Gertruda's Oath: A Child, a Promise, and a Heroic Escape During World War II (24 page)

“I promise.”

“I know that my daughter is on a kibbutz in Palestine, but I don’t
know exactly where. After this is all over, you’ll probably get there. Please, look for my daughter, give her my love, and tell her about me. I’d like her to know the truth about what I did in the war.”

Segelson didn’t hide his amazement.

“You’re sure your daughter is in Palestine?” he asked.

“I sent her there with a group of young people from Berlin just before the war. Her guide’s name was Yossi Millman. From Kibbutz Dafna. He must be able to tell you where she is.”

“If I’m still alive,” said Segelson, “I promise to look for her.”

Rink shook his hand and Segelson’s heart beat with excitement. It seemed strange to him that a Nazi officer would shake the hand of a Jew, but Karl Rink had already done many unusual things.

“I’m glad to have met you,” said Segelson.

“So am I,” said Rink. He wrapped his coat around himself, left the workshop, and Segelson never saw him again.

Gertruda’s fear remained even after Michael had found a relatively safe refuge in the church. She was still afraid that something unexpected would happen and his secret would come out. She waited impatiently for the war to end, but when the bombing of Vilna intensified, she understood that the danger lurking for her and Michael was greater than staying in the city. Mortars landed at random in Vilna and wounded and killed many citizens. Those who were left feared their turn would also come. Gertruda was scared that the church would be bombed.

At the height of the bombing raids, Gertruda packed her few clothes in a suitcase, rushed to the church, and took Michael.

“Where are we going?” asked the child.

“To a safer place,” she replied.

They waited until nightfall and then walked for hours on remote roads until they came to a small village. Their feet hurt and their stomachs were grumbling with hunger when they finally found shelter in the rubble of an abandoned house. They stayed until morning, and then headed to a big house on the hill above the village. Gertruda knocked on the door and an old servant opened it and looked at her inquisitively.

Gertruda introduced herself.

“Come in,” said the woman. “I’ll call the master.”

The corridor was nice and warm and filled with smells of cooking. A young man with a beard quickly came and looked at the two of them.

“I’m glad you’re finally here,” he said to Gertruda. “Is this your son?”

She nodded.

“I’ve prepared a room for you,” he said, and led them to a little room in the attic.

“I hope you’ll be comfortable here,” he said.

“We’ll be very comfortable.”

“Come, I’ll introduce you to my wife.”

He led her to a big room. In the middle stood an ornate four-poster bed where a pale young woman was lying. On the night stand were bottles of medicine.

“Karla,” said the man gently to his wife, “this is Gertruda. She’ll take care of you until you recover.”

Gertruda went to the woman, who looked at her impassively, shook her soft hand, and made herself smile. “I’ll help you as much as I can,” she said, and the woman nodded.

The man’s wife had been suffering from tuberculosis for some years. Her husband took her to Dr. Berman in his clinic in Vilna.
The doctor had started treating her and managed to stave off the development of the disease. In the clinic, her husband had met Gertruda and offered her a job nursing his wife. Gertruda said that she had a child and so, if she did accept the offer, she would bring him with her. The man agreed on the spot. He was a rich landowner and promised to pay her more than she earned with Dr. Berman. Working in the remote village delighted her, mainly because it was far from Vilna, even though she knew she was taking a big risk. Tuberculosis was a contagious disease and was rarely cured, but Gertruda understood that living in the farmer’s house was likely to save Michael. She couldn’t count on miracles like the SS Karl Rink saving him. Miracles, she knew, didn’t happen twice, and if the Nazis arrested her and the child in the street or made a sudden raid on their apartment, they were liable to discover the truth about Michael. So she had to get as far away from there as possible. She was glad the sick woman hadn’t died in the meantime.

The sick woman’s husband was sorry Dr. Berman had been exiled to the ghetto and couldn’t be of service anymore. He had brought other doctors from various places to try to cure his wife. They sometimes came two or three times a week, examined the woman for a long time, and prescribed new and different medicine, but even if her condition did occasionally improve to some extent, the improvement never lasted long.

