In the Mouth of the Wolf (15 page)

What could I say to that?

 

By spring Mrs. Roemer was looking forward to going out again. She asked her parents to send all her spring outfits to Piotrków. But her pregnancy had altered her figure slightly, and many of her dresses had to be let out. She took them to a tailor shop in the ghetto, where the last surviving Jews in the city clung to life by doing alterations for SS
officers and their families. I accompanied Mrs. Roemer for the final fittings, and my heart broke to see how few and how desperately frightened my fellow Jews were. But I didn't dare show my feelings.

On our way home Mrs. Roemer asked if I had a spring outfit. When I admitted I didn't, she said, “Why don't you find a secondhand man's suit and have it altered. A good tailor could make it into a lovely jacket and skirt.” That was an excellent idea because fashionable women's skirts were narrow and the jackets that went with them were very similar to men's. The next time I did the wash for Adrian, I asked if he knew where I could buy a man's suit. As it happened, he had an old one he was willing to sell: a dark gray suit flecked with red, with a tiny silver pinstripe running through it. I bought it and took it to the tailor at the barracks, who altered it. I looked and felt terrific in that suit. No more hiding in the nursery for me! Winter was over. Now it was spring, and I was eager to see the world outside.

Mrs. Roemer was so taken with how I looked in my new suit that she insisted on my borrowing her leather gloves and silk stockings on Sunday, when I took the morning off to go to church. But I never went to church. Instead I went to the concerts held every Sunday at a nearby movie house. I first learned of the series through an advertisement in the
Krakauer Zeitung
, the local German newspaper. A different choral group or orchestra was featured every week. Some were local, others were on tour from Germany, but all were excellent. Nevertheless, I couldn't help but notice certain ironies. On one occasion an orchestra played Beethoven's Ninth Symphony while onstage a military chorus of soldiers, SS, and nurses sang the glorious words
“Alle Menschen werden Brüder
…”

“Well, well,” I thought as I listened, “look who's singing about the brotherhood of man. So all men are brothers, are they? All men…but not the Jews.”

 

One afternoon Mrs. Roemer asked if I would like to go to the theater to see a performance of
Faust.
I knew which performance she was talking about. The advertisements were all over the newspaper. It was a first-rate German production playing in what had been the Polish National Theater, one of the most modern theaters in Europe and one of the first to be equipped with a revolving stage. Tickets were very expensive and restricted to Germans, so I hadn't even considered going until Mrs. Roemer mentioned it. She and her husband had two seats in the orchestra for the evening performance. However, an emergency came up, and they couldn't go. Mrs. Roemer, knowing how much I loved the theater, offered her ticket to me.

Reading a play in school and seeing it performed on the stage are two different experiences. The music, lighting, costumes, sets, and the exceptional acting made each word come alive. I never thought such magical effects possible, but there they were onstage before my eyes. At times I nearly leaped from my seat with excitement. Other times I was moved to tears. I didn't want the performance to end, but when the curtain finally closed I stood up and applauded until my palms ached.

The next day I told Mrs. Roemer all about the play. She was so thrilled that I enjoyed myself that she promised to get me tickets to other operas and operettas. I saw
Die Fledermaus, Der Rosenkavalier
, and all the masterpieces of the German stage. Every time there was a special performance in Kraków, there I was sitting in the reserved section with high officers and officials and their wives, savoring not
only the delights of the theater but a personal triumph as well. “You stupid Germans,” I thought to myself as I looked around at all the glittering uniforms. “I'm supposed to be dead, but I'm not. On this gala evening I'm sitting right beside you in this reserved section watching this special performance. And in spite of all your charts and measurements and elaborate racial theories, not a single one of you can tell I'm Jewish. To hell with you, then, and to hell with your arrogant ‘Master Race' nonsense!”

 

As the weather grew warmer, I began taking Klaus outside more often. After clearing away the breakfast dishes, I cooked his formula, fed him, gave him a bath, got him dressed, put him in the buggy, and out we went for a stroll.

