LUBLIN, POLAND
OCTOBER 1941
MONTH 25 OF THE NAZI OCCUPATION
Louis and Eli watched as Maximilian’s polished sedan pulled into the brickyard. The back door opened, and Chava stepped out. She had a fur stole wrapped around her neck, covering the open collar of a black jersey dress. The dress was long and form-fitted. She walked slowly to her father in her black pumps and patterned nylons and sheepishly bowed her head. “Hi, Daddy.”
“Chavala…”
She put a finger to his lips and said, “Don’t be mad at Maximilian. I’m okay, really. No one has hurt me. Horst is very sweet.”
Louis swallowed hard. “You have makeup on your face, lipstick on your lips. He’s dressed you up in nightclub clothes: black nylons, high heels. Look at you, Chava.”
She nodded. “Yes, look at me. I’m standing here. Alive, safe, healthy. I’m not sewing in a dark, musty factory like my mother. I haven’t been sent off to a labor camp. I’m not scrambling for a meal on the streets of the ghetto. I’m well fed, well dressed and living in a nice home with a German officer. I’m treated with respect and not like a slave.”
Louis’s voice started to break. “God knows what that man has done with you, Chava.”
“Nothing I haven’t willingly permitted. In truth, encouraged.”
“Oh, my Lord. I don’t want you living with him. You’re much too young. I insist that you come home.”
“That day has passed, Daddy. If I did come home, if I even wanted to come home, what would happen to me? Where would I be sent the very next day?”
Louis, his lips pursed, his face flushed, spun around and pointed at Maximilian. “You did this to her. She’s just a child. You promised me you’d safeguard her, and I believed you. You sold her,” he screamed. “You turned her into some Nazi’s whore!”
Chava wound up and slapped Louis hard across his face. “Don’t you ever call me a whore. I am an officer’s lady.” She turned and walked back to the car. Maximilian shrugged his shoulders and followed her. Louis slumped down into a chair, his face in his hands.
“I feel so bad for Sylvia and Louis,” Esther said later that evening. “I’ve known Chava since she was a child, and I’ve never thought of her as anything other than a sweet young girl. I’ve never seen that side of her. I guess that’s what the war can do to people. It must have been devastating for Louis to see her dressed like that and declaring herself to be a German officer’s lady.”
“You wouldn’t have recognized her, Essie. She’s a casualty of the occupation, but Louis blames himself. He says the whole thing was his fault, he never should have placed Chava in Maximilian’s care.”
“He did what he thought was best, but I have to admit, I was surprised when he allowed her to move in with Maximilian.”
“Maximilian told him that she had been observed by Zörner’s office. They wanted to know why such a tall and healthy girl had not been put to work. They said she would be assigned to a work camp at a distant location.”
“If they wanted to put her to work, why didn’t they send her into Lipowa? Why didn’t Maximilian arrange that?”
“Because Lipowa was fully staffed.”
“Fully staffed? Who said that?”
“Maximilian.”
“Hmph. Well, that explains everything. It’s not true. There are always empty sewing stations. Maximilian was the one who noticed her, not some deputy.”
Eli hung his head. “I should have realized it was a lie. It was probably what he had in mind for Chava all along. I’m sure it wasn’t the first time that he supplied a young Jewish girl to a Nazi officer.”
“How can we force Maximilian to return Chava to Louis and Sylvia? If she has to be sent to a labor camp, she can work at Lipowa with her mother.”
Eli sadly shook his head. “Chava made it clear she wanted no part of that. As she said to Louis, ‘That day has passed.’”