50
Iwanski was true to his word. Together with several comrades from the Polish Home Army, he smuggled crates of weapons into the ghetto. Through the warren of sewers, where you’d lose your way without a competent guide. A mother there begged him to take her two little girls back to the Polish side, and although it was difficult—you couldn’t stand upright in the stinking sewers and the little children had to be carried to prevent them from drowning in the water, which was very deep in places—Iwanski had taken them with him and hidden them in his flat where his wife was now looking after them.
The captain told us all this, sitting at our kitchen table. When he was finished, Amos asked, “What is it like in the sewers?”
“It’s shit,” the captain answered dryly.
“I can smell it,” Amos laughed.
It was true. There was still a hint of sewage about him, although he’d had a bath in the meantime and was wearing clean clothes.
“Thanks for the compliment,” Iwanski grinned, and got up from the table. As he made his goodbyes he promised, “I will organize more weapons for you.”
We thanked him. I thought about giving him a hug, but then I didn’t dare because it might have seemed inappropriate. Once he had gone, Amos summed up my feelings in one crude sentence:
“Thank goodness there are a few Poles left who’ll go through shit for us.”
“How long do you think we will be able to resist the Germans with Iwanski’s weapons and the ones we’ve already got?”
Amos grew serious again. “A couple of hours maybe, if things go well.”
I should never have asked.
“It’s hopeless, no matter what we do.”
“No, it’s not,” Amos disagreed. “Just think how proud the Jews in the ghetto are now, ever since we killed the soldiers in January. If we wage war against the Germans, generations of Jews will remember us. We are like the Jews who fought at Masada thousands of years ago. It doesn’t matter how long we hold out. A day, a month, or even just a few hours. The main thing is: We will not go like sheep to the slaughter!”
I lacked his spirit. “If there are any future generations of Jews,” I said unhappily.
Amos gently touched my cheek. That felt good. “There will be,” he said.
He sounded so sure. I smiled.
“Mira, has anyone ever told you how beautiful you are when you smile?”
That wasn’t another playful compliment simply meant to cheer me up. Since Amos had confided in me, he was behaving differently. He was more serious than he had been before, and at the same time, he showed more feelings. He’d realized he didn’t have to put on an act anymore when we were alone.
“No, no one’s ever said that,” I answered truthfully. Even Daniel had never mentioned it. He hadn’t paid me compliments. What on earth had he seen in me? We’d never talked about things like that. We’d just been kids really. It had been a childish love that never went further than kissing.
I was a very different person from last summer, grown up in the saddest way.
And in the unlikely event of Daniel’s still being alive, he would be different, too. With a bit of luck, he wouldn’t hate me now, but we wouldn’t love each other anymore.
“If no one’s ever told you,” Amos said earnestly, “then everyone you know must be blind, stupid, or dumb.”
I laughed, and I touched his hand touching my face.
“You’re good for me,” I said without thinking.
“Same here,” he said, and he meant it.
We just looked at each other for a moment. Then we kissed. Not like the first time. In the market. This kiss was loving. Tender. More intense. When it was over, we were both trembling. And didn’t dare kiss again. Instead, we moved away from each other and got ready for bed without saying anything. When we’d gone to bed we just lay there holding hands. Until Amos whispered, “Mira?”
“What is it?”
“I … I’d like to kiss you again.”
It was my turn. I said: “Same here.”
51
We didn’t make love that night, or the next. Somehow it felt like we had a guardian angel. Like there was all the time in the world. Although everything was against us. I had never felt as happy as in those few days when we were the go-betweens with the Poles round Iwanski. My nightmares stopped for a while. And I even went back to the 777 islands again.
The Longear sailed across the sea on a lovely sunny day. The waves rocked the pirate ship gently, and you could hear the sound of music and dancing. We loved to party in this world. To be fair, the sailors’ singing could be so dire that the dolphins would flee at times, but everyone really did enjoy themselves.
Hannah and I danced up and down the deck to the werewolf’s accordion music and she asked, “Where have you been?”
“I … I was back home,” I said, dodging the truth.
