In the Sewers of Lvov (8 page)

Her first impression was of the terrible level of noise. The thundering river, coupled with the screams of those carried away in its current. Her instinct was to escape, to return to the air above, to the light. But there was Margulies almost dragging her along the ledge. The most shocking aspect of this new environment, the one which most disorientated Klara, was the crush of bodies: ‘So many people – pushing, screaming, yelling to each other.’

The ledge was teaming with scores of people. Some were huddled in small groups, some were sliding along the wall, others were rushing – running and colliding with one another. Screams echoed up and down the chamber until the stones seemed to be vibrating with the noise. Where had they all come from? Most of them had lifted manholes in the street above and had found the simplest way down. They were doing the same thing that had happened at Warsaw and Lubin. Using the sewers as the most obvious escape out, now that the ghetto was an inferno. It was pointless. The Germans had already posted men at every manhole in the city, waiting for anyone to emerge. There would be no escape. Klara felt swamped by the panic.

‘Stay by the wall,’ Margulies shouted at the people around him. ‘Don’t run!’ But it was useless.

The chamber was also filled with torches and candles which created a terrifying, instant tableau of tortured faces captured in momentary flashes of light. Margulies remembered the vain attempts to help those in the water: ‘Every so often you heard a splash as someone slipped off the edge into the water. You heard them scream, but it was too late. We had two ropes and I threw each one to someone in the water. But the current was too fast, it just took the rope.’ They were simply swept away by the torrent, and the tug on the rope forced them to let go. The sides were smooth with slime and offered virtually no purchase. It was soon
apparent that once someone was in the water, there was nothing you could do.

On and on came the waves of bodies along the ledge, while Margulies and Klara fought against the tide. Out of the midst walked Mr Katz. Everyone knew him, he had once owned a fashionable shoe shop on the Teodor Platz, not far from the opera house. Out of his pocket he took a white handkerchief, which he held out before him.

‘Save me. Save me.’

Margulies watched him. ‘What can I do?’

Katz opened the handkerchief and, in the occasional flashes of light, was the unmistakable glint of diamonds.

‘Save me. Please,’ he cried as he proffered the handkerchief before him. ‘Take me with, take me with …!’

‘Where can I take you with …?’

Suddenly Katz lunged forward, then sideways as someone rushed past. Katz and the diamonds disappeared. His cries and thrashing in the water continued for a moment, but were soon lost in the noise.

The chamber resounded with screams. It was bedlam and there seemed to be no way to defuse the panic and the forward surge of the mass. The people had no idea where they were going, just forward, forward. For some, the waters were a form of escape and they leapt willingly into the river, to be carried away by the current. Others stopped and sat quietly on the bank and simply pushed themselves into the dark waters. Less than a kilometre down the tunnel they would emerge into the moonlight. If they had not already drowned, they would be picked off by the soldiers posted at the mouth of the Peltwa armed with powerful lights and sub-machine-guns.

When Paulina Chiger stepped into the chamber she was horrified. She was trapped on the narrow ledge finding it impossible to stand still and take everything in.

‘I had two bags, which I gave to Kuba. He put them down on the ledge and they slipped straight into the river. All my packing, gone straight away. I had hold of the two children beside
me. We had to cling on to the damp wall and with the rushing noise of the water and the total darkness – it left a terrible impression on me.’

Kuba, Chiger’s brother, felt terrible about losing the bags, but there was nothing he could do. He stood close by, helping to protect the children from injury. Chiger stood a little way apart, trying to orientate himself. He was hoping in vain that they might make contact with Socha. From behind came an apparently endless stream of people emerging from the shaft. Everything seemed lost, on the verge of disaster. ‘We moved slowly along the ledge. My husband and Kuba leading the way,’ recalled Paulina.

Like everyone else they were pushed forward by the force of the crowd. Fear had become infectious. Chiger had never imagined the panic would have been so great. He became convinced they would be forced towards their certain death. Kuba moved in front of them, trying to maintain some purpose in their flight. He barrelled his way forward, glancing back over his shoulder to the others, then his face was gone. He had slipped, his foot went over the ledge and he was quickly up to his shoulders in water. Chiger lunged forward to grab him and found Kuba’s flailing arm. In his move to reach his brother, the knapsack filled with provisions heaved up over his head and into the water. It was gone. Meanwhile, Kuba was clawed out of the water. ‘As our provisions floated away, we stood there, pushed and jostled by screaming people, all trying, fighting for first place in the rush – to where?’ Chiger wrote.

