Marsha Skrypuch - Don't Tell the Enemy

The closest I got was across the street from the ghetto. I could see Dolik standing there, but with the police passing about once a minute now, even if I got across, there wouldn’t be enough time to explain our plan. So the next night I brought a written note and timed my crossing to the one-minute gap. I shoved it through the barbed wire, then immediately walked away without saying a word. Two nights later, Dolik and Leon managed to sneak out of the ghetto and reach our house.

“But where’s your mother?” I asked when they arrived.

“Mami is staying in the ghetto,” said Dolik, his voice faltering. “We couldn’t convince her to leave her patients.”

It made me proud, the act of defiance that we kept from the Commandant. Sometimes, I thought I would burst from the secret. It felt strange to carry on with our usual chores as if enemies didn’t live all around us. And as if no one lived under our kitchen floor.

To divert attention, Mama asked Frau Hermann to hire her back — and she did. But Mama’s hours were briefer and she mainly did the laundry. “I prefer that,” Mama told me. “Because now I rarely encounter that evil man.”

The people who had been given the Kitais’ old house began buying our milk. Frau Lange was the gymnastics instructor at the school for Germans and Herr Lange worked as a town administrator. They seemed like intelligent and cultured people and they brought with them cases and cases of books, most in German, but some in other languages too. They also had a wireless radio. Most of the time they would listen to music, but I was able to overhear some of what was happening in the war, which in August was mostly about the German army heading towards Stalingrad.

Frau Lange was about six months pregnant, and now that her stomach bulged out, the principal felt it would be indecent for her to work at the school come September. I would go over to their house for about two hours a day to help her get things in order for when the baby arrived. Day by day, Doctor Mina’s old medical office was slowly transforming itself into the baby’s nursery. Frau Lange had particular taste and only chose the best for her new baby, but as each item arrived — the cherrywood bassinet, the ebony chest of drawers with a marble top — I wondered where it had come from. Were the old owners now in a slave camp or ghetto? Or had they already been killed? Frau Lange seemed cheerful and oblivious, and I held my tongue. But my stomach felt tied up in knots whenever I was in the Lange house. How could they seem so normal, even almost nice, yet live like vultures — benefiting from the destruction of others?

I tried to keep the bigger goal in mind. This job would help me escape notice. If I were working for Nazis, who would suspect that I was hiding Jews? But the other reason I took the job and Mama took hers was that we were feeding five people. We had to buy food to supplement what we could grow or gather. And we had to do this without raising suspicions.

One good thing about starving for so many months was that our stomachs had shrunk, and not just mine and Mama’s, but Mr. Segal’s, Dolik’s and Leon’s. That meant that the five of us could feel quite full on the portions eaten by one or two Germans. And Frau Lange took such a liking to me that she used her influence in the Volksdeutche store to buy extra rations. These she would give to me as my pay instead of money.

Every day as I went through my chores, I thought of Dolik, Leon and Mr. Segal crammed together in the darkness under our kitchen floor. Did they ever panic, wanting to thrash around their arms and legs? I didn’t want to ask them, because maybe thinking about it would make it worse for them. But if it were me down there, I’d want to scream. I couldn’t imagine how awful it must be, cooped up like that for all the daylight hours.

In some ways it was probably better that Doctor Mina hadn’t come, because there was barely room for three people under our floor, let alone four. And it made me wonder whether Doctor Mina’s seemingly harsh decision was really made to keep her sons more comfortable and safe.

My favourite time those days was after dark, when Mama and I pushed the heavy stove to the side so our friends could squeeze out. Leon usually climbed out first, and I’d grab on to his arms so he wouldn’t fall, he was so stiff and weak from not moving all day. Dolik was next, and then Mr. Segal. Once they were out, we’d push the stove back into place. That way, if someone came unexpectedly, the three could hide under the bed, or climb out the bedroom window and go to the root cellar or into the shed, or hide behind the manure pile.

After they had a chance to walk around our kitchen to get the kinks out, we would eat together. Things had to stay tidy, so that we wouldn’t be scrambling to put away any telltale extra dishes if someone came to the door unexpectedly.

After we ate, Mama and Mr. Segal would sit at one end of the table, talking quietly about the war and any news that Mama had been able to gather or the things that I had heard on the wireless. On rare occasions, Uncle Ivan or Auntie Iryna would come by, and then the whispers got even more intense.

Dolik and Leon and I played cards, usually a game called Remi, which Leon often won. Then I’d tease him. “Remember when you used to follow Maria around like a puppy?”

“I did not,” Leon protested. “I was just trying to help her.”

“Better a puppy than being mean,” said Dolik.

“Who are you accusing of being mean?” I asked.

“You, and you know it,” he said. “It was like you couldn’t stand the sight of me.”

It seemed like a lifetime ago, when I had been so aggravated by Dolik. Now he was my best friend. “Do you want to know the truth of it?” I asked him.

“You were jealous of me?” asked Dolik, grinning.

“I was. But not so much because you had shoes and nice clothing. I was jealous because you had a father and I didn’t.”

Dolik blinked in surprise, then picked up the deck of cards and shuffled them. I could tell that he was doing his best not to weep. “I hadn’t thought of that, Krystia,” he finally said. “And unfortunately, now we’re even.”

One night, to pass the time, I gathered up all of our family photos and shared them with Dolik. We didn’t have many, but there was one of Mama and her siblings as children — Stefa, Kataryna and Ivan all gazing at the camera with serious eyes, wearing old-fashioned clothing. Uncle Ivan was the tallest, one hand resting protectively on the shoulder of each of his sisters. Auntie Stefa and Mama looked almost like twins, except Stefa was taller.

Dolik ran his finger over the photograph. “You’d never know it by looking at them as children that they’d all grow up to be so brave.”

It must have been terrifying for Auntie Stefa to leave behind everything that she knew and travel across the ocean to start a new life. Uncle Ivan too — to defy not one invader, but two, by trying to build an army in the forests out of nothing. I had only thought of it as scary when Mama would sneak into Lviv to sell things on the black market, but Dolik was right — it was brave.

“Your father was brave,” I said. “He was one of the first to stand up to the Commandant. And your mother too. Think of how many would die in the ghetto if she hadn’t decided to stay and help.”

“I wish I had photos,” said Dolik. “We took some to the ghetto with us, but they’re still there. I’d give anything to see my father’s face again.”

I got up and rooted around on our shelves, then came back with coloured pencils and paper. “Your father gave these to us,” I said. “Let’s make portraits on your father’s paper.”