Mila 18 - Leon Uris

Each day new “kettles” and “pots” were executed. Streets or blocks of houses were hermetically sealed off and methodically raked from cellar to attic for occupants.

The constant fountain of trickery spouted. The lure of food was used to gain new spies. Children were tortured before the eyes of their mothers to reveal the locations of secret bunkers.

An immunity to tragedy became normal. Yet the roundup of the orphans accomplished what the master planners knew it would. It seemed to crush whatever morale and will to exist remained.

Alexander Brandel, long the symbol of love and dignity, long the symbol of food and medicine, turned into a morose, depressed man overnight. Speechless day followed speechless day. He no longer functioned as the dynamic force for survival.

Rabbi Solomon sat in the dank cellar next to the sewer pipe under Mila 19 and wailed ancient Hebrew prayers day and night to the sound of rushing sewerage.

Deborah Bronski was the sole nurse remaining from the Niska Street orphanage to take care of the two dozen boys and girls Stephan had led over the roofs to Mila 19. Yet another room was dug out alongside the pipe and fitted with bunks and a classroom.

Deborah flicked on the light in her bedroom. She opened the dresser drawers one by one and filled a suitcase. An item or two came from the jewelry box. A few things of a personal nature. Everything else was to be left. She checked the children’s room for the mementos they wanted, then walked down the long hall.

There was a light from Paul’s study. She entered and could see the back of his head as he sat in his swivel chair in front of his desk.

“I am leaving you, Paul. I should have done so long ago. Stephan and Rachael will be with me.”

Paul was motionless.

“Good-by, Paul.”

As she turned to go, she saw that his hand hung limply over the arm of the chair, a crumpled sheet of paper in his fist. On the floor lay a bottle. She recognized it as his sleeping pills. The bottle was empty. It had been filled only a few days earlier. Deborah walked slowly to the front of the desk. Paul was rigid, his eyes closed. She set down the suitcase and felt his hand. It was icy. There was no pulse.

Paul Bronski was dead.

“May God forgive me,” she said, “but I wish I could say that I am sorry.”

She pried the paper loose from his hand. “My dear Deborah,” the note read, “I wish I knew what to say or what I have done to deserve this scorn from you. Boris Presser has an envelope explaining various affairs which I’m sure you’ll find in order ...” And there the scrawling stopped.

The top of the desk was tidy. Paul was meticulous in his habits. Everything would be in order. Even his death. He had closed out a business day by suicide simply because there was no alternative.

Deborah shook her head in a final bewilderment. She looked squarely into his sallow, lifeless face. “Oh, Paul, Paul, Paul. Even this had to be done so properly. Why didn’t you write a message for your son and daughter? Why didn’t you make this act an outcry for justice and protest? Paul, Paul ... Why?”

She picked up her suitcase. Without remorse, without tears, without regret, without pity, she left everything that had been between them, forever.

“We must have help!” an impassioned Andrei cried.

Roman, the Home Army commander in Warsaw, listened with head cocked, eyes lazily half shut. The nobleman placed a cigarette in the long holder delicately and lit it. A frustrated Andrei waved off Roman’s offer of a smoke.

“Jan Kowal,” Roman said softly, “just last week we sent you thirty-two rifles.”

“Of six different calibers with a hundred and six rounds of ammunition. One of the rifles becomes obsolete the moment it fires its three bullets.”

“If there is suddenly a downpour of heavy-caliber automatic weapons from the skies, I’ll be the first to let you know.”

Andrei smashed his fist on the table.

Roman got up and clasped his hands behind him dramatically. “Just what do you want?”

“We haven’t the strength to mount an attack without help from outside. If you had three companies of the Home Army make simultaneous diversified strikes in the suburbs, we can push out of the ghetto.”

Roman sighed with frustration. Despite the rigors of living underground, he had lost none of the fine edge that characterized a French-bred snob. “It is impossible,” he said.

“Can you be that much of a Jew hater to watch us cooked alive?”

Roman leaned against the window sill and bit on the ivory holder with the studied gestures of one who knows he is on stage. His eyebrows raised on his high forehead. “Shall we get coldly realistic? What if I carry through your plan? Where will you go? How many will you break out?”

“As many as you can make provisions for.”

“Ah,” beamed Roman, “that is the rub. Ninety per cent of the peasants would turn in a Jew for a bottle of vodka. Ninety per cent of the city people are quite certain this war is being fought because of international Jewish bankers. Not my personal feelings, mind you, but I am in no position to carry out a program to educate the Polish people.” Roman was deadly accurate again.

“Then at least let the fighting force find its way out with the children.”

“Children? Those convents and monasteries which take Jewish children are filled to the brim. Most won’t. The few others want ten thousand zlotys a head in advance with the right to convert them to Catholicism.”

Andrei closed his eyes.

Roman warmed up to his arguments, sliding his tongue over his teeth as he paced. “I cannot allow partisan units made up of Jews. I do not command an army on discipline. The underground depends upon secrecy and loyalty. You know full well you will be betrayed just as you were betrayed when you gave us the report on extermination camps. It was sold by someone to the Gestapo.

“At least—at least give us guns and money. At least the money you’ve stolen from us.”

Roman frowned and sat at the table, lifting some papers to read to demonstrate he was too busy for further bickering. Andrei snatched them out of his hand and flung them to the floor.

“All right, Jan!” Roman snorted. “Your precious report was smuggled out of Poland by someone or other and has been published in London. Have you heard the heads of state make impassioned cries for justice? Has the world suddenly stormed to its feet in indignation? Jan Kowal, no one really gives a damn.”

Andrei pushed back from the table. “Don’t slop your Polish garbage on the rest of the world, Roman. This is the only corner of the world where extermination camps could exist. The German army doesn’t have enough divisions to guard against the people if they tried it in London or Paris or New York. Only in your goddamned Warsaw! All over this continent men and women are behaving with basic Christian decency. You are a Christian, aren’t you?”

Roman went through arrogant gestures of indulgent disgust.

“You won’t walk away from this free. They’re already starting to gas Poles at Auschwitz only because you let them get away with it with us. March into the chamber with your chin up, Roman, your turn is coming.”

Andrei stormed out.

Roman broke the shortened cigarette from the holder and squashed the tip out. He looked up at a stunned aide. “If those blasted Jews try to contact me again, I am not to be reached, do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Jews are so emotional. Oh well, at least we won’t have a Jewish problem when the war is over.”

Simon Eden smashed his fist into his open palm as Andrei related the meeting with Roman. The attic room fell into gloom. Tolek, Alexander Brandel, Ana, Ervin, Wolf Brandel, Simon Eden. A ghastly morbidity crushed them. It was all over. Everyone thought the same thing at the same moment. It was all over ... done.