When I was little, Tato told me the story of a frog that was put in a pot of cool water. The pot was put on the stove to simmer, but it heated so gradually that the frog didn’t realize it was being cooked until it was too late. That’s how I felt about the Commandant and his plans for Viteretz. Each of his actions was worse than the last, but then we adjusted.
Gnawing hunger was now normal. People forced into sudden heavy labour was normal. “Subhumans” killed on a whim was normal.
We usually started back to school in September, but the Nazis believed that we “subhumans” only needed enough education to understand their orders, so the schools were closed to us beyond grade four. Anya, the priest’s wife, taught us secretly, but we still had heavy labour and all our chores to do, so learning became hard to fit in.
It made me sick to look at the Commandant or his wife, but whenever I was working in their house I pasted a smile onto my face, dusting and polishing the pretty things I knew they had stolen from their victims. I listened in on conversations whenever I could, hoping to find out something that might help us stay alive.
Our old school had been repaired and painted by labour groups, and was now used by the children of the Germans and Volksdeutche who administered our town. In the nice weather we’d often see them in their Hitler Youth uniforms singing Nazi songs or marching down the street. Marga was a student there. I’d sometimes pass her coming home in the afternoon, looking uncomfortable with her hair twisted into tight blond braids and her uniform so heavily starched that the collar made a red mark on her neck.
The warehouse beside the school was the supply depot for the Volksdeutche Welfare Agency, where the food that had been taken from us was stored. It was also where the clothing and items taken from the executed were kept. As I watched endless wagonloads of goods arriving at that warehouse, it made me wonder if this same thing was happening in every town and city that had been conquered by the Nazis. I dreamed of breaking in and opening the doors wide, so that the stolen food and goods could be given to those who needed them so desperately.
The Nazis acted as if we needed lots of police, yet it seemed that their job was to terrorize us, not to provide law and order.
The police who most frightened me were the ones in grey-green uniforms. They came from Germany and they had guns. It was police like these who had executed Borys and our insurgents. There were uniformed Volksdeutche as well, who also had guns. And Nazis had formed local groups of auxiliary police, so we had Polish, Ukrainian and Jewish police who wore arm bands instead of uniforms. Some of the Ukrainian and Polish police carried guns, but the Jewish police didn’t — only batons.
Even walking on the street became hazardous. Once I was coming home from the Commandant’s when an elderly Volksdeutche man — I think he was the new postmaster — shook his cane and cursed at two young Polish women as they walked past him. I didn’t know either woman’s name, but I recognized one as a bakery clerk. The other looked as if she could be the clerk’s younger sister. Both kept their eyes cast down as they passed the man, as if trying to ignore his harsh words. A Nazi policeman was passing just then and he stopped, looked from the women to the old man and asked, “What did they do?”
“That one, she’s a traitor,” said the man, pointing at the older of the two.
The policeman pulled out his gun and shot her in the skull. She crumpled to the ground.
I stood, frozen in place, as the younger woman knelt and cradled her sister’s bloodied head. “Why did you shoot her?” she shouted at the policeman. “She did nothing wrong.” The policeman raised his gun again and shot her in the head too.
I thought maybe the man who had accused the woman would be horrified at the violence he had caused, but when I looked at his face, all I saw was a satisfied smirk.
The policeman looked at the man, then at me — the other witness to what he’d just done. He raised his gun and aimed it at my head. “Leave.”
In a haze of shock, I walked right past the two dead sisters and the smirking man. When I got home, Mama held me in her arms as I wept. “I didn’t help them, Mama,” I sobbed. “I just stood there, watching.”
“What is it you thought you could do?” she asked. “The women were already dead. And the policeman very nearly shot you.”
Her words didn’t make me feel any better. I went to the bedroom and ran my fingers over Mama and Tato’s wedding portrait. Tato stared out at me, and I felt the disappointment in his eyes. He had wanted me to be brave, to do what was right, but instead I had walked away, not even saying anything to the policeman.
I clasped the portrait to my heart and lay down on the bed, not to sleep, but just to think. Mama was right — I knew that. If I had intervened, I would have been shot. But there had to be a way to fight back. We were doing what we could, but it wasn’t enough.
* * *
It was nearly dusk on the last Monday of September and we needed more water. “Go with your sister, Krystia,” said Mama. “I don’t like either of you being out alone this late.”
