If I Should Die Before I Wake Read online

  Everywhere was pandemonium as people scooped up their belongings and ran toward the hospital, dropping their sacred soup bowls that went everywhere with them, and not stopping to pick them up. It seemed that in an instant everyone in the ghetto had heard the news. People clogged the streets, rushing to friends or relatives in the hopes of rescuing them, or better, with the hope that perhaps there had been some mistake, that the trucks were just moving them to another building.

  I ran with Anya tagging behind me, both of us crying, both of us remembering friends—Mr. Hurwitz, Mrs. Liebman, playmates, workmates—who were in the hospital, but we couldn't get to them. A barricade of Jewish Police blocked off all the streets around the hospital. I could hear shouts and cries and could see patients jumping from windows, trying to escape, but there was nowhere to go.

  The next day was more of the same; only, doctors and nurses, the Jewish Police, and even firemen were going to people's houses now. They were examining the elderly and the sick who had tried to hide. Then they were dragging these screaming, pleading people off to packed buildings to wait for more trucks.

  We saw little of Bubbe. She not only had to be present during these examinations, but she made it a point to go around to people's homes afterward and comfort those left behind. Even she couldn't comfort us, however, when Jakub came home and announced that the plan was to make the city of Lodz judenrein—"Jew clean"—the way they had done in Pabianice.

  "All of us? We are all to die?" I asked, falling to my knees.

  Jakub knelt down next to me, and then Mama and Anya. Together our small family wept and prayed.

  I was late for work that day, but it didn't matter. No one was working. We were all talking, tossing around rumors, and scrambling to find jobs for those who had no jobs. Surely they wouldn't take us if we were still of use in the war effort, we reasoned. They needed us. Where else would the Germans get such cheap skilled labor? Mama even went to the school office to register Anya for a real job, waiting in the long lines, baking under the hot summer sun, only to find out that by lunchtime all registrations had become void.

  Our workshop closed down at 2:00 that afternoon, and as I walked back toward our home with my friends, I saw men slapping notices on the walls of the buildings. We ran up to one and read that the Chairman was going to speak about the deportation situation in Fireman's Square later that afternoon.

  I left my friends and ran home to find my mother, but she wasn't there. All the rooms in our building were deserted. I ran back out into the street and saw that people were already on their way to the square. What else could we do? We could think of nothing else, speak of nothing else, and yet such talk was getting us nowhere. No one had the truth, not even Jakub, and so we waited for hours, crowded in the square, under the boiling sun.

  This was our judgment day. It wasn't to take place in the heavens. The good weren't to be saved and the bad banished to hell. Good and bad, sinners and nonsinners—it didn't matter who you were on this judgment day, just how old.

  The crowd, which had been restless and hot, pushing over to the left side of the yard, trying to find shade, grew silent as the Chairman stepped onto the stage. Chairman Rumkowski. I had seen him many times in the past three years, had listened to many speeches, but never had I seen him look like this, a shriveled-up old man, shoulders slumped, feet dragging—one of us. No good news could come from a man who looked like this.

  "A grievous blow has struck the ghetto," he began, his voice trembling. "They are asking us to give up the best we possess—the children and the elderly. I was unworthy of having a child of my own, so I gave the best years of my life to children. I've lived and breathed with children. I never imagined I would be forced to deliver this sacrifice to the altar with my own hands. In my old age I must stretch out my hands and beg: Brothers and sisters, hand them over to me! Fathers and mothers, give me your children!"

  He went on and on, but who could hear? All children up to the age of ten were to be simply handed over, surrendered, calmly, orderly—the Germans didn't want any bloodshed. But how could we do it? How could they expect it of us? Did they think because we lived like animals—scavengers in the street, no longer seeing the filth, the blood, the rats—that we'd let them just cart our loved ones off like a loaded barrel of excrement and dump them, dead, somewhere? That was their way—the Germans', not ours. They were the heartless beasts, in their fine woolen coats and leather boots made by our hands. We toiled daily in our workshops, starving by their hands, dying, to keep these Germans clothed against the cold. We, the Jews, were the war effort. We were helping them defeat their enemy, and yet their enemy's victory was our only chance for salvation. Could the rest of the world not see the irony? Did they even know? How hard had their hearts become? And God's?

