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Authors: Robert Marshall

Tags: #Fiction, #General, #History, #Military, #World War II, #Jewish, #Holocaust

In the Sewers of Lvov (3 page)

BOOK: In the Sewers of Lvov
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No one knew if they were safe. There were sounds of heavy boots on the stairs and then voices ordering everyone to move.


Wo sind die Kinder
!’

The sounds of mumbled replies, then their hearts sank.


Hier ist eine nasse Wand. Das heisst, das ist frisch
!’

The plaster was still fresh, the false wall had been discovered. Further commands. One of the workers was ordered to wield the pick-axe. It came crashing through the damp wall bringing it down piece by piece. Pawel burst into tears and Paulina, taking this as her cue, cried out for them to stop. She crawled out of the hiding place with the youngest in her arms and clutching Kristina’s hand. Beside her was an elderly woman who occasionally did cleaning work in the apartments and two of the carpenters.


Juden ‘raus! ‘Raus
!’

From above their heads came flashing a wide leather belt across their backs and again around their legs. As they stepped into the middle of the room, Paulina recalled thinking to herself, ‘I have potassium cyanide in my hand. Three phials, for myself
and the two children. I won’t give it to them now. Maybe something will happen, maybe we’ll be saved. If not, I’ve got time to put the cyanide in their mouths when we’re on the truck.’

Then down the stairs another set of footsteps. It was Chiger, her husband. He turned to the officer and spoke to him in German.

‘Listen, she’s on the day shift now. Yesterday, they changed her from the night shift to the day shift. She’s day shift now.’

Paulina clutched the cyanide tightly in her hand.

‘Why did you hide them?’

‘I was frightened for the children.’

The officer looked at them all, then ordered two of his men to stay while he continued his search. Above their heads they heard the noises of further searches.

‘You will go with the children,’ said one of the soldiers to Paulina. Chiger fell to his knees.

‘No, no!’

He begged with such humility, Paulina recalled. ‘He removed his watch and offered it to them. They took it but were not moved. As his pleas became more desperate, they seemed more incensed and one of the soldiers brought the butt of his rifle down on my husband’s head.’

Blood began to run from a deep cut above his eye. It was hopeless. There was no reason to hope any more, life was simply whatever these men had in store for them. But moments later, miraculously, the terms were changed.

‘All right. One of the children will stay with you, the other goes with her. You choose.’

Chiger and Paulina glanced at each other while this new situation sank in. ‘It only made my husband more desperate and his pleas became even more dramatic.’ He begged them as though he were so much dust on the floor. He lowered himself to the ground, he cried up to these two giants.

‘Let them stay. Let them stay! How can I choose between one child and another?’ He took from his pocket a picture of the children and held it before him like a talisman, as if it might ward off the tragedy.

Meanwhile, Paulina had been carefully watching the soldiers and saw some small opportunity for a respite. She noticed they were mildly curious about two bags that had been slung over her shoulder when she emerged from the bunker. Paulina slowly lowered them to the ground and showed the soldiers the food that was packed inside. ‘It was put in the bunker with the children. We didn’t know how long we might have to be in there,’ Paulina recalled.

The food, such an unlikely gambit, seemed to ease the situation. Taking from the bag some biscuits, a handful of bread and sardines she passed these tributes to the Germans, who devoured them. These men had been hungry. They took the bags and emptied the contents on the floor. There was medicines for the children and perhaps some clothes. Eventually one of them declared through a mouthful of food that they could all stay. At that moment, a squad of Ukrainian militia burst into the work room and ordered Paulina and the children up to the street. The Germans resented this disregard for their authority and one of them spat out,


Nein. Diese Kinder bleiben hier
!’

The Ukrainians, confused but unquestioning, departed. A few minutes later another squad arrived, equally determined to follow Grzymek’s orders. Again the soldiers denied them permission. Paulina seized the moment to improve the situation.

‘Can we all return to our apartment? And would one of you accompany us up the stairs. There are Ukrainians on every landing?’

Throughout all this, her fist stayed tightly closed around the three phials of cyanide. Once back inside their rooms, Paulina spoke calmly to the solider.

