Even in the worst of times, life takes on a rhythm and the days blur into one another. The first year of the occupation was no exception to that rule. Every day ran on routine, and that routine began and ended with thoughts of Tomasz. Most of the time, I didn’t even let myself consider the possibility that I was pining for a dead man.
There was just so much more to worry about.
From the day my brothers left, my existence was caged. My parents told me I wasn’t to leave the farm, although they would permit the occasional visit with Justyna at the boundary between our properties. I argued against this, and at first, I was sure I’d find a way to change their minds. I had friends in the town—Emilia and Truda and Mateusz were in the town, and besides, the farm was surely no safer than the township. We often saw Nazi trucks rumbling past on the road at the front of our home. Since the occupation began, even the newspapers had ceased to operate, other than Nazi propaganda publications, which Father refused to read. Wireless too was now banned—Father destroyed his precious radio unit after the decree that any Pole found owning such a device would be executed.
If I couldn’t leave the farm, I’d be cut off from the world altogether.
I was desperate for any news at all, but I particularly hoped for news of the work farms or of Warsaw, where I could only assume Tomasz remained. When Father made his trips into the town, I’d beg him to let me join him, but nothing I said would sway him. He promised me he was asking after the twins and Tomasz, but for the longest time there was no news at all, and with my adolescent arrogance, I was certain that I could do better.
“You have heard about the lapanka, of course,” Father told me casually one day.
“The game?” I asked, frowning. “Yes, of course, we played it as children...” Lapanka was much like the English game “tag.” Father shrugged.
“The Nazis play lapanka too, Alina. They block off the ends of a street in the township and they round up everyone inside and cart them off to a camp or prison for even the slightest reason.”
“I wouldn’t give them a reason,” I said stiffly.
“Can I see your identity card?”
I blinked at him, confused by what I thought was an abrupt change of subject. We’d recently been ordered to carry our identity cards with us at all times, but I was still getting into the habit of carrying mine, and besides, we were in the dining room so I knew I was safe enough.
“It’s in my room, Father.”
“Well, there is your reason, Alina,” Father said flatly. “If a soldier happened by you and caught you without your identity card, they would take you or maybe shoot you on the spot. Do you understand that? You tell me you want to go into the township, but even here at home, you cannot remember the basic requirements to keep yourself safe.”
After that, Mama sewed pockets into all of my skirts for my identity paperwork, and I stewed in my anger toward Father. I was certain that he was being unfair, that I was perfectly capable of remembering the rules if he gave me the chance to prove myself. The problem with rage is that it takes a lot of energy to maintain, and the very nature of our situation with the twins gone was that all of my energy had to be reserved for farmwork.
Whether or not I was allowed to leave the farm to visit with people in the township became a moot point because most days, I didn’t even have the energy to walk to the field boundary for a chat with Justyna. And whether or not I had a pocket in my skirt remained equally irrelevant, because most mornings I still forgot to put the identity card inside. We hadn’t yet had any spot checks from soldiers checking our ID cards on the farm, and while Father’s story of the lapanka roundups in town had frightened me a little, I didn’t yet appreciate how close the danger was.
Monday to Saturday I toiled with Mama on the land, sometimes working in the fields from before the sun rose until after it had set again. I’d take the animals to graze before the sun rose, let the chickens out to roam the house yard, and then I’d join my parents in the fields. Almost everything that needed to be done had to be done by hand, an endlessly laborious cycle of plowing and planting and weeding and harvesting, then ploughing again. Mama, Father and my two strapping brothers had struggled to keep up even with my halfhearted help, but now the twins were gone, and with Father’s rheumatism worsening whenever the cold came in, Mama and I had to struggle to maintain the usual workload, effectively on our own. The blisters on my hands grew until they joined and then popped, and the raw skin gradually morphed into a thick, dirt-stained callus that covered each palm. I spent so much of the daytime bending over in the fields that by nighttime, I’d have to lie in a fetal position because my back would spasm if I tried to lie straight.
I fretted for my brothers and for Tomasz, but during the daytime, the mere act of surviving took so much energy that thoughts of those missing were just background noise beneath the constant terror. We had to make the land work harder because our very survival depended on it. I had no capacity during the long days to think about anything other than work and the dread that would leave me frozen every time we saw a Nazi vehicle anywhere near our gate.
