The End of Days (21 page)

Read The End of Days Online

Authors: Helen Sendyk

Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Historical, #History, #Holocaust, #test

BOOK: The End of Days
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disoriented among the surging crowd. Her swollen legs barely able to support her, her eyes growing cloudy, Grandma almost slipped to the ground when Mama grabbed her.
Mama and I supported Grandma Chaya as we marched together through the line of SS men who were selecting their victims with the stroke of a finger. Two old women and a child? We were sent to the left. Papa, too, was sent to the left. In a minute we realized that Blimcia, Jacob, Aiziu, Vrumek, and Sholek were all on the other side. They were promptly marched away, and we lost sight of them. We were kept standing in the marketplace for hours before we too were marched away. We were lead down Krakowska Street, marching five abreast, mostly old people, tired, feet dragging on the asphalt road. The Nazis, German shepherds driving their flock to the stockyards, walked along the sidewalks. We plodded on, absorbed in our pain.
Papa was looking around feverishly, trying to find a way to escape. "As long as we are still on the street," he said, "there must be a way. Once they take us indoors it will be impossible."
The German soldier beside him walked up to the head of the column, and Papa felt that this was the opportune time. He wanted to grab Mama's hand and drag her along, but he could not find it in his urgency. He could not let this second go by; the desperate need to gain freedom pounding in his brain, he leapt across the pavement and into one of the houses. Confused, he searched for a place to hide within the dark hallway. He could find nothing. Desperately, he crouched under the steps, cringing. Seconds later, he felt a German boot kick him in his shin. The all too familiar "
Raus du Zaujude!
" rang in his ears as he was dragged back out into the line of marchers.
Mama had been absorbed in her cloud of apathy when she abruptly turned her head to see Papa rush to the sidewalk. She choked back the scream that almost escaped from her throat. Her mind broke away from the lethargy of pain and commanded her to escape. With surprising speed and force Mama yanked Grandma by her hand and pulled her across the pave-
 
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ment, on the other side of the road from where Papa had made his break.
It all happened so fast: Papa running to one side, Mama and Grandma to the other. There I was, alone, marching with throngs of people. I stiffened with fear. My legs kept marching as my head was spinning. My joy at seeing them escape was overshadowed by my isolation. Mama, having pushed Grandma behind a gate, ran back to me. Grandma was too shocked to move. She just stood behind the gate, pressing her clumsy body into a nook. A German saw Mama return but did not pursue her.
Papa had been thrown back in the line and had caught up with us. He was beaten but not defeated. "I am going to try again," he whispered to Mama. Before she could answer, he once again jumped to the curb and ran towards a house. This time, however, he did not even have a chance to hide. A German guard was right behind him, kicking and dragging him back to the road. I was crushed to witness my father so cruelly degraded.
We were all brought to the former old-age home, from which the old people had long been shipped away. People sprawled on the bare floors, tired, thirsty, hungry. The commotion was unbearable. I needed a bathroom badly. Accompanied by Mama, I went outside looking for one. In the yard we saw a long table set up across the end of the yard. At the table sat a nurse in a white uniform. The Germans were all over. Scores of people were with me out in the yard. Behind the table where the nurse sat was a hilly slope that rolled down into wheat fields. We went over to the table. There were other people trying to get the nurse's attention, while the Germans were pushing and shouting.
Mama instantly saw her chance. She pushed me violently behind the nurse's back, making me tumble down the slope. I was not hurt. I knew what I had to do. I sprang up and ran, afraid to turn my head lest I see my pursuers. Through the fields I ran, scared and exhausted, until I finally reached home. From a distance I saw little Aiziu playing by himself in front of the house. When he saw me, he ran towards me,
 
