In the Mouth of the Wolf (14 page)

For a while he didn't say anything. Then he leaned back in his chair and absentmindedly began whistling “Ave Maria.” As if only Catholics knew “Ave Maria”! It was a well-known melody—Mayer used to play it on his violin. This fellow would have to do a lot better than that to catch me. Suddenly he stopped whistling and leaned forward. “Strange. I forgot what I was whistling.”

“You mean ‘Ave Maria'?” And I began singing it for him.

“Ah, yes. That's right. ‘Ave Maria.' How could I forget?” We talked about that and other things for a while. He told me he could understand why I felt I had to get away from Kraków. He, too, had left his hometown for a similar reason. “You know, you're like a Jewish girl,” he suddenly said right in the middle of the conversation. “You're quick. You think fast.”

My life depended on my reply, but I was ready. Here was where all the dirty, vulgar talk I heard in the kitchen finally stood me in good stead. I used it now, and I used it well.

“Well, to tell you the truth,” I laughed. “The kids in school used to tease me about that all the time. You see, my mother once worked as a maid in a Jewish house. How do I know who ‘made' me? My baptismal certificate says that “Gajda” is my father's name, but who knows?”

He laughed, too. Then the door behind us opened and another man came in. The supervisor introduced us. “Meet Miss Gajda. She has applied to go to Germany. She'll probably
be leaving in a few days.” The other man muttered a few polite words, then turned to the supervisor, shook his head, and left as quietly as he entered.

The supervisor turned back to me and said: “Ever since I started working here, I've seen so many Jews come through this office that I wouldn't be surprised if there were more Jews in Germany now than there are in Piotrków. That fellow I just introduced you to is a Ukrainian. He and I work together, and believe me, there isn't a Jew in the world he can't sniff out! Just to give you an idea, a few weeks ago a fellow came in—tall, blond, blue eyes—a sailor in the Merchant Marine. He said he wanted to go to Germany to work, but we smelled him out right away. I knew he was a Jew, but I didn't let on. The night before they leave, the workers sleep here in a guarded barracks. I made sure this sailor was assigned to a bunk on the third floor. I went to him that night and told him I knew what was up. Did he plead! He got down on his knees and begged me not to give him away. He gave me every zloty he had, his watch, even his rings. I told him not to worry. I promised to take care of his papers and send them on through. But that dirty Jew didn't trust me. When I went up the next morning, the window was open and he was gone. Imagine! From three stories up—gone! How do you like that?” Not one wisp of emotion crossed my face.

“I don't know how he does it, but that Ukrainian never makes a mistake. We've been working together for over a year now, and believe me, none of them gets by. He spots 'em just like that! They can't fool him!”

I shrugged. “Is that all? You brought me here just to tell me stories? I thought you were going to get me another job.”

“Unfortunately no,” he apologized. “I may as well tell
you the truth. I had my suspicions about you. It started when you told me that you just met that other girl today. That's how those Jews operate. Whenever they're in a crowd, they always try to latch onto someone so they won't be noticed. I invited you over here so my partner could have a look at you. But he tells me you're clean.”

“You bet,” I said as I got up to leave. “I'm no Jew.”

 

A close call, but I didn't dare rest. Now my immediate challenge was to get through the next three days. By then my tickets would arrive, and I would be off to Germany. I worked at Mrs. Roemer's during the day and spent the first night with a girl I knew. I spent the second with the illiterate Ukrainian from the kitchen, the one with the baby. She tried to talk me into moving in with her permanently, but I wanted no part of that. Besides, in another day I would be gone.

On the morning of the third day I checked in at the Central Labor Office. Sure enough, the final papers and tickets had arrived. One by one the clerk called out the names of the volunteers in alphabetical order, and each one stepped forward to receive his or her contract. I waited for my name, but the clerk skipped right over it. What happened? There must be some mistake.

“No mistake,” the officials told me. My contract had simply not been approved.

“But why?” I asked.

They explained. On my application I listed the SS as my present employer. The needs of the SS took precedence over every other department, so before I could be cleared to go to Germany, Colonel Roemer, my present employer, had to release me. He refused. What was I to do now? I felt utterly lost and helpless. Pulling myself together, I decided
the best thing to do was go back and have a talk with him. Perhaps I could persuade him to let me go.

“Colonel Roemer, why are you doing this to me?” I pleaded. “I was all set to go to Germany. I filled out all the forms and passed the physical. All I needed was my contract. But you won't let me go. Now what am I going to do? My landlady already rented out my bed to someone else. I have no place to live, no place to sleep. Where am I going to stay?”

“I don't understand you at all,” he replied, quite flustered. “Anyone would think I was doing you a favor. Why on earth do you want to go to Germany? Don't you know what those factories are like? Aren't you happy here?”

