Chapter 15 #2
‘I worked for a couturier in Paris before the war,’ she said wistfully, and it struck Dorotha how much wasted talent there was in this godforsaken place.
She had met booksellers, seamstresses, teachers, actors, accountants, carpenters, shoemakers, linguists, watchmakers, poets, painters and professors from all corners of Europe.
How much richer humanity could be for the hands and minds of these people.
The waste was catastrophic. Only last week, Ruth had pointed out a famous violinist pushing a coal cart.
Interrupting the poignant moment, the door to their room suddenly flung open. A wide-eyed Milly Hauser stood on the threshold, carrying a copy of the anti-fascist novel, Bread and Wine, by popular author Ignazio Silone, and bringing news. ‘The Wechsler brothers have been arrested!’
Conversations tailed off. Everyone suspected the two popular young bakers were involved in the resistance.
Oscar, who had come in behind her, nodded. ‘It’s true, they were charged with listening to a BBC broadcast on a clandestine receiver.’
‘The Red House?’ Mrs Cohen asked. Oscar nodded.
‘Those poor young men,’ she murmured.
‘But wait until you hear what they told people before they were arrested,’ Millie went on. ‘Last month, the Allies landed in France and are fighting their way from the west, with the Soviet Army approaching from the east!’
‘That explains a lot,’ added a woman who had been browsing in silence, dread written all over her face.
‘Explain,’ ordered Mrs Cohen.
‘Yesterday, Biebow came into our workshop with the commander of the Gestapo and made a speech.’
‘Biebow himself came into your workshop?’ Mrs Mordkowicz questioned disbelievingly.
‘We thought it strange. He gave us some flannel about why we must ready ourselves to move to the Reich. Told us the conditions would be better; we shall have good living conditions, more food and medical care. Even told us to bring our pots and pans . . . Apparently, he is working his way round all the factories urging people to present themselves at assembly points.’
Her voice was drowned out by a chorus of protests.
Does he take us for fools? We all know what medical care means.
Dorotha’s heart stumbled. She had heard rumours that this was happening, but nothing until now to confirm them. No one ever truly knew what to believe in this place, but now it really did seem that the long-awaited liquidation had finally begun.
The afternoon took on something of the quality of a fever dream as the new German proclamation, ordering prisoners to present themselves to the assembly points in readiness for deportation, was picked over.
The only thing Dorotha’s patrons could agree on was the fact that the Germans were lying.
Wherever they were destined to be sent was undoubtedly not going to be better.
‘But wherever the trains are going, it surely can’t be worse than here?’ Mrs Mordkowicz pointed out.
Mrs Cohen snorted. ‘Can’t it? I for one will not be complying.’
‘I’d rather risk it than stay here and starve to death,’ Milly countered.
Back and forth people went, discussing the dilemma upon which all their lives hung. Dorotha shot a nervous glance at Gabriele, who was sitting quietly in the corner, staring into space. She didn’t like the listless look of the girl. Oscar seemed to sense her disquiet.
‘The library will be closing now,’ he announced. ‘But before you all go, I want to say thank you to Dorotha.’ He turned to her, a softness spreading over his usually serious face.
‘You’ve given people so much hope and joy with your little library. Reading has satiated our hunger and nourished our minds. I’m reminded of a quote by Frederick Douglass, the American writer and abolitionist, a man born into slavery, who said, “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” ’
Heads nodded in agreement.
‘Dorotha,’ Oscar went on. ‘You have given us freedom through reading.’
Amazement prickled up Dorotha’s spine as she heard the slogan of the Secret Society of Librarians spoken out loud. Oscar had read her like a book.
He held up an imaginary wine glass. ‘It shall never be forgotten.’
All around the room, people held up their imaginary goblets.
‘Hear hear,’ said Mrs Cohen. ‘L’chaim!’
‘L’chaim. To Life!’ everyone chorused back.
Silence draped the hot little tenement room. Dorotha felt hope, fear, and a desperate, desperate longing for life.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’ll keep doing this every Sunday until . . .’ She trailed off. It didn’t really need saying.
One by one, the women filed out, back to their own cramped rooms and spiralling dilemmas.
Millie Hauser pressed a small potato and a copy of The Secret Garden into Dorotha’s hand as she passed.
‘I’m sorry. A peasant wouldn’t have fed this potato to his pig before the war, but I want you to have it,’ she said.
‘It’s all I can offer in return for your kindness.
This book has taken me to places I could never imagine. ’
Dorotha stared down at the battered paperback that once belonged to her sister Adela.
It had been the length and breadth of the ghetto, passed along workshop benches and exchanged in food distribution lines.
How she longed to see her little sister, press her arms around her, tell her what this book – and reading – meant to them all.
‘Mama and I are going to see if we can get some bread,’ Ruth said, once everyone had left, wrapping her shawl around her shoulders. ‘Gabriele’s asleep; perhaps we should go.’
Dorotha nodded as the pair left, leaving her and Oscar alone with the sleeping Gabriele.
‘Will you go?’ she asked.
‘I don’t see we have a choice,’ he replied. ‘They’re already stopping food coming into the ghetto.’
‘So they plan to starve us out?’
