“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—aplan 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 ragingthrough 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.