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tripping and falling. Panting, I ran to pick him up. The child, frightened and braised, buried his head against my shoulder, crying hysterically. I cried too, all the agony finally pouring out of my exhausted body. Blimcia heard the screams upstairs and came running down. Overwhelmed by the day's events, she embraced me and her baby, shedding bitter tears of pain. After a short, tearful reunion with Vrumek and Sholek, Blimcia dispatched us to go check on Grandma Chaya and the rest of the family before curfew set in.
The next morning, Blimcia rose early and immediately began efforts to free Mama and Papa. She found out that the people had been transferred from the old-age home to the high school, which was in a district forbidden to Jews. She went to the Jewish community council and pleaded with them to intervene. She then went directly to the Germans, endangering her own life.
"I am on the outside, the only one able to help them. Should I sit back and do nothing when their lives are at stake?"
Some Germans would just chase her away, while others, enchanted by her beauty, would listen to her and make empty promises. Before evening curfew she returned disappointed, but the next day she relentlessly pursued the same agenda. The knowledge that people were still being held at the gymnasium gave us some hope. It gave Blimcia time to function.
She soon discovered that people could be ransomed from the German kidnappers for money. All the jewelry and valuables had previously been turned over to the Germans, and money was in short supply as well. Nonetheless, Blimcia scraped together what she could and brought it to the Germans. Mama and Papa were let go.
Emotionally drained and physically broken, my parents came home to a tearful reunion. In agony Mama listened patiently to Goldzia's horror story. Left alone, she lay petrified in her bed, praying to God for a swift end. Hungry and thirsty while we were gone, she was unable to move her crippled body to help herself. Mama grieved for her child's pain and tried to calm her with kisses. Poor Mama was unable to promise her that she would never leave her again.
 
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But the time for grieving and crying was limited, for new German decrees kept falling on our heads in rapid succession. House raids against the Jews came with ever more frequency and malice. Families were torn apart, with mothers being taken away from small children. Fathers, sons, and daughters were shipped away to forced labor camps. The old and the feeble dared not go out in the streets. Starvation, disease, and death found them in their hiding places. Food was ever more difficult for the dwindling Jewish population to obtain. The Jewish community council was busy caring for as many people as possible, but they were inundated with work for the German authority. There was an infinite amount of registration, documentation, and validation to be done.
There were green stamps and blue stamps and red stamps. The Germans posted announcements that people with a certain-colored stamp had to appear at the appointed hour in the marketplace, where their documents would be given a new stamp. Punishment for nonappearance was deportation, while appearing was likely a registration for the next day's deportation. Not having one's document stamped also deprived a Jew of food rations.
What little news could be obtained from neighbors consisted of rumors, which were bleak and foreboding. No news at all came from the many people who were shipped away. We kept our parents imprisoned at home, watching over them like the most precious possessions. Any socializing had stopped long ago; the bitter despairing populace ventured out only when absolutely necessary. Even our visits to Aunt Esther's became infrequent and sporadic.
It was summer. Summer had once been the time for leisurely walks through the Planty, in the shade of the tree-lined boulevard, with lovers strolling arm in arm. It had been the time for relaxed swims in the cool waters of the Steinbruch or joyous hikes to the emerald riverbanks and enchanted forests, the time to spend lazy hours stretched out in the tall meadow grasses, enthralled by a storybook or by the songs of the circling birds. But such a season was lost in a foggy, distant past.
Little Aiziu was now two years old and went largely unno-
 
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ticed by the overburdened adults. Smart but subdued, robbed of the joys of childhood, he quietly played alone in a corner. His golden curls shone whenever the brilliant sun managed to penetrate the gloomy interior of the apartment. Aiziu sat absorbed in his favorite game, his game of feeding himself. The spoon in his hand went from the empty pot into his mouth. He then smacked his lips as if real food were in his mouth. At this tender age he knew enough not to cry when hungry. Blimcia would eventually pick him up, sit him in her lap, and feed him his meager supper.
Uncertainty gnawed at Blimcia's nerves, and Jacob seemed pressed by his role of protector and provider in a world where there could be no protection and there were no provisions. And Papa, so tired and aged, lost all his good-natured sensibility. His once gentle eyes were now stern and hard. Mama was passive and withdrawn. Was this the way they'd remain? When the war ended would they be able to come back to life? Was everything as irreversible as our loss of Shlamek?
Blimcia kissed Aiziu good night. The evening was warm and stuffy.
''Maybe you will sit a bit outside?" she asked Papa, trying to cheer him up.
"With whom? With Palka?" Papa asked bitterly.
"No, with Lewi," Blimcia said apologetically.
"Lewi is busy with his family," Papa answered, milder now.
The three Jewish families in the house we now lived in on Zielona Street were each missing family members. Mr. Lewi's wife had been taken away in the last action. A scholarly Jew who had never taken care of household chores, Lewi was now absorbed with laundering his children's clothes and cooking. Mr. Lewi had no time to sit with his neighbors, even to share his misery. Papa, who had loved talking and joking with friends and neighbors, was now sad, lonely, and worried. Papa would sit with a
gemora
, a tractate of the Talmud, in front of him, but one could see his mind was far away. He would remember studying a page of
gemora
with his beloved Heshek on a Sabbath afternoon. Now, instead of the Hebrew charac-
 
