Mila 18 - Leon Uris

“Now we are going to have to jump over to that roof. We will have to stand on the very edge so we can reach the roof. When you land, land on your feet and use your legs as though they were big giant springs. Bend and then throw yourselves on your tummies.”

A little girl wept in fear.

“You,” he said to the largest youngster, “you be my assistant commander. You stay till last. Everyone choose a partner.” He quickly took the crying girl by the hand. “You will be mine.” Before she could register a protest they leaped over the drop onto the next roof.

Piotr Warsinski reported to Haupsturmführer Kutler.

“How is it?” Kutler asked.

“The most successful ‘kettle’ we have ever made. Every orphanage is cleaned.”

“How many?”

“Maybe ten, twelve thousand heads.”

That’s a lot of Jew babies. Well—they’ve got no valuables. Start loading them up. Send the leftover bastards to the top floors for storage till tomorrow and the day after. I want all your people around the Umschlagplatz on guard tonight. Bastards in the ghetto liable to try something.”

Warsinski turned to leave. “Good job, Chief,” laughed Kutler.

Kutler walked out to the selection desks and frowned at the sight of the nurses mingling with the children. “Warsinski!”

“Yes, sir.”

“What are all those people doing here?”

“They wanted to come with the children.”

Susan Geller came up to them. “Surely you cannot object to having us resettled with our wards,” she said.

Kutler sneered. He did not like her homely face. He glanced around at the other nurses, teachers, doctors, and workers holding their tiny flocks together. Goddamned Jews, Kutler thought. They got some kind of strange love for dying like martyrs. He remembered the fathers holding their hands over their sons’ eyes on the edge of the pits at Babi-Yar at Kiev.

“You people aren’t wanted in this transfer,” Kutler said.

“The children will enjoy their picnic in the country so much more if they have us with them to explain everything. You see, many of them do not remember being out of the ghetto.”

Kutler turned his eyes way from Susan Geller’s insistent stare. “What have you got in that bag?” he asked.

“Chocolates. I’ve been saving them for a wonderful occasion like this.”

Kutler cracked. “Be heroes,” he muttered, and dashed back to his office and closed and bolted the door. He yanked viciously at a desk drawer, unable to open it quickly enough, and smashed the top of the schnapps bottle, guzzling until a hot wave of alcohol flooded his blood and crashed into his brain, dulling his thoughts. “Heroes ... martyrs ...”

The courtyard bulged with ten thousand ragged, emaciated children with a sprinkling of nurses who kept up a play of gaiety. Some of the older children who knew where they were going kept it to themselves.

“Jew babies, start moving up the ramps!”

“Well, children, now begins our wonderful picnic in the country.”

“Aunt Susan, when will we come back?”

“Oh, probably later tonight.”

“Keep moving down to the end of the platform to the first car!”

The engine warmed up with a few puffs of steam.

The line of tykes straggled up the ramps. Curses and kicks moved them quicker.

Kutler, in a thick drunk, staggered out to the courtyard and watched the march. He snarled semi-intelligible sounds, screaming to hurry it up. He sighted a dozen small children leaning against a far wall, doubled up from exhaustion and hunger, too weak to drag themselves to their feet. Kutler wove toward them. “Up, you Jew babies!” he shrieked.

Two of the three nurses converged on them, helping them to their feet.

A rachitic girl of three clad in filthy rags toppled to the cobblestones, dropping a torn baby doll which had neither arms nor legs. Her little hand reached for it.

Kutler’s shiny black boot stomped on the doll.

The ragamuffin stared curiously at the tall black-uniformed man hovering over her. “My baby,” she whined weakly, “I want my baby.” Her hand tugged, trying to pry it from under the Nazi’s boot. His Mauser pistol came out of the holster. A pistol shot echoed.

“Let me through! Let me through!” cried Alexander.

A half dozen bulky Jewish militiamen restrained the desperate Brandel before he could get into the selection center. He was dragged screaming and fighting across Stawki Street to the warehouse where Warsinski had the Umschlagplatz detail office.

“I demand to be allowed in the Umschlagplatz!”

Warsinski let Alexander babble, plead, coax, argue. Then he spoke. “Your immunity is running short, Brandel. Take him back to the ghetto.”

Clickety-clack, clickety-clack the train rolled over the countryside.

“Now, children,” Susan Geller said, “I have another surprise. Chocolates!”

“Chocolates!”

She passed the bag of poisoned candy about the car.

“Doesn’t that taste wonderful?”

The train rolled on.

“Let’s all sing together.”

“Onward, onward,

On to Palestine.

Onward, onward

Join the happy throng ...”

“I’m sleepy, Aunt Susan.”

“Well, why don’t you lie down and rest?”

“I’m sleepy too, Tante Susan.”

“Well, all of you take a nap. It must be the excitement and the fresh air.”

One by one they closed their eyes. Susan Geller snuggled between a pair of her babies and held them close to her and slowly swallowed the last square of chocolate.

Shluf mine faygele,

Mach tzu dine aygele

Eye lu lu lu,

Shluf geshmak mine kind,

Shluf un zai-gezund,

Eye lu lu lu.

Sleep my little bird.

Shut your little eyes,

Eye lu lu lu,

Sleep tight my child,

Sleep and be safe,

Eye lu lu lu.

Chapter Twelve

STURMBANNFÜHRER SEIGHOLD STUTZE WAS adept at aping his God, Adolf Hitler, down to the slightest gestures. Thumbs in belt, he limped up and down the courtyard holding the massed assemblage of Jewish Militia. He stopped before a microphone and glared at his captive audience with seductive authority. The board of the Jewish Civil Authority was lined up on his right and a company of his Reinhard Corps on his left.

Throwing a hand above his head, he shrieked in a high pitch which echoed off the stones of the yard. “Fat Jews! You are fat because we have rewarded you too much. Despite our loyalty to you, you continue to permit publication of lies about us! You allow these Communist agitators to exist under your noses! They will be found and destroyed! Because of these lies we have not received a single volunteer for four days for orderly deportation for honest labor in the east!” Stutze whirled around to Warsinski. “Read the new orders!”

Warsinski opened a document. “ ‘From this day forward every member of the Jewish Militia has a personal daily duty to bring three people to the Umschlagplatz for deportation for honest labor. In the event a militiaman fails to meet his quota, he and his family will be deported immediately.’ ”

The respite in the Big Action, the show of “common justice” by executing the Big Seven, and the reopening of the schools, all became part of a master scheme to lure the people into relaxing their vigil long enough for the Germans to reorganize for the next onslaught.

A terrorized Jewish Militia under Warsinski’s obedient haranguing had long ago sold their souls; now they sank to a new depth of decadence. It became a common sight to see them dragging their own relatives to the Umschlagplatz for deportation when they were unable to fill their quotas.

Ghetto Kennkarten stamped for labor were long believed to be a magic key to life. In a stroke of the pen they were all declared invalid. All but a handful of people in the ghetto had lost their immunity to deportation.