We couldn’t transport the murder victims to the Jewish cemetery and give them eternal rest in sacred ground. We buried them close to the buildings where they had been murdered. My father dug the graves, and then we manhandled the bodies from the beds and floors where they’d been killed, downstairs, along the cobbles and into a shallow pit.
I helped as best I could. I lifted an arm, or a head or a foot, as my mother and father struggled to maneuver the corpses into their rudimentary tombs. Lodged in the back of my mind is the stench of death in the early summer heat, and the look of agony on the corpses’ faces. But what I clung to, amid all this depravity, was my parents’ humanity as they treated the dead with the dignity they warranted.
For the first time in almost four years of mass murder, my father managed to say Kaddish—the traditional prayer of mourning for the dead — under the noses of the guards with their machine guns at the ready. It was another act of defiance.
“Exalted and hallowed be His great Name”, intoned my father.
“Amen”, responded my mother in a whisper.
“Throughout the world which He has created according to His Will. May He establish His kingship, bring forth His redemption and hasten the coming of His Messiah”.
“Amen”.
“In your lifetime and in your days and in the lifetime of the entire House of Israel, speedily and soon; and say, Amen”.
“Amen. May His great Name be blessed forever and to all eternity, blessed”, whispered my mother.
“May His great Name be blessed forever and to all eternity. Blessed and praised, glorified, exalted and extolled, honored, adored and lauded be the Name of the Holy One, blessed be He”.
“Amen”.
“Beyond all the blessings, hymns, praises and consolations that are uttered in the world; and say, Amen”.
“Amen”.
“May there be abundant peace from heaven, and a good life for us and for all Israel; and say, Amen”.
“Amen”.
“He who makes peace in His heavens, may He make peace for us and for all Israel; and say, Amen”.
“Amen”.
My parents said the prayer as they shoveled earth over the bodies, the guards unaware that an important Jewish tradition was being upheld. I’m sure my mother and father were thinking of their parents and other murdered family members as they incanted those ancient words. Perhaps they had recited Kaddish in the privacy of our crowded rooms, first in the big ghetto, and then in the Block. I’m not sure. But I had never heard the prayer before. And this despite the fact that I am descended, through my mother’s side, from a long line of Hasidic theological scholars; I had no idea what my parents were saying or doing (although I recognized its poignancy), which shows you how difficult it was to practice our faith under occupation. I find it extraordinary that my first conscious experience of a Jewish religious ritual should be in the aftermath of a war crime, in the presence, not of a rabbi, but of Nazi soldiers, who could have killed us without a second thought. Looking back, it amazes me that anyone could praise God at a time like that.
When the burials were over, we moved inside the houses. We washed away bloodstains. We picked up bone fragments. We tidied up kitchens. We swept floors. We disinfected bathrooms. We made beds. We smoothed out pillows. Everything had to be perfect. We had to leave no trace, on pain of death. I never left my parents’ side, helping in whatever way I could.
It took us three months to sanitize the scene of the Nazis’ crime. We finished in the first week of September, three days shy of my fifth birthday.
“We’ve outlived our usefulness”, I overheard my mother whispering to my father. “There’s nothing left for us to do. Now we’re doomed. They are surely going to kill us now”.
Four years after entering Tomaszów Mazowiecki, in September 1939, the Germans had fulfilled the declared intention of Hitler’s National Socialist movement. They had ethnically cleansed the Jews completely. A vibrant, highly cultured community that had been in existence for over two hundred years was now extinct.
The Germans had a phrase for this.
Tomaszów Mazowiecki was now Judenrein. Jew pure. Cleansed of Jews.
Only 200 Jews from Tomaszów Mazowiecki survived the Holocaust. After the war, some returned to their former homes to try to find lost relatives. But the memories of what happened there were so dark that they settled elsewhere.
However, there is still a Jewish presence in the town today. In the overgrown Jewish cemetery, where so many of my relatives lie, and in the gardens of the Block — in those four streets: Wachodnia, Pierkarska, Handlova and Jerozolimska. It’s a place that I despise because of what happened there. But for me, that tiny corner of the world will always be sacred ground.
Chapter Eight. The Yellow Death Camp
The rap on the door — a rifle butt, accompanied by a string of instructions in German — demanded our full attention.
“You’re moving out. You can take one suitcase each. Be at the Appellplatz in five minutes. Hurry up”.
The soldiers had come for us again. We’d been expecting them. But the moment still delivered an electric shock. We all twitched, as if we’d been Tasered. After four years of occupation, we had precious few possessions. Still, my parents hurled clothes and other key belongings into the cases as fast as they could.
We walked out of the door without a backward glance and headed toward the assembly point. The other remaining survivors from Tomaszów Mazowiecki stumbled into the street looking apprehensive. Was this it? Was this the end?
Farther along, I could see a German army flatbed truck with a canvas cover, belching out black exhaust fumes as the engine idled. The tailgate was down. As we walked briskly along the cobbles, I peered up at my father, who exchanged anxious glances with my mother.
I had never been on a truck, but I had seen them from the window. I glanced back at my mother. Her face gave her away. They’d seen this scenario unfold many times since the ghetto was formed, and only rarely had deportees reached the destination mentioned by the Germans. The Nazis were mendacious. Even when they were sending people to their deaths, they always made it appear that the Jews were going to a better place. By offering a thimbleful of hope, the Germans were able to proceed with their industrial slaughter with comparably little fuss. Hope was an accomplice to murder.
My mother climbed into the back of the truck first. My father handed up the suitcases. And then he lifted me into my mother’s arms. There wasn’t a lot of space beneath the canvas. The bench seats were occupied by other ghetto survivors and soldiers equipped for battle. We had to sit on the floor on our suitcases. Other soldiers who were guarding us raised the tailgate. Nobody said anything as the chain bolts locked the back of the truck into place. My parents just looked at each other and tried to avoid catching the eyes of the Germans.
This was the first time that I’d been on the other side of the barbed wire. Curiosity overwhelmed me as we bumped along the road. I now know that we were heading into the sun. We were driving southeast. From my perch on the suitcase, huddled next to my mama, I could barely see over the top of the tailgate, but it was interesting for me to look at the view, as the town of Tomaszów Mazowiecki disappeared behind us. There were peasants harvesting in fields, loading straw onto horse-drawn carts. Back then, I didn’t understand what they were doing or that this was what normal life looked like. Such were the limits of a child’s experience inside the ghetto.