Prisoner B-3087 Read online

  My father led me down the stairs like we were going to the building’s furnace in the basement, but instead we went out through the back door, into the alley behind our building. Snow fell in big, thick flakes, muffling everything. It was so quiet you could hear the flakes hitting the snow that was already on the ground. Tick. Tick. Tick tick.

  I followed my father through the silent alley. Our footprints left tracks in untrodden snow. I looked behind me, suddenly worried that we were leaving a trail that would be easy to follow. But the falling snow was already covering our tracks. I prayed for more of it, even though more would mean new work details — for my father and other Jewish men — to clear it in the morning.

  We had to cross at Jozefinska Street, which meant we would be out in the open. Down the block, a German soldier in a greatcoat, scarf, and hat cupped his hands to his face to light a cigarette. My father put a hand to my chest, and we flattened ourselves against the wall in the shadow of an apartment building. I watched the German soldier breathe out a long cloud of smoke. The red ember of his cigarette glowed in the darkness. Where was he from? What was his name? Did he have a family? Children, like me? Did he hate Jews the way Hitler did? Had he ever killed a man?

  The Nazi rubbed his hands together, stomped his feet to clear the snow and cold from them, and walked around the corner, out of sight.

  “Now,” my father whispered, and we hurried across the street, our feet crunching so loudly in the quiet night air I thought everyone on the block must hear us. I’d crossed that street a hundred times — a thousand times — but it had never felt so wide, the other side so far away. When we reached the alley across the street we stopped, leaning against a wall again while we caught our breaths and listened to see if anyone had heard us. The only sound was the falling of the snow. Tick. Tick. Tick tick.

  My father led me a short way on, and I began to realize where we were going: Uncle Abraham’s bakery! The Nazis had let him keep it to bake bread for the soldiers. As we pushed on the door to go inside, something caught: A towel was stuffed into the crack along the floor. As soon as we were inside, I understood why.

  Bread. The wonderful, beautiful smell of bread! The aroma alone made my stomach growl. I had learned to live with hunger, but now that my body knew there was fresh baked bread to be had, it could barely contain itself. I shook with anticipation. My father replaced the towel under the door, and we made our way down the dark corridor to the ovens. Uncle Abraham and Aunt Fela had covered every window and door with towels, sheets, blankets, anything that would block out the light — and the smell.

  “Oskar!” Uncle Abraham said to my dad when we found them. He hugged my father, and I ran to where Aunt Fela was pulling racks of bread from the oven.

  “And I see you brought a helper,” Aunt Fela said. “Hello, Yanek.” She smiled at me, but I only had eyes for the bread. Golden brown loaves that glistened and steamed in the cool air. I felt my mouth water.

  Fela laughed. “Take one.”

  “After we work,” my father said, and my heart burst. How could I possibly wait? He turned to my uncle. “What can we do? Are you firing both ovens?” my father asked.

  “Only one for bread,” Uncle Abraham said. He opened the second oven to show it was empty. “In this one, we’re burning wet wood, to help cover the smell of the bread with the smoke. We weren’t able to save enough flour to bake in both ovens all the time anyway. We must make it last. Another month? Another two? Another year?”

  “Spring,” my father said. “The British and the French will be here by then.”

  Uncle Abraham shrugged. “It may be the Russians get here first. The peace can’t last.” Seventeen days after Germany had invaded Poland from the west, the Soviet Union had invaded from the east. Poland was split right down the middle, and the Germans and Russians had promised not to fight each other. For now. “In the meantime, we’ll bake when we can. But if the Nazis find out …”

  “Come, let’s get to it,” my father said. “Yanek and I will feed the fires.”

  We worked into the wee hours of the morning — Father and I feeding wood and coal into the ovens, Uncle Abraham making dough, Aunt Fela pulling those delectable loaves from the racks and putting them in sacks.

  “We must get you back before light,” Uncle Abraham said at last. “Here. Take three sacks apiece. That should be enough to sell on Krakusa Street, plus one sack for yourself.”

  A whole sack of bread, just for us! I almost moaned at the thought of such a feast.

  “Moshe is coming by tomorrow to pick up sacks to sell to the families on Wegierska Street,” Abraham said. “And Dawid and Sala tomorrow night, to sell to Rekawka Street.”

  “How much per loaf?” Father asked.

  Abraham shrugged. “Five zloty, perhaps.”

  Five zloty! A loaf of bread usually cost no more than half a zloty!

  “I hate to be so mercenary, but the price of flour has gone up too.”

  “You can still buy flour?” Father asked.

  “There are boys who have already found holes in the wall, ways to get out. They can buy things on the other side. For a price,” Aunt Fela said.

  “These new Jews, they have more money too. They can afford it,” Abraham said. “Now go, before it’s light.”

  “Enjoy your bread, Yanek,” Aunt Fela said. She kissed my forehead, and Abraham and my father hugged each other good-bye.

  When we left, it was still dark outside, and still snowing. There would be more patrols, and the ghetto would soon be waking. There was no time to waste.

  “Once more then, Yanek, to home. And then we shall have fresh bread for breakfast. How does that sound?”

  “Delicious,” I said.

