A WEEK AFTER FEINBERG’S banishment, during my afternoon break, David summoned me to his office again. He shut the door, arranged two chairs to face each other and invited me to sit. ‘You said you wanted to do something to make your father proud. How serious are you?’
“‘Serious, David. What more can I say?’
“‘Serious enough to risk your life?’
“My heart beat hard against my rib cage. This was an opportunity for me to get into the fight. ‘Risk, yes. Forfeit, no.’
“‘Are you at all familiar with TAP, the Tajna Armia Polska?’
“‘The Secret Polish Army?’ I nodded. ‘My father mentioned it to me when we talked, but I can’t say I’m familiar with it. I think my father was involved.’
“‘He most certainly was. Now it’s part of the Polish Home Army, the AK. If you truly want to become involved, I mean up to your neck, then come up here tonight after work, during evening shift change.’
“I stood to leave and David said, ‘Lena, I don’t want anyone back at your apartment becoming alarmed at your absence. Our meeting this evening may take some time. I know you live with Karolina…’
“‘You want me to talk to Karolina?’
“‘Not about our meeting or anything we discuss. Just tell Karolina that I’ve invited you to have dinner with me. Can you do that? Will she believe it?’
“I blushed. ‘I’m sure she’ll believe it and will probably be very jealous.’
“‘Is that so? Well, come back at six o’clock.’ He opened the door, repeated his admonishment to disclose nothing and watched me return to work.
“At the end of the day, I met Karolina outside the building and whispered, ‘David asked me if I’d have dinner with him tonight after work.’ I smiled a wicked smile.
“Karolina’s eyes widened and she smiled as well. ‘You vamp! How’d you get so lucky? He’s dreamy.’
“I shrugged. ‘I guess he likes boring girls. I may be home late.’ I bit my bottom lip.
“She gave me a light punch on the arm. ‘You’ll have to tell me all about it,’ she said and left the building.
“I merged into the crowd leaving the building and slipped into the stairway. At the top of the stairs, I knocked on David’s door. Another man, gaunt, tall, dressed in dark trousers, a hooded sweatshirt and a gray wind jacket, let me in. He looked me over, head to toe, and then back at David. ‘This is Captain Scheinman’s daughter?’ he said. David nodded. ‘And she can be trusted?’ David nodded again. Then the man motioned for me to be seated. ‘I am Jan.’
“I shook his hand.
“‘We want to talk to you about a very important job, but first I want to tell you about a man,’ Jan said, ‘a great Polish patriot, who served at one time with your father.’
“‘What’s his name? Perhaps I know him.’
“Jan shook his head. ‘No names—not his real name nor his code name. It’s for your safety as well as his. Among us, we shall refer to him as Ares.’
“I nodded. The god of war. I was so excited, I literally sat on the edge of my chair.
“‘Like your father, Ares was an Austro-Hungarian soldier in the First World War. He served valiantly as a member of the cavalry corps, though just a teenager. He entered this war as a ranked officer in the Polish Army. That’s as much of his personal life as I will tell you. Should you be captured and interrogated, should you be forced to divulge everything you know, we don’t want you to possess enough information to identify him.’
“‘Of course.’
“‘Are you familiar with the German prison camp that has been built in Oświęcim?’
“‘Everyone is. It’s well known. Auschwitz is only twenty kilometers from Chrzanów. Men from Chrzanów were sent to work on that prison. Has Ares been captured and sent to Auschwitz?’
“‘He was not captured,’ Jan said.
“Then it hit me. I sat back in my chair. ‘He entered Auschwitz voluntarily? He’s a prisoner by his own volition?’
“Jan nodded. ‘When TAP learned about this huge prison camp being built in Oświęcim, and of the many thousands that were being sent there in 1940, they decided we needed people on the inside. A few brave members volunteered to be sent to Auschwitz for the purpose of gathering intelligence and forming an internal resistance unit.
“‘On September 19, 1940, Ares walked out into the streets of Warsaw during a Nazi roundup of dissidents, intending that he be arrested and sent with the others to Auschwitz. He joined two thousand other people who were taken into custody that day. He was jailed, beaten and then shipped to Auschwitz by train.’
“I was astonished. How could anyone be that brave? ‘He willingly walked into a roundup to be beaten and incarcerated in a Nazi prison camp?’ I said with my jaw hanging.
“Jan nodded. ‘Ares is such a man. On the inside, he makes notes, records information about who has been interned, where they are coming from, how the camp is organized and more importantly, what the Nazis are doing to the prisoners.’
“David broke in, ‘They’ve begun mass executions, Lena. At first Auschwitz was a prisoner-of-war camp, brutal to be sure, but just a very large jail. Now it is a death camp. There have been shootings and mass executions. We know from Ares that poison gas was tested in September 1941. In locked chambers. The camp has been expanded and tens of thousands are now being imprisoned. We suspect that the Nazis intend to expand the use of poison gas to murder the prisoners. Ares has been smuggling out the truth in his reports.’
“‘What do you want me to do?’ I said quietly, now fully aware of the gravity of my role.
“‘Ares’s notes are smuggled out of the camp every couple of weeks and sent along a network,’ David said. ‘First here to Chrzanów, then ultimately to England. In England they are passed to the Polish Army in Exile and then given to Churchill. Presumably they also find their way to Roosevelt, now that the Americans have entered the war. It is important that the Allied leaders know exactly what is happening in Auschwitz.
“‘Recently, a link in our network has broken. We lost one of our couriers. We can’t be sure what happened to him, but we don’t think that the Nazis have discovered the network.’
“‘And you want me to take his place?’ I said, excitedly. ‘You want me to deliver his reports?’
“Jan nodded. ‘We need to reestablish the network. We need to get those notes to England. David is too well known and too well observed to go out into the town. He rarely leaves this building. David will give you Ares’s handwritten reports. We need you to take those notes and deliver them to our contact.’
“‘But I’m a Jew. I have an armband and papers that identify me as Lena Sarah Scheinman—Jüdin. I am bound by curfew and prohibited from leaving the ghetto.’
“David and Jan looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders. ‘Okay,’ they said. ‘We understand.’ They rose from their chairs and thanked me for coming. ‘Please tell no one of our discussion.’
“‘Wait. You’re dismissing me?’
“They nodded. ‘With no hard feelings.’
“‘You misread me. I only meant to say that if I’m stopped and I show them my identity card, they’ll shoot me. But, I’ll do it. How and when do I make the delivery? Do I go in the middle of the night? When do you want me to start? Oh, and will you give me a poison capsule to take if I’m caught? I don’t want those bastards torturing me.’
“They laughed heartily and David said, ‘I told you we had the right woman.’ He put his arms around me. ‘No poison, Lena. You won’t get caught.’ Then he took a bottle of wine out of his closet and set it on the table with sausage and cheese. ‘We celebrate our new comrade!’”