The Girl in the Green Sweater (14 page)

How it would be okay, the men could not yet say for certain. Even Socha could not say for certain. The only certainty was that my father was pleased to have a course of action. It was a good and necessary thing, he said, to be taking control of our own destinies instead of having our destinies controlled by the Germans. One of the first issues the men were made to consider was payment for Socha’s protection. The three sewer workers were asking for 500 zlotys per day, about $100. It would have been a small fortune in any city in Eastern Europe in the early 1940s, but it was especially so in the Ju-Lag of Lvov in 1943. No Jews had any money anymore. No Jews had a paying job. All we had was what we had managed to save and secret away.

On the one hand, yes, 500 zlotys per day was a lot of money, but the zloty had been so devalued during the war that it was difficult to
gauge its worth. This daily amount was four or five times the weekly wage of the average Polish laborer, yet there was very little you could buy with it in and around Lvov. What good is money when it does not circulate among the people? Many of the goods and services in the ghetto were bartered, and many more were exchanged on the black market. The Jews, of course, could not buy anything, but even if you were Polish, it was difficult. Still, there was always the chance it would be worth something again after the war, and for this daily amount the sewer workers were promising to find us a safe place to hide, to bring us food and other necessary supplies on a regular basis, and to protect our hideaway from being discovered by the authorities in whatever ways they could. There were no guarantees, but under the agreement they would make every effort to protect us, until such time that our protection was impossible. They would use the money to pay for our food and supplies and divide what was left among the three of them—and even with these deductions and the devaluation of the zloty, there figured to be a rich windfall.

Weiss and the others wanted to negotiate with Socha on the price, but my father had already agreed to it. His consorts told my father he was crazy, to place such trust in the hands of a stranger. What if Socha took the money and turned them in to the Germans? What if he took the money and abandoned them to the rats and the filth and the rushing waters of the sewer? My father responded that they had no choice but to trust this man and his colleagues. Anyway, there was nothing else he could do with his money other than to use it for his family’s protection, until it ran out. There were no other options: soon the Ju-Lag would be no more, soon even the Janowska camp would be liquidated of all Jews. And so it was settled. My father would pay half of the quoted amount; the other men would all
contribute to the remaining total. The women and children would not be counted. They would pay Socha and his colleagues for as long as they could, never thinking that they would count their confinement for any longer than a few weeks.

This decision by my father to accept Socha’s terms caused significant tension among the group. In the beginning, it was Weiss who was in charge—it was his plan, his basement, his initiative—and yet when the three men were first discovered by the sewer workers on their exploration of the sewer, it was my father who did the talking. This was a reflection of their personalities: my father was gregarious and personable; Weiss was gruff and miserable. Still, Weiss considered himself the leader of this loose operation, and most of the other men looked to him in this role as well. In addition to the men I have named, there were others, probably half a dozen or so, and these men too looked to Weiss. For my father, a simple carpenter who had come late to their discussions, who had the temerity to bring his wife and two small children into their midst, to agree to such a steep price on his own authority was a cause for concern. Yes, it was true that my father had agreed to carry half the burden, but this was a small point. My father had not accepted these terms to challenge Weiss’s power, and yet that was how it must have been perceived, because it shifted the power among the group. My father had his own ideas about how to protect his family, and he would not bend to the majority if he felt that to do so would jeopardize his family—a family that now seemed to occupy a special place in the affections of Leopold Socha. Also, my father must have known how much money he had, how much jewelry, how much silver, and he must have calculated that if he alone could afford half of Socha’s fee, he did not need to consult with the others on price.

On these visits to Weiss’s basement barracks, Socha developed a kind of friendship with my father and a fondness for my family. This closeness also contributed to the tension in our group, as more and more it seemed to the others that Socha was working for my father and not for them. My father started calling Socha “Poldju,” a familiar variation of Socha’s first name, Leopold. They talked about the war. They talked about what was at stake for Socha and his colleagues, what they were risking by protecting us. They talked about what might happen to us if we were ever discovered in our underground hideaway. Also, they talked about Socha’s family and his background, and these things together helped to convince my father that Socha was a good man.

While it was true that my father, Weiss, Berestycki, and the others had nothing to lose by placing their fates in the hands of these three Polish sewer workers, the sewer workers themselves were risking everything by their association with us. Even before we descended into the sewer, the fact that they were meeting with us in our basement barracks and discussing our safekeeping was enough to get them hanged—along with their wives and children.

Socha’s colleague Jerzy Kowalow located a safe place for us to hide, and Socha arrived in Weiss’s barracks basement one evening to give my father and the other men the location. He drew a map and told them how to get there. He also told them where he and Stefek Wroblewski would leave supplies for them in one of the underground passageways—some planks of wood, some cleaning materials, and other items the men would need to prepare the hiding place for our arrival. We would need boots, the sewer workers said, because where they were going they would have to slog through several feet of water and mud. Immediately, my father went with Weiss, Berestycki, my uncle Kuba, and another man
who had joined our party named Mundek Margulies to begin preparing the hiding space. Margulies was a barber by profession. He was short and scheming and adventurous. Everyone called him Korsarz, because he looked so much like a pirate. (
Korsarz
was the Polish word for “Corsica,” which was the term used for pirate.)

The men went two and three at a time, every evening after work, making ready. I do not think my mother’s father, Joseph Gold, took part in these preparations, but it was understood that my grandfather would escape with us into the sewer when it came time. This was where the men spent their time when they were not working for the Germans. Mostly they were moving the dirt and debris from the hiding place discovered by Kowalow, trying to make it habitable. There was so much silt and mud and cobwebs that it took a lot of effort, yet no matter how much they worked, there was no disguising this place for anything other than what it was—a small, disgusting chamber in the depths of the city’s sewer system.

