For Those I Loved

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” —George Santayana We need only to look back to Rwanda, and now to Darfur, to see that once again we are living the worst of times. Who better to guide our understanding and give us hope than Martin Gray—a man who survied the worst of times, flourished, and still managed to find joy in living? Martin has come full circle since his boyhood world was turned upside down by the German invasion of Poland in 1939. Overnight, the teenage Martin and his family were immersed in the horrors of the Holocaust and held captive in the Warsaw Ghetto. It was a nightmare of brutality, starvation, and death. Martin became a clever smuggler to help his family survive—until the “butchers” of Treblinka took his mother and brothers. Against impossible odds, Martin survived and returned to fight in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. As the Nazis incinerated the ghetto, he escaped to fight with the partisans, and then the Red Army. This book holds a great secret for you. I want all men and women of today's world, especially young people, to know this secret: the secret of life is the power of hope. —Martin Gray BOOKS BY MARTIN GRAY PUBLISHED IN ENGLISH: For Those I Loved (autobiography) Little, Brown and Company, 1972 A Book of Life: To Find Happiness, Courage, and Hope, Seabury Press, 1975 The Force of Life, New American Library, 1978 PUBLISHED IN FRENCH: Au nom de tous les miens (autobiography), Editions Robert Laffont, 1971 Le livre de la vie: Pour trouver le bonheur, le courage, et l'espoir (The Book of Life: To Find Happiness, Courage, and Hope), Editions Robert Laffont, 1973 Les forces de la vie (The Force of Life), Editions Robert Laffont, 1975 Les pensees de notre vie (Thoughts of Our Life), Editions Robert Laffont, 1977 La vie renaitra de la nuit (Life Arises out of Night), Editions Robert Laffont, 1977 Le nouveau livre (The New Book), Editions Robert Laffont, 1980 J'ecris aux hommes de demain (I Write to the Men of Tomorrow), Editions Robert Laffont, 1983 La maison humaine (The House of Humanity), Editions Robert Laffont, 1984 Entre la haine et l'amour (Between Hate and Love), Editions Robert Laffont, 1990 Vivre debout: comment faire face dans un monde en crise (Standing Tall: Facing a World in Crisis), Editions Robert Laffont, 1993 La priere de l'enfant (The Prayer of a Child), Editions Robert Laffont, 1994 Au nom de tous les hommes (In the Name of All Mankind), Du Rocher, 2004 Originally published in France under the title Au Nom de Tous les Miens © 1971 by Editions Robert Laffont, S.A Original translation © 1972 by Little, Brown and Company, Inc., and The Bodley Head The 35th Anniversary Expanded Edition published by agreement with Editions Robert Laffont, S.A. Copyright © 2006 by Martin Gray, with Max Gallo Translated from the French by Anthon White Afterword translated from the French by Anne-Marie Dujany All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work in any form whatsoever, without permission in writing from the publisher, except for brief passages in connection with a review. The view or opinions expressed in this book and the context in which the images are used do not necessarily reflect the views or policy of, nor imply approval or endorsement by, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Cover design by Blink LLC, Greensboro, North Carolina Cover art by David Douglas Duncan Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc. 1125 Stoney Ridge Road Charlottesville, VA 22902 434-296-2772 fax: 434-296-5096 e-mail: hrpc@hrpub.com www.hrpub.com If you are unable to order this book from your local bookseller, you may order directly from the publisher. Call 1-800-766-8009, toll-free. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gray, Martin. [Au nom de tous les miens. English] For those I loved / Martin Gray with Max Gallo; translated from the French by Anthony White.     p.cm. Summary: “A firsthand account of the Jewish Holocaust from a man who survived a concentration camp, participated in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, became an officer in the Soviet Red Army, and retired to France after making a fortune in the United States”-Provided by publisher. ISBN 1-57174-527-0 (6 x 9 tp: alk. paper) 1. Gray, Martin. 2. Jews-Poland-Warsaw-Biography. 3. Jewish children in the Holocaust-Poland-Warsaw-Biography. 4. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)-Poland-Warsaw-Personal narratives. 5. World War, 1939-1945-Jewish resistance-Poland-Warsaw. 6. Warsaw (Poland)-Biography. I. Gallo, Max, 1932- II. Title. DS135.P63G73413 2006 940.53'18092-dc22 [B] 2006017508 ISBN 1-57174-527-0 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed on acid-free paper in the United States www.redwheelweiser.com www.redwheelweiser.com/newsletter I have a secret to share. Ever since people have lived on the Earth, they have tried to avoid the march of time—afraid that they'll lose their energy, their trust, their faith, and their hope, which are the attributes of youth. I didn't realize for a long time that this book, which I wrote thirty-five years ago, contains the fountain of youth. It talks about my sufferings, my war, my tragedies, my persecution, my fight to survive. After it was published, I received thousands of letters from readers all over the world almost every day. They told me, “This book gives me strength. It brings me hope. It gives me confidence.” So I reopened my book. I read one or two pages every day. And, surprisingly, I didn't feel as if I were immersed in violence, war, and the darkest moments of my life. The book made me feel young again. It was full of force and courage. Even though I had written it, the words seemed to come from somewhere else, from another force of life, from a source of power and wisdom that affirms “Hope is certain; hope is alive.” I am alive. I do not feel my age because I keep my hope. This book holds a great secret for you too. I want all men and women of today's world, especially young people, to know this secret: the secret of life is the power of hope. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To all my brothers who were with me in hell: Gustaw Alef Mordechaj Anielewicz Abraham Bomba Robert Born Icchak Cukierman Jack Eisner Richard Glazar Sam Goldberg Bernard Goldstein Dr. Janusz Korczak Cywia Lubetkin Wladka Mead Chil Rajchman Samuel Rajzman Joseph Rochman Symcha Rotem Marysia Sebrien My gratitude to these men and women who lit up my life, many of whom have, alas, left: Dr. Amsler King Baudouin Maurice Béjart Leonard Bernstein Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet Willy Brandt Guy Burgess Pablo Casals René Cassin Dr. Raymond Castroviejo César Jacques Chaban-Delmas Charlie Chaplin Albert Cohen David Douglas Duncan Robert Enrico Laurent Fabius Raoul Follereau Brigitte Fossey Max Gallo Emil Gilels Ivry Gitlis David Ben Gourion Dr. Robert Gross Georges Grosz Vladimir Horowitz Albert Jacquard Chief Rabbi Kaplan Joseph Kessel Martin Luther King Arthur Koestler Pierre Lazareff René Lévesque Robert Macauley Zubin Mehta Golda Meir Yehudi Menuhin Macha Meril Pierre Mesmer Yves Montand Raymond Moretti Gregory Peck Shimon Peres Javier Pérez de Cuellar Pablo Picasso Jacqueline Picasso Abbé Pierre Samuel Pisar Georges Pompidou Pope John Paul II Yitzhak Rabin Max Reuter Michel Rocard Arthur Rubinstein Jacques Santer Jacques Séguéla Jorge Semprun Dr. Herbert M. Shelton Simone Signoret Isaac Bashevis Singer Chief Rabbi Sitruk Ovadia Soffer Isaac Stem Haroun Tazieff Mother Teresa Paul-Emile Victor Andrzej Wajda Simone Weil Elie Weisel Michael York Claude Lanzmann, whose film, Shoah, is one of the great monuments of the twentieth century. There are so many other people, not forgotten, but so many that to list them would take as many days as I have already lived. CONTENTS Foreword, by Karen Schubach, 2006 Foreword, by Dr. William R. Forstchen, 2006 Foreword, by David Douglas Duncan, 1971 Before My Head Bursts. . . I. SURVIVAL l. I Was Born with the War 2. The Strength That a Man Has in Him A Struggle to Survive • Life in the Streets • “Take Us to Your Father” • My First Arrest 3. The Game of Life and Death In the Ghetto • Outside the Ghetto • Martin the Smuggler • Robbed by Thugs • A Deal Is Struck • Mietek the Snip • Building an Industry • Multiple Personalities • Difficulties Arise • Imprisoned by My Own Family • Zofia • I'd Lost My Eye • Defeating the Wall • “You Always Wind Up in Pawiak” • More Horror Ahead 4. The Butchers Had Spoken In Hiding • Emptying Out the Ghetto • My First Kill • Freedom among the Rooftops • We Are Captured 5. For This I Need Another Voice Life and Death in Treblinka • An Opportunity Is Lost • Becoming a Death Jew • An Offer of Help • An Escape Plan 6. I'd Tell Them about the Umschlagplatz, the Cattle Cars, and the Graves A Job Offer • Warning the Jews of Zambrow • The Vise Tightens • Zambrow Camp • Return to Warsaw 7. Our Lives Had the Resistance of Stone Back to the Ghetto • Finding My Father • Warsaw at War • Goodbye, Father II. REVENGE 8. Greetings, Comrade Mietek the Partisan • Infiltrating the N.S.Z. • The End of an Era 9. Here I Am, Father; Here I Am, Brothers Return to Zambrow • Mietek the Policeman • On the Way to Berlin • Here Is Berlin 10. Revenge Is Bitter Seeking Nazis • A New Dream III. A NEW WORLD 11. One Day, I'll Build My Fortress New Life in America • A Working Man • Martin the Salesman • At War Again • “You're Cut Out for America” • Mendle the Antique Dealer 12. I Was Forging Ahead Back to Europe • Always in a Hurry 13. I Had Always Known Her Meeting Dina IV. HAPPINESS 14. At Last, at Last—Peace and Joy At Home in France • A Child Is Born 15. So I Took a New Life in My Hands My Family Grows V. FATE 16. Goodbye, My People 17. Day after Day VI. FOR THOSE I LOVE 18. Connecting Yesterday to Today: Martin Gray's Scrapbook 19. For Those I Love Weaving Threads between Generations • Cain and Abel • Psychic Energy for Cain • Prince Media • Reality and Illusion • Shout for Abel! • Body, Mind, and Soul • Human Community of Hope FOREWORD 2006 How was I to know that shopping in a vintage store in Long Beach was going to change my life forever? Finding For Those I Loved with its intriguing pictures for $1.50 in a pile of used books was a miracle. Or did the book find me? It sat in my room for a couple of weeks until I had nothing better to do than snuggle up with my dog and read a couple of chapters. Ten hours and five emotional outbreaks later, I finished this incredible book. I was numb from head to toe, physically drained from Martin Gray's words and the lifetime I had just lived through. This book's powerful words never left my mind. I shared my passion with my husband, Mark, who encouraged me to do something about it. A movie came to mind. We had a couple of friends in Hollywood and located Martin Gray through a friend of a friend. What luck! Or was it? I dialed Martin Gray's number, my hands shaking. I was thirty-two, and I felt as if I were calling a hero, a legend. To my astonishment, our conversation was nothing short of surreal, like talking to a father with whom I'd lost touch. I tried to sound knowledgeable about filmmaking, but as you'll learn when you read this book, Martin had his usual firm grasp on the situation. All the same, he entrusted me with the project and the precious mission of reviving the message of For Those I Loved. After a year, we abandoned the movie idea as other ventures took priority, including our careers, moving twice, and starting a family. But somehow-through fate or God's gentle nudge—Martin's words found me again. I felt in my heart that all generations should share in the new fervor for life that I found in this book of courage and hope. Mark urged me once again to focus on this goal, and we started to search for a publisher for Martin's book. Since then, more people than I can begin to count have worked very hard to make this book available again, especially Martin who added new photos and material for this 35th anniversary edition, including chapter 19 “For Those I Love.” Martin and I live very different lives: he's eighty-four and I'm thirty-nine; he lives in France