The apartment where we lived was on Bernardinska Street, on the same block as the barracks and the Bernardine church, a famous Kraków landmark. Before the war the Bernardine fathers maintained the whole complex, with a school, a large private garden, and a residence for priests. In 1939 the SS evicted the Bernardines and took over the facility, turning it into the headquarters where I worked. The commissary acquired the garden, dug up most of the flower beds, and used the space to grow vegetables. A few rows of fruit trees remained standing. It had been an elegant garden once, and the rosebushes and flower beds that remained were carefully tended.

Every morning, weather permitting, I would take Klaus to that garden. There we would sit for an hour or so, catching the sun. Sometimes, if I felt restless, I would lay the baby down on the grass nearby while I talked with the gardener or the two soldiers who were always on guard. Sometimes I even helped with the weeding. Other times
I would crochet or read while Klaus napped. Time passed very quickly.

Safe, protected from the prying eyes of suspicious strangers, I began to feel like a human being once more and not like a hunted animal. As a result of my new-found security, I began to read again after more than a year. I went to the main library in Kraków whenever I had free time. One day I took home a copy of
Gone with the Wind
. I started the book one spring day as I was sitting with Klaus in the garden. After having read a few pages I became so absorbed in the story that it was well into the afternoon before I realized it was time to go home. For the whole next week I spent every spare moment reading until I came to the end. I was never so moved by a book before. It totally changed my way of thinking.

Before that, I had been living in a dream world. I believed that one day the war would be over, my family would return, and life would continue happily as before. After reading Scarlett O'Hara's story, I realized I was fooling myself. The Piotrków of my childhood was gone. Never again would I walk those familiar streets, stopping by the shops and courtyards to visit my friends and say hello to people I knew. That world was gone forever.

“You forgot,” I told myself, “it all happened before. In America, the South was destroyed. A whole way of life vanished. Even after the war, when Scarlett went home to Tara, it wasn't the same—and it would never be the same again.” When I came to the part where Scarlett reads the names of her friends who died in battle, for me the list read “Gershon…Shimon…Moshe.” I took the mask off my heart. I had played a false role so long I forgot who I really was. Now I was Ruszka Guterman again. Or rather I was Scarlett O'Hara. Like her, I had no doubt about my own
survival. But the friends I remembered, the people I loved, were never going to return. There simply was no going back. I had avoided that fact for a long time. Now I had to face it. As I turned the last page of the book I thought, “It was the end of a southern culture. It is the end of a Jewish culture. And no matter what the future may bring, it will never bring back the past.”

That realization, more than any of the terrors I experienced, plunged me into a deep depression. “Why go on?” I thought to myself. “Even if the Germans are defeated some day, I will never go back to Judaism. Never! I have suffered too much. And for what? Now that I have my new identity and a complete set of papers, I will carry my secret to the grave. No one will ever know that I am Jewish. I will never run like a hunted animal again. When the war is over I will marry a Polish man and raise Polish children—one-hundred-percent Polish children!—who will never have to suffer the persecution Jews have to endure.”

That was my lowest point, and it shames me to think I actually considered betraying all my father's hopes and the sole reason for my survival. Yet these thoughts passed through my mind. Then, when my spirits needed it most, I received a tremendous boost.

Once a week Colonel and Mrs. Roemer went out for the evening. After putting Klaus to bed, I usually sat down in the living room and listened to the radio. I had my own little radio in Klaus's room which I listened to while ironing his diapers or taking care of other chores, but the radio in the living room was a big shortwave console that could pick up stations all over the world.

