The Girl in the Green Sweater (5 page)

No, all was not quite right in our little corner of the world, which was now our little corner of Russia, but it was mostly okay. Not like it was, but mostly okay. And yet these things too were about to change—so much now that even a child had to notice.

In June 1941, almost two years after the Germans cut short their approach into Lvov, we heard those Messerschmitt planes flying once again overhead. My parents did not talk about it, but they must have known this would happen. Once again we heard the bombs, and once again we retreated to my grandparents’ basement. This time, too, I helped with the pushing of Pawel’s stroller, laden with some of our worldly possessions. This time we expected the worst, and on June 29, 1941, when the Wehrmacht marched into the city, my parents were terrified. There was a big panic. The nonaggression pact was no more. The Russians had fled. The Jews were afraid to come out of their apartments. And the Ukrainians were dancing in the streets. This was one of the most disturbing aspects of the German occupation, the collaboration of the Ukrainians. You see, the Germans had promised the Ukrainians a free Ukraine, which was why they were so overjoyed at being liberated from Russian rule. They welcomed the Germans with flowers. The German soldiers paraded through the streets with their motorcycles, with their helmets and their boots and their black leather coats, and the Ukrainian women would walk out among the motorcade and greet the German men with hugs and kisses. We
watched from our balcony. My father, he was very upset. Once again, he said, “This is the end for us.”

My father did not let us leave the apartment, and he went out only when he had to work or to bring back food or supplies. The Ukrainians were ruling the streets. They were doing the Germans’ dirty work even before the Germans could set about it. This was the beginning of the pogroms that took place that summer in Lvov, in which more than six thousand Jews were killed by Ukrainians. There were orchestrated attacks, but there were also small instances and disturbances, not unlike the razor slashing meted out on my father as a young man. A thousand tiny torments, adding up to a riot of violence and torture. Young boys beating on Jewish men with sticks, pulling their beards so hard that they would bleed, following them home and looting their apartments before turning them in to the Germans, terrorizing Jewish women with impunity because they knew their misconduct would be supported by the Germans.

In July 1941, in part to revenge the assassination of former Ukrainian leader Symon Petlyura, the Ukrainians killed more than five thousand Jews. I would later learn about Petlyura in history class. He was a famous Socialist who served as president of Ukraine during the Russian civil war. Under Petlyura, the Ukrainian government perpetrated a series of pogroms that resulted in the killing of as many as one hundred thousand Ukrainian Jews. He allowed the pogroms, it was said, because they demonstrated his people’s solidarity. Years later, Petlyura was approached on a Paris street by a Jewish man who shot him three times at close range and cried out with each shot: “This, for the pogroms. This, for the massacres. This, for the victims.” My father always believed that the pogroms of 1941 were a kind of payback for that one act of defiance, an endless retribution.

The Ukrainians rounded up the top-ranking Jews in the city—the upper classes, the intelligentsia, the community leaders—and delivered them to the Germans. They worked off target lists of Jews and checked each name off the list as that person was captured. As a small child, from my window, I could see it was terrible. I was not supposed to watch, but I could not look away. With the help of the Ukrainians, I could see, the German soldiers were pulling the Jews out into the street and shooting them on the spot or taking them on the transport to the Piaski, the sand quarry northwest of town where Jews were executed. It was too soon for the establishment of the forced labor camp on Janowska Road, but already large numbers of Jews deemed unfit for work were being sent by transport to the concentration camp at Belzec.

Within just a few weeks, the Germans completely reorganized life in the city. It was ordained that all remaining Jews had to wear a white band with the Star of David on their arms any time they were out on the street. There was a curfew, from six o’clock in the evening until six o’clock in the morning. Separate stores were established where Jews could shop for food and necessities, but only during the hours between two o’clock and four o’clock in the afternoons, at prices determined by the Ukrainians put in charge of the operation.

