The Testimony Read online

  My visitors were mainly school friends and younger cousins, and we played my various games, drew pictures or just chatted. The janitor of our building had a twin son and daughter who were about my age and I often invited them to play with me, but all they wanted to do was to play a tune on the piano with one finger. I was puzzled because I thought everyone had a piano and all the other things I had.

  This cocoon was abruptly shattered a short time after Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. When war broke out I was due to start my fourth year of primary school.

  A few days later—I am not certain of the exact date, but the memory of the day is very sharp—we were having breakfast when an armed German soldier burst in and asked Father whether we were Jews. He then called up several civilian men and, using his rifle as a pointer, indicated which items in our flat were to be removed and loaded onto the truck waiting in the street outside.

  He yelled something at my parents and pointed his rifle at them. He hit my father repeatedly with his rifle butt, demanding his wallet, mother’s jewellery, and our watches.

  Father gave him his wallet and Mother took off and gave him her silver chain with a pendant that held a small portrait of my grandmother inside. Then he took their wedding rings. Stasia pushed me into a corner, stood in front of me, prayed with her rosary and made frequent signs of the cross. The soldier went into every room and opened all the drawers and cupboards. He took a bottle of Stasia’s homemade brandy from the larder and drank from it as he went about. He laughed and said it was ‘sehr gut!’ (very good).

  At one stage he went down to check the truck and sent it away. Another empty one arrived soon afterwards. Some neighbours stood around and watched the loading of the trucks. Several of them displayed Nazi flags from their windows to indicate their German origin. Previously friendly neighbours had suddenly become a threat. Later we wondered if any of them had ‘dobbed us in’.

  On his return the soldier spent time in my room, and I watched as they carried out my piano, the desk, the shelves, the stork and a large bundle of smaller items wrapped in the bedcover. The soldier, a bit tipsy now, sang German army songs loudly and still carried his rifle at the ready. It was well after midday by the time they had finished and left. The four of us hugged in a mix of shock and relief. I think from then on I was in a state of shock for months.

  The place was unrecognisable. Much glass and china lay shattered on the floor; pictures, drapes and most of the furniture had gone. The wardrobes were only partly ransacked and some clothing was left strewn about. Stasia’s room suffered least. Her religious pictures were left alone but they took her fur coat. (This had been my parents’ gift for her birthday and was a valued possession.) She sobbed uncontrollably for many hours.

  In my room, my mattress was on the floor among scattered books, shells and pebbles. My treasured photographs had been tipped out of their pretty box, which the soldiers had taken. I put them in a plain cotton pouch and cherished them as a hidden treasure.

  Such a sudden loss of the material possessions acquired over years of work and saving—inherited family heirlooms as well as gifts and souvenirs—had a lasting effect on us. Objects became devalued and soon went unlamented in the face of the increasing loss of lives.

  For many people this devaluation persisted for a long time after the war. For me, since that day the soldiers took our things away, objects have not regained their previous value and importance. Photographs are the exception; I feel their loss keenly. I would give the proverbial arm and a leg for one photograph of my parents.

  STASIA

  Stanisława Lemanska, affectionately called Stasia, ran our nuclear family of mother, father and daughter. She came to us when I turned four and Mother wanted to go back to work. My parents interviewed her and, although I had a major part in that interview, I cannot recall it. Yet I know every detail of it from an often-repeated after-dinner story.

  When visiting friends asked where we had found such a good housekeeper, Father would invariably say, ‘Halina seduced her.’ I learned all this when I became old enough to stay up after dinner for a while.

  The story went as follows: Stasia was shown around the five-room apartment we occupied on the first floor of a large block of flats. A room near the kitchen would be hers. She was very pleased with this and the salary my parents offered. Back in the lounge room to discuss other matters, she said she was surprised not to see any holy pictures or crucifixes with fonts of holy water. When my father said we were non-religious Jews, she started crying and explained that she had been warned not to work for Jews because they often threw their servants out of the windows.

