Mendelssohn is on the Roof (23 page)

I
N THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT someone banged loudly at the Javureks’ door. You could hear the sound all through the building. People came running out of apartments in their night clothes. But the Javureks didn’t open their door. First they quickly took care of Adela and Greta. They roused the sleepy little girls out of bed, rushed them into the cubbyhole, threw their things in after them, and then placed the cupboard in front of the cubby entrance. In the midst of the din created by the night visitors, nobody could hear what was going on in the apartment.

As soon as Mr Javurek opened his door, everything happened quickly. Adela and Greta heard the stamping of heavy boots, the hubbub and clatter, the yelling in a foreign language. Then they heard the door of the apartment bang shut and the lock click, and it was quiet again. Adela and Greta were left alone in the cubbyhole, with the cupboard blocking the entrance. They knew they mustn’t stay in the apartment, because you-know-who would come again to search through everything and confiscate anything of any value. They must get out of the apartment that very night, before it was too late.

First they must move the cupboard – that would be hard work. But if they both leaned against it they would surely manage to do it. They also knew how to unlock the
apartment
, for they knew the drawer where the extra key was kept. They’d wait until the house quieted down. The neighbours would wonder at the smallest sound coming
out of the apartment. They might think that an animal had been left behind, a dog or a cat, and they’d call in a locksmith.

They sat in the dark for a long time, waiting for people to go back to bed and to stop trying to figure out why the Javureks had been arrested. Finally it seemed to them that everything had calmed down. People would sleep heavily after so much excitement. Carefully they nudged the
cupboard
away, afraid of every small sound. When they managed to get out into the kitchen they listened for a while – was everything quiet? Only then did they turn on the light. They could turn on the light because the windows were completely blacked out and not a single ray of light would escape. Mr Javurek was an expert at this – he blacked out the windows for all the other tenants as well.

Now that they could see, they began to get dressed and they discussed what they should take with them. They couldn’t take too much, and it had to be food. They didn’t know where to go and who in the city might take them in during the night. But if they had a little food with them, that would definitely be better. Last week Uncle Jan had brought them a little jar of lard and they would take some of the Javureks’ bread – it would go to waste in any event. Adela had a little knapsack. They placed the food in it. Now they only had to make their way out of the building.

They found the key to the apartment in the drawer and the house key hanging on a hook next to the keys to the basement and the attic. They must lock the apartment quietly – that would be easy. Mr Javurek had oiled the lock not long ago. It wouldn’t squeak. They’d have more trouble with the big house key. That one was hard to open. But once they were out in the dark nobody could catch them.
And they wouldn’t have to lock the house behind them – people would think you-know-who left it because they were in such a hurry.

They went down the stairs carefully, step by step. And at the front door a surprise was waiting for them: someone had forgotten to lock the door. Now everything was very easy. They slipped out of the door so quietly that not the tiniest sound could be heard.

It was no longer completely dark. They could distinguish the outlines of buildings, as they walked along the
pavement
. Without realising it, they headed for the centre of town, towards their parents’ apartment. It was a long walk. Finally they crossed a bridge and found themselves in a street they knew very well. But they couldn’t return to their old apartment – new tenants were living there now, they knew that. Fatigue began to overcome them. They sat down in the little park just across from their old apartment. They had played in that little park all their lives, they knew every bush in it. It reminded them of home. They sat there huddled together and they shivered with cold. Suddenly a figure loomed over them – a policeman! They wanted to run away, but their feet would not obey them.

The policeman looked them over carefully. They were obviously not runaways, they were too neat and well dressed for that. He figured they had come to town by train, had lost their way, and now couldn’t find the house they had been sent to. The railway station wasn’t far from there.

He questioned them gently at first: ‘Where are you from, little girls? What are your names and where do you live?’

