The Family Behind the Walls

36. Jordanna

THIRTY-SIX

JORDANNA

JANUARY 6TH, 1945 – SOUTHERN POLAND

I’m shaking, though I’m trying my hardest to be brave. Lilli can feel my fear, which is the last thing I want for her. Everything I do now though, every choice I make, is for one thing—to get back to Mama. The thought of seeing her in the distance, running into her arms and melting into her warm embrace—it’s like a fairy tale—a story with a beautiful ending. I can’t tell Lilli this. I need her to still believe in these magical stories because no matter how much effort I’ve put into shielding her from the terrifying truths that are always footsteps away from us, it feels as if I’m letting her down. Other times, I’m upset that Max isn’t here to do the same for me as I do for Lilli. Alfie does everything he can, but I know he can’t do all he wants to without the ability to hear what’s happening around us.

“I’m in,” a man shouts, his words clear and German.

Alfie squeezes my left hand, and I squeeze Lilli’s. When I swallow, I wonder if everyone else heard me forcing phlegm down my throat.

Chatter grows from two to four to six or eight German men all within our safe space, leaving us with nowhere to go. They’ll force us to surrender to them.

“We can stay the night and continue heading west in the morning,” one of them says.

It is only the morning now. There isn’t a chance all of us will be able to remain still without making a sound for that amount of time.

“What is it you think you’re doing here?” Sister Josephine speaks aloud, stepping out from behind the blockade. My eyes widen, staring against the black wall directly in front of my nose.

The clatter of a weapon fumbles within a hand. I hate knowing the precise sound.

“Are you planning to shoot a woman of God?” she asks, the composure in her voice uncanny for the circumstance. Sister Josephine has revealed herself to be the bravest of the nuns, but no one is fearless in an unplanned encounter with the unknown during a war.

“No, of course not,” the man says. “We thought the church was abandoned.”

“Who are you running from and where are you going?” she continues.

The questions and answers are unhurried and drawn out, perhaps lies being formulated to convince her of innocence. “The Soviets, sister. That’s who we’re running from. We’re fleeing Poland to return to Germany.”

The honesty is unsettling, making me wonder what has shifted within the war—what we don’t know or understand after hiding down here for so long.

“You are running from a country Germany is occupying in fear of Soviet liberators. Is that what I’m understanding?” Sister Josephine continues. “Is it the fear of facing an army stronger than what’s left of German militants, or fear of the inhumane truth being discovered by the rest of the world—which are you running from?”

Her words are terrifying me. I’ve seen what happens if anyone threatens a German in uniform. They remove the threat. Except Sister Josephine isn’t threatening them. She’s asking a question.

“We’re running from it all,” the man answers.

“And you think hiding in a house of God is going to protect you?” How can she speak with so much poise to them? It’s as if they’re naughty boys at a schoolhouse.

“They’re on our heels, sister, and there is nowhere else to go,” the man says, a plea laced through his words.

“I see. I have made a vow to tend to social justice, caregiving, and spiritual leadership. Allowing you men to stay here would be a sin as you bear your arms, in your uniforms. In this holy house of God, everyone is equal.”

“Of course, sister.”

What is she doing? I want to ask her, but I have no choice but to keep silent.

Alfie’s palm is covered in sweat, and I realize he doesn’t know what’s happening, so I begin to tap out a short summary of what’s happened in the last two minutes. He can’t seem to stand still, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and I stop tapping out letters and just squeeze his hand instead.

“Here’s how this will work,” Sister Josephine says. “All seven of you are going to return upstairs to the chapel, and undress down to your undergarments. You will leave your weapons there as well. I will put all your belongings in a locked closet until morning when you can retrieve them on your way out of the church doors. One word or step out of line, and I will have the Soviets at that door waiting for you before you even know what’s happening, and I am a woman of my word.”

I’ve been holding my breath for much longer than I should be able to. I can’t make out what I’m listening to or understand what Sister Josephine plans by allowing them to stay here. Are we going to stay back here, unable to move a hair?

There’s silence within the cellar. Are they seeking permission from each other, thinking through this agreement, or getting ready to attack Sister Josephine?

“Sister Josephine, a word, if you will,” Sister Katherine says, stepping out from behind the blockade. The men out there must only be able to imagine how many people are hiding behind the wall.

“We agree to your terms,” the man says. “Men, upstairs and do as the sister said,” he orders the others.

The men’s footsteps sound frenzied as they take the steps up to the door, which soon closes after the last set of footsteps echo from a short distance.

“Have you lost your mind?” Sister Katherine asks Sister Josephine.

“Without weapons and uniforms, they’re nothing. We are here to teach and guide, are we not?”

“Nazis?” Sister Katherine asks, shock electrifying her words.

“These brainwashed, manipulated men are running from their own. It’s clear, they have the most to learn of anyone within these walls.”

“I will not blink an eye with them here, Sister Josephine.”

“Nor will I.”

“We are protecting these children.”

“As we will continue to do. Nothing will happen to these children under my care, except perhaps to have an opportunity to begin the process of healing from the burdens they’ve all endured.”

