In the Sewers of Lvov (24 page)

I saw so many people get cheated because the Ukrainians would snatch the clothes and run. It was forbidden to chase them because if you left the ghetto you were shot. I would tell them again and again, ‘Don’t let go of what you have. Don’t let them measure the trousers. If they measure, they’re gone. Wait until you have what they can trade …’

There was a story Chiger told many times, which Paulina too would have shared with the others. It happened during the spring of 1942. Grzymek often employed Chiger and his crew of carpenters to do private work on his own apartment. Grzymek lived in a smart block of apartments inside the confines of the ghetto. Chiger had been asked to do some work and to have it finished by a particular time. Chiger and his crew took an hour longer than instructed and Grzymek decided that, as punishment, Chiger and his entire family would be hanged. As Chiger was being led down the street, he brushed against someone he knew and managed to whisper a warning:

‘Tell my wife to take the children up to the tailor’s apartment on the third floor.’

When Paulina got the message she gathered up the children and ran up the stairs. When they were safely in their friend’s apartment, Pawel went to the window to see the cause of a commotion in the street.

‘Look, I think they are going to hang someone,’ he said innocently. Paulina watched from the window as her husband was ordered to stand on a chair in the street, while a noose was placed over his head and the other end thrown over a lamp post. His
wallet and other belongings in his pockets were removed. The soldiers hauled down on the rope and awaited the order from Grzymek to kick away the chair. At this point, Chiger claimed that everything went blank and he could remember no more. However, Paulina witnessed everything from the window. As she was steeling herself for her husband’s certain death, Grzymek stepped forward and simply said: ‘Let him go.’

The rope was dropped and Chiger ordered off the chair. He was told to get on to his knees and thank the Nazi for saving him – which he did automatically. He said afterwards that he could remember nothing of what had happened from the moment he stepped on to the chair. The whole episode had been utterly senseless.

Kristina recalled many bright and some bleak moments from her early childhood. Going to the cinema near her house to see
Snow White
and in summer, walking with her mother up the slopes of Wysoki Zamek for a picnic. There on the hill above the city, people would come for their midday break to escape the heat of the summer. The occupation had stopped all that. Though she witnessed many terrible things, somehow she had been protected from the worst aspects of the war, right up until the beginning of 1943. That was when her grandparents – the Chigers, were taken away:

I remember, when we were living with them, in the evening I used to sing a lullaby for my grandfather. He would say, sit next to me and sing, and he would hold my hand. One day my father came home and said they were coming for the old people tomorrow. My grandfather said, you must leave now but my father would not and told him we would leave only if they came with us.

My Grandfather took hold of me and asked me to sing for him once more, then he forced my father to take us and leave. My grandmother gave my mother a bottle of milk for Pawel. It was night and we were running through the dark and my mother tripped and dropped the bottle. It was the only thing we had from them …

Somehow the optimism that followed the Soviets’ crossing of the old Polish border had faltered. During the very depth of winter there had been a spark of hope, but now as spring approached there seemed to be no end in sight. Frustration, intense irritation, humiliation, fury, resentment, all born of having to live under the most vile conditions, breathing the foul air, with nothing but memories to sustain them. ‘How did I do it? I was like steel. I had become like steel,’ Paulina reflected.

‘We scarcely noticed each other’s appearance,’ wrote Chiger, ‘… since we lived in twilight by the flickering carbide lanterns. We tried to maintain personal cleanliness, though it was difficult amidst the dirt and the mud.’

In fact the physical condition of the entire group, as well as their appearance, had deteriorated dramatically. They all had debilitating sores and rashes that periodically broke out over their bodies. Chiger for one recalled being covered in boils which tormented him and left him in despair. He claimed that they all seemed to disappear miraculously, though Klara recalled that they employed an ‘old wives’ remedy of grating raw potato and applying it to the boils – and this helped clear them up.

