The Testimony    (3 page)

After a while Stasia stopped weeping and explained that each bead of the rosary was for a special, short prayer. I got to know a few of them by heart: the one to Holy Mary to have mercy upon us, one to Our Father to forgive us our sins (at first I thought it was about my father but was told that it was another one, up in heaven), and several prayers to sundry saints.

A year or so later another gift made her cry. It was a full-length caracal fur coat designed by my mother. It had a large fox-fur collar that could be turned up to cover most of the face and head on icy days. I remember how Stasia stood in front of the long mirror in this coat as if transfixed. She wore it on her next visit to her family in the country. It might have been then when I overheard my parents wondering whether Stasia’s family knew we were Jewish.

Our Jewishness was a vague idea that I did not understand as a child, and was one of several life problems from which my parents tried to shelter me. But it came into sharp focus when I started school, at six and a half. Stasia insisted on escorting me to and from school (though other students came alone). On the way back I asked to see the church she attended each day, and we went inside. I was enchanted. I liked the cathedral ceilings, the music and the hushed atmosphere. A priest sprinkled a bit of water on my head and said, ‘Bless you, my child.’ I thought that he had mistaken me for his child but said nothing and asked Stasia about it later. I thought the church was a lovely place and wondered why my parents did not go there.

Our neighbour’s daughter, who was my age and with whom I often played, used to go to another church. One day I invited myself to go with her and her mother and stayed to hear the priest tell a long story about old times. There were many people and some, like my friend’s mother, seemed to be asleep. In the evening I shared this sermon with my parents who, as usual, asked what I had learned that day. I told them that the terrible Israelites crucified Our Lord Jesus Christ and should be punished. We should throw bricks in their windows. An ominous silence followed, and I remember the rest of that evening quite well.

Father closed the dining room door, though there was no one to hear us—Stasia went to church after dinner. It stressed the importance of the occasion. He and Mother spoke to each other briefly in German— not a word of which I knew at the time—got a piece of paper and a pencil and gave me two lessons. The first was short and sharp. It was about being arrested by the police, quite rightly, if ever I were to throw bricks anywhere. Their icy voices indicated disapproval. The other lesson was long and went on about the world being divided into various countries—drawn on the paper— where people believed in different gods and stories, and often hated and fought each other about it. Some people did not believe that there was a god at all. In the end they broke it to me gently that we were relatives of the Israelites. I was upset, confused, and wept. Mother put me to bed, read a lot of funny stories and sang my favourite songs and arias. (My most favourite was Schubert’s ‘Ave Maria’. Mother sang this like an angel.) When Stasia got back she was told what had happened.

I think it took me a few days to sort myself out. This was my first encounter with big conflict, and my last visit to a church and enquiry into religion. I decided that the people who did not believe in God were right and I was now one of them. I talked about it with Mother, who instructed me not to talk to Stasia about it because it might offend her. She said we should respect other people’s beliefs even if we didn’t share them.

About that time, when I was in my first year at school, another incident provided material for an after-dinner story. Again I have no recollection of it—this time for obvious reasons—but know it well from its many retellings.

One afternoon a panic-stricken Stasia called my parents at work to say that she had found me on my bed unconscious. The doctor arrived soon after my parents got home. While Stasia stood in the doorway of my room silently going through her rosary, my parents stood at the end of the bed and the doctor sat down on it and examined me. He took my pulse, listened to my chest and forced my mouth open to look at my tongue. He smelt my breath, stood up abruptly and said, ‘This child is blind drunk. Let her sleep it off,’ and left in obvious disgust. It was always pointed out in this story that of all the words available to describe drunkenness, the doctor chose the most derogatory.

My parents soon found that I had helped myself to a generous amount of the plum brandy Stasia was creating in our pantry. Two adjustments resulted from this incident: a lock was put on the pantry door, and we began to attend a different doctor, probably out of embarrassment. And thus began my life-long penchant for plum brandy.

In my first year of primary school I was busy learning to read, write and do basic arithmetic. My homework was taken very seriously: not only did my parents check my efforts, they appointed Stasia to supervise my work closely. While my parents could and did write so much faster than I, Stasia wrote at my rate. Slowly we copied the letters of the alphabet, then words and sentences. I loved Stasia for being so patient with me, and always thanked and kissed her.

Years later, during the war, when recalling our free and happy days at home, Mother told me that Stasia learned to read and write by ‘supervising’ my homework. When she joined us she could barely sign her name, like many at that time who came from the country. What a cunning lot my parents were.

In 1939, in my third grade at school, unpleasant reality forced itself into my sheltered life. My school was one of only a few which accepted pupils who were not Catholics. Boys from an exclusive German school nearby started pelting us with chestnuts and yelling racist abuse and Stasia began to wait outside to escort me home, and would use an old broom handle to chase them away. Many shops at that time also began to display signs ‘For Christians only’ or ‘Jews not welcome’. About that time my parents discussed the problem of the ‘competitive exam’ I would have to pass in order to be admitted to secondary school in a couple of years. This was only required of Jewish children, and was an example of institutionalised anti-Semitism.

At that time an anecdote became popular among Jews and their non-racist friends. It told of a Jew in full Orthodox regalia who walked into a bakery that had a large ‘Christians only’ sign on the door. He enquired whether they had any stale bread and rolls. Eager to sell such waste, they said, yes, they had. ‘Serves you right!’ said the Jew, and walked out. Stasia was in stitches and asked Mother, a fine mimic, to tell it again and again.