and I live in Dallas, but Martin wove his golden thread between our generations and our lives. His story of love and compassion for human life will live on forever-beyond me and my children, beyond Martin and you. Perhaps 100 years from now, another young person will stumble across this book—and it might be $150! But she or he will feel the emotional attraction I did and will want to share the message with the next generation. I really am the “average person” we all know. I go to work every day, love my family, and clean the house—same as you. Nevertheless, every day when I see this book on my shelf, I know I have made a very small difference in a very large life mission. This book will inspire so many and, most of all, will teach us that if Martin Gray can still have compassion and hope in humanity, then so can we. —KAREN SCHUBACK, 2006 Rob Port, Patrick Albert Everarts de Velp, and Lillian Lachow all deserve special thanks for helping me to find Martin all those years ago. FOREWORD 2006 Since its original publication in the early 1970s, this remarkable story of survival and hope has gained millions of loyal followers and, yes, more than a few critics. To offer anything more here than a brief synopsis of the book would detract from the actual experience of reading this riveting tale. Suffice it to say, it is about a boy who quickly comes to manhood in the Warsaw Ghetto of 1940, where he learns the fundamental principle of survival—“grab the first chance”—while smuggling food into the ghetto. Suffering the same fate as nearly all who were trapped in that nightmare, he is shipped to Treblinka, the first of the major camps of the “Final Solution,” and he enters the lowest circle of hell—cleaning out the gas chambers and hauling the dead to burial pits. As an act of mercy, he is sometimes forced to kill the few who somehow survive the gassing. Although his mother and two brothers are murdered at Treblinka and his father is gunned down by SS agents in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Gray somehow maintains his will to survive through any means. Escaping Treblinka, he joins the partisans, survives the war, and eventually comes to America where he rebuilds his life, haunted by the trauma and demons of his memory. Over the past thirty-five years, this book has not been without controversy. Some critics declare that Gray could not have possibly survived and witnessed all that he claimed. Others have pointed out that toward the end of the war, he was recruited by the Soviet N.K.V.D. and served as an officer with that infamous organization. Gray's defense is that his sole mission was to hunt down those who inflicted the Holocaust, and he finally deserted his unit when they, too, revealed themselves as but mirror images of the other side. Gray's experiences in America resonate with historical poignancy in praise of a nation that has always offered the downtrodden a chance to rebuild their lives. Though Martin will admit he “cut a few corners” while building his business in the antique trade, nevertheless the liberties of American life enabled him to forge a successful enterprise while never denying his Jewish heritage. A new postscript to Gray's work—one that is most certain to cause an explosion of controversy—is the irrefutable proof that so clearly links the murderous anti-Semitism of Hider's thugs to the current situation in the Middle East. A chapter of history that many wish to ignore or sweep under the rug is the known fact that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem spent most of the war in Berlin as an open ally of the Nazis. In a surreal twist, he was able to sway Himmler to declare that Muslims in the Balkans and the Middle East were not descendants of the despised Semitic people or Slavs, but instead were an off-branch of true Aryans and thus allies in the war to destroy all Jews. As a result, Waffen SS units were formed out of Balkan Muslims and gained the reputation of being, without a doubt, the most murderous butchers of that regime. An echo of that still resonates today in the troubled region of what had been Yugoslavia, and was indeed a subtext of the conflict that has existed there since the early 1990s. A hot wire can be tracked straight from the Grand Mufti of 1945 to the family of Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath Party today, as well as to current religious and political leaders who make daily pronouncements that their holy mission is the total annihilation of Israel. The virulent racism of the Nazi regime is clearly alive and well in the Middle East. In light of events in the world today, this book is more relevant than when it was first published. In a narrative that is riveting from page one, Martin Gray is a genius with the written word, painting the most startling, graphic images of a nightmare world gone mad—a world that is still divided into “butchers” and their prey, as Gray describes even more eloquendy in the new final chapter of this book. Through his experiences and observations, we can see that the Holocaust is not a “dead” history of the past. Indeed, the evil that generated it still stalks the world today. —DR. WILLIAM R. FORSTCHEN, 2006 Historian and New York Times bestselling author FOREWORD 1971 Martin Gray never talked about himself—not before the fire. Never a word revealing where he came from or about his family, or how he lost one eye. For some reason—perhaps it was his accent— I always assumed he'd been born in Russia. But then there were references to Berlin and counterespionage and the American army, and that small-boy grin when he confessed to mass-producing haute époque chandeliers in the basement of his Third Avenue antique shop; chandeliers designed by his luminously beautiful Dutch wife, Dina, who rode herd on the taciturn litde Puerto Rican in the basement where the masterpieces were assembled and gilded for New York's Gold Coast décorateurs. My wife, Sheila, and I first met Martin and Dina one afternoon eight or nine years ago. Anyway, Nicole was only an infant and the other children hadn't yet arrived, so it must