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TWENTY-THREE

LUKA

April 1943

Warsaw, Poland

Sitting in this apartment with thirty or so others, each holding a loved one, or a reminder of a loved one on this first night of Passover—a day in which we are to be thankful for our freedom and the ability to hold on to faith even when the odds are against us.

To celebrate when we’re suffering and being treated as slaves here, seems nonsensical, but I keep that thought to myself.

Mother has her arm locked around my waist and I have Grandmother’s favorite scarf pressed against my chest. I trace my eyes over the spot on the floor where she slept beside me, trying to understand how she’s already been gone for six months.

I lied to her and told her she wouldn’t die.

With time to think about the promise I made to her, I have tried to come to terms with being thankful for her freedom—the end of suffering, days without starvation or sickness.

Therefore, though we continue to suffer, Grandmother can be a symbol of Passover this year.

“Chag Pesach sameach,” Mother says out loud to the others around us.

“May this Passover bring us a reminder of the freedom we were once strong enough to acquire and may our faith carry us forward.”

“Amen.” The echoes of tired, weak people, young and old, sound like an old untuned organ.

“Luka, sweetheart,” Mother says.

“Would you sing?”

The tear-filled eyes of cohabitants in our tight quarters are lit by only a shallow candle in the center of us.

They’re staring at me, waiting.

A memory of Ella staring up at me while I sang stings my heart.

I haven’t sung a word since I last saw her nineteen months ago.

It seems like only a day has passed, but also, yesterday feels like a lifetime ago.

She gave the words to my song a meaning.

“Please, dear,” Mother urges me again.

My eyes clench tightly, searching for the strength to sing.

And thus, it?—

My voice trembles as I begin to sing, soft notes filling the quiet—but the melody is shattered by an explosive succession of booms .

Everyone cowers, throwing themselves flat to the ground.

“What’s happening?” someone cries, panic rippling through the room.

The booms grow louder, endless.

My chest aches as I weave through everyone, making my way to the window.

I pull back the black fabric curtain covering just enough to peek outside.

My shaky breath escapes me when I spot armed Jews of the ghetto ambushing the SS with their smuggled firearms and homemade bombs.

The SS are running in various directions, shouting with clear panic and shock.

They weren’t expecting this.

“The Jewish resistance are attacking the SS,” I tell the others, unable to believe the words coming out of my mouth .

This is the uprising I heard whispers about while traveling through the tunnels—a plan to attack the Germans and push them out of the ghetto, and Warsaw.

The threats sounded like an unrealistic ploy.

The Germans have had us all under their thumb for so long.

“What do we do?” Mother shouts from the other side of the room.

“Lie low, beneath the window, and stay quiet. We don’t have anything to fight with or protect ourselves.”

All of us are curled up on the ground, eyes wide open, staring at each other, listening to the ongoing attack.

The gunfire eased for a short time but returned with a vengeance not long ago.

With the sunlight breaking over the horizon, the truth is waiting outside the window.

I claw myself up against the wall to steal a glimpse, and I can only wish my eyes are deceiving me as war sprawls through the street.

SS, gestapo, and German soldiers flood the streets in large quantities.

They’ve brought in tanks, and artillery to continue the fight.

Another earth-shattering explosion shakes us as a German truck explodes down the street, not too far away.

“Our people are still fighting,” I utter to the others.

“I’m not sure for how much longer though.”

Soon after I drop back to the ground alongside Mother, a loudspeaker bellows through the chaos, commanding: “All Jews must surrender!”

“No, no, we must stay quiet,” one of the older men says.

“We aren’t the ones fighting. We have nothing to surrender but ourselves, right?”

I don’t want to be the one to answer, but I’m sure the SS are expecting all Jews to surrender themselves regardless.

“We can’t give in to them,” a woman says.

“We’ve done nothing but follow their laws.”

My heart pounds and I fold onto my knees, wrapping my hands around my head, trying to think through the panic raging through me.