“You should not always leave me for so long.”
“No, I shouldn´t.”
“How are things in the ghetto?” Hannah asked. She was all excited. “Have things changed much?”
What was I supposed to say? That Mama was dead? That she herself was dead?
I knew she had the right to know everything, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her. So I said, “It’s complicated. I’ll tell you all about it, but not right now.”
“When?” Hannah asked suspiciously.
“As soon as…” I was searching for a ploy. “As soon as we defeat the Mirror King.”
“That’s not going to take much longer,” Hannah cried. “We wangled the third magic mirror off the Sandman, and we are on course for Mirror Island right now.”
I swallowed. I banished all thoughts of the monster. I tried to stop feeling guilty about being alive. Instead we danced round and round the deck and celebrated the third magic mirror. It was such fun. Life was wonderful. On the islands and in our little flat.
Until we heard that the Germans were transferring more troops to Warsaw.
52
“I’m going back to the ghetto,” Amos said that evening, telling me what I already knew. “When the fighting starts, I want to be with our comrades.”
“But someone has to stay here to liaise with the Polish resistance,” I said.
If we stayed on the Polish side, we could stay alive. At least for a while. I wasn’t afraid of dying, but in the past few days, I had found something worth living for. I didn’t want to lose Amos. I couldn’t stand the thought of losing another person I loved.
“You can stay if you like,” Amos said, and his eyes flashed angrily.
That look shot right through me. And made me feel ashamed. The resistance should mean more to me than our love, but it didn’t, not right now.
“I can’t stay here by myself…,” I started to argue.
“Mordechai will send someone,” Amos interrupted. He was angry with me. And I was angry with him. How could he think of leaving me behind?
“Mordechai can send someone for me, too,” I snapped, “I’m coming with you.”
I would rather die fighting by his side than live a single day in the Polish part of the city without him.
“Okay,” Amos said, and his face relaxed a bit.
“Okay.”
Without saying a word, we cleared the table, did the dishes, turned off the light, and lay down in our “marital” bed, all for the last time.
Amos stared at the ceiling in the dark while I looked out the window at the sky. There was a half-moon. I probably wouldn’t live to see another full one.
Then Amos said, “I’m sorry.”
I turned round to face him. “What for?”
He turned toward me, too. Our faces were almost touching.
“Everything,” he said.
“Everything?”
“And nothing.”
“You could be just a tiny bit more specific…,” I said.
It took him a moment, and then he said, “Mira, I think I love you.”
“You think?”
“It’s the only thing I believed in all my life.” He smiled.
And then we made love.
53
Mordechai seemed perfectly calm when we all met up on the stairs in 29 Miła Street. But he must have been feeling as tense as the rest of us. The Germans would be marching into the ghetto any moment now. The SS had deliberately chosen the beginning of the holy Jewish Passover festival for their final operation.
“The moment we have all been waiting for has arrived,” Mordechai said to us. “We will wear down the enemy, attacking constantly, from doorways, through windows, out of ruins, day and night.”
Amos was standing beside me. His eyes shone. Esther looked wildly determined, too. She had managed to ignore the fact that Amos and I were a couple now. There were far more important things than love. For her. For Amos. And even for me.
“The Germans,” Mordechai went on, “will have to fight continuously for months. If we get all the weapons, ammunition, and explosives we need, the enemy will drown in a river of blood.”
We weren’t going to get the weapons. I’d known this ever since our mission to the Polish side, and Mordechai knew it, too. But what else could he say to rally the troops before the battle? The truth? That we’d all be dead in a couple of hours?
We were a group of no more than fourteen hundred untrained fighters, spread out throughout the ghetto. We would have to face the Germans and their tanks with little more than a gun per person. We had a few hundred hand grenades and Molotov cocktails. There was going to be a river of blood, all right. But it wouldn’t be a river flowing with the blood of German soldiers—it would be our own.
I felt it would have been easier to die if spring hadn’t just arrived. On the 19th of April 1943, the sun shone over the ghetto with an assurance that made our life and death harder to bear.
