The End of Days (34 page)

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Authors: Helen Sendyk

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

BOOK: The End of Days
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hearts and tell our beloved family how much we suffered and how much we missed them.
The boys felt that it was too early to travel, but Nachcia and I could not wait any longer. At the first opportunity, we went to the neighboring city of Reichenbach, a larger city where there were many former inmates. There we met Janek Fish-grund, a friend of Blimcia's from Chrzanow. He took us to an apartment he shared with other former prisoners. We had been there only one night when the Russians barged in and rounded us up. There were no shouts, kicks or whips, but we were led out of town into what seemed to have been an army camp.
In total astonishment, we found ourselves being interned again in barracks surrounded by a fence, with a soldier stationed at the entrance gate. Rumors were rampant, the most prominent being that we were going to be shipped into Russia for labor. Again we were prisoners, our bare hands our only defense against armed soldiers. We were allowed to take along a bag of our meager belongings, an extra pair of shoes and some clothes the boys had helped us accumulate in Langen-bielau. I sat in the barracks on top of my bundles. There were Golda and Tila Grajower, the two sisters from Chrzanow, and there was our cousin Hania. Nachcia and I lamented our fate after the heartbreaking promise of liberation. We talked among ourselves, unable to come to any conclusion. I, the youngest among us, voiced the strongest protest.
"I am not going to be imprisoned again. We must find a way out. We must not let them ship us away."
People were congregating in the yard, speculating, whispering, talking. I snooped around among the throng of prisoners and listened to every rumor. I even dared to talk to the Russians. These were soldiers on duty, so I was not afraid of them. I prodded them with questions about our fate. I observed the soldiers and learned that they all congregated at the front gate, far more interested in pretty girls than in watching their post.
I then convinced my friends that we must run away, promising to make their escape possible by distracting the guards. To Nachcia's distress I stood at the gate talking to my soldier "friends," averting their attention while motioning to our
 
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friends to disappear behind my back. And so Golda, Tila, Hania, and finally Nachcia slipped past me and the guardhouse and into the night. It then occurred to me that I was now utterly alone with several Russian soldiers at the gate. I could not perceive how in the world I was going to get away without being shot at. I waited until their attention was drawn from me; an altercation developed between them, and I acted in a split second. I abruptly turned and slipped into a shadow behind the gate, and from there to freedom.
We had all arranged to meet at the house. There we found new arrivals, other homeless refugees. Now we knew we must leave town. We wanted to go home. But how could we travel to Poland without any possessions or money? The few articles we had collected after liberation were in our backpacks in the camp barracks we had just fled. To attempt a return to Poland empty-handed was not wise at all. Who would help us on our way? It was too dangerous now for girls to be out alone searching in abandoned buildings for clothes and other articles.
I offered to go back to the camp and see if we could somehow get our bundles back. Nachcia did not want to hear of it; she scolded me, saying I was too young to understand the danger. I was forbidden to go anywhere. Nachcia had no plans, only hopes that we would eventually get back to Poland and to our family.
But I could not wait for eventualities. Secretly I spoke to Hania, Golda, and Tila, trying to convince them we should get our possessions back from the camp. No one yielded, but after a while Tila called me aside.
"I'll go with you," she whispered.
We quietly slipped out. It was high noon when we reached the camp. The surrounding fields were calm. As we approached we saw that the camp was deserted. The gate was open, and there were no guards or prisoners to be seen. We meekly ventured inside, a queasy feeling in our stomachs. Through the window we could see our former room, empty but for five bundles sitting forlorn in the middle of the floor. The windows were closed. The door handle had been removed on the outside. If we could only open the door, the bundles would
 
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be ours again. If we only had an instrument to pry the door open. A simple handle would do. We decided to go back, get some tools, and return for our bundles.
We had started on our way back when suddenly we noticed three Russian soldiers walking towards us from far away in the field. They were pushing bicycles, talking loudly and laughing. There was no place to hide in the open field. We wished we could have vanished somehow, but there was nowhere we could turn. Trapped as we were, we managed to keep our cool. We just kept walking briskly, even though we would pass each other on the only available path. The closer we came to them the louder our hearts beat. It was hard not to look at the soldiers since we almost had to touch to pass one another on the narrow path. We tried to avert our eyes.
"
Zdrastvicie!
" the soldiers greeted us, looking straight into our eyes. We did not answer but kept walking. The soldiers turned their bikes around and began following us. We did not discuss it out loud, but we knew we could not run: surely the three young soldiers with bicycles could outdistance us.
The soldiers stopped us and wanted to know what we were doing here in the fields, where we had come from and where were we headed. "We were taking a walk in the fresh air," we claimed, and started walking again. Soon the fields were behind us and the five of us had reached the city limits. Then the soldiers insisted on accompanying us to headquarters, where we could explain everything. I felt remorse for having gotten Tila into this bind; I whispered to her to make herself disappear while I kept the soldiers busy.
I launched into a tirade. The soldiers paid no attention to the departing Tila, who was much too old for them anyway. Now I was left alone with three young Russian soldiers. All I could think of was that I needed a miracle. I fervently prayed to God to help me in my distress. I felt his presence hovering over me, and I suddenly felt an inner strength. I turned abruptly to the soldiers and said, "I am going to bring you my working papers."
We had just reached the neighborhood where we were staying. Having promised to produce my papers, I ran into a
 
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nearby house. I expected them to follow me in and arrest me, so I ran around to the back yard and hid, crouching in a thick clump of bushes. It was just after dusk. My head was throbbing. I could not forgive myself for disobeying my older and wiser sister. I stayed in the bushes until it was fully dark and I was certain that the soldiers had given up on me. My sister lovingly embraced me when I finally came upstairs to our room. Happy to see me, she forgave me like a mother.
 