“I'm very happy here,” I answered. “But that's not the point. It has nothing to do with you or Mrs. Roemer. I have to leave for personal reasons.” I explained that I had had a big quarrel with my sister while I was in Piotrków and simply wanted to get as far away as possible. I declined to discuss it further.

Colonel Roemer threw up his hands. “Maybe my wife can talk some sense into you. I certainly cannot!”

Shortly afterward Mrs. Roemer approached me and asked what was wrong. I told her my sister's husband, the policeman, made advances to me while I was staying in their house. My sister became very jealous and accused me of trying to steal him from her. I was so shocked and hurt that now I wanted to run away from it all and disappear. The best way to do that was to go to Germany.

“I understand,” said Mrs. Roemer, “but I doubt that running away is the answer. Besides, I need you here. What would I do without you, now with the baby coming? As for finding a place to live, you won't have to. Kurt and I will be moving to another apartment soon. This one is too
far from the center of town. The new apartment has a maid's room just behind the kitchen. You can have that room if you like and live with us.”

I agreed reluctantly—at least on the surface. Inside I was overjoyed. Mrs. Roemer didn't realize it, but she just handed me my life. Especially since I knew a few facts about bureaucratic procedure. All Poles were required to register in the official ledger of the apartment building where they lived. Germans, on the other hand, had only to register with the Civil Administration downtown. I stayed with the Roemers until they moved, and then I didn't register at all. No one asked me to! In fact Mrs. Roemer didn't know that the requirement for Poles existed.

Thus, as far as official records were concerned, my last known address was on Ditla Street. Then I disappeared. The police were looking for me high and low, and there I was, four blocks away from my last address, sharing an apartment with the SS Kommandant of Kraków! I was living in the wolf's mouth now, and, believe me, there is no better refuge in the world.

Scenes from the Hurricane's Eye

 

 

      Within the most ferocious storm lies a center of eerie calm known as the eye of the hurricane. Raging winds swirl about, uprooting trees, obliterating everything in their path. Yet within the eye of the storm there is not a single breeze. The sky is clear. The sun shines. Thus it was with my life with the Roemers. While armies collided in earth-shaking combat, bombs blasted cities to bits, and trains rolled on schedule to guarded camps where blackened chimneys belched greasy smoke day and night, I dusted, went shopping, served dinner. It was a normal life. Abnormally so.

The baby was due any time. Over these last difficult months Mrs. Roemer and I had become very close. By now
I was more than a maid; I was a helper, a confidante, a friend. From time to time she would say to me, “Wanda, it's very strange. You're not like other Polish girls at all. You're much more like a German.” That was a great compliment. In effect Mrs. Roemer was telling me that I was an intellectual equal, a quality she never expected to encounter in someone who was only a servant. I often wondered if it were wise to stand out like that, but I really had no choice. I never could play the role of a dunce. It was simply not in me. And while I was always respectful and conscientious about my work, I refused to be a flunky. I let no one intimidate me—not even Colonel Roemer.

One morning while I was serving breakfast, a sudden breeze blew the balcony door shut. The bang startled everyone. The colonel was furious. “
Donnerwetter!
” he roared. “Can't you take care of that?” I set down the serving dish, shut the door, and left the dining room. “Well? Can't you at least say ‘
Jawohl
'?” he shouted after me. I went straight to my room without replying or turning around. Later, when Mrs. Roemer came to smooth things over, as she always did, I explained my feelings to her.

“Mrs. Roemer, please tell your husband that I am not one of his dumb recruits. I do not say ‘
Jawohl'l
”

My pride intrigued Colonel Roemer, especially when he realized I was not afraid to stand up to him. He constantly tried to bait me to see if I would back down. He used to start in at the dinner table or late in the afternoon when I served tea.

“Ah, look at this! That's the Polish way of doing things!” he'd comment with scorn. “Slovenly! Inefficient! Disorganized! Such a stupid, insignificant country has no right to exist. After Germany wins this war, we'll swallow
Poland up, just as she deserves. Poles! What a gang of idiots! So incompetent, so stupid!”

While I personally had little love for Poland myself, my outward posture was always that of a patriot. I refused to let Colonel Roemer browbeat me. Very patiently I answered, “Colonel Roemer, what do you expect me to say? Poland may not be as big or as important as Germany, but it is my motherland and I love it.”

There was no point in the argument, but since I always answered back, Colonel Roemer took a liking to me. He might try to bait me, but he treated me with respect all the same. As he frequently said to his wife, “Wanda has pride.” And pride was a quality he admired, even in a servant.