  My father got up to see her out. Just then I came in holding my teddy bear, saw this crying lady and proceeded to console her. I offered her my teddy bear and said that if she was hurting very badly my mummy could kiss it better. I gave her a hug for good measure. At this stage of the narrative Father always made the comment, ‘Stasia tells us that we are likely to throw her out of the window—not ground but first floor, mind you—and my daughter offers her my wife’s kisses!’

  Instead of kisses Mother offered a suggestion: would Miss Lemanska consider staying with us for a few days as a trial? Stasia put me on her lap, looked at Mother’s smiling face, wiped her tears and stayed. For good.

  She was in her early forties, single, of medium height with brown hair and hazel eyes. She moved purposefully and had a quiet dignity about her. Stasia came from a remote village and was one of a large family of siblings. Like many daughters of rural families, she went to the city to work as a servant. At that time, before the war, servants were in plentiful supply. Some were poorly paid or just given keep and shelter—usually a bed in a kitchen corner—in exchange for their services. Stasia had had several jobs before she came to us. She did not talk about them but told Mother she had once worked for a family of bad people.

  An accomplished housekeeper and cook, Stasia was also a wizard at making preserves and liqueurs from a variety of fruits. Our pantry held many jars of preserves, and on long benches there were carboys for making brandies. Alternating layers of sugar and cherries or plums would ferment slowly into a delicious tipple. I loved the smells in our pantry.

  Stasia was a pious Catholic. It was either for her birthday or Christmas that my parents gave her a rosary. It came all the way from the Vatican in a shiny box lined with mother-of-pearl, and had a certificate to say that it was blessed by the Pope. I was five or six years old then and distressed to see that Stasia cried when she opened or held this box. I asked my parents to take it away. Mother explained that Stasia cried because she was so happy to have it. My emotional range did not include tears of joy: you cried when you were hurting. When you were happy you jumped up, did cartwheels, sang at the top of your voice or, at least, told everybody how pleased you were. But tears? It was a worry.

  After a while Stasia stopped weeping and explained that each bead of the rosary was for a special, short prayer. I got to know a few of them by heart: the one to Holy Mary to have mercy upon us, one to Our Father to forgive us our sins (at first I thought it was about my father but was told that it was another one, up in heaven), and several prayers to sundry saints.

  A year or so later another gift made her cry. It was a full-length caracal fur coat designed by my mother. It had a large fox-fur collar that could be turned up to cover most of the face and head on icy days. I remember how Stasia stood in front of the long mirror in this coat as if transfixed. She wore it on her next visit to her family in the country. It might have been then when I overheard my parents wondering whether Stasia’s family knew we were Jewish.

  Our Jewishness was a vague idea that I did not understand as a child, and was one of several life problems from which my parents tried to shelter me. But it came into sharp focus when I started school, at six and a half. Stasia insisted on escorting me to and from school (though other students came alone). On the way back I asked to see the church she attended each day, and we went inside. I was e
nchanted. I liked the cathedral ceilings, the music and the hushed atmosphere. A priest sprinkled a bit of water on my head and said, ‘Bless you, my child.’ I thought that he had mistaken me for his child but said nothing and asked Stasia about it later. I thought the church was a lovely place and wondered why my parents did not go there.

  Our neighbour’s daughter, who was my age and with whom I often played, used to go to another church. One day I invited myself to go with her and her mother and stayed to hear the priest tell a long story about old times. There were many people and some, like my friend’s mother, seemed to be asleep. In the evening I shared this sermon with my parents who, as usual, asked what I had learned that day. I told them that the terrible Israelites crucified Our Lord Jesus Christ and should be punished. We should throw bricks in their windows. An ominous silence followed, and I remember the rest of that evening quite well.

