1942

That winter was particularly cold. Our only warming thought was that the United States had now entered the war.

Adam became tremendously excited by this news. He asked, ‘How quickly can the Americans beat Germany?’

Papa mused a moment before saying, ‘You’d think it would be fast, but Japan attacked them almost out of the blue and then Hitler also declared war on them too. The Americans will have to fight armies on both sides of the world.’

‘But it’s better to have them as allies, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, indeed,’ Mama came in fervently. ‘We should pray that every day brings us closer to peace.’

Adam straightened, soldier-like, to declare, ‘The Americans will lick Hitler into shape pretty soon. He’s sure got it coming!’

But it was hard to keep our spirits up in this cold. The homeless huddled inside doorways or anywhere they could find shelter. What with the freezing conditions and lack of food, more and more people were dying. Staying alive was a struggle for everyone and the homeless had little to no chance. I worried about the boys, and wondered where they were spending their nights. I hadn’t seen them in weeks.

Our ration of coke and coal we used to heat our rooms and cook with ran out in days. We wore everything we owned to stay warm. Before the war, on cold wintry days, we warmed our insides with Elza’s hearty soups. She always had a treat for me when I got home from school. Just the memory made me feel a bit warmer. But then the tinge of too much sadness and loss set in.

I was sure I’d never see such food again. The food ration for Jews was only 184 calories per day—the equivalent of about two slices of bread. It was almost impossible to survive on so little. That all seemed to be part of the Germans’ plan. Slow starvation was sure to get rid of us. The non-Jewish Poles received 700 calories, which still wasn’t much. Soldiers were allowed 2,500 calories. I suppose that made it more tempting for them to join the army. Though their lives were in more danger, at least they got fed.

Mama and Papa’s earnings at the Judenrat kept us from the point of starvation—we could buy food on the black market, usually potatoes. These potatoes had been meant for German soldiers fighting in Russia. Since that country was so cold, the vegetables froze and then were sent back to us. We knew rotten potatoes could be poisonous, so first we boiled them before frying them as pancakes. We also ate little fish, everyone called ‘stinkies’, that came in cans and tasted like salted herring. There was bread, but it was scarce. Even though Karol, Jacob and Moshe and other children some as young as four, smuggled grain through the wall, there was never enough to go around. Bakers were forced to buy grain from the collaborators at inflated prices. In turn they charged more for each loaf.

I hated the collaborators almost as much as I hated the Germans. They were the only ones living as richly as they had before the war. People gossiped that they lived on steak and champagne. All we knew was that they were fat and healthy, while we were painfully thin and sickly.

I had to give up my gymnastics. I had become too weak to manage cartwheels, one-legged twists and somersaults. Mama told me I couldn’t afford to waste what little energy I had on exercise. Besides, there wasn’t much space in which to practise now. These days, many concerts, plays, films and readings were held in Weisman Hall. Our creativity was the one thing the Nazis couldn’t take away.

Given Jews were among some of the finest musicians in Europe, we had a splendid symphony orchestra. They were so good, some of the German soldiers on patrol used to stop at the back of the hall to listen. Adam’s violin teacher had persuaded the orchestra to allow him to become part of the first violin section.

Adam was desperate to join. ‘Can I?’

Mama wasn’t sure. ‘The children are weak with lack of proper food and proper vitamins, Romek. We have nothing left to fight off any diseases. It would be the end of us.’

She was even anxious about us going to school.

Papa didn’t agree. ‘They must continue their studies, Miriam. We can’t give up yet.’

Our classroom was less crowded now. Nina and Janette had died last November. They had stood little chance of making it through the dreadful winter conditions, they had been so thin and malnourished. Several of the younger children no longer turned up. I wasn’t sure what had happened to them. Eva and I didn’t dare ask. The best we could do was steel ourselves and do everything we could to stay alive. I didn’t want my heart to grow cold, but it was too exhausting to grieve for everyone we no longer saw. There were too many to mourn.

Rosa’s older sister died from typhus, in January.

Rosa also stopped coming.

I asked Eva, ‘Do you know if she’s all right?’

Eva shook her head. ‘I haven’t heard. Mama won’t let me go to see her.’

‘Me neither,’ I had to admit. ‘Even Papa is getting nervous about illness and he’s usually so stoical.’