  I stood in the square crowded with moaning, whimpering people, people falling to their knees, people fainting, the Chairman's voice pleading, explaining to his microphone, and never had I felt so alone. Where were my mother and grandmother, Jakub and Anya? Where were my friends? Where was God? Couldn't He see that now was the time to save us, before my innocent, my beloved Anya was taken away?

  Through the night we listened to the screaming and sobbing of our neighbors. We heard air-raid alarms and bombs dropping, and we whispered prayers for the Moshiah to come and save us.

  By the next day, most of the moaning and crying had stopped. Now the sounds were muffled and distant, as though someone had tossed a thick woolen blanket over the ghetto.

  We spent most of that day out in the streets, restless, wandering, waiting—in silence. The cries and screams went inward, where it was safe, where we could scream and scream and never stop.

  When I spoke, I was surprised to hear my voice. It sounded so calm, so normal. Mama's and Bubbe's, too. All of us had gathered together around our table with the two shortened legs, calmly discussing our future as though we were discussing what dress to put on, or how to arrange our hair.

  "It is best that we do as the Chairman says and go calmly, Anya and I," Mama said to the rest of us. "If we put up a fight we would only have the Krippo knocking us down and shooting us in the back. We have seen how they operate."

  Jakub scowled, but even he spoke calmly. "I can hide Anya, Mama. I have places they would never find and the Jewish Police never search thoroughly. Anya is brave, she could wait this thing out, and I could stay with her."

  Bubbe took his hand. "Jakub, I have gone the rounds with the doctors, watched them select the elderly for deportation; they have a quota they have to fill. If they do not get who they are after, the police will just put someone else in her place."

  "So, that is good. Anya will be safe," Jakub replied.

  Bubbe squeezed his hand. He looked down at the table, pressing his finger on a hardened crumb of bread he had spotted and touching it to his tongue.

  Mrs. Hurwitz, who had spent the past two days making futile efforts to get her husband out of the group already selected for deportation, had joined us. We were her only family now. She looked around at all of us and then pulled Anya up onto her lap. "I will go with Anya, or even instead of Anya, if we can figure out how. Maybe I can be with my husband then." She kissed the back of Anya's head.

  "I know a place where we can all hide," I said, remembering those peaceful afternoons I spent listening to the orchestra from the hole in the ceiling of the House of Culture. I explained it to them. How there was enough room for everyone, how we could hide there for days if we had to.

  Everyone listened, especially Jakub and Anya. Will it really work? How big is the hole. How big is the space above the hole? Is it dark? Could we hide in the corners behind the rafters? Should we try it? Do we dare?

  No one was capable of making this decision. Round and round we went. I could see that Jakub was enthusiastic about the idea, but he wasn't going to be the one to press us into action. The burden of guilt he carried around after the death of the two brothers still weighed heavily upon him.

  Bubbe, too, was he
sitant, believing now more than ever that it was best just to let life unfold and not get in one's own way with so much plotting and planning, to leave it all in God's hands.

  Mrs. Hurwitz felt her plan, to go on the truck instead of Anya, was the best one, and whether we hid or not, she would stay and let fate run its course.

  Mama just didn't know. "Should we hide, only to be discovered and shot on the spot, or take a chance on the trucks? Would our fate be any different either way?" she asked.

  We had so little time to make up our minds, and as events closed in on us, the decision seemed impossible to make. Hunger, fear, outrage all made it hard to think clearly, to be certain we were even making sense. The workshops and the soup kitchens were closed. There was almost no food to be had anywhere, and by late afternoon new notices had been posted. Beginning at 5:00 P.M. there was to be a general szpera, a curfew, until further notice. If we were going to hide, we would have to get out right away, before the curfew. We would have to hurry through the streets to our new home, a hole in the ceiling, and stay hidden for who knew how many days without food or water, sweltering in the attic heat.