 

My false papers gave my birthday as December 12. I never thought anything of it, first of all because it wasn't really my birthday and second because it is the custom in Catholic countries to celebrate a person's saint's day, the day sacred to the saint after whom one is named, rather than the birthday. Nevertheless, the Roemers made note of the date and planned a surprise party. Mrs. Roemer baked a special cake with brandy just for the occasion. I was in my room reading, not expecting a thing, when they asked me to come to the living room.

“Well, Wanda,” Colonel Roemer said after inviting me to sit down, “today is your birthday, and we want you to celebrate.” I opened my present. It was a small bottle of 4711, a nice German cologne. Mrs. Roemer used it herself, and I liked it very much. Then we cut the cake, which was delicious. We laughed and talked for a while. To crown the occasion, Colonel Roemer insisted I have a glass of brandy. He took one of his shot glasses, filled it nearly to the brim, and made me drink it down in one swallow. I
never drank hard liquor, so finishing that one glass was not easy. The colonel noticed my discomfort and decided to have some fun.

“Since this is such a special occasion, Wanda, you must have another drink.” He poured out a second glass. I hardly finished that when he poured me a third. By now Mrs. Roemer could see that the joke had gone too far and that I was in considerable distress.

“Let her go, Kurt. She's had enough.”

But Colonel Roemer was enjoying himself too much to let me go just yet. I had to finish the third drink. Then he poured a fourth. I clutched the edge of the table to keep from falling. My head was reeling and my knees felt weak. Nevertheless my mind was clear. “You must be extremely careful now. Your life is on the line. Watch what you say. Every single word,” I thought to myself. One Yiddish word substituted for a German one or the slightest hint of a Jewish accent and I was lost. My mind remained alert that whole time. But after the seventh drink, when Colonel Roemer finally gave me permission to leave, I found I couldn't move. My body was totally disconnected from my brain. My arms and legs refused to budge. Mrs. Roemer had to help me to my room, undress me, and put me to bed. I fell asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow.

Mrs. Roemer knocked on my door at seven as she usually did, but I slept through it. I awoke at half past ten with a horrible headache. I went to put on my dress, but as soon as I smelled the odor of brandy on it, I immediately got sick. I washed it and washed it, but it was weeks before I could wear that dress again. Even six months later, when Mrs. Roemer used brandy in a recipe, I had to run to the bathroom as soon as she uncorked the bottle. As a matter of fact even to this day I can't tolerate the smell of brandy.

As Mrs. Roemer's time drew closer, a steady stream of visitors arrived from Germany. The first was Fräulein Maria, a short, stout, extremely severe old maid, who came to arrange the nursery. Fräulein Maria was Mrs. Roemer's old nanny, the real boss of her parents' house in Dresden. Everyone in that family was a little afraid of her. According to Mrs. Roemer, she was a fanatical Nazi who got down on her knees at night and prayed to the picture of Hitler over her bed the way most people pray to Jesus. During the book-burning campaigns of the thirties, Mrs. Roemer's father had to hide his treasured volumes of Heine and Thomas Mann to save them from the fire. Needless to say, I did whatever Fräulein Maria told me to do exactly as she told me to do it, and we got along as well as might be expected.

Mrs. Roemer's parents arrived shortly afterward. They were an extremely refined and charming couple. I liked them very much, especially since Mrs. Roemer's father behaved himself. Before they arrived, Mrs. Roemer warned me that her father liked to smack women on the behind. No one in the family was immune, not even Fräulein Maria! I shuddered at the thought of anyone doing that to me. I begged Mrs. Roemer to write to her father and ask him to control himself during his stay. She did. She wrote her father a long letter explaining that Fräulein Wanda
hates
to be smacked on the behind and that he
must
be very, very careful to restrain himself. I must say that he behaved like a perfect gentleman.

 

The baby was born at the end of December, just before New Year's Eve. It was a very difficult birth, and, as a result of complications during delivery, little Klaus was born with a club foot. Mrs. Roemer was heartbroken, and
Colonel Roemer was mortified at the thought of his son being a cripple. However, the staff doctor, a Viennese specialist, assured them that the damage need not be permanent. Before we brought the baby home from the hospital, he showed us how to massage the little foot and wrap it a special way in an elastic bandage. He also taught us a series of gymnastic exercises to practice with Klaus to help him develop his leg muscles. According to the doctor, if we maintained the daily program of massage and exercise, Klaus's foot would straighten out and he would be walking normally by the time he was three. Mrs. Roemer watched carefully the first few times I practiced the routine to make sure I was doing it correctly. Once she saw that I knew what to do, she stopped worrying. I had complete charge of that baby.

Complete charge meant exactly that. Mrs. Roemer was recovering from the birth and was in no condition to care for an infant. I bathed him, rocked him, fed him. I changed his diapers, massaged his foot, and sang him lullabies to soothe his sleep. When he woke up crying in the middle of the night, I was the one who rushed to his crib. He was a beautiful, happy baby who loved his Fräulein Wanda as much as I loved him.

