He said children had walked to the Umschlagplatz in order to travel with their families. The lucky ones left behind were stealing from empty homes since it couldn’t be stealing if there were no longer any owners. He said that the Ukrainians at the end of the day reminded him of farmers at the end of a harvest.
THE NEXT DAY HE CAME BACK SO UPSET HE WOULDN’T let anyone see him until Madame Stefa talked to him alone. Outside we heard the horns of police vans and whistles and the sound of people running.
He told her he’d gone all the way to the Umschlagplatz to find Esterka and got past the Ukrainians and Germans and Jewish police and found her and had tried to bring her to the hospital. At the gate he asked a blue policeman if he could help his assistant who was vital to his orphanage and the Pole said he knew very well that he couldn’t and while another Pole and a Jewish policeman dragged Esterka away Korczak stood there and let it happen and thanked the Pole for his kind words. This was what it had come to, Korczak said: he’d now been trained to be thankful for even that.
Kids tried to get by me on the stairs and asked what Korczak and Madame Stefa were talking about up there but I said I didn’t know. I couldn’t hear what else they said. Finally I heard him tell her they had responsibilities downstairs and to remember that if Miss Esterka didn’t return she’d assist others in the meantime, just as she had made herself so useful here.
THE NEXT MORNING A RUNNER FROM THE JUDENRAT told him about Czerniaków’s suicide. His secretary had found him dead in his office chair. Czerniaków had written notes to his wife and to the Judenrat. The runner showed the Judenrat note to Korczak, who read it and refolded it and handed it back, and the runner left.
When Madame Stefa heard they stood facing each other, their foreheads touching.
The rest of the morning other staff members gave what orders needed to be given. Korczak and Madame Stefa sat at the kitchen table over a single cold glass of tea. “The easy way out,” she finally said.
“He gave up a visa to Palestine to serve his community,” he answered.
Neither of them left the kitchen when Zygmuś told me there were two boys outside who wanted to see me and when I opened the front door a crack Boris pulled me out and another boy shut the door behind me. I was so scared I couldn’t hear what Boris was saying at first and finally the other boy slapped me and got my attention. He asked if I knew the interior of the Żelazna Street house, the one the Germans had set up, and asked me to describe its rooms and then seemed satisfied when I did. He asked how often I went there and at what times of day and whether the Germans guarded the doors. He said they needed me to let them know from the inside when it was a good time to pay a visit and I asked who they were and he said his group and when I asked who was in his group he told me it was none of my fucking business.
Boris still had me by the shirtfront and I said why should I do anything for them and Boris said because if I didn’t he would kill me and I said then he should just go ahead and kill me. They stared at me for a while until the other boy asked what I wanted and I had to think. Then I told him I wanted Korczak saved. And Madame Stefa too, if that’s what Korczak wanted. Boris snorted. The other boy thought about it and then said yes, he could arrange for this if I gave him what he wanted and that I’d be hearing from him soon. Then they left.
That night Gieńa’s older brother Samuel visited before curfew and she threw herself on him and the kids gathered around and stared. Madame Stefa and Korczak watched with their arms folded. Gieńa’s brother told her he had to talk to Korczak and Madame Stefa and she waited with her friends in the main room while he sat with them in the kitchen. The glass was still where they’d left it, though someone had drunk the tea. I sat in the hall by the doorway.
The brother told them he’d heard the orphanage wouldn’t be touched but that he couldn’t be sure and had promised his mother to watch over his sister and that lately his nightmares had convinced him they should be together, given what was happening. But he hardly knew the couple he lived with and worried that his sister would be terrified to be alone all day while he worked.
He waited but Korczak was silent. Madame Stefa finally said they too believed the orphanage would be safe and that taking children away wasn’t good for the group’s morale, though this was his decision.
So he talked with his sister and she couldn’t decide but eventually left with him the next morning. But the morning after that he brought her back, because of what she’d heard when she’d been locked alone in his room. He brought her back in time for breakfast and sat her at her place. He wiped his eyes and promised he would visit when he could, and she told him he’d been very helpful and should take care of himself. Then she picked up her spoon and turned away. After he left Madame Stefa asked why Korczak was waiting tables and he told her he liked to keep occupied and by picking up soup bowls and spoons and plates he could see who was sitting next to whom. And who was most alone.
THAT NIGHT AFTER EVEN KORCZAK HAD FALLEN asleep there was a low rapping at the back door and when I took the lamp over to it and threw the bolt open Boris shoved me back and he and the other boy stepped in and shut the door behind them.
“How can we help you gentlemen?” Korczak said. He was in his nightshirt and without his glasses.
“Come into the kitchen,” the other boy said, and took the lamp from me and led us there.
They sat at the table and we stood in front of them. “Hello again,” I said to Boris.
“Hello,” Boris said.
“Yes, it’s nice to be back,” the other boy said. Then he told Korczak that representatives of the youth movements had met and established the Jewish Fighting Organization and had decided their first task was to inform everyone that the deportations were to a camp at Treblinka where everyone was to be gassed. They were already distributing flyers but the flyers were being destroyed by the Judenrat, who viewed them as a German provocation intended as a pretext to shoot everyone.
“If everyone’s being gassed then how has this information reached you?” Korczak asked.
One or two who’d escaped from the trains came back to the ghetto every week, the boy told him.
“And these people are reliable?” Korczak asked. “How did they achieve this feat?” I asked if he wanted me to fetch his glasses and he said no.
“In my case I managed to tear the barbed wire from the window and wriggle through,” the boy said. When he saw Korczak’s face he added, “I’m not Hercules. Others ahead of me worked at it and ran out of time.”
They stared at each other. I thought: that’s what I would do. I’d climb over heads if I had to.
“Others kicked out floorboards or sideboards,” the boy said.
“While the train was still moving?” I asked, but the boy gave me such a look that I shut up.
“Are there no guards on the trains?” Korczak asked.
“There are guards,” the boy said. “Some who get away are shot and some aren’t.”
Korczak seemed unsurprised by any of this. “And you’re a member of this fighting organization?” he asked.
The boy said they’d come for two reasons and the first was to help Korczak escape.
The Polish underground was always offering to help him escape, Korczak told him, but he always said no unless they could take everyone.
“They want you because you’re the only one they consider a Pole,” the boy said. “But we want to get you out not just because you’re the famous Dr. Korczak. We want you to help spread the word about what’s going on.”
“Why would anyone listen to me?” Korczak said.