On these trips to prepare our hiding place, Weiss would once again claim a kind of control. He told the men what to do, where to clean, how to organize. It was, he wanted everyone to think, his operation. It was his hiding place, open only by his invitation. Most of the other men involved in this effort were friends of his, of one kind or another. And yet whenever Socha was present, the authority would shift to my father. When Socha was elsewhere, Weiss felt he was in charge.

On one occasion, a group of the men crept into the sewer for a cleaning expedition when they once again saw the light from a lantern approaching from behind. Once again, they thought they had been discovered. They heard a voice command them to stop, in German. But the men did not stop; they ran. They shuffled
along the edge of the Peltew, one hand pressing the wet stone wall behind them for balance. Just then, they saw another light in the distance, this time in front. They thought, We are caught! Trapped! The men did not know what to do. There was no place to turn. In front of them was the light from one lantern, behind them the light from another; to one side was the stone retaining wall of the sewer, to the other the killing white waters of the river.

My father told me later that his instinct was to continue forward, but really it was instinct and logic both. One thing was certain, he said: the voice from behind was German. One thing was uncertain: the light up ahead could have been held by friendly hands or unfriendly hands. It was a mathematical decision, reached on an impulse but at the same time by the process of elimination: their only chance was to press ahead, and as it turned out, the lamp ahead was in the hands of Socha and Wroblewski. What a piece of good fortune—another of our many small miracles!

There had been a big commotion on the streets of the ghetto following another small uprising. The Germans had discovered the body of an SS man hanging from one of the manhole openings. A group of Jews had banded together and attacked this German, who had apparently been alone at the time and was therefore vulnerable. The SS were searching the sewers trying to find the culprits. Socha and Wroblewski had gone down into the sewer to warn my father and the other men, who they knew would be preparing their underground hideaway.

The sewer workers quickly explained to the group what was happening and pushed my father and the other men into an opening just off the main canal. It was fortuitous that there was such an opening nearby and that it would lead them back to the basement opening they had prepared. Already, the men had made so many
descents into the sewer that they were beginning to know their way through some of the canals and tunnels. Berestycki was able to lead the group back to the tunnel they had dug through Weiss’s basement floor, where they sat and waited for word from Socha. At the same time, Socha managed to conceal the passageway the men had used to escape the canal, so the approaching Germans would not notice it in the near darkness. He and Wroblewski waited for them to approach, as if to receive instructions. They pretended to be in cooperation with the Germans and the other sewer workers conducting the search and allowed themselves to be led in some other direction to find the men thought to be responsible for the hanging. The Germans asked about the other group of men that now seemed to have disappeared from the canal, and Socha answered that it was another team of sewer workers off in search of their culprit. All of this my father learned the next day, when Socha returned to Weiss’s barracks basement for their next consultation.

Socha told of the fear he and Wroblewski felt at the charade they created, because of course if the Germans had ever suspected they were not telling the truth, they could be blamed for the hanging of the SS man. This was the first time that Socha and his colleagues were made to realize how dangerous it was to associate with us. They knew it on one level, philosophically, but here it was presented in real terms. Kowalow and Wroblewski would actually press Socha into giving up the scheme of protecting us after this incident, but Socha would not consider it. He told the others that he would continue without them if he had to and that they would miss out on their share of the money. Apparently, this was enough to convince them to stay on. The danger was too real for any of them to ignore, but at the same time the money was too rich for them to turn away.

Meanwhile, my father and the other men continued with their preparations. They worked their various shifts for the Germans during the day and then retreated to Weiss’s basement and to the chamber below at night. I do not know when they found time to sleep—probably they did so in shifts or not at all. Back and forth like this was how it went, leading up to the night of May 30, 1943. My father did not know when our party would at last have to disappear into the sewer, but he was determined that we would be ready. On this, the men could all agree, and our sewer chamber was as ready as it would ever be. There is only so much you can clean a sewer! The area had been swept. The men had stored their provisions—pots, pans, some canned goods—and they had prepared a small sitting area, using the left-behind planks of wood.

Of course, my father did not share any of these details with his seven-year-old daughter. I did not know that he was planning for us to hide in the sewer. I did not know fully where he went each night with the other men. I could guess that he was preparing some sort of hiding place, probably like the hiding places he had been preparing for me and my brother for the past year and more, but the sewer was never discussed in my hearing. Also, I understood that these other men were involved in some sort of larger plan and that Socha and his colleagues would also be participating, but that was all I knew, so it was a great surprise to me when I was awakened by the tumult of the final liquidation. Such chaos! There were people running everywhere. There was noise all around. There was such a terror that I started to cry. It was not like me to cry, but still I cried. This night was different. This night was the worst.

I was already dressed. I was wearing a simple white blouse and a dark skirt, with my beloved green sweater to keep me warm. Already, the sweater reminded me of my grandmother and what we
had lost. There was nothing really to prepare, nothing to pack. My parents simply awakened me from my fitful sleep and told me to follow them. I remember insisting to my mother that I wanted to wear my white-and-blue sandals. I thought they were so pretty. She wanted me to wear my heavy boots. “The place we are going, you cannot wear sandals,” she said. I asked her where we were going, but she could not answer. What could she have said? In the end, though, she let me wear my sandals. What did it really matter?

I took my father’s hand, and he led me toward the small basement hiding space where the tunnel had been dug. I said, “Where are we going?”

He said only, “Don’t worry, Krzysha. It will be okay.” He was comforting me, soothing me, telling me only as much as I needed to hear, each step along the way. In his voice I could hear the same reassuring tone we had grown accustomed to hearing from our new friend Socha, and I believed it, that we would be okay. I was scared, a little, and crying, a little, but at the same time I trusted my father and Socha to take care of us.