Adela and Greta were silent. A policeman was a terrifying person. Everybody had warned them about policemen.
‘What’s the matter – don’t you know how to talk? You’re old enough to know better. Hurry up, then, you’re from the country, right, and your mother and father sent you here to visit your aunt. And you’ve lost your way. Isn’t that right?’

Adela and Greta were still silent.

The policeman didn’t know what to do with them. He yelled at them sharply: ‘Come with me.’

Adela and Greta stood up meekly and followed, one on each side. He took them to the police station. There all the policemen questioned them, but Adela and Greta continued to be as silent as the grave.

‘Let them sleep here and the sergeant can speak with them in the morning,’ decided the policeman who had found them.

They took them to a dirty, repulsive cell with bunks and threw them some reeking blankets. Adela and Greta didn’t mind – they had been through so much already.

In the morning a policeman took them to the sergeant, who began to question them. Adela and Greta continued to be silent.

‘Maybe they’re deaf and dumb,’ said the policeman.

The sergeant slammed his revolver down on the table so suddenly that Adela and Greta couldn’t see it coming. They jumped.

‘No, they’re not,’ said the sergeant. ‘Something else is going on here. Look through their knapsack. Maybe we’ll find something there.’

The policeman took out the jar of lard, the hunk of bread and two keys.

‘What apartment are these keys for?’

Adela and Greta kept silent.

‘We’re not going to torture children here,’ said the sergeant, ending the interrogation.

‘I know who they are. They’re little Jews who ran away from the transport or from some hiding place. This isn’t our business. Give them something to eat and take them to the station at Josefovska Street. They’re authorised to deal with such things there. You’re off duty now, so let Sochor take them there.’

The police station at Josefovska was a branch of the Gestapo dealing with Jewish affairs. That’s where they brought people who were then handed over to the Gestapo. The policemen there were brutal, obedient to their masters, and corpulent because they received special rations.

The children were held at the station until it was almost noon. No one was allowed to question them – that was the Gestapo’s job. The policemen jeered at them, using bad language, words the children had never heard in their lives. Then they assigned a policeman to take them to the Gestapo, and pushed them out of the door roughly. The policeman walked especially fast, in order to torment them. He saw that they were dead tired.

Adela and Greta knew where they were taking them. Gestapo was a terrible word.

They had to stand in the waiting room for a long time with their faces to the wall. They weren’t allowed to sit on the bench. The guard paid no attention to them.

‘They’re going to ask who was hiding us, and there’s the death penalty for that,’ whispered Adela. She knew a great deal already. ‘You mustn’t answer when they ask you.’

‘But what if they beat me?’

‘You have to stand it! We’ll each sing a different song to ourselves. Which one do you want?’

‘I’ll take “Andulka the Goose Girl”.’

‘Then I’ll take “The lime tree was burning”.’

The guard heard their voices and snapped at them: ‘Shut up. You’re not in Hebrew school here!’

Adela and Greta fell silent again. They looked at the white wall. They were terribly tired.

Finally they were called into the office of the investigating officer for Jewish affairs. He had little work to do these days, because almost all the Jews had been deported from the city in the transports.

Interrogating children was ridiculous, but that wasn’t the point. They’d be handed over to the Central Bureau in any case. They’d deal with them there. But first he must get them to tell the address of the people who had been hiding them – that was the important thing. They couldn’t have escaped from a transport, because there hadn’t been any transports for quite a long time. A ridiculous job, but an easy one. They would surely talk the moment he began to terrorise them.

He addressed them quietly at first. There was no need to scare them right from the start. ‘Well, what are your names?’

They were silent.

‘Will you answer or not?’

They understood that now they must speak.

They answered respectfully, ‘Adela and Greta Roubicek.’

‘Where are your parents?’

‘Nowhere,’ answered Adela. ‘They died.’

‘And where do you live?’

‘Nowhere,’ claimed Adela.

The Gestapo man began to grow angry. The interrogation would not be as easy as he had imagined. He turned to Greta.

‘Why are you standing there like a dummy? Tell me where you live.’