have been nearly ten years ago—when we were exploring the mimosa-mantled ridgeline of Tanneron a few miles west of our home, here on the south coast of France. Ten years ago, Tanneron was just another of the obscure by-passed hill towns on the Riviera, a village of strawberry farmers, mimosa cultivators, stranger-wary wild boar hunters, one schoolteacher—and the Martin Grays, who lived in a 300-year-old fortress of a farmhouse in the saddle of the ridge just south of town. When Sheila and I first met them, they were camping out in two rooms; the rest of the place was a shambles of fallen tiles, cobwebs, timbers that might have been useful when building the Great Pyramid of Giza, and murky attics lighted only by cracks in the roof... a place where one might easily be crippled forever by falling through a floor or two. A marvelous place. It was easy to share Dina's love for it, and their excitement when she shoved aside ink drawings of elaborate delicacy (chandeliers) for others of stark simplicity and sweeping imagination, her dreams of what the house would eventually become. Martin's finger always poked at the drawings and always stopped a millimeter short of smudging them. That great house, Les Barons, was finished just in time to shelter the ashes of Dina and her four children when Martin brought them home after the fire. And it was only after they died that Martin began to talk about himself—a cataract of words. The dam holding back a thousand unbearable lifetimes finally broke. This is his story. —DAVID DOUGLAS DUNCAN, Castellaras, France, 1971 TO ALL CHILDREN BEFORE MY HEAD BURSTS . . . I'm alive. But it's not easy. Yesterday, I had a visit from yet another journalist. I'm getting to know them. They wear just the right expression. They look sad but keep asking questions. Their eyes dart in every direction. My grief doesn't deter them; to them, it's just a job. The journalist yesterday morning wasn't a professional. He tried to pull it off—with his notebook and his tape recorder— but there he was in front of me, unable to move, paralyzed, hardly daring to look at me. I prefer the professionals; they know what suffering, life, and death are all about. That guy with his litde black moustache was ill-mannered, ignorant, and, what's more, he hurt me. In spite of his nervous smile, I heard him hurling silent questions at me: Why are you still alive? How can you live and yet they do not? Aren't you ashamed to be alive? He shook his head, looking at my family photos: Dina, my wife, and my children—Nicole, Suzanne, Charles, and Richard—all smiling. He stared at the photo of them in the field in front of our house— Suzanne standing with her arms raised, Dina hugging Richard—and he didn't say a word. He just shook his head. I wanted to grab him by the neck, sling him out the door, and hurt him. I wanted to beat my head against the wall, to throw my head as hard as I could, like a grenade, at the same house Dina and I had lovingly renovated for our family. Then my head would burst, finally, and leave me in peace. I knew what this guy was thinking because I've been saying the same words over and over to myself since October 3, 1970. As soon as my head begins to empty of sounds, thoughts of my wife and children drown me. My head throbs so hard it hurts. I bite my cheeks, my lips, to stop myself from screaming. I scream anyway, “I'm alive!” It is just like my cries of horror from the cellars of the Gestapo headquarters on Szucha Alley in Warsaw. It's mostly in the evenings when I feel this way, hating the life that remains in me. I turn on the radio, twiddle the knob until my ears can no longer stand the hubbub of words or the music—so loud it's just noise. I calm down, immersed in the sound waves. The noise is excruciating and the physical pain is a relief. I can think about them now, see them again as they were on October 2, the day before the fire. They ran toward me, waving their school satchels above their heads. It was a mild day, and the sky was clear and bright. It hadn't rained for months, and the mistral was starting to blow. I took a photo that day. There it is, in front of me. The next day, my life was in ruins; a wisp of black smoke hung above Tanneron. I hadn't seen such tall flames since the Warsaw ghetto was on fire. So once again, I am left on my own; once again, there is nothing left of my life but myself. I'd escaped from the Warsaw rubble fields, from the sewers, from Treblinka, and all my people had vanished. After the loneliness came peace with my wife, my children. Then came that fire again, Tanneron crackling with flames; the stench and the heat were like Warsaw burning. For the second time in my life, nothing was spared but myself. I spent days and nights just trying to realize that it was true. I wanted to be finished with the living self that clung to my flesh. I wanted this fresh beginning to end. Friends looked after me—men whose jobs have to do with war and who witness death and spend their time pondering the mysteries of man's fate. They helped me keep going from day to day, and I'm alive. Those who haven't known suffering are the most astonished, like that journalist yesterday. When I showed him to the door, he was still shaking his head, looking at my children's swings hanging from the tree branches. Whatever he writes, it will be nothing out of the ordinary because he wouldn't dare admit what he thinks—that it's scandalous to have survived, and he doesn't understand how I can be alive. Too bad. He's the kind who can't understand why hundreds of thousands—from the ghettos of Warsaw, Zambrow, and Bialystok—went to their deaths, and why we who were left still kept fighting, and how, in spite of everything, some of us survived. It seems impossible, indecent. He wouldn't understand how we could have touched, much less buried thousands of dead bodies in Treblinka, those children with staring eyes and lolling heads on whom we threw spadefuls of yellow sand. He wouldn't understand how, in spite of that, I and others escaped, found the strength to start living again, and had children. He wouldn't