Authors: Mary Brigid Surber
The nests are constructed of branches and sticks and lined with twigs, grasses, leaves, rags, and paper. Stork nests are very strong, enduring for long periods of time. Some nests have been in continuous use for hundreds of years
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Wisdom is the ability to grasp things intuitively, and beyond that, to use the knowledge you’ve gained with decency. Animals often have an innate wisdom, a set of abilities they are born with, knowing intuitively how to do many things without being taught. Knowledge is different than wisdom and can be used to help people or hurt them. That’s where the decency comes in, connecting knowledge to goodness.
I suppose from the outside looking in, this place was lacking in wisdom and decency. If you were standing outside our camp, what would you expect to see? Skinny, dirty souls that shuffled to and from their worksites in robotic movement? Wisdom and dignity for the Nazis was far different from wisdom and dignity for the inmates. Wisdom for us meant basic survival. Wisdom was about observing rules and working hard; paying attention to the behavior and moods of the guards, and staying out of their way. An unspoken rule for us was “don’t stand out” but sometimes, even that didn’t guarantee absolute success. As the war progressed some of the guards became more lenient, while others became more vicious, making our routines a complicated maze of uncertainty.
Dignity was shown in small acts of selflessness between the inmates. These were acts the guards were mostly unaware of. Offering a quick hug, sharing part of your bread, offering a smile or a hurried grasp of someone’s hand, a wink, a private joke, a
song from home. It was never big or showy, but it often had a profound effect on me. We all had good and bad days. More often than not, the small dignities we afforded one another kept us going, especially on the days we found ourselves running low on memories, or seeing any light in the world we now found ourselves enslaved in.
* * *
Some girls were starting to stir and awaken. A few girls were quietly whispering. I was reminded of my parents’ hushed conversations in the days leading up to the war. They knew the situation in our country was grave, but I doubt they knew, or could have begun to imagine, the brutality and force of the German invasion. How could we have known that Poland would be gone in thirty days? You can’t wrap your mind around that kind of evil; it’s too big and impossible to understand. While my parents whispered, my mind flooded with questions.
Would Germany really attack us? What would become of us if there was a war? Would it be as the boys at school said, with German soldiers turning around and running from the Polish army? What would happen to my family, Basil, and the farm animals?
Unfortunately, I now knew the answers to all of those questions and even a few others I hadn’t thought of.
During the months leading up to September in 1939, my parents and grandparents tried to reassure me that we’d be alright, all of us…but their faces told a different story. Their normal calm demeanor was replaced with a seriousness that scared and worried me. I longed for the pre-war quiet that cradled us and made us feel secure. I began to notice missing items; the silver frame that held my parents’ wedding picture, the beveled mirror that my mother spent so much time polishing, the hand crocheted table cloth for our Sunday dinners after Mass, and the crystal vase that my grandfather had given my grand
mother for one of their wedding anniversaries. Was my mother hiding them or selling them? Why would she do either if we were going to be alright? My father would leave our home after dinner and walk to the woods that bordered our farm.
Where was he going?
After I’d gone to bed, I’d hear him arrive home late, exhaustion mirrored in his heavy steps. My mother and grandparents spoke softly to him in muffled tones; conversations cloaked in anxiety and despair.
Suddenly my parents were warning me: “Ewa, don’t go too far!”
“Come back quickly when we call!”
“Don’t wander off the paths!”
I knew this land like the back of my hand. I’d traveled these forest paths my whole life. I knew most of its plants, trees, animals, and secret places. I knew the different trees; which ones were hard wood and which ones were soft, which trees provided fencing and those my papa used for fuel. I knew which plants to avoid and those I could touch.
Unfortunately, my skill in the forest didn’t change their concern. They’d become even more concerned about my wandering the farm and surrounding forest. I was perfectly capable outdoors; I had an innate affinity with nature, stronger than any friendship bond, and a comfortableness that unsettled them now that we were going to war. They knew Basil was with me. Maybe, our proximity in the German countryside made them nervous; after all, we were no longer in our country, but in the middle of theirs. I was too afraid to ask my mother about the things I saw. Anxiety furrowed her brow, and increased her sighs; I didn’t want to add to her concerns or make her voice the ones already consuming her.
I did talk to Basil though, on our walks around the farm. When I was finally quiet and worn out from the worry, he’d head off and find something. He’d bring it to me, dropping it at my feet; a goose feather, a pine cone, an unusual rock. He’d probably
have brought me a squirrel if he could have caught one. I guess he was trying to make up for the things that were disappearing from my home and life. I saved all of his gifts in a box under my bed.
