“If the war ended tomorrow and you were free, what would you do?”
I’d asked Elz·bieta that same question once. That conversation led to our discussion about justice, and I’d thought about that time and time again over the months since, every time I looked at the fist she’d drawn for me.
“I’d still fight for justice,” I said. “I’d fight until we were all free and equal. There’s no greater cause to live for.”
“I’d rob a bank, find a beautiful girlfriend and buy myself a castle in Scotland,” Chaim said wistfully.
“You two really need to get some sleep,” Andrzej grumbled, as he stood from his position on the floor beside me and moved to the other side of the room to avoid our laughter.
* * *
Predictably, the Germans did not take well to our rebellion, and in the face of continual failure, they began to shift their methods. We were faster in the streets, and we had fortified homes into bunkers, but even bunkers cannot withstand fire, so when the bombing and the bullets failed, it was fire the Germans resorted to.
Now they were burning entire blocks, setting each building on fire, then waiting at the exits to shoot those who tried to flee. Families who were safely hidden in their bunkers were now trapped, suffocating in the heat and the smoke. The air in the ghetto had long been filled with the scent of rotting corpses, but now the black, choking smoke became so pervasive there was no escaping it. My headaches from the incendiary-bottle factory were nothing compared to the headaches from the smoke. Entire city blocks were consumed by fire, and the sounds of explosions and screaming and crying and gunshots echoed day and night.
I thought I had lived through hell on earth, but as we began to lose the battle, I realized I had been wrong: there were still more depths for humanity to sink to, still more suffering to be endured. I had hardened myself to survive in the ghetto through those years, but no human could harden themselves against the things that I had seen in recent weeks. More than once, I saw a family leap to their deaths from a burning building, only to be shot before they even reached the ground. I saw burns and wounds and infections that would have terrified the most experienced doctor. I picked through the burned ruins looking for food or survivors, only to find the innocent who had perished in the flames.
“I can’t stop thinking about the people trapped in the bunkers,” Chaim said one morning. The strain was visible on all our faces, particularly as we began to lose ground, and it became even harder to sleep. Chaim developed a nasty, hacking cough that he just could not shake. “To die as the building above them burns. It is so cruel.”
“I can’t let myself think about it,” I said flatly. “Please, don’t talk about it.”
“I can’t believe we’re still alive,” he murmured, then he glanced at me and said suddenly, “Roman, I hope you escape somehow.”
“Escape?” I repeated, then I laughed bitterly. “From the first day of this rebellion I have been waiting to die. Now, I’m starting to hope for it.”
* * *
We kept fighting, even as ammunition ran low and as we ran out of materials for crafting our crude explosives. We kept fighting even after it became undeniably apparent that we had no hope of battling their fires. With so few bullets left and so few options for defending ourselves, the streets were completely still during the day. My unit hunkered down in the back room of the youth center, taking turns sleeping while one of us kept watch at the front door and another by the alleyway. We knew that when the Germans decided to burn our building down, we would be powerless to resist them, and that would be the end. We kept watch not to save ourselves, but so we could fight to the very end.
At night, we ran through the streets like rats, patrolling whatever block we were sent to, trying to inflict damage upon the Germans with our desperately limited resources. One by one, each member of my unit succumbed, until Andrzej, Chaim and I were the only surviving members. By that stage, we hadn’t had contact from the other units for days.
From the rooftops, we could see that the Germans were circling closer to the few large bunkers that remained, hunting out survivors with dogs and machines that detected sounds underground. They had interrupted our city water supply, and we had entirely run out of food. The once-vibrant streets of the Jewish Quarter were now a hellscape of rubble and death. The end was finally near.
“We have done our ancestors proud,” Andrzej said. “Do you know how long it has been, Roman?” That I kept losing track of days and weeks had been a source of unending amusement to him and Chaim, even throughout the horror.
“Two weeks?”
“It was two weeks the last time I asked you this question,” he chuckled. “Do you want to guess again?”
“I was hoping we’d hold out for three days.”
“And we made it to twenty-seven,” he said, and then his voice cracked as he murmured, “I’m not sure there has ever been a group of men and women as courageous or as resourceful as we have been. We will go down in history as heroes.”
“Will we?” I said, too tired to laugh.
“You doubt this?”
“Do I doubt that we are heroes? Yes. How can we be heroes when we lost the battle?”
“To the very end, Roman, we have stood for our values. We have had courage and conviction. We have stood up for what was right. That is what makes us heroes.”
“Even if that is true, you seem to forget that there is no one left to write the history of what happened here. The Germans will surely win the war, and even if they don’t, none of us are making it out alive. The Poles on the other side of the wall will have no clue about how fiercely we fought or about any of our small triumphs.” I sighed heavily, then shook my head, pushing my overgrown hair out of my eyes. “No, Andrzej. History will not remember us, let alone remember us as heroes.”
“There’s that sunny disposition we all know and love,” Chaim said mildly, and he playfully threw a bottle cap in my direction. I swatted it away.
We didn’t talk about why this felt like a goodbye. We didn’t have to. We had completely run out of ammunition, other than a single grenade Chaim had found in the coat of a dead Z·OB soldier. The three of us were going to try to make our way to Franciszkan´ska Street, where we hoped there was another unit hiding in a bunker, but we had no idea what we’d find even if we made it there, and it was an almost impossible journey. The streets were again rife with German patrols, becoming ever-bolder as our attacks against them faded. Andrzej hoped the patrols would slow once the sun went down, but night came, and German soldiers just kept rolling through.
“I miss the days when we could run along the rooftops,” Chaim said.
“Of course you do. You’re our Pigeon,” Andrzej said, but he sounded exhausted, and the playful tone had faded from his voice. “But smoldering rubble doesn’t have a rooftop, and that’s all that lies ahead of us. We’re going to have to walk on the street.”