Warsaw (5 page)

While the Privates smoked and shared some news the solitary
Jew left in the truck was ordered to load up the seven corpses which were left
strewn, bloody and contorted, along the street. When the terrified, exhausted
prisoner completed the task he was ordered to board the truck again - and then he
was shot in the back of the head.

Duritz heard the cluster of shots from his bed. Sometimes
they barely registered with him. Like the other residents of the streets around
where Kleist hunted the policeman had learned to, consciously or not, blot out
the scenes. Yet there were also those in the ghetto, holy fools or otherwise,
who would weep and pray for every shot which rang out in the darkness. Duritz
had once or twice wept in the past - partly because he could not pray.

Thomas Abendroth and his Platoon had billeted themselves
into a floor of a municipal building which overlooked a corner of the Jewish
ghetto. While most of his comrades slept the Corporal, careful not to wake
anyone, retreated into a room the unit kept spare for anyone who brought a woman
back or wanted to relieve himself - or, in the case of Thomas Abendroth now,
just desired some peace and privacy. A cool breeze whistled through the window
and billowed out what was left of a tatty, brown net curtain. A candle and the
silvery moonlight provided the illumination for the soldier to read over again
the letter from his wife.

"Dearest Thomas, I miss you and you can well imagine
how much I long to see you again - for you are no doubt feeling the same
longing for me. If you are not then I shall be very cross and shall want to
know why. At best it seems that any positive news from the Front is constructed
from half-truths.

Things look bleak and I fear the worst. I used to lie in bed
at night and wish for your safe return and for an end to this terrible war but
now I just hope and pray that you will not be posted to Stalingrad. It is a
piece of silly reasoning I know but I tell myself that if I pray for less, be
less selfish, then my prayers might be answered and granted.

Wilhelm, as you can see from the photo enclosed, is fine and
well. From the way he is getting through his rations and shoes he will no doubt
grow as large and strong as his father. Mother says as well that he is
increasingly beginning to look like you, which is a blessing and a curse for
when I gaze upon him sometimes I see you - but then think on your absence and
where you are. I've also enclosed the most recent picture he's done of you.

I am well so do not worry about me. I am trying to keep busy
and still teaching at the school part-time. You'll be pleased to know that all
the children are still devoted to you and constantly ask after "Herr
Abendroth". I have also been tending to the garden of late. All the bulbs
and shrubs we planted when you were last on leave have flowered or are about to
flower. The garden is now awash with colour (bluebells, roses, cowslip, fiery
red pansies, and gleaming marigolds). A few buttercups have also sprung up from
the lawn and, last week, Wilhelm adorably spent a couple of days testing
whether everyone in the village liked butter.

How are you? I'm sorry about the barrage of questions in my
last letter about what the ghetto was like and the Jews. But I can't believe
anything in the news or on the radio anymore. I know I've said it before but
still I can't comprehend how much things have changed. I think I would need the
next ten years to catch-up and understand what has happened over the past
decade - and not just because of the war. Please write soon (although I know
you will). I love you so much. Maria."

As pleased as Thomas was at receiving the letter his eyes
moistened too from sadness. He was a world from his wife and child. His simple
life was over and nothing would ever be the same again Thomas lamented, even if
he went home tomorrow. He took up again the picture enclosed in the letter that
Wilhelm had drawn of his father. ‘Papa’ was no more than a matchstick man with
a big head and lop-sided grin but Thomas could recognise, through the blue
helmet and red rifle, that his son had drawn him as a soldier. The two big
black swastikas which flanked the figure also pained and angered the Corporal.
When he was a boy clouds and the sun or moon had accompanied his pictures. The
sun and stars had now turned into swastikas. His spirits seethed and sank to think
of the poison that they were pouring into his son's ears while he was away.
Again he flirted absurdly with the idea of deserting and trying to get back to
his family and escape over the Swiss border. But he knew the dangers. They
would get to his family first and he couldn't trust putting something in a
letter. If intercepted, it would be as good as a death sentence for them all.
He would just have to endure.

5.