Now that the baby had arrived, Colonel Roemer decided he was entitled to another servant. He knew just the man: an SS private from Alsace named Karl-Heinz who worked as a restaurant cook and pastry chef in civilian life. As soon as Colonel Roemer found that Karl-Heinz had that professional training, he snatched him out of the ranks and made him his valet. In addition to doing our cooking, Karl-Heinz pressed Colonel Roemer's uniforms, polished his boots, ran his errands, and generally acted like the flunky he was. Every time the colonel turned around, there
was Karl-Heinz saluting, clicking his heels, shouting,
“Jawohl, Herr Kommandant
!”

I never had much use for people like Karl-Heinz, but I must admit that he was an excellent cook. Every meal was like a dinner in a fine restaurant. If the path to the Kommandant's heart was through his stomach, Karl-Heinz was well along the way.

Karl-Heinz also did special jobs for Colonel Roemer. Someone gave the colonel a dog, a pedigreed fox terrier. Colonel Roemer got a special pass for me so I could walk it on the street after curfew. It was a nice little dog, but one day it committed an unpardonable sin. It ate the dinner roast; and a dinner to which Colonel Roemer's commanding officer was invited. The colonel was furious. He told Karl-Heinz to take the dog out the next day and sell him. Karl-Heinz sold him to a Pole for two thousand zlotys. But the dog apparently didn't like its new home because a few days later it ran away and came back.

“What is the dog doing here?” I asked Karl-Heinz when I came back from shopping and found the dog sitting in the kitchen.

“He came back.”

“But aren't you going to return him to the man who bought him?”

“What for? Who brings back dogs?”

So Colonel Roemer kept his dog and pocketed two thousand zlotys. So much for German morality.

 

Two months after Klaus came home, Mrs. Roemer asked my help in preparing a big dinner. Colonel Roemer was being considered for promotion. A general was coming down from Berlin and a great deal depended on his recommendation. Mrs. Roemer gave me her shopping list, and off
I went to the black market. That was one important advantage the Germans in Poland had over their compatriots in Germany. The black market was tolerated in Poland. In Germany it wasn't. I never took money with me when I went shopping. I didn't have to. A bottle of vodka and a few cartons of cigarettes were more than enough to buy a dozen eggs, a chicken, or whatever else we needed even when the shelves in the official stores were bare. This time I came back with my arms full. Karl-Heinz set to work and outdid himself. What a superb dinner that was! There was a rabbit braten with ham, a goose stuffed with liver and apples, and all sorts of wonderful pastries for dessert. Everything was cooked to perfection. Colonel Roemer was glowing. The general declared it the best meal he ever had. Later, over brandy and cigars, he assured Colonel Roemer that the promotion was his…except for one small detail. He had to have another son.

A few days after our glorious dinner I found Mrs. Roemer crying in her bedroom. I asked what was wrong, and she told me. Because of what she had gone through giving birth to Klaus, the doctor warned her not to even think of having another child for at least a year. But as soon as Colonel Roemer learned his promotion depended on it, he made up his mind to get her pregnant again as soon as possible. When it came to his career, not even his wife's health—not even her life—was allowed to stand in his way.

 

Colonel Roemer had detailed plans for his family's future as well as my own. After the war—which the Germans were naturally going to win—he was going to buy a large estate in Austria. In fact, he already had one manor in mind. And, of course, I was going with him to take care of the house and supervise the upbringing of little Klaus and
all the other little Roemer children he had planned. I was going to be another Fräulein Maria but on a much grander scale, with a whole staff of nannies and maids working under me. However, I needed a husband, preferably someone who could manage the grounds while I looked after the household. Colonel Roemer knew of an SS sergeant in Prague who would be perfect. There was only one problem. The elite SS were forbidden to marry “subhuman” Poles. But, according to Colonel Roemer, I was obviously no ordinary Pole. I had character and intelligence, the very qualities to make me the perfect wife for an SS man. Could that be an accident? No. I could not possibly be a pure Slav. Superior Aryan blood must lie somewhere in my family tree. Colonel Roemer made an appointment for me to undergo a complete racial examination. Experts carefully measured my head, thighs, arms, and face and came to the conclusion that I definitely had a Nordic skull.

“You see! I was right all along!” Colonel Roemer crowed when he read the examination report. “When this war is over, we'll make an official Aryan out of you. You'll marry a fine SS man, and we'll all live together on my estate in Austria. I'll invite all the big shots in the Reich up for hunting, and in the evenings we'll have gala parties. Do you realize how lucky you are, Wanda? What better future could you have than this?”