Mila 18 - Leon Uris

“Germany has come here to save Poland from Jewish war profiteers.”

And the billboards which once announced Irene Dunne movies found her replacement with drawings of bearded Jews violating nuns, bearded Jews using the blood of Christian babies for their rituals, bearded Jews sitting atop piles of money and knifing good honest Poles in the back.

For the most part, the German program met with universal success. The Polish people, who could not strike at their noblemen who had now vanished, nor at the Russians who had betrayed them, nor at the Germans who had massacred them, were willing to accept the traditional Jewish scapegoat as the true cause of their latest disaster.

Chapter Three

DIRECTIVE

ALL JEWISH TRADE UNIONS, PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES, AND ZIONIST ORGANIZATIONS ARE, AS OF THIS DATE, ILLEGAL.

Journal Entry

The Bathyran Executive Council held an emergency session today to prepare to go underground. I must find some loopholes in the German directives which will keep us together and functioning, perhaps under a “front” organization.

Ana Grinspan

has made the most progress. She reports the Krakow Chapter is unified. She has a lot of spunk, that girl. Despite the new directives restricting travel by Jews, Ana has already obtained false travel papers (as a nonexistent Tanya Tartinski). Ana’s non-Jewish appearance will help her to move around unchallenged. She has contacted Tommy Thompson at the American Embassy now in Krakow, and he has agreed to receive American dollars from our people outside Poland (and especially our chapters in America) and pass the money on to her. Thank God for Tommy. He is a true friend. Ana is going to travel to all our major chapters at once to set up a system of underground communications which we have worked out.

Susan Geller

has the most urgent situation. She estimates that thirty thousand Jewish soldiers were killed in the invasion. (This figure seems fairly accurate. To the best of our estimates, a Polish total of two hundred thousand soldiers were killed, many thousands escaped over the border, and there are uncounted thousands in prisoner-of-war camps.) In addition, hundreds of children were left parentless during the siege of Warsaw. We must take our share of them. Susan has committed the Bathyran Orphanage to take in another two hundred children, which doubles our present capacity. Needless to say what this does to the budget. We need personnel. That means taking our best people off their outside jobs and sending them to work in the orphanage. God knows how we will manage it. With the cut in rations for the Jews, we must have an extra fifty ration cards from the Jewish Civil Authority for the children.

Tolek Alterman

after his usual speech on Zionism, promised Susan that he will open new acreage at the farm to take up the ration cut. He must be encouraged to increase production if the price of food gets out of hand. But to increase the farm’s load will take personnel too.

Ervin Rosenblum

is still working for Swiss News on the technicality that it is a neutral agency, while the letter of the German directive forbids Jews to work on non-Jewish Polish papers. (We expect the Jewish press will be closed down any minute, although Emanuel Goldman, the Authority chairman, sold the Germans on letting it run as a means of mass communication to implement German directives. How long can he hold this point?) Ervin does not believe that either he, Swiss News, or Chris de Monti will be around for long. It will be a great loss, because Ervin is very close to news sources and several times already has given us tips that gave us twenty-four hours of grace to set up defenses. One very sour note. I am distressed that Andrei was not present. I lied to the others, saying he was in Bialystok on business. Three or four members have reported he is planning to do something which will hurt us desperately. I must stop him. I close my entry now in order to find him.

ALEXANDER BRANDEL

Gabriela Rak opened the door for Alexander Brandel at her flat on the Square of the Three Crosses.

“Come in, Alex.” She closed the door behind him and took his overcoat and cap.

“Is he here?”

Gabriela nodded and pointed to the balcony.

“Before I see him ...”

She shook her head. “I don’t know, Alex. Some days he paces like an animal and curses. Other days, like today, he sits and sulks and drinks without a word. Yesterday and today he has been out seeing people. I don’t know what for. He won’t confide in me.”

“I know,” Alex said.

“I have never known anyone could take defeat so hard, Alex. He has such a fierce pride—it seems as though he is taking it upon himself to suffer for thirty million Poles.”

She walked to the french doors and opened them. Andrei was looking aimlessly out at the battered ruins. “Andrei,” she called a half dozen times before she got his attention. “Alexander Brandel is here.”

He walked into the room. He was unshaven and bleary-eyed from too much drinking and too little sleep. He went directly to the liquor cabinet and poured himself some vodka.

“I’ll go fix you some tea, Alex,” Gabriela said nervously.

“No,” Andrei ordered, “you stay. I want you to hear the great dissertations of Zionist logic. Pearls of wisdom are about to drop like spring rain. We should have a bucket so we could catch them all.” He downed the vodka and poured himself another. Gabriela uncomfortably edged into a chair while Alexander walked to Andrei and took the glass out of his hand and set it down.

“Why weren’t you at the executive council meeting today?”

“Haven’t you heard? There are no more Bathyrans. Directive twenty-two by order of the Kommissar of Warsaw.”

“It was a terribly important meeting. We have to set up mechanisms to go underground.”

Andrei smacked his lips and clapped his hands together and walked to Gabriela. “Gaby, shall I tell you what they said today, verbatim? Let me see now. Susan Geller cried the loudest because the war gave her lots and lots of new orphans and our girl Susy is going to take them all in, each and every one. So tomorrow Herr Schreiker will issue a directive outlawing orphans. But! Don’t underestimate us. Our Alexander Brandel will bypass the directive ... he is a wily man. He finds loopholes in everything. ‘From now on,’ declares Alex, ‘we will call the orphans novitiates and the Bathyran Orphanage will become St. Alexander’s Convent.’ Now then, Tolek Alterman sprang to his feet. ‘Comrades,’ he said, ‘I will increase the production of the farm tenfold because it is living Zionism.’ And then Ana ... dear old Ana. ‘I would like to report that the Krakow group is singing “Solidarity Forever.” ’ ”

“Have you finished?”

“No, Alex. I’ve had a few meetings of my own.”

“So I hear. Very interesting plans you’ve made.”

“What plans?” Gabriela said.

“Why don’t you tell her, Andrei?” Andrei turned his back. “No? Well, then I’ll tell her. He is planning to take fifty of our best people and leave Warsaw.”

Andrei spun around. “Let Alex and the rest of that pack of idiots continue their debating societies while the Germans squeeze the life out of them. Yes, I’m taking fifty people and I’m going over the border to Russia and get arms and return and write a few little directives of my own on the Germans’ supply lines.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this?” she demanded.

“I told you to go to Krakow with the Americans. Well, I still have your papers. It will be my present to you when I leave.”

“But why didn’t you tell me!”

“So you’d team up with him and schlogg me to death with arguments?”