Jewels and Ashes (21 page)

‘Between Pruzhany and Linowe station was a distance of perhaps fourteen kilometres', the Partisan tells me. Snow and sleet drifted in a veil of mists. The convoy stretched for miles, a procession of phantoms enveloped in ghostly white. Occasionally someone jumped off and made a run for the forests through a gauntlet of bullets.

At Linowe station the trains were drawn up by the platform, waiting. The time-tabling was precise, the organisation efficient. The doors of the cattle wagons slid to a close on entire families, crammed together, robbed of light, air, and hope. Soon after they were on the move: a journey of several hundred kilometres southwest, across the breadth of Poland, to a town called Auschwitz.

Yanek Lerner and the Partisan established separate bases. They constructed zemlankes, earth huts, one sizeable room dug underground. The floors were cushioned with pine needles; the roofs covered by branches and twigs, topped by a camouflage of dirt and grass. In some of the hideouts, primitive stoves provided a semblance of warmth.

Various groups roamed the forests. ‘There were Ukrainians, White Russians, Poles, and Jews; even the occasional German deserter', the Partisan explains. Alliances were formed; others remained determinedly separate to emphasize their national allegiance. And there were gangs of bandits, intent on survival at any cost.

Within days of taking to the forests, the Partisan heard shots echoing nearby. On investigating, he came across Yanek and his comrades lying in a well near their zemlanke. They had been shot by bandits who had masqueraded as friends. The bandits had made off with guns and boots, grenades and food. ‘Boots were our most prized possessions, especially during winter', says the Partisan. ‘One of Yanek's comrades survived and gave an account of the attack. He lives today in the United States. Just a few years ago I visited him.'

Our fate is so fragile. A mere straw on a breeze. What shall we do? Stay in Poland or leave? And when the doors are sealed, the New World cut off: which way shall we go? To the trains or the forests? And at the end of the journey, at the gates of Auschwitz, Doctor Mengele waits, white gloves on his hands, as he points left or right, the ovens or slave labour. As it turned out, Yanek Lerner and Sheindl Probutski perished at about the same time — Yanek with his comrades in the forests, Sheindl with her family in the ovens of Auschwitz. Children of the Annihilation, we know it well: life is so fragile. A mere straw on a breeze.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ABOVE ALL, FATHER RECALLS the seasons. Take, for instance, the first winter snows; the remembrance remains clearer than the most recent of dreams. Mother Sheine is singing him to sleep. Lullabies fade to darkness and, as if no time has passed, he awakens to the sight of ice clinging to window panes above the bed. The morning light silhouettes fantastic shapes of ghostly figures, wild images painted by overnight frosts, while outside the first snows are falling.

When Bishke came home from work during the winter months, he would bring the ice with him. It clung to his beard, clothes, and bundles of unsold newspapers. He would arrive fresh, cold: an iceman returning to the family, to be greeted by a simmering samovar and the heavenly warmth of that first cup of tea.

Snow caressed the earth as far as the eye could see. It filled the streets, permeated the forests, froze over lakes and rivers. From its softness, father and his playmates built babushkas, only to smash them soon after. They hurled snowballs at each other, while on the iced surface of the Biale they raced sleds down inclines in a whirl of whiteness. And in the many decades since, father's memories of the harsher aspects of winter, of its biting winds and relentless chills, have softened. What has been retained, with increasing lucidity, is the surface white, the purity of Bialystok covered in snow.

In the winter of 1942-43 the fate of Bialystok careered like a drunkard on thin ice. Letters flew between Nazi headquarters, in Berlin and Koenigsberg, the capital of East Prussia, where Erich Koch, one of Hitler's most trusted cronies, ruled over his little patch of the Reich. SS and Gestapo factions, local bureaucrats and commandants, debated whether the ghetto was to be liquidated or allowed to survive, for the time being, because of the productivity of its skilled slaves. With the destruction of all provincial Jewish settlements in the early days of November — among them my ancestral shtetlech, Bielsk and Bransk, Orla and Grodek — Bialystok had become an oasis, an island of refuge towards which escapees from the death trains made their way. Yet all the while the gas ovens and crematoria were working overtime to fulfil Hitler's vision of a Europe rid of Jews, the ‘Final Solution' to an age-old curse.

