Karolina's Twins (39 page)

The trip covered one hundred seventy miles and took about three hours. Unlike Karolina's trip, which took days, the train traveled quickly with few stops. Liam had to be quick to click and save the GPS coordinates at the precise moments, but he thought he covered it pretty well. Each time there was a railroad siding, he'd save the location.

When he arrived in Rogoznica, he and Agnesa rented a car and retraced the path, stopping at each GPS point to survey the area. Forests covered a substantial part of the journey, and Liam knew that the babies weren't thrown into a forest. Railroad sidings in those areas were crossed off the list.

Farmlands that sat just beyond a railroad siding, the kind described by Lena, where the babies could have been deposited, were whittled down to four. Only four possible areas to canvass where someone might have found an abandoned baby. In each of the four locations, Liam and Agnesa stopped to knock on doors. How long has your family been living here? Do you know the name of the family that lived here in 1943? Have you ever heard a story about a baby that was found out in the meadow by the train tracks? Do you know of someone in town who would know what went on in 1943?

In the town of Domaniów, in the rural administrative district called Gmina Domaniów, they hit the bull's-eye. A very old man, the keeper of the town's post office, nodded his head. “There were
two
little babies, not just one. One was found over there.” He pointed south, toward the tracks. “One over there.” He pointed north.

Liam's heart was pounding hard against his chest. “The babies, were they found alive?”

The old man nodded. “Oh, yes. Both of them. No one knew where they came from, but we figured they would have come off of a train. Crazy things happened during the war.” He leaned forward. “Especially to Jews, you know.” Liam nodded. He knew.

“The babies were each wrapped up nice and warm. They even had an address pinned to them, an address somewhere in the middle of Germany. Nobody around here was going to take any baby hundreds of miles into the middle of Germany during the war. No sir.”

“What happened? Who raised those babies?”

“Well, they were found by Ena Wolczyk, but she didn't keep them. She was getting up there in age. She asked around and, it being the war and all, it was hard to find a family that wanted to take the responsibility of raising two little ones.”

“What did Ena do with the babies?”

“Not really sure. I just know that no one in Domaniów raised them.”

Liam sighed. “How can we find out what happened to them?”

The old man shrugged. “Ena's long gone. Her daughter's passed as well. I don't know.”

“If I write out a notice, like a little sign, one that says if you have any information about the two babies found by Ena Wolczyk in 1943, would you please call the following, could you hang it here in the post office?”

“Sure. Happy to help.”

Liam turned to Agnesa. “Would you make a sign for me, please? Attach a few of my cards to the bottom.”

Liam handed the paper to the old man and said, “I really appreciate your help. You have no idea how happy this is going to make a woman back in Chicago. Those babies were born to a very close friend of hers. A girl named Karolina. Knowledge that the babies survived will set her mind at ease.”

“Karolina, huh? Well, I'm happy to help. If anyone has any information about these babies, I'll be sure to get ahold of you.”

“One more thing. Is there an orphanage nearby?”

The man nodded. “I think there's one run by the church in Wroclaw. About an hour straight east. Might not be such a bad idea. Pretty sharp thinking.”

*   *   *

I
N AN OFFICE, IN
a two-hundred-year-old gothic church in Wroclaw, Poland, Sister Maria looked through her file cabinet and her stack of note cards. “There were many Jewish children hidden by orphanages during the war,' she said in perfect English. ‘Including here at St. Stanislaus, all at great risk to the sisters, I might add. From time to time, the SS would barge through here and demand IDs for the children. They'd want to know the ancestry for each of our wards. We forged papers and forged birth certificates for every Jewish child we took in. A child old enough to understand was given a Christian name and told to never speak his Jewish name. Sometimes we were able to place children with a Polish family. At the end of the war, the remaining Jewish children were sent to DP camps. I have the records for 1943 right here.”