  It was Anya who finally helped us make up our minds. She had slid down off Mrs. Hurwitz's lap and now stood behind Mama, her arms wrapped around Mama's shoulders, her head resting on her own arms.

  "Mama, I am tired," she said. "Are you not tired, too? Can we just lie down together?" She lifted her head and squeezed Mama's shoulders. "I want to do that more than anything in the world, just lie down with you."

  We didn't hide. We slept, we prayed, we worried, and we watched through our window, that night and all through the next day. We also starved. There was nothing to eat, and we realized that if this kept up much longer, they wouldn't need to deport us, they could just drag us all to the cemetery.

  The evening of that third night, we gathered around the table again. Already the Jewish Police had raided the old-age home on Dworska Street and had gone to Rybna Street, to people's homes, and had torn the children out of their mothers' arms. The news had spread in hushed, desperate tones like the leaves sweeping through the streets, and we knew that in the next day or two, it would be our turn.

  As I looked around the table at Jakub, my mother and grandmother, Mrs. Hurwitz and Anya, I saw that we had all changed in the last two days. It wasn't just the hollowing of our cheeks and the ashen color of our skin, it was also our attitude. We had each reached a certain peace within ourselves, a certain understanding of how it was going to be, and, yes, a certain acceptance. Perhaps it was Bubbe's words drummed into our heads all these years about trusting in God, knowing where to put one's faith, waiting and hoping—always hoping. Perhaps, too, we were just following Jewish tradition—having inherited thousands of years of suffering and persecution, we had learned how to adapt and accept, and believe that through our strength and our faith, we would survive. Or perhaps we were all going insane. Maybe this was some middle stage of insanity, this peace and acceptance a self-deception. Maybe in a day or two we'd run screaming through the streets, but for now it was enough to gather around the table and hold hands, and perhaps for the last time, share our thoughts.

  "I do not know how it will be these next few days. We have no control over any of the things going on around us," Mama said, looking pointedly at Jakub and me. "So much have they taken from us already, but what is inside us, they can never take away, unless we let them, unless we give it away.

  "I go out into the streets and see the guards on the other side of the fence mocking us, laughing at us with their warm coats and overfed bodies, but I laugh at them. I pity them, those beasts. They think that by taking away our homes, our rights, and by starving us, they have taken everything and we are nothing, less than the rats and the lice that feed on us. They do not see that it is they who are nothing. They are hardened layers of skin, and what is beneath that skin? Nothing. They have lost it all. All that will ever matter, they have lost. And I laugh at them, and mock them, because they do not even know it."

  "Yes, but Mama, I want them to know it," Anya said.

  "Then be brave and hold your head up high. Do not let them get inside you."

  Jakub shook his head. "If you hold up your head you have just given them a better target to shoot."

  "Jakub, if I am to die at their hands, I want to make sure it gives them no satisfaction. I want the memory of my face, my eyes, to burn on their souls forever."

  Jakub laughed. "You forget, Mama, they have no souls."

  We all laughed.

  Then Mama got serious again.

  "Anya and I will go together when the time comes, and Jakub, Chana, you will remain here with Bubbe and do as she says. And please, when this is all over, find Nadzia. Let her know how we loved her."

  "But, Mama!" I began to cry.

  "I cannot send her off on her own," Mama said, as she rubbed my back.

  "I know, but it is not fair." I looked up. "I am going, too. I want to go with you. How can I let you go and never know what happened to you?"

  "No, Chana. You are sixteen years old now. That's old enough to understand what is happening. I must ask you to stay here with Bubbe. You must honor this last request."

  I hung my head and didn't say anything. What was I going to do without Mama and Anya? With Bubbe always so busy at the hospital and Jakub busy with his underground work, I had come to rely on Mama and Anya; they were my best friends.

