Chapter 16
Dorotha
‘Libertatem per Lectio’
Friends. You may find this hard to believe but, aside from food, knowing the time is one of the things I miss the most. Time has no meaning in the ghetto, one day blurring into another.
All clocks have been removed, and all watches stolen.
The clock in the tower of St Mary’s Church shows permanently five o’clock.
If I survive until we are liberated please God, the first thing I shall buy myself is a watch.
With love, ‘That girl with the books’, D
Dorotha fell asleep under a straggly tree next to the ghetto hospital as darkness fell. Her limbs were as heavy as concrete and her feet and her hands numb with cold. She woke with a start, her nerves running through her like a flame. She felt Oscar’s body next to her.
A waxing moon hung over the ghetto, glowing silver in the inky vault.
‘What did the doctor say?’ Dorotha asked for the fifth time that night. She knew she’d get the same answer, but it didn’t stop her seeking reassurance.
‘She’s in good hands,’ Oscar replied patiently. ‘He says he has medication, an injection, that can help.’
She sat up stiffly, rubbing her bare legs, her bony shins glowing white in the moonlight. ‘Maybe there’s hope?’
Dorotha realised how desperately she cared for this little girl, who devoured books and had clung to her like a clamshell since her mother was taken.
She sighed and rested her head against the tree, looking up at the moon.
A thousand or more miles away, Adela would be able to see this same moon from the safety of England.
Joyce had vouched for her and looked out for her, for no other reason than it was the right thing to do.
Dorotha owed that much to Ava. She would stay out here for as long as it took to get word.
The growl of an engine broke open the peace of the night. Slamming doors. Thundering boots, followed by barking dogs. Oscar stiffened and shrank back against the tree, into the shadows.
‘SS,’ he whispered. He took her hand and they scrambled back to the perimeter fence as quietly as they could. Not that it mattered. The Nazis were making such a commotion and seemed hell-bent on getting into the hospital.
‘What are they doing here in the middle of the night?’ Dorotha whispered, knowing the answer to the question as soon as it left her lips.
The SS guards were marching into the hospital, dogs straining on their leashes and streaming round their ankles.
More lorries were pouring into the forecourt of the hospital.
One by one the hospital lights sprang on.
Blackout blinds were ripped down. Then came the screaming.
Dorotha whimpered and Oscar held his hand against her mouth.
‘Please, my love, we must stay quiet.’
Dorotha squeezed her eyes closed and counted back from one hundred.
Gunshots shattered the night sky, followed by breaking glass. Dorotha opened her eyes to see dozens of patients, still in tattered nightclothes, being bundled into the backs of lorries. Many were too weak to walk, and they stumbled out through the hospital door, wild-eyed with delirium and pain.
Oscar stared in the darkness, hatred boiling in his eyes.
He was counting the patients off as they were pushed into the lorries, making a mental inventory no doubt to share in the Chronicle.
This was how he stopped himself from going stark raving mad.
His commitment to documenting the atrocities of the ghetto was tireless.
Eventually, the SS had filled the lorries, topping up their quota, and drove away from the hospital. The air they left behind was charged with adrenaline and disbelief.
From out of the darkness they came, men and women, streaming towards the hospital, horror etched on their faces. News of the selection had spread, and people were running in the hopes of saving a loved one.
‘Gabriele,’ gasped Dorotha, struggling to her feet.
‘Just wait,’ Oscar advised, but his caution fell on deaf ears.
Dorotha ran, joining the desperate masses. Inside the hospital, she went from ward to ward. All were empty. Sheets lay twisted and torn, hospital trolleys upended.
‘Typhus ward,’ she gabbled, grabbing a nurse.
‘Upstairs,’ she replied. ‘But you can’t go in—’
‘Dorotha,’ Oscar pleaded, running behind her. ‘Wait.’
Dorotha didn’t care about anything but seeing whether the little girl had been snatched. She took the steps two at a time and found the ward. Drawing in a deep breath, she turned the door handle and pushed. Row upon row of startled, terrified faces stared back at her.
‘Why’s no one been taken from this ward?’ she heard Oscar ask a man, she presumed Dr Mostowicz.
‘Why do you think?’ he replied, wearily. ‘They are terrified of contracting typhus.’
Gabriele was in the last bed at the end of the ward. Her bald head looked so tiny on the white pillow. Her eyes were as large as the moon that hung in the sky. She was at least conscious.
‘My darling girl,’ Dorotha wept, taking her hands. ‘You gave us a fright.’
‘They took my hair off,’ Gabriele whimpered.