Poland fell in three weeks. David so seldom conquers
Goliath. On the 12th of October 1940, the Day of Atonement, it was announced by
the occupying force that a ghetto – or ‘Jewish residential quarters’ - was to
be established in the old Yiddish district of the capital. 2.4% of the city's
land would house 30% of its population. Non-Jews were moved out, accepting the
incentive of taking over Jewish homes and business properties. Jews were moved
in, with many of their valuables and possessions being confiscated at the
ghetto's gates. Around half a million Jews were soon after sealed in with
barbed wire and 3.5 metre high walls topped with broken glass; the inhabitants
were made to pay for the walls at their own expense. Notices reading ‘Jews,
Lice, Typhoid’ were hung upon them. Rations were set at around 300 calories a
day, compared to the 2,300 the Germans received. Only 1% of the apartments in
the ghetto possessed running water. Smuggling and a black market alleviated
part of the problem of food shortages, but nevertheless it is estimated that,
even before the "transportations to the East" began, 100,000 Jews
died of starvation and disease in the ghetto.

On July 22 1942 the Warsaw ghetto was encircled by various
Latvian, Ukrainian and SS soldiers. Two days previous the Judenrat (Jewish
Council) was ordered to prepare and make arrangements for the resettlement of
the "non-productive elements" of the ghetto's population. Basically,
anyone who did not possess a work card was liable to be transported. Armament
factories and slave labour camps outside the ghetto were two of the more common
sources of employment. The chairman of the Jewish Council, Adam Czerniakow, was
ordered to deliver 6,000 Jews per day, seven days a week, to the Umschlagplatz
for evacuation. Czerniakow committed suicide, swallowing cyanide, on July 23,
the first day of the Jewish deportations. Between July 23 to September 21 1942
alone, the most "productive period" of the evacuations, more than
250,000 Jews were transported from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka - and
murdered.

The Umschlagplatz (collection point) was a large oval on the
inside but on the northern edge of the ghetto which ran adjacent to the railway
sidings, situated on the corner of Stawki and Dzika Street. Once a market for
Jewish traders in the city it acted now as a compound, or giant train platform,
for those inhabitants of the ghetto due to be evacuated. On the edge of the
Umschlagplatz, next to the wall, there was an additional compound or area in
which there were piled dozens, sometimes hundreds of dead bodies. Some had been
shot for various petty crimes or for no offence at all. SS personnel were
empowered to execute (shoot) Jews without trial or justification. From the
russet gore upon the wall it was also evident however that some had been
murdered by having their skulls crushed, the Germans having swung their victims
by the legs onto the brickwork. Due to its disturbing, gruesome sights and the
unnatural smell which pervaded the area, the evacuees tried their best to avoid
the fly infested open cemetery and compressed themselves into an even smaller
space within the Umschlagplatz.

Sometimes they came at night, sometimes in the morning,
afternoon or at dusk - but they always came. Grey hoards, violent, unrelenting,
raiding, herding, processing. Children were a liability if one hid; it was not
unknown for babies to be smothered to death to save the rest of the group. The
dogs developed a taste for flesh. Some people even volunteered when they heard
that partners or offspring had been captured, selected. Methodical, brutal
platoons, often accompanied by a Jewish policeman, would swarm through their
designated blocks, sweeping the inhabitants up as if they were caught in a
human tornado. The soldiers would then dump their “catch" in the
Umschlagplatz and perhaps repeat the operation directly afterwards. If you
couldn't produce a work pass, you were eligible.

For all of the raids and enforced evacuations, however,
there were also many who passively appeared at the Umschlagplatz, either
instructed by the Judenrat to do so or persuaded by the arguments of policemen
such as Meisel and Duritz. They convinced the evacuees that they were being
taken to labour camps where, although the work was hard, the rations and
lodgings were better - and they could still be with their families. They were
not going to be killed because the Germans "need us for their war effort.
It would be illogical, a false economy, for them to do away with us". Some
people believed them because they wanted to believe them. Or the promise of
food (bread and jam) lured desperate people onto the trains, which the Germans
offered the Jews if they complied to turn up the collection point "of
their own free will".

