When Mama came home, Uncle Ivan was with her. He was so thin and pale that I knew there was no more food for those in the forest than we had in our house.
“Dear nieces,” he said, enclosing us both in a bear hug. “First, I want to pass on your Auntie Iryna’s greetings. She sends you her love. Second,” he said, “we’ll all be eating soon.”
Confused, I looked from his face to Mama’s.
She smiled sadly. “Let us sit, daughters. You know that Krasa will soon give birth, and once that happens, she’ll come back to us and we’ll have milk.”
“What about her calf?” asked Maria.
“It will stay with Polina until after the war, along with Iryna’s calf and cow, because if we’re caught with two cows, one will be taken away.”
“When is Yasna going back to the country?”
“I just bought her from Polina with the money from Dolik.”
“But she doesn’t have milk,” I said. “So why would you want her?”
“Nieces,” said Uncle Ivan gently, “that’s why I’ve come here today. I will be helping your mother to slaughter Yasna. With Yasna’s meat, we won’t starve.”
I sat there, stunned. I knew, deep down, that Uncle and Mama were right. Yasna was a farm animal, not our pet, and slaughtering her for meat meant that we might survive the winter. But that didn’t mean I felt good about it.
The gruesome job had to be done without the Commandant knowing, and that was easier said than done. But Uncle Ivan managed to get the carcass cut into pieces and wrapped in paper. Then we realized we had far too many packages of meat to easily hide. Uncle Ivan took some to his bunker in the forest, Auntie Polina came and took some to the country, and we filled the shelves in the coldest corner of our root cellar.
Hiding meat in my clothing to take it to the ghetto was a difficult challenge. No matter where I put it, the bulge was obvious. Maria finally tried stitching the package into the bottom of my skirt.
“But this doesn’t hide the meat at all,” I said, looking down at the bulge.
Maria got our second skirt and handed it to me. “Put this over top of the first one.”
I did what she said and the bundle was hidden. I just had to be careful how I walked. Thankfully, I got all the way to the ghetto without incident and threw the package over the barbed wire to Nathan.
“Say hello to Maria from me,” he said. “Tell her I miss talking to her.”
It wasn’t until after we had distributed the meat and hidden the rest that we dared to cook some for ourselves. When we sat down to that first roast beef dinner, my eyes filled with tears. “Dear Yasna,” I whispered under my breath, “thank you for saving our lives and the lives of our friends.”
And much as I thought I would feel awful about it, that first mouthful of beef tasted heavenly.
A few days after that first beef dinner, Marga blocked our way as Maria and I were carrying water home.
“I know about the cow,” she said.
I pretended to not understand. “But Marga, I already apologized to your mother about the cow.”
“Not that one,” she said. “The old one you’ve had in your barn all winter… and now it’s beef. I’m going to tell the Commandant.”
We tried to step away without responding, but she grabbed my arm. “If you’re so hungry,” she said, “why don’t you go to Germany instead of breaking the law? You could be a guest worker of the Germans. They would feed you.”
I pushed her arm away and we hurried home.
“What do you think of her suggestion?” Maria asked. “Maybe if one of us left for Germany it would be easier on Mama.”
“Do you really think the Nazis treat any Slavs or Jews fairly? We’d be slave workers, not guest workers,” I said. “Don’t believe anything Marga tells you.”
When we got home, we told Mama about Marga’s threat.
“She may not be the only one who knows about the beef,” said Mama. “Someone likely smelled it as we were roasting it. We need to hide what’s left in a better place.”
“But there is no better place,” I said.
“Yes, our neighbours are all German now, so they won’t help us,” said Mama. “And we can’t ask the Zhuks, since Petro is with the police.”
“What about Father Andrij and Anya?” I asked.
Mama’s eyebrows rose at the suggestion. “That might work,” she said. “I’ll ask.”
Early the next morning, before first light, we loaded up the cart with meat and waited until the policeman who patrolled our own street had passed, then took the cart across the road to the priest.
“We won’t put it in our root cellar,” said Anya. “If they search, that’s the first place they’d look.”
She and Father Andrij hid the meat in the church’s crypt instead. Hundreds of years ago, that’s where parishioners had been buried. I’d also heard that in ancient times, parishioners would hide in the crypt to avoid being caught by attacking armies. It seemed somehow appropriate to hide food there to help us survive the Nazis.
And we had acted just in time. The next morning, the Commandant himself came to our door, and he brought his police.
The moment Mama opened the door he stepped in and surveyed the room, sniffing the air — probably for the scent of roast beef.
“So you’ve slaughtered your cow,” he said.
“We did not,” said Mama.
“But she is not in your shed,” said the Commandant. “I’ve already checked.”
“She’s in the country,” said Mama. “Where there’s more hay.”
The Commandant motioned to the policemen. “Check the whole house,” he said.
We three stood there as the policemen went through all of our cupboards, and the loft, then went outside to check the root cellar.
They came back a few minutes later. “There’s nothing here.”
The Commandant looked at Mama, then at me and Maria. “I still think you’re lying,” he said. “You’re fined twelve hundred zloty. Pay it before the end of March or I will force you all out of this house.”
He slammed the door behind him.
Mama had no choice. Night after night she had to sneak onto the train to Lviv with packages of meat bound to her body under bulky clothing. She stood at the back entrance to fancy restaurants and sold each piece. It took nearly all of our remaining meat to pay the fine. But Yasna saved us from starvation. I hoped the rich Nazis who ate in those fancy restaurants would choke on Yasna.
Chapter Twenty-One
Aktion
In the first days of spring, the police poured into the ghetto once again. This time they rounded up young people. Leon and Dolik both managed to evade them, but as the Nazis’ wagons trundled away, I saw Nathan inside one.
It seemed that whether you could work or not, whether you were young or old, poor or rich — all Jews were targeted.
There was no question any longer what the Nazis were up to, or what they meant when they talked about an upcoming Aktion: every Jew in the ghetto was slated for death.
I was sick at the thought of all these young people being shot, but Nathan was like family. We had gone to school together. We were neighbours, and he was Maria’s closest friend. As the wagon he was in rolled past us, Mama and I had to hold on to Maria so she wouldn’t run after him.
But two mornings after this Aktion we found Nathan, wrapped in a blanket, curled up asleep on our kitchen floor.
“Nathan,” cried Maria. “Thank God you’re alive.”
He jolted awake, and for a moment he seemed not to know where he was. Maria rushed over and helped him sit up. “How did you escape?”