‘Don’t cry, child,’ said the doctor softly. ‘If you keep your head, you will grow more hair.’
‘I’m taking her home,’ Dorotha said. ‘She’ll be safer there.’
The doctor studied her curiously.
‘You’re the girl with the books,’ he said. Dorotha recognised him. Only last month she had lent him Tolstoy’s War and Peace.
‘You strike me as a clever woman. I wouldn’t advise it.’
‘But what if they come back? What would you do if it were your daughter?’
He sighed. ‘I’d take her home and hope for the best.’
Dorotha looked at the exhausted doctor.
‘Hope is all I have left.’
Without another word, Oscar gently scooped the little girl up and wrapped the hospital blanket around her.
‘Take these and my best wishes,’ the doctor said, pressing a package of medicine into her hand.
Dorotha and Oscar walked unsteadily through the putrid ghetto streets, a fine layer of sweat soaking their cheeks.
By the time they reached Brzezińska, dawn was streaking like a purple bruise over the horizon.
That night, the SS had trawled the Hospital for Contagious Diseases and another hospital on Mickiewicz Street and dragged 225 patients, many with tuberculosis, from their beds.
Back inside their room, Ruth and her mother shot to their feet, relief etched all over their face.
‘Put the child straight to bed,’ Mrs Mordkowicz ordered. ‘Then sit. I’ve made you tea, or what passes for it. You both look half dead.’
Almost paralysed with exhaustion, Dorotha did as she was told. But first she bent over Gabriele and kissed her gently on her bald head.
‘It’s a miracle you’ve all come home,’ Mrs Mordkowicz said, pressing a cup of weak dandelion tea into hers and Oscar’s hands.
‘I think your mama was right to pray. Maybe the Almighty is our only hope of survival now.’
After an hour of sleep, they woke to the sound of the factory hooters and the tramping of feet on the cobbles outside. The working day had begun. Dorotha groaned, her head swimming with exhaustion.
‘I’ll stay off and see to Gabriele.’
‘No,’ said Oscar, who had fallen asleep in a chair by the door.
‘You’ll be arrested if you don’t go in and alert suspicion.’
Whatever medication it was that the doctor had given Gabriele looked to be taking effect.
She was still desperately ill, but her fever had broken a little and Mrs Mordkowicz had been able to feed her bread soaked in water.
She had wrapped her bald head in scarves and bundled her up in blankets and sweaters to keep her warm.
‘I’ll be all right,’ Gabriele said bravely. ‘I have my books.’ She held up Emil and the Detectives, now so well-thumbed that the paper was worn thin.
‘Emil will keep me company today.’
Dorotha looked at her and swallowed a knot of emotion. Such a small human being and no trace of self-pity.
Reluctantly, they left the room, after giving Gabriele strict instructions to not open the door to anyone, and set off to the administration block.
But by the time they reached Ba?uty, something was brewing. Ghetto administration workers had spilled out of the offices and were now huddled into worried knots in the square.
Mrs Cohen spotted Dorotha, Ruth and Oscar and gestured for them to join her.
‘Biebow’s about to speak,’ she muttered.
Biebow stepped up onto a makeshift podium, his blond hair shining in the July sunshine. His smooth voice flowed like oil round the square.
‘Meine Juden. The ghetto, just as the city Litzmannstadt itself, has to be evacuated due to the threat of bombing raids. All workshops and administration will be moved to the German Reich.
‘The relocation of the ghetto should proceed with calm, order and benevolence. I assure you that we shall do our very best to save your life through the relocation of the ghetto. I know you want to live and eat, and that’s what you will do.’
A ripple of disbelief reverberated around the square. A lone voice shouted. ‘Lies! Where were the sick taken from the hospitals last night?’
A horrified silence fell, broken only by the sound of a crow’s wings flapping as it took to the skies. Dorotha stiffened, waiting for the retribution. The Schupo bundled their way through the crowds until the objector was located and tossed into the back of a truck.
Biebow’s smooth facade of calm had been punctured by the heckler.
‘I’m not standing around here like some itinerant preacher,’ he bellowed into the microphone.
‘If you force us to use coercion, there will be dead and injured. The piggish mess and laxness must stop, that I’m telling you.
’ He wiped a hand through his hair, a muscle twitching in his cheek.
‘Back to work, everyone. The relocation will begin.’
He strode off to deliver more speeches around the ghetto, leaving in his wake yet more fear and indecision. When the square had emptied and it was safe to talk, Mrs Mordkowicz turned to them.