Karolina's Twins (14 page)

“And Arthur would then take my entire estate when I died?”

“Correct.”

“So, how do we defeat him?”

“With evidence. Of course, the most convincing way is to show that the girls existed.”

“In fifteen days?” Liam said.

Catherine shook her head. “I'm sure I can buy us some time. But are you sure you want to proceed? This affair will be painful. And we could lose. We may not be able to find the proof that the twins are alive now or have ever been alive. Arthur could wind up appointed as your guardian. You could end up in a home.”

“You should at least consider the alternative,” Liam added.

“Which is?”

“I think we could probably negotiate a deal at this time,” Catherine said.

“A deal to break my promise to Karolina, abandon my search and tear up my new will? No way. I won't do it. I'll fight him. Can I count on you to help me?”

“All the way,” Catherine said. “I'll get to work preparing a response to Arthur's petition. I assume they will file it Monday and set it for hearing in early January.” She stood and started to walk out of the room.

“Don't you have time today?” Lena said. “As long as I'm already here?”

“I'm just getting a glass of milk, Lena,” she said, smiling, “but not right out of the cow. Let me get my notes.”

Liam reached for his coat and said, “Cat, Lena, you'll have to excuse me. I have a little work to do outside the office. I'll catch up with you guys later.”

 

T
HIRTEEN

“W
HEN LAST WE SPOKE
,” Catherine said, “you told me that you and Karolina had found each other.”

“Right. It was May 1941. I was overjoyed reconnecting with Karolina, but I could see that, like so many of us, she had taken an emotional beating. I wished that I could move in with her. I could have helped her. We could have helped each other. But I felt responsible for Yossi. He was growing weaker by the day and had no one to look after him.

“I brought Yossi food each night. I took him to the synagogue three times a week. I brought him books from the synagogue library. When his eyes were too tired, I would read to him. Each evening I would read a section from his bible, the portion for the day. It became hard for him to walk even a few blocks. He was so bereft of energy, so frail that I thought he was going to snap like a twig. I was fighting his old age and the attritions of our oppression.

“‘Tell me about your family,' I said to Yossi one night. His eyes glassed over. ‘They're all gone now. My Rivka died twenty years ago. We had one son, Ephraim, who moved to Lithuania.' He shook his head.

“‘Any grandchildren?'

“Yossi started crying and said, ‘I cannot talk about it.” So we left it and I didn't bring it up again. But for all his pain, he was usually upbeat. I attributed that to his faith and I began to realize that whether there was a God or not, He existed for Yossi. In the direst of circumstances, Yossi found hope and comfort from his religion. I could understand the measure of his devotion, but I was not capable of such beliefs.

“By the end of summer, the ghetto's population had grown significantly and now held many thousands, not just from Chrzanów but from surrounding communities. Our basic infrastructure could not support the lives of all these people. Just a simple walk around the ghetto would convince you that attrition was the Grim Reaper's major tool. His harvest was evident each day. Initially, before they built the gas chambers and crematoriums, the Nazis' principle killing machine was attrition. Death by starvation, malnutrition, parasites, disease and lack of medical care took dozens a day. In the winter, people froze to death.

“Our living conditions were unsanitary, no matter what we did. Buildings in the ghetto were old and few had indoor plumbing. The ghetto's public toilets, nothing more than outhouses, were not designed to service thousands of people. Our confined area was teeming with all sorts of diseases, lice, rodents, pestilence. It was a constant battle, and it seemed as though new deaths were reported every day.

“One night, in early September, I met Karolina on our way back from the Shop. She was carrying a paper bag.

“‘I have a wonderful dinner for us tonight,' she said. ‘In this magic bag, I have duck, goat cheese, bread and butter. Can you believe it?'

“‘Are you serious? We could get arrested. Where did you get that?'

“She shrugged her shoulders. ‘My mother's brooch.'

“I felt bad. ‘I'm sorry. You should have hung onto it until the end of the war.'

“She smiled. ‘I never liked it anyway. I thought it was ugly. I was able to trade it for food, and let's face it, the food is a lot prettier than the brooch.'

“We both laughed. It was true.