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ters, he would see the blurred image of Heshek. But if the devastating anxiety destroyed Papa's spirit, he had not yet lost his faith.
"The only one who has answers to our dilemma and suffering is the Almighty," he would state. "This is the time of which our sages and prophets have written long ago. It is the end of days, the kingdom of God, the time of the Messiah. Didn't they warn us that this would be a time of sorrow and calamity, of global war and devastation? Aren't the signs so obvious and prominent? We must accept the Lord's judgment without questions or pleas. Surely in the months ahead the long painful diaspora will come crashing to an end. We are paying clearly for something, something terrible but glorious. May it come speedily and in our days." It was these indulgences of faith that calmed Papa down and radiated sparks of strength and tranquillity into our daily gloom.
There came a day barely two months after the raid in which Blimcia's tireless efforts had ransomed Mama's and Papa's lives. But all of Papa's faith and all of Blimcia's resourcefulness could not help us that fateful summer day. In the early dawn, when the town was asleep, the Germans surrounded the city. Then came the men in the green uniforms with the skull insignia on their hats. They marched through town, entering every building, rapping at every Jewish door with the butts of their rilles. The frightened people awakened suddenly, scrambling to dress in haste. Children cried, people rushed about, women wept as the SS yelled, "
Raus schnell, Judenschwein!
" Out quick, you Jewish pigs! Soon the skull heads were on Zielona Street. Blimcia was the first to hear them when they knocked on Lewi's door. She quickly dressed. Before she had time to wake Aiziu, we heard the rapping on our door. The commotion was terrifying. Within minutes, we were chased into the street, half dressed and whimpering, with the two other Jewish families in our building. We were made to march away, Blimcia cuddling the sleeping baby in her arms. Mama's and Papa's faces were stone white; their hands were trembling.
Under gun and bayonet the Germans marched us through
 
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the sleeping town into the marketplace. Miserable, shivering with fear, thirsty and now fully awake, we stood in the open square with hundreds of people. Some members of the Jewish community council were recognized among the crowd; they were eventually released. Eagerly looking for a possible escape route, Vrumek and Jacob were whispering to each other. Blimcia was absorbed in calming Aiziu, while Mama searched the crowd for Aunt Esther's family and Grandma Chaya.
No movement was permitted. Papa was ready to collapse and sit down on the ground, but Blimcia, flushed with fear lest Papa exhibit a sign of weakness, supported Papa and did not let him slouch. Strong people were still useful in German labor camps, but the weak ones, who knew what their fate would be when they were shipped away? Some people even combed their hair and pinched their cheeks to look younger, healthier, and neater, hoping to be more eligible for the work force. But Papa seemed indifferent, resigned to any fate issued by the Almighty. His only worry was to find Sholek, who had probably been picked up directly from the shop during the night shift.
Mama was murmuring her worries out loud. "What will happen to Goldzia? Who will feed her, give her a drink, turn her back from her night position?" Mama choked with fear for her crippled child.
Meanwhile, the selections were going on. We were made to march through the rows of Germans. Children held on to their mother's skirts, crying hysterically when they were torn from their mothers by the merciless brutes. Wives stretched out hands to their husbands, who were chased away from them. Those trying to run to their loved ones were beaten for their efforts.
Now it was our turn. Mama and Papa marched through together, their shoulders slumped, their faces fallen.
"Left!" And off they were sent. Blimcia followed, cradling Aiziu in her arms. She was sent to the right, with Jacob, Vrumek, and me. There was nothing we could do.
We immediately lost sight of Mama and Papa. Bewildered, we tried to run to the other side of the marketplace to look for

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