In the Mouth of the Wolf (16 page)

As for the general population, its first tangible sign of how bad the situation really was came when trainloads of Polish civilians were taken from their jobs to the outskirts of Kraków to dig trenches. Initially I was exempt. But when our turn came, everyone in the barracks, from the waitress in the officers' canteen to the potato scrubbers in the kitchen, had to go. Eventually the day came when Colonel Roemer said to me, “Wanda, you must do your duty the same as all the other Poles. The next time our civilian workers are scheduled to go, you're going, too.”

And I did go. There were six in our group: the battalion tailor; his niece who assisted him in the shop; her boyfriend the commissary clerk; a washerwoman; the man who took care of the boilers; and me. We all had very mixed feelings about the trip. On the one hand we were hardly looking forward to digging trenches in the dead of winter, but on the other this was the first real sign that our liberation might be near.

The train took us to the stone quarries at the edge of the city. From there we rode in wagons to the trenches. The excursion quickly became like a holiday outing. Soon we were all joking and singing. To hell with the Germans! If they had to dig tank traps this close to Kraków, it was a sure sign that the Russians weren't far away.

When we arrived at the trenches, we were given shovels and told what to do. These trenches were a two-step affair. One person dug on the lower tier, a second on the upper. The trenches were deep. We had to throw the sand up high. The only Germans in sight were a guard and
the engineer supervising the project. He told us to work hard and that all talking was forbidden.

It was bitter cold. Frost covered the ground. Our breath came out in great white clouds. In the nearby field we could see a peasant's hut. Smoke was coming out of the chimney, a sign that a warm fire was burning inside in the stove. I was assigned to dig with the tailor, his niece, and her boyfriend. No matter how hard I worked, I was still freezing. So were the others. After a short while the tailor's niece put down her shovel. “Come on, Wanda,” she said. “Let's sneak over to that hut. We'll get warm and have a little drink.” As soon as the guard turned his back, that's what we all did. As we huddled around the stove trying to drive the chill from our bones, the boyfriend took a bottle of vodka and a six-ounce glass out of his coat. He filled the glass to the brim and handed it to me.

“You don't seriously expect me to drink all that, do you?” I asked him.

“Of course!” he insisted.

So I did. Suddenly I began to feel very warm. In fact, I felt so good I had another glass. All in all I believe I drank eight ounces of straight vodka before we went back to work. By the time I got back to those frozen trenches I fully appreciated the merits of alcohol.

If the Germans expected to get much work out of us, they were badly mistaken. The toilet was at the far end of the field. The tailor's niece and I asked the guard for permission to go. What could he say? It was a long walk there and a long walk back. We didn't hurry, and while we were there, we sat for a good long time. That killed at least half an hour, and we did it a couple of times. At ten o'clock the whole platoon broke off work to get something to eat. By
noon everyone was frozen, even the Germans, so we all ran to the hut to get warm. No one made the least pretense of doing anything further. We were jubilant. In spite of the cold everyone was laughing and singing. The Germans were in big trouble! How could the holes they had us digging stop a tank? They were barely a yard wide, and certainly no one was working very hard to finish them. But what did we care? Maybe the Germans wanted those Russian tanks stopped, but as far as we were concerned, the tanks couldn't get here fast enough.

Long after dark, when I finally came home. Mrs. Roemer had dinner waiting on the table for me and hot water drawn for a bath.

 

Although I went to dig trenches on several other occasions, I failed to see how any of those defenses had grown more effective since the first time I was there. It was going to take more than a few holes in the ground to stop the Russians when they attacked. The Poles could see it. I'm certain the Germans saw it, too. Back in the barracks an air of unconcerned calm prevailed. But as we drifted into the Christmas season, cracks in the façade began to appear. I noticed faces looking east. It was obvious what people were thinking. The Russians would not remain on the Vistula forever. The river was icing up. Before long they would be on the move. And then?

The Poles had been expressing these thoughts for months. Now for the first time I began hearing them from Germans. The first was Nikischer, who managed the barracks canteen. I got to know him well as a result of my frequent errands there for Colonel Roemer. Once we became friendly, Nikischer let me know when special shipments
came in. He let me buy many things for myself: cigarettes, cigarette papers, tobacco, perfume, cookies, and other luxury items I could resell on the black market for considerable profit. Nikischer was an interesting character with an international background. His parents had emigrated to America when he was a boy, taking his younger brother with them but leaving him behind to be raised in Germany by his grandparents. He saw his brother in 1939, just before the war, when he came over for a visit. The brother was now a sergeant in the American army. Nikischer was married to a Dutch woman he had met while he was stationed in the Netherlands. I always dropped by his office whenever I went to the canteen. He used to say, “With a Dutch wife and an American brother, don't you think I'm a prime candidate for the other side?” He always said it teasingly, but lately I noticed he was saying it more often. Then he told me about a dream he once had.