“‘Let's picnic,' Karolina said with a lilt. It was a warm night and the sun would not set for another two hours. There was a small triangular park at the corner of the ghetto, and even a park bench to sit on.

“‘I have to check on Yossi first. Can I give him a little piece of duck with his dinner?'

“‘Sure. There's plenty here for the three of us,' Karolina said. ‘We can certainly share with Yossi. Maybe he would like to picnic with us.'

“We stopped in front of the building and I ran down the stairs only to find Yossi curled up on his mattress, his hands on his bible. I stopped short when I saw that he had soiled himself. I bent down to wake him and quickly realized that he had passed. I sat on the floor, unable to do anything, paralyzed by despair. Yossi was a kind man who had never harmed a soul, who'd brought hope and promise into my life. It was just too damn overwhelming.

“A few minutes later, Karolina came down the stairs. ‘Are you two slowpokes going to stay here all night?' Then she comprehended what had happened. ‘We have to notify the Judenrat.'

“‘I have to clean him up, Karolina. I can't let people see him like this.'

“‘They'll prepare him for burial. They do it every day.'

“‘I can't. He shouldn't look like this. He was a learned man. A good man. I need to clean him.'

“Karolina nodded. ‘You're right, of course. I'll fetch the water.'

“We bathed and dressed Yossi, laid him back on the mat and crossed his hands on his chest over his bible. Then we went to see Mr. Kapinski at his apartment. He gave me a hug and thanked me for taking care of Yossi. ‘I'm sure his last days were pleasant because of you, he often told me so. I'll send a group to pick up Yossi.'

“‘Would you go to the synagogue with me and say Kaddish?' I said softly.

“Kapinski paused. ‘Aren't you the girl who said prayers were a waste of time and energy? Didn't you mock the minyan and say, ‘Who is listening?'

“‘It's not for me,' I said. ‘It's for Yossi.'

“He raised his eyebrows and smiled. ‘Perhaps it is, and perhaps it isn't.'

“He assembled a group at the synagogue, men on the main floor and women on the balcony, and we sanctified the name of God for Yossi.”

Lena stopped and looked at Catherine. “Don't you find that curious? That the first thing that came to my mind was my privilege to say Kaddish for Yossi?”

“Who am I to judge?”

“I mean, joining with other maltreated victims in prayers that praised God in such a godless setting—so flagrantly paradoxical—but it just seemed to me that Yossi would have insisted that I do so. He would have led me by the arm and directed me to say Kaddish. So I did.

“After the funeral, there was no reason that Karolina and I couldn't live together. Karolina's apartment, the one she'd shared with her mother, was small and located in a grossly overcrowded building. So many families had moved into her building and encroached upon her little corner, that her living space was insufficient for the two of us. There were so many people forced to live in such a small area, not just Jews from Chrzanów, but refugees and transferees from other towns in Upper Silesia. Karolina's floor was packed with families, many of them with young children. So we decided to look for another room. Clearly, Yossi's furnace room was too small and unhealthy. We decided to go to Mr. Kapinski, as the Judenrat was often the agency that found rooms for people.

“‘There are no vacant apartments, and if I had one, I'd give it to a family with children,' Mr. Kapinski told us. ‘But we have just cleaned out the old ironworks on Bozena Plaza. It's a large brick one-story warehouse with a vast open room. It'll accommodate up to fifty in little blocked-off areas. Take it quickly,' he warned. ‘There are more than ten thousand people currently squeezed into our ghetto's few square blocks.'”

“Fifty people in one open room? It doesn't sound much better than the one Karolina already had,” Catherine said.

“It wasn't a lot better, but Karolina's living space was too small for two. Even though the warehouse was a single room, people through their ingenuity could carve out separate living spaces. Boxes could be converted into dressers and tables. Used and abandoned furniture could be found. David smuggled out a few pieces of wool fabric for us to use as bedding. Before they were forced to abandon their home, Karolina and her mother were given sufficient time to pack their belongings. They brought bedding, dishes and a chest of drawers. Remember, all I had was what I'd stuffed into my duffel.