Gertruda sat at the sick woman’s bedside for hours, fed her, made sure she took her medicine on time, read books to her, and talked with her as long as the woman was able to. A few months after her arrival, the sick woman’s condition worsened. Gertruda stayed with her almost all the time and prayed for her recovery. She knew that when the woman died, she would have to return to the war, to mortal danger.

The sick woman soon died. The war hadn’t yet ended and Gertruda felt that the husband, who no longer needed her, would dismiss her and she would have to return to Vilna. But he didn’t intend to do that. The man called her to his office, thanked her for her devoted care of his wife, and suggested she stay in his house.

“I like you,” he said. “When the period of mourning is over, we can get married.”

Gertruda looked at him in amazement. He was a rough and awkward man, but he treated her and Michael as if they were members of the family. She knew that if she refused, she would be asked to leave the house.

“I didn’t expect …,” she mumbled. “I’ll have to think about it.”

The fact that she didn’t immediately refuse him gave him hope.

“I’m still young,” he said. “My wife and I didn’t have children. Of course, I’ll want children with you. Lots of children. I’m sorry to tell you, but if you agree to marry me we’ll have to send your child to an institution or give him up for adoption. Michael won’t have any place in my family.”

She was stunned.

“I’ll pay handsomely to any institution that will take him, anyone who’s willing to adopt him,” he added.

“I’m sorry,” Gertruda replied firmly. “He’s my son and he’ll stay with me until the day I die.”

She stood up, went to her room, packed her things, took Michael, and they left the house on the hill.

They walked fast, past the German soldiers preparing to retreat, and left the village. A little while later, they entered the forest. They were alone there and it was almost nightfall. In the dying daylight, Gertruda discovered an abandoned bunker and went in with Michael.

The boy huddled fearfully in her arms and neither slept at all that night. The thunder of explosions was heard closer than ever and the heavy smell of fires rose from the surrounding villages.

“I’m hungry,” murmured Michael.

Gertruda looked at him anxiously. Michael’s pleas for food broke her heart. She was sorry she had forgotten to take food and water, but she didn’t dare return to the village now. At dawn, she came out of the forest and ran to the nearby fields, where she quickly gathered a few heads of cabbage and went back to the bunker. The next night, she brought more vegetables.

For more than a week, they hid in the bunker, slept on a bed of grass that Gertruda had gathered in the forest, and ate the few vegetables she picked in the fields.

One morning, footsteps were heard outside. Gertruda and Michael were careful not to utter a word. The footsteps grew louder and suddenly a man appeared at the entrance in a uniform Gertruda didn’t recognize. The soldier aimed a submachine gun at them. Michael shut his eyes in terror and Gertruda shouted: “Don’t shoot! We’re Poles!”

The soldier lowered his weapon and smiled. He was a Russian.

At German headquarters in Kovno, the atmosphere was more desperate than ever. Bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, the commanders gazed at a map spread on the table. The red lines indicating the progress of the Red Army units grew longer from one day to the next. The German defense lines shrank considerably.

The reports from the front were bad. Thousands killed, tens of thousands wounded, many prisoners, the collapse of positions, and panicky retreat characterized the crucial phase of the war. A German defeat was inevitable.

The shuddering shriek of mortar rounds sliced the air as the lights went out and mighty thunder deafened the officers at headquarters. Walls collapsed, a cloud of dust choked them, and broken shouts of the wounded were heard all around. Karl Rink was knocked out. When he opened his eyes a while later, he felt his limbs and was relieved to discover he wasn’t hurt. He quickly moved among the dead and wounded bodies, and slipped out of the building a minute before a another precise hit destroyed what was left of headquarters.

There was no reason to stay in Kovno and wait for the occupying forces. A few days before that, Rink had saved thirty-seven young Jews who were hiding in a cellar in one of the buildings in the ghetto, but he didn’t expect those he saved to testify for him with the occupiers. When the Russian soldiers came, he knew, they would shoot every German in the area without asking questions. Rink was afraid to stay there. As far as he was concerned, the war was over and his only goal was to return home.

