Alicia, p.6
Alicia, page 6
I transferred the radishes from the basket into my apron, and, holding the two corners firmly, I returned to our neighborhood to sell the radishes. The first person I saw was a boy about six years old.
“Hello!” I said to the boy. “Come here and I will show you something.”
Taking his hand, I let him touch a radish. “Please go into your house and tell your mother that she can buy radishes from me which will taste delicious with a piece of bread.” The boy did as I asked and came back quickly.
“Mama said we don’t have any bread to go with the radishes, and that they were probably hollow inside anyway.”
My feelings were a little hurt, but I took his hand and let him touch a radish again. He put his two little fingers around the red head of the radish and suddenly pulled. This caught me by surprise, and I almost lost all the radishes from my apron. In the meantime, other children heard me scolding the little boy and came to see what was happening. There I stood, surrounded by little children trying to see what I had in my apron. I looked at their hungry faces, and, moved by the sight, I reached a decision.
“All right, all of you, sit down on the sidewalk,” I called with a voice full of laughter. “I am going to tell you a story about Little Red Riding Hood. Now, listen carefully!” They were all sitting now, very close to one another. There were about ten of them.
“Here, have some radishes,” I said, and, giving each a bunch, I told them not to eat until I started the story.
“There was a little girl who was sent by her mother to bring food to her sick grandmother. She carried a basket.” Now I turned to the kids. “Start eating the radishes.
“The basket was filled with fresh white rolls, boiled chicken, strawberries, candies, and, of course, radishes.”
At that point a cry went up. “Oh, no! Not radishes.” The children were making faces as they munched on the sharp radishes but continued eating them.
I finished the story and was about to leave, when the little boy I saw first stopped me. “Will you tell us another story tomorrow?” he asked shyly. “You know, the radishes were really very tasty. See, I kept a few for my little sister!” He showed me his little fist with the radishes held securely. Suddenly I had such a feeling of love for this little boy. This poor and hungry little ghetto boy. I wanted to take him in my arms and never let him go.
I was worried about the loss of the towels, which I should have exchanged for much-needed food. But when I told my mother what had happened, she took me in her arms and told me not to worry, and that she wasn’t really surprised.
CHAPTER 7
The First “Action”
Suddenly the summer was over. The new harvest eased some of the hunger, but only for those who had money or goods to trade. Most of us had lost everything, and we were facing a cold and hungry winter. I had only one compensation; my brother Zachary stayed home most of the time. With Zachary around, I relaxed a little and began sleeping more peacefully. It was, therefore, with some difficulty that I awoke early one morning to my mother calling my name and shaking my shoulder.
“Alicia, get dressed quickly, hurry up, take your warm sweater, we must go!”
There was such urgency in her voice that I didn’t even ask where we were going. Within minutes the ten of us who lived in our house were at the stone wall in the backyard. The stone wall was against the hill leading to the Bashte meadow, and was not visible from the outside. It was still dark. Our landlord helped his wife, daughters, and their husbands into an opening in the wall, then my mother went in, followed by Herzl. When I climbed in, there was so little space left that I just fell onto the people. Zachary came in last. He picked up three large stones from the outside and very carefully pulled them over the entrance. Then he lifted up something that looked like a wooden box and fit it in to support the stones. The box had holes in several places to let in air. I found out later that this was intended to act as a buffer between the hollowness of the cave and the stones of the wall.
It was completely dark inside. No one spoke. I didn’t realize that I was holding my breath until I felt pain in my chest. Then I breathed out slowly, making a sound like a deep sigh. Fear was spreading through me, gripping me in a tight vise. My heart seemed to be beating loudly. I was fully awake now, and I realized that we were in a hiding place, waiting for something to happen. My eyes were on the box that Zachary was holding in place. A faint light was beginning to show through his spread fingers.
Suddenly I heard a shattering noise coming from inside the house. It sounded as though someone were trying to demolish the house, ripping it apart from all directions. Then a shout in German:
“Raus, verdammte Juden! Out, damned Jews! Out of your hiding place! I know you are there. Out!”
The voice was coming closer to us; it was coming from the backyard now.
“Look at the cellar inside the wall. They must be somewhere here; those damned Jews.”
“Here, let’s see,” a voice said in Ukrainian. He was knocking on the stone wall near us. My heart stopped. And then someone called out again in German.
“Come, let’s go. We will get them next time.”
More noises of slamming doors. Then complete quiet. I felt warm moisture along my thigh and realized with great shame that I had wet myself.
The quiet was again shattered by gunshots and screams. Something terrible was going on outside. No one said a word, but Zachary moved over close to me and, taking my hands in both of his, held them tightly. How did this beautiful boy always know when I needed him? It was comforting to be linked to him, and I felt the warmth of life flow into me. My body, which started trembling after the Germans left, was relaxing a little. We sat there in the hiding place all day and half the night, without moving. During the day I heard someone entering the house, but no one came close to the wall again. In the middle of the night Zachary removed the stones, put them carefully back in place, and left us. He returned sometime later and told us that the SS policemen had left our town and that we could come out of the hiding place. From all the terrible noise, I had expected to find the house in shambles, but it wasn’t. Although I could see some things missing from their places, I realized that the attack on the house and the terrible noises were to frighten us. If there were small children present, they would have started crying and revealed our hiding place. What clever murderers the Germans and the Ukrainians were!
