Karolina's Twins (24 page)

“Okay. Okay. That's enough.” She sat up straight, crossed her legs and smoothed her skirt. “During 1942, the Germans started their liquidation of the Polish ghettos in line with the principles adopted at the Wannsee Conference, and Chrzanów was targeted for clearance by the end of the year. As with most of the world, we were unaware of the Wannsee Conference.”

“Tell me about it.”

“In July 1941, Hermann Goering appointed SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich to organize and carry out the Final Solution to the Jewish Problem. He convened a secret conference in January 1942. In that meeting, Heydrich informed the German ministry leaders that the Reich's efforts to rid Europe of its eleven million Jews by emigration, attrition and other means had proven largely unsuccessful. A new solution was necessary, a Final Solution.

“The Wannsee Protocol provided that able-bodied Jews, divided by sex, were to be sent to labor camps. All other Jews were to be gathered and deported to transit camps and from there to death camps, where mass exterminations would rid the continent of its remaining ten million Jews. Accordingly, in 1942 the Germans began transports from the Chrzanów ghetto.”

“So Germany began mass executions following the Wannsee Conference?”

Lena shook her head. “Mass murders were already taking place throughout Poland and the Soviet territories. Death camps, like Treblinka, had already been built and Nazis were already executing Jews. Even before the conference, the death camp at Belzec was under construction. The thrust of the Wannsee Conference was to make the deportations and transports more efficient, and to leave no uncertainty of the fate of Europe's Jews. To that end, ghettos in Polish cities were being cleared out and towns were being made
judenfrei
one at a time.

“In May, the Nazi command demanded that the Chrzanów Judenrat supply fifteen hundred names for immediate transport, comprised of children under the age of ten and adults over sixty. The professed reason, the one given to us through the Judenrat, was that the ghetto was too crowded and workers needed to be resettled. Young children cannot work and older people couldn't do the heavy work the Germans wanted. The official Nazi explanation was that the babies and young children would be sent to a children's camp to be trained and reeducated. The seniors would be sent to camps where labor was much less strenuous.

“That order went through the ghetto like a thunderbolt. Parents were not about to send their children away. Mothers clung to their babies and begged the Judenrat to do something. Some tried to escape, but all roads had checkpoints and the attempts were futile. The Nazis were quick to inform us of the runaways they captured and executed.

“Immediately, the Judenrat filed its objections with the Nazi command: you can't tear young children away from their parents. But the Germans said the children's camp had playgrounds, hospitals, nurses and matrons, a place where they could go to school, where they would be with other children and where they would be taught skills useful in the workplace. ‘Our children's camps are much healthier than living in your squalid ghettos,' they said.

“Many of the parents refused to believe the Nazis and tried to hide their children, but soldiers came through the ghetto and physically grabbed the little children. Parents who resisted were shot. Some parents begged to go with their children, but the Germans told them it was only a children's camp—no parents allowed. The Nazis promised that all parents would be reunited with their children after the war. Ultimately, over twelve hundred children were gathered at the Chrzanów train station. At the railroad embarkation point, the Nazis gave each child a piece of bread with marmalade to show them how much fun it was going to be. They waved good-bye to wailing parents and innocently climbed into the boxcars. We know now that they did not survive; there were no children's camps.

“That day, when I returned to our apartment, I saw that the children's deportation was especially hard on Karolina. Not that it didn't dishearten everyone; anyone with a human heart was disconsolate, but to Karolina, it was as if she were personally affected. She cried for nights and nights, and then I finally understood why. We were in the middle of bathing and washing our clothes in a bucket we'd filled from the fountain when Karolina saw me staring at her naked body. We locked eyes.

“‘Oh, damn, Karolina. How far along?'

“She bit her lip. ‘Three months.'

“‘Siegfried?'

“‘I haven't been with anyone else, Lena,' she said indignantly.

“‘Does he know?'