It was only when the frantic activity stopped at bedtime that I’d let myself focus on Filipe, Stanislaw and Tomasz. I’d pray for my brothers with whatever energy I had left, and then I’d open my drawer, fumble for Mama’s ring and fix my mind for one pure moment on Tomasz.
Sometimes I relived a memory, sometimes I imagined a reunion, often I thought about our wedding day, planning that victorious moment in irrational detail, right down to the number of ruby-red poppies I’d carry in my bouquet. I could still see him so clearly in my mind—the laughing green eyes, the lopsided smile, the way his hair flopped forward onto his forehead and he’d push it back out of habit, only for it to fall forward again immediately.
The problem was that once thoughts of Tomasz filled my mind, desperate longing was never far behind. In the quiet seconds before sleep overtook me, I was sometimes overcome with despair at my helplessness, and I’d wake with gritty eyes from having sobbed myself to sleep.
I had no power to change my lot. All I had was the breath in my lungs and a tiny fragment of hope that if I kept moving forward, I could survive until someone else changed my world.
The quotas for our produce increased and increased. Eventually Father had to load the cart with all of our produce, and he’d take it all into town to hand over to the soldiers. In return, they would give him our allotment of ration stamps. The first time he returned with food, I thought I’d somehow misunderstood the arrangement.
“You have to go collect the food every day?”
“No, Alina,” Father said impatiently. “This must last us the week.”
The rations were not simply scant, they were untenable. Father had returned with a bag of flour, small blocks of butter and cheese, a half dozen eggs and some tinned meat.
“How will we live off this?” I asked my parents. “We have so much work to do—how can we run the farm with just the three of us when they are only feeding us scraps?”
“There are plenty who have it worse than us,” Mama said.
“Worse?” It seemed unfathomable. Mama’s gaze grew impatient, but this time, it was Father who spoke.
“This is nearly seven hundred calories per day, for each of us. The Jews are only allotted two hundred calories each per day. And, child, you think our farmwork is hard? Come into the town with me next time and see the way the Jewish work crews are being treated.”
“I want to go into the town,” I said, lifting my chin. “You won’t let me.”
“It is not safe for you there, Alina! Do you know what kinds of things those monsters have done to some of the girls in the township? Do you know what might—”
“We will get by,” Mama interrupted him suddenly, and we all fell quiet. It seemed to me that we had a choice: break the rules and survive, or follow the rules and starve, and I was terrified my parents were going to choose the second option. I cleared my throat, and I suggested, “We could just keep some of our food...just a little? We can just take a few eggs or some of the vegetables—”
“The invaders say that our farms belong to the Reich now,” Father said. “Withholding our produce would see us imprisoned, or worse. Do not suggest such a thing again, Alina.”
“But—”
“Leave it, Alina,” Mama said flatly. I looked at her in frustration, but then I noticed her determined stance. Her body language told me what her words did not: Mama had a plan, but she had no intention of sharing it with me. “Just do your jobs and stop asking so many questions. When you need to worry, Father and I will tell you to worry.”
“I am not a baby, Mama,” I cried in frustration. “You treat me like a child!”
“You are a child!” Father said. His voice shook with passion and frustration. We stared at each other, and I saw the shine of tears in my father’s eyes. I was so shocked by this that I didn’t quite know what to do—the urge to push and argue with them drained in an instant. Father blinked rapidly, then he drew in a deep breath, and he said unevenly, “You are our child, and you are the only thing we have left to fight for. We will do what we must to protect you, Alina, and you should think twice before you question us.” His nostrils flared suddenly, and he pointed to the door as the tears in his eyes began to swell. “Go and do your damned jobs!”
I wanted to push, and I would have, except for those shocking tears in Father’s eyes.
After that day, I put my head down, and I continued in the rhythm where work consumed my life.
On an unseasonably warm day in late fall I was working the berry patch, which was just beside the house at the place where the slope first steepened. An early wind had settled and the sun was now out in full force, so I was tanning myself. At lunchtime, I’d changed into my favorite dress—a lightweight, floral sundress I’d inherited from Truda. It certainly wasn’t an immodest outfit—I didn’t own any immodest outfits—but I had chosen that dress because the cut of the neckline meant I could enjoy the warmth of the sun on my arms and upper chest. I was crouched on the ground harvesting ripe berries and resting them in a wicker basket, periodically plucking weeds as I found them and throwing them into a pile beside the patch. Father was having an unusually bad day—he was in such pain from his hips that Mama had opted to stay inside with him to care for him.