“I agree, we should hide for as long as possible. The resistance is likely still fighting against the Germans. Our only hope is to stay here for as long as we can,” I announce, praying it’s the right decision.

Ignoring German orders is never the right decision, but if we walk out there, they might kill each of us on the spot.

A few others try to catch a peek of what’s happening outside, reporting similarly with shock and disbelief.

“I don’t see any other Jewish people surrendering,” a woman cries out with a hint of hope in her fear-filled voice.

There are as many Jews out there as there are Germans, except our resistance utilizes men and women, young and old, all of them armed with acquired weapons.

I’m not sure how the resistance has managed to make it through the night, but there are dead German soldiers and gestapo on the street.

Their efforts have not been in vain, but I doubt this battle is anywhere close to being over.

“We’ll continue to wait it out as the others must be doing,” I reply.

In the last couple of hours, the ghetto has filled with smoke.

I can hear buildings crumbling around us.

I’m sure the Germans are trying to decimate every bit of the ghetto and smoke us all out.

Without an end in sight, I’m questioning what we should be doing.

What if we’re all sitting here, waiting to be caught in the fire?

My question only lingers for so long before smoke weaves in through the cracks of the window, choking us.

Mother begins to cough violently along with some of the others.

It’s becoming impossible to breathe through the heavy smoke filled with burning wood and gun powder.

“We can’t stay,” I tell Mother.

“We need to get out of here before the building burns to the ground.”

Her chin quivers as she takes my hand and I head for the door, opening it onto what looks like a solid wall of smoke.

The stairwell isn’t visible.

We can hardly see two feet in front of us.

“The building is going to burn down. We must all leave now,” I shout into the apartment.

I block out the cries and hysteria, knowing I must focus on getting us down the stairs, hoping there isn’t a fire blocking the entrance.

I thought I would make it out of here, even after all this time.

I told myself I’d find Ella, and we’d both be fine.

It’s become too easy to lie to myself and build myself up with implausible hope.

I just wanted to see her once more.

I would take only and forever once more over never again.

Everyone we love is gone, or so we have told ourselves.

It’s been over two years since Father and Grandfather were sent away.

I haven’t been able to find their names on any list the Judenrat has control over, which just leads me to believe the worst.

I must take care of Mother.

It’s what they would all hope I’d do.

Apollo’s mother is having trouble with her two girls, both hysterical and terrified.

I lift one of them into my arms. “Come on, darling. I’ve got you. We’ll be all right.” I hold her thin blanket over her nose and mouth, blocking out as much smoke as I can.

“I’m scared,” she cries, the words muffled against the blanket.

“But you are so brave. So brave,” I tell her.

I hold Mother tightly to my other side and get us all down the stairs as quickly as possible.

We burst out of the building, gasping for air, coughing between each breath.

I pull Mother to the side of the building, keeping us among the smoke until we reach the corner.

Apollo’s mother takes her daughter from my arms and squeezes her tightly.

“Come with us,” I tell her.

“I’ll help you with the girls.” Just as Apollo would have.

Apollo’s mother shakes her head, her mouth quivering.

“No, Luka. We must all fend for ourselves now,” she says.

“But thank you. Be safe. God bless.” She presses her fingers to her lips and gives us a teary-eyed wave.

There isn’t time to beg, though I’m running as blindly as she is now.

We could very well be running into a trap, but most of the fighting was coming from the other side of the building.

Mother’s hand squeezes mine so tightly, like I’m her lifeline, the thin frayed rope hanging between jagged rocks.

“Come on, Mother. I have you,” I utter between chokes.

I have you , I keep repeating in my head.

I keep pulling her along down narrow passages between buildings.

So many of them are burning down.

We end up at a sewer opening with a displaced cover.

People are down there, and they could be Jews or Germans.

But there’s only one way in and one way out from this direction and if we run into the wrong people, it will be the end.

A broken-down brick building without a roof comes into sight and I consider the thought that no one would try to destroy this building again seeing as it’s already mostly flattened.

