CHAPTER FIVE
LUBLIN, POLAND
SEPTEMBER 8, 1939
ONE WEEK AFTER THE NAZI INVASION
By the sixth day of September, two Wehrmacht army divisions had joined forces at Lodz and cut Poland in two. Two days later, panzer divisions had compressed the Polish army into five isolated areas around Pomerania, Poznan, Lodz, Krakow and Carpathia. On the seventh day of September, German planes strafed and decimated Warsaw. On the eighth day of September, the war came to Lublin. The city was unprepared.
“Eli, don’t go to work today,” Esther said, getting out of bed. “Stay home. I’m afraid for us. I’m afraid for Izaak. Warsaw radio has gone off the air. The Germans are marching through Poland, and I think it won’t be long before they reach Lublin. Last week Britain and France declared war on Germany. That didn’t stop Hitler or even slow him down. What if the bombs start falling here? Eli, we should listen to the rabbi and leave Lublin. Leave Poland. Now. Today.”
“The rabbi didn’t advise everyone to leave. He only mentioned it as an option. He is staying here along with all the leaders of our community. That includes me, Essie. I’m a councilman, and I don’t think I should run away from my people. I have to stay and protect our town.”
“The Polish army can’t protect our town. How can the rabbi and a few Jews?”
“I didn’t mean we would pick up rifles. But we have forty thousand Jews in our community. Our council needs to speak for our people and assure them during times of trouble.”
“The Nazis wage a hate campaign against our people. You have heard the tales about what they did to us in Vienna. How they torture and abuse us in Germany. The rabbi’s right. We can expect no less in Poland. I think we should leave.”
“And go where, Essie? Where do you want to go? East? Do you trust the Soviets? They’re no friends of the Jews. Things will be just as bad in Ukraine as they will be here.”
“Then maybe we should move into the Polish countryside. Get a cottage on a farm or in a wooded area where the enemy won’t bother with us. Some small village that’s too little to occupy. Think about it, Eli.”
Eli sighed. “All right, I will. We’ll talk about it when I come home tonight. Right now, I have to go to the brickyard. We still have a business to run and we’re working on a huge project. I’ll try to come home early. I promise.”
* * *
The sounds came first. Frightening sounds that caused Eli’s bones to resonate like a tuning fork. Whirring and buzzing and thundering sounds off to the west that shook the ground as though they were earthquake tremors. Eli stood with a sledgehammer in his hand and looked across the yard. Dark clouds were rising on the western horizon, unmistakable bursts of bomb smoke, at first far away but drawing ever closer. Buzz bombers circled in the western sky like swarms of dragonflies. He dropped his tool, dashed into the office and yelled, “Everyone go home. Go to your families. Lublin is under attack!”
By afternoon, German Stukas, single-engine dive-bombers with a hideous whining growl, dove out of the sky above Lublin’s main street, Krakowskie Przedmieście. The city’s main Catholic cathedral and several apartment buildings were destroyed or badly damaged. Like giant wasps, the Stukas dove and soared, dove and soared, stinging their victims and returning for more.
Eli reached his home, burst through the door, and screamed for Esther. If she heard him, and if she answered, Eli couldn’t tell, as the deafening noise caused his ears to ring. He finally found Esther and Izaak huddled in the cellar next to the coal furnace.
“Essie, you were right all along. I should have listened. We should have fled the city.”
“We cannot focus on what we should have done,” she said, “but on what we must do now.”
There was panic in Eli’s voice. “I don’t have answers, Essie. I don’t know what to do now.” He wrapped his arms around his wife and son and pulled them close. “Whatever comes, we’ll face it together. That’s the only answer I have.”
“When the bombing stops, I’m going to try to get to the hospital,” she said.
“How will we know when the bombing stops?” Izaak said.
“The earth will stop shaking.”
* * *
Ten days later, Nazi tanks and trucks rolled into badly damaged Lublin, followed by hundreds of goose-stepping soldiers. Five hundred Jews who lived on Lublin’s main street, Krakowskie Przedmieście, were given ten minutes to grab whatever belongings they could carry and move into the poorest quarter of Jewish Lublin. Krakowskie Przedmieście was renamed Reichsstrasse, and it quickly became the Nazis’ main thoroughfare. The famed Litewski Square was renamed Adolph Hitler Platz.
CHAPTER SIX
LUBLIN, POLAND
SEPTEMBER 25, 1939
ONE WEEK AFTER THE NAZI OCCUPATION OF LUBLIN
“Please take Izaak with you again today,” Esther said. “We don’t know when or if the schools will reopen. The synagogues are still shuttered. We are treating hundreds of people at the clinic. More come in every day. Some of the Polish soldiers who fought in the Lublin suburbs escaped capture but suffered wounds. I treated four of them yesterday. They tell a horrible story. They were overwhelmed.”
“I’ll take Izzie,” Eli said. “He doesn’t mind. He’ll sit in the office and draw or read his books. We’re very busy now, overloaded with contracts for repairs. Some of the Catholic churches suffered structural damage in the bombing, and they are hiring us to do the work.”
Esther put on her coat. “Stay away from the Nazis. Yesterday, I saw them grabbing men at random, pulling them into the street, and ordering them to clean up bomb rubble. Some were elderly and disabled, but it made no difference. They were forced to pick up heavy pieces of concrete and bricks with their bare hands while the German soldiers stood by watching and laughing. Anyone who hesitated was beaten. Eli, they are treating us so cruelly.”
“My father told me that there’s been general looting of Jewish stores. German soldiers walked into Birnbaum’s jewelry store and cleaned him out. I heard that Clare Hersch objected when they tore through her millinery shop, and they swatted her down with a rifle stock.”
“She came to the clinic yesterday,” Esther said. “I treated her bruises. I think that the council should know that the stores are being looted and should file a protest to whatever German is in charge. I also think you should tell the council that there are many displaced families that cannot find apartments in the Jewish quarter. They’re forced to find shelter in archways and beneath overhangs. The council should compile a list of available apartments. Tell them that when you go to the Chachmei tonight.”
Eli smiled. “You should join the council.”
* * *
The brickyard was busy when Eli and Izaak arrived. Because of the heavy demand, Jakob had hired extra help. “They bomb our city, destroy half the buildings in town and we are left to repair them,” Jakob said. “I’ve had to put on six extra men. At any other time, we’d be happy to have the business, but to tell the truth, many of our customers can’t pay very much. It’s a hell of a time to go into the charity business, Eli, but I don’t know what else we can do.”