“‘I don't think so. It's always pretty dark when we're together.'

“‘Are you going to tell him?'

“‘I'm not sure, but unless I abort this baby, I can't keep it from him much longer.'

“‘Is that what you're planning? Are you thinking of terminating your pregnancy?'

“Her jaw quivered and her eyes filled with tears. She grabbed hold of my shoulders and shook them. ‘I don't know, Lena. I don't know. I don't want to. I don't know. What should I do?'

“‘What can I say? How do you two feel about each other?'

“‘He says he loves me. He says it all the time.'

“‘If you think he loves you, I mean really loves you, and he's not just saying that in the heat of the night, then you need to tell him. If you're not going to tell him, then you need to break off your relationship.'

“‘I don't want to break up with Siegfried. I don't want to hurt him. He wouldn't understand. We have these long conversations about our life together when the war is over. He has a family home in Bavaria.'

“That sounded so improbable to me. ‘He knows you're Jewish?'

“She nodded. ‘Of course. He says he doesn't care. He loves me. He said his parents would love me, too.'

“I was shocked by the whole thing. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong person, wrong everything. ‘Do you love him, Karolina?'

“‘I think so. I mean, he's a nice guy. He's kind. He's gentle. He's very good to me. But damn, Lena, how's this ever going to work? It's against the law for him to have relations with a Jewish girl. We could get caught any day. He could be convicted of a crime. Sent to the Russian front. Who knows what?'

“I had no answers. I knew she needed counseling and advice, but I was just too dumbfounded by the whole thing. All I could do was hug her. We stood that way for quite a while, both of us crying.

“‘I could ask Dr. Gold for an abortion. I know he's already done a few at the clinic.'

“‘Is that what you want?'

“She pitifully shook her head. ‘No.'

“I thought to myself, how foolish of her to want to keep this baby. They just tore twelve hundred children away from their parents. Even if they didn't deport any more, how could she raise a baby under these conditions? Then it occurred to me that in the midst of this dehumanizing war, she had found something beautiful, something very human. Something to love. Something to hang onto.

“‘There's a terrible risk of infection with any surgeries at the clinic,' I said firmly. ‘I wouldn't recommend it. Leah Gruenberg died after she had her abortion. They don't have any medicines. If it were me, I'd probably keep the baby too. Besides, in another six months things could be different. The war could be over.'

“She wiped a tear from her eye. ‘Thanks, Lena.'

“I patted her bump. ‘You're already showing a little. You either have to break off the relationship or tell him.'

“She nodded. ‘You're right. I'll tell him.'”

 

T
WENTY-FOUR

I
N APRIL AND MAY
we saw several deportations, but none that were limited to children. Because the ghetto was ordered to systematically empty, the Judenrat was charged with supplying additional lists of names for ‘resettlement.' The inclusion of your name on the list meant that your entire family was to show up at the market square to be transported.

“The official explanation from the Nazis was that other work camps were being constructed with new housing and ample room for all who were willing to work. People were told to take their nicest clothes and pack as much as they could in one suitcase per person. They gave each family a white marker to write their names and home addresses on the sides of each piece of luggage. That was to ensure that they could find their luggage when they got to the resettlement camp, and if it got lost, it would be forwarded to them.”

Lena shook her head. “Deep down, it sounded like a lie, but even a morsel of hope was enough to induce people to pack, line up and board the trains for resettlement without resistance.

“The Shop continued to manufacture coats and jackets, and those working at the Shop were generally immune from deportation lists, but in June rumors started circulating that the Shop would be closing by the end of the year. I don't know if one of the girls overheard something or if our workloads were decreasing, but fear of the shutdown created anxiety among all of us. It was the only job left for Jews and the only thing saving us from the resettlement lists.

