Our number varies, but two hundred and twenty persons is the limit. We could not fit another in sideways. Thanks to the ingenious engineering by Moritz the Nasher’s departed gang, circulation through air vents is not too bad. We use the generator for lights, sparingly. Petrol is hard to get and is needed for fire bottles. Candles are used most of the time. But candles burn oxygen.
Mila 18 has six entrances: the sewer through the children’s room, a removable stove in the house above, and four tunnels in different directions running one hundred to three hundred feet away from Mila 18.
Expansion of our army is almost nil. Few left in the ghetto are fit to fight. Secondly, the arms shortage is as bad as ever. Our forces, combined with the three Revisionist groups at Nalewki 37 (Jabotinski, Chayal, and Trumpeldor), gives us a total of six hundred soldiers. Less than one in three has a firearm. The operations of the last week have seriously depleted our ammunition. We average less than ten rounds per weapon.
Our “quartermaster,” Moritz the Nasher, made his first major acquisition yesterday—several hundred pairs of boots. Boots, long time a symbol of German oppression, have become a symbol of our defiance. In Poland only strong men wear boots these days. Simon knew that the boots would be a great morale factor.
The Joint Jewish Forces work in three operations. One third: duty on the rooftops watch and in roving patrols. One third: constructing underground bunkers. One third: in training. The commanders (Eden, Androfski, and Rodel, sometimes Ben Horin) have set up a system of rooftop fighting based on ambush tactics. Each company has alternate bunkers, so that we continually shift our positions. The key is a continued building of a skilled runner system to keep communications intact. Although we have had simulated combat drills for several days, the main question is yet to be answered. Can this rabble army with few weapons maintain discipline under fire? Is there enough individual courage and ability to improvise among these unskilled soldiers to really tell upon the greatest military power the world has ever known?
The task of holding for a week seems impossible, but there is an unmistakable air of optimism. Morale is splendid. A new feeling of dignity among the surviving population is infectious.
We await the enemy. We know that this fight for freedom is entirely without hope. But does the fight for freedom ever really end? Andrei is right. All we have left is our honor and the historic duty to make our battle at this moment.
ALEXANDER BRANDEL
An ingenious phone circuit had been rigged from Mila 18 through the sewers directly to the other command posts at Wolf Brandel’s Franciskanska bunker and to Rodel beneath the Convert’s Church. A half dozen phones, mainly in German factories, were used on occasion for contact beyond the wall, along with the low-wattage radio transmitter.
Tolek Alterman dozed on his cot next to the phone in the commander’s office in Poniatow at Mila 18.
The phone rang. Tolek swung to a sitting position. He had let his hair grow long again since he stopped going to the Aryan side. He brushed it out of his eyes and fished for the receiver.
“Jerusalem,” he said. “Roberto speaking.”
“Hello, Roberto. This is Tolstoy in Beersheba.” Tolek recognized the bull-horn voice of Rodel. “Get me Atlas.”
Andrei, who was standing behind Tolek, walked quickly around the el of the corridor to Chelmno, where Simon fretted over the plans of the matzo ball-land mine being designed by Jules Schlosberg.
“Phone,” he said. “Rodel.”
“Hello, Beersheba. This is Atlas in Jerusalem.”
“Hello, Atlas. Tolstoy, Beersheba. My angels see the Rhine Maidens and their Swans at Stalingrad. One thousand bottles. It looks as if they are coming through the Red Sea.”
“Don’t take any wine unless it’s offered.”
“Shalom.”
“Shalom.”
Simon set the phone down and looked up at Tolek and Andrei.
“I heard,” Andrei said. He went quickly to Belzec and Auschwitz. “All right! Let’s go! Up to the roofs!”
The Fighters snatched their weapons and crowded to the ladder which would take them through the stove into Mila 18.
“Move along, move along,” Andrei prodded.
Alexander Brandel stumbled from his cell, coming out of a deep sleep. “A drill, Andrei?”
“No drill. They’re coming.”
“Runners!” Simon Eden barked.
A dozen swift, daring boys in their teens clustered around the entrance to Poniatow. Simon towered over them. “The Germans are massing before their barracks with their Auxiliaries. We expect them through the Zelazna Gate. One thousand in number. Alert all companies. Hold fire unless fired upon. Move out!”
The ghetto rats scampered through the six exits to alert the scattered bunkers.
Andrei watched the last of his men go up the ladder to the stove upstairs. Stephan, Andrei’s personal runner, followed his uncle as though he were glued to him. Andrei poked his head into Poniatow. Simon was afraid. Andrei slapped Simon’s shoulder hard. “We won’t fire until we can smell their breath,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
“We’ll soon find out,” Simon said. “I wish I could be up there with you.”
Andrei shrugged. “Such are the fortunes of a commander,” he said, and was gone with Stephan close behind him.
Tolek ran up and down the tunnel. “Stop the generator! Combat conditions! Deborah, keep the children quiet. Rabbi, I’ll have to ask you to pray silently. Moritz, card game’s over for now. Button up, everyone—button up!”
Adam Blumenfeld at the radio threw a switch to put the receiver on batteries as the generator ground to a halt and the lights went out.
Beep ... beep ... beep ... beep ... he heard in his earphones. He pulled the headset off and called out in the darkness.
“Are you there, Simon?”
“I’m here.”
“Radio confirmation. The Germans are moving.”
Beep ... beep ... beep ... beep ... warned the mobile transmitter from the Aryan side.
Simon struck a match and found the candle on the desk. He cranked the phone handle.
“Haifa ... hello, Haifa.”
“This is Haifa.”
“This is Atlas in Jerusalem. Let me speak to Chess Master.”
“Chess Master speaking,” Wolf Brandel answered from the Franciskanska bunker.
“The Rhine Maidens and their Swans are at Stalingrad. One thousand bottles. They’re coming through the Red Sea. Don’t drink any wine unless it’s offered.”
“Oh boy!”
Simon hung up. He could see Alex and Tolek on the fringe of the candle glow. Now was the commander’s agony. Waiting in the dark. The acid test was here. It was deathly still. Even the endless prayers of Rabbi Solomon trailed to a silent movement of the lips.
Across vacant courtyards, flitting over rooftops, sloshing through sewage, darting up deserted staircases, the runners from Mila 18 flashed from cover to cover to alert the Fighters. The companies moved in ghostlike silence to their positions behind windows, on the roofs, from sewer cover. Yes, it was all quite like a drill.
The streets had a stillness like the face of the moon. Some feathers fluttered down from the rooftops in sudden gusts of wind. Hidden eyes watched the ethereal stillness.