“I dreamed I was in Italy or somewhere else on the western front. I was on the line, shooting my rifle, when I looked over on the other side, and there was my brother. I saw him waving to me. I heard him call, ‘Come on over! Come on! Come on!' So I threw my rifle away, put up my hands, and walked over to him.” He laughed, as if it were all a joke. But SS men don't make jokes like that—unless they are seriously demoralized.

Later on I heard about a soldier in the barracks who was actually arrested for making defeatist remarks. But the most telling sign of all came when Mrs. Roemer's younger brother was called up for military service. Instead of waiting to be drafted into the army, he wanted to volunteer for the SS. His parents were against it, but the boy was determined. The person who ultimately dissuaded him was Colonel
Roemer. “Don't do it,” he advised the lad. “You'll only spoil things with the old folks.”

When I heard that story from Mrs. Roemer, I knew the end must be near. For Colonel Roemer, the ultimate SS man, to talk his brother-in-law out of joining meant that even he no longer believed a German victory was possible. The end was so close I felt I could reach out and touch it.

Into The Camp

 

 

      All during this period, while I was with the Roemers, I received letters from Piotrków. They came by way of a friend of Renia's, a Polish girl named Krysia, whose family had a small farm on the outskirts of the city. My father and Mayer passed their letters to Renia, who took them with her to her job in the tailoring shop outside the ghetto. Krysia dropped by every so often, picked up the letters, and mailed them. To send letters into the ghetto, the process worked in reverse. I addressed my letters to Krysia, who passed them to Renia, who delivered them to my father and Mayer. Thus I was able to maintain contact the whole time I was in Kraków.

For months I searched for a place for my father. I was determined to get him out of the ghetto. But that by itself was not the problem. The real question was what he would do once he was out. It wasn't enough merely to slip over the wall. That was just the beginning. A Jew on the run needed money. He needed a job. He needed a whole collection of papers: baptismal certificate, identity card, work card, ration card, residence permit. Most important, he had to get away from the Polish populace, whose members delighted in the sport of sniffing out runaway Jews. I knew my father could survive if I could only find the right place for him. But where? As a cleaning woman or kitchen worker, my contacts were few. His only place would have been with me, and I knew he would never agree to that. It was too dangerous. In the meantime I purchased an excellent set of false papers and sent them to him. Then I waited.

Once I started working for the Roemers, the situation changed. With all my contacts through Mrs. Roemer and the barracks, something was sure to turn up. And it did. One day I learned of a job opening in Zakopane running a hostel for wounded soldiers. It was a perfect job for my father. He would be out in the countryside, dealing exclusively with Germans instead of Poles. Should anyone ask questions, he could easily pass himself off as a Ukrainian. With Mrs. Roemer's help and Colonel Roemer's influence, I knew I could get my father that job. But first I had to get him out of the ghetto.

Some free time was due me, so I asked Mrs. Roemer for a few days off and took the train to Piotrków. It was early July, 1944, and the brilliant summer sun shone down on a countryside dappled with wheat fields and sunflowers. When I reached the city, I went directly to Krysia's house. Her mother let me in.

“I'm Wanda Gajda, a friend of your daughter's,” I said, introducing myself.

The woman greeted me warmly. She knew who I was because my name was on the return address of the letters Krysia received from Kraków. I have no idea if she suspected I was Jewish or realized the extent to which her daughter was involved in the underground movement. In any case she was extremely hospitable. She asked if I had a place to stay and, when I admitted I didn't, insisted I stay with them. The summer vegetables were just coming in, and food was plentiful.

When Krysia came home, her mother told her her friend Wanda had arrived from Kraków. We greeted each other like two old friends though we had never seen each other before. It wasn't until after dinner that we had a chance to talk.

“What brings you to Piotrków?” Krysia asked. She knew I wasn't just visiting.

“I want to make contact with Renia. I have to get into the ghetto.”