“I told you about winters in the ghetto, how harsh and deadly they were. Well, summers brought their own torments. Imagine thousands of people crammed into tiny living spaces in blistering temperatures with no way to cool off. Clean water was scarce. The Germans posted warnings about using the central fountain and erected a sign declaring it was contaminated with typhus. Some drank it anyway, believing it was just a German tactic to prevent us from getting water. Karolina and I found a well at a house on the other side of the tracks, outside the ghetto. We would fill bottles in the middle of the night.

“Insects—mosquitoes, flies, bugs of all sorts—flourished in the summer heat. People who chose to sleep outside and find respite from the heat were attacked by insects. Small pests—rats, mice—infested our area and our living quarters, especially the dormitory. The Shop, with its fifteen hundred workers, was a pressure cooker. A few fans were installed to bolster production, but they afforded little relief.”

“Wait a minute, Lena,” Catherine said. “You never told me what happened when Karolina told Siegfried that she was pregnant. What did he do?”

“I'm trying to keep this chronological. Siegfried was sent on a delivery detail, taking finished coats in a convoy up north. He was gone and didn't return for a few weeks. The day he returned, Karolina was sitting at her station, and he came over to tell her he was back and that he wanted to see her. She didn't come home that night.

“I saw her at the break the next afternoon. She winked at me. Because there were other women around, all she could say was, ‘It's good. Tell you later.'

“She didn't come back to our apartment to sleep for a few days. When she did, she filled me in. Siegfried had stopped at his home on his way back and told his mother that he had fallen in love with a German girl. He wanted to get married as soon as possible.”

“A German girl?”

“Well, technically he was correct. Chrzanów had been annexed into Germany along with the Upper Silesian towns in 1939 after the Blitzkrieg. So she really was a German girl in 1942. And she could speak German. He figured he could get away with it.”

“She was a Jew, not a German citizen.”

“Details, details. He figured with the progress the Germans were making, the war would soon be over and he'd return to Bavaria with Karolina, his German girlfriend. But Karolina wasn't quite as optimistic. She related the conversation to me.

“‘Did your mother ask you about my religion?' Karolina had said.

“He hemmed and hawed, and finally said, ‘Well, she didn't ask me. I guess she just made her assumptions. She only asked me what kind of a person you were—and I told her beautiful, exciting, sweet and lovely.'

“‘What's she going to do when she finds out who I really am?'

“‘Why would she find out? Who would tell her?'

“‘Siegfried, I think you're being naïve. The Germans trace everybody's bloodlines. They'll want to know who my parents and grandparents were.'

“‘Don't worry,' Siegfried said. ‘We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. After the war no one will care.'

“So, that's how Karolina and Siegfried left it. They would take it day by day. For the moment they were both at the Shop. He would make sure she was well taken care of, with food, clothing and special treatment.”

“Pretty risky, if you ask me,” Catherine said. “What if Siegfried were transferred? There was a war going on.”

“What were her alternatives? We were prisoners in a ghetto, under awful circumstances. We had learned that the ghetto was to be cleared out, that we would be sent somewhere else. What did the future hold for us? Karolina's plan, no matter how improbable, was at least a plan.

“From then on, Karolina would spend an occasional night away and I didn't question her. I came to understand that it wasn't all for food and privilege. She had genuine feelings for her German soldier. I was not about to sit in judgment on my best friend.”

 

T
WENTY-FIVE

T
HROUGH THE SPRING OF
1942, Karolina and I stayed locked in a routine. We went to work every day at the Shop. I would occasionally carry reports to the colonel, though they were coming much less frequently. Karolina would spend time with Siegfried and I was increasing my time with David. But routines are so deceiving. They make you believe in constancy. In Chrzanów, the only constant was unpredictability. Chrzanów was changing. Deportations were on the increase. More names were posted every day.

“To some extent, productive workers at the Shop were spared from transports. David made sure that Karolina and I were known to be among the best coat producers, so we were sure to be left off the lists. But the writing was on the wall. The ghetto was shrinking. Soon there would be no more Jews in Chrzanów.