One evening I started turning the dial to see what I could pick up when all of a sudden the words
“Mówi Moskwa, Mówi Moskwa, Mówi Moskwa
” came over the
speaker. It was Radio Moscow broadcasting in Polish. I made a note of the channel, and after that, whenever the Roemers went out, I went straight to the radio and tuned in. Before long I was also listening to the BBC broadcasts in Polish and German. The news that I got from the Allied stations was quite different from what I read in the German press. According to die
Krakauer Zeitung
, the war was going splendidly. The Allies were in full retreat and the German Army totally victorious everywhere, except that minor adjustments had to be made every now and then to “straighten out the lines.” One evening over the radio I heard about a big “straightening out” at a place called Stalingrad. General Paulus and the entire German Sixth Army had surrendered to the Russians in a stunning defeat. Hundreds of thousands of German soldiers were prisoners. I sat glued to the radio, trying to hear every detail. I was ecstatic! This was the first major setback for the Germans, the first crack in their armor. I knew that final victory for the Allies was coming. “Soon,” I kept telling myself, “soon it will be over.”

I was so excited about the news that I nearly gave myself away. Some days later Mrs. Roemer happened to mention something about the eastern front. “Oh, yes,” I replied. “Isn't it terrible about Stalingrad and General Paulus.”

Mrs. Roemer looked at me, quite surprised. “Fräulein Wanda, how do you know?”

I covered up quickly. “I read about it in the
Kraukauer Zeitung
.”

But the story wasn't in the
Kraukauer Zeitung
, which still only talked about “straightening out the lines.” In the future I would have to be more careful about revealing what I knew to Mrs. Roemer and other Germans. But whenever I went down to the barracks I told my friends
Mr. Zak and Stasiek the janitor everything. Since I listened to the broadcasts regularly, I quickly became an authority on the world situation. “If Wanda says so, it must be true,” they used to say.

But the news wasn't always good. One evening, knowing that the Roemers would be home shortly. I tuned to the local German station in time to catch a news broadcast. AH the ghetto camps in Poland were to be closed down and the inmates “resettled.” I shivered to hear that word. Every Jew knew what it really meant. The announcer then read a list of cities: “Krakau…Pieterkau…”
Piotrków!
That single word snapped me back to another existence, a world of pain and terror. Faces came into my mind—Mayer's, Renia's, my father's—all the people I knew who were still alive somewhere, somehow, in the ghetto. What would become of them now? Before me flashed the black uniforms, the snarling dogs, the whips. I saw the cattle cars waiting at the sidings, the barbed wire stretched across the sky, the smoke billowing from the blackened chimneys. Seething rage and despair swept over me as I reached out to turn off the radio. I stood alone in the elegantly furnished living room, trembling.

Then I heard a cry—a tiny, choked wail. It was Klaus crying in the nursery. He had awakened in the dark and, frightened, cried for his Fräulein Wanda. But it wasn't his Fräulein Wanda who hurried to his side. It was an automaton driven by a cold, passionless fury. I picked Klaus up as I had done a hundred times before and started giving him his bottle. He soon quieted down. I took the bottle away and set it on the nursery table and stood there holding him. Then slowly, steadily, I began to squeeze. Yes. Squeeze him. Squeeze the life out of him, just as they squeezed the life out of my little sister, out of my parents and friends, out of
all the little children they beat or shot or gassed or starved to death. Let them know what it feels like to hold a dead child in their arms.

Klaus looked up. He didn't understand. His Wanda, his dear Fräulein Wanda, who fed and bathed and always took care of him, was hurting him. He began to cry.

That baby's cry snapped me back to my senses. Had I gone mad? What was I doing? He was only a baby, an innocent baby who loved and trusted me. How could I do him harm?

“There, there.” I soothed Klaus to stop his crying. I gave him his bottle once more and in a little while he went back to sleep. But it was a long time before I stopped trembling.

The End in Sight

 

 

      After Stalingrad the tide slowly shifted. Battles raged along the eastern front, but this time it was the Russians who attacked. By 1944 the German Army was in retreat. The Red Army entered eastern Poland in July. By August they held Lublin and were advancing on Warsaw. The front was crumbling.

Colonel Roemer's faith in a German victory, however, remained unshaken. These were only temporary setbacks, he insisted. The Germans were preparing a vast counterattack. When it was launched, the Soviets would be annihilated. However—purely as a precautionary measure—he decided to send Klaus and Mrs. Roemer back to Germany.
A few days later the Mercedes was loaded, and, with the chauffeur at the wheel, the Roemers and I drove west.

