In the Mouth of the Wolf (13 page)

When Mrs. Roemer was in her eighth month, an old friend of the colonel's came from Prague for a visit. Mrs. Roemer cooked an exquisite dinner although it was foolish, not to say dangerous, for her to be out of bed in her condition. I stayed long past quitting time to help her serve and clean up afterward. By then it was very late. Since Mrs. Roemer was exhausted, Colonel Roemer and his friend decided to continue the party at the officers' canteen back at headquarters. I only lived a few blocks from the barracks, and the two men volunteered to drop me off on the way. As we were driving back, I overheard Colonel Roemer tell his friend about a young mistress he had in town. They were going there for another party after they dropped me off. I was shocked. How could he go to another woman after his poor wife worked so hard to entertain
his
friend? Such vile, selfish behavior was beyond me. But I was only the maid. I kept my mouth shut.

The next day when I came to work, I found Mrs. Roemer frantic. Where was Kurt? He hadn't come home. She was so upset I was afraid she might have a miscarriage. I hurriedly calmed her down. “It's nothing,” I said. “Don't worry. I used to clean up those staff offices. Believe me, once a party gets going, it can go on all night.” I told a little white lie—but for her sake, not his.

The Nazis always stressed the need to produce strong healthy children. For that reason a special course in infant and child care was offered to all German expectant mothers. Since I was going to be responsible for the baby's care, special arrangements were made for me to attend in Mrs. Roemer's place.

Sitting in a classroom with the pampered wives of high
German officers and officials was an interesting experience. It was an excellent course. We learned all about babies: how to diaper them; how to hold them; how to feed and burp them. We also learned how to prepare formula. This was especially important for me, for while most women were encouraged to breast-feed, Mrs. Roemer was simply not up to it.

It was easy to see what was happening. Upper-class women did not raise their children themselves. I was going to be the nanny, not just for this baby but for all the other little Roemers I was sure the colonel had planned. By enrolling me in the course he was making certain I knew what to do. Slowly but surely I was becoming a very important member of that household, which was fine with me. I had the perfect job and, in Mrs. Roemer, the perfect employer. I only hoped it would last.

Gestapo on My Trail

 

 

      The summer of 1943 passed, and that beautiful season the Poles call
babie lato
came. It was the last breath of summer, the brief final outpouring of warmth and light before the coming of fall. It is a time of year whose moments stand out clearer than any other, perhaps because they are inevitably tinged with sadness. The gardens and meadows, so fragrant and richly hued, will soon be barren, chilled by the icy pallor of the winter sun. During this season I find my moods constantly changing. One day I am exhilarated and alive, bursting with hope and laughter. The next finds me very blue.

I was still living on Ditla Street, sharing an apartment with three other tenants: the old landlady, her young grandson, and another old woman who worked as a laundress in a hotel. During this time I received letters from Piotrków regularly—from my father, from Mayer, from Renia. They came by way of a sympathetic Polish girl who picked them up in the ghetto and mailed them outside. Since the laundress and the landlady were both illiterate, I felt no need to hide my mail. I kept my letters in my nightstand drawer, and every night, whenever I felt that aching loneliness, I took them out and read them over and over again, line by precious line. I really didn't have to read them. I knew each one by heart. Still, the simple act of reading just a few words or even holding the paper in my hand was enough to make me feel better. Not happy. Those letters were far from happy. But even so, they were a connection, however frail and thin, with my other life, my other self that still existed.

I had other papers in my drawer as well: my medical insurance book, a few photos of myself for official documents, and a picture of Mr. and Mrs. Banasz and their dog. Not that I felt especially sentimental about them, but in that picture they both looked extremely Polish and I used it as part of my cover. I told people they were my aunt and uncle.

I am a very fastidious person by nature, and it bothers me when things are not where they belong. That drawer was a mess. Letters, photographs, documents were all strewn about. I knew I ought to straighten it up, but somehow I never got around to doing it. Still, it bothered me. If nothing else, I knew I should at least do something about those letters. It was foolish to leave them lying around. I should either destroy them or hide them somewhere where they would be
safe. One Thursday night I decided not to put it off any longer. I sorted out the letters and photographs, locked them up in my suitcase, and put the suitcase in the closet. All that was left in the drawer was my medical insurance book.

The next day—Friday—was payday. Mrs. Roemer always let me off early on Friday so I could get back to the barracks in time to pick up my pay. I am a person of regular habits. I am that way now, and I was that way then. A person could set his watch by me. At 6:00
A.M
. I went to work. At 5:00
P.M
. I came home. At 6:30 I visited with the neighbors. And at 9:00 I went to bed. Spring, summer, fall, winter—it never varied. But after collecting my pay on this particular Friday, I had a vague sensation of uneasiness, a sensation hard to describe except as a sharpened awareness of myself and my surroundings. I couldn't imagine why that should be.