‘Nowhere,’ answered Greta as well.

The Gestapo man was beginning to lose his temper. ‘I’ll get it out of you, you little Jew girls. Hurry up and tell me where you were hiding.’

‘In the forest,’ said Adela.

‘In the forest,’ repeated Greta like an echo.

Now the Gestapo man began screaming: ‘What apartment are those keys on the table from? Answer quickly: name, district, street!’

‘We don’t know.’ Adela shook her head.

‘I’ll get it out of your thick skulls!’ The Gestapo man threatened them with his outstretched hand, which was holding the keys.

‘You’d better tell me who was hiding you: name and address. Who helped you? Who got you food, and where did they get it?’ He turned to the older one, to Adela.

‘Nobody,’ said Adela. ‘We were hiding in the forest. We ate mushrooms, blueberries, raspberries and strawberries, and things like that.’

‘Shut your mouth, you Jewish whore!’ shrieked the Gestapo man, and with a swift movement he struck her in the temple with the keys which he still held in his hand. The blood ran down Adela’s face. ‘Are you going to talk? What apartment are those keys from? Who gave you the lard and bread?’

‘I don’t know.’ Adela’s voice quavered. The tears mixed together with the blood.

‘Now you! Come over here!’ The Gestapo man dragged Greta over. ‘Maybe you’ll do better.’

‘I don’t remember anything,’ said Greta. ‘I’ve lost my memory.’

The hand with the keys struck Greta in the teeth. Blood ran from her gums. The Gestapo man had knocked out an incisor.

Now she wouldn’t even be able to speak properly.

The next blow only grazed Adela; the Gestapo man’s hand slipped.

‘Where were you hiding?’

‘In the forest,’ said Adela.

Greta repeated after her with difficulty: ‘In the forest,’ and the blood ran from her mouth.

Greta forced herself to sing another verse.

They’re making a nice mess of my office, thought the Gestapo man. I should have questioned them in the bunker.

He controlled his fury. Now he dealt with them coldly. He had to get the addresses out of the children. He calculated each blow with the keys in such a way as to produce the maximum amount of pain, in order to break Adela and Greta.

‘In the forest,’ said Adela, and Greta repeated after her, ‘In the forest.’

After Adela, Greta chimed in with her chosen song:

Again the Gestapo man lost his temper. He beat them savagely with the keys.

The little girls were almost unconscious, but still they sang ‘Andulka the Goose Girl’ and ‘The lime tree was burning’. These were songs they had learned when they still went to school. Now they used them to defend
themselves
.

‘The addresses!’ yelled the Gestapo man.

But there were no addresses. Only pain, blood and
darkness
. They fainted. The Gestapo man struck them with the keys and kicked them with his boots.

The Soviet Army rolled out of the East from the plains of Stalingrad, from Gumrak and Pitomnik, from Rostov and the Don basin, from Kharkov and Kiev and Velikiye Luki with tanks, Panzers, rocket launchers, artillery.
Unstoppable
, it advanced, and it broke, crushed and ground the once proud Wehrmacht, all dressed in its finery and armed by the whole of Europe, into the snow. The murderous
army fled to the West with its crew of troopers, generals in fancy uniforms, airmen without aeroplanes, tank drivers without tanks, and along the way they still slaughtered, they still burned down villages, blew up factories, mines and fortifications. They left behind only blood, decay and scorched earth, discarding their plunder of rugs, icons and furs.

And at their heels marched the Soviet Army, bringing freedom first to its own people and then to other nations. It crossed the boundaries and continued to fight its way through. It routed the newly mobilised regiments called back from the western front. It crushed the Leader’s Elite Guard, who were desperately trying to hold the line, because only now did they realise they would have to pay for their criminal deeds. The army rolled forward steadily to the West, greeted by laughter and flowers in the liberated lands. Then they entered the land whose Leader kept promising victory, even at the last moment.