I wished I had them under the wooden bunk I slept in now. Hugging him always made me feel safe, a feeling that I visited often in my dreams; but now, that feeling was as foreign as a full meal, or kindness from the guards. At night, while drifting off to sleep, I would reach into my coat pocket and rub the cluster of coarse dog hair I’d accidentally pulled out of Basil when the soldiers ripped me away from him. I tried to pretend it was his ear and that I was rubbing it like I did before all this madness took my world away. That cluster of Basil’s hair was one more thing the Germans couldn’t take from me. I’d kept it carefully hidden, along with my memories. It wasn’t impossible to keep things hidden from the guards, but it was challenging, and always risky.
I wasn’t the only one keeping things hidden. Mama had kept her concerns hidden from me as well. She seemed to be preparing me for survival, a mother bear teaching her cub how to ride out a storm. She reminded me of how strong I was. A few days before the German invasion, we were hanging laundry on our clothesline. There was a slight breeze blowing, infusing our sheets with freshness. I loved crawling into fresh, crisp sheets at night. She asked me if I remembered the song she’d taught me to sing when I’d had a bad dream. It was a song about the moon. She told me that after she’d taught me the song, I’d never woken her again, but sometimes she’d heard me singing softly in the middle of the night. She held my face gently in her hands, and gazed into my eyes before speaking the next words.
“Ewa, I don’t want to frighten you, but if we should get separated in the war I want you to think about all those little things, and cling to them, because they will bring you safely back to me.”
“I will mama, I promise. Don’t worry, mama, we’ll be ok. We have papa, grandpa, and Basil to protect us.”
She quickly bent down and grabbed another sheet out of the laundry basket. I could see her eyes tearing up, but couldn’t figure out why.
* * *
I lay back down. The siren hadn’t called us to work yet, so there was no need to rush it. Back on my bunk, I quietly hummed the song about the moon. I looked out the narrow window and my heart filled with love for my family. Just as a young stork leaves its nest but continues to be fed by its parents, I would continue to be fed by recollections of mine.
I whispered, “Mama, I’m staying strong like you taught me.” I knew wherever she and papa were, they would be so proud of me.
Adult white storks are about three feet tall, with long red legs
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a straight pointed red bill, white plumage, and black wing feathers
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Understanding happens when wisdom and experience collide. Many of the children in this camp were aware of the fragile nature of their existence. Many had understanding beyond their years. They had learned to survive and adapt to one of the harshest environments imaginable. A natural pecking order developed in each barrack with younger or newer inmates following the lead of those who’d been here the longest.
From the outside looking in, you wouldn’t see how we’d obtained understanding. You would only notice the dirtiness of our appearance, the thinness of our bodies. You wouldn’t be able to see the hearts in our chests that had survived starvation, beatings, kidnapping, and desolation. You wouldn’t see the determination to survive in our eyes, because our downward gaze kept that knowledge from our captors. You wouldn’t see the thoughts we clung to every day:
Soon this war will end and we will go home…soon
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Circumstances had taught us that not all children in the world get to experience life through the joy of childhood. We learned that being Polish at this moment in time meant living a life that was out of our control, the life of an inmate in a labor camp. It was the opposite of a joy-filled childhood.
* * *
I could hear some finches singing outside the window. It was
steadily growing lighter and the beautiful songs of the birds were a bitter contrast to the life we were living. We were Polish, we were Catholic, we were children, and we were slaves. We were the brown haired, brown eyed children who didn’t resemble the German race enough in hair and eye color to be considered for Germanization. By Hitler’s orders, all others were to become slave laborers or exterminated.
Our first camp was a youth labor camp that had once been a boarding school.
It was almost completely surrounded by high walls so it was difficult to look out, except on one side. From there, despite the barbed wire fencing, we had a clear view of the area surrounding us. There was farmland with patches of trees; fields of beets, potatoes, grasses, nature, and in the distance was a town. Work details gave us a limited view of the ghetto, but the scenery surrounding the ghetto was open to us and provided my soul the view of nature it desperately hungered for.
I’d always been aware of how much I valued nature and scenery, perhaps because it reminded me of my family’s farm. Though I never could have guessed that its view would be withheld from me at any point in my life. Now it was such a treat to look at nature, and understand that its beauty held a deeper meaning; it was symbolic of life, sustenance, and creation. I wondered what had lived here before the ghetto and the labor camp. The ghetto couldn’t have possibly looked like it did now. No one would have wanted to live there.