I do not have any firsthand observations on what life was like in the city in the first days and weeks of German rule, because I did not go outside. I stayed in our apartment on Kopernika Street with my mother and brother, and I could see everything from our big picture window. One night, German soldiers came to search our building. They knocked first on the door of the elderly doctor who occupied the entire first floor. He had a big, beautiful apartment—
ten rooms, the whole length of the building. They took him out into the street. Then they went upstairs and kicked down the door that corresponded to the doctor’s downstairs apartment. This was our next-door neighbors’ apartment, and the Germans went inside and collected those people as well. But we were spared, because the second floor was divided into two apartments and they searched only the one, thinking the layout was the same as on the first floor.

It was, my father used to say, one of the first of the many small miracles that kept our family alive.

Frequently, the Germans would come to inspect our building, and Galewski, the concierge, would stall them until my father could leave by the back entrance. He was a good man, Danusha’s father. He helped us many times. The Gestapo and the SS, they would come for inspection and ask, “Are there any Jews living here?” Galewski would shake his head,
Nein!
Then he would engage the Germans in conversation, knowing my father would have seen them approaching from our upstairs window. Galewski kept them talking, to give my father time to hide or to escape.

Our building was adjacent to another nice building the Germans had commandeered as a kind of headquarters, so many of the highest-ranking German officers regularly walked our street. Many of them eventually came to our apartment, where they took turns picking and choosing among our artwork, our furniture, our silverware. All across the city, the Germans would take what they wanted and leave the rest, setting fire to the buildings after they had looted them. Here, though, we were directly across the street from an old palace that was now occupied by the Luftwaffe. The general of the Luftwaffe had set up housekeeping there, and there were other officers with the idea of turning our building into their living quarters, so they were not about to burn it to the ground.

One by one the officers came to our apartment, and one by one they left with our nice things. It must have been heartbreaking for my parents to see all their worldly possessions being taken from them, but at the same time they were thankful that we were not being taken out into the street along with our things. Soon, all of our furniture was gone, including our piano, a fine August Förster, one of the best pianos ever made. My mother used to play for us, very beautifully, but the piano had been silent since the German occupation. Still, it pained her that this wonderful instrument would be taken from our apartment and that she would never play it again. The piano was claimed by a German officer named Wepke, a man who was acting as the interim governor of Lvov. The only solace was that Wepke seemed to appreciate how fine a piano he was about to receive and that he could also play it beautifully. It was the poetic way to look at the injustice, to see that at least the piano would be enjoyed and put to beautiful use.

I have kept a picture in my mind of my brother and me sitting on the floor of our apartment, our furniture all but gone, the walls checkered with bright squares where our paintings used to hang. In another time, in another place, it would have been a picture of any two children, their household packed for a move out of town. I sat on the floor and watched and listened. I could see the shine of the piano pedals against the polish of the officer’s boots. Watching him play, listening to him, you would never think he was capable of cruelty. The splendor that spilled from his fingers! The joy! When he was finished, he stood and complimented my father on the piano. Then he made arrangements for the instrument to be transported to his apartment across the street. Before it was taken away, my father wrapped the piano carefully with a blanket pulled from our linen closet. It pained him to lose the piano, but it pained him more to see
it damaged. He stamped it with his name—ignacy chiger—on the small hope that he would someday get it back, after the war. Always, he was thinking ahead to the end of the war. Always, he was hopeful, and so he put his stamp on everything.

Before the piano was taken, another officer came to the apartment and admired it, but my father told him the instrument had already been claimed. My father leapt to his feet with misplaced pride. He said, “I am sorry, sir, but the piano has already been claimed by Officer Wepke.” In his voice, I could hear how pleased he was that our fine piano was the focus of so much attention.

The second officer was very angry when he heard this, no doubt because Wepke had him outranked and also because he had gotten to the piano first. Afterward, my father admitted that it had been foolish of him to announce with such pleasure that the piano was not available, because this second officer could have easily shot him right there in our living room. It was just the sort of stupid reprisal he kept hearing about, and he regretted saying anything the moment the words left his lips. Luckily—another miracle!—this second officer did not take his disappointment out on my father, but contented himself with some of the remaining things that had not yet been claimed.

