Journeys with My Mother (18 page)

In early July 1941, a Russian town of Oryol was to be our destination. Situated 350 kilometres south of Moscow at the major railway junction, tucked behind the front lines, it promised to be an ideal location for a military hospital.

Our train journey from Mogilev to Oryol was erratic. At times, without any apparent reason, the train would come to a halt in an empty field, only to pass many stations without so much as slowing, ignoring the plight of civilians. In their multitudes, people spilled out of the small railway stations, crowding near the tracks, drinking tea or simply
kipiatok
, piping hot water, hoping that the next train would stop so they could squeeze into the already crammed wagons. Priority was given to troops, weapons and military equipment, all moving towards the battlefields, while entire factories from eastern Russia were sent to Ural, Chelyabinsk, Magnitogorsk or Siberia.

After many delays we arrived in Oryol. It turned out to be an unhurried provincial town of pastel-coloured buildings and orthodox churches. Two rivers ran through it and one of them, Orlik (little eagle), had given the town its name – unless it was the other way round. The town was established by Ivan the Terrible when expanding a small military outpost; a fortress was built to defend Muscovy from the south. Later, the town gained recognition for its literary traditions: Turgenev and several other Russian writers were born or settled here.

Oryol was peaceful. My mother was relieved, glad to be walking along its streets without fear, to see the shops with some goods to sell. The absence of explosions, of which I remember nothing at all, was strange. After all, these were the bleakest days of the war, of a fast-moving German offensive and the Red Army's unexpected, humiliating retreat. The front was still a long distance away but the transports, full of wounded, continued to arrive, filling the hospital to capacity. The soldiers were in a pitiful state, young and old but mostly young, their injuries appalling. There were so many of them and Ola, not knowing how to get in touch with Władek, looked at every face. Not finding him was a consolation; it made her believe in his good fortune.

As it happened, Władek ran out of luck very quickly. In September, somewhere between the towns of Causy and Yarcevo, after days of retreating, his platoon began to attack. It was then that two bullets went through his chest. They pierced his lungs, narrowly missing his heart. This was his second injury within two months, but this one was serious and he lost much blood. Someone carried him behind the line of fire and, after a few weeks in Kaluga hospital, he was evacuated further east.

My new map tells me where Kaluga is, and for a moment my heart lurches: how close he was to us! Considering the vastness of Russia, he could have been sent to Oryol.

Kaluga was quite close to the front line and frequently bombarded. Anyone who could not walk had to remain in the ward at the mercy of chance. Had my father believed in God, he would have prayed for salvation as he felt that every bomb was aimed directly at him. Instead, after several days, he was taken by train to Kazan, in Tatarstan. This is where he remained until the end of the year. Long enough to start flirting with nurses. The transfer saved his life.

In Oryol, towards the end of September, the sound of artillery fire – muffled at first – became unbearable. The ground shook, sending everyone into a state of panic. The wards were in disarray, reeking of blood and disinfectant as neither doctors nor nurses could keep up with the increasing number of casualties. A great many were diverted to nearby Mtsensk. Thousands of new refugees hit the road. Three days later, the city's defence was over.

The assault was unexpected and fast; it was too late for our large hospital to be evacuated.

While the battle for Oryol was fought, some patients were placed in the cellars and my mother and I stayed with them. When all went quiet, Ola emerged to see what was going on. The streets were empty, only fires gave a faint colour to the morning sky. The last of the military convoys sped towards Mtsensk and a few civilians scurried for cover.

We were still in the basement when someone up above shouted in German, demanding to know if anyone was hiding. The cellar was kept dark, no one uttered a word, breaths were suspended, the stand-off dragged on. The lone German was hesitant to enter untested territory and we were terrified of what could happen to us. The disembodied voice persisted until someone shouted back that only convalescents and nurses, all unarmed, were taking cover from the fighting.

Someone descended and Ola saw a uniformed officer in high boots, a fox-fur draped over his shoulders, the head of the animal on one side, the bushy tail on the other – grotesque and threatening. In the expansive mood of a drunk, the German took stock of our appearance: ‘You are liberated! You'll have plenty to eat. The German people live well!' he boomed.

My mother froze. She was frightened by Germans and fearful of drunks. For two years she'd been fleeing the Nazis. Now, when she was in their hands, it was impossible to predict what this drunk and repugnant specimen would do.

He sat heavily on the steps; then, with one boot off, he pushed his foot forward. Now everybody could see his khaki, well-fitted, woollen sock.

‘We don't wear foot rags,' he slurred, ‘we have socks. You are despicable. Don't you know how to wash?'

When the rumble of the fighting stopped and everything went quiet, Ola could not bring herself to return to the wards. As in Warsaw, on the night of her escape from the burning hospital, she wanted to find a little corner, all to herself, to calm down, to take stock of our situation. She asked a local nurse if we could stay with her. The woman agreed and we walked together through the town, fresh ruins still smouldering, to her place on the outskirts of the city.

The next morning the nurse changed her mind so Ola, with me in her arms, trudged back to the only place she knew – the hospital. It had already been taken over by the Germans. As soon as she entered, she was introduced to the new director.

He was Anatolii Minakovski, a Soviet surgeon who'd been captured by the Germans when parachuting from a shot-down plane. A tall, well-mannered man of about forty, with attentive eyes and greying temples, he spoke German and was to take responsibility for the everyday running of the hospital.