I heard the truck approach, then slow. I held my breath as I always did when I heard vehicles rumbling past our house, but then released it in a rush when I saw the truck pull into our drive. Just as the roar of the truck engine stopped, there came the sound of the front door opening.
That’s when I remembered my ID card. I’d remembered to put it in the pocket of the heavier skirt I’d been wearing that morning, and when I’d changed at lunchtime, I’d left that skirt on my bed and my papers were still inside.
I prayed that they’d leave without approaching me, but I stood even as I did so because I had little expectation that my prayer would be answered, and I didn’t want to be crouching in the dirt alone when they came. There were only two of them this time. One was middle-aged, balding and so fat that it made me angry to think about how much food he must eat to maintain his build. His companion was startlingly young—probably the same age as my brothers. I wondered about that young soldier—whether he was scared to be away from his family, as my brothers surely were. For a moment, I felt a pang of empathy—but it disappeared almost immediately when I saw the look on the boy’s face. Like his older companion, his expression was set in a scornful mask as he surveyed our small home. Even given the slight distance between us, there was no mistaking the disdainful curl of his lip and the flare in his nostrils. With the locked set of his shoulders and the way his hand hovered over the leather holster at his hip housing his gun, it was clear that this boy was simply looking for an excuse to release his aggression.
And I was standing in a field in a sundress without my ID card, a red flag waving in the wind before an angry bull.
The older man approached the house, but that young man just stood and stared all around. His gaze traced the tree line at the woods on the hill above and behind me, then shifted ever closer to the place where I stood. I wished and wished and wished that I had some way to make myself invisible, as the young man shifted back to face Mama and Father, his gaze skimming past me.
I thought for a second he hadn’t noticed me or didn’t care to pay me even a hint of attention, but just as the relief started to rise and I exhaled the breath I was holding, the young soldier frowned, and then tilted his head almost curiously. It was as if he’d missed me at first and had only belatedly registered that I was there. He once again raised his eyes, only this time, his gaze locked onto mine. There was palpable disgust in his eyes, but it was mixed with an intense, unsettling greed. My stomach lurched and I looked away from him as fast as I could, but I still felt his eyes on me, searing me somehow, until I fought to suppress an overwhelming urge to cross my arms over my body.
I knew I couldn’t stand there, frozen. To do so would draw more attention to myself, and that would only increase the chance of them approaching me, and if they did—I was done for. I knew they wouldn’t let me go into the house to get my papers—that would be an act of kindness, and kindness was not something the Nazis felt the Poles deserved. They considered us to be Untermensch, or subhuman—only slightly above the Jews on their perverted racial scale of worth. I had to act busy—I had to be busy—wasn’t that how we were to save ourselves? Be productive, keep the farm working, produce at any cost—this had been our mantra since the invasion. I tried to convince myself that strategy would save me now too, even in the face of such direct intensity from this soldier. The trickle of adrenaline in my system turned to a flood, and I felt sweat running own my spine right along with it. I started to move, but my movements were jerky and my palms were so damp, and when I bent to pick up my wicker basket, it slipped straight back into the dirt. The hundreds of berries I’d picked all tumbled out, and I looked back up in a panic to see the soldier laughing scornfully, mocking me without a single word.
I dropped to my knees and began to scoop the berries up. My hands were shaking so hard that I couldn’t coordinate the movements and each time I lifted a handful of berries toward the basket, I’d drop as many as I rescued. I didn’t need to look up to know his eyes were still on me. I could feel the intensity of his attention as if he could somehow stare all the way through my clothes. If I ran, they would shoot me, and I was too terrified to think clearly enough to find some work I could legitimately do that might take me away from his view. I was stuck naked under his stare, exposed to his gaze in the light summer dress I had chosen with such innocent optimism and the hopes of a pleasant afternoon in the sun.
At the house, I could hear the older soldier and Father attempting a conversation in German, but it was stilted and awkward because Father knew only a little more German than I did. There was a quiet discussion, then Father said something about Os´wie˛cim, a town not far from ours.
And all the while, the young soldier stared at me.
