“Polish workmen filled in the graves”, recalls my father. “Afterward, they said that the earth on top of the graves went on heaving for some time after the murders”.
I am one of the last living links to Dr. Mordkowicz and his daughter, Krisza, who was five years older than me, and the nineteen other people murdered that day. Just a few hours after some of them were buried alive, trying to claw their way back to the surface, I was at work alongside my mother in the Sammlungstelle, sorting through the clothes as usual. Among those we handled were two bloodstained dresses, smudged with mud from the Jewish cemetery. We recognized them.
That massacre has gone down in Tomaszów Mazowiecki folklore as the Nazis’ Purim Aktion. It was a reminder, as if we needed one, of the arbitrary nature of the German occupation.
For weeks, life followed a monotonous routine, then it was punctuated by a spasm of sadistic violence. Tension mounted a month later, in the middle of April when, seventy miles away, the Jewish rebels inside the Warsaw Ghetto began their heroic battle against elite German forces. The soldiers guarding us were afraid that rebellion might spread to other ghettos. They had nothing to worry about in Tomaszów Mazowiecki. We were hemmed into four streets and completely surrounded. Our rooms had been searched multiple times. The Germans must have known we had no weapons. What were we going to attack them with? Nevertheless, they still opened fire if anyone was brave enough to venture past the barbed wire.
All the while, in the Sammlungstelle, we were working steadily through the clothes. The mountains of possessions had shrunk. Soon there would be nothing left. Those garments were the very reason for our continued existence. The chattels of the dead were keeping us alive. What would happen when the warehouse was empty and our work was at an end? What would become of us?
By May 1943, there was no need for everyone to turn up for work. That spelled danger for those who were unproductive and no longer slaving on behalf of the Third Reich. There was a sense that something new was on the horizon. Experience taught us that a change in our circumstances was never benevolent.
The grim mood was exacerbated by the stench of rotting waste. In the unseasonable heat, flies swarmed around the piles of garbage. Beyond the barbed wire, to the horizon, the world was rich with color as nature put on its summer clothes. Its beauty was a feast for the eyes. Yet at the same time, it accentuated the depth of our despair.
By this stage, there were about 700 people left in the ghetto. The numbers were whittled away when small groups were dispatched to the Bli˙zyn slave-labor camp fifty miles to the southeast.
On May 30, there was an announcement that another selection was due to take place. The very word “Selektion” induced a sense of profound anxiety. We knew by now that it usually meant a death sentence. The Gestapo declared that thirty-six people would be chosen to be left behind. Those names were read out. All three of us were on the list. Mama, Papa and I. I was too young to realize the significance at the time, but it was a terrifying moment for my parents and the other thirty-three people. They were afraid they would be shot immediately or taken to the graveyard and executed there.
The rest of the ghetto, some 650 people, went back to pack a few essential belongings.
“Mothers tore children from deep sleep, dressed them hurriedly and drenched them with hot tears”, writes my father. “They knew that leaving that place meant their future was even more uncertain. People ran to their families, to friends, and helped each other to pack, and held on to each other as if saying goodbye”.
A whistle pierced the air, ordering everyone in the ghetto to gather at the Appellplatz—the assembly point. Apprehension rippled through the ranks of people standing five deep. Then the names of the thirty-six were read aloud again and we stepped aside. The Germans ordered the remaining 650 people to start marching toward the railway station.
“Why are you leaving us behind?” the people around me shouted, as the column of Jews passed through the ghetto gates for the last time. “It was such a scream that it penetrated the air like a knife, a scream that reached the heavens, a scream straight from the mothers’ hearts”, writes my father. “It was bone-chilling”.
Pichler grinned and ordered our group to follow him to the Sammlungstelle. We were pushed into a building and locked inside. The door was guarded by helmeted guards with machine guns. The Germans took pleasure in terrorizing us.
“All those inside expected at any moment that they would be led to the cemetery and shot”, writes my father.
I can’t remember how long we were locked in the warehouse, but I do recall that there was shooting not very far away. I now realize what that was. The Germans went from apartment to apartment, from room to room, in the four streets of the Block, killing anyone who was still hiding or was too sick to move. Some of those who were murdered that day had stayed because they couldn’t face the prospect of being herded into a cattle car to extinction and chose to die in familiar surroundings.
After the guns stopped firing, the guards opened the door and we realized we’d been spared. They had locked us up because they wanted us to think that we were next and also because they didn’t want any witnesses.
Many Jews reading this will be nodding sagely to themselves right now and thinking: I know why they survived—gematria.
Gematria is a Jewish form of numerology whereby each Hebrew letter has a numerical value. As such, certain words are believed to possess mystical power. A key word here is chai, meaning “life”. Chai’s numerical value is eighteen — hence it’s a Jewish tradition to present gifts of, say, eighteen dollars, or multiples of eighteen, as a good omen for life. Thirty-six — twice eighteen — is a particularly auspicious number. It represents two lives.
Perhaps it was a coincidence that thirty-six people were chosen from the ghetto that day, or perhaps a higher power was involved. Who knows? Either way, those of us in that warehouse all got a second chance at life.
As one of the handful of children to escape the slaughter in my hometown, there is no denying that I am incredibly fortunate. However, what followed was anything but a privilege.
The Gestapo commanded us to clean up the four streets of the Block. Inside and out. We had to erase all evidence that a war crime had taken place. Most important of all was that no traces of flesh or blood should be visible. We had to make it appear that the Jews had left in an orderly fashion — that no harm had been done to them — just in case the Red Cross, or another supposedly neutral organization, started asking difficult questions. But then I doubt the Germans would have allowed the International Red Cross access to the ghettos. It was more likely that the properties were being prepared to be taken over by Poles or Germans as part of Hitler’s plan to ensure the population of the Third Reich was entirely Aryan.
The tasks I had to perform as I approached my fifth birthday were things no child should ever have to do, and I could not avert my eyes or hide away. The images I saw over the ensuing weeks haunt me to this day and have kept me awake at night as I have dug into my memories for this book. For nearly eighty years now, I’ve had one particular recurring nightmare, where I am walking among dead bodies. That dream always shakes me awake, after which further sleep is impossible, as my mind is propelled back to Tomaszów Mazowiecki.