Other developments were more serious. Forced to spend most of their waking hours seated on the benches or on the floor, or, if they needed to move about, standing in permanently hunched-over positions, they suffered various physical deformations. Most of them developed curvature of the spine which made them appear to have a permanent stoop. Their legs swelled and their feet developed large sores. Their joints became stiff and fiercely painful. Their wrists and hands were also swollen, their skin had turned sallow and their eyes were beginning to fail under the constant flicker from the lamp. The general mental condition had also been stretched beyond reason and Chiger recalled their having to develop a sort of communal defence against the constant impulse simply to break down and weep uncontrollably.

In the crushing tedium of each day, a perfect copy of the day before, they had not noticed the gradual warming that had taken place in the air above. The snows had melted, the streams and
rivers swelled and a new season had finally arrived. Along with this rejuvenation came the annual spring rains, which loosened the hard soil ready for the plough. The rains washed the city of winter debris, sweeping the streets and filling the sewers with fresh water.

Though Socha delivered a brief weather report whenever he was visiting, it had become difficult to relate these words to a real spring day. Memories of times past had become even more precious and the scent of warm air must have made the urge to step out into the sunshine almost unbearable. However, the first tangible proof that there had been a change in season was a rain-storm that broke one Sunday morning. It had started to rain before dawn and continued, hour after hour. Down in the catch basin, the incoming pipe was delivering a steady stream of water that splashed hard on to the floor, and then followed the shallow depression across to the exit pipe, the Seventy, on the other side. When Socha and his wife left their house for church it seemed as though the heavens were emptying all the water in the Ukraine on the town of Lvov alone. The drains had reached their capacity and the gutters had begun to overflow. Pavements were flooded, while manholes in the street were being lifted by the pressure of the water beneath. Socha could imagine precisely what was happening under the streets. The massive elliptical tunnels were filling with water, which meant the storm pipes had already filled to capacity. Socha was in despair as he watched the vast volume of water rushing down the streets and, as they entered the church, his thoughts were with the ten individuals trapped in the storm basin. For now he had come to realize the critical error he had made in leading them to that particular spot.

The sole function of a storm basin, sometimes called a holding reservoir or catch basin, was to regulate the flow of storm water during just such a cloud-burst. It was designed to collect a large body of water, retain it and check its flow into the sewers through a single exit pipe, so allowing a steady, constant flow to enter the system. A series of these underground basins were scattered throughout the system, usually situated midway down the slope of a hill to prevent the sewer pipes having to cope with a sudden
explosion of water and bursting under the pressure. Its entire design and purpose, however, now threatened the lives of everyone hiding in it.

Beneath the cobbles on Bernadinski Square, the water coming through the inlet pipe in the basin had risen in pressure until it spewed forth against the opposite wall like a fire hose. The floor had flooded and the level risen above the aperture of the exit pipe. The water was entering more quickly than it was draining away. The basin was functioning perfectly – and the water level was rising.

Up and down the length of the room, tin cans, bottles, pots and buckets bobbed and floated in everybody’s way. Chiger and some of the other men tried to find a way of blocking the inlet pipe with pots and pieces of clothing, but the terrific force simply blew anything straight out again. Margulies and Berestycki tried to retard the flow, by holding the blade of the shovel against the torrent, but again the pressure was overwhelming. Chiger and Margulies, stripped down to their waists, tried pressing their bare backs against the pipe. By heaving themselves bodily against the torrent, they hoped to staunch the flow to allow sufficient water to escape again. They stood with their backs pressed hard against the wall but it had no effect at all. The water continued to pour in and the level continued to rise.

Throughout the service in the church, Socha listened to the relentless downpour on the roof. He could vividly imagine exactly what was occurring beneath the street – and there was nothing he could do about it.

If it had been a perfectly sealed unit, the air pressure might have been enough to stop the flow, but it was old and cracked, the walls pervious to both air and water, so the air escaped as quickly as the water rushed in. It had dawned upon everyone that they were all in mortal danger. As the water rose to halfway up the walls, Kristina became almost hysterical.