It was a day like any other. I was walking my regular route along the Vistula and about to turn down Ditla Street to go home when suddenly I had a strong premonition—almost a warning—that it wasn't time to go home. Not yet. I continued along the river thinking to myself, “Today I think I'll walk all the way to the bridge just to see how long it takes to get there.” I got to the bridge and walked across to the far side. By then my feet were tired, so I sat down by the riverbank to rest. As I sat there, catching my breath, I saw the spiders spinning their webs among the wild roses. In my mind, too, I spun a web, one of glistening sunlight, to catch these last precious moments of summer. For a while I watched the insects at work. Then I got up and continued walking.

I remembered my family and friends, the love and happiness we shared, turning those golden memories over and over again like the pages of a well-loved book. “Where are
they all now?” I wondered. “Are they even alive? What has happened to them? What will happen to me?”

When I finally stopped and looked around to see where I was, I found that I had walked all the way out to Plaszów, one of the city's suburbs. It was still light out, but I had lost all track of time. I glanced at my watch. Was it seven o'clock already? I had no idea it was that late. I turned around and hurried home.

As I came down Ditla Street, I saw the landlady's grandson standing on the balcony waving to me. “Miss Wanda! Miss Wanda!” he called out. “A soldier was just here! He was looking for you!”

“Really?” I wasn't too concerned. It was probably someone from the barracks. I shrugged and went inside. The landlady was waiting for me. I could see she was very upset.

“Miss Wanda, where have you been all this time? A soldier was here waiting for you. He was here from two o'clock until six. He kept asking me when you were coming home. I told him you always come at five, but you didn't come. Where were you?”

That was none of her business. “What did he look like?” I asked.

“He had a steel helmet, and he wore a black uniform. Oh, he also left this note for you.” She gave me the note. I opened it. It read: “Will Fräulein Wanda Gajda please come at eight o'clock tomorrow morning to Room 107 at the Geheimespolizei-SD office on Montelupich Square?”

Geheimespolizei-SD! A chill ran up my spine. This was no routine assignment from the barracks. It was the Gestapo, the dreaded secret police. I could imagine why they might want to speak with me. However, I decided not to make a move until I had a better picture of the situation. I took the note to my friends on the second floor. I explained that a
soldier had come to my apartment while I was away and asked my landlady all sorts of questions about me. Before leaving, he gave her this note.

“Wait a minute,” my neighbor said. “I know a policeman who lives in this building. Let's show the note to him. He'll know what it's all about.” So together we went to the policeman's apartment and showed him the note. He looked at it briefly and scratched his head.

“One-oh-seven? That's the Political Department. What do they want with you?”

What he didn't realize, but what I knew perfectly well, was that Jews came under the Political Section. I needed all my self-control to keep from panicking. How the secret police learned about me I didn't know. Perhaps they cracked an underground cell, or maybe someone at work turned me in. There were a hundred possibilities, but all that mattered now was that I vanish as soon as possible. I ran upstairs and grabbed one of my two suitcases from the closet. Fortunately they were both packed for just such an emergency. My neighbor promised to watch it while I went back for the other one, but my landlady wouldn't give it to me.

“Nothing doing!” she shouted. “What if the police come back and say I let you get away with everything? I'm not going to jail for you!” She wouldn't let me take my featherbed or pillow either. What could I do? There wasn't time to argue. I left everything and ran.

What now? Terror twisted my insides into knots, making it hard to breathe. My palms were wet, and my heart was as heavy as my suitcase. “Don't lose your head. Keep a grip on yourself,” I kept thinking over and over again. I did, but it wasn't easy. I thought I had finally reached a haven with a good apartment and a perfect job. Now the running and hiding were about to start all over again.

Even though I was in grave danger, I knew that if I could keep my wits I had a chance. The secret police hadn't caught me yet. If I could get through the next three days—if I could collect my thoughts, assess the situation, and make some alternate plans—I knew I would be all right. But I had to have those three days. The working hours were no problem. I doubted the police would find me at Mrs. Roemer's because the neighbors only knew that I worked “somewhere in the military.” But where would I sleep now that I could no longer go back to my apartment? I had one idea, at least for that night. While I was working in the kitchen, I made friends with another civilian worker—Mr. Kowalski. He and his wife invited me over to their apartment several times, and I often slipped them vegetables and other foodstuffs from the kitchen. Now that I was working for Mrs. Roemer I didn't see them as much, but we were still friends. I decided to pay the Kowalskis a visit.

They were delighted to see me. We sat down and began talking, and soon it was eight o'clock. I knew perfectly well that curfew was at eight, but I let the conversation continue until a quarter to nine. Then I suddenly looked at my watch and cried, “Jesus Maria! I was having such fun I forgot all about the time. It's way after curfew! How am I going to get home?”

