Mila 18 - Leon Uris

The Krakow Gazette increased its build-up of the “final solution to the Jewish problem.” Around Poland, the feverish activity of building new camps brought in German experts in transportation and construction. But these new camps were different. They were neither for slave labor nor for the containment of enemies of the Reich. They were built in great secrecy in out-of-the-way locations, and their structures had odd shapes unlike any ever seen.

By midwinter Alfred Funk concluded his conferences in Warsaw and returned to SS headquarters in Lublin with further verbal instructions for Globocnik.

Early in March one of Ana Grinspan’s runners reached Warsaw with the information that an Operation Reinhard, named after Heydrich, was taking place for the liquidation of the Lublin ghetto. The ghetto occupants as well as transports of Jews from outside Poland were being sent to a camp named Majdanek on the outskirts of the city.

When Funk came back to Warsaw everyone speculated wildly on the meaning, but after the winter just past no one believed things could get worse.

Rabbi Solomon sat on the floor in another of the makeshift synagogues before his emaciated congregation, which had once been a proud group recognized in the religious circles of Poland. The few stragglers who remained represented the heart of European Jewry. Stephan Bronski, the rabbi’s favorite pupil, was near the learned one.

It was the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Ab, the day on which the greatest disasters had befallen the Jews. On Tisha B’Ab the First Temple of Solomon was destroyed by the Babylonians, and centuries later, on the same day, the Second Temple fell to the Romans, starting a series of events which eventually spread the seed of Abraham to the corners of the world as damned and eternal wanderers and strangers.

On Tisha B’Ab an angry Moses had come down from Sinai and smashed the tablets of the commandments upon sight of the reveling tribes of Israel worshiping an idol. It was as though he had cast an eternal curse upon them, for this night of Tisha B’Ab the lights burned late in the offices of Gestapo House, Reinhard Corps headquarters, and the offices of Rudolph Schreiker.

Rabbi Solomon read from the “Valley of Tears” and the Holy Torah was revealed and he swayed and cried Jeremiah’s prophecies of doom.

“And the Lord shall scatter you among the nations and ye shall be left few in number.”

A mournful response followed his words.

“We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of health and behold trouble! For, behold I will send serpents among you which will not be charmed and they shall bite you, saith the Lord ... the harvest is past, the summer ended and we are not saved ... for death is come up to our windows and is entered into our palaces to cut off the children from without, and the young men from the streets ... the carcasses of men shall fall as dung upon the open field.”

As Rabbi Solomon lamented, the overture to the most horrible catastrophe in a catastrophe-filled history was playing out.

Black Friday ushered in the Big Action.

The Nazis called in members of their networks of informers and bled them for information during the night. By dawn a swift, merciless sweep was plotted to denude the Jews of the last of their leadership.

With sirens screaming in hideous harmony to the rabbi’s prayers, the SS and their Litts, Latts, Polish Blues, Jewish Militia, and Ukrainians swept in from every gate and scoured the ghetto, smoking out the resistance people from secret rooms.

Tens of dozens were marched unceremoniously to the cemetery and shot by a firing squad of Nightingales.

Ana Grinspan, Andrei Androfski, and Tolek Alterman had the fortune to be on the Aryan side. Other Bathyrans hid in the basement of Mila 19 with Jules Schlosberg and Ervin Rosenblum amid journals of the Good Fellowship Club and homemade fire bombs. Simon Eden spent the day crossing rooftops, and Rodel, the Communist, cringed in a hidden closet.

Alexander Brandel and David Zemba were among the fortunate not on the roundup list.

But dozens of people from the Bathyrans and the Labor Zionists and Revisionists and Bundists were not so fortunate. Black Friday shattered the ghetto and it sank to its lowest depths.

On the Sabbath following the massacre the ghetto was plastered with terrifying orders and the loudspeaker trucks roamed up and down, up and down, booming the edicts.

ORDER OF DEPORTATION NOTICE

1. By order of the German authorities all Jews living in Warsaw, without regard to age or sex, are to be deported to the East.

2. The following are excluded from the deportation order:

(a) All Jews employed by German authorities or in German enterprises who have their

Kennkarten

properly stamped.

(b) All Jews who are members and employees of the Jewish Civil Authority as of the day of this notice.

(c) All Jews belonging to the Jewish Militia.

(d) The families of the above-mentioned. Families consist only of husband/wives and children.

(e) Jews employed by social welfare agencies under the Jewish Civil Authority and Orphans and Self-Help Society.

3. Each deportee is entitled to take fifteen kilograms of personal possessions as baggage. All baggage over the weight will be confiscated. (All valuable articles such as money, jewelry, gold, etc., should be taken in order to use it for an orderly resettlement) Three days’ food should be taken.

4. Deportation commences on July 22, 1942, at 11 A.M.

5. Punishments:

(a) Jews in the published lists not reporting will be shot.

(b) Jews undertaking activities to evade or hinder orderly deportation will be shot.

JEWISH CIVIL AUTHORITY, WARSAW

Boris Presser, Chairman

ANNOUNCEMENT

Each deportee who reports voluntarily will be supplied with 3 kg. bread and 1 kg. marmalade. Food distribution will be held at Stawki Square.

Staging center for deportation will be the process center at Stawki 6-8 on the Umschlagplatz.

JEWISH CIVIL AUTHORITY, WARSAW

Dr. Paul Bronski, Deputy Chairman

ANNOUNCEMENT

Each day deportations will be clearly posted and announced for the proceeding day. Deportees for July 23 shall come from the following areas:

Elektoralna St. #34–42

Chlodna St. #28–44 inclusive

Orla St. #1–14 and 16–34

Leszno St. #1–3, 7–51, 57–77

All Biala Street

BY ORDER OF PIOTR WARSINSKI

Jewish Militia of Warsaw

Chapter Six

THE UNDERGROUND RECOILED FROM Black Friday and set out to determine what was behind the deportation.

For the first three days the Germans had an unexpected success. Wild Ones who lived in hiding without Kennkarten left their secret hovels, unable to resist the temptation of the three kilograms of bread and one kilogram of marmalade promised by the Germans. There were more volunteers than could be processed at the Umschlagplatz.

The deportation center was in a gray four-story concrete structure at Stawki 6-8, just beyond the northern gate. It was out of view of both the ghetto and the Aryan side. Once a school, it had later been an Orphans and Self-Help hospital.

Waffen SS Haupsturmführer Kutler, in charge of the detail, was a member of the Kommandos who had carried out the massacres on the eastern front. Kutler was in a state of drunkenness, tormented by a continuous nightmare of blood. His gory dreams were shared by most of the other Kommandos, who kept themselves going on liquor and dope.

A pair of thick iron doors hung across the entrance. Inside, a half dozen Nazis made selections, standing in front of the never-ending lines of humanity. A few were returned to the ghetto for labor. Most were passed along to the immense cobblestone yard surrounded by a high wall.