The War Girls by V.S. Alexander

Author:V.S. Alexander [Alexander, V.S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2022-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

The rumors and stories of death were maddening.

Stefa dealt with the starving who swarmed the soup kitchen in a continuous line, like ants covering a bit of stale bread, and also listened to the tales that filtered into the ghetto. They reduced her to tears and sapped any energy she had. Like everyone in her family, with the possible exception of Aaron, she had so little to give after an exhausting day.

The tragedies seemed endless. Jews slaughtered in the Ukraine by the Einsatzcommando Aktion, any attempt at self-preservation was dealt with ruthlessly. Professors, dissidents, and intellectuals had been rounded up and executed at Białystok, Poland. Jews were murdered in Belorussia, Lithuania, and Romania, and Hitler had attacked the Soviet Union, killing thousands of innocents. The list of atrocities mounted by the day, seemingly by the hour, as people in the soup kitchen whispered and then stumbled away, frightened by their own mortality. The Warsaw Ghetto Jews had little energy or resources to fight for freedom.

Walking to work in the summer took its own emotional toll. Death was everywhere. She was physically sickened by what she saw on the streets—what everyone saw unless they had the capacity to ignore it. And, some did walk by—a few rich men and women, who still had the trappings of money, although fortunes were disappearing rapidly. They walked together, attired in their suits and leather shoes and best dresses with jewels adorning their lapels and fingers. They passed by, hoping to hold on to what little they had left, hoping that they might exchange diamonds for a way out.

What they ignored were the men dressed in rags, huddled against dirty buildings, praying in Hebrew, spouting words in Yiddish and Polish toward the skies, to a God who disregarded their suffering. The heat had caused the beggars to shed their tattered coats, their hats and gloves, the shoes that were nothing more than the remnants of leather straps. They held out their hands but usually received nothing because there was nothing to give. Stefa got used to ignoring them. She had even stopped inviting the children to the kitchen because the facility was overwhelmed.

A boy tottered on crutches, holding out his hand, asking for a piece of bread. She had none to give. A little girl sat half naked on the sidewalk, the skin on her face reduced to an ashen covering, an empty dirty bowl at her side. The child looked up and down, and from side to side, with no tears in her dry eyes, waiting for someone to help. Another boy played a screechy violin tune as other children listened and hoped for a gift of food that might be shared.

These were the people of the ghetto, the people she had to see, or blot from her mind, when she walked from the apartment on Krochmalna to the soup kitchen on Leszno.

Yet, if one looked elsewhere, celebrations and commemorations to Jewish artists and poets still occurred, the theaters still welcomed guests. Life eked out a meager existence.

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