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The Children Aktion (from Samuel Bak: Painted in Words)
"The Children Aktion"
Samuel Bak: Painted in Words, pp. 73-78
In this excerpt, Bak is ten years old. He and his family have been forced to move into a work camp within the Vilna Ghetto, where they share a small barracks, referred to as "our cell". Bak's family has befriended Misha and Slava, and their children.
I must return to the eve of the aktion.
Winter seems to be over. The melting snow has left a layer of slush and sticky mud. It clings to our flimsy felt boots and fits them out with heavy soles of dirt. A man and a woman, carrying their damp boots in their hands enter our cell. Strange wrappings made of old newspapers and patched up socks cover their feet. The feeble yellowish light that dangles from the ceiling casts deep shadows on their thin faces. They talk with foreboding about a new rumor. On the parking grounds near the camp there are many trucks. What does it mean? What are the Germans preparing?
* * *
I have just realized that today, as I write, is the anniversary of the event I am about to describe. Exactly fifty-six years have passed since March 27, 1943. An odd and troubling coincidence in time.
* * *
Early, with the arrival of the morning's fainty daylight, after a tense and sleepless night, Father leaves for the workshop. Also our cell partners leave. Mother, who works on a later shift, stays with me. The room is filled with the heavy air of sleep. She slightly opens the window to let in some fresh and cool air. A cracking sound of approaching trucks bursts from outside. It is mixed with the shrill and penetrating sound of whistles. Loud voices of the Gestapo command our attention.
"The children! The children!"
We try to listen carefully. "All the children out into the courtyard! Vaccinations! They must go for vaccinations! Hurry up! No dawdling!" Mother looks at me. Her face is expressionless. Her head and shoulders seem frozen. An inner jolt makes me realize that this could be an end. An end? The end? What kind of end. I do not know. Voices in German shout through the corridor, "Get out! Quickly, you schweine!"
Mother takes my hand. "I am staying with you. Don't worry, nobody can separate us. We are going to stay together." We reach the crowded staircase on which many women and children, bewildered and panicking, move downstairs. The noise of whistles and shouted orders is more and more interspersed with the growing sound of lamenting. Mother firmly holds my hand. By clinging to the rail we move more slowly than the others. But the crowd pushes us toward the large doors that open to the square. The courtyard is filled with officers and soldiers as well as with women and children expelled by the pressure of the stairs. Though it is difficult to see what is happening, the running soldiers, gesticulating officers and piercing screams freeze my blood.
Suddenly I see Slava at her corridor's door. I pull Mother's arm.
"Slava!"
Slava, who has remarked us, moves quickly in our direction, blocks out exit to the yard, grabs Mother's sleeve, and pulls us away: "What are you doing? Are you insane?"
"I can't go on; I just want to get it all over with..."
"There's always time for that!"
Slava seizes Mother by the arm and quickly draws the two of us into her corridor, whose door she then immediately closes. "Follow me." With her hand she indicates her distant door. Suddenly Mother is transformed. The little injection of Slava's courage is bringing her back to her old self. We run and burst into a small room, whose window has been blocked by several burlap sacks. The women grab me, push me under the bed, and cover me with tattered cloths. I feel the presence of two more children. One of them is Slava's daughter. I recognize her from her subdued nasal voice with which she lets everyone know how uncomfortable she feels. Someone whispers, "Please keep quiet." Noises from the corridor suggest that our door is being barricaded by the stuff that is scattered nearby. Two or more men who are quickly arranging some heavy objects call out to each other. Among their voices I recognize Father's. The noise that penetrates from the yard through the ground-floor window swells to a wail of sobs and cries that are drowned by the rattle of machine guns and pistol shots.
A piercing woman's voice shreiks "Murderer! Murderer!" It is quickly silenced by the sound of a shot.
I crawl into myself. I know that the children with whom I played only yesterday will not be there any more.
The sobs of the children fade with the rattle of departing trucks, and the sound of retreating army boots leaves behind a silence of death. But the pause is short-lived. A mounting sound of moaning grows in crescendo and turns to a fortissimo of wailing cries, a chorale of hundreds of bereaved parents.
A strange shivering descends along my spine. I am the last to crawl out from under the bed. Slava's daughter is stretching. Another boy, smaller than I with watery eyes and a runny nose, jumps into his mother's lap. No one is capable of muttering a word. Time passes. A light knocking on the door is a sign that we should not worry. Our men are back. Heavy objects are pushed away from our door. Father, Misha, and a third man enter. Their faces are ashen, and they look curbed and small. Whispering so as not to arouse suspicion of our presence, Father tells us about the aktion that has torn most of the camp's children away from their parents. He tries to be practical and speak in a matter-of-fact way, but his voice cracks with emotion. We have questions he tries to answer. Were other children saved? How many? He is unsure. "Perhaps a dozen or so...All have remained hidden."
There is a rumor that the Gestapo is going to return to the buildings for an additional search. Nobody can tell how long it will be possible to hold out in hiding. Even parents of the saved children must at present pretend they are bereaved. I am told that from now on I shall have to be very careful. Not only am I in danger of being detected by the guards, I risk being discovered and denounced by our own people. Men and women, driven into insanity, wander now in the empty corridors, on the former playground, and in the deserted workshops where they call their children's names. They might be capable of tearing apart any living child who is not theirs/ One has to beware. They know the camp's places fit for hiding.
The story of two mothers, a dead baby and living one, and King Solomon with his sword flashes through my mind. Can I show myself in our cell to our Salomon with his Katia and Maman?
The other boy and I have to remain under the bunks at least until midnight. Slava's daughter, since she is thirteen, must be made to appear older. They will try to integrate her into a group of women at work, without arousing suspicion.
Now it is Misha who gives us addtional details. Several mothers who clung to their children were taken away on the first of the trucks. Others, who opposed the soldiers, were gunned down. They were immediately buried, on orders of the Gestapo. He and Father tried to help dig the common grave, but the men recognized the bodies of their wives insisted on doing it with their own hands. How many were gunned down? Nobody seems to know. At present the total number of women prisoners in the camp is unlcear.
Father thinks it is a rare chance for Mother to escape and prepare a hiding place for both of us in town. We must seize the opportunity. Mother's eyes widen: "How?"
"Leave it to me."
I crawl back under the bunk and so does the other boy. I wait patiently for midnight to arrive. There are proofs in all our familiar tales that midnight's secret powers carry in them miraculous and unexpected solutions. After a while I push away the rag that hides my face and observe Misha's daughter. She is being metamorphosed into a grown woman. While Mother works on the hairdo, Slava fits her into a pair of shoes with thick wooden soles and very high heels. Since the shoes are too large, extra filling is put into her socks. A wool muffler is places under her pullover to give her a developed bosom. Her lips are painted dark red. While Slava toils on the girl's transformation tears run alongside her frozen smile. The girl is perpelxed. To me it seems as if she was being dressed for a Purim play. How absurd! I want to say something but a giggle tries to escape my throat and I focus on keeping it inside. When the work is completed, they prepare to leave. "Doesn't she look like a bride!" says Mother.
"Let t be with blessings and good luck," adds the little boy's mother.
Night descends. The boy's father returns sooner than we expected. He pulls him from under the bunk and covers him with a blanket. Holding the boy in his arms, while his wife walks in front of them, they disappear into the corridor's blackness.
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