The older soldier barked at Father, and then spun on his heel in the dust and turned back toward his car. That’s when the younger soldier spoke for the first time. He turned lazily toward Father, cast a disdainful look toward my parents, and then looked right at me again as he spoke just loud enough for me to hear a rapid-fire sentence that I couldn’t translate. The older soldier called to him, and the two piled into the car, and then they left.
I collapsed into the dirt, confused by how tense that moment had been, and confused as to why even now that they were gone, my stomach was still rolling violently. I pressed my hands to my belly, so focused on the discomfort within my body that I barely noticed Mama approaching.
“You are okay,” she said abruptly. “We are okay.”
“I didn’t have my papers on me,” I choked. Mama groaned impatiently.
“Alina, if they had checked...”
“I know,” I said, my voice breaking. “I know, Mama. I keep forgetting but... I’ll try to be more careful next time.”
“No,” Mama snapped, shaking her head. “You forget all the damned time, Alina. We won’t risk it again. I’ll hold your papers for you, and we’ll make sure if you are outside in the field, I am close beside you.”
The cage around me was shrinking, but after the five minutes that had just passed, I didn’t mind that one bit.
“What did they want?” I asked Mama.
“They were lost—they needed directions to the barracks. Father thinks they were looking for Os´wie˛cim,” she said, then she looked toward the hill, her gaze distant for a moment. When she looked at me again, her eyebrows knit. “I...you must wear a scarf in the fields, or one of Father’s hats. You should...always now you must hide your hair. And you must...” She looked down at my body, and she ran her hand through her own hair. “Perhaps you must wear your brothers’ clothes...” She trailed off again, then gave me a searching, somewhat-helpless look. “Do you understand what I am telling you, Alina?”
“Did I do something wrong, Mama? What did that soldier say to me?”
“He was speaking to Father,” Mama said, then she sighed. “He told Father that he has a pretty daughter.” She met my gaze, and she raised her eyebrows. “We must do everything we can to ensure that the next passing soldier does not see a pretty daughter. We cannot hide you away altogether, so you must try to hide yourself in other ways. Yes?”
I never, ever wanted to feel so exposed ever again. I wanted to burn that summer dress and wear a coat everywhere I went for the rest of my life. I’d never really thought about my appearance too much before—but that day, I hated the way I looked. I hated my thick, chestnut hair and my wide blue eyes and I loathed the curve of my breasts and hips. If there had been a way to make myself invisible, I’d happily have taken it. I was tempted to rush inside and change into my brothers’ large, boring clothes right that second.
Mama dropped to her knees beside me and helped me collect the last of the berries I’d dropped.
“If they ever approach you,” she said suddenly, “do not struggle. Do you understand me, Alina? You let them do what they...” It was so rare for her to search for words. I squeezed my eyes shut, and she reached across and gripped my forearm until I opened them again. “There is no need for them to kill you if they can get what they want from you. Just remember that.”
I shook my head, and Mama’s grip on my arm became painfully tight.
“Rape is a weapon, Alina,” she said. “Just as killing our leaders was a weapon, and taking our boys was a weapon, and starving us half to death is a weapon. They see you are strong in the face of all of their other tactics so they will try to control you in other ways—they will try to take your strength from the inside. If they come for you, be smart and brave enough to overcome the instinct to try to flee or resist. Then, even if they hurt your body, you will survive.”
I sobbed once, but she held my gaze until I nodded through my tears. Only then did her gaze soften.
“Alina,” she sighed. “Now do you understand why we do not want you to go into the town? We are all vulnerable. We are all powerless. But you, my daughter...you are naive and you are beautiful...that leaves you at risk in ways you are only beginning to understand.”
“Yes, Mama,” I choked. Frankly, I never wanted to leave the house again, let alone the farm. Any thought of visiting the town was forgotten for a long while after that day.
It wasn’t the only time the soldiers came to our gate—spot checks for our papers and random visits to unnerve us soon became a way of life. Those moments were always terrifying, but never again did I feel so exposed, because that was the last time a soldier came to our gate and found me working alone in a field. Mama was always near me after that day, with our identity papers nestled safely in the pockets of her undergarments. That day was also the very last time a soldier visited to find me wearing my own clothes, and the last time anyone ever came to our gate and found me with my long hair down around my shoulders.