“I don’t understand what you are talking about. Those men, they have no souls,” Sister Katherine says. “We both know they will rid us for their own good.”

“We have the leverage,” Sister Josephine says. “You are correct though, and if I told them to leave, they wouldn’t just walk away. They were looking for a sanctuary.”

“They don’t deserve our shelter.”

“I never said we will be safeguarding them.”

Sister Margaret and Sister Patricia step out next and join their conversation. “We need to make sure there is nothing on their bodies before re-entering this space. Can they not sleep in the pews?” Sister Margaret asks.

“We are not to take our eyes off them until they walk out that door tomorrow. Understood?” Sister Josephine affirms.

The agreements limbo in hesitation and I’m still wondering what she plans to do with us children.

“Yes, we will do as you say, Sister Josephine,” Sister Patricia says before the others agree.

“Yes, sister.”

“Yes.”

“I will be waiting for them on the other side of the door to make sure they are down to their long undergarments,” Sister Josephine says.

“Bring the children out and keep them behind you on the far left side of the cots.”

We’re all breathing so hard. It’s all I can hear and the heat from everyone’s exhausted breaths is creating a thick fog around us within this tight space. I tap my finger against Alfie’s hand, giving him the shortened message: we’re stepping away from hiding and showing ourselves, and we’re to trust all will be well.

“Come along, children,” Sister Margaret says. “Everything will be all right.”

Not all of us understand the complexities of the agreement just formed. The youngest of us will be just fine. The rest of us, I don’t know how well we’ll be able to handle being in the same room as the monsters we’ve been hiding from. We’ve already faced our fears. It should have been enough.

Alfie and I help corral the children over to the corner behind the cots. “No one needs to speak with these men or even look at them. They will stay on the other side of the room and away from you,” Sister Katherine says.

“What if we want to talk to them?” Lilli asks.

“Lilli,” I snap at her in a hush. “We do not have anything to say to them.”

“I do,” she says.

“No, you do not,” I correct her. I pull her down to the floor with me between the other children and along Alfie’s side.

When the door to the cellar reopens my heart batters against my rib cage. A sour zing shocks my stomach and heat boils through my blood as they trickle in, all in skintight dirty white T-shirts and long johns. If it weren’t all children here, I would say they should be forced to sit here, have their heads shaved too, and be beaten every time they say the wrong word. My thoughts are impure and are sinful, especially if any of the sisters were to hear me say such things out loud. However, I believe it’s impossible for anyone who didn’t see what we saw to be thinking anything different.

None of them are skin and bones, starved, tired, or weak. They’re all perfectly healthy or appear that way. It could have been one of them who killed Papa.

What if it was one of them who killed Papa?

The seven men appear stunned upon stumbling over the sight of us children sitting in the corner.

“You will stay on that side of the cellar,” Sister Katherine says, directing them toward the barricade where we were.

“Maybe they know where Mama and Max are?” Lilli whispers in my ear.

“No. They don’t,” I say, my words hostile.

“Are you Nazis?” Frank, a nine-year-old boy, asks out loud. Sister Patricia moves to his side and presses her finger up to her lips to quiet him.

“We were, but not anymore,” one of the men replies. I’m unsure of what that means. Maybe they don’t either.

“Does that mean you don’t hate Jewish people anymore?” Frank replies.

“That’s enough,” Sister Patricia says to him. “Not another word. Do you understand?”

Not one of the men chooses to respond to the last question. Instead, they share a look with one another and if I believed there was any good left in humanity among the German Army, I might think there’s a sense of remorse. I just don’t think that’s possible, and it doesn’t matter.

One of the men has tears rolling down his cheeks. I want to say: How dare you?

Lilli stands up and I try to pull her back down, but she fights me off and slaps my hand. “Stop telling me what to do,” she says to me.

“Lilli, sit down,” I argue.

Alfie reaches across me to grab Lilli’s hand, but she moves to her right, away from the two of us.

“Lilli, have a seat,” Sister Margaret tells her, kindly.

“No, sister. I have something I need to say.”

“Lilli, could I speak to you—” I try again.

“Let the child speak,” Sister Josephine says, returning to the cellar after inspecting the men before entering. “These children should never be silenced again.”

I’m so angry with Lilli and I’m trying to hold myself back from tackling her and dragging her back down to the ground, but Sister Josephine is staring at me, not Lilli. She shakes her head ever so slightly, telling me not to do anything.

Alfie must see the look as he stops trying to reach for Lilli too.

“You say you were Nazis but now you’re not,” Lilli says, stating a fact rather than asking a question. “Does that mean my papa is alive after you killed him?”

We don’t know who killed Papa, but it isn’t hard to assume it was an SS officer or guard on a manhunt on the train.

“Many people have died who shouldn’t have died,” one of the men says.

What a foolish response.