‘Would you like something else to eat?’

‘Scrambled eggs.’

‘How many eggs?’

‘Six.’

As this curious domestic scene unfolded, they were joined by Chiger’s brother-in-law, Kuba Leinwand. Kuba, a tall distinguished-looking man, worked at a large paint factory. Before
the war he had been a manager at the plant. The Germans had welcomed his expertise and kept him on there, though with far less responsibility.

The children had settled in a corner, Chiger had staunched the bleeding and was nursing his wound while Paulina made conversation with the German. She spoke with a natural air of self-confidence. Her family had been wealthy, enjoyed a considerable degree of social importance and, consequently, Paulina had not been brought up to avert her eyes from anyone’s gaze.

The soldier noticed a bar of soap on the sink. Paulina reached across and handed it to him. In the midst of all this, sounds of terror carried up from the street. Over the sound of persistent wailing, Grzymek’s voice could be heard barking orders to his men. Kristina went to the window and peered down. She saw in the courtyard below rows of women, seated on the ground – waiting. When the transport arrived they were loaded aboard and taken away. Paulina turned Kristina from the window and told her to go back to the other end of the room. Meanwhile, the German finished his eggs and announced that he was going off-duty. Paulina wondered how much goodwill she had purchased.

‘Before you go, my cousin is downstairs. She’s in trouble. Maybe you can help her.’ But his eyes were upon the gold watch on Paulina’s wrist.

‘Do you want my watch? I’ll give it to you. My cousin, downstairs. Her parents are at the factory now, on the day shift. Like me, she had been on the night shift and was changed to the day. Perhaps you can explain this to them.’

He left with the watch and her cousin’s name. Paulina watched from the window as the German spoke with one of his colleagues in the street. He in turn called over one of the Jewish police, the men in the nondescript peaked caps, and gave him an order. Some moments later, the policeman emerged from the entrance of the building with Paulina’s cousin and led her to the transports.

The day grew older and the
Aktion
continued throughout. By sunset 1000, perhaps 2000 people had been transported – dead or alive. Eventually the wailing ceased and a sullen quiet descended
on the houses. It became quite still again, as though everyone had been drained of emotion. People sat in silence, trying to absorb what had happened, as grief and shock settled slowly into their consciousness. Suddenly Kristina heard a stifled cry and the sound of something hitting the pavement outside. She leapt to her feet. Paulina glanced out of the window and managed to stop her daughter before she could see.

‘Don’t look, Krisia. Don’t go to the window.’

On the roof of their building, a small group of women had gathered. With their children gone they had lost their motherhood. In the depth of their grief, they had sought out each other’s company, and one by one jumped into the space before them.

Chapter II

After what became known as the March Action, the most valuable commodity in the Julag was poison. The Lvov pharmacies reported massive purchases of prussic acid and cyanide, which made its way to the other side of the railway line through the black-market. It was a trade the German authorities did nothing to curtail. If they could induce the Jews themselves to expedite Nazi policies through terrorizing them, then there would be obvious savings in manpower and resources.

As usually happened after an
Aktion
, the community did what it could to heal itself while trying to pick up the shreds of their lives. At the start of the occupation they might have been numbed with shock or grief, but after nearly two years most of the population had become hardened to these barbarities. Fear and grief remained companions. The injured hid themselves from view while the rest gave thanks for their good fortune.

Chiger’s wound had been more serious than at first suspected. His eye had closed up and when, after a few days, he was able to open it, he could see nothing with it. But his wife and children were still alive and what was that compared to an eye? He was still able to move about and work, there was everything to be grateful for.

Chiger was responsible for running a small workshop and team of workers to maintain the fabric of the Julag. His men roamed the streets of the Julag repairing furniture, windows, plumbing; keeping everything up to the standard expected by Grzymek. One of the men who worked under Chiger was a dwarfish individual who made up for his lack of stature by the size of his heart: Jacob Berestycki was a locksmith from the town of Lodz; quietly
spoken and a devout Chasid.
3
Klara recalled seeing him often, ‘sitting under the tree outside the barrack, heating his tea over a small fire’.