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Chapter 19
The trains were taking refugees back east. Before dawn we tiptoed quietly through the deserted streets, avoiding the main thoroughfares, making our way to the railroad station. Relieved to see no boxcars, we boarded the train that soon arrived. We were empty-handed and exhausted, but we were glad to be leaving that hateful city and that hated place where we had known so much pain. We hoped that we were finally on our way home.
The journey was a perilous one. Hundreds of people crowded into trains that were not following any orderly schedule, but traveling and stopping at random. Russian soldiers were everywhere. They were bothering passengers, especially the girls. In their desperation, three females would cling to a
 
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male on the train, each claiming to be his wife. The Russians would snidely say, ''You have three; that is two too many. You keep one, and two go with us." In our struggle to avoid being raped, we girls often had to abandon our places, sometimes jumping out of a moving train. We hid until the Russians left, having to wait for hours on end for another train. We developed codes to alert each other to impending danger. We learned to recognize our own people and to use the accepted password
amcha
, "your folk." If the person were Jewish, he or she would know to respond
amcha
.
It was a warm summer day when we disembarked from a train in the city of Katowice. From there we had to make our own way to Chrzanow, about forty-eight kilometers away. We were in a large plaza and people were milling all about. We noticed a big truck with a small step ladder attached to it. People were piling in, stepping over each other in haste, pushing, shoving, forcing themselves into the truck. Nachcia urgently grabbed my hand and dragged me along, pushing us through.
We were very lucky to have made it into the truck, where we were squeezed in among a crowd of women. At least there were no soldiers to bother us, and the truck promptly jolted and jerked and was on its way. Soon we were out of town, standing shakily in the fast-moving vehicle.
Suddenly, the truck swerved off the road, stopping sharply in a clearing beside the forest. The driver, a young Pole, came out of the cabin, opened the back of the truck, and said, "Everybody out!"
We all scrambled out without a word of protest. Presently the man stationed himself beside the little ladder and held out his palm. Those women who paid the required fare were allowed to stagger up the ladder and back into the truck. The women dug deep into their bosoms to produce zlotys for a place in the truck. When we approached to climb the ladder, the man barred our way.
"Where is your pay?" he demanded.
"We have no money," we started to say, wanting to explain where we were coming from. But the man had no patience to
 
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listen. Shoving us away, he snapped, "You don't have money, so you don't go."
As soon as the last passenger was on board, he removed the ladder, jumped into the cabin, and took off with a roar. Stunned, we stood at the side of the road at the edge of a dense forest, watching the truck disappear in the distance.
We were alone and destitute, but we could not afford to despair now. We had come a long way and were determined to reach Chrzanow. Somberly, we began walking in the chilly air along the winding forest road. The sinking sun hardly penetrated the tall trees. Exhausted, we realized that we would never make it to Chrzanow before nightfall. We decided to try flagging down a passing vehicle but they just zoomed by. When one finally stopped, we ran towards it, only to find that it was a Russian military truck. The soldiers were happily waving to us. Terrified, we ran into the forest to hide.
When the truck was gone, we resumed our search for transportation, trudging onward. Soon a gigantic truck stopped. We were relieved to see that the military truck was merely loaded with metal oil drums tied down with chains. With only one soldier in the truck, we felt it safe to ask for a ride. The Russian soldier sitting in the cabin laughingly told Nachcia to climb up in the back and motioned for me to come inside the cabin next to him. We begged him to let us both be together, but the driver would not hear of it. Only when we walked away did he finally agree to let us both climb up with the barrels. We hung on to the chains high atop the oil drums, frightened that at any moment we might tumble down, together with dozens of rolling barrels.
It was after dusk when we finally reached the town of Chrzanow, the town of our birth, of our childhood. Our hometown now looked terribly strange. We recognized the houses, but there seemed to be an alien chill coming from them. Passersby turned unfriendly faces to us with a curious hostility, seeming to say, "You too are alive? There are too many of you left." We walked by the store we used to own, afraid to approach it, and then down to Zielona Street where we had last lived.
Quietly we stole up the steps, our hearts pounding hard, and
 
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knocked at the door, listening attentively. When an answer came, we opened the door hesitantly. In the middle of our former kitchen, where Goldzia's bed had been, there was a big plain table. Around it sat about seven or eight men dressed in overalls, heavy boots, and old worn hats. The room was filled with smoke from the pipes they were smoking.
An eerie feeling possessed us. We had stumbled into hell. "We are sorry," I stammered. "We knocked on the wrong door." We swiftly turned and ran down the steps, wanting to be anywhere else but there. Walking back to the center of town, we whispered to each other.
"Where are we going to go now?"
"We must stay to find out who is alive."
"Were Mama and Papa able to survive? And Blimcia, would she have given away her child, her Aiziu, so that she could stay alive?"
"Goldzia? What about Goldzia? Did she have any chance? How did Goldzia die? Will we ever know?"
Shlamek was dead. We knew that. But Heshek, Vrumek, and Sholek were young and strong. They certainly had a chance; surely they were alive. They would come back here to Chrzanow, we decided. This was the only place where we could meet. We had to stay here and wait.
But we had nowhere to go. Here we were in Chrzanow where we had so much family and so many friends. Should we try Great-aunt Channa's house, Uncle Nachman's, Grandma Chaya's, or Aunt Esther's, which, after all, was always our second home? But there would be no one familiar in any of these houses. The whole town seemed foreboding and haunted.
We heard people talking about us, making comments like, "So much of that filth is still around."
Eventually we met other Jews who had returned. We found an abandoned apartment in which the stoves were destroyed. The Poles had demolished all the stoves in Jewish homes, looking for valuables that the Jews might have hidden there. Other survivors were congregating there, so we felt it was safe to sleep there too. That first night when I got up to go to the

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