Chapter six

All night she walked at a steady pace trying to get as far away from the village. When she saw lights in the distance, she bypassed the place and was careful not to stand out. When dawn began, she entered the depths of the forest. She was looking for a hiding place to sleep and spend the day. She had enough food for two or three days and found a way to create a bowl shape from large leaves that would store the dew and the thin rain that fell almost every night.

While searching, she went deep until the tops of the tall trees obscured the daylight. A pile of dirt caught her attention; she approached and stopped to listen. No voice was heard. When she bypassed the mound, she saw an opening that led to a stone structure that was dug entirely and well camouflaged. To make sure no one was there, she pushed her ear to the wooden door. For long minutes she listened and heard nothing. Finally, she pushed open the access hatch, and it opened to descending stairs. She bowed her head and listened; nothing. When she entered, she felt there was a presence in the shelter. She did not have the means to light a fire, so she decided to find a place to lay. A pungent odor of rot reached her nose, "Mice must have died here," she thought to herself before her eyes closed. She fell into a deep sleep.

When dawn broke and a little light entered the room, she noticed a figure lying in one of the corners of the underground shelter. She panicked and jumped to her feet. The figure did not move, "Maybe it's a human corpse," she thought. She slowly advanced towards the exit when she suddenly heard a faint "help me" voice. She walked over to him and removed the blanket from him. It was a pale young man with a distorted face from pain, his foot was black with rot, and he seemed to lose consciousness from time to time.

She realized that he would die if he would not receive medical treatment in a few hours.

"Water," he whispered with his eyes closed.

She had no water; she looked around and saw a tied military backpack standing on a wooden box that served as an improvised table. She opened the backpack, and she found a canteen with a swastika emblem on it; it was full of water. She brought the canteen to his mouth and lifted his head slightly so that he would not suffocate.

She emptied the backpack contents and found a first aid kit with bandages, ointments, and a vial with antiseptic liquid. She took out a bandage, tightened it over his foot above the rot, and then put the disinfectant liquid on it. The guy groaned in pain but did not shout. She wet his forehead a little and helped him lie on his back as she placed the empty backpack under his head. He did not open his eyes and mumbled vague sentences, but she understood a few words in Polish.

"Who are you?" She turned to him.

He did not open his eyes but answered her in a weak voice, something she did not understand.

She wet some of the bread she had and put it in his mouth. He chewed and fell asleep immediately.

She sat next to him for long hours and did not know what to do. Her heart would not let her leave him alone and continue on her way. She released his shirt buttons a little and noticed a purse in his pocket. She pulled it out and looked at his documents.

"Name and surname: Jaroslaw Kesznicki

Place of birth: Praga district, Warsaw.

Year of birth: July 16, 1916."

"He may be a Jew," she wondered, "but he does not look like he ran away from camp. Maybe he jumped from a train that took him to the camps, or perhaps he was a partisan?"

She put the document back in the wallet and placed it back in his pocket. He did not respond. He lay quietly and groaned from time to time.

Violette fed Jaroslaw every hour a little of the bread she had soaked in water from the canteen. She poured out the disinfectant and bandaged his foot to keep away the mosquitoes and flies attracted to the smell of rot. He was vaguely conscious during the day but did not open his eyes and mumbled something that Violette had difficulty understanding. Towards evening his body temperature dropped, and he opened his eyes for the first time. Still too weak to speak, his eyes expressed deep gratitude for her efforts. Leaning over him, she helped him take off his sweat-soaked shirt when suddenly she heard human voices and the slamming of the door.

"Who are you?" She saw four men and one woman standing in front of her with weapons in their hands.

"My name is Bozena Kulak," she said.

"How did you get here?" Asked one of the group.

"I was walking around in the woods and came across this structure; I went down and found this wounded man unconscious and treated him."

She sat down and looked at them. Then, the girl went to Jaroslaw and put her hand on his forehead. "He has no fever," she said.

Violette did not ask questions; she understood who they were but did not know if they were Kraiowa army fighters or Polish or perhaps Jewish partisans.

"Are you Jewish?" asked the man she recognized as the group's leader.

For a long moment, she wrestled with herself as to whether she should be exposed. "No," she replied.

"Then what are you doing in the woods alone?" He asked impatiently as he understood she was lying.

"Yes, I'm Jewish; my name is Violette Wolfsohn," she said, lowering her eyes.

"Lies have no legs," he said in Yiddish, and everyone burst out laughing.

"I do not understand Yiddish," she said.