Though Chiger hardly knew him, Berestycki was somewhat in awe of his boss. Being a stranger to Lvov, he knew little about Chiger except that he was clearly a man of some importance within the community, and not only because he had some say over the lives of people who worked under him. He was held in far greater esteem than that of a mere maintenance foreman.

Ignacy Chiger’s influence was inherited from his father, Jacob Chiger, who before the war had been one of the leaders of the Jewish Workers’ Community. Under the occupation, Jacob Chiger represented the workers on the Judenrat, the Jewish council made up of lawyers, doctors and other notables of the community, which was established by the Germans to ensure the fullest co-operation in the running of their Jewish policies. As the size of the ghetto was reduced and so became more crowded, Chiger’s father had done what he could to ease the conditions. He tried to ensure everyone had work, food and some kind of suitable bathing and toilet facilities. It was said that his efforts earned him the respect, even love, of not just the unskilled workers, but eventually the entire community. But on 23 January 1943, the Judenrat was abolished and Chiger’s father and mother were executed. The workers in the Julag had immediately turned to their patron’s son ‘and begged him to take care of them, like his father had done’. Chiger had precious little authority, but what he had he used to the limit.

About the only thing Berestycki did know about Chiger was his reputation for building hiding places, or ‘bunkers’. He had built them everywhere and for anyone who asked. Being responsible for maintenance, Chiger would discover work that had to be done in his client’s room, and under the guise of repairing a pipe or patching up some cracks, he would secretly construct a concealed hiding place.

It was something he had assumed was a secret from his workmates, yet Berestycki had noted these operations with quiet interest. He rarely spoke to Chiger and was hardly spoken to. The
two of them were as distant as manager and labourer, yet they had one thing in common: the conviction that their days were numbered, that the Julag itself was living on borrowed time.

Chiger had been certain of this from the day Grzymek had arrived. On the first morning he was seen inside the ghetto walls, he had set his mark upon their lives. There had been an inspection before the brigades marched off to work and in a calculated act of brutality, Grzymek had suddenly attacked one of the Ukrainian militiamen. Claiming that the man was slovenly dressed, he had personally meted out twenty-five blows with his whip. Afterwards, Grzymek had marched up and down the ranks of workers, while the steady crunch of his boots and the swish of his long leather coat were the only sounds to be heard. The effect upon everyone was stunning. In his remarkable book
The Death Brigade
, Leon Wells wrote that Grzymek’s previous posting had been to the Polish town of Rawa Ruska, where, it was rumoured, not one single Jew had survived. He had become known as a ‘ghetto liquidator’.

On the surface, life within the Julag continued as before. Each morning the brigades assembled and departed to the bright tunes of the orchestra. Then, in the evening, they returned exhausted, shuffling off to their rooms and the comfort of sleep. In reality, however, the Julag was alive with desperate activity. During the day, while the workers were away, Grzymek patrolled with a squad of soldiers spreading terror up and down the streets with impressive thoroughness. They moved quietly down corridors in search of children that had escaped the earlier
Aktion
. If they sighted a child through a window, or hidden in some cavity, the marksmen would silently lay the quarry at the end of his bead and shoot. As though clearing rabbits from a country estate, Grzymek moved through his domain.

Meanwhile, ordinary men and women had stirred themselves into a frenzy to discover some means of escape. Rooms buzzed with conspiracies, friends spoke in guarded whispers and suspicion flourished. Chiger had resolved that his only priority would be Paulina and his children. With Kuba’s help he constructed new bunkers: a secret cavity beneath the window in the
bathroom and another in a similar place in the kitchen. Always the same technique of creating a false wall to widen the window sill or to make the bay more shallow. No matter that the last one had been discovered, it was essential to provide some kind of sanctuary for the children while he, Kuba and his wife were away at work.

Day after day, Grzymek’s footsteps echoed up and down the corridors. Kristina and Pawel clutched each other in their narrow space, trying to control the urge to cry out. She recalled:

BOOK: In the Sewers of Lvov
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