In the yard of headquarters he saw a few intact motorcycles and mounted one of them. The gas tank was full and the motor turned over. Without any hesitation, he got on the road and drove like a maniac between the columns of stooped, dejected soldiers, who wanted to get away from the enemy closing in on them. He rode a whole day, and when the gas finally ran out he left the motorcycle and walked for hours until he sneaked onto a freight train crawling to the German border. Two days later, without sleep or food, he came to a half-destroyed German village. A farm couple gave him shelter, a meager meal, and civilian clothes. They burned
his SS uniform and offered him a hiding place in their barn. Rink stayed there a few days, until the thunder of Allied machine-gun fire approached the village. He left the farmers and started making his way on foot to Berlin. He wandered for weeks on side roads, living on fruits and vegetables he picked in the fields and furtive meals and a bed at night in the homes of the rural people. In time, he joined a group of German soldiers who had deserted their units and were also going home to Berlin. They walked mostly at night, ahead of the advancing Red Army units, hiding in the forests when they felt it was too dangerous to move. It wasn’t until eight months after he had left Kovno that Karl Rink found himself at long last on the outskirts of Berlin. The city had been under constant attack. Most of the buildings were destroyed and only a few people were seen in the streets. Everybody knew that the Russians were approaching and that the city would be conquered in a few days.

Karl Rink looked for his house. He walked amid the rubble where buildings he knew well had once stood. When he reached the house, he found a heap of rocks and remnants of burned furniture. An old woman in torn clothes came out of the ruins and told him that most of the tenants of the destroyed houses had been killed or had fled.

From there he went to the SS headquarters. The top story of the building had been completely destroyed and frantic men were making feverish preparations on the lower floors. No one noticed him when he came in. His feet led him to Reinhard Schreider’s office. He opened the door without knocking, but no one was in the room.

Karl Rink went back to the street. He walked amid the shriek of shells flying and the sound of tremendous smashing, clouds of dust, and slivers of stone from houses that had been turned into heaps of
ruins all at once. Dread and fear penetrated him when he thought the enemy would reach the middle of the city at any minute. He made his way between the rubble of the houses and looked for something to eat. With his army knife he burst into dust-covered kitchen cabinets and refrigerators. He found nothing.

The soldier spoke only Russian, and Gertruda spoke Polish and German, but the Russian understood that these were a woman and child in distress and he gestured to them to follow him. All around were groups of Russian soldiers, tanks, and trucks. Soldiers brought Gertruda and Michael cans of meat. As they ate, an interpreter was found who told them that Vilna had been occupied only a day before by the Red Army and that the Germans had retreated or were taken prisoner. Gertruda shouted with joy and breathed a sigh of relief. As far as she was concerned, five years of fear and suffering and a grim struggle to stay alive had come to an end. “Where do you want to go?” asked the interpreter. Gertruda didn’t know what to answer. She didn’t yet have any plans.

“I’ll send you to Vilna in the first truck going there,” he decided for her.

“Thank you,” she said and hugged Michael.

The battle rations stilled their hunger. They were put on the truck and reached the center of Vilna. Now Russian soldiers filled the city instead of Germans, and they were looking for loot and women. Islands of rubble were left of the Jewish ghetto. Refugees who had survived the battles ran around the city searching for their homes and their families.

Gertruda and Michael went to meet Father Gedovsky in the Ostra Brama Church. His face lit up when they stood before him.

“Thank God, who watched over you,” he said.

He hugged Michael warmly.

“What will you do now?” he asked.

Gertruda remembered her oath at Lydia Stolowitzky’s deathbed. Yes, she had to take Michael to Palestine. But there was something else she thought she had to do first.

“Maybe we’ll visit my parents in Starogard,” she said. “I’m very worried. I haven’t heard from them all through the war.”

“That won’t be so simple, my dear.” The priest shook his head. “Poland isn’t yet liberated.”

Her face grew gloomy. She knew it was only a question of time until the Germans were defeated there, too, but what would happen to her and the child in the meantime?