Ola feared and disliked him instantaneously. Her fears were justified. Not only was Minakovski a collaborator, he was also likely to have access to the staff's documents and declarations. Three months earlier, she'd had to explain at length to the party officials how it happened that she, a foreigner, had found herself in this part of the world. Now, at the beginning of October, the mere thought of what was in her dossier made her nauseous. What had been mitigating in summer – her allegiance to communism, her Jewish origins, her escape from Warsaw and rescuing the Soviet wounded, all duly recorded – would spell death in autumn. In case she was questioned, she ‘tidied' her narrative.

I still have the now-disintegrating, yellowing piece of paper affirming her valiant attempt to bluff her way out: my birth certificate. The writing is still legible, except for the date – placed exactly on the crease and smudged by a watery stain – indicating when the certificate was drawn. To stave off suspicion about our flight from Warsaw, she made me born in Oryol. And, to be on the safe side, she burned every photograph she had.

The Germans brought with them autumn, then winter. At the very beginning of their occupation, there were hardly any changes in the hospital routine. No one knew what the new administration had in mind. It was a waiting game, though nothing good was expected. Then, over the course of a few days, Soviet patients from all over the town, even from the nearby psychiatric hospital, were simply dumped in the hospital building. The staff were directed to place them anywhere, regardless of their conditions: a few to a bed, on the floors; those with infectious diseases and those with mental problems or injuries. The stench of untreated wounds and blood, faeces and urine, mingled with the sickening smell of disinfectant.

During the siege of Oryol, the hospital food supplies were pilfered and food rations inadequate: a couple of hundred grams of bread and a bowl of watery soup was the daily limit. Later, even these rations were considered too generous. The medical staff attempted to ease the suffering of their patients, made worse by the ban on carrying out any surgical procedures. Apart from cleaning and changing wound dressings, nothing more could be done.

My mother, cut off from the radio and newspapers, could not know what was happening beyond the hospital. She could not know that the ultimate intention of the German occupiers was that prisoners of war would die of starvation.

Every day Minakovski and Ola went on ward round together, inspecting every area. The patients begged for help. Some swore as only the Russians can, convinced that a hospital director could negotiate and wrestle some food from the Germans. Minakovski offered them no consolation. ‘You can't bargain with them,' he said. ‘You could only try to run away.' Ola was heartbroken to see row after row of men who not long ago had had a chance of recovery, now floundering in unwashed linen, delirious, starving. Their hunger was so unrelenting that they took to chewing the leather straps of their uniforms. They began to die of infected wounds, gangrene and cold.

The high-ranking officers were more fortunate as the army had prepared them for the eventuality of being captured, providing them with syringes and morphine. Now they were the only ones in a position to choose how and when to die. No one interfered with their attempts, least of all the nurses who would rather have seen them die by their own hand than under interrogation. This was my mother's daily reality, in a place that no longer served to save: the pleading for food, for mercy, for help to escape, for last messages to be passed to those they loved. These two or three months stayed in her mind as an inferno, the darkest days of her life. Still, the nurses did what they could. Though most of the runaways were captured and put to death, the nurses removed plaster casts when asked, fudged paperwork, pronouncing their patients dead.

I would like to believe that these acts of defiance gave her strength.

For the most part, the Germans kept away from the fetid wards, but not Minakovski; hence, the staff's subversive actions were risky. At some point, however, Ola began to suspect that Minakovski was averting his eyes. She was aware that he too had to be cautious. Revealing his allegiance, no matter how obliquely – such as advising Ola that he'd destroyed incriminating papers – was fraught with danger. Not that my mother trusted him straight away. Too much was at stake. Yet, in the end, she had to admit she'd misjudged him.

Meanwhile, the front line east of Oryol wavered. Occasionally, on a good day, they could hear the cannonade, bringing them hope that their entrapment would not last much longer. It crossed Ola's mind to run away. But winter was approaching and she had nowhere to go. The uncertainty of moving from one place to another with a toddler worried her as much as staying.

Minakovski was also considering this possibility, at least at the beginning. Yet the longer he waited, the more he felt responsible for the people under his care. To abandon his duties would be unethical. It seemed that he had to make one of those decisions that decent people face: to save oneself or to assist others. Like a sea captain, bound by honour, he had to be the last to leave his sinking ship.

For Minakovski, escape was a gamble but staying at his post amounted to death. As a Red Army officer and a doctor, he would only remain alive for as long as he was useful.
²³
He was on borrowed time, and yet he stayed. We were all trapped.

At the beginning of the year, in January 1942, the regime gave new orders – the wards were to be emptied, scrubbed clean and made suitable for German casualties. For a few days, empty lorries arrived at the hospital. The imprisoned patients, shivering from cold, some incapable of walking, were pushed by German soldiers onto platforms before the trucks took off for an unknown destination. Towards the end of the action, when the last of the remaining inmates were put on the trucks, as if on a whim, as if it were a mere afterthought, the Germans ordered Minakovski to climb onto the last one.

It was horrifying to watch. Only a moment earlier he'd been standing next to them, one of the staff; the next, he was on his way to his death.

One of the nurses ran behind the truck, passing her mittens to Minakovski. He'd never even had a chance to put on his coat. It provoked the guards' laughter.

There is a forest near the town – and winter in Russia is beautiful – where the prisoners were taken, forced to dig their own graves and shot.

Over the years, my mother told me about that day more than once. The bleak morning, the prisoners flinching from the biting wind, Minakovski's pale face and his farewell gesture, all those people going towards certain death. She never said ‘killed', she said ‘murdered'. When talking about atrocities, she used brutal words and I flinched every time.