The next day, the piano delivered, Wepke sent an officer back to our apartment with a package for my father. It was our blanket, along with a bottle of wine and a note of thanks for the piano. I was six years old, still a child, and even I could recognize the absurd mix of humanity and inhumanity. It was a curious gesture of civility, we all thought. My father wrote about it after the war, how it was strange to find decent people among such animals. That such a people, with such a high culture, could do such terrible things . . . it was unthinkable.

With our piano now in the possession of such a high-ranking officer, we were left alone for a few weeks. My parents took the opportunity to distribute some of their possessions among their few Polish friends. Silverware, china, jewelry, some furniture . . . whatever the Germans had not claimed for themselves, my parents gave away to non-Jews, with the hope that we might recover the property or that it would at least be enjoyed by someone of our choosing. All along, I had been watching the officers take my toys, and it made me very sad. I wanted to cry, but already I knew not to cry. I did not fight or protest. We gave my dollhouse to my friend Danusha. It made me happy, to see her with my dollhouse. She had always admired it, and I knew we could not take it with us. It was still not clear where we were going, or when, but it seemed a certainty that we would not stay on in this apartment much longer.

One day, while my father was out seeking provisions, another set of officers came by to consider our remaining possessions. My father liked to take pictures. He had a very good German camera, a Leica. The camera was still in our apartment, tucked away in one of my father’s bookcases, and one of the officers saw the camera and prepared to take it. Next, he examined some of the beautiful books still on the shelves of our library. My mother noticed him admiring one book in particular, a fine collection of photographs. He turned and asked my mother if he could take it. He did not have to ask, but he asked.

“No,” my mother said, “it belongs to my husband. I will have to ask him first.”

The officer smiled, a devilish smile. He said, “I can take it without his permission.” He said this with some good cheer. Then he paused for a moment, and his smile deepened. “But I will wait for your decision,” he said.

When my father returned later that afternoon, my mother told him what had transpired. He was very angry at my mother. He said her head was in the clouds. “He asks,” he said of the German officer, “you give it to him.” It was a simple equation, as far as my father was concerned, an obvious transaction. He did not like that my mother had put our family at risk.

The next day, the officer returned. He was still in good cheer. “So,” he said to my mother, “what have you decided?”

My mother apologized and gave him the book. “It is yours, of course,” she said. The officer took it gladly. He was very polite. Then he told my mother that the Luftwaffe was planning to commandeer our apartment the following day. He did not have to give us this information, but he did it as a kindness. He said, “Tomorrow, they will come and you will have to leave. Whatever you still have, you must pack.”

There was not much to pack: a single suitcase filled with clothes, some pots and pans. The soldiers and officers had picked our apartment clean. There were no toys left for me to take, no dolls, no special playthings to keep me amused or distracted. Even if there were, I do not think we would have taken the trouble to pack them. My parents did not explain why we were packing or where we were going.

Before we left, my father made an inventory of everything the Germans had taken. He wrote who got what, and where he had stamped his name. He also recorded the names of our Polish friends who had come to collect what was left. And then we prepared to leave. We stood in our kitchen for a moment, before embarking. There was our one suitcase. There was my brother in his stroller. There was a bottle of milk, which Pawel would need for his supper later that night. I pushed the stroller as we left. Always, I liked to
push the stroller. It made me feel all grown up. My parents walked a few steps behind. It was the first time I had been outside since the German occupation, and a part of me was glad to be in the sunshine. Around every corner, I imagined Baba Yaga, the witch who haunted the stories I heard as a small child. In my imagination, I was running through the big, open fields of wild sunflowers once more, with my friend Melek at my side. I was afraid, but I was trying not to be afraid.