Simon, Andrei, and Wolf argued lengthily over the placement of the “kasha bowl.” Wolf wants to plant it under the Brushmaker’s main gate. He reasons that the Germans are too arrogant to enter the factory in spread formations and they’d march right in on top of the mine. Both Andrei and Simon, who are military men, doubt if the Germans have such a lack of judgment. But Wolf won out. Under the gate it goes. Wolf is quite stubborn in his own quiet way—like his mother.
We have not been able to find a safe route for Christopher de Monti. We cannot take any chances of his being captured. He is fit to be tied; particularly because he must stay with the “women and children” in the bunker when the Fighters go to the roofs on alerts. Simon assures him it is far more difficult to stay than be upstairs. Simon almost dies with tension during the alerts.
Optimism continues, but my own personal view is that we cannot hold for a week in light of the power the Germans have massed in Praga.
ALEXANDER BRANDEL
Oberführer Alfred Funk glowered majestically before the assemblage of officers of his Death’s-Head Brigade. The swastika and the skull and crossbones were in evidence everywhere. With pointer in hand, he crisply explained the disposition of troops.
“Are there questions?”
Naturally, there were none.
“I read you now a message from Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler.”
Everyone leaned forward in anticipation.
“ ‘This is a page of glory in our history, which has never been written and is never to be written. We have the moral right, we have the duty, to our people to destroy the sub-humans, who want to destroy us. Only through the ruthless execution of our duty will we attain our rightful place as masters of the human race.’ ” Alfred Funk breathed deeply, awed by the words. He folded the document and placed it in his breast pocket. “Sturmbannführer Sieghold Stutze. You will step forward.”
The Austrian limped crisply to the general and cracked his heels together with vigor.
“To your Reinhard Corps has fallen the great honor of leading the Death’s-Head Brigade into the ghetto to initiate its liquidation. Befitting this monumental occasion of the obliteration of the largest European Jewish reservation, I am pleased to notify you that you have been promoted from Sturmbannführer to Obersturmbannführer!”
Stutze was hit with a wave of nausea. Not even for the rank of Obergruppenführer did he wish to enter that ghetto first. For weeks he had been thinking of ways and means to attain a transfer to an extermination camp. He snapped his heels together once more, bowed to Funk, and then drew himself up straighten “I am honored!”
“Heil Hitler!” barked Funk.
The room stormed to its feet “Heil Hitler!” they responded.
Moved by the enormity of the moment, several officers burst into a spontaneous singing of the “Horst Wessel” song.
“Close ranks! Raise the swastika!
Storm troops, march with calm determination!
Soon Hitler’s flags will fly over all!
Soon Germany will take its rightful place.”
“Hello, Jerusalem. This is Tolstoy at Beersheba.”
“Atlas in Jerusalem. What is it, Tolstoy?”
“Water and electricity have been cut off in our sector.”
“We have the same report from Haifa. We are awaiting an Angel from Canaan for a full report. Have your Angels give a blue alert.”
“Shalom and ... good yontof.”
“Happy holidays to you too.”
Simon set down the phone. Strange, he thought that Rodel, a Communist and devout atheist, should wish him a “good holiday” for Passover. Simon faced Andrei, Tolek, Alex, and Chris. “Power and water are off in Rodel’s area too. He wished us a happy Passover. ... Tolek, send out the runners. Spread a blue alert.”
It became abysmally glum. The last-minute decision to bring in another forty children crammed Mila 18 beyond its capacity. Air circulation sufficient for two hundred twenty persons was inadequate for nearly three hundred packed into the catacomb. The rooms had no place for movement. The corridors were crushed with sweaty bodies, stripped to undergarments, sucking at the oxygen scarcely enough to keep the candles lit.
“Passover,” Andrei said sardonically. “The feast of liberation. What a damned joke.”
Simon nodded in agreement. “Oh, where is Moses to lead us through the Red Sea and drown Pharaoh’s army! The only pillars of fire are the ones that will devour us.”
“Well,” Andrei said, “we have to have the seder.”
Chris shook his head. “You Jews astonish me. In the pits of hell, about to be destroyed, and you mumble rituals to freedom.”
“Doesn’t one cry out more desperately for freedom when it is taken from him? What better time can there be than tonight to renew faith?” Alexander Brandel said.
“Come now, Alex,” Chris prodded. “Andrei, you, Simon ... most of those out there are not renewing a faith they’ve ever kept. Rodel, the Communist, wishes you well. What was his synagogue?”
“Yes, Chris, you are right in a way. And it is very strange that we who have not lived like Jews have chosen to die like Jews.”
“There is no reason and there is every reason,” Simon said. “We only know ... we must have the seder.”
Passover. The night of the seder. The retelling of a story from the ancient Hagada as old as recorded history. The liberation from Pharaoh’s bondage.
How Jewish Warsaw would have reverberated with the weeks of unabated excitement before the war! Alex tried to remember the Tlomatskie Synagogue ... crowds jammed to watch the elite fill the marble temple.
In the homes of the poorest, brass and silver candlesticks shone to a glisten and the white tablecloths and shining dishes dazzled the eye and the kitchens smelled of baking and candies prepared with the very soul of the homemaker.
The tables were fixed with special foods symbolizing the suffering of Moses and the tribes. The diced nuts and bitter herbs for the mortar of Pharaoh’s bricks which the Jews laid in bondage.
What the hell kind of bitter vetch could there be for the ghetto in the future, Alex thought! What symbol would there be for sewer water!
Watercress for the coming of spring, and the egg for the symbol of freedom. Well, spring was coming to Warsaw. There was no egg, no watercress. Forty thousand terrified people mumbling ancient prayers, begging to an unhearing God to fill His promises to bring forth ... to deliver ... to redeem ... to take the tribes of Israel. In six hundred bunkers the ritual was repeated in numbed and tear-filled voices while the Polish Blue Police took their positions around the ghetto walls every seven meters.
But ... the story had to be told. Was it ever to be told with greater futility? Alexander wondered. Still ... it had to be told.
A tiny bench stood at the junction of the two corridors of Mila 18. They held a pair of candlesticks Moritz Katz had managed to salvage. Substitutes took the place of the prescribed symbolic foods.
Alexander pushed his way past the jam of humanity into Rabbi Solomon’s cell.
“We are ready to begin the seder,” he said. He helped the old man to his feet. Solomon was no longer able to see except in shadowy outlines, nor was he able to read. But that did not matter. His voice was yet clear and he knew the Hagada by memory. He was led to the bench and seated upon a pillow, for the pillow symbolized the free man who relaxes while he feasts. From rooms Auschwitz, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Treblinka, and Sobibor, the Fighters and the children pressed to the door in bated breath to hear—Zionists plain and fancy, infants, Communists, Bundists, Orthodox, and smugglers.
One could hear gasping in the silence. The air was putrid and the heat oppressive.