After Mordechai’s speech, our group took up positions behind the designated windows, balconies, and up on the roof. Several other groups had dug in, in six surrounding houses, so about a hundred fighters had the crossroads at Zamenhof Street covered from all sides. The Germans would pass this point as soon as they invaded the ghetto.
Like most of us, I was armed with a gun and a hand grenade. Only Ben Redhead owned a rifle. One night, a couple of weeks ago, he had ambushed a soldier near the wall and taken his gun. Since then, he guarded it like a treasure.
I took up position beside Amos at a window on the fourth floor. At first, I’d not been sure if I shouldn’t choose a different position. Did I really want to fight and die beside the person I loved? Wouldn’t it be better not to know when the bullets hit him?
Amos didn’t worry about things like that. He was completely focused on his imminent revenge. If I’d tried to say goodbye before the Germans arrived, he wouldn’t have noticed. All I could do was say goodbye to my little sister.
“We’ll be reaching Mirror Island soon,” Hannah said, sounding pleased. She was out on deck. The Longear was sailing through a choppy sea. I hadn’t dreamed about the Mirror King in the past few days, probably because I’d stopped feeling guilty about being alive, seeing as I was going to die today.
“And then,” Hannah chatted away excitedly, showing me the three magic mirrors that were sparkling like diamonds, “we’ll defeat all evil.”
“But not,” Captain Carrot boasted, “without giving it a great kick in the backside first.”
“And in the groin!” the werewolf added.
I smiled. At least one world was going to be free.
“They are coming!” I could hear Esther shouting. “The Germans are coming!”
Her voice reached me in the world of the 777 islands.
I wanted to tell my sister so many things, but there was no time left. I hugged her and whispered, “I love you.”
She protested, “You are squashing me!”
“Because I love you so much!”
She returned the hug.
“Now you are squashing me!”
“Because I love you so much!” Hannah laughed.
Tears welled in my eyes.
“Why are you crying?”
“Because I have to leave.”
And then there was nothing left to say. It took all my willpower, but I let her go and left. Probably forever.
54
I peered through the broken window. I had a perfect view of the street and an excellent shooting position, assuming I actually managed to shoot.
The Germans were able to gas us so easily because they didn’t regard us as human beings. We knew exactly what kind of people they were, though, and that was why the other fighters were burning to kill them. But I could still see the face of the young soldier begging for mercy, and I still didn’t know if I was going to be able to kill anyone.
In the distance, we saw a tank rolling into the ghetto followed by about twenty members of the Jewish police. Behind the traitors, the soldiers had shouldered their arms and were marching in rows of four. It was unbelievable, but they were singing!
Im grünen Walde, da steht ein Försterhaus,
da schauet jeden Morgen,
so frisch und frei von Sorgen,
des Försters Töchterlein heraus …
The swine were belting out a marching song.
They thought they could wipe us out and sing while they were at it …
Lore, Lore, Lore, Lore,
schön sind die Mädchen
von siebzehn, achtzehn Jahr …
The SS men marched with every confidence, without even one of them holding a gun at the ready. They obviously weren’t expecting any resistance. They were so used to leading Jews to the gas chambers without a battle that they weren’t even on the lookout for signs of an ambush.
We all waited for Mordechai’s signal to start shooting. But right now the soldiers weren’t close enough.
Der Förster und die Tochter, die schossen beide gut …
The tank rolled toward our window.
Der Förster schoss das Hirschlein, die Tochter traf das Bürschlein …
Jewish policemen walked past. Miserable creatures.
Tief in das junge Herz hinein …
Now the first soldiers marched past, right under our window. Amos couldn’t wait to start shooting, but Mordechai still didn’t give the order. He waited until enough soldiers were within shooting distance.
Ta-ra-la-la, ta-ra-la-la,
tief in das junge Herz hinein …
At last, our leader gave the signal by throwing a hand grenade out the window right into the bulk of the men.
Lore, Lore …
As it exploded, the soldiers screamed and a barrage of Molotov cocktails, grenades, and bullets rained down on them from the roofs, out the windows, and off the balconies.