The run-down section of town, known as the Lodz ghetto, was particularly unsettling. It had the appearance of a living ghost town. There was no color. People lived there, but it appeared lifeless. It was comprised of buildings instead of barracks, but everything from the buildings, to the inhabitants’ clothes, to the faces of the people, was dirty, drab and malnourished…ash-like, as if its fire had burned out and gray embers were all that remained in front of us. It was always so oddly
quiet too, like the sounds of living had been sucked out of the air; just breathing was hard enough. Even though we only walked on its border streets, it terrified me to walk near it. Occasionally, on my way to the factory, I would witness the blank stares of the inhabitants. Ignoring their looks of desperation and their struggle to stay alive was impossible. Those feelings would stay with me long after leaving the area. In my heart, it was impossible to understand how one hate-filled mind could create so much misery and destroy so many lives.
Thousands of Polish children had been ripped away from their families and sent to orphanages and private homes in Germany to “learn” to be German. As Hitler ordered, their Polish culture and heritage was to be completely wiped out of their hearts and memories. These children were considered suitable for Germanization only if they met the physical qualifications, learned the German language, and disregarded their Polish culture and memories.
When Germany invaded Poland, their intent was to completely destroy our country; families, homes, businesses, and churches. They believed the Polish people were inferior to the German race. They waged war on our government, our people and our culture. Those who were old or sick would be killed and all others would provide slave labor to support Germany in its efforts to dominate the world. Our land was given to support Hitler’s ideal of a pure Aryan race.
Our camp was officially called the Polish Youth Detainment Camp. It housed children for various reasons. Not all of us in this camp failed the physical examinations. Some children were here because they were caught stealing food, a necessary survival skill as the war dragged on. Others had been displaced because of the war, or convicted of some minor infraction. Still others had unwillingly been given to the Germans because their parents hoped they would qualify for Germanization, and this designation would save their child’s life. How fitting that the one thing
that sustained me, my memory, was the one thing Hitler insisted his Germanized children lose.
We ranged in age from five to sixteen, but most of us looked younger. We were so small from never having enough to eat. In fact, our days were divided up by the meal times. We existed on two meals a day of watery soup and sometimes, if we were lucky, stale bread. Occasionally, if we were out working on a farm, we would steal anything we could to fill our shriveled stomachs; grass, raw vegetables, even grain that was supposed to be for the animals. It didn’t matter to us as long as we had something to put in our stomachs. All of our waking thoughts seemed to be about food, but our constant fear was getting caught, which meant a severe beating or even death for stealing needed food. We were constantly reminded how fortunate we were to receive two meals a day! The soldiers told us that other camps gave one meal a day and sometimes nothing. Although this desolate place didn’t remotely resemble home, I knew it had to be better than one of the concentration camps. In my mind though, it was difficult to distinguish between them. Prison was prison. Different degrees of difficulty existed in each, but all were formed for the same purpose to achieve Hitler’s goal of world domination, and enslave anyone he viewed as standing in the way of his objectives.
Like Basil used to be, hunger became my constant companion. My family and Basil were daily in my thoughts.
Were they alive? Were they ok? Where were they and would we ever see each other again?
When I was assigned to work on a farm out in the countryside I became very homesick. I thought about our farm; like the River Warta in the spring overflowing her banks, my mind flooded with questions. I wondered about the people using our farm to produce food and animals for Germany. I couldn’t bear the thought of our farm supporting Hitler, nor of a German family using our home, supporting his Aryan ideals and programs for
developing his “Master Race”.
I feared my parents and grandparents had been taken to a labor camp. Anyone who appeared healthy could be deported at any time. I tried not to visualize how they were managing, especially if they were separated. I knew that elderly people, as well as the very young and infirm, were usually viewed as useless. I knew my grandparents were strong and capable of working long hours. Perhaps the soldiers would consider their usefulness as well as their age.
Concern for our loyal, hardworking German Shepherds came often to my mind. We had trained them to herd sheep. We cared for them lovingly. Were they now performing sentry duty and living in kennels? The thought of them being mistreated or handled roughly by soldiers made me feel down. I was sure the Germans treated the dogs better than the children who slaved for them, though. I did not believe anyone could be more mistreated than us. One of the older girls, however, insisted that we weren’t treated as badly as the Jews. As we were barely surviving, I wondered how anyone could survive harsher conditions. The thought of harsher treatment sent chills down my spine. I couldn’t entertain such a thought; I’d survived this long, and I wanted to see the end of the war. I wanted to go home and feel the warmth of my mama’s embrace and the strength of my papa’s arms. I wanted to smell my grandmother’s freshly baked bread and hear my grandfather’s silly sayings and songs, and I desperately wanted to wrap my arms around Basil’s neck and feel the warmth of his shiny coat and the wetness of his tongue licking my cheek. A slight breeze, carrying a leaf from a nearby tree, got my attention, and brought me back to the task at hand, weeding the beet and potato fields. I paused from working to look at the rows of vegetables growing. I was surrounded by fields of food that we would be harvesting in a couple of months, but none of it would be given to us. This realization caused a tear to drop from my eye; I quickly wiped it away. I’d always remembered the
admonition Berta had given me on my arrival: “Don’t ever let them see you cry, it only makes them angry….don’t give them the opportunity to beat you!”