He nodded. ‘There’ll be a group of around eight hundred prisoners left behind to clear up the ghetto. Anyone else found will be shot on the spot.’
Gabriele moaned in her sleep, her breath shallow.
Neither voiced their fear. They both knew the child’s fate if she presented herself at one of the assembly points.
Oscar pulled her into his arms. For a while, they leaned into each other, their frail bodies resting against one another. She had missed the warmth of human touch. When life is reduced to survival, one almost forgets how to feel pleasure in a simple embrace.
Dorotha looked up and saw pure love gazing down at her.
‘I hope you don’t think me too forward.’
She smiled. ‘I think the time for formalities has long passed.’
He echoed her smile. ‘Very well. I am in love with you, Dorotha. Your strength, your devotion, your passion. Together, two weak people can become strong, don’t you agree? Together, we’ll find a way.’
She closed her eyes and nodded, her heart leaping.
He loves me!
They sat down on the battered couch, two young people, old before their time, daring to hope for a future. It struck Dorotha how odd it was to have found love in the darkest of days, like a bright butterfly fluttering into a bomb site.
They must have drifted off to sleep, exhausted from the busy afternoon and the extreme hunger. Dorotha woke groggy, to find Ruth and her mother standing over them.
‘The child,’ Mrs Mordkowicz said, breathless. ‘She is very ill.’
Dorotha sat bolt upright, frantically trying to assemble her thoughts.
Oscar was already on his feet, gathering Gabriele into his arms. The little girl hung limply, one arm dangling down. Dorotha could feel the heat of the fever coming off her.
‘I think she has typhus,’ he said.
Ruth began to weep. ‘What do we do? We can’t leave her to die.’
Outside the sky was darkening; the curfew was nearly upon them.
‘Ruth’s right. She will die if we don’t get her to hospital,’ Mrs Mordkowicz said.
‘But she’ll almost certainly be taken if she’s spotted on the streets in such a condition,’ Dorotha cried.
‘It’ll be dark soon,’ Oscar said. ‘When it is, we will take our chances and get her to hospital.’
‘I thought they shut down all the hospitals after the Sperre?’ Ruth said.
‘No, there are a few still functioning,’ Oscar replied.
‘That makes no sense though,’ she said, baffled. ‘What do they care about our health? Surely to the Nazis, the only good Jew is a dead one?’
‘Think about it, Ruth,’ Oscar replied. ‘Anyone not deemed a useless mouth can still be put to work, so they have allowed the Judenrat to continue running a couple of hospitals. Not that there is much in the way of medicine, but still, we have to try.’
Dorotha could see his thoughts frantically ticking over.
‘I have a doctor friend who’s discreet and will help,’ he said. ‘Arnold Mostowicz. He works at the Hospital for Contagious Diseases at Dworska Street. We can trust him.’
Dorotha’s eyes grew wide. ‘I don’t see we have any choice, do we?’
‘It’s little wonder the child is ill,’ Mrs Mordkowicz cried, growing hysterical. ‘With no chance to breathe anything other than the foul air of this decaying building.’
She kicked the edge of the cupboard, so damp it was warped and no longer opened.
‘Look! Look how we live, like animals in a cave.’
‘Mama, you must calm down,’ Ruth urged.
‘Dorotha, you come with me, in case Gabriele regains consciousness and is startled to see me,’ said Oscar, ignoring Mrs Mordkowicz’s outburst and instead taking charge. ‘We must leave now.’
They hurried out, Oscar carrying the weak child despite his own frailty, leaving behind Ruth to comfort her mother, her wretched sobs following them down the stairs. Dusk was falling as they made their way out onto the ghetto street.
Oscar draped his coat over Gabriele’s body but her legs dangled underneath. Dorotha hugged herself into the side of his body in a vain attempt to keep Gabriele covered.
‘We must keep as calm as possible. We mustn’t do anything to attract attention,’ Oscar said in a low, steady voice. ‘Don’t forget, the Gestapo are out in force today, looking for the escapees.’
She felt Oscar’s free arm snake around hers.
‘We’re a young couple hurrying home before curfew.’
They continued in silence, Dorotha’s heart hammering in time to their steps.
We need a miracle, she thought. That’s the only thing that can save us all now.
Darkness became their friend as it enveloped them.
Oscar knew the sly alleys and streets like the back of his hand as he navigated them through the ghetto in silence.
They paused only once when a tram rattled past. Oscar flattened them against the side of a furniture workshop.
Inside the tram they saw the outlines of the Gestapo, striding up the carriages, checking prisoners’ identity cards.
By the time they reached the hospital, Dorotha felt like she might collapse from fear.
They paused outside the old building, previously a home for the elderly, until the Great Sperre had emptied it of old people.
It loomed over them, tall and forbidding, its broken windows like so many dark eyes.
‘Wait here,’ Oscar ordered. ‘I’ll take her in.’
She touched the girl’s forehead, burning to the touch, and prayed.
In those fevered moments, she realised she was praying with the same intensity that her mother had done every night before she had been taken.
It was a prayer from the heart for the child whom she had grown to love.
Perhaps her faith hadn’t entirely abandoned her?