understand how I can live now, determined to prevent more fires and senseless deaths. He's never known suffering, and I hope he never will. But then I—who have survived, with my head that feels like bursting in the evenings and yesterday with that journalist—don't understand either how I can still be here, collecting documents, struggling for the Foundation, and soliciting interviews from agencies to get support for the mission I've undertaken. I no longer carry a gun as I did in the Polish resistance, but now and then, I feel the same strength within me. That's why I want to describe what my life—our life—was like, so you and others may know, and so that our life—my people's life— may endure. —Tanneron, France, 1971 I Survival 1 I WAS BORN WITH THE WAR I WAS BORN WITH THE WAR. THE SIRENS WAILED, THE BOMBERS SKIMMED the rooftops, their shadows glided across the road, and in the streets people were running, clutching their heads. I was born with the war: we went downstairs to the cellar, the walls were shaking and flakes of white plaster fell on our hair. My mother was deathly pale; my eyes stung; women screamed. Then there was a momentary lull, until the fire engines sounded their horns and the women started screaming again. September 1939: the month of my real birth. I know almost nothing of the previous fourteen years. I can't search my memories; I don't want to. Why bother to recall that pleasant time? We'd run through the streets behind the droshkas to the square in the old town, in the heart of Warsaw. My father would take me by the hand, and we'd go to the factory. The machines were from America; he'd show me, impressed in the steel, the name of the firm and the town, Manchester, Michigan. I'd walk proudly at my father's side between the machines. My father would pick up a stocking or a glove. He'd make me decipher the trademark, 7777, our trademark. We were partners in a large factory, we sold stockings and gloves all over Poland and abroad, and I had relations in the United States too, a grandmother living in New York. Sometimes we'd go along Jerusalem Avenue to Poniatowski Bridge over the Vistula. We'd cross Krasinski Gardens. Jews would be bargaining with each other. They always seemed to be wearing the same dark overcoats; they were poor. But I didn't know what poverty was. I didn't even really know that we were Jews. We observed the major holidays, but there were Catholics in our family. We were between the two religions. To me, my father—tall, straight-backed, and so firm of hand—seemed as if he were himself the origin of the world. We'd come home, I'd linger in Ogrod Saski, the last gardens before you reach Senatorska Street. Home. My father would open the door; I can still recall the sweet fragrance, my two younger brothers shouting. My mother would be there and the table was set for supper. This was before my birth, long before— an era of fine weather that ended in the summer of 1939. Suddenly, the war. My father is in officer's uniform. He clasps me by the shoulders, and I realize that I'm almost as tall as he is. We leave my mother and my brothers at home and set off together for the station. In the streets, everything has already changed: groups of soldiers, trucks, the first lines outside the shops. We walk side by side in the road, shoulder to shoulder. He's stopped holding my hand; I'm a man. He shouts something to me from the window of the train that I can't hear; then I am alone in the street. I think this was the day we had the first raid. I watched the bombers, silver with black crosses, flying low in groups of three. “In here.” A Polish policeman yells in my direction from a porch where some terrified passersby are huddling. I begin to run down the empty street. I must get home; I don't have to obey anyone. I saw my father shouting something from the train. I've got to be as strong as he is. My mother pushes me down to the cellar: the plaster falls; we're suffocating; women are sobbing and wailing. After the alert, we see from the window the first fires, in the working class areas, in the direction of the Praga marketplace. I begin to read the papers: France, England, America—everyone's sure to help us. We're going to fight to the end, the Germans will never enter Warsaw. I listen to the mayor's proclamations on the radio: Warsaw will never surrender. My mother's crying; my two brothers are playing together. She and I are sitting in front of the radio. Often, I put my arm around her shoulders as we wait for the news. There's fighting all along the frontier and everything's going badly. We listen to German broadcasts: they're announcing thousands of prisoners; tomorrow Hider will be in Warsaw. “Poles,” says the cheerful voice, “it's the Jews who are the cause of your troubles, the Jews who wanted the war, the Jews who are going to pay.” Then the choirs, the songs. I turn the knob: Radio Warsaw is playing long pieces of mournful piano music. Then the bombers come back, at regular intervals; the cellar shakes. Incendiary bombs fall on the Jewish quarter, near us, and when we go upstairs again, the air is filled with dense smoke. “They're after the Jews,” someone keeps saying. My uncle comes to see us. He speaks to me. “If the Germans enter Warsaw, it's the Jews they'll go for first. You know what they did in Germany. Your father doesn't trust them.” I nod as if I know. My mother is sitting near us and doesn't say a word. I nod uncomprehendingly: who are these German people whose language I know? Why are they demolishing our lives? Why do they hate the Jews? Then they begin to shell Warsaw, they're trying to hit a big insurance company building, and every day the silver bombers come back to the city. The fires are no sooner put out than they flame up again in the Muranow and Praga quarters, in the Smocza quarter, and in Stare Miasto, the old town. I'm now constandy out in the streets. I want to see, know, understand, fight, defend. The streets are full of ragged soldiers without rifles, some lying down on the pavement, others shaking their fists in the middle of silent groups. They talk