Roman
I didn’t know the code name of the Scout who knocked on my door at dawn. Sara answered it, then knocked on my door to rouse me.
“Scout mail is here for you, Pigeon,” she called playfully through my door.
I rolled out of bed and, in my haste to get to the front door, almost stumbled on the stairs. Sara was supportive when I had joined the Szare Szeregi ten months earlier, even if she remained amused by some of our conventions—like our code names, which we used religiously. I’d been mildly amused by the code names, too, at first, until my Scoutmaster instructed me to choose a name for myself.
“Pigeon,” I had said. And all of a sudden, using a code name seemed like an honor.
When I reached the landing, I found a child standing in the hallway outside our apartment. He couldn’t have been more than twelve years old. He was wearing tattered clothing, but I had no way to tell if he was in costume or genuinely living as a street rat.
“W hour. Tonight, five o’clock,” the child said, but he was already shifting from foot to foot, eager to run to his next task.
“Are you sure you have that right?” I asked him, frowning. I had been expecting this, anticipating it even, but I’d been told to expect W hour to be at sunrise. Five in the evening made little sense.
“That is the message. Five o’clock tonight. Do you confirm receipt and understanding?”
When I nodded, the boy ran down the hallway and disappeared into the stairwell, continuing on to his next home. I knew that young Zawisza Scouts like him would be running all over the city that day, couriers from junior Scouting units across the city, spreading this message to thousands of soldiers and auxiliary workers.
W hour was another code name—W for the Polish word wybuch, meaning outbreak. This signified the start of Operation Tempest. The Polish Home Army, known as Armia Krajowa—the AK—had planned an extensive series of anti-German uprisings, aimed at seizing control of Warsaw. The planning had been underway for months, but the execution was on hold until the AK leadership identified just the right moment. We needed the Germans distracted, fortifying their territory against the advancing Soviet Red Army, but we had to move before the Red Army seized control.
I was nervous about the Soviets, concerned that as the footing of the war shifted and the Germans began to lose power, all this meant was that we would be caught between two very powerful and untrustworthy enemies. But I was a simple foot soldier, a member of the Boy Scouts’ senior division—the Assault Group, the Grupy Szturmowe. Like all other Boy Scouts seventeen and over, I had spent the last ten months in combat training preparing for this Uprising, and just like that messenger boy, all I needed to do were the specific tasks I was ordered to do. I had to trust that the plan was in the hands of those who could see the bigger picture.
When I came downstairs, Sara was dressed for work, sitting at the kitchen table with her coffee.
“Today?” she asked. The Uprising was an open secret across the city—some intelligence chatter suggested even the Germans knew it was coming, although they had no idea how extensive it would be. I drew a fierce and constant pride that the actions of my Jewish brothers and sisters had inspired and motivated the rest of the city to mimic them.
“I thought we would have more time. Another few days, maybe weeks. We aren’t exactly ready...” I exhaled, tension across my shoulders. My troop would be fighting with the AK Wigry Battalion, and we would be stationed just a few blocks from the apartment. We were short on weapons, but the weapons we did have were stashed across the city. They would not be easy to retrieve quickly without drawing attention.
“Be safe,” Sara begged, as she came around the table to embrace me.
“I will do my best,” I promised, which wasn’t a lie. I was more than ready to die for Poland—every single time I met with my squad, I repeated our oath: I pledge to you that I shall serve with the Gray Ranks, safeguard the secrets of the organization, obey orders and not hesitate to sacrifice my life.
I meant those words with all my heart, but I also intended to make my life count. Wasn’t that exactly what Chaim had told me to do? Don’t waste it had been his final words—his dying words. Here, a second chance loomed for me to die for my country, too, in a way that would mean something. If we could just take Warsaw back, it would bolster the spirits of the rest of the nation.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t scared. I felt sick at the thought of returning to combat—memories of the Ghetto Uprising were fresh on my mind, even twelve months after it ended. Adrenaline was already coursing through my body, and as I stared down at Sara, I felt a filial affection that made me wish I could stay, to shelter in the apartment and keep her safe.
“You be safe, too,” I said. “Please.” I hesitated, then added, “I wish you would go to Lodz with Piotr.” Theirs was an ever-unstable relationship. I’d catch them embracing on the sofa one day, but by the next, they’d barely be speaking, and I understood the tension. They obviously cared deeply for one another, but their priorities were out of sync. Piotr saw the war as an opportunity to grow his wealth; Sara saw the occupation as a humanitarian tragedy and believed she had a moral obligation to help in any way she could.