It was a pleasant ride through the countryside. We passed towns and fields. Horses and cattle grazed in open pastures. After an hour we passed a road sign: “Auschwitz—10 KM.” I felt as if an icicle had been driven through my heart. That dreadful name! That awful place! It was only a small distance away. Even now as I rode through this tranquil countryside in this chauffeur-driven limousine, making small talk with an SS colonel and his wife, holding their sleeping baby in my arms, thousands of Jews—my family and friends perhaps among them—were choking out their lives in ovens and gas chambers. Were it not for a few accidents of fate, I might well be with them, reading that same sign through the cracks in the door of a cattle car. How hard it was, wearing my mask, pretending that Auschwitz meant no more to me than the name of any country hamlet. I did it then because my life depended on it. But even now I can close my eyes and still see that sign.

In a little while we came to the border. The guards at the checkpoint looked at the Mercedes, saluted Colonel Roemer, and waved us through. No one asked to see my papers. For all the attention paid to me, I might have been one of the suitcases. We drove on to Katowice, where we stopped for lunch at the rathskeller. Afterward we continued to the railway station and put Mrs. Roemer and Klaus on the next train for Magdeburg. Mrs. Roemer gave me a quick good-bye. She didn't intend to be gone long—only a few weeks, until the danger at the front had passed. But before she left, she made her husband promise to take care of me. Colonel Roemer swore he would. However, he didn't always keep his promises.

Once Mrs. Roemer and Klaus were gone, my role in the household was much less important than it had been. Before I was a nanny; now I was a maid. Karl-Heinz started giving me orders. He never had any authority over me before. Since when did I take orders from him? I protested, but Colonel Roemer backed Karl-Heinz, who, as his power increased, began finding new ways to harass me.

My new taskmaster had a whole schedule worked out. “Pay attention, Wanda,” he said. “I am going to tell you what you have to do. First, you are going to wash all the kitchen tiles. I want the oven cleaned, too, as well as the walls and ceiling. When Mrs. Roemer comes back, I want her to find this place spick-and-span. You are not going to sit here and do nothing. Now, how much time will it take you to wash this wall?”

I couldn't believe he was serious. “Karl-Heinz, what are you talking about? If you want the wall washed, I'll wash it. When it's done, it's done.”

“Oh, no! We are not going to work like that. That's the Polish way of doing things. From now on we are going to get organized. I have to know how much time these tasks are going to take because I am going to write it all down. That way I can report to Colonel Roemer whether or not you're on schedule. Let's see. Two hours, walls. Twenty minutes, dishes…”

He went out of his way to hound me. There was no escaping him. He was on my back all day. If I stopped for a moment to catch my breath, there he was—“I am going to tell Colonel Roemer you are lazy! I am going to tell Colonel Roemer you are rebellious!”

One day he pushed me too far. I had just finished cleaning the baking oven. Karl-Heinz decided to inspect my
work. That little skunk even stuck his head up the chimney to see if I had cleaned out the soot! This was the last straw. “The devil with you, Karl-Heinz!” I shouted. “I don't have to take this! I'm not your slave! I can go to Colonel Roemer, too. As for you, you can go to hell!”

“Go ahead,” he sneered. “And while you're talking to Colonel Roemer, why don't you also tell him how you managed to skip out of the ghetto?”

It was just like him to say that; to hint that I was Jewish. That was the rumor about me. It was all over the barracks. There was nothing to do but throw the accusation back in his face.

“And you, Karl-Heinz, are the biggest apple polisher that ever lived!”