about thousands of tanks, dead horses rotting on the roads, raids on Grudziadz—where the entire Polish Army is, including my father. My mother has stopped even trying to make me stay in. Every morning, I set out and stroll around the National Museum, where the wounded are arriving, look at the grubby men lying on bloodstained stretchers, the women and children crying. In some areas rubble strews the streets, clouds of white dust rise from the earth; families scrabble in the ruins. All along Nowy Swiat (New World) Street, the shops are closed. I run along behind the red and yellow buses full of soldiers en route for Zoliborz. There, for several days, I and some others dig holes and trenches because we are going to fight to the end, and the French and English will soon be on their way. When I return, covered with dust and mud, my mother doesn't say a word. One evening when I go to wash, I notice there isn't any water. “Ever since this morning,” my mother says. Then we run out of food. I stop going to the suburbs to dig trenches. We have to live; we have to learn to struggle like beasts to eat and drink. And the streets are full of beasts. I know men. But the species seems to have vanished. I fight to keep my place in a long line outside the local baker's. I push and shove women, like the others. I'm strong. I watch, I want my share for myself and my family, but I'm trying to understand. Maybe this struggle for yourself, for your people, is natural? Everyone seems to have stopped recognizing each other. Sometimes the soldiers hand out their rations. In one of the Warsaw parks, near where we live, are two of them with large greenish hats, who have opened their haversacks. Around them are women, children, and one of those old, bearded Jews, in a black skullcap. The women begin to shout, “Not the Jew, Poles first! Don't give the Jew anything!” The soldiers shrug and hand the Jew a chunk of gray bread, but a woman rushes up, gives the Jew a shove, and takes his bread. She's screaming like a lunatic, “Not the Jew! Poles first!” The Jew doesn't answer, but moves off. The soldiers go on handing out food. I grit my teeth, don't say a word. I take a chunk of bread. I don't look Jewish. The streets are full of hate, now I know. You have to be on the alert, ready to spring, to run away. I fight to keep my place by the well and bring home water. I go to the Vistula, where long lines are forming; drinking water is being handed out. Two young Poles, hardly older than I, come up and yell, “Jews to one side; Jews in another line!” Then some Jews shuffle away and stand in line; sometimes fifty people are served, and only five Jews get water. I wait in line patiendy, not moving, gritting my teeth. Yet neighbors become wild beasts. They die fighdng each other. On the way back from the Vistula with a bucket of water, I hear the bombers coming from the north, making for Zoliborz. Their noise makes the earth vibrate, immediately there are explosions, smoke filling the sky, people screaming. A facade ahead of me, at the end of the street, collapses all at once; there are flames. I plunge my head in my bucket of water, then run. The bombers have passed over. A droshka is on fire, and the horse is just a lump. King on its side. The driver is alongside it—his body huge, swollen, an animal too. I run to another street; men are digging in the dust. I dig with them, and hands are stretching up from deep down under the rubble. Then I leave. In other streets, groups are looting shops with gutted fronts. Women are filling their aprons with canned foods, clasping their huge bellies and running away. Near Senatorska Street, I meet a neighbor's son. Tadek's older than I; we've never gone out together, but today, without even a word, we begin to walk along side by side. We roam j the streets. I'm hungry and I sense that I'm the leader. Tadek follows me. We search. In Stawki Street, a group of people are waving their arms wildly. We go closer: it's a pickle canning factory; the door has been smashed in. On die ground, on shelves all along the walls, are hundreds of cans. I don't hang back, I'm one of the first. I make a bag out of my shirt. I move swiftly, silently. Now and again, I glance to left and right. I've noticed a window. By now, I know that you always have to work out an exit. Tadek follows suit. We leave hurriedly. In the factory women have started fighung, and we run to Senatorska Street. That night all of us eat our fill: large salt pickles, which we crunch between our teeth, which sting our gums. But we're not hungry anymore, so my mother doesn't ask any questions. She eats the pickles too. We're all ill and vomit that night, but we're not hungry anymore. That's how life is now. The next day, I set out again with Tadek. In the streets, among the retreating soldiers, heavy peasant carts are rumbling along. Refugees are sitting on the pavement with their canvas bags and blankets. I pass by, ignoring them. We have to eat, have to live. But the shops are empty, the counters bare. Some people come running by: “The station, there's a trainload of flour!” We begin to run too. On the platform they're unloading in silence. We're like ants, but it's each man for himself. I knock a sack off onto the track and grab it. It weighs about two hundred pounds. It's not flour but pumpkin seeds. We split them up and go off with a hundred pounds each on our backs. They're waiting for me at home now. I'm the breadwinner. When I come in with the bag on my back, my mother kisses me; my brothers are joyous and start dipping into the whitish seeds. You have to live. I sit down, I'm worn out, my hair's sticky with sweat, I've even stopped feeling hungry, but I'm at peace, feeding my family. I carry on, day after day. Then suddenly, one afternoon, the streets empty out. Smoke from the fires still hangs over the city. I'm on the far side of the Vistula. I feel alone, I run. From time to time, I pass others who are running too. I call out to one of them: “What is it?” “The Germans, the Germans! We've surrendered!” They'd won. They were coming. 