Any hope I had brought back from the 777 islands vanished the next morning. The flags were gone. Our comrades at Muranowski Square had been defeated. Fighters were being killed everywhere in the ghetto. We couldn’t stage any more massive attacks now. We weren’t strong enough and had less and less ammunition. Also, the SS had changed tactics. Rather than marching into the ghetto with troops in formation, they now sneaked through the streets in small units.
We switched to guerrilla warfare and attacked SS patrols herding Jews to the Umschlagplatz. Sometimes we managed to overpower the soldiers and give the Jews a few more hours to live; sometimes they fought back and we lost comrades. Avi was badly wounded in the leg by grenade shrapnel; we only just managed to drag him back to safety.
I got used to the fighting on a daily basis, the danger, even killing and the fact that after each mission fewer people returned. But the fact that I survived from day to day was something I could never get used to. At the beginning I had felt exhilarated, but soon I was simply exhausted.
Our leaders hoped that we would be able to inspire the Poles to join us, and published an appeal for a united struggle, which they smuggled out of the ghetto. But the Poles simply ignored it. Some Poles watched the Jew hunt from the windows of their houses close to the ghetto wall. As if this was a modern version of the Roman circus. They would probably have applauded if the SS had sent in hungry lions, too.
Instead, the SS was using tracker dogs. When they weren’t busy setting houses on fire, the German soldiers used the dogs to search for bunkers. They were supported by collaborators. Even now, there were still people willing to betray us because they believed they could save their own skins that way. Even children were sent out by the soldiers to search for the bunkers. They were given bits of food as a reward.
In the crammed bunkers, the people were as quiet as mice all day long. No one dared even speak or cough.
Ben Redhead, Amos, and I were on our way back from a gunfight near Leszno Street, where we had not managed to take out a single German and had wasted valuable bullets, to the bunker at 18 Miła Street.
“Look,” Ben Redhead whispered as we reached the cellar steps, and pointed to a boy with a flat cap who seemed to be searching for something in the cellar.
“He’s looking for somewhere to hide,” I whispered while we watched him from the stairs.
“The question is, is he on his own or is he working for the SS,” Amos whispered back. “One block away, there’s a patrol.”
“He’s found the bunker,” Ben Redhead said.
The boy stood directly in front of the bricks we used to disguise the entrance to the bunker. But he didn’t go in; he hesitated.
“He’s going to sell us out,” Amos said.
I wanted him to wait a minute before he judged him. If the boy made a move to go away, then we could be sure that the SS had sent him. But Amos didn’t wait and called, “Hey, kid!”
The boy looked dismayed. Not like someone who was just looking for a place to hide and had been surprised by a friend. He looked more like someone who was about to betray a secret and had been caught by the enemy.
We went down the stairs and stopped in front of him.
Slowly he put his hands up.
“What … what are we going to do with him?” Ben Redhead wanted to know.
“Shoot him,” Amos said.
The boy went white.
“You don’t mean that,” I said.
“There’s no choice,” Amos insisted, and took out his gun.
“Of course there is.”
“He’ll betray us.”
“You don’t know that!”
The boy was too terrified to defend himself. “Please…,” he begged.
But the fact that he didn’t defend himself didn’t look good.
Amos pointed his gun at the boy.
Who couldn’t speak.
“Are you completely mad?” I yelled at Amos. “You can’t murder a child!”
Amos didn’t say anything. His hand was shaking, but he pressed the gun to the boy’s head.
“This makes us as bad as the Germans!”
Amos’s hand was shaking violently now. There was sweat on his forehead.
“If I don’t, then everyone in the bunker will die.”
“We don’t know that!”
“Can you take the risk, Mira?”
I couldn’t, of course, but I wanted to so badly that I said, “We’ll just have to.”
The boy started to cry silently and wet himself in fear.
“What kind of human do you want to be?” I asked Amos frantically. “Someone who kills children?”
Amos battled with himself. There were tears in his eyes. His hand was shaking like the hand of a sick old man.
“Amos…,” I begged, “if we want to stay human…”
Amos was crying now and finally lowered the gun.
The boy started sobbing in relief.
I started to cry, too.
I wanted to hug them both. Amos. And the boy.
Then a shot rang out.
The boy slumped to the floor at our feet.
Amos and I stared at Ben Redhead, shocked, who was holding his rifle and stuttered, “He … he … w … would h … have b … b … betrayed us all!”
All three of us started to cry.