Once caught within the Umschlagplatz a few evacuees might be
taken out again for a number of reasons: they might be considered fit for
certain work details, worth saving in return for the wealth that they
possessed. Or their petitioning of a policeman or soldier could be successful.
Few received a reprieve however.

As many evacuees as inhumanly possible were loaded onto the
cattle trucks once there was a sufficient number rounded up in the
Umschlagplatz. People were beaten back with truncheons and rifle butts as the
sheer number of people meant that some spilled back out of the entrances to the
carriages. Doors were nailed shut. The warm air, noxious with the smell of
chlorine from where the trucks had been hosed out, soon became nauseating
through the stench of the diseased and filthy bodies crammed together. Often
families were split up during the loading of the trucks. Soldiers and policemen
were not concerned with who travelled with who. One train alone, consisting of
around sixty freight cars or cattle trucks, could evacuate 5,000-6,000 people.
The trains ran seven days a week. During one of the German offensives in Russia
a ban was implemented on many non-essential rail services and resources yet
still the SS demanded and continued to run their daily service from the ghetto
to Treblinka - situated 75 miles north-east of Warsaw.

Adam Duritz observed the matinee idol of a Lieutenant
nodding in approval as he efficiently dispatched another “shipment" of
Jews to their destination. The SS officer had trained his men well, teaching
them to use force only when necessary. Disturbances were just that - time
consuming. The same brawny SS Private, who last week had nearly beaten a woman
to death as she tried to remain with her brother, was now reassuring a family
that everything was going to be all right - the work camp was half a day's
ride, during which the train would stop at a station for a water break. He even
put his arm around a woman and smiled.

It was an undulating sea of people. With their various cloth
caps - and women wearing headscarves - so many of the bowed heads remained
faceless. So many weren't faceless though. If the Germans sustained this rate
of evacuation - extermination - then the ghetto would be all but empty by the
New Year, Duritz estimated. For so long it had been the policeman's mission to
survive the war; now his greatest wish was just to see the end of it. He had tried
his best again (and often he succeeded) to be posted away from the
Umschlagplatz - offering to police and dispose of the abandoned and randomly
executed dead littering the streets of the ghetto, but Duritz had to endure the
sight of the living once more.

Yitzhak Meisel, with his trained eye in terms of the wealth
of people in rags and what was contained in their pockets, was weaving his way
through the troubled throng and confiscating valuables, such as ration cards
and watches. They would not need them where they were going was the argument
Meisel defended himself with, if indeed he felt the need to defend his actions.
If anyone resisted he would perform his usual trick of breaking someone's hand
or nose with his wooden cudgel. Duritz often liked to confront him with the
situation of what was going to happen when the ghetto was finally emptied and
there would be no one left to police. What did he think the Germans would do
with him? Meisel would argue back, as if now believing his own lies which he had
just spouted to evacuees, that the Germans would reward loyalty and he was too
valuable a worker.

An elderly couple inserted themselves into Adam's vision.
They looked lost and tubercular, as their children and grandchildren had been
before them. They were two of Duritz's five. After a brief fit of coughing, in
which spots of blood could be traced upon the filthy handkerchief that the wife
placed over the husband's mouth, he politely asked the policeman

"Is there a special car that we are due to travel in Mister
Duritz?"

"No, any car will suffice," the policeman replied,
attempting to keep his distance from the contagious couple - whilst not wishing
to appear he was doing so.

"But you did say we could travel together?"

"Yes. Stay close to each other and everything will be
fine."

"Thank you Adam."

Still looking detached and diffident the pair shuffled off
into the direction of the train. He wondered how they had survived this long.
They looked like ghosts. His noble intention of trying to save the fittest and most
valuable of his people was redundant; he was but delaying their deaths -
prolonging their suffering. The British would not come. The Americans would not
come. The Russians would not come. The French were even corroborative. Adam
remembered again Czerniakow's suicide note, "I am powerless. My heart
trembles in sorrow and compassion. I can no longer bear all this. My act will
prove to everyone what the right thing to do is". Adam had also heard
rumours of a speech that Jacob Gens, a fellow ghetto administrator, had given
in Vilna, "When they ask for a thousand Jews, I hand them over. For if we
Jews do not give our own, the Germans will come and take them by force. Then
they will not take one thousand but many thousands. By handing over hundreds, I
save a thousand. By handing over a thousand, I save ten thousand". The
philosophy student's heart had been blighted for having to deliver up five
souls each day, how much blood and conceit besmirched those who had to offer up
six thousand?

