“Eyes forward,” Sara said briskly.
“But—”
“Keep your damned eyes forward.”
I was seeing a whole new side to Sara: hard, focused and determined, her strength evident in every aspect of her posture and her expression. I had never before thought about the kind of courage and strength it must have taken her to risk her life every day, sometimes multiple times a day. Regardless, it immediately made sense to me that she would become hardened. To face the inhuman, one must become superhuman. I had wanted to be heroic, just like my brother, just like my father, just like Alina. As my eyes drifted back to that woman’s corpse, I realized how foolish I had been and how utterly, horrifically out of my depth I was.
I was about to confront a level of suffering that could not be aided by any of my efforts, and no matter how successful my attempts were, it would never be enough. To achieve anything at all, I would now have to pass that checkpoint twice a day and look right into the eyes of people who were damned and knew it.
“I don’t think I can do this.”
The words were hoarse and uneven, and my stomach turned over as I said them. Sara grabbed my upper arm and pushed me backward, steering me around several people. She pushed me hard up against the glass door of an apartment, and it rattled with the impact.
“You have a pass,” she hissed, her face close to mine. “You wanted to help. Now you have a moral obligation to follow through.”
“What if I can’t?”
At that, she pulled me away from the front of the building and pushed me to face the street. Sara’s hands gripped my arm so tightly I knew I would bruise, and she shook me. She stood close behind me and whispered in my ear. “All of these people are going to die. Every child you can see right now is going to die. You are one of a handful of people who can do something for at least one of these children. I am telling you right now, Elz·bieta—they are trapped here, but you can leave. I can march you right through the next checkpoint, and you can go home and pretend you were never foolish enough to insist that you could help us.”
That sounded perfect. I stared at a passing child, and my conscience prickled at me. Sara released me, then turned me gently to face her.
“But if I do, I know that you will never live with yourself. Not now that you know.”
I blinked at her, trying to shake off the fog of shock settling over me. Images flicked through my mind of that terrifying encounter with the guard, and I wondered if Sara’s entry to the ghetto was that tense every single time.
“The guard,” I blurted. “Do you know him? Did you know he would search your bag?”
“He is a vile sociopath,” she said, releasing me. “He has taken a special interest in me, and I go to great lengths to avoid encounters with him. We rotate the checkpoints we use to enter and exit and generally I manage to avoid him, but every now and again, like today, I am unfortunate enough to meet him.”
“Do you have anything in your bag that you shouldn’t?”
“There is a hidden compartment in the bottom,” she admitted. “Today, there is a loaf of bread and six vials of the typhus inoculation.”
“I’m glad I didn’t know that when we came in,” I whispered, my stomach churning again. Sara sighed and pulled me close for a hug.
“Are you okay?” she asked me.
“Not really.”
“Well, pull yourself together. We have work to do.” She reached into her bag and withdrew two small fabric bands. It took me a moment to recognize the shape embroidered upon them, but when I did, my eyes widened.
“The Star of David?”
“Yes. When we come into the ghetto, we wear the armband.”
“But we aren’t Jewish.”
“We wear it in solidarity with those who are. It shows that they can trust us.”
She extended the armband toward me. I stared at it anxiously.
“What if the Germans see us wearing these?” I whispered.
“You are scared to wear it, aren’t you? In case someone thinks you belong in here?” Sara asked me. I nodded, and she shrugged and pointed to the street behind us. “Good. It gives you a taste of how they must feel. Now, let’s go.”
11
Emilia
The youth center was on Miła Street, a few blocks from the gate we entered, only a half-dozen blocks from the apartment building Sara and I called home. As we walked through the streets to reach the center, I struggled to keep tears at bay. Little details jumped out at me, things I decided I would need to paint or draw later to excise them from my consciousness. An elderly man holding a cup in one hand, holding his wife’s hand with the other, as they sat in the gutter and begged for food. Two SS officers walking along calmly, blessedly on the other side of the street, but then without provocation, they knocked a man to the ground and kicked him unconscious. The wall of a store, where posters might once have displayed the day’s specials, now displayed hundreds of slips of paper, new ones pasted over old ones. As we moved closer, I felt a shiver down my spine as I realized that each announced a death. The sheer volume resulted in a macabre wallpaper so thick in places it could have chipped off in solid clumps.
“Eyes forward,” Sara kept saying, even as we reached the youth center. She opened the door for me, but my attention kept snagging on the long line of people waiting to reach the window where soup was being distributed. Eventually, she tugged at my arm and pulled me inside. I was startled by the size of the room. The facade of the building suggested this had once been a store, but the interior walls had been removed, opening the space across what would have been adjoining buildings. In the cavernous room that stretched across a city block, people of all ages were sitting around tables or milling in groups.
“This is a youth center?” I said, confused.
“It started as a youth center, but the organizers are no longer focused on one age or service. Every time I visit, they have added new support for the residents of the district, but the original name stuck.”
Sara took my elbow and led me through the room. She greeted some people as we passed but did not stop until we had reached a smaller space at the very back of the building. This room was empty, except for some furniture and some books and a tall man and a small child.
“You made it,” the man said, rising from a chair to approach us, a broad smile on his face.
“Andrzej,” Sara said warmly, and she shook his hand, then motioned toward me. “This is our friend and your new teacher, Elz·bieta.”
“It is a pleasure to meet you,” Andrzej said, and he motioned all around him. “Welcome to our youth center. We’re so glad to have your help.”