she had indeed been set free. Every step tortured her, but she tried to distract herself from her pain and hurried home. When she opened the door, she saw Michael sitting at the table, weeping. She spread her arms to him and he fell into her embrace.

“I was so worried about you,” he cried. “What happened to you? Your whole face is full of blood.”

“I had an accident. I was hit by a car.”

“Lie down. I’ll take care of you.”

He led her to the bed, soaked a towel in water, and sponged the clotted blood.

“Rest,” he said. “It will pass.”

•   •   •

The night was peaceful. So was the next day. When evening fell, she felt vaguely uneasy. She put Michael to bed and was glad he fell asleep at once. She then went to the window and stood there for hours, watching the street without knowing exactly what she was looking for.

The window overlooked houses where well-off Jews had lived. Red and white geraniums had once stood on the windowsills of those houses and had been watered every day. Those windows had once opened to the breezes that floated the white lace curtains, to teeming streets where children once played tag, and to green parks where loving couples strolled, arm in arm.

Now there were no flowers on the windowsills or bustling servants, the children had disappeared, and so had the couples. Now the windows looked into dark rooms and apartments, like eye sockets of the dead. Many of the people who had lived in them were no longer alive. Others were now fighting a war for survival in the ghetto.

Suddenly she shuddered.

She saw a car with its headlights off slide onto the cold pavement of the deserted street and stop at the sidewalk. Four young men with short hair and wearing raincoats got out of it and walked quickly to her house.

Gertruda genuflected and said a prayer, locked the window, and turned out the kerosene lamp. From the bed in the depths of the room came Michael’s soft voice asking what had happened.

“Nothing,” she replied. “Try to sleep.”

She tried to hear what was going on in the staircase. For a moment or two, it was silent and then, all at once, the peace was disturbed. The sound of boots climbing the stairs echoed in the air.

His eyes open, the child jumped out of bed and nestled in Gertruda’s arms.

“Are they coming for us?” he whispered.

“I hope not.”

“But what if they are?”

“Don’t be scared. They won’t do anything bad to us. Try to sleep.”

She tried to encourage him, although she herself had no reason to believe what she was saying. With her heart pounding, she waited for the knock on the door. She knew it would come.

A fist landed on the door. Gertruda held Michael and gestured to him to be silent.

The door was kicked open.

“Light the lamp!” someone shouted in German.

Gertruda obeyed. Three rifle barrels were pointed at them.

The woman and the child looked in dread at all the weapons aimed at them. It was too late to escape from the trap, to seek another place of safety, to be saved. More than for herself, Gertruda’s heart worried about the child who had been snatched against his will from his carefree childhood and now expected to die from a German rifle at any minute.

“Where is your gun?” roared one of the invaders.

“What gun?” Gertruda opened her mouth in artificial amazement. She guessed that Denka had told on her. He had promised her that she would be punished for her refusal to give in to him. He had kept his promise.

A shot burst out of a rifle and shattered the window. Michael sobbed silently.

“That’s a first and last warning!” shouted the man.

“I don’t have a gun and I never did,” Gertruda insisted. In her heart, she thanked God that she had gotten rid of the weapon in time.

The men in the raincoats turned the apartment upside down.
They cut the bedclothes to shreds, threw every item of clothing and every object out of the closet, tore up the wooden floorboards, and when they didn’t find anything, they cursed and left.

Feverish preparations for the uprising in the Vilna Ghetto went on secretly. A few weapons and a little bit of ammunition were collected with great toil. People were mobilized for battle and trained in hidden rooms. A system of attack and defense was prepared, but all efforts ceased. The few dozen men and women of the resistance movement decided that they had to fold up since there was no chance of a successful revolt with the German mobilization all around and the enemy’s enormous quantities of weapons and ammunition. Instead, they decided to sneak out of the ghetto to the forests around the city and join the partisans in ambushing the Germans.

Dr. Berman’s parting from his family was difficult and painful. He announced his decision to join the partisans and promised to come back soon, but his wife and children knew they would probably never see him again.

“You must understand there is no other way,” he said as he hid Gertruda’s gun in his clothes. “We have to fight. If we don’t strike the Germans, we’ll all die.”

His wife wiped her tears and kissed him. He hugged and kissed his children and then slipped out of the ghetto. On a winding path that few managed to get through alive, he reached the Botovitc Forest, where he found Jewish friends from Vilna preparing for battle.

That same night, the partisans ambushed a German weapons convoy, shooting at it as it passed by the forest. Some of the escort
were killed on the spot and others fled. The weapons—rifles, guns, and mortars—fell into the hands of the partisans.

