Resistance Girl: A True Survival Story of a Brave Jewish Girl During WW2 by Hassia Knaani

Author:Hassia Knaani [Knaani, Hassia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-02-27T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Three

I don’t know how or when I fell asleep. Yehuda woke me at first light. “We have to move,” he whispered, his face close to mine. I stopped breathing, wanting to inch closer to him, but he quickly moved away. He went up to the horse, stroked it, and thrust into its mouth a piece of bread he had kept in the pocket of his coat.

I breathed again.

Checking that the coast was clear, we strode towards the neighbor’s apple orchard. The fruit trees were autumn-colored and stood stark against the white snow. Yehuda went over to a distant corner at the edge of the orchard and began to dig with his hands.

“Keep a lookout,” he told me, using the masculine form, practicing talking to me as to a boy, “and if you see someone coming, tell me at once.”

I nodded.

After a while, he exposed the lid of a barrel, lifted it, and put it aside. He extricated a small sack from an inner pocket of his coat and began to fill it with potatoes. When it was full, he took a smaller bag from another pocket and filled that too with potatoes, tied it securely, and handed it to me. When he was finished, he closed the lid of the barrel and covered the spot with snow.

“How did you know?” I whispered.

“Last night, after you fell asleep, I patrolled the area. I saw the neighbor leave his home and followed him. He came here, dug, and took something out. I assumed he was hiding food like all the others. I left marks so I’d know where to dig for treasure.”

Yehuda took the larger of the sacks, tossing it onto his back. I carried the smaller one in my hand. Despite its weight, I tried not to make a sound.

We trudged toward a stand of trees bordering the orchard. “We’ll leave the potatoes here, under a large bush, and go check out the nearby yard.”

After covering the sacks with snow, I followed Yehuda, trying to imitate his movements. The door to the house opened, and a woman in a coat with a scarf on her head came out carrying a tubful of washing. She hung several shirts, a large sweater, two pairs of trousers, underwear, and socks. When she was finished, she looked around and hurried into the house. Yehuda signaled for me to follow him. My heart was beating so hard I thought the farmers in the house would hear it. Together, we ran towards the treasure, quickly grabbed the wet clothes, and raced back to the spot where we had hidden the potatoes. The wet clothes were very heavy, but I ran faster than I’d ever run. ‘Thou shalt not steal! Thou shalt not steal!’ throbbed my heart in my chest.

Yehuda dug the sacks out of the snow, spread out two wet shirts, put part of the washing in each, and made two parcels. Tying one sack to his back with a rope, two parcels in his hands, and a sack in mine, we set out, back to the fighters’ camp.

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