“Wanda, don't worry!” they laughed. “You'll spend the night here.” Which is just what I intended to do.

By next morning my plans were set. I had to get out of Piotrków—preferably out of Poland. I could have simply disappeared, but I didn't want to do that. I wanted the break to be clean, without any loose ends to possibly trip me up in the future. The easiest way to do that was to volunteer for labor service in Germany.

Mrs. Roemer once asked me about my family. I told
her I was an orphan, that my mother died when I was small, and that my father subsequently drank himself to death. That was the reason I never wanted anything to do with liquor, having personally experienced the damage it could do. As for the rest of my family, my only relatives were a younger brother and sister still living in Piotrków. My sister was married to a policeman.

When I came to work in the morning, I asked Mrs. Roemer if I could have the next three days off. I explained that I had just received a letter from my sister. My brother was in trouble, and I had to go home immediately. Mrs. Roemer raised no objection. In fact she told me to take more time if I thought I needed it, especially since I hadn't used any of the vacation time due me. I thanked her and said good-bye, promising to return in three days. It was all I could do to keep from crying. I loved this job, and I adored Mrs. Roemer. Yet in my heart I knew I was saying good-bye for the last time. I was never coming back.

I took the next train to Częstochowa and went directly to the Central Labor Office. There was a special section for Poles applying for labor service. I had all my documents ready. There was a long line, so I had to wait. My turn came shortly before noon. Stepping up to the desk, I said to the clerk, “I'd like to go to Germany. Do you have any good contracts available?”

“As a matter of fact we do,” he said. “A whole batch of new ones just came in this morning. The only problem is the boss went out to lunch a minute ago, and we can't process you until he returns. Can you come by at one?” I was about to leave when he called me back. “Tell you what. As long as you're here, let me look over your papers.”

I handed over my documents for him to examine. He was leafing through them when all of sudden he exclaimed.
“You came here from Kraków? What in the world for? The main Central Labor Office is
in
Kraków. They have all the best jobs there. What are you doing here?”

It was a slip, and I had to cover it quickly before he figured out that I might be on the run. “Oh, it's a long story,” I said, snatching back my papers. “I'll come back after lunch and tell you all about it.” But I never went back. Instead I got on the next train and continued on to Piotrków, where I spent the next two nights with Mrs. Banasz. When I felt sure of myself, I went back to Kraków, applied for a contract at the Central Labor Office there, and got a job in a factory in Leipzig.

As I was going through the process of filling out different forms and undergoing various physical examinations, I struck up a conversation with one of the young women waiting in line with me. Everyone is naturally a little nervous in such situations, so it's fairly easy to become friends with a stranger in a very short period of time. We went through all the procedures together, and by the time they were over, anyone who saw us would have thought we were lifelong companions. As we were sitting in the waiting room waiting for the final word on when our tickets would arrive, the supervisor of the women's section of the Central Labor Office came over and sat down next to us. He was a Pole, not a German, and he seemed friendly enough. He asked if we were excited about going to Germany together.

“We're not really going together,” we told him. The other woman was going to work on a farm with her sister, and I was going to that factory in Leipzig.

“You mean you just met? You didn't know each other before?”

We told him we just met today for the first time. He thought that was interesting. Then he turned to me. “I hate
to tell you this, but Leipzig is a very bad place. You'll probably end up working in a munitions factory, and those installations are being bombed all the time. You're not really going to Leipzig, are you?”

“Yes,” I insisted. “That's what they told me.”

“Tell you what. When you finish up here, come over to the main office and see me.”

“What for? I thought I was all done?”

“That's true,” he agreed. “But it's just that you seem like a nice person, and I'd like to do you a favor. Take it from me. You don't want to go to Leipzig. Let me see if I can't get you a better job.”

How could I argue? For all I knew, perhaps he was right about Leipzig. In any case the secret police were combing the city for me right now. My only chance was to get to Germany…and soon! After the Labor Service officials finished our processing, I went around to the main office. Sure enough, the supervisor was expecting me. He showed me into his office, asked me to sit down, and began going through my papers.

“Hmmm. It says here you have a job in Piotrków working for the SS. Then why do you want to go to Germany?” I had a story all prepared. “It's because of a broken heart. My fiancé and I were supposed to be married in August, but just at the last minute he ran off and left me. I've been humiliated. I simply can't take living in this town anymore. I want to get as far away as I can.” I took out my handkerchief to wipe my eyes, but I was watching his reactions the whole time. He nodded sympathetically, but I could tell from his look that it wasn't working. He was on to me. He hadn't called me here just be get me another job—he suspected that I was Jewish. Very well, then. Let's see
who would outwit whom. To my surprise I wasn't frightened at all. No. I was angry. How dare he suspect me! I hadn't come this far to be caught now. The next move was his. I waited to see what he'd do.