"What kind of Jewish girl does not understand Yiddish? What language did you speak at home?" He asked mockingly.

"German and Polish," she replied, "I was born in Germany and grew up in Austria, Vienna."

"Ola la, we have an intellectual bourgeois here," the girl said, glaring at her.

"The wounded man needs a doctor," said Violette. "The foot must be treated; otherwise, he will get a blood infection and die."

"If you've already made a diagnosis, then what's a doctor needed for? Treat him!" he said, placing a commando knife on the makeshift table.

"I cannot do that."

Jaroslaw opened his eyes and whispered, "I'm ready, do what you have to do."

One of the men approached Jaroslaw and poured vodka down his throat from a small bottle he pulled out of his pocket, then inserted a wooden stick he had carved from a branch between his teeth. The girl lit a fire ignited inside a bucket, took the knife, and passed several times over the flames.

Violette ran up the stairs as Jaroslaw's screams began; these were screams that froze her blood. She ran away from the place into the depths of the forest until she heard no more.

"Violette, you can come back; he calmed down," one of the men shouted out.

When she returned, she found Jaroslaw lying unconscious in a puddle of urine and feces; she looked carefully at his foot and found it there. "What did you do to him?" She asked the girl.

"I took out the bullet that was stuck in his bone and cut the rotten meat around; hopefully, he will now recover from the injury."

Violette breathed a sigh of relief. She was sure they had cut off his foot.

"Violette, right? Is that your name? You can stay with us if you want," she said. "Anton is the commander; we are all Jewish students from different places."

"Are you all from Poland?"

"Yes, Sasha is from Grodno, Anton and I from Warsaw have known each other since childhood, Victor from a village near Kielce and Jaroslaw also from Warsaw but from Praga district, not from our area."

"How long have you been in the woods?"

"On September 1, 1939, the Germans invaded Poland. A week after they entered Warsaw and two weeks after they arrived in Brest Litovsk, the Polish army withdrew and fled to Russia.

"And what about your families? Do you have any contact or information?"

"No, we do not know anything, there are all kinds of rumors, some of them faked, some people spoke about forced labor camps in Poland and about mass extermination pits in Ukraine of Jews who had to dig their graves themselves and then were shot. What about your family?"

"I know nothing about my family; my parents left Poland on a ship a year ago for New York, and I have no contact with them" Tears welled up in Violette's eyes.

"I'm hungry," suddenly they heard Jaroslaw's voice.

Violette hurried to the bunk where he lay; she placed her palm on his forehead, "No wonder he's hungry; he has no fever," she said with a wide smile.

She went to the box where they kept their food. There were various military cans; she took one of canned milk and poured a full glass for Jaroslaw. Then, after dipping two slices of bread in milk, she sat down next to him and fed him.

He seemed a little stronger as he managed to sit up on his own, and his voice sounded loud and clear. "My angel, you saved my life," he told her. "I did not catch your name."

"My name is Violette; I'll let you call me Vivi if you want, that's what my parents called me, and I miss that name and my parents too."

"I'll call you Vivi if it makes you happy; that's the least I can do for you."

She looked at him; his eyes were big and dark, his curly hair was carrot-colored, and his face was full of freckles. "He seems a high school student rather than a guerrilla fighter," She thought.

"There's action tonight; we'll be out early at dawn," Anton said, and everyone shook their heads, "go to bed early, and one will guard."

"I'm going to guard," Violette said suddenly.

"Do you know how to shoot a gun?" Anton asked her.

"I did not try, ready to learn," she replied.

"Stay with Jaroslaw; he will explain to you how to manage the weapon; tomorrow, I will teach you to shoot."

When evening fell, everyone sat around Jaroslaw's bed, who showed signs of recovery, and sometimes, a shadow of a smile appeared on his face. They exchanged experiences from Jaroslaw's injury in the latest action when they ambushed a German motorcycle and eliminated its two riders. Unfortunately, one of the Germans managed to shoot a bullet that hit Jaroslaw's ankle before being shot by Anton.

Klara was Anton's girl; she was twenty, tough-looking but with a romantic and gentle soul. She recounted how she saw in the streets of Warsaw an Orthodox Jew pulled by his beard by Germans like an animal tied with a rope while Poles were laughing and spitting at him. When Klara left her parents' house, she did not think she wouldn't see them again, nor her younger brother and sister. She does not know what happened to them; the Polish neighbors told her they were put in a truck with all the Jewish occupants of the same street and taken to the ghetto; it was the end of 1940.

