The Girl in the Green Sweater by Krystyna Chiger, Daniel Paisner Page B

numb to what was happening. It was like a dream. He was told to empty his pockets, remove his belt, remove his clothes. He stood naked on the platform as they placed a noose on his neck. The other man was also made to strip and to receive the hangman’s noose.
    It was Pawel who noticed the commotion from our neighbor’s upstairs window. He looked outside and said to my mother, “Look, Mama, they are going to hang someone.” He did not recognize that this was my father.
    My mother came to the window, and she knew right away thiswas my father. I looked, too. We were on the third floor, and this was happening directly below our window. I recognized my father immediately. I wanted to scream, but I knew I could not.
    My mother did not want us to watch. She said, “Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look.” She said this over and over, as if she were in a trance.
    But, of course, I watched. Pawel was in my mother’s arms, and she held his face to her chest in such a way that he could not see out the window. I looked over to her and saw that she was watching, too. She did not want to watch, but she could not look away.
    My father wrote later that he was resigned to his fate, that it was as if he were inside his own bad dream. He stood and waited for the hanging to proceed, and then, inexplicably, Grzymek gave a dismissive wave of his hand and said, “Ah, you can stay alive.” As if it were no longer worth the trouble to proceed with the hanging. He offered no explanation, and my father did not want to wait around for him to change his mind.
    My father was stunned. Happily so, but stunned. The other man was also waved free, and he too did not know what to make of it. My father turned and bowed to Grzymek, as if he were thanking him for his freedom, and then he turned and began to step down from the gallows. As he did so, a German voice called him back:
“Halt!”
    My father thought, What could this be? Was this Grzymek playing with him again? Another round of cat-and-mouse? A cruel back-and-forth?
You will be hanged, you are free, you will be hanged, you are free.
This was Grzymek’s nature, my father realized. This was just like him, to set him free and then hold him back. For amusement. But it turned out Grzymek merely wanted my father to take his things. His clothes, his belt, his shoes, his watch. Grzymek said,
“Hole dir deine sachen, wirst doch nicth so mitdem macketen schwanz herumlaufen.”
Take your things because you cannot leave with your naked penis.
    My father had been walking away without any of his clothes, completely naked. He was so swallowed up by the moment that he had not realized, so he hurriedly collected his clothes, stepped into his pants, and walked quickly from the scene.
    I remember hugging and laughing and crying with my mother and brother as we watched this. Hugging and laughing and crying, all at once. It was so unexpected, to look out the window to see my father about to be hanged, to see him suddenly set free, to see him scurrying away from the gallows without his clothes. There was nothing to do but hug one another and laugh and push away our tears. We had all been so scared, so terrorized, and we were now so weakened by our fear and overcome with relief that we could not help but find this picture a little bit funny, this picture of my father standing naked before the ghetto commander.
    My father did not come home right away. He did not know we were in the tailor’s apartment. Also, he did not want Grzymek’s men to follow him, so he hid for a time in another building, and sure enough Grzymek sent the Gestapo to look for him. When they found my father, they brought him back to Grzymek. Once again, my father thought the game was continuing.
    “Where were you?” Grzymek said. “I was looking for you.”
    “I was hiding,” my father said.
    “You are a coward,” Grzymek said. “You are the biggest coward I ever met.”
    My father thought, I am the coward? In Grzymek’s apartment,