When 1944 arrived we did nothing in the camp to mark the new year. Maybe the camp guards and the police had extra food. Maybe they toasted each others’ good health. For us it was a usual Friday night. I went to bed and tried to sleep. I tried not to think of the possibility of spending another year making bombs for Hitler.
Ukrainian Christmas Eve was the following Thursday, and those of us in Barracks 7 sang hymns together as we lay in our bunks, shivering under our covers. Just a year ago I had been with Larissa and my grandmother. Back then I thought things couldn’t get worse. I was an orphan, after all. Looking back now, I realized how I should have been thankful for all that we had — not much food, no parents, but a roof over our heads and the love of our grandmother.
As January blizzards blew outside, I was grateful for my shoes. The man behind the glass stopped paying so much attention to us. He would bring in the daily newspaper and read every page. I would glance over and see him engrossed in the latest news from the Front, not looking our way for fifteen minutes at a time. Every once in a while he would leave. Sometimes he would be gone for only a minute or so, but there were times when he was gone for half a day.
We sensed the war was turning very bad for the Nazis. Some of the changes were subtle: German supervisors in the factory simply stopped showing up. In their place would be German housewives who seemed wholly unprepared for the job they were supposed to do, or boys in Hitler Youth uniforms, who were eager but untrained. I lived in hope that the man behind the glass would abandon his post as well, but although his absences became longer, and he paid scant attention to us while he was there, he always seemed to eventually come back.
But we had the opportunity for sabotage in those times that he was gone. Each morning now we filled our pockets with dirt from the camp. Even with the supervisor reading the paper, it was possible to slip my hand into my pocket and fill the metal bowl with dirt instead of gunpowder.
Natalia’s trick could only be done when the supervisor was gone. She would dampen the inside cavities of the bombs with the icy fluid. The gunpowder that was inserted after that was spoiled — we hoped.
One morning we came in and the supervisor was gone. On his desk was a day-old newspaper and a dirty coffee cup. Perhaps he would finally not come in at all. We used his early absence to sabotage bombshell after bombshell. Natalia gave the barrel of gunpowder a good soaking with her cooling fluid. She sprayed fluid all over the straw-like Kordit as well. We made the bombs out of this destroyed material, and included scraps of paper upon which Bibi wrote in several languages, Dear Allies, this is all that we can do for you now.
Shortly before lunch the supervisor came back. We had just closed up one of the tampered bombs. I had a hard time keeping my face serious, I felt so exultant. I was positively giddy with the fact that we had succeeded in destroying so many bombs. Had he bothered to glance into our room, he might have noticed the Kordit glistening, but he didn’t look. Instead he opened up his briefcase with trembling fingers and began frantically stuffing papers into it from his desk. Without glancing at us even once, he left, stray papers fluttering behind him.
With him gone, we continued to make fake bombs. At midday we joked together as we hung up our smocks, then washed up as usual. I was grateful when the kitchen worker came in with our soup. So many Germans seemed to be fleeing. Our turnip soup was not filling, but it was the only thing keeping us alive.
Just as I held a spoonful of watery turnip to my lips, the room was enveloped in a loud boom. A gust of air whooshed in from above with such force that it blew me off my chair. My spoon flew out of my hand and smacked against the wall. I scrambled to my feet, trying to make sense of what had just happened. When I looked up at the ceiling, my heart stood still. Where grey ceiling tiles should have been, there was a huge star-shaped hole. And that’s when I looked immediately below the hole — our table. Sticking up in the middle of it was the narrow end of a small bomb, fins pointing upward.
Time stood still. For one long moment I stared at that bomb, comparing it to the ones we were making. This was similar in size and colour, but teardrop-shaped instead of oblong. All at once I came to my senses. This was a bomb that had been dropped on us. It hadn’t exploded … yet.
“Out!” I screamed. “Now!”
The other girls seemed as stunned and confused as I was.
I scrambled to my feet and ran to the door that connected our room to the catwalk above the factory. I pulled on the handle. Mercifully, it was unlocked. Zenia, Mary, Bibi, Natalia, Kataryna and I all flew out, yanking the door closed behind us. We stumbled down the catwalk as quickly as our feet would take us. When we were nearly at the other end of the factory, the ground shook so violently that I was knocked off my feet, my friends tumbling around me.
I turned to look. The force of the explosion had blasted our lunchroom door off its hinges. Hot air and flames licked down the catwalk towards us.
“Get up! Up up!” screamed Kataryna, pulling on my arms. I stumbled to my feet, as did Zenia behind me. Mary was the farthest down the catwalk and she got to the exit door first. She pulled it open and we all tumbled out into the main entryway of the factory and collapsed in a heap, smoke billowing out behind us.
Hands pulled at us. Air-raid sirens blared, but I could hear the rumble of bricks and mortar falling around us. All at once I gulped in cold fresh air. I looked up and counted. All six of us were there. We had miraculously survived the bombing.
Young boys with Hitler Youth arm bands herded us away from the building and told us to stand with factory workers from the main wing. We milled about, shocked and frightened, blood trickling from our wounds.
I took huge gulping breaths to calm myself and willed myself not to cry. Zenia and Bibi were standing a few feet apart from the other workers, pointing to part of the factory. I turned to look, and gasped. One third of it had been bombed flat. And where our bomb room had been was now a hollowed-out shell. My first thought was one of frustration — all those sabotaged bombs had been destroyed. All that trickery for nothing. My second thought was exultation. Maybe the bombs didn’t get used, but I was sure we had saved many labourers’ lives here today because of watering the gunpowder. But then I wondered: how long would it take the officers in charge to realize that had those bombs been real, they’d have exploded when the Allies’ bomb hit, and the damage would have been far worse than this? What would they do to us when they realized what we had done to the German bombs?
I looked over at Zenia. She met my eyes and nodded slightly. She was wondering the same thing.
“You. Out of the way.”
I looked up. A Nazi officer with an impatient frown on his face was pushing his way through. His black dress uniform was crisply pressed and his boots and brass were so polished that they sparkled in the sunlight despite the smoke. He seemed out of place in the burning rubble.
“You, and you —” he pointed to a couple of the older Hitler Youth. “Get the first-aid kit. You,” he said, turning to a factory supervisor, “where is the fire hose?”
Kataryna limped over to where I stood and leaned heavily against my side. “I’ve sprained my ankle.”
In the haze of the smoke, I saw slashes of red. Natalia’s scalp had been cut, and Mary’s hand.
A long black car sat idling at the entrance of the factory. The officer’s, I assumed. I watched as the glass in the rear window rolled down. A woman, her blond curls styled to perfection, stuck her head out. “Franz,” she called out. “We will be late for the rally.”
The officer glanced her way, then waved his gloved hand as if warding off a fly.
The woman’s head disappeared in the depths of the car.
A young girl with blond braids looked out the window. She said something to someone inside. A second blond head appeared.
The sight of her stopped my heart. But where had I seen her before? Right at that moment, she squinted. Her eyes locked onto mine. A look of panic transformed her face and she stretched out her arms to me. She said something that was lost in the tumult, but her lips seemed to say, “Lida, please don’t leave me …”
Was I dreaming?
I waved, too stunned to even take a step towards her.
She waved back.
Suddenly both blond heads disappeared. I could see the woman scolding them as the window rolled up.
Could that have been Larissa? My Larissa? But in the car of a Nazi officer? No. How could it possibly have been my sister?