Not even four days have passed since Elena gave birth beneath the cobbler’s shop, and now there’s a well-dressed man standing outside the village hall clock tower, seemingly waiting for me as if he knows me—as if he knows what time I leave for school in the mornings.
“Pardon me. Are you Rosalie Kaufman?” the man asks, his voice quiet, his gesture passive. “The girl who saves babies?”
Until now, my work has been quiet, private, and in secret—cellars, bedrooms, even a couple of closets—places out of sight from uniformed Germans.
“I’m sorry, do I know you?” I reply, continuing down the curb. He isn’t familiar.
“No, but I’m Philip Silberg, a desperate man who has buried three babies in the last six years. My wife is pregnant. God has blessed us once more, and after so much heartbreak. She’s already beginning to swell, can hardly sleep, and questions thebaby’s movements. She still has a way to go, and quite frankly, I’m terrified.”
I don’t have to ask why they aren’t at a hospital or visiting with her physician. Not by the white band looped around his arm, marked with the Star of David.
“I’ll pay you, whatever the cost, for as long as it takes.” I’ve been under the impression that most Jewish people in Poland don’t have much spare cash, nor are they permitted to employ non-Jewish Poles. The new German laws are firm and in bold print, posted all over the city. “You can live at our estate while we wait for her to give birth. We have plenty of space. We’ll provide food and whatever other necessities. My eldest son, Stefan, and my daughter, Eloise, have a personal tutor who visits daily. She can school you as well if you’d like.”
A Jewish family still living in an estate, with the means to sustain upper-class living. I don’t understand how this is possible. They must have special circumstances or advantages, perhaps.
I stop mid-step, turning to face the man with sunlit reflections piercing his troubled hazel eyes. “How do you know who I am?”
“Word spreads quickly when a hero lives among us. The cobbler’s son, Antoni Witkarz, from down the road—he was singing your praise this morning when I dropped off a pair of shoes. He’s said you’ve been the quiet miracle making your way around the village to the pregnant Jewish women who have lost access to medical care.” He takes my hand and presses it between us. “I beg of you. The thought of losing another baby or, God forbid, my wife this time too…Please.”
Antoni.I should have known.
Everything inside of me spills out with a resounding yes, without question. But I still live under my father’s—well, underthe clock tower’s roof. “I’ll need to speak to my father. I’m only sixteen,” I tell him.
“I know what you must be thinking—we’re Jewish, and?—”
“No, no. That’s not it at all. In fact, I greatly admire the Jewish faith—your pride of culture and tradition, strength and perseverance—if I can do more to look after you, I will.”
I’ve said too much, over-spoken, and made Mister Silberg visibly uncomfortable as he dips his head for a moment before straightening his posture. “Thank you for your kind words,” he says. “Well, I don’t want to make you late for school. Perhaps if it’s all right with you, I might have a word with your father as well?”
I point up to the clock. “He’s up there, keeping the time.” I’m not sure Mister Silberg will receive the answer he’s hoping for from him.
“Thank you,” he says, his words saturated with unfulfilled gratitude. He bows and backs away. “Only with your father’s permission will I return later to ask you again.”
I didn’t know that moment would be the turning point of my very existence.
FIVE
STEFAN
MONOWITZ (AUSCHWITZ III)
Present Day: December 20, 1943
My toes are numb. Standing in a row of prisoners between the wooden barracks and factory gates, my feet sink into the icy gray mud.
“Move!” a guard commands.
As the rows of men bleed into two lines, the bodies shielding some of the wind split like flood gates. Cold air slices my throat, stabs my eyes and ears, and burns my exposed flesh.
The blue-and-white striped uniform I was given in exchange for my wool slacks and sweater is thick but too large, and does little to keep out the damp, bitter cold.
I follow the man in front of me, his uneven steps and limp, blood-drained hands dangling by his sides.
After three weeks in Auschwitz, first at Birkenau and now here at Monowitz—it’s the same torment with a change of scenery. From gallows and brick chimneys to cranes and scaffolds.
My legs seem to weigh twice as much as they ever have, and yet fat and muscle melt from my bones for each day longer Isurvive. But that’s not what I’m thinking about as I drag my feet along.
I glance back over my shoulder, for one more glimpse of her…questioning my sanity. Rosalie.