But with whispers of the citywide Uprising looming, even Piotr was ready to hunker down. He decided to pause his black-market business and take Truda, Mateusz and Elz·bieta to shelter at his apartment in Lodz. Elz·bieta was predictably frustrated by this because she wanted to stay and help. I was only relieved the matter was out of her hands, and I desperately wished Sara would join them.
“I won’t think of running away,” Sara said abruptly. “I’m going to skip work and go to the Church of Our Lady,” she said, referring to an iconic church just around the corner from our apartment. “The Sisters from the convent over on Hoz˙a Street have evacuated their orphanage in case things get rough. Those left behind are going to operate a makeshift clinic in the basement. I know the nuns from the good work they’ve done with Jewish children over the years so I’m going to help. When you or your friends need assistance, that’s where you’ll find me.”
I kissed the top of her head, then turned to leave but hesitated at the doorway. Matylda had been arrested six months earlier. For a whole month, whenever there was a knock at the door, Sara and I would hold our breath, expecting it was the Gestapo. Instead, the announcement came that Matylda had been executed, with no explanation of charges, and not a single member of the team beyond her so much as interviewed. The loss hit Sara hard, especially as she settled into the reality that she had now assumed both Matylda’s senior position with the City of Warsaw...and her unofficial position, as the sole gatekeeper of the identity of over 2,500 Jewish children, scattered across Poland in orphanages and private homes. In the aftermath of Matylda’s death, I’d asked Sara about my sister.
“Matylda left a record, and we’ve placed it somewhere for safekeeping. It’s not easy for me to access,” she had said, her gaze sad. “When the war is over, I’ll hand it on to Jewish leaders, and they’ll be able to reunite children with their families...where that’s possible. Eleonora’s new identity is safely hidden there, and until the war ends, it’s best we leave all of those records untouched.”
I trusted her, but everything had changed in the months since that conversation. I now understood that for me the war could end as early as five o’clock that evening. I didn’t want to die without any word of my sister, so as I lingered in the doorway, I drew in a deep breath and asked again.
“Sara?”
“Yes?”
“Can you tell me anything about Eleonora?”
“I thought you would ask again, so I did look her up.” Sara smiled, then said gently, “Eleonora is doing well. She and her new family are safe at Cze˛stochowa.”
My eyes burned with tears of gratitude.
“Thank you, Sara. Truly. For everything.”
Sara’s eyes filled with tears, too, and we stared at each other, an ocean of unspoken words between us.
“Go!” she said suddenly, waving me off as a tear trickled down her cheek. “Do what you need to do.”
I crossed the hallway and thumped on Elz·bieta’s door. Uncle Piotr answered, rubbing his eyes blearily.
“Son,” he said, frowning. He had warmed to me over time and had gradually come to accept my presence in Sara’s apartment. He even procured some handguns for my troop, although we paid a hefty price for the favor.
“It’s happening, Piotr. You need to get them out of the city by five o’clock today.”
“I see,” Piotr said and sighed. “So soon? I have things to finish...”
“Well, I will tell the AK that they need to wait, so you can finish making your money before they free our city,” I said dryly. Piotr shot me a look. “I have to go, but is Elz·bieta awake?”
“I doubt that,” he said.
“I hate to ask...”
“Come in.” Piotr sighed, shifting out of the doorway. He walked toward the kitchen, stopping only to stick his head into the stairwell that led to Elz·bieta’s room to call, “Elz·bieta! You have an early-morning visitor.” Then he muttered something about coffee and shuffled toward the kitchen.
I helped myself to a chair in the sitting room, but soon Elz·bieta appeared, pulling a dressing gown over her pajamas. Her hair was up in a bonnet, and her face was puffy with sleep. My heart contracted painfully at the sight of her.
If anything could have been enough to make me want to survive the war, Elz·bieta Rabinek was it. I loved her fiercely, even though I had never told her as much. It would not have been fair. To tell her I loved her would have meant promising a future, and I knew that we could never share one. She and I spent so much time together over that year—hours upon hours of playful conversation and in-depth philosophical chats. She liked to lie on the floor of Sara’s sitting room to draw while I read, and I liked just being in the same room as her. The Uprising was always going to be difficult on our friendship, and I tried my best to prepare her for that.
“I don’t want to go to Lodz,” she told me flatly as she entered the room. “I want to stay here. The Girl Scouts have auxiliary units. I know they do. Help me find a contact today. They are surely going to need help.” From the kitchen, I heard Uncle Piotr sigh heavily at this.
“Elz·bieta,” I said softly. “This is not your battle.” Her eyes flashed fire.
“Is this not a battle for Polish sovereignty? Am I not Polish?” she said incredulously.