The Germans and their Jewish helpers started to panic and broke formation. The German Übermenschen—the supermen—knocked one another over as they sought cover in empty shops and house entrances, or behind mounds of rubbish.
All over the place, soldiers were struck by bullets and collapsed to the ground, while others ran through the streets, burning alive, until they fell down on the cobblestones and didn’t get up again. Their screams were barely audible in all the din of the explosions. No one went to help a fellow soldier. And no one was singing now. No more Lore, Lore …
Amos was standing beside me shooting. It was strange to see him like this. Fulfilled, exhilarated, avenging his friends and himself at last.
The first Germans started to shoot back. Bullets hit the wall behind us.
I crouched down beneath the window.
“Mira, shoot!” Amos hissed at me and threw another hand grenade down into the turmoil raging on the street.
But all I wanted was to scream. I was so scared of dying. And of killing someone else.
“Mira!” Amos shouted.
Black smoke was billowing up from the street.
“The tank, I took out the tank!” Esther whooped.
I stood up and stared down at the street. The tank was in flames, and I watched a soldier crawling out covered in blood. There was just a bloody stump where his right arm had been. He fell off the tank and hit the ground. The rest of the crew didn’t get out. They burned to death inside the vehicle.
A Jewish policeman lay bleeding to death beside the soldier. The two of them shared the same fate. But the Jewish policeman accepted death. He called out, with the last of his strength, “Jewish bullets! Thank you! Thank you!”
He was able to die knowing that we had given him back his dignity in the final moments of his life.
“Mira!” Amos was outraged.
I couldn’t shoot. Until … until I spotted the fat pig from the guardhouse in all the chaos, standing beside the burning tank. I remembered what he nearly did to me, what he had likely done to so many other girls. I pointed my gun at him and my hand shook.
The window next to ours was hit by a volley of bullets. It burst into thousands of pieces, but I didn’t duck away again, because the fat pig from the guardhouse was aiming his gun at someone. He’d shoot one of our comrades throwing Molotov cocktails from the roof. Or Ben Redhead, maybe, who was up there, too. I envisaged Hannah lying in the pool of blood in the pantry. And shot.
The SS man fell to the ground.
It was the first time I’d shot someone deliberately, not in self-defense but in battle. I kept on shooting, shooting, shooting. As if I was intoxicated. And I didn’t feel guilty, at all. Every soldier I killed was one SS man who would never kill children again or sing while he was doing it.
55
After about half an hour, any soldiers who could still run fled out of the ghetto past their dead comrades and the burned-out tank. It didn’t matter if they had been ordered to retreat or had simply fled in panic. What mattered was that German soldiers were running away from the Jews! It was unbelievable! They were running away from us!
And there was something even more amazing; once the chaos abated a little, and we got the reports on losses in from all the groups positioned at the crossroads, we discovered that there weren’t any! All the fighters had survived.
We couldn’t believe our victory, our luck, our survival. We fell into one another’s arms. Hugged, laughed, cried, whooped for joy. A few fighters even started singing and waltzed round and round.
I’d have loved to dance with them but I still didn’t know how.
Mordechai gave me a huge hug. So did comrades I hardly knew because they had joined us while I was in the Polish part of the city with Amos. Even Esther threw her arms around me.
“Did you see the tank burn?” she asked, beaming.
Our triumph was bigger and more important than anything that had gone before.
Ben Redhead looked even happier than everyone else. Still holding his rifle, he came up to me at the shot-up window and shouted, “Eight!”
He had been counting.
“I got eight of them!”
He’d stopped stuttering. He had probably always felt guilty because his father had collaborated with the Germans, and now he felt free. “For Hannah,” he said seriously, and he seemed grown-up all of a sudden.
I wasn’t sure if I should reply, “For Hannah,” even though I had joined the resistance to give her death a purpose. But my sister would be forgotten forever when Ben and I died. And we would be dead very soon—tomorrow or the next day—despite today’s triumph. No, we weren’t doing this for Hannah. Amos was right. We were doing this for future generations. We would live on in their thoughts.
