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6
15th December 1940
The smell of smoke still hung acrid in the air over Mirowski Square.Jan traversed around an enormous crater in the centre of the street where German bombers had left their mark during the siege of Warsaw.A woman’s body lay on the footpath, her apron over her face, her legs skewed at an angle.He crossed himself and leapt over her legs, taking off at a run.
With a loaf of bread tucked beneath his jacket, he was headed for home after visiting the market where Mama worked.She’d insisted on continuing to spend some time each day there as she believed it would be their means of survival, and she didn’t want to lose her standing or her stall to another trader.She’d given him the bread to take home to his sisters, although they still had some flour left in the bottom of the barrel.They’d take what they could get, she said.And today what they got was bread.
Between the siege, the occupation, and now the Nazis’ crackdown on the Jewish population of Warsaw, the city had suffered from food shortages for over a year.The bread lines often stretched around corners and up long streets before they ended.Most people he encountered were thin, many gaunt with skin stretched tight across protruding cheekbones.
Up ahead, a group of soldiers shoved some harried women and children into the back of a waiting truck, smoke chugging from its tailpipe.Jan slowed his pace, then with a frown ducked into an alley and peered around the edge of the building to watch.A horse and cart trotted by, the driver turning onto a side street when he saw the chaos ahead of him.But most pedestrians continued on their way, walking or riding past the crying women and children without a glance in their direction.
Jan wanted to do something to help.Anger burned in his gut, but he stayed where he was.There wasn’t anything he could do.If he moved closer to the group, he’d feel compelled to reach out to one of the women, and that wouldn’t do him or them any good.He’d be shot, and likely they would be too.
He chewed the end of a fingernail, waiting for the truck to move on.Finally, the tailgate clunked into place and the truck meandered away down the street.The crowd filled the space where it’d been moments earlier, as if the people it carried had never been there at all.
“Janek!”whispered a frantic voice.
Jan turned his head to look into the darkened alley and saw nothing but piles of rubbish and a stray cat licking at something on the cobblestones.
“Huh?”he said.
“Janek,” the voice said again.A boy a little taller than he was emerged from behind a bin.“It’s me, Walter.”
Jan ran to meet him and shook his hand.He noted that Walter wasn’t wearing the armband he usually sported.His red hair was pushed back from his freckled face as though he’d combed his fingers through it over and over again.His bare knees poking out from his shorts were covered in scrapes and bruises.His clothes were dirty and his fingernails bitten to the quick.
“What are you doing here?”asked Jan.“How did you get away?”
“I removed the armband and hid in the crowd,” he said.“They took my family—I watched them.But then I realised someone might recognise me and turn me in, so I’ve been hiding ever since.”
“Come with me,” said Jan.“You can stay with us.We have plenty of room.”
“No.”Walter backed away.“I can’t risk someone seeing me.If they turn me in, your whole family will be in danger.”
“But what will you do?”
“I’m going to sneak into the ghetto tonight.Over the wall.I want to see my mama and tata.I hate it here.”
Jan had considered traversing the ghetto’s boundaries himself.He’d thought of little else since the wall was constructed.Questions ran through his mind over and over.What were the Wierzbickas doing?How were they faring?Had they been hurt?As much as he loved to tease his sisters that Antoni wasn’t their father, he’d filled that role in their family for years.
Jan didn’t want to give up on the idea that his own father might someday come looking for them, that he might care how they were surviving the Nazi occupation.But so far there’d been no sign of him, no letter or telegram.Antoni was the man Jan went to when he had a question he didn’t wish to bother Mama with, like how to get a bass to take the bait in rainy weather, or the best way to sharpen the pocketknife he got for his twelfth birthday.He even called Antoni’s parents Papa and Babcia.
Despite this itching desire to test out the impenetrability of the wall, he hadn’t taken the time to examine it closely yet.Soldiers patrolled the wall day and night.If he stayed too long looking it over, he was worried one of them might question him about it.Not to mention what they’d do if he was caught halfway between the Aryan and Jewish sides.But if Walter was willing to try it, the idea was too tempting for him to pass up.
“Let’s go back to the square and look at the wall there.When I was with Mama, I noticed it wasn’t patrolled as heavily because of all the activity in the market.”
Walter smiled for the first time, his colour returning.“We can uncover its weaknesses.”
“I’m sure we’ll be able to get you across in the dark.I’ll come with you,” Jan added with a grin.“It’ll be fun.”
The night was dark,with skidding clouds covering the half moon and bathing the city in deep, ominous shadows.Jan hid in the alley, crouched low behind a rubbish bin, a wool hat pulled down over his ears.The scent of rotting food drifted on the breeze, and his nose wrinkled in response.
He hoped Walter would come soon.His nerves were on edge as he waited in the cold gloom.Mama hadn’t stopped him from coming out like he’d thought she would.He didn’t want to keep anything from her, so he had told her the moment she got home from the market what he and Walter intended to do.She’d simply pulled him into her arms and hugged him tight, kissing the top of his head and whispering a simple prayer to Saint Christopher for protection.
He blew on his hands and rubbed them together.It wasn’t cold enough for gloves, so he hadn’t bothered with them.He needed to be able to feel things for what they were.He couldn’t risk getting snagged on the barbed wire that topped the ghetto wall.
An image of Antoni, Nacha, Nathan and the rest of the family flashed across his mind’s eye.All of them laughing and dancing as Antoni played the violin.Babscia wore an apron around her trim waist.Her eyes sparkled as her black shoes clacked against the hard floor, and she swung a dish cloth to the right, then to the left.Papa sat in his favourite chair, tapping a heel in time to the music.
He smiled to himself and blew on his hands again, listening for the sound of boots marching in unison or the telltale rumble of a line of truck engines.He’d learned how to spot trouble before it arrived during the long months of the occupation.