The following Tuesday, both Eva and Alex weren’t at school. Adam looked at me, frightened. I went to Panna Ranicki to ask, ‘Have you heard anything, Panna?’ I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer.

She shook her head. ‘No, Hanna, but no doubt we will see them both tomorrow.’ She did her best to sound reassuring, but it didn’t quite work.

Eva and Alex didn’t turn up the next day either. I was too upset to concentrate on any work and as soon as I got home I asked Mama if I could visit her.

‘Sit down, Hanna, Alex,’ Mama said softly. ‘We got the news today that Uncle Harry has died.’

A lump caught in my throat, the lump so large I thought it might suffocate me.

‘And Eva?’

Adam clutched my hand. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

‘Aunty Zenia is doing the best she can,’ Mama told us. ‘She’s well enough for now. But it’s very hard for them.’

I couldn’t believe that cheerful, kind Uncle Harry was dead. He had always seemed larger than life. And now he was gone.

I couldn’t stop fretting and worrying about Eva. Alex took refuge in his violin. His music was slow and mournful. Papa would plead with him to stop, to come to talk with him or to play with Ryzia, but Adam would hold onto his violin like it was life itself.

Then the news came that Alex had died. He had become more and more ill, until there was no longer any hope. Thankfully, Eva seemed to be recovering.

Mama cried. ‘We must pray for her and for Aunty Zenia. What they must be going through!’

Ryzia went over to Mama and placed her little arms around Mama’s neck.

Mama held her close saying, ‘We can only pray to God that he continues to spare us.’

It was two weeks before Papa finally allowed me to visit Eva and Aunty Zenia.

To get there, I had to cross the two-storey bridge over Leszno Street. Aunty Zenia must have been listening out for me, because I found her in the hallway outside their room. Her face was gaunt and I wondered if she had the strength to look after Eva, especially after losing her husband and son. She must have guessed my thoughts, because she whispered, ‘Don’t worry, Hanna. I won’t let Eva die, I promise.

I hugged her in silence. What could I say?

I found Eva lying on her straw mattress. Her thick lovely hair had been shaved off and her skin was so pale, I hardly recognised her.

Mama had made me promise not to touch her, but as soon as she realised I was beside her, we fell into each other’s arms.

For a long while she couldn’t stop sobbing. She kept repeating how much she missed her father and brother. There was nothing I could do to console her, nothing other than listen.

‘Just seeing you again helps.’ She managed a weak smile. ‘Tell me about school. What have you been studying?’

‘Loads of English, so we will be ready when the Americans beat Hitler now that Germany has declared war on them too. You know I think these Germans are quite, quite mad.’

Eva managed to prop herself up before saying, ‘Now the Japanese and the Germans have united, they intend to conquer the whole world.’

‘I don’t know much about the Japanese, but I do know what happened to Germany after the Americans joined the last war.’

‘What about the Russians?’

I shook my head in mock despair. ‘I still can’t believe the Germans declared war on their own ally.’

‘Me either.’ She gave me a tiny smile.

‘Well,’ I said firmly. ‘I’d much rather have everyone on our side than the other way round. But now I don’t know who is left for Germany to declare war on. Maybe Switzerland?’

We managed another watery laugh.

‘Everyone at school is missing you so much,’ I told her. ‘They keep sending their love and asking me how you are.’

‘They can’t miss me as much as I miss them. Please tell Panna Ranicki I will be back soon.’

Aunty Zenia came back into the room. ‘She’s getting tired now, Hanna. And it’s getting close to curfew time. You’d best head for home.’

‘I’ll come back soon as I can.’ I squeezed Eva’s hand. ‘Promise.’

I made my way back to our apartment. When I got in, Mama was lying on the mattress, her eyes closed. Ryzia was on the floor playing with her favourite peg doll and a rabbit Mama had made from old socks too ragged to be darned. I thought back to the shelves stuffed with toys when I was Ryzia’s age and ached for her.

It was unusual for Mama to be lying down during the day. Anxious, I asked. ‘Mama, you okay?’

‘I’m fine.’ She opened her eyes. ‘Yes, just a bit tired.’

She looked her usual self, no flushed cheeks or fever. But I worried now more than ever before. We had to do our best to stay healthy.