I stroked Ben Redhead’s cheek. Even if he seemed grown-up and had stopped stuttering—maybe for the rest of his life—I would never forget the boy who had been kissed by my sister.
Amos came up to me, laughing. “We’re alive!”
“Yes, we are,” I agreed. It was a miracle.
And we kissed each other as if we hadn’t been fighting for future generations at all, but simply for this one kiss.
56
When it got dark, we went out onto the street and looked at the dead, bullet-riddled, broken bodies of our enemies. The air smelled of smoke and charred flesh. Not just here, but all over the ghetto. Everywhere, fighting units of the resistance had forced the SS to retreat. And you could smell alcohol. The Jews were celebrating. Fighters and civilians alike came up out of the bunkers in the safety of the dark.
Esther climbed onto the burned-out tank. It was her trophy. Mordechai and the others collected the weapons of the dead soldiers.
I was starting to hope that tomorrow wouldn’t be my last day on earth, that we would be able to hold out for one or two days longer or even a week, perhaps. I knew that we could never win the physical battle in the long run, but we had already won morally today.
Amos came to me. “Mira…,” he said, but his voice broke.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, confused.
“Look!” he said quietly, and he was fighting back tears.
He pointed toward the roof of a house at Muranowski Square, and I realized he wasn’t sad; he was deeply moved. Two flags were being hoisted. The red and white Polish flag and the blue and white flag of the resistance.
There were tears in my eyes, too. The flags made me think of the one carried by the children from the orphanage on their way to the cattle trucks.
The tears for the dead children mingled with tears of joy. Germans, Poles, Ukrainians, Latvians—all our enemies and our few friends beyond the wall—could see these flags.
I’d never been prouder than at this moment when those flags fluttered in the gentle breeze and hundreds of Jews started cheering. I had always thought that the story of Masada was about Jews dying in honor.
But it wasn’t. It was about being alive. We had driven the soldiers away. The ghetto belonged to us. Maybe just for this one night. But we were free. And we would be free for the rest of our lives!
57
At first, we were all far too excited to fall asleep at our posts in the various houses. Everyone had stories to tell of their own and other people’s acts of courage and heroism, “Did you see Sarah throwing the hand grenade that hit that officer?” “All the workers in the brush maker’s district have gone into hiding; they are refusing to be resettled. One of the fighters shot the owner of the brush factory in the hand.”
But bit by bit the voices grew quieter and people became more serious.
“How long will we be able to survive?” “What are the Germans going to do next?” “I hope I get shot and don’t die in the flames.”
Amos and I lay side by side. Holding hands. We didn’t say anything, we just looked at each other in the light of the moon. On top of the world because we’d been granted a little bit more time together. No, not granted—we had won this in battle.
Amos smiled at me. “I can die happy now,” he said.
I didn’t know what to say. I felt happy, and free, but I didn’t want to die. I did not want him to die!
I was so energized that I thought I would never get to sleep, but I was overwhelmed in the end. I slept deeply and didn’t dream a thing, which was a blessing for me.
When I woke up toward the end of the night, Amos was still asleep. He looked so peaceful. I’d never seen him like that before. He seemed to have been released from the pain he had been carrying for so long. His friends were avenged.
Mordechai came over and woke Amos up. He opened his eyes, and it didn’t take a second before he was wide awake and jumping up. As I struggled to get up, too, Mordechai called Esther and Ben Redhead over to join us and said, “You four must go over to Nalewki Street and support our people there. We think there will be even heavier fighting than in Miła Street.”
A few moments later, the four of us left the building. The air felt colder than it had yesterday—the day of great triumph—but the sky was still clear and cloudless. The sun was rising over the ghetto, and I tried not to think about whether this was my last sunrise. I just wanted to enjoy the beautiful play of colors. Then Ben Redhead laughed. “They are even more beautiful in daylight,” he said.
He pointed over to the building at Muranowski Square where the two flags were flying.
It was still amazing. At this moment, the ghetto wasn’t a prison anymore; it was home.