On the eighteenth of January 1943, when the Germans arrived to finally liquidate us all, it was minus four degrees and the streets were covered in snow. In the early morning, Amos, Esther, and I were standing in the freezing kitchen, printing a leaflet on the printing press, which we had taken days to repair. It was a call for all the Jewish inhabitants left in the ghetto to fight to death. Actually, Esther and Amos did the printing. I tried to keep my fingers warm by rubbing them together. Suddenly, Mordechai Anielewicz stormed into the room. We were all surprised. The leader of the ŻOB never came without letting us know in advance. We noticed that his slender face was very pale this morning. He was normally unfazed by anything. In his midtwenties, he was one of the oldest members of the resistance; he organized the fighters, encouraged us, urged us on, and made us seem far greater than we really were. When he spoke, Mordechai could always convince us that we really would be able to achieve something with our old guns and give the Jews back the dignity they had lost.
Mordechai didn’t need a uniform to lead us. He wore shabby knickerbockers and a gray jacket. He simply had far more energy than the rest of us. Even more than Esther, who I looked up to because she worked so hard and dealt with her grief in her dreams.
“Why are you here?” Esther asked Mordechai.
I would never have dared to speak to him. Although he treated us all as if we were his equals, there was no way I would ever feel on a par with this man.
Esther, on the other hand, wasn’t only one of the few women who led a resistance group, she also knew Mordechai from before the war. Both of them had been members of Hashomer Hatzair then, too, and the group had gone on summer camps at lakes and even by the sea to be prepared for a life in Palestine.
Were the two of them ever a couple? I wondered. In the days before there was a resistance movement, which was all that mattered to them now, love included?
“The mass deportations have started again,” Mordechai explained at once. “The Germans have set up roadblocks already.”
This was a shock. We had heard that the SS was hunting for hidden Jews in the Polish part of the city and had assumed that they were concentrating on that, and that we still had some time left to get prepared in the ghetto.
“Anyone with a work permit won’t be taken, they say. But no one believes it. Everyone is hiding.”
No one was stupid enough to believe the Germans and their promises any longer.
“The Germans are searching the houses. Anyone found will be sent to the Umschlagplatz. Anyone who puts up a fight or simply takes too long will be shot.”
“What are we going to do?” Esther asked. She understood faster than I did that Mordechai hadn’t come just to give us a report of what was happening. We were the group of fighters closest. Mordechai was planning something and wanted it to happen as soon as possible.
“Take your weapons.”
“What?” I couldn’t stop myself from saying.
Esther gave me an angry look. I shut up at once.
“We are going to join the people being led to the Umschlagplatz,” Mordechai said. “And on my command we’ll draw our weapons and start shooting.”
Amos nodded determinedly.
Esther said, “I’ll get the others.”
And I … stood paralyzed.
This was Masada.
Today I was going to die.
Kill someone.
I did my best to hide my fear, as all our group gathered round the printing press and Mordechai asked, “Who is coming with me?”
Everyone lifted their hands. Me too. This was what we had been waiting for. To fight the Germans. It was a matter of honor to be allowed to take part. I only hoped that no one noticed how much my hand was shaking.
“There’s a problem,” Esther said in a businesslike way as if she were talking about a problem with the printing press. Why was she so much more composed than I was? We both had nothing left to lose.
“What problem?” Amos asked impatiently before Mordechai could do so. Amos was yearning to go out and fight no matter what our leader’s exact plans were. Assuming he actually had any.
“We’ve only got five pistols and one hand grenade. The other hand grenades we got from Breul’s group are no use,” Esther said.
“I’m definitely going,” Amos said, reacting fastest to the fact that there was no point in sending people out unarmed.
“Me too,” Mordechai said. He wasn’t a leader who would let people die without him. He would lead them, even on a heroic suicide mission.
Michal raised his hand. Miriam, too.
“Don’t…,” Michal asked her, but Miriam answered, “I go where my husband goes.”
There was just one gun left. So only one more person from our group would be able to go. Esther was the logical choice. She was our leader. It was so obvious that she didn’t need to say she would be the fifth person, she just asked, “So what is the plan?”
For a second I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to join the fight, no matter how it would appear. I would stay alive for a few more hours, a few days.
But the next moment I felt ashamed for feeling like that. In front of the others. And remembering everyone who had died. Why did I hang on to my ghostly existence? Just to fantasize about talking rabbits, Mirror Men, and Hannah each night?
This would have been an opportunity to do something meaningful for once, to give my life and death—and Hannah’s—some kind of purpose. But I was too much of a coward to volunteer as quickly as Amos, Miriam, and Michal. And so they would go off to fight together with Mordechai and Esther.
But then Mordechai said, “You have to stay, Esther.”
“But…,” she wanted to protest.
“This group will continue and needs its leader,” he interrupted her with so much authority, Esther couldn’t disagree. He obviously assumed that everyone who came with him was going to die. Before Mordechai could ask again who else would join him, I put up my hand.