Berta had passed all the tests for Germanization. A child’s suitability for being racially valuable was based on measurements of sixty-two parts of their bodies. The Nazis were looking for specific characteristics. A child’s hair and eye color, the shape of their nose and lips, the hairline, the toe and fingernails; all these things determined if they would be chosen. They also had to pass neurological tests, IQ tests, and they were watched closely for personal habits such as bed-wetting and nail biting. If they had any of these habits they were rejected even though they had passed all of the other tests. They were forbidden to speak Polish. They were given German names, issued false birth certificates, drafted into Nazi youth groups, and instructed in German language, geography, and history lessons every day. If they didn’t conform they were starved or beaten and eventually sent to a labor or extermination camp. The Nazis found it so easy to disregard a human life. They never saw beyond the outward appearance to what existed inside.
Berta had been taken by the Nazis when she was eleven. She didn’t last long in the Germanization program because she stubbornly embraced her culture, language and memories. She refused to forget who she was and where she had come from, as well as her native tongue. Whenever she was found singing a Polish song, she was severely beaten, but it never deterred her from remembering who she really was. Eventually, they tired of her stubbornness and she was sent to our labor camp, her memories and culture too strong to be abandoned.
Berta was one of the few children I could completely trust. Her dislike of Germany was as strong as her love of Poland. Her parents had earned their living by crafting beautiful wooden boxes and hope chests. Her father had learned the trade from his family. The designs had been passed down from generation to
generation for years. They lived in southern Poland in the Carpathian Mountains, near the Slovakian border.
During one of our lunch breaks, I noticed her drawing designs in the dirt with a stick. Thinking she was playing a game I asked her if I could play.
She shyly looked up at me and whispered, “Just watch.”
Design after design appeared in the dirt like magic. Triangles, circles and lines blended into beautiful designs that I couldn’t imagine ever creating myself.
“What are they for, eggs?”
Berta shook her head and I continued to watch as she effortlessly continued drawing.
I was familiar with the Pisanki eggs available in Kostrzyn at Easter time, and even though these designs were similar, they weren’t quite the same.
It wasn’t until several days later, during another work break, that Berta told me about her parents and the Polish crafts they made and sold for a living. It was hard for her to talk about them without tearing up. I could tell she thought about her parents as often as I thought about mine. I softly squeezed her hand, and told her to always keep them in her heart. That way she’d never lose them, and no one could ever really take them from her.
She nodded her head and said, “Yes, I suppose that’s true, but somehow I’d feel better if I could touch them and hear them.”
I didn’t know what to say to her. Words couldn’t fix the years of injustice, cruelty, and ravage of our lives and country. The awkward suggestion spilled out of me despite my misgivings.
“You will again soon, Berta.”
“How can you be so sure, Ewa? Especially when we don’t see any end in sight?”
“You heard what the underground is telling us. The Germans are losing the war, Russia has turned against them, and they are no longer allies.”
“I hope they are telling us the truth, Ewa. I don’t know how
much longer I can stand living like this.”
“I know what you mean. On days when I’m sad, I pick out a day from before the war. It could be a special day, like a holiday. I try to recall every detail from that day…the weather, people, food we ate, things we did, smells, colors, special activities, the clothes we wore…I try to remember every little detail. Then I know I’ll have it in my memory forever, and it is one more thing the Germans can’t take away from me. Think about all the days you spent living before the war, Berta. How you may have watched or helped your mama make breakfast, or work on her craft work. Did you help select trees in the forest for their crafts? What did you see as you hiked in the woods? What did you hear, smell, and feel? You can never forget those things.”
“I was always in trouble for remembering those things in the Germanization Program, Ewa.”
“Yes, but not here. Here the only thing they care about is how hard we work. They’ve already decided we aren’t good enough to be German. Here, we are just slaves, and as long as we work we can think whatever we want to think. I like to think about home and going back there sometime soon.”