About two thousand Jewish men, women, children were murdered in this first action in October 1942. They were taken out of hiding places or caught while trying to escape from the city. They were shot and buried in a mass grave on the Fador. Some were shot on the Bashte while trying to escape and were later buried in the Jewish cemetery by members of the Judenrat. A wave of sorrow enveloped us all.
For several days I stayed close to home. I was afraid the German troops, known as “SS” or “Gestapo,” would return. Then I went to see Reb Srool. I needed to understand why all this was happening to us. I hoped he would be able to enlighten me.
Reb Srool was a very old man with a long white beard and very kind brown eyes. He lived alone in a basement room on Podhajecka Street. He had always been part of my life, and we still looked out for him. Before the war, when the weather was nice, he would have meals with us. He always sat near Papa in the place of honor. When Reb Srool spoke with his precise Hebrew pronunciation and musical voice, everyone listened with respect. I thought him the only person to turn to for my special need.
As I walked down the narrow steps to his room, my tongue moved to the gap where my tooth was missing. The tooth had been knocked out by a German policeman who had kicked me in the face a few months before when I had tried to help Reb Srool. I didn’t really blame him for the loss of my tooth, but I could never understand what he had been doing at the water fountain at the beautiful monument called the Ratush in the middle of the city.
But there he had been, crying pitifully while two German policemen took turns pushing his head under the running water. I stood there for a moment watching, hardly believing my eyes. Then, trying to get my pail under the running water, I stepped in front of Reb Srool’s head. The policemen looked startled for a moment and then, seeing my armband with the Star of David, one pushed me to the ground and kicked me in the face with his heavy boot. I screamed out with pain, and when I opened my mouth to spit out the blood, I saw my tooth. I was in such pain I didn’t even notice when our torturers left. They had their fun, I thought bitterly.
Now the door to Reb Srool’s room was slightly open. This was his way of telling visitors that they were welcome. As I walked in, I saw him sitting at his table, swaying back and forth, his arms holding a book close to his eyes. When he noticed me, he put down his book, looked up at me, and smiled.
“Baruch haba [Blessed be the visitor],” Reb Srool greeted me in Hebrew, and I answered with the traditional “shalom.”
“Please be seated. I was just about to have a cup of tea. Will you join me?” I thanked him and sat down.
He brought out two cups and put them carefully on the table. Then he handed me a cup while shrugging his shoulder slightly. When I looked in my cup I realized that the shrug was Reb Srool’s apology for serving me clear water.
We sat silently sipping the hot water. Once in a while I caught Reb Srool looking at my face, but he didn’t say anything. He waited for me to tell him why I had come. When I finally spoke, I couldn’t look at him.
“Reb Srool, could you please say Kaddish for my father, my brother Moshe, and,”—I nearly choked on my tears—“and Bunio.”
Reb Srool looked at me with such sadness that for a moment I felt sorry that I had come to him.
“You are a good child; God will bless you,” he said. “I will say the Kaddish memorial prayer for your family.”
His mention of God reminded me that I had wanted to ask Reb Srool about God.
Coming from a traditional home with an atmosphere of love for God and Judaism, I was very bewildered and hurt by what was happening to us. With each additional disaster, I was beginning to wonder where God was and why He was letting such things happen. Perhaps He was dead, too, I thought, like all our thousands of Jewish people.
I had always pictured God as a person. I was too young to have a different conception of Him. Yet as I listened to Reb Srool speak of Him as a living God, I began to think that maybe God was alive but was so shocked at what people were doing to one another that He just left the world. Perhaps He was filled with shame over what He had created. Reb Srool continued. “We can’t deny our God. Whatever happens, we must accept it as His will. We die for kiddush hashem [sanctification of His name], and we will earn our reward b’olam haba [in the next world].”
I thought I understood what Reb Srool was trying to tell me, but I couldn’t agree with him. How could what was happening be His will? I was totally confused.
CHAPTER 8
My Brother Zachary
We began building a new hiding place in our house. We called these places “bunkers.” Winter was coming, and it would not be safe to use the hiding place in the backyard wall again. The heavy rains might wash away the soil we put between the removable stones, and anyone passing the wall would be able to detect the irregularity between the stones. Also, we needed a bigger place. Our landlord’s oldest daughter, Sarah, was expecting a baby soon. I don’t know why, but I was very happy to hear this news.
We worked many nights building our new bunker. It ran under the hall, which had two rooms on each side. The entrance to the bunker was from the kitchen, which was occupied by the expectant mother and her husband. The opening to the bunker was under the big brick oven in which there were two small doors that normally opened to the firewood bin. We removed the wooden floor of the bin and dug a tunnel about ten feet under the hall in order to avoid the sound of hollowness. A wooden box filled with earth could be moved to cover the entrance in the floor of the firewood bin, completely sealing the bunker when in place.