Chiger, Kuba, Paulina and the children then continued wrestling their way along the ledge. Kristina was on her father’s back, clinging tightly round his neck. Pawel was in Paulina’s arms.

‘How long must we go here, how long, Daddy?’ Kristina cried again and again, while her father tried to keep up his gentle reassurances. They approached the familiar stone bridge that led across to the other ledge. It was the only way to the shelter they had spent weeks preparing. But now they were surrounded by a sea of terrified people and Chiger realized that if they tried to cross it would probably encourage everyone else to follow. All their work to create somewhere secret would be lost. All their
hopes seemed to plunge to nothing as they were carried relentlessly on past the bridge, past their sanctuary.

Meanwhile, the other group was much further ahead. Halina had clung tenaciously to Berestycki’s hand once she had descended on to the ledge. Old Mrs Weiss stood her ground, while the tide of people passed by. Her son joined them a little later, without his wife and daughter. With Weiss clinging to his mother and Halina clutching Berestycki, they edged along in search of a familiar face, buffeting their way along. Occasionally they would come to the entrance of a tunnel. Down these tunnels there might be the faintest beam of light from an opened manhole above, dimly illuminating some wretched group huddled together, or struggling along against water flowing knee-deep. Suddenly, Berestycki was blinded by the fierce beam of a carbide lamp. For an instant they had no idea whether it meant death or rescue. It was rescue. It was Socha.

‘Where are the others?’ he shouted.

They looked around them and shrugged. Socha led them along the ledge and eventually to a shelter on the other side of the river. There he bade them wait as he and the light disappeared again.

Margulies and Klara struggled along, someway behind the Chigers. They saw no sign of Jacob, Weiss or any of the others. When they eventually got to the bridge, they made their way across to the other side and towards the entrance to the shelter. When they got there, it was filled with people. A doctor, one of Weiss’s neighbours, had led a group of people to the tunnel and established themselves there. There was no one they recognized, so Margulies moved on.

Eventually, the Chigers were able to come to a halt some way further down. The crowd seemed to have thinned out, and they were able to turn and move back in the opposite direction. Feeling their way along the wall, keeping as far as possible from the water, they eventually stumbled into another opening. Paulina recalled: ‘It seemed like a cave and was draped in sheets of cobwebs. We stepped inside and our feet plunged into mud. Around
our legs scuttled unseen rats.’ They clung to each other, trying not to scream as dozens of tiny feet and tails lashed against their legs. ‘There we stood with a small flickering candle, frightened and lost.’

There was Chiger, Paulina, Kristina, Pawel, and Kuba; all of them clutching each other and trying to catch their breath. As they whispered to each other inspiring hope and courage, the noise around them seemed to abate. They sat on their haunches and tried to regain control of their senses. But they were shaken from this brief respite by the sounds of gunfire and explosions. Then more screaming. As someone ran hysterically past the cave, the Chigers heard them cry something about grenades.

‘The Germans are lifting the manholes and throwing down grenades.’

Kuba stepped out on to the ledge to look.

‘What is it?’

‘What about the others? Weiss and the others?’ Kuba took a few steps down the ledge. ‘I’ll go look for them.’

‘Wait!’ Chiger called, but he was gone. Chiger watched him disappear. The little family sat and waited, and the time passed slowly. After some time Kuba and the others had still not returned. As Chiger and Paulina began to wonder if they would ever see them again, the sound of Kuba’s cries suddenly echoed down the chamber. Chiger grabbed the candle and stepped out on to the ledge.

‘I won’t be long. It’s Kuba,’ he said as he departed.

Now Paulina and the children were stranded on their own. They huddled together and waited. ‘It might have been a few minutes, it might have been an hour,’ recalled Paulina. Time was elastic. The two children nestled deeper into their mother’s warmth, waiting for their father’s familiar shape at the entrance. In the darkness, it was difficult to control their imaginations. The most terrible spectres emerged from the damp ooze around their feet and the clinging films above their heads. Paulina watched the glinting eyes of the rats watching her. As time began to work upon her reason, she finally heaved a deep sigh and spoke to her children.

