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9
14thJuly 1941
There was no school today, and Nacha was bored.She’d attended the school hidden behind the soup kitchen most days, but sometimes it was called off, especially if there’d been a raid on one of the other groups that met around that section of the ghetto.
Besides that, their teacher had been carried away in the back of one of the rumbling trucks with the canvas flaps, according to a whispered message from his son, who’d immediately fled back to his home in one of the old apartment buildings by the hospital.It seemed like almost everyone they knew had typhus, so Tata didn’t like Nacha or Nathan going far or mixing with too many people.
And so they did what they could to pass the time.Tata preferred that Nacha stayed home.Babcia had plenty of work for her to do—they were currently embroiled in a project to mend every single missing button, tear or hole worn in every item of clothing in the house.Babcia was determined they not look like homeless people or as if they’d stumbled out of a poorhouse, although the more time passed, the more bony, bedraggled and grimy everyone in the ghetto became.
They’d grown accustomed to stepping around or over bodies lying strewn in the streets.The faces of bloated babies and toddlers sometimes haunted Nacha’s dreams, but she rarely thought about them in her waking hours.Her attention was taken up by other things, like how to get hold of some meat and how she might cook it if she did.In the meantime, she occasionally ran into Leah, and they passed the time together.
Today she’d shown up outside Nacha’s apartment, waiting in the shadows across the street until Nathan had shouted for Nacha to go and see what she wanted.They’d used a stone to draw lines for hopscotch on the uneven ground.Now they were taking turns at the game, and chanting rhymes as they did it.
Nacha hopped while Leah watched, her chin resting in her upturned hands as she lay on her stomach in the grass.
Leah sighed.“I wish we could get out of this place.”
Nacha tossed a small stone, then poked her tongue out the side of her mouth as she hopped on one foot, avoiding the square where the stone had landed.“Me too, but wishing doesn’t make it so.”
“It’s not fair.Our best years, and we’re stuck in here.No dances, no boys, not even a nice slice of cake every now and then.What I wouldn’t give for a bar of chocolate.”She licked her lips.
“I want to go somewhere I can walk around, out in the open, without worrying who might see me.”
“Well, I’m going to do it.I’m getting out of this place.”
Nacha slumped down beside her friend in the grass.“Will you really?”
“Yep, my parents have already decided.But you can’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t tell, but I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too.”
There wasn’t anything else to say.They were both too old to pretend they might see one another again.No one believed that lie any longer.Those who left the ghetto were either caught and killed on the spot, or found their way to a new life and were never heard of again.
Whatever their fate, the residents of the ghetto wouldn’t know.It was as if they’d vanished into the ether.Other than through the couriers and smugglers, like Jan, who made their way into and out of the ghetto, risking their lives daily to help the people imprisoned behind its walls, there was no way for anyone living in the ghetto to communicate with the outside world.
Nacha resisted the urge to encourage her friend to be careful, to stay safe.There was no safe place for Jews in Poland any longer.To pretend otherwise would be a hollow and empty platitude and nothing more.
“Goodbye, then,” said Leah suddenly.She hugged Nacha, then scurried along the alley and turned onto the main road, staying close to the buildings and out of the street.
Nacha sighed loudly, picked herself up from the cold, hard ground and wandered home.When she got there, Tata was entertaining a visitor in the living room.
Adam Czerniaków was a former senator and head of theJudenrat, the Jewish Council.He and Tata were friends and often spoke in hushed voices about the state of affairs they found themselves in and what could be done to improve the lives of the Jews in the ghetto.
Mr Czerniaków was an optimist who believed the Jewish people could survive the war with dignity if only they could organise themselves to maintain a decent level of civilised life and not turn on each other.Tata listened to him politely, but Nacha could tell he wasn’t sure about Mr Czerniaków’s hopeful view of their small world.
Tata told her often that they could make it through the war if they did what they were told, but she wasn’t certain he believed his own words anymore.Their time behind the ghetto’s walls had broken his spirit in some ways and hardened him in others.
She stood as close as she dared to listen in on their conversation.There was something about the cost of goods being three times their value.Then a story about a man found with a homemade radio who was shot in the street by theEinsatzgruppewho’d been tipped off by a disgruntled uncle.Tata had shaken his head at that.A tale of family turning on one another was hard for him to comprehend.
Then they spoke briefly of the Polish government in exile, and Mr Czerniaków was certain that there was no hope for them in that regard.Tata’s shoulders slumped.He leaned back in his chair.
“The council is meeting in a few minutes.I would urge you to join us,” said Mr Czerniaków, standing to his feet and securing a woollen scarf firmly around his neck.
Tata stood as well and nodded.“I will come because you ask it.”
They moved in Nacha’s direction, so she backed into the kitchen and tugged an apron from a nail on the wall to tie around her waist.Tata and Mr Czerniaków stopped at the coatrack and shrugged into long coats.