The waters had swallowed up the beds, the stoves and lanterns, everything had gone. All that remained was this precious and diminishing pocket of air. Kristina recalled: ‘At the time I didn’t understand what was happening, I only saw this huge amount of
water coming through the pipe. People were panicking and crying … I remember my father with his shirt off, standing against the pipe, trying to stop the water. It did no good …’ The only remaining precaution they could take was to make sure the exit pipe remained unclogged. Pots and pans were now at the bottom of the chamber and being dragged by the outward flow towards the Seventy. If that became blocked all hope would vanish. Paulina and her husband took hold of their children and tried to calm them, but they themselves were as close to sheer panic as everyone else. Kristina recalled: ‘… and this was the moment I thought that this is it, we are going to die.’

Socha imagined the terror of being trapped in the basin and he saw that the situation was hopeless. He lit a candle beneath the statue of the Virgin and buried himself in prayer.

Down in the basin, several members of the group had also resorted to prayer. Kristina remembered pleading with Berestycki: ‘I remember I was crying and I was begging one of the men to pray. I begged him, Jacob, pray to God, pray to God!’ The little girl was absolutely convinced that Berestycki was endowed with religious authority and that his prayers would be more effective. She believed completely, as only children can, that their existence was entirely in the hands of God, through the power of the holy man. It was for her the end of everything. Panic swept through her and she flailed about for an escape. ‘“Tell God to stop the raining and the water will disappear.” I was holding him and grabbing him – I felt this was the last resort.’

The water had risen up to their chins and they were trapped in a tiny pocket of air. For each and every member of the group there was a moment, an incident that characterized the entire ordeal and for Kristina this was the worst moment of crisis. Despite all that she had experienced before, it was during those few moments, as her mother pressed her hard up against the ceiling, that she truly confronted death.

The following morning, Socha and Wroblewski met up before entering the sewers. Neither of them were in any doubt about what had happened during the Sunday storm. It was one of their
routine responsibilities to descend and check the main arteries for damage. What had haunted Socha all night was the prospect of finding the remains of his ten friends.

Wroblewski had agreed to enter the chamber first and report on the scene. But even before he had climbed into the Seventy, both men could tell from the sounds at the other end that they were both in for a surprise. Wroblewski and then Socha, doubtless struggling to control his emotions as he wriggled down the pipe, entered the chamber to see all ten standing before them. Chiger and Paulina described Socha’s state as one of deep and profound shock. His conviction that they were all dead had been absolute. Now it was shattered and at first he found it hard to comprehend. All around everything was in ruin but salvageable. The floor was caked in mud which they had already begun to scrape away. Everyone and everything was still soaked – and would remain so for weeks. But everyone was alive, no one was even injured.

Kristina explained to Socha what had happened. She described her pleas to Jacob for prayers to stop the rain, and how, miraculously, the water had simply stopped pouring in through the pipe. That is exactly how all the accounts described it. Slowly, the flow of water coming in had diminished until it had weakened to a trickle, and the water had simply drained away. In the eyes of the seven-year-old child, it had been Berestycki’s prayers. There could be no doubt.

‘I was sure you were dead. I knew you were all dead,’ Socha told Chiger. The effect on the sewer worker was profound. He told them that the following morning he had gone straight to church to light another candle; this time to give thanks. His interpretation had been as uncomplicated as Kristina’s. It was, in his unshakeable opinion, absolute proof that his efforts were being observed and rewarded. It was divine confirmation that his ‘mission’ as he called it, was blessed. According to Chiger, his revelation upon entering their chamber ‘… filled him with renewed sense of purpose and commitment’. It apparently also had an evangelical effect on the recalcitrant Wroblewski, who was likewise charged with ‘renewed persistence and endurance’.
There seemed to be a strengthening of the bond between Socha and Berestycki thereafter. These two deeply religious men had found a common link between their faiths that was to endure long afterwards.