Krysia shook her head. “It's not going to be easy. They've closed the shop. Renia works in another place. There's a guard at the door. You can't just walk in. But we might have a chance to talk to her when she comes to work, Let's go down tomorrow morning and see.”

We got up very early the next day and went down to the street opposite the main ghetto gate. We waited for several hours, but no one came out. It wasn't safe to wait anymore, so we went back. The next day we tried again, but the gates remained shut. No one went in or out. I couldn't wait any longer. I was due back in Kraków. So I left without seeing either Renia or my father. As it turned out, I never saw my father again.

I came so close, my heart aches to think of it. It was like reaching out to a drowning man and touching his fingers, only to have him slip from my grasp. Had I arrived a week or even a day earlier, my father could have lived.

The two days I waited outside the gate, the Germans were conducting a selection. They spared the young people to work in the glass and plywood factories. All the older workers, the sick, and the weak were trucked to the railway station, packed into boxcars, and shipped off to Auschwitz and its satellite camp, Blizin. Mayer was spared. So was Renia. But my father was taken to Blizin with the rest. He died there of typhoid fever. I didn't hear the full story until years later. When the Germans ordered all Jews out for the selection, my father vanished. He still had not given up—he still had the spirit to resist. But that collaborator, Holsztain, seeing him missing, took two soldiers, found his hiding place, and brought him back. Why did that scoundrel do it? Did he think he could save his own skin by betraying someone else? If that was his reason, it didn't work. The Germans didn't need him anymore. They shipped him off with the rest. But that betrayal was my father's death warrant. If he could have hidden until the selection was over, I could have come back and rescued him. I came so close.

I have one consolation. After the war, people who knew my father while he was in the camp told me how happy he was that my brother and I had gotten away and were doing well. He had no doubt that the war would end one day, that Hitler's gang would be destroyed, and that Benek and I would live to see it.

 

Though my father was gone, my correspondence with Mayer and Renia continued. I knew time was short. If I was going to do anything to save them, it would have to
be soon. I racked my brain for possibilities, but there was none. The problem, as we all knew, was that they both looked Jewish. Mayer's case was hopeless. He knew he didn't stand a chance on the other side and bravely told me not to bother. Renia's problem was similar. She was short and plump with a dark complexion, but unlike Mayer she had a small nose and her features were subtler. She also had a gift for making friends and spoke impeccable Polish. A year or two before, that wouldn't have been enough, but it was 1944 and things had changed.

The German Army was retreating all along the Ukrainian front. As it pulled back, hordes of Russian and Ukrainian civilians followed. Most were simple refugees, but there were many collaborators among them.

Three women from this influx were assigned jobs at our barracks. One was a Polish Ukrainian from Lwów, the second, a Russian. According to the Russian woman's story, which she gladly related to anyone who cared to listen, she was married to a soldier in Vlasov's Army but didn't mind dating Germans while her husband was gone. When her boyfriends retreated, they took her along. The third claimed to be a Ukrainian. She had my old job peeling potatoes down in the basement.

The flotsam of eastern Europe was drifting through Kraków. Not only were people pouring in from the east, but after the Warsaw uprising of 1944, strangers began coming down from the north. Before, it was a sure bet that any rootless person was a Jew on the run. Now, one could not be that certain, and collaborators were so numerous that it wasn't even a good idea to ask questions. In such an environment Renia had a chance.

In November I heard the radio announcement that the last remnants of the Piotrków ghetto would be sent to
Auschwitz. If I ever hoped to do anything for Renia, I had to work fast.

I knew of one possibility. The battalion infirmary was around the corner from the barracks. It was always chronically short of nurses who were constantly being transferred to the front. I approached Colonel Roemer with an idea.

“I heard the infirmary lost its nurses again.”

“That's right,” he grumbled. “The last group was transferred out last week.”

“I know of a girl in Piotrków who speaks German well and has studied nursing. She used to work in a hospital in Warsaw, so she has some practical experience, too. Since there's always such a shortage of nurses in the infirmary, don't you think it might be a good idea to hire her and train her for the job! I think she would work out well.” I wasn't making this up. Everything I said was basically true. Renia did speak German and she used to work in the ghetto hospital.

Colonel Roemer thought it was a fine idea. The situation at the infirmary had been bothering him for some time. “Your friend will come work for us,” he said. “We'll send her through the training course in Breslau, and when she's finished she'll come back here and be
our
nurse. Then, nobody can transfer her, and we won't have to put up with this constant turnover.” He sent me over to the personnel officer to arrange for an immediate contract.