Digging was very difficult. The landlord, his two sons-in-law, and Zachary worked for many nights. The rest of us carried the soil over the Bashte and spread it all over the meadows as far as the river. Herzl slept through all of this work. Children could talk and play, but I was not considered a child anymore, so I was included in the work. The work was finished before the first snow came; luckily, too, because it would have been very dangerous to spread fresh dirt over the snow.
In the middle of all the death and suffering a new life arrived. A baby son was born to Sarah.
“Alicia! Come look at the baby,” called Herzl excitedly from the open door of the kitchen, where the baby lay in its cradle. “He is such a small fellow, but oh, can he cry!”
“I know he can cry. I can hear him through the wall, especially at night,” I said. “I will see him later. Please, Herzl, I am tired now.” But the truth was, I was not ready to show joy so soon after Bunio’s death.
Even though I had not seen the baby since he was born, I felt that we had something in common. We both had cried a lot. He because he was hungry, and I because my heart and soul were hurting inside me. I was grieving for my brother, my family, and for my two best friends who had been killed in the first action. So the baby and I cried ourselves to sleep each night.
I finally went to visit the baby, Shmuel, after Herzl’s endless pleas.
“Come in, children, and meet your new neighbor,” his mother called to us cheerfully. “Shmuel loves company. He is about to wake up for his feeding. You may stay and watch him nurse.”
We thanked her and seated ourselves to wait for the baby to awaken. He did as his mother predicted, and it was while he was nursing that I fell in love with baby Shmuel. He was very beautiful. He had brown hair and a soft pink skin, and later, when he opened his eyes, I could see they were light brown. He was wrapped in a white down-filled blanket with a blue ribbon tied around it. He looked like a little angel lying there in his cradle. This was the first time I had even seen such a young baby; a real wonder, I thought. I became his slave. Every opportunity I had I would peek in on him. I never hesitated, even in freezing weather, to go down to the well and fetch water for Shmuel’s bath. Whenever I could find a piece of wood I brought it to Sarah to help heat Shmuel’s room. While his mother napped I rocked Shmuel’s cradle. I even had a fantasy that my brother Bunio was reborn in Shmuel.
I was not the only one who fell in love with Shmuel; all of us in the house did. Baby Shmuel meant life to us.
The baby and I shared the same wall. I was getting used to his cries. When I heard him cry I would wake up for a minute and listen. When he started to nurse I would fall asleep again.
One night I heard him crying; I heard someone screaming; and then my mother was shaking me.
“Alicia, hurry, get dressed, hurry!” Mama was urging me.
I have heard this before, I thought as I came fully awake. Something was happening again. I groped for my clothing in the darkness and joined the people in the kitchen, who were already crawling into our bunker.
More people came in. After we were all inside the bunker, Zachary pulled himself up into the bin. He moved the box into place, being careful not to dislodge the pieces of wood on the top of the box, and closed the opening to the bunker. He picked up a candle, looked around, blew it out, and then sat down near me. It was when total darkness came upon us that I suddenly realized that I hadn’t seen or heard the baby.
“Zachary, where is the baby?” I asked in a whisper. He didn’t answer me. “Please tell me, what did they do with Shmuel?” I asked again frantically. “Where is he!” I was shouting now.
“Alicia, be quiet,” Zachary said sternly in Hebrew. “The baby is in the kitchen hidden behind the bed. His father took care of him. He fed him strong camomile tea. He will sleep now for a long time. He couldn’t come into the bunker with us. He might wake up and cry and give away our hiding place. It was his father’s decision. Don’t worry, Shmuel will be safe,” he added in a not very convincing voice.
But I did worry and I felt a cold fear spreading all over me. My stomach was hurting me and I felt miserable.
Suddenly everything around us shook. It came from upstairs, and then there was the impact of footsteps over our heads and voices in German and Ukrainian: “Out, you damn Jews! Get out!”
My heart was pounding; I was afraid to breathe. Then I heard a shot that echoed into the depths of my soul. There was more slamming of doors and then quiet.
I don’t know how long we sat there in terrified suspense until Zachary suddenly said, “They seem to have gone, but we must be very quiet. They may be listening for sounds from hiding places. We must be absolutely quiet.”
A little while later Zachary turned to me. “Alicia, if you need to empty your bladder, you can do it now.” He handed me a chamber pot. It was too late. I had already wet myself.
The rest of the day passed in total silence, waiting for the night and hoping that we would be able to get out. But Zachary told us that those on watch had seen a large number of SS men and that we would have to be careful; we must wait.
But how can we wait, I thought, the baby needs to be fed. The mother was here. I had heard her whispering a while ago, but now she was quiet. Suddenly I had an idea and I turned to Zachary.
“Zachary,” I whispered, “I will go out and feed Shmuel. I know where his mother keeps the bottles of tea. I will feed him and then I will go up to the attic and stay in the hiding place you showed me the other day. Remember, the one where you keep your old violin. I could look outside and see if any of our Jewish neighbors are outside. If they are, I will come down and knock three times on the door of the wood bin. You know I am slender enough to squeeze into the hiding place. I will be very careful; I will be very careful,” I assured him again. “This is the only way. Please, Zachary, talk to Mama,” I begged him, “and tell her that I will be safe in the attic.”