2 THE STRENGTH THAT A MAN HAS IN HIM I SAW THEM. THEY WERE EVERYWHERE. THEY WERE MARCHING IN SERRIED ranks along Jerusalem Avenue and the Third of May Avenue. They marched slowly, their heels ringing on the cobbles of the narrow streets. I was walking along the pavement, behind the rows of curious bystanders; I wanted to see them, to understand. They seemed tall, fair, and invincible. Some had their helmets slung from their belts, as if they knew that they had nothing to fear, that we couldn't do anything now. Since the siege of Warsaw began, I had got used to suffering, to unshaven and defeated Polish soldiers; but now here was this powerful army with its endless procession of trucks and tanks. Their planes were skimming the rooftops above Jerusalem Avenue. Patrols moved along the pavement; they didn't seem to notice the people. Everyone drew aside. For a moment, I followed three soldiers in ankle boots with long black bayonets. Yes, we were going to suffer. I remembered my father. We hadn't had any news of him for weeks. But I hadn't time to think. You had to survive; you had to fight. At the street corner, a large covered truck had halted, and some Poles were waiting around it, their hands out. Two soldiers were standing there, surrounded by large round loaves; they were laughing and tossing the loaves. From an open car parked near the truck an officer was taking photos, and another officer held a movie camera. But you had to eat. I forced my way into the group, quickly collected my two round loaves, and ran off clutching them. The next day, loudspeaker vans announced that the Germans would be organizing the distribution of bread, so I went from center to center. The soldiers moved into a Jewish shop that had been cleared, near Sienna Street. There was already a long line of people there from every area, talking in whispers, muttering that the Germans were handing out soup as well. Suddenly, a tall soldier appeared in the entrance. He was bareheaded, the sleeves of his jacket were rolled up, I can still see him, hands on hips, yelling, “Juden, 'raus!” Everyone in the line cowered, no one left the ranks. “Juden, 'raus!” he yelled again. September 1939: The Nazis rapture Warsaw. Two women hurried off. One was a little old lady, with a black shawl over her head. The soldier walked up and down the line. He was scrutinizing us. Then, at the end of the line, a man in a hat went over to him, and pointing to someone, called out, “Jude.” Everyone turned around, and there was a small dark man, with a short curly beard, standing alone as everybody backed away from him. The soldier gestured and the man walked slowly forward. The man who'd denounced him smiled confidendy. The soldier gripped the Jew's beard and began to jerk his head. Then he kicked him, and the man ran off. The whole line began to laugh with the soldier. And I laughed too, out of fear and anger. I had my bread, and I had my soup, so I went off to line up elsewhere. Everywhere, men were denouncing each other. I looked. I tried to burn into my brain the faces of these men and women who josded men and women like themselves out of line, calling them Juden. But there were too many such faces, too many soldiers tugging at the hair and beards of old Jews. As I returned to Senatorska Street, a few minutes before curfew, I saw two soldiers shoving a man who was walking along very straight-backed. I thought: my father. I dashed over, but it was just another Jew. They made him take off his shoes, and then kicked him and made him jump along, like a frog, on the road, for what seemed ages, and they laughed and passersby in the street laughed with them. The soldiers flung the Jew's shoes to a Pole who said thanks and took them, and they went off. At the end of the street stood the barefoot man who could have been my father. My mother was waiting for me; the door was already open. She was afraid for me now, and she often cried. In the daytime, we went from office to office asking if anyone knew where my father was. Everywhere we went they threw us out. That evening, my uncle was waiting for me too. He'd been to the factory. A bomb had destroyed part of the outside and the stairs, but he'd managed to make his way up to the workrooms. The machines and hundreds of pairs of gloves were still there; no one had touched them. The looters and the Germans had assumed that the whole building had been gutted. The next day, very early, we set to work. It was cold, from time to time snow fell, and a damp wind was blowing from across the Vistula. We all went to it: my uncle, my brothers, and my mother. One of us kept watch, as we scrambled out of the ruins, carrying sackfuls of gloves. Having goods to sell might help keep us alive for a while. I made a final trip to the factory; all that remained were two sewing machines. I used to wander around there with my father, such a long time ago. I hoisted one of the machines onto my shoulder and set off. It was already curfew. There was a German truck at the corner of the street: I heard orders, guttural voices echoing in the deserted street, so I hid in a doorway. Soldiers came running, chasing stragglers and forcing them onto the truck. One of the stragglers tried to run away; there was a shot, a white and yellow flash close by me, and a single cry. Then the truck drove off with its lights on, leaving the man lying still in the middle of the road. I hoisted the machine and set off again. That's how it was—you just had to clench your teeth. I dashed across Senatorska Street. On the stairs I could breathe at last. I went up slowly, but the door wasn't ajar, as it usually was when my mother was waiting for me. I knocked, two raps. My mother was smiling. She kissed me; she was still smiling, as before. I put the machine down in the hall, and she pushed me into the bedroom. On the bed, fully dressed, was my father, asleep, but he immediately opened his eyes and clasped me to him. “It's all right, Martin, all right,” he said. He hugged me very tight. He made me sit down by him. “I escaped,” he began. “I'm leaving tomorrow morning.” I was all ears and eyes. “The Germans, the