In the latter part of the summer of 1942, the Sonder Kommando surrounded all the hospitals, orphanages, old age homes and the few remaining dzialkis (cottages with gardens), and the inmates were captured and dragged away by force in large vans. Very few of the patients, orphans, dzialki dwellers and inmates in the homes for the elderly managed to come out alive to join the rest of the ghetto population. Most of them were brought to the train station outside the ghetto, and according to some rumors, they were taken away in sealed trains that were filled with gas.
My cousin Pinkus was one of the very few patients who managed to escape from the hospital on Lagiewnicka Street, where he was recovering from an illness. I was later told by his family that a nurse who was particularly fond of Pinkus, lowered him from the second floor window in the back of the hospital, on a rope she made of sheets. As suddenly arranged, his sister Hela was waiting for him with a blanket on Mickiewicza Street to cover him up and take home. Another few patients, whose relatives had the right connections, managed — for large sums of money — to be escorted out of the hospital dressed as hospital attendants or doctors. Evidently, some Sonder Kommando were in on the deal, because the patients managed to get past their watchful eyes to escape. These were, however, exceptional cases. Even the few ghetto inhabitants who could afford to pay the very large sums of money to bribe the authorities, did not know whom to contact to arrange such escapes.
Soon, the news spread that when the hospitals discovered a patient missing from his bed, it was their responsibility to notify the ghetto authorities immediately — and a police hunt for the missing person would begin. The initial search began in the patient’s home. If the missing person could not be found, a substitute family member, or anyone shielding that person would be arrested as a replacement. It was, therefore, very dangerous for Pinkus, his parents or sisters to remain in their home. So the five members of the Cwern family — my Aunt Surtche, her husband Avrom and their three children (Pinkus, 19 years old, Hela, 18, and Elke, 16), came to share our one-room living quarters with us. Pinkus and his father slept in one of the two adjoining beds, Aunt Surtshe and my mother in the other bed, while my two female cousins slept in a corner on the floor. I would sleep either with my mother and aunt in the bed or on the floor alongside my cousins.
Pinkus was very sick. He was coughing and spitting phlegm, never left the bed and needed constant attention. For the rest of us, it was almost business as usual — going to our resorts early in the morning, returning toward the evening tired and hungry, cooking our meager meals for hours and then guzzling it up within minutes. The biggest problem in having these relatives in our household was the necessity to be on constant guard. The house watchman of the building, who lived with his wife in a tiny room across the hallway from us, had the reputation of being a dutiful informer of non-residents in the building. So, every time one of our “guests” had to leave the building (especially in the early morning), I had to go outside, look around carefully and if I found the surroundings safe — I would signal for them to quickly tiptoe out of the room and out of the building. Although we knew that by shielding a runaway from the hospital we were endangering our own lives, we believed that it was our humane duty to help our relatives and we never questioned the correctness of our decision to help them.
In the afternoon of the fourth of September, posters advising ghetto residents to gather to hear the latest development concerning the deportation appeared on bulletin boards. When the people anxiously assembled that same day, they were shocked by the speeches of the leading ghetto authorities. They spoke about the German decree that required all children under ten, the elderly of sixty-five and over and the sick to be delivered to the German authorities. The last and the most despised speech, was the one delivered by the Prezes Chaim Rumkowski about the “decision by the council” to cooperate with the German authorities `’in order to save the ghetto”:
“Yesterday, they asked me to fulfill the horrible task of delivering a new contingent of over twenty thousand individuals for deportation. They are asking us to give up our most precious possession — the children and the elderly. I gave the best years of my life to children, but when a person has gangrene in a leg or arm, it is necessary to amputate that limb in order to save the rest of the body. Now, in my old age, I am forced to perform this difficult and bloody task… I am coming to you like a bandit to take from you what you treasure most… With a broken heart, I am stretching to you my trembling hands and am begging you: Fathers and mothers, please hand over your children voluntarily!…
Give me the sick… Give into my hands the victims so that the rest, a population of 100,000 Jews can be preserved… If you don’t do it voluntarily, it will be worse — the Germans will come in and capture people indiscriminately and there will be a blood bath. I am trying to save the ghetto!…
I gave the appropriate instructions to the doctors… I cannot proceed in any other way. The part that can be saved is much larger than the part that must be sacrificed…”
A panic broke out among the listeners. Parents, grandparents and relatives were screaming and weeping. They were not willing to give up their most beloved treasures. Neither the speeches nor the posters and notices by ghetto-mail — to deliver the “unproductive elements” to the given Umschlagplatz — were very successful.
Then came the second phase — the capture of the “criminals” and “delinquents” in hiding. It was a common sight to look out of the window and see a Jewish policeman with a crying infant in his arms moving with long steps through the ghetto streets, with the child’s mother running behind them — with outstretched hands toward the skies, toward the child or toward the policemen. At first she would be calling, deploring and shrieking, then pleading with the policeman, and finally cursing him: “Murderer, give me back my child!”
I heard my mother whispering: “Bernard, how lucky you are to have died early enough to avoid the tragedy of burying our two sons, and unlike me you have escaped witnessing scenes like the one in front of our window”. I noticed the bewildered stare in her eyes. Soon thereafter I heard her weeping and saw tears rolling down her face. Since my mother had lost four extremely significant people in her life several months earlier — her mother, both of my brothers and her most beloved sister — she often wept at night and spoke to my deceased father. But this was different. It was tragic, scary and heartbreaking to observe the pandemonium outside; and it was even more devastating to watch my mother’s reaction.
To encourage the Jewish police, firemen and porters to conduct the operation conscientiously, 1,500 of their lucky family members were isolated in several factories and in a hospital in Marysin, and promises had been made to them that their families would be spared deportation. In addition to their wives, children and parents being exempted from deportation, they received bonuses of 3 lbs. of bread, sugar, sausage and other foods daily.
One afternoon, my Aunt Khaye stopped in front of our window, with her hands pulling her unkempt hair that was partially covered with a scarf, and wailed: “Rukhtshe, they dragged away our crown, our treasure! Our sweet Khanetshka is gone! We tried everything to have her released from the roundup place — all in vain! Now it is too late! They have sent her away already! They deported our KhanetsUka! Oh, my God, why, why, why?…”
My cousin’s little girl was a truly delightful child and all her grandparents’ wealth couldn’t save this beautiful, clever six-year-old.
to be continued…
©2001 Fela Infeld Glaser and Marty Capsuto
©2009 First Look Marketing All Rights Reserved
Child In Captivity 