 

Oh, how he made my life miserable after that! He wrote out a complete schedule for every day of the week. He had me climbing up and down ladders as I raced to finish walls, windows, ceilings. If I fell behind, there he was, complaining, making threats. If I finished ahead of schedule, he found something else for me to do. I didn't have a minute to myself. I protested to Colonel Roemer, but he backed Karl-Heinz completely. What could I do? I had no choice but to obey. But I made sure Karl-Heinz knew I wasn't afraid of him. Whenever he began threatening me, I threatened him right back. “Just you wait, Karl-Heinz. You wait till Mrs. Roemer gets back. Then it's going to be your turn!”

One day the doorsill to one of the rooms worked loose. Karl-Heinz went out to get someone to fix it. In a little while he came back with a sad-looking man in a blue-and-white-striped concentration-camp uniform. The man's head was shaved, and although I did not speak to him, I was sure
he was Jewish, especially when Karl-Heinz laughed, “Hey, Wanda! Look here! I brought you a boyfriend!”

 

During this period the only time I was alone was in the evening. Karl-Heinz returned to the barracks after dinner. Colonel Roemer spent most of his time at his private apartment at the barracks. I might not see him for days. He came and went as he pleased, never troubling to let his servants know when he might be coming home. Nevertheless, whenever he came through that door—day or night—he expected me to be on duty, ready to wait on him.

One evening, when I was sound asleep, I was awakened by a knocking at my bedroom door.

“Fräulein Wanda, get up. Please come and make coffee.”

I looked at my watch. It was two o'clock in the morning! Colonel Roemer and several of his officers were having a meeting in the living room. He wanted me to serve refreshments. I threw on my clothes, went to the kitchen, got the coffee ready, arranged the little cups on the coffee table, and began serving. Glancing up, I noticed Colonel Roemer staring at me. He looked very displeased.

“Fräulein Wanda,” he finally said, “you haven't made yourself presentable. Your hair isn't combed. You don't look neat.”

What nerve! He comes home without warning in the dead of night, wakes me up, demands I serve coffee immediately, then stands back and criticizes because I don't look presentable. His wife might put up with that behavior, but not I. “I'm here to pour the coffee,” I snapped, “not to make a good impression.”

That was the way I talked to Colonel Roemer whenever he started his bullying, but I went too far this time. I
had embarrassed him in front of his officers—not a wise thing to do, especially now that Mrs. Roemer was no longer there to defend me. Nothing came of that incident, but it probably set the stage for a more serious one that took place sometime later.

Soon after Mrs. Roemer went back to Germany, the authorities started evacuating not only German nationals but ethnic Germans as well. Two of our neighbors, a widow and her son—both ethnic Germans—received orders to pack up and prepare for evacuation to Germany. The widow was a pleasant person who, unlike most of the other ethnic Germans, tried to maintain good relations with her Polish neighbors. Everyone saw the departure of the ethnic Germans as simply one more sign that victory was on the way, but we didn't bear our neighbor any grudge and hoped that all would be well with her. The night before she left, all the Poles living in the building gathered in the janitor's apartment for a farewell party. The widow was touched. She told us she had no idea where she was going, but would write as soon as she had a permanent address. We talked about the political situation and other matters. By the time I looked at my watch, it was nearly twelve o'clock.

I ran upstairs to the Roemers' apartment and tried to unlock the door with my key. It wouldn't open. Someone inside had slipped on the chain lock. I was fumbling with the door, trying to loosen the chain, when Colonel Roemer appeared.

“Where have you been?” he shouted. “You're not paid to run around all night! You're paid to stay here in the house!”

“Colonel Roemer,” I tried to explain. “I wasn't running around. I was downstairs. We were having a little party for the widow. She's leaving tomorrow for Germany.
Ask the others downstairs if you don't believe me. They'll tell you where I was.”

He refused to listen. “Wherever you were, you can turn around and go back. I'm not letting you in. Tomorrow morning you will report to my office.” He slammed the door in my face.

To hell with him! I wasn't going to sleep in the street just to please Colonel Roemer. I remembered that the windows on the staircase overlooked the apartment balconies. I ran upstairs to the next landing, opened the window, climbed through, and dropped down onto the balcony below. The building's balconies were continuous. I walked along outside until I came to the Roemers' apartment. The kitchen door was always unlocked. I opened it, slipped through, tiptoed to my bedroom, and hopped into bed.