The guerrilla warfare often ended in failure, though. Many of the Jewish partisans were killed, wounded, or captured. Life in the forest was hard and dangerous. There was little food; sleep was fragmentary and tormented; they leaped from one hiding place to another because of German patrols that occasionally raked the forest. Dr. Berman, like the other partisans, couldn’t stay in touch with his family back in the ghetto. He worried about their safety and at night he was tormented by nightmares of the hardships they were suffering.

One snowy winter dawn, the partisans set up an ambush on the side of the highway to Vilna. After a few ambush attacks, the Germans were now much more prepared and careful, ready for almost any surprise. The convoy of half a dozen trucks, defended by armed soldiers, drove quite fast. When the partisans opened fire, some of the soldiers were hit, but their comrades leaped out of the trucks and assaulted the attackers.

The partisans retreated, were pursued into the forest, and many of them were hit.

Dr. Joseph Berman was one of the first to be killed.

Less than a week later, Nazi soldiers entered the Jewish hospital, took out all those living in the cellar, and sent them—including Dr. Berman’s wife and children—to the gas chambers.

Every minute, every hour of the day and night was permeated with paralyzing fear. The boundary between silence and unavoidable disaster was usually thin and fragile. It was impossible to know what
would happen in the next moment, who would knock on the door and why, who would burst in when he wasn’t answered. Gertruda was living in a nightmare, staying awake whole nights listening intently to every noise in the street and on the staircase. The war was at its height. Rumors told of more German conquests. There was no sign of an end.

Gertruda spent a lot of time in the apartment with the child. When customers came to ask her to write letters for them, Michael would play in his room behind a locked door. He loved to be with Gertruda. They read books and played games. Very infrequently, when Gertruda didn’t think there were any Germans around, she furtively took Michael for a walk.

One Saturday, when the street was empty, the two of them went out for a short stroll. On their way back, a jeep stopped next to them and a German patrol got out and blocked their way. There were four of them, two soldiers, a sergeant, and an officer. There was no way to escape, no way out.

“Documents,” demanded the sergeant. Gertruda obeyed. The sergeant looked at Michael.

“That’s my child,” she said.

“How old is he?”

“Six.”

“What happened to your husband?”

“He was killed in the war.”

“When?”

“When you entered Poland. He was a soldier in the Polish army.”

“Show me his documents.”

“I don’t have them.” She tried to keep cool. “The documents were stolen from me when I escaped from Warsaw.”

Gertruda and Michael. Vilna, 1942
.

They carefully examined the certificate the priest had given her.

Michael looked at the Germans in fear.

“This is your mother?” the soldier pointed at Gertruda.

The child gazed at her.

Gertruda translated the question from German to Polish and he nodded agreement.

“What’s her name?”

“Mamusha.”

“What was your father’s name?”

“Marek,” Gertruda quickly answered instead of him. She was sorry she hadn’t prepared the child to endure such an interrogation.

“I didn’t ask you!” shouted the German sergeant. “Come here, boy.”

Gertruda took Michael’s hand and led him to the soldier. In her heart she said a prayer that the encounter wouldn’t end in disaster.

“Take down his pants,” the German ordered her.

She froze, helpless, desperate.

“Why?” she asked, even though she knew the reason.

“We want to make sure he’s not a Jew.”

“Don’t do that to him here in the street,” she pleaded. “It will humiliate him.”

People passed by and looked at them indifferently. Such sights were an everyday thing in the city.

“Shut up!” the sergeant growled at her. “Take down the boy’s pants or I will!”

She looked at the German with hostility and her head was spinning. Her body landed on the ground and she blacked out.

When she came to, her face was wet with the ice-cold water the soldier had sprinkled on her from his canteen. The officer bent over her and asked her to get up. She could barely stand.

“What are you afraid of?” asked the officer.

“Nothing … it’s just that I haven’t eaten for a few days …”

The sergeant clasped Michael’s shoulders.

“Take down your pants!” he ordered him again.

The child looked desperately at his nanny.

Gertruda was silent. She knew it was all over, that the game was up. Now it was time to pay for the lie.

Michael stood frozen.

The German was fuming and started pulling down the child’s pants. Michael held on to them with all his might, hoping to prevent the sergeant from undressing him.

The officer standing nearby the whole time without intervening now approached the sergeant.

“Leave the boy alone!” he ordered him sharply.

The sergeant looked at the officer in surprise and let go of Michael’s trousers.

“Is that child really your son?” the officer asked Gertruda.

“Yes.”

“The two of you really aren’t Jews?”

“Really.”

“Fine, I believe you,” said Karl Rink.

He looked at Michael affectionately and thought of the child’s distress. If only they had managed to get him out of the inferno in time, as he himself had gotten his daughter out of Germany before his colleagues from the SS had arrested her. Since she was the daughter of a Jewish mother, he knew there wouldn’t have been any chance for her to survive there, as this child had almost no chance to survive the war.