We didn’t see as much of Janusch as we used to. He still sometimes slept across the doorway to our apartment and would come inside to play with Ryzia. I assumed he was helping Karol and the others smuggle grain through the wall but he never said anything. I guess he didn’t want me to worry. He seemed to regard himself as my protector. I had a lot to be grateful to him for. I had spoken to the boys once or twice since I was shot, but they realised that I could no longer help them. They were so resourceful I felt sure they would manage without me, just as they had before.

If Papa had a bit of spare money, he would take Janusch with us to concerts and plays at Weisman Hall, and he usually sat between me and Adam.

One day I found him sitting cross-legged in the passage-way with a notebook and stub of a pencil.

‘What are you writing?’ I asked.

‘A play.’ His face beamed with pride. ‘Do you want to read it?’

I did.

Though Janusch could have done with some spelling lessons, he had a natural ear for dialogue. His play was set in the ghetto, just like many of the plays we had seen at the Hall. However in Janusch’s play the Americans rescued us. His American soldiers were like a posse of cowboys from the Wild West. One was even called Billy the Kid.

‘This is wonderful, Janusch,’ I told him. I promised to help fix his spelling, and then send it to one of the underground newspapers.

His eyes widened with pleasure. ‘Do you think they’d want to print it?’

‘Yes, I do,’ I assured him. ‘And they’d be lucky to have it. For someone who doesn’t go to school, you’ve got lots of talent.’

Papa had been trying to convince Janusch to go to one of the new religious schools that had been recently set up. ‘The Germans had allowed schools to be run in the ghetto and they received funding from the Judenrat and were able to expand. Previously all schools had been hidden or disguised as something else, like a soup kitchen or medical centre.

Papa suggested that I might want to change schools, but I liked Panna Ranicki too much to want to leave. Janusch was keen to improve his English. But those new schools concentrated mainly on religion and that didn’t interest me.

One day a girl called Maria joined our class.

She had wide-set blue eyes, very straight hair that was so blonde it was almost white, and a soft rosebud mouth. She looked so typically Aryan, only her longish nose hinted at any Jewishness. She was tall, and healthy. I wondered what she was doing here?

She settled at the back of room, her face expressionless, and did her best to make herself invisible, answering any questions only in whispers.

Inka sidled up to Maria after the lessons ended and introduced herself, and me.

‘Have you just arrived?’ Inka asked. ‘I mean, to the ghetto?’

‘It’s all an awful, awful mistake,’ Maria whispered. Her pink cheeks turned redder.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

‘It’s a punishment.’

‘We are all being punished,’ Inka said. ‘But not for anything we’ve done. We’re punished because we’re Jewish.’

Maria suddenly found her voice. ‘But I’m not Jewish. My father is … was … an official of the Nazi party.’

I took an involuntary step backwards.

‘Then why are you here?’

‘They killed my father. He’d done something wrong. I don’t know what. I don’t believe he did anything wrong at all.’

‘But why would they send you, his daughter, to the Jewish ghetto, even if he had done something wrong?’ Inka persisted. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘My great-grandmother was Jewish, but when she married my great-grandfather, she converted. Mother only told me after Father was shot. But you know what …’ She gave a loud sob, ‘I still don’t understand how that makes me Jewish?’

‘That’s because being Jewish comes down the female line,’ I said. ‘It means your grandmother, your mother, and you are definitely Jewish, no matter how much you might hate it.’

‘Is your mother in the ghetto with you?’ Inka did her best to sound kind.

‘Yes. The two of us are here. We didn’t know a soul when we got here. We couldn’t find anywhere to live.’

‘Have you now?’

‘We’re sharing with another family. Mother had a little money that she sewed into the hem of her dress for emergencies. It’s all we’ve got left.’ Maria stared at her feet as if she’d never seen them before.

For a moment I had a horrible thought: that it served her right. I felt a mean thrill to see an ‘Aryan blonde’ come down in the world. Then I checked myself. We’d all come down in the world from our comfortable lives. And Maria couldn’t help being blonde-haired and blue-eyed. She couldn’t help having a Nazi-officer father any more than I could help being the child of my own parents.

It was harder for Maria. At least we all had each other. She and her mother must have felt very alone and isolated, even in this crowded ghetto.