As we carried the water pail to the pump, I glanced over at Maria. It’s funny how you can live with someone, even sleep in the same bed, but not pay attention to the subtle changes that happen over time. I hadn’t really looked at Maria since the Hunger Plan had started. I still thought of her as my chubby-cheeked baby sister, but her face now looked almost gaunt. I glanced down at our two hands side by side, holding the water pail. They looked like leather on bone.
“Do you feel the hunger?” I asked her.
“Not usually,” Maria said. “Except at night. I guess it’s because there’s nothing to take my mind off it then. I get up and drink some water. That usually helps.”
“I wish there were something we could do to change this situation.”
“Me too,” said Maria. “But I feel so powerless.”
When we got back with the pail, I was surprised to see Dolik, Leon and Nathan just coming home from the labour they’d been assigned. Maria chatted with Nathan, and I met up with Dolik before he went into his house. “The police kept you working for extra hours today.”
“It’s to make up for time we’re taking off. Tomorrow at sunset, Yom Kippur begins,” he said, running his fingers through dirt-encrusted hair. “We’ve been given tomorrow and Wednesday off.”
I knew that Yom Kippur was the holiest day of the year for Jews, and that it was mostly spent at synagogue. “It’s encouraging that the Commandant has given you time for Yom Kippur,” I said. “Maybe things will start to get better now.”
But the next morning, another poster was nailed to the church door. This one read: All Jewish males are ordered to report to the town square at noon today.
Most people who weren’t Jewish stayed away from the square at noon, for fear of being targeted by mistake, but I had to go. I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else while the fate of my friends was at hand. Mama felt the same way and so did Maria, so we stood together with the Kitais and the Segals.
When the Commandant walked through the crowd, he paused, his eyes on Mama. His brows creased as if in thought, but he said nothing. He continued to the centre of the square.
“It has come to my attention,” he said, “that the Jews of Viteretz have been hoarding gold. I hereby demand one kilogram of gold to be collected from them.”
This statement was met by shocked silence. The Commandant paced up and down, then stopped again. “Where is the head of my Judenrat?”
There was movement in the crowd just behind us and Shimon Cohen stepped forward.
“Herr Commandant,” he said, his eyes fixed on the toes of Commandant Hermann’s leather boots. “We are very poor in this town. I cannot imagine there being a kilogram of gold in this entire region, let alone Viteretz itself.”
“I don’t believe you,” said the Commandant. “Now, Mr. Cohen, please have the forty finest Jewish men of Viteretz step forward.”
Mr. Cohen’s eyes widened at the order, and at first he said nothing, but I could imagine the thoughts that were going through his mind. Everyone who had been singled out in this way had ended up being murdered. Should Mr. Cohen really call up the finest Jewish men? But if he didn’t do exactly as the Commandant ordered, would the results be even worse?
Mr. Cohen’s body was shaking as he stumbled out some names. As the men came forward, even I knew that he had spared the finest. He hadn’t named Mr. Segal, and he hadn’t named the rabbi. The forty men he did call to the square were good citizens, but they were mostly elderly, and more than one seemed to be in very poor health.
“These do not look like your finest, Mr. Cohen,” said the Commandant, as he strutted in front of the forty doomed men. “Why, you didn’t even call up Mr. Baruch, who is on the Judenrat with you.”
He scanned the crowd again, then his eyes lit up. “There you are. Mr. Baruch, please come and join these fine men.”
The crowd parted and Mr. Baruch reluctantly came forward.
“No need to look so frightened,” said the Commandant as he stepped in front of each man and gazed into his eyes. “You are just my hostages.”
He gestured to a row of armed policemen who stood at attention at the back of the square. “Take these men to the city jail.”
The policemen surrounded the forty-one men and escorted them away.
“Now, Mr. Cohen,” said the Commandant. “I will release those men once you have given me the kilogram of gold. You have until tomorrow, at sunset.”
I don’t know how he did it, but somehow Mr. Cohen collected the one kilogram of gold. People gave up their wedding rings, family heirlooms, cherished old coins. I was desperate to help, but we had no gold.
Mr. Cohen turned it over to the Commandant — all of it.
At dusk the next day, as Yom Kippur began, the men were loaded onto trucks, driven to the outskirts of town —
— and shot.