But there’s a black cave through one side.

It could collapse. It could be bombed.

It might be our only chance to survive.

“In there. It’s already been demolished. Let’s try for now,” I tell Mother.

She doesn’t argue. She doesn’t have a better idea.

She’s relying on me as if I’m Father, as if I’m in charge, and trusting that I’ll keep her alive.

I can’t let her down.

I help her into the crawl space of a hole, finding a small open pyramid of space between the stacks of bricks.

‘This is the end, isn’t it, my dear?

” she says.

“It’s not the end. We’ll fight beyond the end. They want us to give up. That’s why we can’t.”

Mother grabs my hand, hers shaking and covered in sweat from the steam and heat of the surrounding fires.

She wraps her arm around my back and pulls my head down to her shoulder.

“My sweet boy, the one who made me a mother. You have always been the love of my life, you and your father’s.”

“Stop talking that way. We’re going to make it out of this,” I tell her.

She squeezes my hand a little tighter.

“Perhaps, but I fear there will be a next ‘this,’ my son.”

I swallow hard, trying not to give in to this fear, to this desolate end.

“Remember the song—the one you always sang to me before bed when I was little?” I ask.

“Which one is that?” she asks.

I suppose she sang many but only one was my favorite.

One always led to sweet dreams. I begin to sing softly, reminding her of the past:

There’s a place for you

Warm, inviting, bright, and true.

A dreamland waiting to be found,

Where peace and beauty both astound

So, rest your eyes my dear

Let colors burst and skies grow clear

Flowers bloom in endless hue,

A world of wonder just for you

Those vines are yours to climb

To touch the rainbow’s endless time

This magic place, so safe and near

Exists for you—right here, my dear

A tear from Mother’s eyes falls onto my wrist. The ground rumbles heavier than before, like an earthquake that won’t end.

“Luka, I must confess something to you,” Mother says, grabbing hold of my chin to look at her.

“What? What is it?” I wish she would stop saying goodbye.

I need the strength to get us out of here somehow.

“I had a friend who worked at city hall, one responsible for supplying lists of citizens to the Germans. I paid her a large sum of our savings to remove your name from the list of eligible male laborers. Your father and I agreed it would be the best use of our money. I wish more than anything we had enough to keep all three of you off the list, but the three of you being in one household would have raised questions. Your grandfather made it clear he has lived his life and would give whatever he had left to you. Your father, though far too young for such morbid thoughts, said the same. We all wanted the same: for you to have a chance to make it through this so you can experience the life you deserve.”

“Mother, how could you—why wouldn’t you tell me—” I lived all that time in fear of a letter.

I can only imagine what people must have thought about me walking around after all other men my age had been taken.

I must have looked like a coward.

“Because of the thoughts going through your mind at this very moment. You would have chosen to protect your father or grandfather over yourself. You would have turned yourself in. That’s the man you are, the man I’m proud of, but the man—my son—who I will protect until the day I die whether you like it or not.”

As if shock hasn’t already taken its toll on every part of me, my gaze lingers on Mother, a mix of emotions tearing through me.

Have I done right by her?

Have I done enough to deserve what she and Father have done for me?

The bricks begin to fall, one by one, giving us little warning to move before it’s too late.

I pull Mother out just in the nick of time before the rest of the building caves in.

“Jews! Jews over there!” a German police officer shouts.

“Put your hands up,” I tell Mother.

“They’ll know we aren’t here to fight.”

“What will they do with us?” she asks.

“I only know we shouldn’t run now.”

It isn’t long before a truck rumbles through the piles of burning rubbish and we’re harshly shoved inside with a load of others.

An SS soldier punches his fist against the metal body of the truck.

“Take these ones to the train station. They’re going to Auschwitz.”

Auschwitz.

Mother cups her hands over her face as tears fill her eyes.

“I’ve heard of Auschwitz. That’s where they’re killing our people.”