‘Krisia, I don’t have a husband, you don’t have a father any more. We have to leave here. I can’t sit here with the rats any longer, we’re going out again.’

The three of them emerged from the cave and stumbled along the ledge. Paulina struggled with a child in each hand. Every so often, they had to stop when Krisia, walking on the outside, slipped off the edge into the water and had to be hauled back up again. They paused against the wall to catch their breath, then continued. She had no idea which direction to take so they just walked on. ‘And I thought to myself, whoever meets us here, even the Gestapo, let them get me out!’ recalled Paulina.

Suddenly Kristina saw up ahead a flash of light. Then she saw it again.

‘It’s Daddy. It’s Daddy!’ She was so terrified, the sound came instinctively. The light turned on them and began to grow brighter.

‘It’s Daddy. It’s Daddy,’ she repeated. They stumbled forward. Paulina thought, ‘towards salvation, or death, if necessary.’ Kristina was in no doubt, it was towards her father.

‘Daddy!’

‘Krisia! Pepa!’ It was Chiger’s voice. He was upon them, they embraced.

‘How did you get here?’ His voice was mixed with anger and relief.

‘We walked. I thought we were abandoned,’ Paulina explained.

‘But you walked all this way – with the children? You should not have left that place, it’s too dangerous.’

‘I didn’t even know if you were alive!’ Paulina countered.

As they stood together not knowing whether to embrace or be angry, Paulina noticed Kuba soaked to the skin.

‘I pulled him out of the water again. At first I couldn’t see him, and so I just walked in the direction of his cries. I held my candle aloft, and shielding its flare, saw him clinging to the side. I took off my belt and threw it to him and, after two or three attempts, he grabbed the end and I pulled him out.’

Reunited, the five turned and made their way back to the little
cave. Inside once more, they sat there ‘waiting for a miracle’.

‘Where is Socha?’ Chiger kept repeating. ‘I saw him just this evening.’

Then they saw the approaching glare of a carbide lamp. It was Berestycki, searching the Peltwa chamber.

‘Chiger?’

‘Jacob! Jacob!’ called Chiger. He vividly remembered the relief at meeting his friend again: ‘We were overwhelmed with joy. At last a familiar face.’

Berestycki put his head inside the cave. ‘Socha’s just up ahead, he says you’re to follow me and bring the children. He doesn’t want to do anything without you.’

Within minutes they were reunited with Socha and the party continued towards their sanctuary.

‘We have to go a separate way, to avoid all the people.’ Socha led them to the opening to a narrow pipe at about head height, from which water poured into the Peltwa. Beneath it were a number of iron rungs set into the wall. Socha led the way and the others climbed after him, drenching themselves in the cascade. Later Paulina remembered how incongruous her thoughts had been at that moment:

I had put the children into their woollen underwear, winter clothes, boots and overcoats to keep them warm in the cellar. Now everything was soaked, including the children’s felt boots. Everything was now filled with water and they would all become so heavy. How would they ever get dry again?

They moved down the narrow pipe, struggling against the flow of water, and then turned into another pipe. They followed this a little way and emerged through the rear wall, into another of the elliptical tunnels. They were safe. ‘After that, I was certain that he would be our guardian, that he would look after us,’ was one of the few positive thoughts Paulina could recall from those hours.

Chiger had never ventured this far into the sewers and found it completely disorientating. He was equally dismayed when, once they were all inside, he realized they were not alone. Indeed, it was filled with people.

In an attempt to lighten the atmosphere, Socha proudly
explained that they were at present situated directly beneath a market place. During the day they would be able to hear the traders arrive and set up their stalls. It all seemed rather odd information at that moment. They shuffled around, stepping over limbs and feeling for a space to sit. Paulina and the children squeezed into a damp space on the floor, Berestycki sat next to Kristina. On the other side of Paulina, a young girl took hold of Paulina’s arm and squeezed it tightly. It was Klara Keler, who later recalled: ‘I suddenly realized I was clutching Mrs Chiger’s hand. I squeezed her so tightly I think she was black and blue.’