So far, so good. Now, if I could only get Renia out of the ghetto in time. I sent her a letter by way of Krysia outlining the situation. Once she arrived in Kraków, she would receive rations and be assigned a place to stay. Orientation would last a week. After that, she would go to Breslau for a special training course at the institute. I closed with the single word “Come!”

My letter arrived at the last possible moment, barely days before the ghetto's end. When Renia read that a job awaited her in Kraków, it was as if the door to life had opened up before her eyes. No matter what, she would find a way to come.

But the final liquidation came sooner than anyone anticipated. Hours before dawn, the last survivors were routed into the street, lined up, and marched to the trains. Renia managed to slip away as the group was being marched to the railway station, but an officer saw her. Two soldiers were sent to run her down and bring her back.

“Who helped you?” the officer demanded to know.

“No one. I ran away by myself.”

Normally, Jews who tried to escape were shot, but this time the officer didn't bother. She would be dead soon enough anyway. He threw her back in line with the other women and marched the whole column down to the depot by the glass factory. There they were shoved into boxcars to await the next train. The Germans didn't bother to seal the cars. Where were those Jews going to go?

But Renia hadn't given up. She found herself standing next to a friend of ours, a young woman named Franka. She waited until the guards left. Then she said, “Franka, get ready. We're getting out of here.”

“Where are we going?”

“To Kraków!”

They sneaked out the unlocked door on the opposite side of the car and made their way all across the city to Krysia's house. The family took them in and helped them formulate a plan of escape. The next morning they separated. Krysia's mother went with Renia while Krysia's older brother accompanied Franka. They went to the railway station and bought separate tickets. When the train arrived, they got on
two separate cars. That was basic survival procedure in the underground: keep apart, stay separate. If one is caught, the other can still get away.

But Renia's luck ran out. The train was midway between Piotrków and Częstochowa when it was raided. Krysia's brother and Franka took off with the rest of the crowd, but Renia's car didn't get word in time. Before anyone realized what was happening, the police came through the door checking everyone's papers. They let Krysia's mother go, and while they didn't suspect Renia was Jewish (she had an excellent set of papers giving her name as Irena Zaporowska and listing a Warsaw address), they did arrest her for forced labor and marched her off with the others. She ended up in a camp outside of Częstochowa, where detainees were kept until they were shipped off to Germany.

I was awaiting Renia in Kraków when I received a frantic letter from her describing how she was arrested on the train and stuck in the camp. Could I get her out? That evening I spoke with Colonel Roemer. I told him that my friend Irena had been picked up on the train and was now sitting in a detention camp in Częstochowa waiting to be shipped out any day. It was really too bad, I added, because she was looking forward to taking the job in the infirmary and would have worked out well. Colonel Roemer was furious. Now he wasn't going to get his nurse. I showed him Renia's letter in which she mentioned a special release order that she had to have in order to be let out. Could the colonel help her obtain the proper papers?

The next morning Colonel Roemer ordered his secretary to draft a letter on official SS stationery declaring that Irena Zaporowska had a job as a nurse with the Third SS Pioneer Training Battalion and had qualified for the special course at
the Nurses' Institute in Breslau. She was to be released immediately. It was a very impressive document.

But our problems weren't over. The Christmas season was rapidly approaching. All available trains were commandeered to take furloughed soldiers back to Germany. Even German civilians had to have special permission to travel. Poles couldn't travel by rail at all. Colonel Roemer had to obtain a special pass for me before I could even buy a ticket. This pass was also on SS stationery, was stamped, and had several official signatures at the bottom. It read: “Third SS Pioneer Training Battalion: The Pole, Wanda Gajda, has permission to travel on a Class A Express from Kraków to Częstochowa on December 27th and return on December 30th.”

I packed my suitcase, bought my ticket, and took the first train out. It arrived in Częstochowa at ten-thirty, long after curfew. I was standing on the street as the train pulled out, wondering which way to go, when I saw a young woman go by. Her clothes were shabby and her head bowed as she shuffled slowly along the darkened street. She looked so lonely, so forlorn. I, in contrast, was wearing my best clothes: my gray coat with the fur collar, Mrs. Roemer's leather gloves, a black leather purse, and a stylish wine-red hat with shoes to match. No wonder she was surprised when I approached her and asked if she knew of a place where I could spend the night. Why should someone as well dressed as I bother talking to her at all?