I Am Juden: Undercover in the SS by Stephen Uzzell

Author:Stephen Uzzell [Uzzell, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

The next morning, I decided to return to Izaaka Street as Jozef Siegler and seek out any original neighbours who had known my family. It was six months since Shoshana had taken my mother and sisters to a friendly farm outside Cracow, from where they had hoped to leave for Palestine. She hadn’t revealed the name of the village in her letter, for obvious reasons. I had no way of knowing if they were still holed up in the countryside, if they had managed to escape, or if their plan – like so many other - had failed.

I left Harry Mohnke’s uniform in the wardrobe and dressed in cotton shirt and woollen trousers. For the first time in daylight, I opened the bedroom curtains to assess the lay of the land. At the foot of the building was a maze of vegetable gardens, sheds and workshops. The area was bordered by an empty plot of land on one side and across Tragutta Street by a new-looking wall that extended in both directions at a length of several metres, and didn’t seem to be guarding much except a nest of grim tenements, crooked as tombstones. When I followed the barricade round to the east as far as I could, I saw the curious sight of a large concrete gate in the middle of the wall, through which a rail train emerged, loaded with glum passengers.

I had inherited a room with a prime view of the Jewish Ghetto. Izaaka could wait another hour.

The janitor was changing the light-bulb on a tottering ladder when I got downstairs. I stood gripping the side-rail as he worked.

‘I trust you found the sleep you were looking for, Mr. Mohnke.’

‘It was a little odd lying in my brother’s bed, but tiredness soon got the better of me.’

‘In that respect, I envy you. The older I get, the more tired I become, but now I can’t sleep. God’s nothing if not a joker.’

‘I was looking at the allotments under the bedroom window. Did Erich have a plot?’

‘Not much of a green-fingers, your brother. He couldn’t even keep a spider plant. I ended up adopting it myself.’

‘That sounds like Erich. Do you mind if I take a look?’

‘At his plant?’

‘The allotments,’ I said.

With a final twist, the light-bulb flickered, casting Escherich’s gaunt face a sickly yellow. ‘Follow me.’

Outside it was bitterly cold in the shadowed of the tenement. The gardens were well-tended and generously proportioned, but little grew in winter apart from onions and lettuce. I pretended to study the soil until I heard the janitor close the door behind me, then I began searching for the path that would deliver me onto Tragutta, twisting and turning past shed and green-house until the Ghetto suddenly reared into view across the street.

The wall rose three metres high and was topped elegantly with curved panels which bore a striking resemblance to matzevahs, Jewish tombstones. Most of the buildings behind it were already dilapidated before the war, and chronic overcrowding had only hastened their decline.

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