That fall day, a young Nazi soldier had taken my innocence without ever coming within a hundred feet of me.
On Sunday, Truda and Mateusz would walk Emilia up the hill on the town side, and then down the hill to our house to join us for lunch. We’d see them coming down from the hill—Emilia was inevitably hand in hand with my sister, a scrap of paper or a little bunch of wildflowers held tightly in her other hand. Mateusz always walked close behind them, and I understood that this was a protective gesture, but I also knew it was ultimately a pointless one. If a soldier wished to do any of us harm, there was nothing to be done about it, not even for my tall, strong brother-in-law.
Emilia had adjusted quickly to life with her new family, and Truda and Mateusz clearly adored Emilia in return. That little girl loved two things in life most—talking at a million miles an hour, and flowers of every kind. In preparation for that weekly visit, she’d collect a little posy from the park at the end of their street, or she’d draw Mama and I flowers of some sort with some crayons that Truda had procured for her. Most weeks, the flowers were brightly colored, clumsy and cartoonish and the end result was generally a cheery piece of artwork that warmed my heart to see. Other weeks, she drew with heavy strokes and used only a black crayon. It didn’t matter what she drew—I always reacted with surprise and delight to her gift, and in return, I’d be rewarded with her smile. Most Sundays, Emilia’s radiant smile was the highlight of my week.
Every week, she’d hand me her little gift, then ask me breathlessly if I’d heard news about Tomasz. Every week, I’d pretend I was still sure he was fine, and it was only a matter of time before he came home.
“Of course he is. He’s alive and he’s well and he’s doing everything he can to get back to us.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“He promised me, silly. And Tomasz would never lie to me.”
“Thank you, big sister,” she’d sigh, and she’d hug me tightly.
Life on the farm was hard, but for the most part in the first few years, it was quiet. Mama’s theory seemed correct—we kept our heads down and we worked hard, and other than those sporadic spot checks, the occupation raged on around us. We were starved of food and missing our boys, but life was almost tolerable.
On Sunday, I was always reminded that life in the town was not nearly so simple. At those Sunday lunches, Truda and Mateusz were stoic, but Emilia was still far too young to hide her trauma. It would spill out of her without prelude or warning, randomly disturbing sentences that none of us really knew how to react to.
“And then the Jews were fixing the building but the soldier said ‘filthy Jew’ and he hit the old man in the face with the shovel and...”
“Enough of that talk at lunch, Emilia.” Truda always spoke to her with the prefect blend of firm and soft. Emilia would glance around the table, clear her throat and then go back to eating her food in silence. Another week, we were having a quiet conversation about the chickens when Emilia looked at me and said without preamble, “The woman was dead in the pond at the park, Alina. She was floating with her face in the water and her skin was all puffy and the water turned pink.”
“Emilia!” Truda winced, but she was flustered. “I told you—I told you not to look at that—I told you—”
Emilia looked between us all, her brow creasing.
“Have some more lunch, child,” Mama said hastily, and she scooped Emilia’s plate up to slide an extra potato pancake onto it. “Don’t think about such things.”
After lunch, the adults would sip at watered-down coffee, and I’d often take Emilia to sit on the steps beside the barn so that she could talk freely for a few minutes. I hated that this sweet, innocent child was surrounded by death and ugliness, but I could also see that she needed to talk about those things, even if the rest of our family couldn’t bear to hear it.
“I like Truda and Mateusz, but I miss Tomasz and my father,” she told me one Sunday.
“I miss them too.”
“I don’t like the mean soldiers in our town. And I don’t like dead people everywhere. And I don’t like it when the guns shoot in the night and I don’t know if the bullet is coming for me.”
“I know.”
“Everything scares me too much and I want it to stop now,” she said.
“Me too.”
“No one ever wants to talk about it. Everyone is so angry with me when I talk about it. Why do they want to pretend it’s not happening? Why can’t we talk about it?”
“It’s just our way, Emilia.” I smiled at her sadly, then pulled her close for a hug. “Sometimes, talking about things makes them seem more real. Do you understand that?”
Emilia sighed heavily as she nodded.
“I do. But I feel better when I talk about it. I want to understand.”
“You can talk to me. I don’t understand, either, but I’ll always listen to you.”
“I know, big sister,” she said, and then at last, her little smile returned.