The End of Days (22 page)

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Authors: Helen Sendyk

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

BOOK: The End of Days
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them, to be with them, but we were beaten for getting out of our column. Soon we were marched away and ordered to return to our homes or be shot on the spot. We went home brokenhearted, but still Blimcia was eager to repeat her tremendous effort and pluck her parents from the jaws of death.
Another shock awaited us when we reached home: we opened the door and were suddenly faced with Goldzia's empty bed. We mutely stood in front of the bed that had never been empty before, trying to grasp the unbelievable fact that Goldzia was gone. We had heard about sick people being cruelly carried away; now we experienced the horror firsthand. It had still been dark in the house when we were chased out. How frightened she must have been. After hearing the shrill yelling of the Germans, she was left in deadly silence. How had she felt when the thumping boots came up for her? She could not run or hide. They must have hovered over her, roughly grabbing her by an arm or ankle, almost too disgusted to touch her, as if she were contaminated by a plague. The added pain of her loss made us break down and weep uncontrollably. But all the tears could not ease our anguish. We were so helpless.
We felt that maybe the world was coming to an end. We remembered Papa's words, "It is the end of days, the kingdom of God, the time of the Messiah." But we had not died and gone to heaven. We were alive and dangling over the pit of hell.
There was the urgent task of trying to release Mama and Papa. Baby Aiziu needed care, and Jacob and Vrumek were still due to report to work. Blimcia rushed frantically to see the German authorities, to plead with them, to bribe them with the promise of money we could only wish to obtain.
But Blimcia's luck ran out on a fast, efficient German train. Mama and Papa had already been shipped away: Symche and Surcia Stapler, decent, quiet, deeply religious people who had worked hard and raised a loving family. My precious parents, who had never asked much from their Creator, were taken away on that summer day in 1942, taken from all that was dear to them. Grandma Chaya, Great-aunt Channa, Great-
 
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uncle Moishe, and thousands of other Jewish mothers and fathers, sisters, brothers, and babies from the town of Chrzanow were taken with them. Their only crime was having been born Jewish.
Blimcia was crushed by her failure to change fate a second time. Only her baby's haunted gaze prompted her to keep on functioning.
 
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Chapter 12
Blimcia now had to work in the tailor shop as well, in order to be entitled to ration cards. I worked the night shift and tended the baby by day while Blimcia was at work.
Vrumek suddenly took sick. He developed a terrible, burning infection in his mouth. His flesh was raw and bleeding and he had a high fever; he was delirious and could not ingest or swallow any food. He stayed in bed, his limp body dehydrating. His sighs and groans tilled the air. There was no medicine available, and no doctor could be called. Sending anyone to the hospital was sending him to oblivion. Blimcia sat by Vrumek's side with an eyedropper, patiently squeezing drops of liquid into his dry throat. With a wet cloth she moistened his parched lips and forehead. Neglect-
 
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ing her baby, she clung to Vrumek in a desperate battle for his life.
After several days Vrumek's fever began to subside. Miraculously, he opened his eyes, looking around as if awakening from a long dream. He had come back from the world of the dead. He looked up at his devoted sister, his eyes expressing gratitude for her courage and perseverance. Slowly, gradually, he started ingesting liquids and soft cereals. Blimcia denied herself and her little son, and with the meager food she managed to obtain she fed her sick brother.
Vrumek had to be transferred to Aunt Esther's house, where he could be hidden in the room behind the wardrobe to avoid being deported in one of the continuing raids. Working at his old job was no option, as several people were taken away in one of the raids at Kleinecke's shop. When any of the Jews at the shop reported to work in the morning, the Gestapo would be waiting for them. They were deported without a chance to notify their families. Another raid was directed against several leaders of the Jewish community council who had ceased to be useful to the Germans.
Among those shipped away were two prominent members of the Jewish community council, Bezalel Zucker and Mendel Nussbaum. They did not meekly succumb to the Germans, so they were packed away in cattle cars for processing. Soon after their deportation, their families received their ashes as a token from the Germans and a warning to any further Zuckers or Nussbaums who defied Aryan rule.
When Vrumek got well enough to leave his bed, he needed a new job to earn some desperately needed rations. Any job like Kleinecke's was too dangerous; we needed to find something safer through connections.
We knew a Mr. Nagoschiner, who was married to a niece of Uncle Pinchas's; the couple had enjoyed their uncle's hospitality for quite some time. Mr. Nagoschiner suddenly became an asset to his family when he was appointed as a replacement member of the Judenrat, the Jewish community council. His presence in the building did not prevent German raids, but a cooperative Judenrat member had access to the authorities. He
 
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was a source of firsthand news and could see to it that rations of coal and other necessities were adequate.
Aunt Esther pleaded with Nagoschiner for a job for her nephew Vrumek, and the only job available was that of local militiaman. This unarmed Jewish police force worked under the auspices of the Judenrat. Equipped with white armbands and white hats with a blue stripe and a star of David, they were engaged in keeping order in the Jewish quarter. They were responsible for directing traffic, supervising the food lines, and supervising labor details such as street cleaning, ditch digging, and snow shoveling. The task that Vrumek most dreaded was the service they had to render to the cruel German occupier: the Germans used the Jewish police to help in the raids that carried away the sick, the disabled, the old, and the frail.
It was well known that not all the public servants were equal in carrying out their masters' orders. There were officers of the Judenrat who opposed the vicious German edicts and paid with their own lives. On the other hand, there were those who eagerly cooperated with the enemy in their desperation for personal gain and personal survival. Similarly, some Jewish militiamen were merciful, devoted to easing the pain of their brethren and to trying to make their plight as bearable as possible. But there were those who actually aided the Germans at the expense of Jewish suffering. Vrumek was apprehensive about being branded a uniformed turncoat by his fellow Jews, and he refused to be a lackey for the authorities, but he understood that his own life was in danger while he was unemployed, and he was considered lucky to have Mr. Nagoschiner help him land such a job. The militiamen were nearly exempt from the danger of being shipped away to concentration camps, so Blimcia begged him to accept this job.
Vrumek did become a militiaman, promising himself never to use his position to unfair advantage. Vrumek would do his duty, but in his own way. Every morning the men would assemble at the Judenrat, where they were assigned the day's duties. Vrumek would select the more arduous ghetto assignments that involved physical labor, just to avoid tasks requiring cooperation with the Germans. For months he could
 
