army boots. Instead, she dove headfirst out our second-story window, broke her neck, and died. Quiet Mrs. Krengiel Nondescript Mrs. Krengiel, living with us all those months, never sharing her thoughts, never letting her despair show on her face.
I wanted to care about her, about her life, but I was tired of caring. Hers was just one of many bodies found in heaps below second- and third-story windows, or in puddles of blood next to the barbed wire, or in gray, decomposing piles waiting to be buried. I feared that if I cared I would be joining them. A soft heart was deadly here in the ghetto.
I saw each day pass much the same as the last: hunger, death, new rules, new jokes, less food, and hot summer nights spent outside in the yard, gathered around the well, talking until dawn. Nothing surprised me anymore, nothing scared me, except deportation orders. Where were they sending those people they rounded up by the hundreds, even thousands, and shipped off on the trains? Everyone had their guess, their story to tell, but no one knew for sure. In earlier days the Germans told us that families were being sent to work camps, where the living conditions were better. There was more food and less-crowded living space. Postcards even came back from nearby cities, but they all sounded the same and nothing like the friends and relations who sent them.
As time went on, such pretenses were discarded and the Jewish Police would enter homes at night to grab up people who had been selected for deportation and send them off to the central prison. There they would wait a few torturous days wondering about their fate before being sent off to the trains. Then they were no longer in the hands of the Jewish Police but of the German
Krippo,
who would make them hand over their food, their blankets and backpacks, wedding rings and watches. If they weren't fast enough, they got the whip.
These things we discussed on those moist summer nights in the yard, leaning against the walls of the buildings, against the well, heads turned upward, watching the stars come out. We'd talk and we'd wonder. Where could a body go without his belongings, without his wedding ring and watch? How could these stars and that moon be the same as those that shone elsewhere in the world, and if we were indeed God's
Am S'gulo,
His chosen people, for what exactly had we been chosen?
During the day we would trudge to work (I now worked at the straw factory), and we would watch with dread, our breath held, as the letter carrier passed out his summonses. Would it be our family today? It didn't matter; if it wasn't for us it would surely be for our neighbors or friends.
All this worry and speculation, though, was but a preamble to the nightmare that began on the third anniversary of the war.
I awoke that first morning of September with the sun already burning hot on my face. I sat up, my body feeling beaten from sleeping on the pavement where I had eventually drifted off last night. Anya and her best friend, Hala, still slept soundly beside me. We were used to sleeping outside now, the bedbugs and heat being unbearable inside. Looking beyond the yard I could see Jakub hurrying along, headed this way, and I remembered that not only had he not come home last night, but neither had Bubbe. I searched for Mama in the crowd of bodies propped up against the well and found her slumped against Mrs. Hurwitz, asleep. I ran over to her and shook her awake.
"Mama, Jakub's coming. He looks upset. Maybe it is Bubbe."
Mama and Mrs. Hurwitz sat up, both squinting up at me like sleepy cats. Others stirred around them, shifting their bundles under their heads, trying to find a more comfortable position.
"It is Jakub, see?" I pointed toward him, and Mama, seeing him, rose slowly to her feet, her head wobbling on her neck as though he had delivered a blow to her face.
Jakub stopped a few feet away from her. Panic was in his face, his eyes wide and unblinking.
"Military trucks are pulling up
I wanted to care about her, about her life, but I was tired of caring. Hers was just one of many bodies found in heaps below second- and third-story windows, or in puddles of blood next to the barbed wire, or in gray, decomposing piles waiting to be buried. I feared that if I cared I would be joining them. A soft heart was deadly here in the ghetto.
I saw each day pass much the same as the last: hunger, death, new rules, new jokes, less food, and hot summer nights spent outside in the yard, gathered around the well, talking until dawn. Nothing surprised me anymore, nothing scared me, except deportation orders. Where were they sending those people they rounded up by the hundreds, even thousands, and shipped off on the trains? Everyone had their guess, their story to tell, but no one knew for sure. In earlier days the Germans told us that families were being sent to work camps, where the living conditions were better. There was more food and less-crowded living space. Postcards even came back from nearby cities, but they all sounded the same and nothing like the friends and relations who sent them.
As time went on, such pretenses were discarded and the Jewish Police would enter homes at night to grab up people who had been selected for deportation and send them off to the central prison. There they would wait a few torturous days wondering about their fate before being sent off to the trains. Then they were no longer in the hands of the Jewish Police but of the German
Krippo,
who would make them hand over their food, their blankets and backpacks, wedding rings and watches. If they weren't fast enough, they got the whip.
These things we discussed on those moist summer nights in the yard, leaning against the walls of the buildings, against the well, heads turned upward, watching the stars come out. We'd talk and we'd wonder. Where could a body go without his belongings, without his wedding ring and watch? How could these stars and that moon be the same as those that shone elsewhere in the world, and if we were indeed God's
Am S'gulo,
His chosen people, for what exactly had we been chosen?
During the day we would trudge to work (I now worked at the straw factory), and we would watch with dread, our breath held, as the letter carrier passed out his summonses. Would it be our family today? It didn't matter; if it wasn't for us it would surely be for our neighbors or friends.
All this worry and speculation, though, was but a preamble to the nightmare that began on the third anniversary of the war.
I awoke that first morning of September with the sun already burning hot on my face. I sat up, my body feeling beaten from sleeping on the pavement where I had eventually drifted off last night. Anya and her best friend, Hala, still slept soundly beside me. We were used to sleeping outside now, the bedbugs and heat being unbearable inside. Looking beyond the yard I could see Jakub hurrying along, headed this way, and I remembered that not only had he not come home last night, but neither had Bubbe. I searched for Mama in the crowd of bodies propped up against the well and found her slumped against Mrs. Hurwitz, asleep. I ran over to her and shook her awake.
"Mama, Jakub's coming. He looks upset. Maybe it is Bubbe."
Mama and Mrs. Hurwitz sat up, both squinting up at me like sleepy cats. Others stirred around them, shifting their bundles under their heads, trying to find a more comfortable position.
"It is Jakub, see?" I pointed toward him, and Mama, seeing him, rose slowly to her feet, her head wobbling on her neck as though he had delivered a blow to her face.
Jakub stopped a few feet away from her. Panic was in his face, his eyes wide and unblinking.
"Military trucks are pulling up
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