Figuring it out didn’t take her long.
The next day Irena told her Jewish friends in the laundry, “I know how to do it.”
Once again Abram had secured the door against any sudden intruders.
“Do what exactly?” Ida asked.
“I know how and where to hide you before they come to get you and until the major’s villa is empty,” she said.
“How?” Fanka asked.
“Where?” asked Lazar.
“In the major’s bathroom.”
“I told you she was insane,” said Lazar. “The whole idea, start to finish! Completely meshuggah!”
“It’s not exactly in the major’s bathroom,” Irena explained. “And it is not meshuggah! Behind the bath stand where I place the major’s rolled towels, is an air vent. It leads into the hung ceiling between floors. I unscrewed the grating on the vent and crawled in there myself. I can get you in there. I can hide you there with food and water for three days.”
“An air vent,” said Joseph Weiss.
“For eleven people?” said Tomas.
“I didn’t say it would be comfortable,” Irena said. “If you can think of something better, tell me. The major is going out to a theatrical performance on the night of the nineteenth. While he’s out, I can get you in.”
“And how will you get us out?” Ida asked.
“I haven’t thought of that yet.”
“Don’t you think you should?” asked Lazar.
“No, Lazar, I don’t. I think if we thought all of this through thoroughly, we would never do it. We would be out of our minds to even consider such a thing!”
Irena let it be known both to the secretaries and the officers at the hotel who required tailoring that the Jews would be working late in the laundry to fulfill all outstanding orders up until and including the nineteenth of June.
She wanted to get everyone used to seeing her friends in the laundry until at least ten o’clock each night. Those who heard rumors about the liquidation of the ghetto thought it made perfect sense: Irena was simply concerned about getting them their laundry and alterations before the current staff was permanently replaced.
A week before the twentieth, several platoons of Wehrmacht soldiers were seconded to Rokita’s command. They used acetylene torches to close the entrances to vacant buildings outside the ghetto.
Irena overheard the lieutenant in charge of the platoon: “I want every building here hermetically sealed! Understood? Come the twentieth, I don’t want a mouse to be able to find a hiding place!”
On the evening of June 19, Major Rugemer carefully checked his reflection in the long mirror on the inside of his wardrobe. He wore his dress uniform, which he’d ordered pressed for the occasion by the Jews in the laundry.
Irena delivered his carefully ironed uniform on a wooden hanger shortly before six o’clock. The major would be joining his companions for dinner, then the theater. Content with his appearance, the major put on his officer’s cap, adjusted the angle, closed the wardrobe closet, opened the door of his suite, and stepped into the corridor just as Irena was arriving with an armful of fresh towels.
She curtsied and asked if the major would care for turndown service now or later.
“Now would be satisfactory,” he said. He would not be returning until well past eleven, possibly even after midnight.
“Enjoy the performance, Herr Major.”
“You think I do this for enjoyment?” he replied. “I cannot stand the theater. But I must ingratiate myself with these people visiting from Berlin. It’s not just about quotas. It’s human relationships, my girl.”
“I’ll have your warm milk waiting in a thermos on your nightstand, Herr Major.”
“Very good.”
Irena curtsied again. “Good night, Herr Major.”
“Good night,” he replied, stepping over to ring for the lift.
Major Rugemer rang for the front elevator. Within moments, the door slid open. He pulled aside the folding gate and entered. The door slid closed.
He was gone.
At the opposite end of the hall was a large service elevator used to bring up the trolleys of cleaning supplies and laundry carts.
By now, all the German officers would be in the dining room.
Ever since the major had added turndown service to Irena’s duties, Schultze had become accustomed to the fact that Irena would not be present at the start of the dinner hour.
Irena took the freight elevator to the basement.
The door slid open, and she braced it with a cleaning supply trolley. Now no-one else could call for the freight elevator. She quickly walked to the laundry. Abram, Alex, and Tomas waited beside carts affixed with the large baskets usually used for dirty linens and towels. Tonight each of the three carts contained not laundry but Jews. Lazar, Ida and Fanka were in one cart. Tomas, Clara, and Marion were in another, and Moise and Zosia were in the third.
Abram, Alex, and Josef Weiss wheeled the carts out of the laundry and down the basement corridor as Irena locked the laundry behind them, then removed the trolley that was blocking the freight elevator door, parking it on the side of the corridor.
They were barely able to squeeze into the freight elevator, but once they managed all the carts, Irena pushed the button for Rugemer’s floor. The old lift groaned its way up the shaft.
On the third floor, the doors opened. A local woman who worked as a maid stood there waiting with her cleaning trolley. She saw the elevator was full.
Irena shrugged her shoulders apologetically, then waited for what seemed an eternity until the doors closed again.
On Rugemer’s floor Irena moved down the hall with Abram, Alex, and Josef pushing their carts. She pulled out the set of keys attached to her apron and opened the major’s suite.
Alex, Abram, and Josef pushed their carts inside, and Irena locked the door behind them.
Eight Jews emerged from the laundry carts. They held water bottles, and each had a few sliced rolls with meat and cheese inside, wrapped in napkins, which Irena had managed to take from the dining room that morning.
Heart pounding, she went to the major’s bathroom, moved the bath stand with the folded Turkish towels on top, and unscrewed the grate to the air vent.
One by one her friends entered the bathroom and crawled into the hung ceiling, balancing on narrow wooden planks, upon which they would have to perch for the next three days and nights. None spoke, afraid their voices would carry through the air vent to the adjoining suite.
Once they were all inside, Irena whispered, “Good luck!” then screwed the grate back into the wall and slid the bath stand with the folded towels back into place. She crossed to the door, opened it, made sure there was no one in the hall, then quickly pushed the three laundry carts down to the freight elevator.
“And so, my dahlink children, once my friends were safe in the ceiling, I returned the carts to the laundry and hurried back to the kitchen. I told Schultze I’d finished the major’s turndown service and was now ready to begin clearing the dinner dishes and serving dessert.
“Schultze asked if there was anything wrong. ‘You don’t look well.’ He said that I appeared anxious.
“’You know, Herr Schultze, I told you about what happened to me with the Russians.’
“’Yes,’ he said. He had compassion for me because I was the same age as his youngest daughter.
“I told him I was having trouble sleeping. It was bringing on a nervous condition. I said I thought I was breaking out in hives from lack of sleep. I asked if he could get me some sleeping pills from the medic or Doctor Albach.
“He took pity on me and did as I asked.
“And you know, somehow those sleeping pills made their way into Major Rugemer’s warm milk for the next three nights. He slept like a baby.”