‘Mother said this morning if only we could go to church. She always felt comforted there.’

‘Actually, she can,’ Inka said. ‘There’s a church for converts on Zelazna Street.’

Maria was so grateful to hear this, she thanked Inka over and over, saying, ‘You don’t know how much this means to me!’

That night I told Papa her story. ‘She told us she wanted to become a nun.’ I took a deep breath. ‘You know, I couldn’t think of anything worse than locking myself away in a convent. And aren’t we going through enough poverty and obedience to last us a lifetime?’

Papa nodded. ‘Your friend is fortunate to have such strong beliefs. Faith, regardless of what kind, sustains many people through dreadful trials.’

On Monday, Maria told Eva and me that she had gone to Mass with her mother. ‘Mother sends you her thanks. It’s really lifted her spirits.’

I was curious enough to ask, ‘Did it make you feel better too?’

She shyly nodded.

Most Saturdays I continued visiting Eva who, thankfully, was starting to recover, more colour returning to her cheeks. One Saturday I found her out of bed seated on a chair propped up by cushions. When I asked where the cushions had come from, she said, ‘Mama asked the Judenrat for help.’

This surprised me. ‘I didn’t think they had any money. They keep trying to raise funds.’

Eva nodded. ‘Yes, we have to return them when I get better, though …’ she sighed. ‘Right now, I feel as if I never will.’

‘Course you will,’ I said. Though she was still so thin and wan, her scalp covered in wisps only starting to grow back, I wished I could really believe this.

That evening, Adam was performing in a ‘Young Artist’ event. Papa and Mama had relented and let Adam perform. He had been practising for hours but it always seemed he didn’t need to. He truly was the child prodigy Pan Schmidt had always claimed he was.

The concert was a raging success. Adam was the last to perform, and I thought the other artists, all older than him, were pretty good, too. A girl with dark frizzy hair played a Beethoven piano sonata. Another, a skinny tall girl sang a Schubert song in a lilting soprano and a boy, I guessed him to be about eighteen, played the Saint-Saen cello sonata.

When it was Adam’s turn, I was terribly nervous in case he made a mistake. Then I told myself he wouldn’t. Mama accompanying him on the piano, he performed the slow movement of a Mozart violin concerto. As I listened to his music fill the hall once more I wondered how, in a world that still held such beauty, could such evil and cruelty exist?

‘There has always been good and evil,’ Papa whispered, as if he read my mind. ‘Ever since the garden of Eden. Remember it is our choices that make the difference.’

The ghetto was shrinking and the population diminishing. Over the past few months nearly one-hundred-thousand people had died as a result of disease, starvation, random killings and the intense cold.

The Germans continued to reduce the ghetto walls to what they called the ‘Central Ghetto’ or ‘Little Ghetto’. With so many people crammed together, life became stifling. The Nazis had begun mass deportations to the Treblinka Labour Camp. This lessened the population of the ghetto, yet we remained like rats trapped in a cage rapidly becoming too small to contain us.

Mama was becoming more and more silent. These days she rarely spoke, not even to Papa and us children. Papa and I knew she was becoming deeply depressed. It didn’t help her low mood that she was now busy processing Jews from Danzig who were being brought into the ghetto before being sent on to labour camps. The inhabitants of Danzig had lived as a free people since the last war, neither under German nor Polish rule. But the Nazis had attacked Danzig along with Poland in September 1939.

Papa said that Mama’s sadness came from hearing dreadful stories about atrocities being committed in that city. Those that still survived now faced the prospect of more cruelty, and a future of forced labour and starvation.

‘She thinks death would be kinder to them,’ Papa explained to me. He sighed deeply. ‘Sometimes I wonder if she is right.’

We relied on Papa to keep us going, to keep our spirits lifted in this darkness. If both Mama and Papa fell into despair, what would become of us children?

As a result of the sadness around me I often felt empty, as if all could do was wait for the inevitable. Was there to be no rescue from this horrible situation? Would our only way out be through death? ‘Pluck and audacity.’ Those words from The Scarlet Pimpernel that I had clung to all these years now rang hollow in my mind.