  Father put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it. “We just have to survive the winter, Yanek, and then everything will be better. You’ll see.”

  I still worried he was wrong, but fresh bread made me forget all my troubles. For a little while, at least.

  1942 came, but the British didn’t. Nor did the French. They were too busy fighting the Germans in the west. The radio talked about the fighting in Denmark and Norway and Belgium and the Netherlands, but since it was a German station, they always said they were winning. Uncle Moshe said we couldn’t trust anything we heard, but he listened to every word anyway, just like the rest of us.

  All I cared about was getting out of our crowded house for some freedom and fresh air, but my parents were still worried I’d be snatched up by the Nazis. The snow was still thick on the ground, with more falling every day, and Jews were put to work shoveling it off the streets. The Nazis also took Jews away to work in Kraków’s factories. Some of the truckloads of Jews never came back, but nobody knew what happened to them. My parents didn’t want to take any chances one way or another, so I had to stay in our building at all times.

  I took my ball into the hallway outside our apartment and practiced kicking it against the wall until mean old Mrs. Immerglick across the hall came out and yelled at me to stop. I was just about to go downstairs to the basement to play when I heard a scream from one of the lower floors. Then footsteps. Lots of footsteps. A door smashing. More screams.

  I ran back inside our flat. “Mama! Mama!” I called to my mother. “Something is happening in the building!”

  Everyone staying in our apartment came together in the sitting room. We listened as the screams and crashes grew closer. I felt sick. I wished my father were there with us, but he had gone out to stand in line for our vegetable rations.

  THUMP THUMP THUMP. Someone pounded on our door, and we all jumped.

  “Open up, on authority of the Judenrat!”

  Everyone looked to my mother. It was our flat, after all. But she just watched the door with big, round eyes. My heart was racing. What should we do? What could we do?

  “Mama?” I said.

  THUMP THUMP THUMP.

  “Open the door or we’ll break it down!” said another voice, this time in German. A Nazi.

 
“Mama,” I said, “if we don’t open up, they’ll shoot us!”

  My mother stared at the door. None of the other parents made a move.

  I had to do something. I hurried to the door and unlocked it, and a German officer and a Judenrat police officer pushed past me down the hall. The Judenrat were the Jews the Nazis put in charge of the ghetto, and they had special police officers who had to take orders from the Nazis.

  “When we tell you to open the door, open the door!” the German officer told the adults. The families huddled together, hugging one another tight. “Do you have jewels? Gold? A radio?” he demanded.

  My mother didn’t answer. She just stared at the Nazi and trembled. He was getting madder, I could tell. The officer took a step toward my mother, and I spoke up.

  “In the kitchen!” I said.

  The German turned to look at me with his cold blue eyes, then nodded to the Jewish policeman, who carried a sack.

  “Your valuables,” the officer said. “Now. Or you will all be taken away.”

  Someone screamed across the hall. Old Mrs. Immerglick and her family were being dragged away by German soldiers. Her son, a man my father’s age, had blood running down his forehead.

  “Give it to them!” I yelled. “Give them anything they want!”

  The other families in our flat scrambled to give the Nazi officer everything they had squirreled away: little bits of jewelry, a pocket watch, a handful of zloty. The member of the Judenrat came out of our kitchen with his sack stuffed with more than just our radio and went into the bedrooms, looking for anything more of value.

  The German officer pulled the necklace from my mother’s neck, and twisted her wedding ring from her finger. She flinched when he did it, but she didn’t say a word.

  “This flat can stay,” the German officer said, pocketing my mother’s jewelry. “But next time, open the door more quickly, or we will send you to the east with the rest.”

  “Yes, sir. We will, sir!” I said.

  The two men left, and we all stood frozen, listening to the shouts and sobs above us and below us. Out on the streets, two big gray military trucks pulled up, and Jews from our apartment building and all the buildings around us were herded into them by German soldiers. They carried nothing with them. No suitcases, no extra clothes, no food, no personal belongings. Wherever they were going, they would have to do without.

  Something clattered in the hall outside. The doors to our flat and the Immerglicks’ apartment were still open. I could see an overturned table and lamp in their flat, but nothing more. Why had the Immerglicks and the families living with them been taken, and we hadn’t? The officer said it was because we gave them our valuables, but the Immerglicks had a radio and jewelry and zloty, just like us. The Germans had taken the Immerglicks for no more reason than that they felt like it.

  A shot rang out in the street, and we all jumped again.

  “Yanek,” Mr. Rosenblum whispered. “The door.”

  I glanced at my mother, but she was a million miles away. Her eyes were focused on the rug at our feet, her face empty of emotion. I don’t know if she had even heard the shot. I tiptoed down the entrance hall and closed the door, flipping the lock with a click. It didn’t make me feel any safer.

  When the trucks in the street were full, they pulled away. We never heard where they went. My father could have been on one of them, for all I knew.

  My mother sat at the table, her mind still elsewhere. At this time of day, she would usually be in the kitchen, preparing whatever rations we had for lunch, but that was no use now. Our cupboards had been cleared out in the raid. We had nothing to eat.