“The warehouse, which everyone called the ‘dormitory,' had windows, high ceilings, a few bare bulbs in the hallways and a concrete floor. Unfortunately, no toilets or running water. It had a coal furnace but no coal, no kitchen, and brick walls with no insulation. Yet, by the creativity of the residents, areas were segregated and partitioned into virtual rooms. Sheets or blankets hung from the ceiling as faux walls. Pieces of furniture and boxes, strategically stacked, formed aisles. To our collective credit, virtual privacy walls were created by the respect of one family for another. Even though your neighbor was inches away, we chose not to listen or see.

“Karolina and I cordoned off a corner area of the dormitory for our sleeping and living quarters. Karolina's old chest of drawers and a wooden box that we converted into a table provided a little wall to make a border for our space. I would say that we probably had an eight-by-ten area with a window. The window was a blessing that September, but a big mistake come winter.

“During the summer, there was enough daylight for us to accomplish quite a bit before curfew. We could rise with the early sunshine and stand in the ration lines. After work we could wash our clothes. We could even take a walk, though not outside the ghetto. But by fall the hours of productivity were dwindling.

“Food was becoming scarcer. Many stores ran out of provisions by ten
A.M.
Nazi edicts prohibited the sale of any dairy goods or eggs to Jews. No milk, cheese or butter. This was especially hard on families with young children. Babies need milk, and a starving mother can't always provide enough. A black market developed, and prohibited products could be purchased from non-Jews, but it was dangerous and money was scarce. If one was lucky enough to buy some milk in town from a Gentile, it was usually given to the Judenrat, stored and distributed to the children. It was very risky to buy forbidden products. The Nazis would summarily shoot anyone found engaging in black market commerce.

“To further enfeeble us and prevent us from buying food on the black market, the Nazis confiscated our valuables—silver, jewelry, paintings, even nice furniture. We were required to turn in all of our jewelry at the start of the occupation, but many saved a precious piece or two. The Germans periodically searched our living quarters or our belongings and if they found cash or valuables, you were due for a beating or worse. Thus Karolina's exchange of jewelry for food was a dangerous transaction.

“At the Shop, the routine never changed. Each morning Karolina and I returned to our machines just as another woman was leaving. Three shifts operated around the clock. One right after another. Measured pieces of large, heavy black wool would periodically be laid at my station. No sooner did I finish one overcoat than Ilsa would bring another. Sometimes needles would break, I'd raise my hand, Ilsa would come and I'd catch hell for breaking a needle. Finally, after an eight-hour shift, the bell rang, and I walked back to the dormitory with Karolina.

“That was our life through the balance of 1941. Work. Eat. Sleep. We endured and, like the others, we settled into a penurious lifestyle. As long as it didn't get any worse, we felt we could outlast the occupation. Of course, we really didn't know what the Nazis or the winter had in store for us.

“Each night, as winter approached, I would curl up under my blanket, trying to keep warm in the unheated sleeping quarters. As always, I slept with Milosz's shoe in my arms, hugging it tightly like it was a teddy bear. I missed him dearly, but I had stopped crying.

“Back at the Shop, things took a turn for the better in late fall. Siegfried, a twentysomething German enlistee, became the overseer in Karolina's section. Karolina told me that he had started hanging around her station to chat with her while she worked. He was young and lonesome, and he'd obviously taken a liking to Karolina. As I told you, she was very pretty. She had thick, black curly hair, alluring eyes, soft facial features and a knockout body. And she knew how to flirt.

“Karolina was also a deft conversationalist. No matter what you wanted to talk about, she could hold up her end of the conversation. And she was a great listener. With her sparkling eyes and seductive smile, she'd had many a boy hanging around her in high school. And now, Siegfried was interested.

“Siegfried's attention was a great boon to us. He became Karolina's protector. She was never hassled by any of the other overseers. She worked on fewer garments, but her reported production numbers never fell. Each day Siegfried would bring small portions of food wrapped in newsprint and bashfully tell Karolina that they were extras and that he would like her to have them. Cheese, meat and the most coveted of all, a piece of fruit. When no one was looking, he'd put the package into Karolina's coat pocket. Slipping a piece of fruit into Karolina's pocket and giving her a wink of his eye was a shy boy's opportunity to get close to a beautiful girl. To understand how passionate he was about Karolina, you'd have to appreciate the seriousness of his acts. Giving food to Jews was strictly prohibited.