In an effort to lift our spirits, Papa spent precious zlotys on a gramophone and some records he found in one of the markets. One record had Otto Klemperer conducting Beethoven’s ninth symphony—music that promised better, fairer times. As we sat around the gramophone listening to the orchestra and chorus perform the ‘Ode to Joy’, Papa said, ‘Amazing to think how Klemperer could side with the Nazis, yet still produce such wonderful music.’

It had taken Eva several months to be well enough to return to school. Her hair had grown long enough to be shaped into a bob that really suited her. Even though she was so thin and pale, I thought her just as pretty as before. The boys who still turned up to school thought so too, because they clustered around her. Knowing how sick she had been, they kept offering to do small tasks, and she was always given the room’s most comfortable chair.

As time went on more of my classmates simply disappeared. Maria stopped coming. Then Inka. I couldn’t imagine why our family had been spared so far.

But every time I started to think this way, Papa would remind me, ‘We can’t afford to give up hope. Not when hope is the only weapon we have. The way we fight back is by surviving.’

I looked up at his dear face, a face that had once been so round and was now so shrunken; at his bushy beard, once quite black and now completely white. Both my parents looked decades older than they really were. Both had white hair and wrinkles as if they had aged twenty years in only four.

The following day, as often happened, an SS officer armed with a stick hit anyone who walked down Leszno Street on their way through the Little Ghetto. Many people had blood running down their faces. I remembered Papa’s words, but I was finding it harder and harder to hold on to hope, when our reality was so randomly brutal.

Despite Papa’s wise words, and our best intentions, all of us were falling under a black cloud of depression. Mama was working hard, but her work was taking its toll on her energy and her spirits. She saw and knew too much. Adam became more and more horrified by the injustices around us, he could no longer lose himself in his music. He refused to take any interest in his violin. Whenever Papa suggested he play for us, he shook his head. Adam, who had always been so easy-going, started to bicker about little things. So much so, to avoid any arguments, Ryzia and I spoke to him as little as possible. I felt sorry for him though. He had lost Alex, where I still had my best friend. The thought of losing Eva was so terrible, I could understand why he was so angry.

Poor Ryzia was outgrowing her dolls, and where a child her age would usually be exploring the world, she was cooped up. She had started to curl into a corner, soothing herself by sucking her thumb and rocking. I found myself retreating to the opposite corner at times when I was too miserable to do any homework or even read. Instead I bit my nails until the tips of my fingers bled—at least the pain reminded me that I could still feel.

One Saturday, when I was moping in my corner, Papa looked across at me from the table where he was reading one of the underground newspapers. ‘Hanna, why not offer your help to a school? One has just started across the road from here.’

The schools were always asking for volunteers.

‘There aren’t any schools on Shabbat.’

‘Yes, there are. And most of the students have no-one to look after them. It is up to more lucky ones like us to be responsible for their wellbeing.’

‘Lucky?’ My heart was full of misery. But not wanting to contradict Papa, I said, ‘If you think so, Papa.’

I told Eva about it and she agreed to come with me.

The school was situated in a cellar in a building that had once been smart, but certainly wasn’t any longer.

Most of the children were very young, many no more than three or four. They jumped up when they saw us, clustering around us and asking for food. Mama had been able to find us some sweets. They weren’t very nice, a mix of saccharin and molasses that the ghetto chemists produced, but they were like manna from heaven for these starving children. I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen such joy.

Their teachers introduced themselves as Dorishka and Anna. We played Tiggy and Hide and Seek and Jumping up and Down and then, laughing, sat on the floor to sing in Yiddish, ‘Raisins and Almonds’, ‘With a Needle’, and the ‘Song of the Baker Boy’.

Our singing over, and our voices so croaky, Dorishka called a break. The children went to play with the few toys that had been salvaged for them, and Eva and I joined the teachers in having a glass of hot water sweetened with sacharin as there were no tea leaves.

Before the war both women had been teachers. ‘Look at these kids,’ Anna said sadly. ‘Without parents, what chance do they have?’

‘What chance do any of us have?’ Dorishka was filled with bitterness. ‘But we have to keep living, we have to keep trying to survive …’ her voice trailed away and she looked into space.

‘Dorishka’s husband has disappeared,’ Anna explained. ‘We haven’t seen or heard of him for over a fortnight,’

‘All those people are being shipped to the Treblinka Labour Camp, I can only imagine that he’s ended up there.’

Eva asked, ‘Do you know what happens in that camp?’