The next morning I reported to Colonel Roemer's office at the barracks. Without a word to me he summoned two soldiers, marched me downstairs to the basement jail, and locked me up in one of the cells. “I hope this does you some good,” he said before leaving. “Since you obviously don't appreciate good treatment, you can just sit!”

I sat for three days in that cell, not knowing what was going to happen to me. Finally Colonel Roemer decided I had learned my lesson. He ordered my release and had me brought back to the apartment. He was waiting for me. First he demanded to know how I got back in that night. I started to tell him, but he cut me off. “No. You are not going to tell me. You are going to show me.” In order to satisfy him, I was forced to go upstairs to the landing and demonstrate exactly how I climbed through the window, jumped down onto the balcony, and came in through the kitchen.

After I came in, Colonel Roemer told me that Karl-Heinz
was in charge. I was to obey him and do whatever he said. Furthermore, it was my job to remain in the house and keep an eye on things. I was to be there every night after curfew…or else! What choice did I have? He dismissed me, and everything continued as before. Nevertheless, the whole episode left me sick at heart. Even though I had gotten off fairly easily, I could never forget that my life hung suspended by a very slender thread. A glittering sword, poised to cut it off, was never far away.

 

In August an uprising broke out in Warsaw. The next few days were extremely tense. We expected the Russians to take advantage of the situation and cross the Vistula. But they made no move. They were content to look on while the Germans handled the job of crushing the Polish nationalists. Whatever hopes of liberation I had were premature. By October the uprising was extinguished. Warsaw was still in German hands, and the Russians were still on the other side of the Vistula with no sign of advancing soon. There was nothing to do but wait.

Then one day Colonel Roemer told me to fix up the nursery and buy some flowers to decorate the apartment. Mrs. Roemer and Klaus were coming home. I was overjoyed.

After Mrs. Roemer's return, Karl-Heinz went back to his role as the Kommandant's valet while I resumed my duties in the nursery. I didn't say anything about my treatment to Mrs. Roemer at first. I was not even sure I wanted to discuss it with her. But after a few days she asked me how I had gotten along while she was gone. That was when I told her everything. She became quite upset, especially when she heard about my three nights in jail. She could not understand treating a trusted family servant in that manner.
But that was the difference between Mrs. Roemer and her husband. He felt no loyalty, no obligation to anyone but himself, as Karl-Heinz was soon to learn. Constant calls for more men came from the front. Finally the day came when Colonel Roemer decided he could live without a cook, and off Karl-Heinz went to the Russian front.

 

With Karl-Heinz gone, life quickly settled back into its normal routine. I bathed Klaus, fed him, changed his diapers, and took him for walks. The Roemers went out to dinner several nights a week, and usually the wives of other SS officers came over in the afternoon for coffee. Colonel Roemer and I were getting along again. He seemed to enjoy the fact that I refused to cringe before him, although he threw me in jail for that very reason only a few weeks before.

One Sunday afternoon a young officer from Vienna was invited over for coffee. I answered the door when the bell rang. The poor fellow, taking me for the lady of the house, bowed low, took my hand, and with a great flourish addressed me as “gnädige Frau…gracious lady.” Colonel Roemer stepped into the hallway and saw the whole performance. Only when the officer finished his elaborate salutation did he finally say, “Fräulein Wanda, will you please call my wife?” The poor man was mortified. I felt sorry for him, but it was hard to keep from laughing. Colonel Roemer teased me about it for months. “Gnädige Fräulein Wanda,” he'd chuckle, “would you be so kind as to clear away these dishes?”

 

The pleasantries of our daily life could not cover up the fact that the military situation was becoming more ominous by the day. The
Krakauer Zeitung
still insisted
that the German Army was only “straightening out the lines.” I sat glued to the radio every time the Roemers went out, so I knew better.