Still, Bialystoker hoped. Perhaps they would yet be spared. Judenrat chairman Efraim Barasz berated them: Work! Attain your quotas. Produce furniture and coats, chemicals and suits, uniforms and boots for your overlords. He dashed about in the Judenrat carriage as if possessed, galloping to Gestapo headquarters on Sienkiewicza Avenue, and along the wide pathways that led to the Nazi administration in Branitski palace. In these offices of the Reich he pleaded for concessions and stays of execution.

Within the ghetto, beggars huddled against wind and frosts. Makeshift stoves belched smoke into crowded rooms and apartments. Inmates shivered in the dawn light as they shuffled to work; and, for the fortieth year in succession, Bishke Zabludowski ran the streets, the disseminator of news, the distributor of Judenrat posters with the latest Nazi ordinances and demands. He pasted sheets on walls and fences, within courtyards and against buildings, in alleys and lanes, day in and day out, bound to his lifelong vocation like a man in a trance. In a collection of documents, unearthed and published after the War, I have been able to trace the last poster that grandfather conveyed: number three hundred and eighty-six, dated January 29, winter 1943.

Bishke first took to the streets as a vendor of news in the winter of 1903. In January 1913 communal leaders, editors, writers and journalists, printers, and friends gathered in his apartment to celebrate his tenth anniversary. It was the great event of father's childhood. Tables were crammed with delicacies: herring and caviar, chopped liver and chicken pieces, salamis and strudels. The guests sat at tables playing cards, talking politics and gossiping, sipping liqueurs and spirits. A phonograph whirled with waltzes, polkas, cantatorial chants and the latest hits from the Yiddish theatre. The Zabludowski children dashed between guests, crawled under tables, listened in on conversations and resisted attempts to put them to bed. Father refused to sleep unless he was given a glass of cognac Whatever drink Sheine brought him, the seven-year-old would grimace and exclaim: ‘That's not cognac! I want only genuine cognac!' How could cognac be just a bitter drink? It had to be something extraordinary, exotic, comparable to the wild stallions that reared from the labels.

One quarter of a century later, in the winter of 1938, prominent Bialystok Jews gathered in Rabinowitz's A La Minute restaurant to celebrate the thirty-fifth anniversary. The banquet was reported in all the Yiddish dailies, and father learned of the event from cuttings sent to him in New Zealand. Editors and agents had delivered glowing tributes. ‘Who in Bialystok doesn't know Bishke?', they had declared. ‘He is a city landmark — a short, lively, energetic Yiddele, running with bundles of newspapers tucked under his arms, his tongue always on the move, his voice at full pitch from dawn to dusk, proclaiming the latest news, our Bishke, an artist in his trade. In his hands newspapers realise their full potential. When he announces the headlines, they come alive; and when there is an event of particular significance — a disaster, an assassination, a declaration of war — Bishke takes flight. Crowds gather, electrified, carried along in his wake as he hurtles through the streets, trumpeting the event as if it were the coming of the Messiah, no less.'

While we discuss these articles of praise, father recalls Armistice Day 1918. Bishke had flown through the streets with special extras, screaming: ‘Cease fire! Cease fire!' People had burst out of their homes and apartments, broken off their prayers, emerged from alleys and lanes, charged out of shops and factories, to tear after him. Newspapers spiralled through the air, passing from hand to hand. The crowd jostled like a congregation of excited Hasidim straining to gain a glimpse of their Tzaddik. The news erupted and spread through the city, while in the centre of the commotion stood Bishke, the town crier, the messenger, the medium through which news flowed and dispersed in all directions until every home, every yeshiva boy, housewife, rabbi, and priest was informed. After all, a war had ended. A catastrophe was over. ‘No more wars!' was the catch cry of the times. ‘Peace! Bread! Liberation!' was the expectation of a war-weary Europe. And for a moment, at least, caught up in the throng, even pessimists were drawn along by the cry of Bishke on Armistice Day 1918.

In January 1943, disturbing rumours circulated throughout the ghetto. Cooks, cleaners, and secretaries working in Gestapo offices told their resistance comrades of plans for mass deportations. A German factory manager warned his workers of imminent disaster. When denounced by ghetto informer Judkowski, he was thrown out of Bialystok and five of his workers were tortured and executed.

At the beginning of February, Sturmbahnfuhrer Ginter, an envoy of Heinrich Himmler, arrived in Bialystok with a squad of SS men experienced in mass murder. Efraim Barasz was ordered to compile lists of 17 000 inmates for ‘resettlement'. In frantic negotiations with Gestapo bosses the numbers were whittled down to 6 300 — liquidation on the instalment plan.

