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34
8thMay 1945
The crowds jostled Nacha as she clung to Jan’s hand.The streets were full of people who’d begun returning to Warsaw to look for their homes.Most found everything they had laying in ruins and looted or destroyed.But today no one was thinking about the past, of the lives lost or the homes burned to the ground.
Today was a celebration.It was VE Day.The Allies had finally won victory in Europe, the Germans had surrendered, and the people could breathe a sigh of relief after years of devastation were over.
Hitler had taken his own life a week earlier, and Poland was free of German occupation.The fact that they still lived under occupation, but this time with the Red Army troops stationed on every corner, hadn’t escaped their attention.But it felt different to the blind terror of Nazi control.The most important improvement, of course, being that Nacha and her family could walk freely through the streets without having to worry about being shipped off to an extermination camp.
The Red Army had liberated Treblinka, Aushwitz and other camps on their way through Poland.Reports had trickled in of the horrors they found, although the Germans had hidden most of their crimes well.The few survivors who remained told stories of the Nazis rushing through thousands of exterminations in the camps’ final weeks of operation when they realised their time was quickly coming to a close.
Rather than letting the prisoners go free, the SS guards worked harder to end their lives sooner.Then they burned all of the paperwork that had been meticulously kept over the years regarding the camps’ operations, and buried all evidence of what they’d done.
She could hardly believe it was over.She’d spent much of her life in hiding.Now as she walked beside Jan, she couldn’t help trembling and glancing around.As though the Germans might spring up from behind a pile of rubble or round the corner on the back of a group of Panzer tanks at any moment.
Whenever a Soviet soldier shot his pistol into the air in celebration, she wanted to dive for cover behind one of the vehicles or wagons that were parked along the street.
Tata and Nathan stood by a streetlamp.Tata was on tiptoe, straining to see over the heads of the crowd of people surging down the street, flags waving as streamers and confetti were shot into the air.
“Do you see them yet?”Nacha asked.
Jan shook his head.“They’ll be here soon—don’t worry.Mother told me to look for them today.”
It was finally time for the family to be reunited.They’d seen Jan’s mother and sisters a few times over recent months, but they’d always had to be separated again afterwards for some reason or other.Now, however, they could finally be together, and Antoni and Waltrina had promised that nothing would separate their families ever again.
Nacha’s heart ached at the thought of them being together again.They’d lived in the apartment for years and grown so close.It was difficult to be separated for so long while the Russians and the Germans fought over Warsaw on the last gasping breaths of war.
“There they are!”Jan said, pointing.
Waltrina, Jadzia and Danuta were pushing their way through the crowd.The only faces in a sea of dark humanity that were working towards, rather than away, from Jan and Nacha.
When Waltrina reached Tata, she leapt into his arms and wove her own around his neck.Nacha’s cheeks flushed as she watched Waltrina and Tata kiss passionately beneath the streetlamp.No one paid them any mind.Kissing in the street had become commonplace that day.Everyone was celebrating in their own ways—drinking, dancing, embracing, shouting.It was a street party like none she’d ever seen before.
And in the middle of it all stood Tata, holding Waltrina in a desperate embrace, their lips locked together and their cheeks wet with tears.