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proudly say that he had never yet helped the Germans in a raid. The chief of the militia knew by now not to insist, to allow Vrumek to serve on other duties. When the Gestapo came unexpectedly to headquarters to get help for an action, Vrumek would manage to slip out the back door. Since he was the latest addition to the force, still largely unknown, he managed to escape. Many times he would come running from the Judenrat, endangering his own life to alert targeted families about an upcoming raid. He would first help them hide and then go back to headquarters to snoop around. It was a sordid job full of tension and danger, yet outwitting and defying the enemy gave him a sense of dignity. Saving a fellow Chrzanower from deportation provided him with the encouragement of having won a small victory in this long, losing war.
Shortly after Vrumek's recovery from his dreadful illness, Sholek came home from the shop burning with fever and complaining of severe headaches. Blimcia gently put him to bed, applying her now familiar remedies of cool compresses and alcohol rubs. But Sholek's condition was getting worse instead of better. His temperature climbed higher. Cramps in his stomach caused him to shriek in agony; his diarrhea was uncontrollable. While Blimcia fought a losing battle, Sholek became delirious. Desperate and determined not to let Sholek die, she went to see Dr. Szymerowa, a Polish woman who knew Blimcia from Papa's store in prewar days. Blimcia had always attended to her with courtesy.
But now there was a dreadful war, and Dr. Szymerowa was Polish. Jews had no right to see a Polish doctor. Jews who were sick were considered parasites to be cleansed away by the German exterminator. Blimcia pleaded with the doctor to come see Sholek. Unwilling to take the risk, Dr. Szymerowa sent Blimcia away.
"You know I am unable to help you," she said unhappily. But Blimcia's tears and pleading aroused her mercy, and the doctor came. The diagnosis was typhoid. Shaken, Dr. Szymerowa pronounced that it was her duty to send Sholek to the hospital. Blimcia adamantly refused to let Dr. Szymerowa
 
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even report Sholek's illness. She knew it meant losing her brother for sure. Dr. Szymerowa finally agreed to Blimcia's request and slipped out of the house unnoticed. She reluctantly left Blimcia a prescription for medicine, having warned Blimcia how contagious typhoid is and how dangerous it was to her and her baby.
Once again the responsibility for the life of a family member rested on Blimcia's narrow shoulders. Sholek had spot typhoid, a most contagious variety that was transferable by mere contact. Sholek's bed took up one of the two rooms we now occupied on Zielona Street.
Surrounded by fields and meadows and with only one other house in the immediate area, Zielona Street was far removed from the center of town. It had not been the usual place for Jews to live before the war, being removed from Jewish institutions and houses of prayer and learning. During the war, however, when Jews were chased out of their houses in the center of town, they moved to whatever was available. Sometimes deep in snow or mud, it was not always easy to negotiate the unpaved road to Zielona Street. This was an advantage to the Jews now under siege. There were no other buildings to block the view of approaching Germans, and in the summer, when the wheat in the fields was high, the back yard would provide a hiding place during a raid. The remnants of the three Jewish families who lived in the house grew close from shared pain and persecution. They shared whatever scraps of food or information they had. There were also two Polish families living in the house; they pretended to be friendly, but we could not trust them.
Blimcia had to keep Sholek's disease secret from these neighbors. Protecting the baby, who at his tender age was prone to touching everything, was another battle. There was also the risk of Blimcia herself getting typhoid. She was tired, weak, and skinny, exposed to the contagious disease by her constant contact with Sholek. She boiled and sterilized all the utensils and carefully cleaned Sholek's bedpan, the most dangerous contaminant.
Blimcia never thought of the danger she was in, only of
 
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Sholek's burning fever, parched mouth, aching body, and intestinal cramps. At tremendous risk, Blimcia managed to obtain medicine for Sholek. By the third week, Sholek's fever began to subside. Gradually his fever lessened and his appetite grew. Blimcia concocted soups and cereals, saving every scrap of food for Sholek. Slowly Sholek regained his strength and was able to leave his bed for short periods. Sholek had wrestled with the Angel of Death and survivedthanks to his sister, an angel of mercy.
When he eventually returned to work, Sholek's coworkers helped him make a new beginning. But Sholek was not the same. His body was weak, his spirit low. There were no more songs or jokes. Lively Sholek had finally fallen prey to the most contagious disease of the ghettodespair.
 
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Chapter 13
When the Germans demanded female volunteers for their concentration camps, Nachcia registered to save our parents from punitive deportations. In the early morning, frightened Nachcia presented herself in the marketplace at the appointed location, with Mama scurrying behind her. Soon the girls were marched down to the railroad station, loaded into trains, and shipped away. Their hometown, which most of them had never before left, slowly disappeared on the horizon.
They huddled together for days in closed boxcars and were finally brought into Gabersdorf, a camp in the Sudetenland, which was now occupied by the Germans. A bitter life of hard factory labor, dawn to dusk, began for the girls. These young girls from warm and loving homes were suddenly thrown into

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