“We aren’t hiding a Jew.”
He slapped me hard across the face with his glove. I gasped and he did it once more.
“There is no Jew here,” I said again. He could kill me and I still would not tell him.
He punched me hard in the stomach and I doubled over. Mama burst through the door and tried to push him away from me.
The Commandant turned to her. “You!” he said. “I give you a safe job, and in return you hide Michael Segal? That Jew ran a counterfeit document ring in the ghetto.” He raised his Luger towards Mama’s face. “Where is he?”
Mama stood there. Silent like me.
Officer Weber returned. “Nothing,” he said. “There must be a false wall or floor somewhere in here.”
The Commandant said to me, “Bring me an axe.”
We did have an axe in the shed, but I would not bring it to him. I was too frightened to respond. I stood as if glued to the floor.
Officer Weber must have seen the axe in our shed, because he hurried out and a few moments later came back with it. He used the wooden handle to tap all over our wall, listening for a hollow sound, then he methodically did the same for the floor.
Mama and I stood together, our arms wrapped around each other, too horrified to breathe.
When Officer Weber got close to the metal plate under the wood stove, the hollow sound was distinct. He lifted the axe to cut through the metal, but the Commandant put his hand up. “Stop,” he said. “That will not work. It would be easier just to push the stove aside. That plate underneath is likely the entry to the hiding place.”
They pushed on the corner of the stove together and it moved. The Commandant took the axe from Officer Weber and used it to lift up the metal plate.
Dolik stared out defiantly. Leon was hiding his face in his brother’s chest.
“These are two young people,” said the Commandant. “The girl told us you had Michael Segal.”
The girl? Had Marga told the Commandant? How did she know that we were hiding Mr. Segal?
I had a fleeting hope that the Commandant would take pity on Dolik and Leon because they were young, but Officer Weber grabbed them and yanked them both out of the hole. That’s when the Commandant saw Mr. Segal.
He turned to me, his face mottled. “You lied.”
Mama tried to put herself in front of me, but the Commandant pushed her away. He hit me hard in the face with the side of his Luger and I crumpled to the floor. He shouted to Officer Weber, “Take the three Jews to the wagon.”
Then he turned back to us. “Show me your hidden gold, now.”
“We have no gold,” said Mama.
“Nothing but lies come out of your mouths,” he raged. “Slavs are despicable people. You wouldn’t hide Jews if not for the gold.” He strode over to the cupboard and opened it, then picked up our dinner plates one by one and flung them at us. We ducked and darted as the dishes smashed into hundreds of shards. He picked up our cups and glasses and flung them against the stove and walls. Tiny bits of razor-sharp pottery flew through the air.
He reached for our family Bible and threw it so hard onto the floor that the spine split in two. He grabbed the stack of family portraits that Dolik and I had drawn, looked through them briefly, then ripped them to shreds.
Mama and I ran out the door, cutting our feet on shards of pottery. I could feel the warm gush of blood running down my face from a cut on my cheek, and more blood coming from my nose.
Outside, Mr. Segal, Dolik and Leon were sitting in the back of a horse-drawn wagon, white-faced and silent. Officer Weber stood guarding it, but he turned and pointed his gun towards us. “Stay where you are.”
We stood there at gunpoint as the Commandant ransacked our house, looking for gold that didn’t exist.
When he came out his eyes still flashed with anger. A thin trickle of blood ran through one eyebrow where a shard of pottery must have hit him. “Take the Jews to the square. Put them with the others,” he said to Officer Weber.
Then the Commandant grabbed Mama’s elbow. “You are coming with me.”
I followed a few steps behind them. He took Mama to the town jail. When we got inside, Commandant Hermann turned to me and snapped, “You can’t go any farther.”
As he pushed her through the next set of doors, Mama turned and looked at me. “I love you, Krystia. Find Maria. You are the bravest girl in the world and…”
The doors closed.
I waited, my eyes glued to the doors, willing them to open.
I waited for hours.
At dusk a Volksdeutche welfare officer stepped through the doors. She seemed surprised and annoyed by my presence. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “You’re getting blood all over the floor.”
I looked down. My feet and legs were covered with pinpricks of blood from the dishes the Commandant had shattered. The floor was smeared with dried blood from my pacing.
“It’s all over your face too,” she said, frowning.
I put my hands up to my face and flinched at the pain. I could trace the rivulets of sticky blood on my cheeks and over my chin.
“Go home,” said the woman.
“I’m waiting for my mother.”
“She is not leaving,” said the woman. “And I’m locking up. The Commandant left hours ago.”
How? I wondered. I hadn’t moved. He must have left by another entrance.
When I stepped out into the town square, I spotted a group of policemen guarding about thirty Jews who were clustered there.
Dolik stood among them. He raised his eyes at the sight of me. I took a few steps forward, but a policeman raised his hand and said, “Go home, girl.”
I stood there, staring at his hand, which was well-scrubbed and uncalloused. Then I looked at the policeman’s face. He seemed only a few years older than me. He had the faintest wisp of a blond moustache over his top lip. Did he not consider the evil he was a part of? How could he live with himself?
I looked beyond him. Leon stood beside Dolik now, their arms around each other’s waist. Behind them stood Mr. Segal, a protective hand on each boy’s shoulder. How I wished I could have pushed away the policeman and run to my friends. How I wished I could have saved them. I knew what their fate was. And so did they.
I could do nothing more to help them now, so I kissed the tips of my fingers and blew the kiss to Dolik. He lifted his hand as if to catch it. And then he smiled.
With wooden steps, I turned and walked back home.
Krasa’s shed door yawned open; she was gone. I checked the backyard. The chickens were also gone. I stepped carefully back into the house and grabbed the broom. I swept aside the shards of pottery so I wouldn’t cut my feet. Every curtain and sheet and blanket had been torn to ribbons. Everything breakable had been smashed. Our meagre supply of food had been confiscated.
As I swept the ribbons of bedding and tufts of feathers into one corner, I spied a bent piece of paper and picked it up. It was the photograph that Mrs. Segal had taken of me and Mama and Maria on the day the Nazis arrived in Viteretz. We had all been so hopeful then, thinking the war was over, thinking we would have our own country. How could we ever have guessed, back then, just how evil the Nazis truly were?
The photograph was partly ripped, and a giant boot print obscured Mama’s face. I brushed off the dirt as best I could and held the photograph to my heart. “Dear Mama, dear Maria, please stay safe.”
I also found Mama and Tato’s wedding photo, still in its frame, but with the glass smashed. A young and hopeful Mama and Tato stared out at me, their eyes filled with anticipation. I felt as if I had let them both down. “I’m sorry, Tato,” I said, tracing the outline of his face with the tip of my finger. “I tried to be brave, to do what was right, but it wasn’t enough.”