She thumbed through the index cards and shook her head. “I don't see any twins being admitted. There were baby girls that were dropped off, especially in 1942 and 1943, when the ghettos were being cleared out, but none that are noted to be twins. Of course, I wasn't here back then, so I don't know all the stories. And though we're taught never to lie”—she winked—“the index cards didn't always tell the truth.”

“This would have been in mid-April,” Liam said. “I believe they were brought here by Ena Wolczyk from the village of Domaniów. She wasn't Jewish.”

Sister Maria nodded and thumbed through the cards again. “There were two babies brought here in April 1943. The notes reflect that neither one was brought in by the mother.”

“That's it!” Liam said.

Sister Maria continued to shake her head. “They weren't twins.”

“How do you know?”

“One was five months old and the other was three months old.”

“Do your records show who adopted the children?”

“Certainly.”

“May I know their names?”

“Certainly not. That would be strictly against our adoption rules and Poland's adoption laws.”

Liam leaned forward in his chair, crossed his hands on the desk as he had in his catechism days, and said, “Sister, may I tell you the story about the woman who hired me?”

When he had finished telling Sister Maria about Lena, he said, “I have a gut feeling that these babies were really twins and when the church drafted forged IDs, they wrote them down as being from two different families, of two different ages. Lena Scheinman made a promise to their mother to find them. How could it possibly hurt to bend the rules just a little bit? It isn't like Lena would interfere with their upbringing or harm the relationship with their adoptive parents. If these women are still alive, they're seventy-two years old.”

“I'm afraid it's quite impossible. Under no circumstances can I
voluntarily
give you private information protected by law.” Sister Maria looked directly into Liam's eyes. “Do you understand me?”

“Perfectly.”

“Good. I will take your name and number and let you know if anything turns up. But if you will please excuse me for just a minute, I need to check and see when Mass is served today.”

With that, Sister Maria pushed the two cards to the middle of the desk, left the room and closed the door. Liam quickly copied the information from the cards and replaced them on the desk.

*   *   *

“C
AT, THEY SURVIVED! THE
twins! They survived and were rescued by a woman in Domaniów, Poland.”

“Liam, I can't believe it. Are they still alive?”

“I don't know. Actually, there's a lot I don't know, but I'm much further along than when I started. If Ena Wolczyk took them to the Wroclaw orphanage in April 1943, then I know their last names.”

“I don't understand.”

“Ena Wolczyk, long since dead, lived in Domaniów. She found the two babies alive in the wheat fields by the tracks. She wasn't able to raise them and she didn't keep them. No one in Domaniów today knows what she did with them. I figured she might have given them to an orphanage, so I visited St. Stanislaus Catholic Church in a nearby city. Sure enough, the sisters ran an orphanage during the war. Their records show that they took in two babies in April 1943, but the records also say they were different ages. The index cards reflect that one was three months and the other was five months. That might have just been their way of deceiving the Nazis. Anyway, I have the names of the families that adopted the babies after the war and their addresses.”

“How did you learn that? Adoption agencies don't disclose that information.”

“Ah, it's me Irish charm.”

“It always worked on me. So what are you doing now? We don't have much more time. And what about Muriel Bernstein?”

“I have two families and two addresses, albeit from the forties, but I'm going tracking. And Muriel still hasn't returned my calls. I'll keep trying.”

“Lena will be thrilled to hear about your discoveries. Do you think I should tell her before we know for sure?”

“We
do
know for sure. Karolina's twins survived. They were thrown out of the window of a moving train by two desperate women and they lived. The Domaniów postman even told me they had addresses pinned to them when they were found. I'm just not certain what happened to them afterward. I'll bet they went to the orphanage, and that's the lead I'm going to follow. But, Cat, it's going to take time. My information is seventy years old. You've got to get that continuance.”

“I filed the motion. It'll be heard tomorrow morning.”

“Good luck. Love you. Take care of the little tyke-to-be.”

 

F
ORTY-SEVEN

J
UDGE PETERSON READ THE
motion as Catherine and Shirley stood silently before the bench.

