“They took us into the woods,” he said, clutching the blanket around him. “A burial pit was already dug and we were ordered to line up in front of it and remove our clothing. But before we were even finished, they began to shoot. When the person beside me was shot and fell into the pit, I stumbled and fell in after him. I lay very still as the Volksdeutche covered us with shovelfuls of dirt. After they left, I climbed out and ran. All I had on was my underwear. The rest of our clothing was gone. This blanket — I found it in a farmer’s barn.”
“We’ve still got some men’s clothing here from Auntie Iryna’s,” I said. “I’ll get it for you.”
When I came back with what clothing I could find, Maria was sitting on the floor beside him, her arms wrapped around his shoulders. Mama handed him a cup of tea. “What are you going to do now?” asked Mama.
“If they find me here, they’ll shoot me. And they may shoot you,” said Nathan, shivering as he took a sip from the steaming cup. “So I can’t stay here. But I’m not going back to the ghetto now that I’m out. Not even with Tate still there.”
Nothing more was said about it that evening. Nathan knew that every minute he stayed increased the risk for all of us. Mama and I went about our usual chores, as much as we could, but I noticed that Maria spent every spare minute with Nathan.
They’d sit in a corner together, holding hands. Sometimes I’d notice them sharing animated whispers, but I didn’t hear what they were talking about.
The next morning when Mama and I returned from getting water, Maria and Nathan were both gone. A note was on the table:
We’re escaping together. Pray for our safety.
Bohdan? At first I was confused, but then I realized that Nathan must have had the passport that identified him as Bohdan Sawchuk hidden in his underwear. But where could they escape to? Would they hide on a freight train? Or maybe go into the forest with the insurgents. Maria knew the code to get through.
Mama was beside herself. “How could Maria run off like this?” she cried. “Please, God, let her be safe.”
Maria had turned eleven only a few months ago, and Nathan was just twelve. But I realized that what we had seen, what we’d had to do… The war had made us grow up quickly.
“She’s a smart girl, Mama.”
“I want her home,” said Mama. “She’s too young to be out there.”
For the next while, every minute of every day felt sad and empty without my sister, but I tried to comfort Mama. “You know how careful Maria is,” I said.
That didn’t comfort Mama at all, and deep down it didn’t comfort me either. I’d wake up weeping in the middle of the night after dreaming Maria and Nathan had been shot and left in a ditch.
Maria had dressed in our old skirt and top on the day she left; I wondered if that was on purpose. Every time I put on the better clothes — the soft dark skirt and oxford shirt that had come from Auntie Stefa — I was reminded of Maria, on the run in her threadbare skirt.
I had always thought that Maria and I were opposites, and I always considered her timid, but escaping with Nathan was the opposite of timid.
I prayed that they wouldn’t be caught and killed. That idea made me cold with fear. Every night before bed, I prayed for their safety, then cried myself to sleep.
We brought Krasa back home with us in mid-April. Her calf had beautiful black and white spots all over her back, just like her mother, and since she had been born in the spring, we named her Kvitka, flower blossom. Lysa’s calf was nearly all white, but she did have a black star shape on her forehead, so we named her Zeerka, or star. I would have loved to bring Kvitka back with us, but it just wasn’t possible.
The Commandant eased up on the food confiscations now that milk was more available. A portion of our milk was still taken, but we were allowed to sell some of it, and Herr Zimmer became one of our customers. We had enough leftover to make cheese.
With the warmer weather, our chickens began laying eggs again, and I could pick wild greens when I took Krasa to pasture. We didn’t have a lot of food, but at least now Mama and I were no longer starving. And I continued to sneak food to the ghetto.
It was up to just Mama and me to do all our chores, and each time I carried a bucket of water home, I thought of Maria. What was she doing now? Was she safe? And what about Nathan? Would he be able to pass himself off as a Ukrainian? I understood why Maria had gone with him. She loved him, yes, and she wanted to protect him, but it made me feel guilty. Why hadn’t I done a better job of protecting my little sister?
Mr. Segal was the only one left in his family now, and when it was his turn to meet me at our rendezvous point, he would ask if we’d heard anything about Nathan and Maria. I couldn’t help but notice how much he had aged.
As spring turned to summer, the aches of mourning and loss were dulled by the busy routine of tending our house and garden and cow and chickens. Weeks went by without the Commandant issuing new notices or singling out more Jews.
Once, when we had a large batch of fresh cheese, Mama hid on the freight train to Lviv to sell it to one of the fancy restaurants where she had struck up a friendship with the chef. When she got home, she wrapped her arms around my shoulders and hugged me with all her might. “Thank God you’re safe, Krystia. I heard some awful things while I was there,” she said.
“What sorts of things?”
“The chef was so happy with our cheese that he had me sit in a dark corner of the restaurant and he served me a bowl of soup with a bun. As I was sipping my soup, I overheard some Nazis talking at a nearby table. They were congratulating each other on the success of their latest project to resolve the Jewish Question.”
“What was their project?”
“They’ve completed something they called a death camp just outside the town of Belzec, a hundred kilometres from Lviv,” she said.
“A death camp?”
“From the snippets of conversation that I heard, it sounds as if Jews will be taken to Belzec by train…” She couldn’t seem to finish her sentence.
“What, Mama?”
“…and gassed to death upon arrival.”
“Gassed to death?” Mama’s words shocked me to the core. “What does that even mean? And whatever it does, those men were celebrating this?”
I collapsed in Mama’s arms and we wept.
I urgently needed to tell our Jewish friends about this new plan, but the Commandant had recently ordered even more police to patrol the ghetto, so I had to time my rendezvous perfectly.
When I next managed to get to the barbed wire, it was Doctor Mina who met me. I pulled four small hacksaws out of my pocket and passed them through the barbed wire.
“Why are you giving these to me?” she asked. “They won’t help any of us escape from wagons.”
“The Nazis are changing what they’re doing,” I told her. “It’s going to get worse.”
“Worse than it already is?” asked Doctor Mina. “The Nazis seem intent on killing all of the Jews.”
“They’ve built a death camp… killing with… gas…” The words came out in a sob.
Doctor Mina leaned her forehead against the barbed wire and closed her eyes. “What else have you heard?”
“It’s near Belzec, two hundred kilometres from here. They’ll be taking Jews there by train. This ghetto could be next.”
Doctor Mina’s eyes stayed closed, but in the moonlight I could see a tear trickle down her cheek. “The evil of these people never ends.”