Mila 18 - Leon Uris

How very strange, Andrei thought. Little Stephan Bronski had begun as a runner between the orphanage and the Self-Help headquarters over a year ago and increased his sphere of operation each month. The youngster idolized Wolf Brandel, who taught him the routes around the ghetto over rooftops, through courtyards and basements, and all the secret hiding places. Stephan pressed to be given more responsible missions, even begged to be allowed to go to the Aryan side. Stephan was not yet thirteen years old. How can a boy demand to walk like a man and his own father crawl through the mud?

“Andrei, think what you will of me, but the people here only want to survive. You know that, Andrei—survive. The best way to live is through the Civil Authority. No one has answered your call to arms, Andrei. Your way would be mass suicide. Andrei—now listen—Boris Presser and I have been negotiating with Koenig. Koenig is a reasonable man and he can maneuver Schreiker. Koenig promises that if we can get the underground to stop its activities they will make a settlement with us on rations, medicine, and the disposition of the labor force.”

“Good God, Paul. Can you believe your own words?”

“It’s our only chance!”

There was nothing more to be said. Andrei could not mask his contempt. He handed Paul Bronski a blindfold. “I don’t know anything about an underground.”

Bronski took the blindfold. “You’ll have to tie it on ... I can’t do it with one hand.”

Ervin Rosenblum worked in the musty room below Mila 19, sorting the notes of the Good Fellowship Club. A rap on the false packing crate which served as an entrance made him douse the lights and freeze. Ana Grinspan entered.

“Susan has just come back,” she said. “Get up to your room.”

“Is anything wrong?”

“Go on.”

Ervin felt his way through an aisle lined with packing cases. In the main office on the first floor he saw everyone staring. Alexander Brandel stood by the door of his office, shaking his head.

Ervin raced up the stairs to the second floor carefully. The rail was gone, chopped up for firewood weeks earlier. Down the corridor to that cell which he shared with his wife and mother.

Momma Rosenblum lay on a cot beneath a pile of quilts. It was icy. There was no heat in the house. The room was ugly and bare except for Momma’s cot, double bed for Ervin and Susan, and a single table and two chairs.

Susan’s face was distraught. Ervin felt a catch in his heart. Susan had always seemed resilient to tragedy, plodding on, doing her job regardless. He had never seen her like this. He wiped his glasses nervously, trying to adjust his vision to the change of light from the cellar.

“Tell me,” he said at last.

“Dr. Glazer,” she groaned.

In a way, Ervin was relieved. They had been expecting Glazer to go. Another death, another, another. Key people dying in droves. Glazer had been like a father to Susan from the day she graduated from the university. Little Bernard Glazer who had brought so many children into life had watched them die, helpless to save them. Glazer was better off, Ervin thought. But God, he’d be missed. He was the best man in his field.

Ervin flopped his hands. “Too bad,” was all he could say.

Susan slung a sheaf of papers on the table. “A farewell present to you, Ervin. A minute-by-minute account of his death.”

What a legacy! Ervin stared at the yellowish papers but did not touch them.

“Take it, Ervin!” Her voice rose sharply. “It’s Dr. Glazer’s gift to you!”

“Susan ... Susan ... please.”

“Damn you!” she shrieked. “People die and you write in your lousy journal! God damn you, Ervin!”

Momma Rosenblum stirred. “Kinder, Kinder,” she said weakly, “don’t shriek at each other.”

Susan sat beside the old woman and felt her forehead automatically. “I’m sorry, Momma. I didn’t mean it Ervin.”

“It’s all right Susan, I understand.”

“God, I don’t know what to do with Dr. Glazer gone.

God ... Ten children died today ... God ...” Her breath darted out in streams of frosty air.

Journal Entry

As the population is decimated the Germans close off the little ghetto in the south. As soon as a bit of room becomes available in the big ghetto, houses are closed off in the south. Crossing the bridge over the “Polish corridor” are the fancy Jews from Germany, the Jewish Civil Authority people, and the Militia and wealthier smugglers and members of the Big Seven. Only one major factory complex is left in the small ghetto, and that is the woodwork shops. As the small ghetto is abandoned it has become a no man’s land where Wild Ones without Kennkarten hide so they will not have to submit to slave labor. The abandoned ghetto has become a rendezvous for smugglers and to carry on prostitution for those still decent enough in appearance to sell their bodies. Raiding parties cross into the little ghetto at night and rip up wooden floors, doors, rails, and anything else that can be used for firewood and cart it off. In the big ghetto the crowding is worse than before. People sleep in hallways, cellars, in outside courtyards.

We continue to attempt to get dollars from British parachute drops, but it is hit-and-miss. With our dollar supply shrinking, the zloty has inflated again. David Zemba has made a simple plan. Through our people in London we have gotten American Aid to deposit several hundred thousands of dollars in Swiss accounts. Many of the smugglers have enormous collections of zlotys virtually unspendable and useless to them. We buy the zlotys by transferring Swiss dollars into their personal accounts in Geneva. We are able to get a good rate and with enough of these zlotys can buy essentials. We try not to deal with the Big Seven, but it is certain that Max Kleperman has his people in on this. Also, we can make direct barter with our Swiss money for houses, rooms, gold, food, and medicine with those smugglers who have caches. This latter is preferable to the zloty exchange. David Zemba is in conferences, trading for our Swiss dollars all day, every day. He has saved hundreds of lives.

Three major slave-labor factory complexes remain in the ghetto, all belonging to Franz Koenig. In the small ghetto there is a woodwork plant. In the north, the Brushmaker’s district. This latter supplies a major part of the brushes for the German army. Most of the people, in their desperation to live, still maintain that a Kennkarte stamped for labor is the key to life.

From the third factory we hear something that is a ray of hope, however faint. It is the uniform factory. Although the Germans claim to be at the gates of Moscow, we sense their first great defeat of the war. Nearly a hundred thousand bloody uniforms have arrived from the eastern front. In the factory the slave laborers clean, patch, and weave them and make them ready for reissue in Germany.

A hundred thousand German casualties? Good news.

ALEXANDER BRANDEL

Chapter Four

RACHAEL RACED THROUGH RAPID passages of Chopin’s Second Concerto in preparation for a concert with what was left of the Ghetto Symphony Orchestra to be held in Franz Koenig’s uniform factory.

She turned to the slow hit of the andante, and her mind strayed from her work. Three more members of the orchestra had died. There were only forty musicians left and they were listless. A spasm of tension gripped her stomach. Wolf had been gone five days this time. It was the third time in a month that Andrei had sent him to the Aryan side. They said they wouldn’t, but they needed Wolf, even at the risk. What were they to do? She longed to marry him, but her father would be violently opposed. Wolf’s father had once been an active Zionist and many people knew about Wolf’s work. Poppa would allow nothing to besmirch his position on the Civil Authority. He was completely unreasonable about it.