  Father closed the dining room door, though there was no one to hear us—Stasia went to church after dinner. It stressed the importance of the occasion. He and Mother spoke to each other briefly in German— not a word of which I knew at the time—got a piece of paper and a pencil and gave me two lessons. The first was short and sharp. It was about being arrested by the police, quite rightly, if ever I were to throw bricks anywhere. Their icy voices indicated disapproval. The other lesson was long and went on about the world being divided into various countries—drawn on the paper— where people believed in different gods and stories, and often hated and fought each other about it. Some people did not believe that there was a god at all. In the end they broke it to me gently that we were relatives of the Israelites. I was upset, confused, and wept. Mother put me to bed, read a lot of funny stories and sang my favourite songs and arias. (My most favourite was Schubert’s ‘Ave Maria’. Mother sang this like an angel.) When Stasia got back she was told what had happened.

  I think it took me a few days to sort myself out. This was my first encounter with big conflict, and my last visit to a church and enquiry into religion. I decided that the people who did not believe in God were right and I was now one of them. I talked about it with Mother, who instructed me not to talk to Stasia about it because it might offend her. She said we should respect other people’s beliefs even if we didn’t share them.

  About that time, when I was in my first year at school, another incident provided material for an after-dinner story. Again I have no recollection of it—this time for obvious reasons—but know it well from its many retellings.

  One afternoon a panic-stricken Stasia called my parents at work to say that she had found me on my bed unconscious. The doctor arrived soon after my parents got home. While Stasia stood in the doorway of my room silently going through her rosary, my parents stood at the end of the bed and the doctor sat down on it and examined me. He took my pulse, listened to my chest and forced my mouth open to look at my tongue. He smelt my breath, stood up abruptly and said, ‘This child is blind drunk. Let her sleep it off,’ and left in obvious disgust. It was always pointed out in this story that of all the words available to describe drunkenness, the doctor chose the most derogatory.

  My parents soon found that I had helped myself to a generous amount of the plum brandy Stasia was creating in our pantry. Two adjustments resulted from this incident: a lock was put on the pantry door, and we began to attend a different doctor, probably out of embarrassment. And thus began my life-long penchant for plum brandy.

  In my first year of primary school I was busy learning to read, write and do basic arithmetic. My homework was taken very seriously: not only did my parents check my efforts, they appointed Stasia to supervise my work closely. While my parents could and did write so much faster than I, Stasia wrote at my rate. Slowly we copied the letters of the alphabet, then words and sentences. I loved Stasia for being so patient with me, and always thanked and kissed her.

  Years later, during the war, when recalling our free and happy days at home, Mother told me that Stasia learned to read and write by ‘supervising’ my homework. When she joined us she could barely sign her name, like many at that time who came from the country. What a cunning lot my parents were.

  In 1939, in my third grade at school, unpleasant reality forced itself into my sheltered life. My school was one of only a few which accepted pupils who were not Catholics. Boys from an exclusive German school nearby started pelting us with chestnuts and yelling racist abuse and Stasia began to wait outside to escort me home, and would use an old broom handle to chase them away. Many shops at that time also began to display signs ‘For Christians only’ or ‘Jews not welcome’. About that time my parents discussed the problem of the ‘competitive exam’ I would have to pass in order to be admitted to secondary school in a couple of years. This was only required of Jewish children, and was an example of institutionalised anti-Semitism.

  At that time an anecdote became popular among Jews and their non-racist friends. It told of a Jew in full Orthodox regalia who walked into a bakery that had a large ‘Christians only’ sign on the door. He enquired whether they had any stale bread and rolls. Eager to sell such waste, they said, yes, they had. ‘Serves you right!’ said the Jew, and walked out. Stasia was in stitches and asked Mother, a fine mimic, to tell it again and again.

  I remember teasing and testing Stasia with the slogan ‘Jews to Madagascar!’ which was popular at that time. She always replied, ‘I’m ready; when we have to go, we will just go.’ But when the Germans invaded we only went as far as Lodz.