“But you can’t bring them back to life. Instead, you want to run away from what you did. You took away my parents and my brother. You took away my right to be a child. You have forced me to starve and work until my fingers bled every day. You hurt my friends. You beat them with whips. You made them bleed, cry, and some die. All because we’re Jewish. I was born Jewish. What is it that I did wrong? What did any of us children do wrong or do to deserve having our parents taken away from us?”

Lilli’s words slice through my chest, making it hard for me to breathe as I struggle to fight back tears. I refuse to cry in front of these men.

“We didn’t—” one of them begins to say. But another man throws his arm against the other’s chest.

Lilli sits back down on her own and crosses her arms over her chest, squinting her eyes at the group of men, her lips pursed with fury.

“You shot my mother and sister right in front of me then threw me in a wagon for homeless children,” Greta says, standing up from her spot on the floor. She’s fourteen and has been here longer than most of us. “Before you killed my family, you took away my home and forced us to live in a ghetto where there was no remaining shelter. You laughed at us while we sang and danced in the streets, trying to cheer each other up. You laughed at us when we cried. You laughed when someone fell to the ground from starvation or illness. Laughter wasn’t a part of your orders, was it? You did that on your own. Imagine your mother, father, sister, or brother lying on the cobblestones after fighting to protect you. They now have a bullet lodged in their brain; their eyes wide open as they rest in a pool of their own blood. And despite the shock and horror of witnessing the most unimaginable nightmare you will never be able to erase from your memory, you hear laughter all around you.”

The men have their knees pulled up to their chests, some with their heads buried between their legs, others are rocking back and forth as tears run down their red cheeks. Not one of them is sitting there with a blank look on their face, but that’s all I had seen among them until now—blank stares, hollow brains and hearts. Yet now they feel something. Now that it’s too late.

I stand up without thinking it through and the words come out on their own. “You destroyed this world we live in. You’ve destroyed each one of us and everything we’ve ever known. I’ve learned a lot under the protection of these noble sisters standing between us. They’ve taught us to forgive and have understanding, to understand that not all people are well enough to make their own decisions.” Sister Josephine cracks a small smile, tilting her head as she gazes at me. Her smile might disappear in a moment though.

“Forgiveness is important,” one of the men chokes out.

How dare he say such a thing. I open my mouth to speak, unsure if the words will come out, but I must be heard: “My papa, however, the one you murdered while he was trying to save his children, he would tell us that for every sin we commit, there will be a punishment. Those who deal pain will be forced to view life from the inflicted. You might think you’re getting away with murder when you walk out those doors tomorrow, but despite what happens to you, you will live forever with your sins. That’s your punishment. They will haunt you every minute of every day until you realize you can’t run away from it—from yourself.”

I wish I felt satisfied following those words but I’m not informing them of something they didn’t already know.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Sister Josephine says, her words steady and firm. “You will leave this church at once. The Soviets are not far behind, and this house of God will not serve as your sanctuary.”

The men’s faces shift from stunned disbelief to raw panic. Without their uniforms and weapons, they look much less intimidating. They fumble to their feet, but instead of a frantic rush for their gear, they hesitate just before their complexions each take on a ghostly white color.

“Are you going to return our belongings to us?” one of the soldiers asks, his question laced with clear concern.

Sister Josephine steps forward, seemingly unafraid of this man as she stares him right in the eyes. “We’ll give you your uniforms, but your weapons are locked up in a steel closet. You won’t ever find the key. I assure you. I’m not a fool, nor do I trust that any of you are capable of restraint. Your uniforms are upstairs, and you can leave this church dressed as soldiers without arms.”

The soldiers exchange nervous looks between one another. One steps, forward, his spine straight, shoulders square. The look on his face hints that he might argue with Sister Josephine. She doesn’t step back. She doesn’t show a hint of fear.

“You can choose to fight me for your weapons,” she says, her confidence faltering, “but don’t forget what I said: the Soviets are not far behind, and when they see German soldiers in uniform, they will not hesitate to do what they’ve come here to do. What happens next is your decision, but I warn you, you will either leave in peace or face the consequences.”

The bravery they still held on to is now gone. Fear, a familiar look in a person’s eyes, is all I see now. They can’t run from what they’ve done or what’s coming for them, but they can still try.

The soldier who stood up to Sister Josephine takes a step back and drops his head, conceding. “We’ll leave, sister.”

“Good then. Go now. I don’t want the Soviets having to deal with you in my church.” The men trickle into a line and make their way up the steps to the main level of the church. “You may outrun the Soviets, but never forget that it’s impossible to run from your conscience. Let the church always be a reminder of that for you.”

No sooner than the last one exits the cellar, Sister Josephine holds up her index finger and nods her head. “I’ll be back in just a moment. I want to make sure they find their way out.”

I hold my breath, standing in one spot, staring at the door the entire time Sister Josephine is gone.

The door finally reopens, and she steps inside, brushing her hands together. “It’s done,” she says as if it was no big task. “They won’t be back.”

The silence following her words offers a sense of relief—an unfamiliar feeling. The war might not be over, but this could mean it’s the start of the end. I just hate that we’ve thought this so many times before too.