Dorishka shook her head. ‘No-one has ever come back to tell us. The Germans claim they are being sent to work in their factories, but …’ she hesitated. ‘I’m not sure if this is true. Who can you believe?’

‘Certainly no Nazi,’ I said grimly.

‘You know, before the war I had so many gentile friends,’ Anna mused. ‘Surely there must be some left who see what is happening and are trying to stop it.’

‘There is the Polish Resistance,’ Dorishka reminded her.

‘What’s that?’ I asked, my ears pricking up.

‘It’s called the Polish Underground State. They are loyal to the old Polish government.’

‘How do you know?’ I asked.

Anna smiled grimly. ‘My husband was in the Polish army but escaped before the surrender in 1939. He’s been fighting for Poland ever since as part of the resistance movement. He is now in the Armia Krajowa, the Home Army.’

‘How many of them are there?’ I couldn’t believe I was hearing this.

‘I don’t know, but by now there must be tens of thousands, maybe even over one hundred thousand?’

‘That many!’ gasped Eva. ‘If your husband is in the Home Army, does that mean there are other Jews as well?

‘Some,’ Anna told us. ‘But most Jews who have managed to escape the ghetto are hiding in the forests and have formed their own partisan resistance movement.’

‘That’s wonderful!’ Eva cried.

‘I’m not sure I’d call it wonderful.’ Anna was very matter of fact. ‘They don’t have much in the way of weapons and if they’re caught, they’re tortured and shot.’

Still, this was the most heartening news I’d heard in a long time. I couldn’t wait to go home and tell my family. I was sure this would lift their spirits. Even Mama’s.

Returning home I found Adam talking with Janusch at the table. Both boys’ eyes lit up when I repeated what Anna and Dorishka had told me. I hadn’t seen a look like that from Adam since Alex had died.

‘I’ve heard a few whispers about the resistance,’ Janusch said. ‘Not much.’

‘Where?’ Adam asked.

Janusch shrugged. ‘Here and there.’

‘Well, I know very little, but this is news worth celebrating,’ Papa declared. He set off for one of the bakeries in Nowolipki Street at the edge of the Little Ghetto. He told us he would buy the best bread he could lay his hands on.

Just the thought of that bread made my mouth water. I had learned to live with hunger, but some days were worse than others. Sometimes that aching, empty gnawing in my belly meant I could barely think of anything else.

Mama turned on the stove, using the smallest amount of coal she could, to heat up the remains of the stew she had made.

‘We won’t touch it until Papa comes home, that won’t be long,’ she said. ‘But we can enjoy the smell. That will be enough for now.’

An hour went by, then two. By now Mama was beside herself with worry. ‘Something’s wrong,’ she kept muttering over and over.

‘He might have been forced to hide, and wait somewhere, Mama,’ Adam said. ‘You know that happens to all of us often enough.’

‘I’ll go,’ I said.

‘We’ll both go!’ Mama was suddenly forceful.

Leaving Adam and Janusch with strict instructions to look after Ryzia and not open the door to anyone apart from us, Mama and I pulled on our threadbare coats and set off.

We arrived outside the bakery a short time after, without running into any problems. But once we arrived, it was obvious what had happened.

I was used to awful sights, even the sight of dead bodies in the street. There was so much death in the ghetto every day, people dying from starvation, cold, disease. And many others who were the victim of brutal, random shootings by Nazi soldiers.

On the ground outside the bakery were the dark shapes of about thirty crumpled bodies.

A man was bent over the body of an elderly woman, gently cradling her head. He looked up at us.

‘They shot all of them,’ he sobbed. ‘They were just waiting to buy bread.’

Mama stood like a statue, her face still and expressionless.

The man sobbed and then shook his fist violently.

I couldn’t speak. I walked down the length of the queue of bodies, looking for my father. I found him, right near the door of the bakery. His arm lay protectively over a woman lying next to him, as if he had attempted to shield her, even as they both faced certain death. His face showed no signs of his last moments of terror, and I could see a small, round bullet wound in the centre of his forehead. In my grief I found enough strength to be grateful that he must have died instantly, that he didn’t suffer.

I knelt beside him, and took hold of his hand, weeping silently, saying goodbye to my poor, dear, wise, kind Papa.