  My parents and Stasia built a marvellous and strong bridge across the wide, ancient gulf of ethnic hatreds. I think that Stasia’s part in building this bridge was much greater, because she had to overcome her inherited prejudice: a pervasive, toxic anti-Semitism.

  When the Germans invaded in September that year, and all hell broke loose, Stasia hovered protectively.

  The small number of Jews who lived in Poznan were ordered out. We were ready to go to London, where my father’s sister lived, but we just ‘missed the bus’. War, though expected, broke out undeclared and earlier than anyone had thought possible. I later learned that my parents had sent some of their savings to my aunt in London for our use.

  With just two suitcases each we went to Lodz, a large city in the centre of Poland. We made our way to central Poland by train, army truck, then horse and buggy, changing as each vehicle became damaged by artillery fire. Lodz was fully occupied by the Germans when we got there. For a while we stayed at my aunt’s place. Stasia was the only one in our family who did not have to wear the yellow Star of David, and therefore was not at risk of assault or arrest in the streets or when queuing for food. She wondered how her kinfolk were getting on in the village, but we seemed to have been her priority.

  Meanwhile, a barbed-wire fence was being put around the industrial part of Lodz to contain the Litzmannstadt Ghetto, which became a labour camp where many perished. All Aryans were ordered to leave the area before April 1940, and Jews from Lodz and many other places were ushered in. Stasia refused to leave, and came with us into the ghetto. We were allotted one room with two beds, so I shared one with Stasia and my parents had the other.

  Now privy to all conversations, I heard my parents plead with Stasia to leave us and, unable to comprehend the situation, I pleaded with them to let her stay. When it was announced that the gates would close in a few days, on the first of May, Father said, ‘Stasia, you must leave now. Go to your family. It’s safer in the country. We are doomed. You have to save yourself!’ Stasia looked at Mother. ‘We love you and don’t want to have you on our conscience,’ said Mother. Stasia cried and said that she didn’t care where she died. Father said he would have to report her to the police. I stood in shock: why were we doomed and Stasia dying? And why hadn’t I been told of this before?

  A few days later two German soldiers came and told Stasia to pack her clothes. Father, ashen faced, looked out of the window. Mother sat on the bed and sobbed. I stood in the corner of the room, unable to move, barely able to breathe
. Stasia gave me a long hug while she whispered the name of a street just outside the fence where I was to watch for her. The soldiers pulled her away and, one on each side, marched her out of the room and out of our lives.

  This scene is one of the sharp photographs in my memory, and used to pop up in my nightmares for some years.

  But it was not the last time I saw Stasia. Through the barbed wire I watched the spot she named in her whisper. About a week later she appeared, pushing a pram. Half-hidden in a building’s entrance I whistled ‘our’ tune. Taking care that the armed patrol was out of sight, she swiftly threw a parcel over the fence. I grabbed it just before a man tried to take it from me. There was a sausage and a note that she was working for a German family and would come again the following Sunday.

  In this way, for several weeks, Stasia smuggled food to us. Best of all were the jars of lard, but they had to be rolled under the barbed-wire fence. We got several of them and, carefully rationed, they lasted for a long time and were a valuable source of much-needed calories. On my parents’ strict orders, I ate most of the lard.

  But one day I was spotted by a guard who appeared suddenly and, seeing me with a parcel so close to the fence, fired a shot. It whistled past my head as I ran into a building, past its courtyard into another building and down to the basement. The jar of lard was fine but I was badly shaken. After that the smuggling stopped. The following Sunday I saw Stasia with the pram and whistled from a safe distance. She nodded her head. These ‘visits’ stopped when curfews and stricter patrols were imposed.

  * * *

  Back in Lodz after the war I advertised in the special columns for missing people—there were thousands of such ads—to find Stanisława Lemanska. My own name was on the many lists of survivors returning from concentration camps. Had Stasia survived the war, we would have found each other.