On February 2nd, Gestapo officers inspected the fences. All escape routes were sealed. On February 4th, the passes of those who worked outside the ghetto were confiscated. A Gestapo delegation toured the factories to assure workers that nothing out of the ordinary was about to take place. Mass murder requires a certain degree of psychology. The Nazis prided themselves on it. A minimum of panic would ensure a maximum of efficiency. Go quietly. This is merely a transfer to greener fields.

Nevertheless, on the night of February 4th, the ghetto inmates were restless, nervous, ready to take to the hideouts they had been preparing within false walls and chimneys, in garrets and under floorboards, in cellars and bunkers — a secret city of burrows and tunnels to which they feverishly added last-minute extensions, water outlets, electricity connections, stockpiles of food — while cells of the Resistance surveyed their limited arsenals of primitive weapons, and waited.

Raphael Raizner was a printer by trade; and, like so many Bialystoker connected to the newspaper business, he had been a friend and admirer of Bishke Zabludowski. It was Raizner who first informed father of the events that had taken place on February 5, 1943.

Both father and Raizner had arrived in Melbourne in the late 1940s — one as an immigrant from New Zealand, wanting to live in a city where there was a strong community of former Bialystoker, the other, as a refugee from the displaced persons' camps of Eastern Europe.

In Melbourne they lived just a few blocks apart, in the same neighbourhood, since this was a suburb where many Jewish migrants first settled on arrival. When introduced to each other, there had been an uneasiness, a hesitancy, an avoidance of eye contact. ‘Don't ask. Don't think about it. You shouldn't dig too deeply', Raizner had said. ‘It doesn't bear telling.' And father admits that he too had been anxious, reluctant to pursue the details, in fear of the renewed sorrow they would cause. But Raizner had been a witness, an inmate of Gehenna. He had no choice, it appears, but to pass on what he had seen.

Raizner talked for many hours during their first encounter, describing in particular the events of February 5. Yet they never discussed the incident again, despite the many times they visited each other before Raizner passed away some five years later.

At 2 a.m., on Thursday February 5, a convoy of trucks carrying Gestapo and SS men, security police, and Ginter's evacuation squads entered the ghetto and approached the Judenrat offices at Kupietzka 32. Gestapo boss Gustav Friedl directed Efraim Barasz and the Judenrat police to accompany him with their lists of deportees. Several blocks were surrounded and raked with machine-gun fire. Nazi commandants screamed instructions; Judenrat police pounded on shutters; residents were ordered into the streets. But no one emerged.

When Friedl's men broke into the apartments they found them empty. Enraged at having been foiled, he tore up the lists and ordered random attacks. Those who resisted were immediately shot. As news of the Aktion flashed through the ghetto, many of its inhabitants vanished into hiding.

At about 4 a.m. evacuation squads made their way into Ulitza Kupietzka to continue their onslaught on the crowded apartments that lined both sides of the street.

Kupietzka 38. I first saw this address on the backs of envelopes containing letters father sent to his wife in Wellington during their three-and-a-half years of separation. The Zabludowskis lived on the second floor. There were two bedrooms, one of which father shared with Bishke and Sheine; a large kitchen where Sheine and her eldest daughter Etel ruled supreme; and a dining room in which stood a book cabinet, a sofa, and six chairs around a table covered with a waterproof cloth. On the walls there hung portraits of the renowned philanthropist Moses Montefiore, and a group photo of Yiddish writers. Among them stood Mendele, the ‘grandfather' of Yiddish literature, and the popular humorist Sholem Aleichem. The others father cannot recall, but he thinks they were on the deck of a boat, sailing on the River Dnieper … or was it the Black Sea?

Father has always preferred rooms with a view, exteriors to interiors. To this day, when he enters a building for the first time he is drawn immediately to the windows to gaze at wide vistas and their intimations of what lies beyond. The window fronting Ulitza Kupietzka overlooked a tangle of rooftops and squares, courtyards and lanes. In the distance, Ulitza Jurowietzka stretched towards the international section of Bialystok station. Once a day, the Moscow-Paris express would draw up by its platforms. Children ran beside the rails as it slowed down. They waved at faces peering through the windows and dreamed of jumping aboard to travel far beyond the confines of their landlocked lives.