I remember teasing and testing Stasia with the slogan ‘Jews to Madagascar!’ which was popular at that time. She always replied, ‘I’m ready; when we have to go, we will just go.’ But when the Germans invaded we only went as far as Lodz.

My parents and Stasia built a marvellous and strong bridge across the wide, ancient gulf of ethnic hatreds. I think that Stasia’s part in building this bridge was much greater, because she had to overcome her inherited prejudice: a pervasive, toxic anti-Semitism.

When the Germans invaded in September that year, and all hell broke loose, Stasia hovered protectively.

The small number of Jews who lived in Poznan were ordered out. We were ready to go to London, where my father’s sister lived, but we just ‘missed the bus’. War, though expected, broke out undeclared and earlier than anyone had thought possible. I later learned that my parents had sent some of their savings to my aunt in London for our use.

With just two suitcases each we went to Lodz, a large city in the centre of Poland. We made our way to central Poland by train, army truck, then horse and buggy, changing as each vehicle became damaged by artillery fire. Lodz was fully occupied by the Germans when we got there. For a while we stayed at my aunt’s place. Stasia was the only one in our family who did not have to wear the yellow Star of David, and therefore was not at risk of assault or arrest in the streets or when queuing for food. She wondered how her kinfolk were getting on in the village, but we seemed to have been her priority.

Meanwhile, a barbed-wire fence was being put around the industrial part of Lodz to contain the Litzmannstadt Ghetto, which became a labour camp where many perished. All Aryans were ordered to leave the area before April 1940, and Jews from Lodz and many other places were ushered in. Stasia refused to leave, and came with us into the ghetto. We were allotted one room with two beds, so I shared one with Stasia and my parents had the other.

Now privy to all conversations, I heard my parents plead with Stasia to leave us and, unable to comprehend the situation, I pleaded with them to let her stay. When it was announced that the gates would close in a few days, on the first of May, Father said, ‘Stasia, you must leave now. Go to your family. It’s safer in the country. We are doomed. You have to save yourself!’ Stasia looked at Mother. ‘We love you and don’t want to have you on our conscience,’ said Mother. Stasia cried and said that she didn’t care where she died. Father said he would have to report her to the police. I stood in shock: why were we doomed and Stasia dying? And why hadn’t I been told of this before?

A few days later two German soldiers came and told Stasia to pack her clothes. Father, ashen faced, looked out of the window. Mother sat on the bed and sobbed. I stood in the corner of the room, unable to move, barely able to breathe. Stasia gave me a long hug while she whispered the name of a street just outside the fence where I was to watch for her. The soldiers pulled her away and, one on each side, marched her out of the room and out of our lives.

This scene is one of the sharp photographs in my memory, and used to pop up in my nightmares for some years.

But it was not the last time I saw Stasia. Through the barbed wire I watched the spot she named in her whisper. About a week later she appeared, pushing a pram. Half-hidden in a building’s entrance I whistled ‘our’ tune. Taking care that the armed patrol was out of sight, she swiftly threw a parcel over the fence. I grabbed it just before a man tried to take it from me. There was a sausage and a note that she was working for a German family and would come again the following Sunday.

In this way, for several weeks, Stasia smuggled food to us. Best of all were the jars of lard, but they had to be rolled under the barbed-wire fence. We got several of them and, carefully rationed, they lasted for a long time and were a valuable source of much-needed calories. On my parents’ strict orders, I ate most of the lard.

But one day I was spotted by a guard who appeared suddenly and, seeing me with a parcel so close to the fence, fired a shot. It whistled past my head as I ran into a building, past its courtyard into another building and down to the basement. The jar of lard was fine but I was badly shaken. After that the smuggling stopped. The following Sunday I saw Stasia with the pram and whistled from a safe distance. She nodded her head. These ‘visits’ stopped when curfews and stricter patrols were imposed.

* * *

Back in Lodz after the war I advertised in the special columns for missing people—there were thousands of such ads—to find Stanisława Lemanska. My own name was on the many lists of survivors returning from concentration camps. Had Stasia survived the war, we would have found each other.

THE LABOUR CAMP—LITZMANNSTADT GHETTO

The German invasion of Poland in 1939 was an incomprehensible nightmare to me. I was not yet ten, a very sheltered, only child. My transition to this, my first prison, put me in a state of shock that lasted for months. It was a kind of blur from which I have only a few clear recollections. I stopped talking for some months, and remember my worried parents wanting to be reassured that I had not lost the power of speech. Stasia’s departure compounded this with a deep sense of loss.

My parents had always practised high ethical standards. We were law-abiding citizens and cooperated with authorities. Truth had a capital T; a lie was an abomination. We followed the commandments of respect and kindliness for others, help for the needy; promises were to be always kept, trust and friendship to be cherished.

On 1 September 1939, the day the Germans came, these deep imprints did a 180-degree turn. Cooperation with authorities now became collaboration with the enemy. Sabotage became a virtue. Truth became life-threatening, and elaborate lies were needed daily for survival. Trust and respect for others went out the window: now there were people paid to dob others in.

This, my first and sudden encounter with situational ethics, was traumatic. I now had to pretend that I was thirteen, not ten, and do it convincingly, with no hesitation, blushing or averting eye contact when asked my age. We practised it, and I was chided for not performing well—when just a while ago, telling a lie had been a big no-no in our family. My parents pleaded for a better performance, and stressed it was a matter of life and death. Father, the wise pessimist, said that I must be seen as useful, as children under the age of twelve were not regarded as much of a workforce, and were thus at greater risk of disposal. My young cousins disappeared this way. To the unknown, we used to say.