“Why do you need sixty days?” Judge Peterson said, peering over his reading glasses.

“Because our investigator has established evidence that the twins existed and survived the war,” Catherine answered. “He is presently in Poland endeavoring to contact them.”

“Why is that important to me?”

“We are here in your courtroom because the petitioner has alleged that Lena Woodward suffers from an obsession to find two girls who never existed. We know now that they did exist and were alive in 1943.”

“For my purposes as a judge of the probate division, does that resolve all of the issues in the petition? Mr. Woodward has alleged there is mental deterioration based on dementia. He's alleged she is consumed by an obsessive desire to find two children, whether they existed or not, and that the obsession is a psychological disorder brought on by her age, isn't all that so?”

“Yes, Your Honor, but the entire factual basis for that assertion is flawed because—”

“Factual basis, Ms. Lockhart? Aren't we now talking about what goes on in a trial? I mean, one lawyer introduces facts, then the other lawyer introduces facts, and then some judge, in this case me, decides which facts will carry the day. Have I described a trial correctly, Ms. Lockhart?”

“Yes, but the entire factual foundation for Mr. Woodward's petition is that the twins are imaginary, that they never existed, which he won't be able to prove.…”

“Then he will lose, won't he?”

“But, Your Honor, I just need an additional sixty days to secure my evidence.”

Judge Peterson curled his lips. “I'm out of patience. Motion denied.”

“May I have two more weeks? Just two more weeks?”

Peterson snarled and said, “Very well. Two weeks. Period. Trial starts May ninth. I will only continue it again in the event of a death. Yours. Call the next case.”

*   *   *

“B
EFORE WE START TODAY
, Lena, I have some wonderful news. But first you have to sit down.”

“The judge granted our motion to continue the case?” Lena said as she took her seat.

“Yes, for only two weeks, but that's not the really good news. Did you take your heart medicine today?”

Lena glared in mock annoyance. “I don't take heart medicine. There's nothing wrong with my heart or my brain.”

“Okay. Take a deep breath, Lena. The babies lived. They survived. Liam has learned that the babies survived. A woman in Domaniów, Poland, found them laying in the wheat fields, right by the train tracks. They had Siegfried's address pinned to their diapers.”

Lena froze. Her body stiffened and she stared straight ahead. “They lived,” she whispered without moving. “They lived after all.”

“Lena? Lena, look at me. Are you all right”

Lena slumped down in her chair, her hand covering her eyes and mouth. She sobbed loudly and profoundly. She cried, she laughed. Pure hysteria. Catherine quickly came to her side. “Lena, Lena, are you okay?”

“Karolina was right. She was right all along. At the cost of her sanity and her life, she saved those babies. We threw our babies out of a train to save them from certain death and she was right. They lived. Karolina, wherever you are, know that our babies lived. Thank the Lord.” She looked up into Catherine's eyes, which were also filled with tears, and said, “Thank you, and thanks to Liam.”

“You're all right?”

She nodded. “I don't know how to tell you this, but the pain I've carried for all these years has been lifted from my soul.” She shook her head and sobbed. “Can you imagine how it feels to believe you may have heaved a lovely child to her death? Had I known this fifty, sixty years ago, I would have … Never mind. It doesn't matter.”

“Liam believes they were taken to an orphanage and he has their adoptive names. If anyone can track them down, it's Liam. He says he has a lead. I wish I could tell you more.”

“You told me they survived, and now I know Karolina and I saved their lives. You have to understand what it was like. They were the children that were never meant to be. The Judenrat, the elders, all our friends—everyone warned girls not to get pregnant. Never bring a baby into this troubled world. If a girl was so reckless, so thoughtless as to give birth, then the baby was doomed—bound to starve, be tortured or slaughtered. Can you possibly imagine the conflict of emotions that comes with giving birth during the Holocaust—the joy, the guilt, the fear, the love?” She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “But we saved our babies. Our babies lived.”