  It must have been no later than six o'clock the next morning when we heard a round of gunshots in the courtyard below and a harsh German voice shout, "Alles raus!—Everybody out!"

  We scrambled to our feet and hurried to the stairs. We could hear the wagons rolling into the yard. We knew instantly what had happened. The Jewish Police hadn't done a thorough enough job of rounding us up and so the Germans had taken over. There would be no chance for pleading now.

  We raced out into the yard and stood erect and still, waiting for others to hobble over the stones on weak and swollen legs and join the line.

  I saw Mr. Eliasberg stumble out. He was old and weak, looking dazed from being awakened from a deep sleep. His thin gray hair was standing straight up on his head. He tried to hurry out to the yard, but someone brushed too close to him and knocked him down. He struggled to get back up, but before he could even get to his hands and knees, they shot him.

  Good-bye to Mr. Eliasberg. Do not look at him. Do not think about him. Harden your heart. Remember, the softhearted do not survive. The softhearted do not survive! Good-bye, clumsy, silly Mr. Eliasberg.

  The Germans fired more shots as mothers wailed and pleaded, as children were discovered hidden in barrels and closets, as latecomers made their way across the yard, their treasures loaded onto their backs. The message was clear: Do only as they say, exactly as they say, or your yellow, bilious blood will be all that runs over these stones.

  Poor Anya tried to stand tall, her eyes like two black stones staring out from sockets too large for her head. She wanted to appear older than she was, but her body was too thin, too frail, too tiny. She still looked six years old, but she held her head high and I knew, despite her appearance, there stood a child with the wisdom of an old woman and a heart so big and soft it had cushioned the blows of the ghetto for all of us.

  A gloved hand came down on her shoulder and yanked her from the line, and Mama, who had been holding on tightly to Anya's left hand, came flying out with her, almost knocking over the Krippo. He was young, maybe eighteen or nineteen, and his rosy, blue-eyed face bore such an expression of hatred I thought he would shoot them both right there before my eyes. Had Bubbe not been holding on to me, I would have flung myself onto the man, and with any luck, at least have scraped off the crazy smile frozen like winter on his face.

  Two Jewish Police came up behind the Krippo and grabbed Mama and Anya and tossed them onto the wagon before the Krippo could decide whether to shoot or toss. It was all that they could do now, and perhaps it was futile, this attempt to prevent more bloodshed. They were
merely delaying the inevitable, weren't they? I was grateful to them just the same.

  Mrs. Hurwitz now stood to my right, filling in the space that Mama and Anya had left. Her body was bent forward, her head flopped onto her chest, and as I stared at this woman who had aged maybe twenty years in the past week, I could not believe that she was the same person who worked by my side, her thick, strong arms scrubbing back and forth on the stairs, just a few years ago. I had wanted to be like her, but now I saw her strength was only muscular and easily stripped away by starvation.

  Of course they pulled her out of the line and tossed her onto the wagon, the silly fool. If they hadn't, I think I would have. Her they could have; just give me back Mama and Anya.

  I looked over at the wagon already overflowing with arms and legs. It was ready to pull out. Mama and Anya stood up and blew final kisses. I tried to blow some back, but my mouth had frozen into some horrible contortion that I could see mirrored on the faces of others, like me, who were left behind. It was a wild look, our mouths open and drawn back across our faces, our cries, our screams, no more than air escaping from our lungs, soundlessly bellowed across the yard.

  As the wagon began to jerk forward and move out toward the street, I saw Mrs. Hurwitz rise up from the heap, and with her head held as high and proud as Mama's and Anya's, she waved to me. She had gotten what she wanted. Then the three of them turned away from us and linked arms. They were ready.

  I didn't need my secret friend, with the face that had peered so knowingly at me every time I faced death in some way, to whisper to me that they would be all right. That the Germans, no matter what they chose to do with them, would never defeat them, I already knew. Still, she came, and that was a comfort.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Hilary

  I CAN'T SEE.

  It doesn't matter. I don't want to see, or hear. I'm all alone here.

  I'm so cold.