Read an Excerpt
From Chapter 14: We Are Just Starting to Suffer (23 April to May 1944)
The soldiers [SS who had requisitioned a room in the Becks’ house] would be sleeping right above the bunker where Lola, Gedalo, Kuba, Artek and the Steckels slept. Unlike the trainmen, whose names I hadn’t discovered in the two months they’d been with us, within minutes I learned that the soldiers were Norbert, Dieter, Richard and Hans. With six Germans living above us, water, food, the pails would all be impossible. If the soldiers were here, the trainmen would be gone, and vice versa. It was like one of those theatrical farces where characters run in and out of doors, barely missing each other in a ridiculous chase, except the comedy going on above our head had lethal consequences.
As soon as Norbert’s duffel landed on the floor, he fiddled with the radio until he’d found a station that played popular music and light opera. He started singing right away and suddenly reverberating through the floorboards was a clear and vibrant tenor. Most people when they sang to themselves, especially when others were around, were at least a little inhibited, even if they adored their own voices. But Norbert was singing to the audience in the balcony. He knew, it seemed, every song on the radio. My life couldn’t have felt any stranger to me at that moment. I didn’t know who Norbert was, what he looked like, where he came from, or whether he would turn out to be one of those Germans who’d regale the Becks with his proficiency in killing Jews. All I knew of him was that he had a voice that people would have paid money to hear and I had been moved by musicin a way that had not happened since Mania sang at her concert three springs ago. I didn’t want to love his voice…. How dare a German have such a beautiful voice when his finger was on the trigger of a gun and there was a Jew in his sights.
Mama was so upset by the arrival of so many soldiers upstairs, she fainted. Yet neither I nor Papa dared move to help her because we were afraid of being heard, despite the noise upstairs. Life in the bunker had trained me to resist almost every natural impulse I had, so I watched the rise and fall of her chest as if she were in a pleasant sleep, and hoped she would come out of her faint without making any noise at all.
The second after all of them had gone out, Beck came down and said that God was sending an army to watch over us and keep suspicion far from our door. I didn’t know how much longer I could believe in Beck’s luck. I tried to see in the dim light if he believed his own words or was just encouraging us. But I couldn’t see his eyes, and then there was a knock on the door, and Beck ran back up. The groaning trapdoor closing was covered by the sound of Beck’s feet rushing to get the door. The hotel was full. I didn’t see how they could fit anyone else. But it wasn’t another guest. It was a Nazi policeman.
He was telling Beck to come with him to the chief of police. Immediately. Beck hadn’t been ordered to the police station for months and months and this policeman was a stranger. Beck went away whistling, but we didn’t believe it. One onerous reason after another swept through the bunker. He had been reported for hiding Jews; for dealing with the partisans; for selling English pounds on the black market; for stealing vodka, and any of the other treasonable sins. Otherwise we would have heard laughter, gossip, an easy-going greeting and the reason Beck had been called. I prayed for Beck the way I prayed for Uchka, for Mania, for Zygush and Zosia. I prayed for him in the way I prayed for my dearest loved ones.
Waiting for Beck and our fate in darkness would have been too frightening to bear. Since the initial bombing of Lvov last week, we never knew if we’d have electricity or not. I didn’t know if Beck would come back unharmed, or the police would break down the door and kill us. Ever since Beck had been taken away, we had all been so on edge that I feared we were going insane. Mr Patrontasch was calculating seconds, minutes, hours and days in his book again. Gedalo was writing madly, but wouldn’t show it to anyone. Lola had her hand to her mouth, suppressing her laughter. The more everyone looked at her, begging with their eyes for her to stop, the harder it was. She turned her face to the wall until she calmed down. It had to be hysteria because there nothing funny going on this morning. The Steckels fingered the cyanide capsules around their necks as they always did when we were threatened. Zosia grabbed a pillow and put it over her own face and started to cry silently. And there was Mama in the dirt. At least we had light this morning.
When we were alone in the house again, I asked Lola to tell us why she had been laughing so hard.
‘I was looking around the bunker and saw that everybody’s hair had turned white or grey and so I didn’t feel so bad about my hair.’
. . .
Beck must have run into the soldiers because he came back into the house with them. He was whistling ‘All’s Well…’ At least we knew Beck was all right and we were not dead yet. I knew we’d have to wait until the soldiers and the trainmen next went out before we found out the reason Beck was called by the police chief.
When he was finally able to come down, he told us that they wanted him to stand guard at the train station in addition to his regular job. He was still a trusted Volksdeutscher, and a vital part of the local German war machine. He was given a new gun, and he said he would give one of his guns to us as soon as he had the chance. I didn’t know if there was a man in our bunker who had actually fired a weapon. But Beck was relieved and so were we. He also told us that the soldiers promised him they wouldn’t be a bother to the Becks because they would be spending most of their time at their jobs, which were preparing the German motor pool for retreat. As soon as I had heard what they’d be doing, I knew they’d be here until the bitter end. The arrival of these soldiers caused so many changes for us that I felt despite all the suffering of the past 17 months, in so many new ways our suffering had just begun.