Gestapo. They're sure to come here, sooner or later.” Calmly, he proceeded to give me his best advice. He told me everything, sure of what he was talking about. “Never get caught. But if they catch you, think of only one thing, escape. Even if you're scared stiff, escape. You haven't a chance with them. If you escape, there's always hope. Never wait. The first chance is always the best.” He smiled. “Do you remember, Martin, how you used to chase after the droshkas? How you could catch up with the horses? Well, if they catch up with you one day, take your feet in your hands and run.” It was an expression we both used, and we began to laugh. Then he went on; he'd already been in Warsaw a few days, but he wanted to check on the house before coming to see us. Now he was going to live under a false name; prepare the way for those—and there were lots of them—who wanted to cross the Bug river and reach the Russian-occupied zone. From now on, we might meet him in the streets, in the parks, at friends' houses, but never at home in Senatorska Street. In the morning, before leaving, he came and woke me. He was wearing a long leather overcoat and boots and seemed enormous, yet I was almost as tall as he was. In the street I'd have taken him for a Nazi, or for one of the Volksdeutscher, Poles of German origin, whom you saw arrogantly parading the streets with their swastika armbands. “You look like a Nazi,” I laughed. “Copy me; outwit them; survive.” We never saw each other in Senatorska Street again. A STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE He left us but we felt stronger. Survive. I kept repeating the word as I walked the streets. It was cold and I walked fast. The wind was stirring up ripples on the Vistula so that the river seemed to be flowing south. On the bridge, men, no doubt rounded up in the streets, were pushing German trucks that had collided. I hurried by, I had to get to the big market in the Praga quarter. In the square, in the small adjoining streets, in the courtyards of buildings, in the shelter of doorways, you could buy anything. Some peasants had sacks of potatoes in front of them; one woman was selling boots; others were selling cloth. In spite of the thickly falling snow, you didn't move, except a few steps to the left or right maybe. You held out your goods. I was selling gloves. I hung them in pairs around my neck, offered them to the passersby, and went into the shops. Surely the Polish shopkeepers wouldn't cheat me. I held out a pair to a shopkeeper. He looked at them, studied me, tossed back his mane of black hair, and put two zlotys on the counter. I yelled at him and started trying to take back my gloves. “Shall I call the police, scum?” he said. I took to my heels. I'd been treated as a thief, so I held my tongue: I was a Jew. From the end of November, I was supposed to wear a white armband with a blue Star of David at least an inch in size, low down on my right arm. An armband that meant “This is a man you can rob, beat, or kill.” I didn't wear the armband, but I was at everyone's mercy. I had to learn to protect myself from everyone. So I stopped going into shops, I kept on the alert, and I chose my customers. I managed to wrest from them the zlotys that kept us alive at home. So long as we had zlotys, we had bread. Sometimes business was good. I'd go back to Senatorska Street before the end of the morning, stock up, and set off again. I didn't say anything, just handed over the zlotys. I brought back bread and plunged out into the street again. In Targowa Street, the site of the Praga market, there was a group of soldiers. They were strolling idly in the middle of the road, looking for trouble. One of them, older than the rest, his face heavily lined all over, gold teeth in the center of his mouth, called out to me. “What are you selling, Pole?” It didn't do to understand; only Polish Jews knew German. I smiled, played the fool. The peaceful-looking old soldier came over, and before I had time to jump back, twisted my arm with one hand and searched me with the other, found the gloves under my thick jacket and threw them to his companions, and then offered me a few zlotys: an honest soldier. It was no good protesting; that's how it was. They could do as they liked. Polish policemen, railwaymen in the black uniforms of the Todt organization, rapacious shopkeepers, crooks—any man with power could do whatever he wanted to me. I knew it. It was up to me to cope with life, all the same, in spite of them. I hid part of my money in my shoes, and the thugs who cornered me one day in Krasinski Gardens had only managed to take a pair of gloves off me. Then a Polish policeman caught me by the sleeve. “Where did you get those gloves?” I hadn't heard him coming because I was bargaining with an old lady—my bad luck. I had to size up the uniformed man in a flash. One mistake and it could have been all over for me, for my family. His eyes, barely visible under his helmet, looked weary, distant. I tugged a litde on my sleeve; he wasn't gripping me very tighdy. “I'm hungry; I'm hungry.” “Where did you get those gloves?” “They're ours; my father had a factory. He's dead.” I spoke rapidly, staring him in the face. “Are you a Jew?” he asked. I shook my head. It could have meant yes if he'd wanted to take it that way. But he said nothing and let me go; I ran off. Sometimes I had to submit. One time there were three policemen watching me. Possibly one of the shopkeepers had denounced me. They surrounded me, hit me, and took me to the police station. In the passage about twenty people were waiting. Two had blood-smeared faces; they were wearing Jewish armbands. I was pushed over with the others, but I didn't even sit down. I was going to make a run for it—I sensed it. I knew it. I had to. The policemen left; I followed them without a word. The door was open. I kept a few feet behind them, then shot ahead and ran for it. Never wait; never get caught. The next day, I returned to Praga wearing a hat and a long overcoat. It was a risk, but you had to eat. I wasn't recognized, and business went on.