A few months she wandered between relatives' houses and finally, together with Anton, decided to flee to the forests.

"Everyone has his story, and what's your story, Violette?" Klara turned to her.

Violette lowered her eyes; she felt embarrassed to tell everyone how she got to the forests; she felt humiliated that she should be persecuted for being Jewish. "How is it that we have been living in Europe for about two thousand years and are still unsafe in our homes, and the hatred towards us only grows stronger and reaches complete anarchy so that any Pole, Ukrainian, or German can kill a Jew without being punished.? It is inconceivably humiliating, and I feel very ashamed that I belong to a persecuted and despised people."

All the members of the group began to protest her words, and Anton took the floor. "Violette, I'm sorry to hear such things. We are a people who survived these two thousand years with our heads held high; we did not leave our homeland, the Land of Eretz Israel; our ancestors were captured by the Romans as slaves, chained, and led to Rome. The Romans burned Jerusalem and persecuted the Jews everywhere; they crucified Jesus and everyone who proclaimed themselves his follower. Along the streets of Rome stood hundreds and thousands of crucifixion pillars. The Jews of the Land of Israel were exiled from their land, some to North Africa, some to Babylon and Persia, scattered to all four wind directions. This is how Jews first arrived in Poland about a thousand years ago and settled here. It is not a shame to belong to these people but a great honor. Our Polish neighbors are full of envy for the successes of the Jews of their country, both in literature, music, industry, medicine, and all walks of life. But see, Violette, a day will come, and our state will be established in the Land of Israel, Jews from all over the world will return to build the state, the Zionist movement is getting stronger and stronger, Jewish youth are being trained, and some have already arrived in the Land of Israel. We will go through the war that has been forced upon us, we are not the cause of the war, but we have fallen into it. We are hurt by the Germans who are harassing us and persecuting us due to the insane ideology of the one who leads the state of the cultured German people who have become evil, bloodthirsty animals like their barbaric ancestral tribes. They will not eliminate us; we will survive all of them."

Everyone sat quietly and listened to Anton. When he finished, they clapped and burst into song. Violette realized how wrong the feeling of hatred she had developed towards her religion was.

When Violette woke up, she saw Jaroslaw sitting in his bed. Only both of them remained in the camp. He tried to get up but was unsuccessful because of his weakness and his injured leg.

After preparing something to eat, she went out into the woods and found a branch solid and long enough. She peeled off his shell, "Here, it will help you get up." She handed him the stick she had made.

When he tried to get up, he stumbled and fell back on his bed. "You have to get stronger; your foot hasn't healed either," she said, helping him improve his position in his bed.

"I heard you were from Warsaw" Violette tried to strike up a conversation with him.

"Yes, I'm from the Praga district; my parents relocated there from a small village not far from Warsaw."

"Was there a reason to move from the village to the city?"

'Yes, my parents come from an ultra-Orthodox family; there was a Hasidic courtyard in the village headed by an old rabbi. My father was a peddler and used to travel with his goods to Warsaw once a week. He saw the secular Jewish way of life, met some of the Enlightenment movement, and decided that his two sons would not study in a 'Heder' but secular schools. The rabbi boycotted our family and forbade all members of his community to talk to us; even my father's parents did not exchange a word with him. One day my father decided to leave the village, brought a horse and cart, loaded the household items, and moved to the city. The rent in Warsaw was high, and he decided to live in the poor Praga district, where many Jews lived. My brother and I have been sent to a mixed school where Jews and Catholics studied together, boys and girls, which was an act of heresy in our village. Hence over the years, I entered university and studied mechanical engineering. When the war broke out, and the Germans entered Warsaw, I fled east that day, met Klara and Anton, and joined the group."

"And your parents? Did you have any contact with them?"

"No, I have no connection, and from what I hear from partisans and villagers, the situation in the cities is horrible; the Germans are closing the Jews in one fenced district in terrible density; they call it a ghetto."

"What do you live from? Where do you get food and weapons?"

"We come to the villages and by force of arms take food and blankets from them. We took the weapons from Germans killed by us."

"And do you have contact with other groups?"

"Yes, also with the Krajowa Army as well as with groups of Jews in various places."

"Now, show me how your gun works."

Jaroslaw took his pistol out of its holster and explained to Violette how to disassemble the weapon, its various parts, load the bullets, then let her reassemble and reload it.

"You learn fast; after the training to shoot a gun, you will be officially declared a partisan"

"I think I will declare myself a partisan after I go out with you on an action and kill anyone who wants to kill me."