  The other families retreated to their rooms to see what had been taken and what was left. The Rosenblum girls wailed like they were trying to outdo each other in volume, so I slipped out into the hall. The door to the Immerglicks’ flat was still open, and someone was inside. It was Mr. Tatarka, from down the hall. When he heard the click of the door behind me he whirled. One of the Immerglicks’ nice cushioned sitting-room chairs was in his hands. He opened his mouth to say something, got flustered, then hurried out past me. He took the chair with him.

  I walked the hallway on my floor, looking in at the empty rooms. Four flats, sixteen families, all gone. Only two had their doors shut — us and the Tatarkas. Five flats were empty on the floor above us, but only three on the top floor. Maybe the Germans got tired of walking up all those steps.

  I went back to the stairs and realized for the first time that there was another set of stairs going up, even though this was the top floor. I’d never had any friends on the top floor, so I had gone up only once or twice in the past to run an errand. I stared down the stairwell, listening for a new invasion of Germans, but everything was quiet and still. I climbed the extra flight of stairs.

  There was a big steel door at the top. I opened it a crack and looked outside. The roof! This door led out onto the roof! How had I not known this was here? But then, even if I had known, my parents would never have let me come up here. Not in the past, when things like bedtimes and homework and safe places to play had been important. None of that mattered now, and I pushed my way outside and stood on the roof of our building.

  It was flat and covered with gravel. Pipes and conduits stuck up out of the roof here and there. The roof’s edges, a little more than half a meter all the way around, were plastered with black tar. Strangest of all was a small wooden shack built up against the big brick chimney. It had a thin wooden door, and when I went inside, I found heaps of garbage and feathers and bird droppings. A pigeon coop! Mr. Immerglick’s pigeon coop, probably. When I was a little boy, all I knew about the old man who lived across the hall was that he loved pigeons, but I had never imagined he kept a coop on the roof. The pigeons were all gone now, just like Mr. Immerglick; he died a year before the Nazis came. But this shack on the roof … if it was repaired a little, cleaned up, maybe had some electricity running to it from the power lines that came into the building from the roof … My mind was racing.

  I ran back downstairs as fast as I could and burst into my flat.

  “Mama!” I cried.

  I found my mother in the kitchen, hugging my father. He was alive!

  He broke away from her when I came running in, worried.

  “What is it, Yanek?” he asked. “Are they coming back?”

  “No! No. I want to show you something I found. Come quick!”

  My parents followed me up the stairs, walking when I wanted them to run. Finally I pulled them out onto the roof and showed them the pigeon coop.

  “Don’t you see? With a little work, we could live here!”

  “Leave our flat?” Father asked.

  “Just the three of us,” I told them. “It’s so crowded downstairs. Here we can have a space all to ourselves. We can scrub the floor and the walls, clean it up. And I can wire up a light — the light from my projector! And a hot plate, for cooking on. There’s no bathroom, but we could always go back downstairs for that. And in the winter, we’ll have the chimney to keep us warm.”

  “I don’t know, Yanek,” my father said.

  My mother hadn’t come inside the coop. Instead she stood just outside, staring back at the big steel door that opened onto the roof.

  “We can bring up chairs,” I told my father. “And a mattress, and —”

  “Bars,” my mother said. It was the first thing I’d heard her say since the Nazis burst into our flat. “Can you put bars … on the door?” She stared at it, but I could tell her thoughts were still downstairs, reliving the invasion of our home.

  My father came out of the coop and put his arm around my mother’s shoulders.

  “Yes, Mina. We will fix up the coop and live here, and we will put bars on the door. Yanek and I will see to it.”

  We gave our flat to the Rosenblums. The Brotmans were already moving into the Immerglicks’ apartment across the hall. All the empty flats in our building would soon be overflowing with families as more Jews were
marched in through the gates. But for a short time at least, we would all live like normal people again.

  While my father and I worked to clean the coop, my mother sat on the roof and sewed hidden pockets into the linings of our coats. Inside them, she hid all the money and valuables we had left. She never said another word though, all that day.

  Father and I found four heavy steel bars in the basement. By sundown, we lifted the last of them onto the door to the roof. They slid into place so we could take them off to go out, but so that no one from inside the stairs could push through.

  “There,” I told my mother. “No one will be able to break in ever again.”

  The pigeon coop became our home, and no Nazi was the wiser.

  I was old enough that my parents couldn’t keep me inside all the time now. I took my mother’s place in line for our rations, and sometimes my father and I were pulled off the street to work outside the ghetto. But each day we returned to our little sanctuary on the roof and slid the steel bars down tight to protect us. Mother began to talk again, and to smile, but every now and then I would catch her staring at the door to the roof, and I knew what she was thinking.

  The home invasions continued without warning, slowly bleeding everything of value the ghetto still hoarded. And once a week — on the Sabbath — the Nazis would conduct “Resettlements,” when they came and took more people away. Thousands at a time, pushed into trucks and taken to villages “in the east.” Some who were taken escaped and sneaked back to the ghetto, and they told stories of camps where Jews were worked to death. My father told me not to listen to the rumors, but we were still careful to bar the big steel door at the top of the stairs every night, and every time we heard the cries and screams of a new Resettlement we huddled in fear.