“You are, and Poland is going to need brilliant, creative souls like yours to rebuild.”
“And yours,” she said, frowning at me. I first realized how far gone I was when I caught myself thinking about how adorable her frowns were. “I hate it when you talk like this, as if you’re already dead.”
“I just came to say goodbye,” I said, my throat tight. Between the Rabineks in apartment 6 and Sara in apartment 5, the top floor of this building had become my home because it contained my new family. Leaving was harder than I had anticipated, but I had to do it—my troop, my city and my nation were counting on me. I rose and took a step toward Elz·bieta.
“Go to Lodz,” I said quietly. “Be safe and be well.”
“Come with us,” she whispered. We’d had that conversation, too, several times in the weeks that had passed.
“You know I can’t.”
She closed the gap between us and flung her arms around my waist, pulling me close. I luxuriated in her embrace just for a moment, but then I gently unwrapped her arms and stepped away.
“Tell your parents I said thank-you and goodbye,” I whispered unevenly, as the tears began to pour down her cheeks.
“Tell them yourself when we see you again,” she said flatly. I nodded, then walked toward the door.
“Bye, Piotr,” I called.
“Goodbye, son. Do us proud.”
When I reached the door, Elz·bieta called out quietly.
“Roman?”
I spun to look at her one last time. She was standing with one arm wrapped around her waist, her pale face wet with tears. She lifted her free hand to her lips, pressed a kiss against it and blew it toward me.
I pretended to catch it, then tuck it into my pocket, and then I left, as quickly as I could, before my resolve weakened.
By eight that morning, I reached our headquarters on Długa Street. We would be attempting to seize control of the Sródmiescie district—essentially, the area around the Old Town district, including Miodowa Street.
I was the youngest member of my squad of twenty-one: everyone else was eighteen or older, but I was also the only member who’d seen active combat. As we prepared for the Uprising to begin, I felt like the cynical old man of the group. My squadmates were in a jovial mood, inspired at the thought of what lay ahead.
“I’m going to kill so many Germans, I’ll be notorious across the Reich. They will train their young soldiers to beware the mighty Sword,” one of the squad members announced. Sword looked like he was about thirteen years old. He was clean-shaven and baby-faced and skinny as a twig. The only evidence that he really was twenty years old was that he was at least a foot taller than I, extraordinarily tall even for an adult.
“I’m going to kill one for every member of my family who has died,” Vodka declared.
“Can you even count that high?” Tank mocked him playfully.
“I will take off my socks so that I can count on my toes, just to be sure.”
“You think it is going to feel good to kill them, don’t you?” I said mildly. I had just finished lifting a wooden crate full of ammunition into place, and their lighthearted chatter irritated me to the point that I was writhing inside. The boys all turned to me, probably startled to hear me speak. I had made a determined effort to avoid friendship with any one of them. I wasn’t about to make the same mistake I’d made with Chaim.
“It will,” Tank said flatly. “My mother bled to death in front of me, Pigeon. It’s going to feel damned good to get revenge.”
“I have news for you: it won’t feel good. You won’t feel vindicated. There is no justice in this war, only more pain. And if I have to listen to you idiots laughing about this for one more minute this afternoon, I don’t know how I will stop myself from shooting you myself,” I snapped.
“Pigeon,” our commander, Needle, called to me, his tone flat. He pointed to a spot by his feet. “Over here. Now.” I glared at the young men, then walked to the commander.
“Sir.”
“They are idiots, and they are naive, but they are excited. When the shooting starts, that excitement is going to disappear in a heartbeat, and they are going to realize how out of their depth they are. You don’t need to hasten that, Pigeon. When the time comes, you and I will need to be there to refocus them. Until then, let them enjoy their last hours of innocence. They will never get to feel like this again.”
“Yes, sir.”
“At ease, Pigeon.”
He had a point, but it was still almost more than I could take to listen to the boys as they laughed away the last few hours before the worst afternoon of their life.
We didn’t make it to five o’clock. One of the other squads in our battalion was transporting weaponry in the back of a cart on Nowomiejska Street, just a block away from our headquarters, when they were stopped by a German patrol. Just after one o’clock, a volley of gunshots from the street left the headquarters in stunned and panicked silence.
“Armbands on!” our commander shouted, and we all reached into our pockets for the red-and-white armbands that signified we were fighting with the Polish side. As I ran from the doorway, training my rifle at the surrounding buildings, I thought about Elz·bieta.
I’m doing this for you. For our country, so that you can be free.
As my feet hit the cobblestones on Długa Street, I cast my gaze back toward our building on Miodowa Street and whispered a prayer for Elz·bieta and her family. I could only hope that they had left the city early.