Adam stood at his post - a careworn, feverish marionette. He
had nothing to do. The sepia stream of rags was directed and damned in, fluid.
The processing time had been cut but the day was still tortuously too long for
the policeman. It took more energy and concentration to do nothing and remain
impassive than it did to police a disturbance. Adam's position was to just keep
watch.

Finally the whistle sounded, drowning out the moans and
cries, and the train's wheels creaked into motion. Duritz observed the few who
had been spared for the day; either their work cards were valid or excellent
forgeries. Or they had mustered temporary salvation through a bribe. Despite
the ordeals and emotion (relief, sorrow, shock, guilt, happiness) their faces
remained colourless, blank. He observed with distaste Yitzhak Meisel next to
them as the mercenary scoured with his malignant aspect the empty Umschlagplatz
for any coins or jewellery shining back into his rapacious eyes.
Sleep-deprived, famished, the young policeman was momentarily aroused from his
jaded state by the sight of the German. Still indignant from the sight of
Meisel and burning with hate Duritz glowered at the moral soldier. At that
moment it was as if Adam held Thomas personally responsible for all he had seen
- and would not get to see - that day. His nostrils were flared, his teeth were
vice-like compressed together and his eyes were darkly ablaze. Perhaps the
reason why Duritz expressed such raw contempt in his features for his old
acquaintance was that he knew that Thomas would not react or reciprocate his
antagonism. Adam's hate quelled remorse. The soldier could act as the
policeman's scapegoat. Any other German perhaps would have stormed across the
open space and coldly executed the Jew for such an impudent gaze. Upon registering
the perplexity and then worry, hurt, on the soldier's face the policeman,
experiencing a sense of petty victory, then grinned, sneering at the German. So
as not to allow Thomas to respond, or approach him, Adam abruptly turned his
back on the goy and the Umschlagplatz for the day. He would get some sleep,
before accounting for his five tomorrow.
  

 
Duritz trudged home.
His body was wet inside his uniform from perspiration. There had been a flash
shower also, but the sweltering sun soon returned and re-animated the unholy
ordure (rotting flesh, faeces, and mouldy fruit) which saturated the ghetto.
People were starting to filter out of every crevice of the district now that
the selections were over for the day. Queues were forming at the water vendors.
Black market food was being traded. Consumptive, tubercular coughs peppered the
air. People were asking who had been taken. Adam noticed Kolya Rubenstein dart
out of a building with a small bundle. The little rogue had probably got wind
of a family that had just been evacuated and had helped himself to any
provisions or possessions they might have left. How different he was from his
sister, but that was all the time he allowed thinking upon the brother.

Jessica Rubenstein. Her image swirled up again into his mind's
eye. Part of him wanted to fuck her again, get rid of the raging despair that
way. But that would have only brought him a new, different feeling of remorse.
Or the same one. More than Jessica though, Duritz just needed a jug of water
now. He had been dehydrated all day from the previous evening's alcohol. Yet
still he thought of his old succubus.

Jessica. It was as though Nature itself had conspired
against him all those years ago. It was an afternoon in July. The sun massaged
rather than burnt down upon the town. One had to squint if one gazed upwards at
the bright blue sky, though one gladly did so to witness the beautiful
firmament, ribboned in strips of coral-white cloud. Flowers bloomed and
perfumed the air. The idealistic, unsociable student had read "The Sorrows
Of The Young Werther" again in one sitting the evening before. The private
tutor was taking on a new pupil. He was glad of both the extra money and the
excuse it would furnish him with to keep him out of the house. His father
worked him in the bakery nowadays after his classes finished, being allowed to
study or have some leisure time only when the clearing up and prep work for the
morning had been completed. The money he brought in and gave to his father
(minus the small sums which he failed to disclose out of selfishness and
revolt) granted the youth freedom to be let off his chores.