Mila 18 - Leon Uris

As Rachael turned and faced her mother, Deborah realized for the first time that her child was as tall and mature as she. “Thanks, Momma, but Wolf is terribly proud about that. Besides, it’s not the most important thing any more. Just being able to see each other for a few minutes and talking is all we really want”

Deborah patted her cheek.

Stephan burst into the apartment “Hey, come on. Aren’t you ready yet?”

“Be careful, children. Keep your Civil Authority Kennkarten handy and forgive me for not coming. I’m dog-tired. I have to get a few hours’ sleep before going back to the orphanage. Tell Susan I’ll take the night shift.”

Stephan and Rachael pecked kisses on Deborah’s cheek.

Rachael opened the door and stopped. “Strange,” she said. “Being able to walk in the streets again.”

“Be careful,” Deborah repeated.

The assembly hall in the Niska Street orphanage was capable of holding most of the four hundred children. It was one of the twenty-eight institutions under Alexander Brandel’s Orphans and Self-Help Society which somehow managed to feed and secretly educate over twenty thousand parentless youngsters. Unlike the rest of the ghetto, these homes had no hiding rooms, for it would have been impossible to construct them secretly. After all, Brandel concluded, these were children, and he had to believe in the final mercy of the enemy to leave them alone.

Rachael Bronski was the very favorite of the children. They crammed together, filling all the benches, sitting in the aisles and on the floor before her piano on the platform at the end of the hall. The nurses, teachers, and social workers stood along the back wall.

Rachael looked continually to the back door through which Wolf might appear. A long time ago when he returned from the Bathyran farm at Wework, he had come to her during a recital in this very place. Perhaps he would come again today.

Rachael held up her hands for attention and told the children what her first number would be. It was a new one in which she narrated the life of Chopin behind a sampling of waltzes, nocturnes, and etudes, ending with the patriotic crescendo of a polonaise.

The next number was a medley of Yiddish songs. She watched the faces of the children searching their memory for a faint voice in the past which had sung to them.

“Should I be a rabbi?

I don’t know my Torah,

Should I be a merchant?

I have nothing to sell.

“And I have no hay,

And I have no oats,

And I’d like a drink of vodka,

But my wife will curse me,

So I’ll find a big rock,

And I’ll sit me down and cry.

“Should I be a

schochet?

I cannot use a

chalef,

Should I be a

melamed?

I don’t know an

alef.

“Should I be a cobbler?

I don’t have any last.

Should I be a teamster?

I have no cart or horse.

“Should I be a blacksmith?

I won’t have any anvil,

Should I run a tavern?

No, my wife would get too drunk.”

“What would you like to hear next?”

“Palestine!”

“Rachael! Sing to us about Palestine!”

“Palestine!”

“Palestine!”

“The roses bloom in Galilee,

And the land rejoices.

Round the day and through the night,

We lift our thankful voice.

“We love you, our Galilee,

Your land makes our hearts sing.

We guard it dear with soul and gun

And fear not what fate brings ...”

Susan Geller entered at the rear of the hall. She looked round quickly, then whispered to her second nurse. The woman looked startled for an instant, then nodded and whispered to another nurse.

“All together now, children!”

“The roses bloom in Galilee,

And the land rejoices ...”

Susan Geller looked around once more and spotted Stephan. She wove through the pack of children, took his hand, and led him to a side door. “Make no outcry, Stephan. The building is surrounded by Militia. Get upstairs. There are twenty-five or thirty children in an attic classroom. Do you know where it is?”

Stephan nodded.

“Take them over the roof to Mila 19. Tell Alexander Brandel to get to the Umschlagplatz quickly.”

Rachael frowned as she saw Stephan slip out of the hall.

“We love you, our Galilee,

Your land makes our hearts sing ...”

Susan sat on the bench beside Rachael. “At the end of this song I will make an announcement. You keep playing. We want no panic. Do you understand?”

“Oh God ...”

“Keep playing, Rachael, keep playing.”

“I ... understand ...”

Susan stepped before the piano and held up her hands. “Children!” she said. “Aunt Susan has a most wonderful surprise! Today we are going to the country on a picnic!”

The announcement was greeted with “ohs” and “ahs” of disbelief.

“We are all going on a train ride out of the ghetto and we will see all of those things we have talked about—trees and flowers and farms. All those wonderful things which you have never seen before. This is going to be the greatest experience of your life. Now we will all file out of the hall and to the street. Don’t be frightened of the soldiers, because today they are there to help us. Now, Rachael, would you play something while we march out?”

Susan stepped into the corridor just as Piotr Warsinski entered the building. She blocked the door to the assembly hall.

“We are quite ready,” Susan said. “If you will kindly tell your men not to alarm the children we will keep them calm.”

“We just want the children, not you.”

“We choose to go too.”

Warsinski shrugged. “Have it your way. Get them out into the streets.”

“Quickly,” Stephan Bronski ordered two dozen six-year-olds in the attic classroom. Ghetto life had conditioned them to respond to his order with unqualified discipline. Stephan was first up the escape ladder to the roof. He nudged the trap door open an inch and peered around.

A Ukrainian on the roof!

Stephan signaled for the line behind him to be still. The guard paced back and forth, sweating in the heat through his dirty brown, black-sleeved shirt. He turned. Stephan could see his face and the epaulets with the skull and cross-bones and the big knobby hands gripped around a rifle.

The guard stopped near the corner of the roof. The ridge was built up fifteen inches over the roof level. The guard knelt on it, peering past a steep tile roof which partly blocked the view to the street five stories down.

Clump ... clump ... clump ...

The man looked around at the thing flying over the roof at him. Before he could gather his wits or straighten up it was on him at a dead run. Stephan slammed his body at the Ukrainian at the same instant the man tried to stand up. It threw him off balance. His legs buckled and he fell onto the overhang, dropping his rifle on the roof.

In a frantic grab he snatched the top of the ridge. Stephan lifted the guard’s fallen rifle and with its butt smashed the clinging man’s hands.

A shriek!

The guard slid down the tiles, flailing in panic for something to grab. His body swooped over the edge and became smaller, smaller, smaller, until it stopped suddenly on the pavement.

“Quick!” Stephan cried, ruling out fear or revulsion at his deed. One by one the children climbed onto the roof.

Rifle fire cracked from the street. Shouts below! “Juden Kinder! Jew children!”

The ghetto rat knew his way well. He fled over the ceiling of the city with the knowledge of a craftsman. Then a dead end.

The line of buildings dropped from five stories to four. A chasm four feet wide separated the buildings. Stephan looked for the mattress which had been laid on the lower roof to break the falls. It had been removed! The decision was already made for him. He could neither stay nor turn back.