Chapter nine

Violette woke up in a panic; she felt the warm tongue of the huge Danish dog standing over her and licking her face.

"To your place," Juziek shouted, noticing this, and the dog jumped out of the room. "I'm sorry, he learned to open doors. You did not eat anything yesterday; I will warm you some of the soup, and you will eat now."

Violette got up. She had been so tired on the evening of her arrival that she fell asleep in her clothes.

When she finished eating, she wetted a bath towel in the sink and went into her room to freshen up; she knew that her task had not yet begun, and she would face challenging moments.

"We have to talk before you leave," Juziek said as she entered the living room.

She sat in front of him in the narrow kitchen at the table. "You're alone now; the two guys who accompanied you returned to their camp. You take the tram to the city center, enter the ghetto as a nurse who works for the Red Cross, speak German, and it will be easy for you to convince anybody. Remember your details and the cover story. If necessary, you can give my address if asked; I have prepared a rental agreement between us. It looks legal. I do not know your role, your real name, and what you are involved in, and I do not want to know. May God be with you; good luck."

Before leaving, she hid the gun in her room; then, she put on the clothes and shoes that Juziek had prepared for her. She wore a fashionable windbreaker and a wide-brimmed hat. She received a sum of money from Juziek in a white leather purse. Violette was no longer seen as a young village girl but as a respectable lady who took care of her appearance to the last detail.

As she took to the streets, she felt the suspicious looks of passers-by, "Violette, it's all in your head; no one is looking at you," she remembered Juziek's words he had said to strengthen her confidence.

One person was standing at the tram station, "Good morning, sir," she greeted him. She did not use the blessing of the peasants anymore; she very quickly adapted to the urban customs on which she grew up in Vienna.

When she got on the tram, she sat right by the window in the first cabin; she wanted to get to know the city and see where the German checkpoints positions were.

When the tram stopped at the station closest to Lipowa Street in the Old City center, Violette got off and began to walk towards the ghetto. When she got closer, she noticed German soldiers stationed at the entrance to Saski Park. For a moment, she was afraid to pass them but made an immediate decision, without hesitation, raised her head, and hurried to pass them. One of the soldiers looked at her and commented in German, "There are also elegant women among those primitive Poles" Violette smiled to herself with satisfaction; she passed the first test successfully.

"Where is the Jewish hospital?" She asked a young boy walking with a yellow badge on his clothes. He looked at her for a long moment, "Give me zloty; I'm hungry."

Violette took some coins out of her purse and gave him, "Now, can you tell me where the hospital is?"

"The hospital is next to Peretz's culture house; there's a Typhus epidemy there now," he said and walked away.

The streets were empty of people as if no one lived there; the Germans raided the old houses time after time until the Jewish inhabitants left or were sent to concentration camps or forced labor.

A policeman from the Judenrat approached her. "What is the lady looking for? Can I help?" He asked.

"I'm looking for the hospital director," she said.

"Come with me; I'll bring you to Doctor Tennenbaum."

While following the policeman, she looked at him; his uniform was sloppy and dirty, a white ribbon with a Star of David on his sleeve. His appearance was humiliating; the man worked for the Germans to survive, he was agreeable to beat his people to please his cruel sender's.

When they arrived at the entrance to the hospital, he stopped, "Be careful, the typhus epidemic kills many people, dozens of patients come here every day, and we also evacuate dozens of bodies every day."

Violette thanked the policeman and entered the lobby of the culture house converted into a hospital to treat patients with typhoid fever.

The kind old doctor received her for a call in his room; she was asked to wear a cotton mask and wash her hands in iodine solution for disinfection.

"Who do you represent? I did not quite understand the purpose of your visit," said Dr. Tennenbaum.

"I was sent to you on behalf of the Jewish Freedom Fighters organization. They need information about actions taking place in the ghetto and in the labor camps, and any information that will contribute to the fight against the Nazis."

Tennenbaum looked at her with a surprised face, "I was told that the Red Cross representative wanted to meet with me."

"This is my cover story; I will ask you to keep my identity secret for my safety," she said.

"Of course, of course, I'm aware of the risk you're taking; why not meet with Judenrat chairman Henrik Becker? He will give you better information; he's in constant contact with the German headquarters."

"I was told to meet with you, they do not trust Becker, mainly because of his deputy Dr. Mark Altan who was an Austro-Hungarian officer, and his ties with the Germans are problematic."

"All right, I will cooperate with you; I will prepare a detailed report on the situation as well as everything I know about the actions."

"I will also ask you to arrange a treatment kit with an anesthetic and surgical knives and sewing needles; we need it."

The two arranged to meet again within two days; Violette got up from her chair and thanked the doctor with a bow; she feared to shake hands with anyone who came in contact with patients in the terrible typhus epidemic.

As she left the building, she walked down the street close to the buildings not to be exposed. She looked between the yards and saw many refugees who had found shelter in abandoned empty houses robbed of furniture.

A group of young people gathered on a street corner caught her eyes; she decided to approach them but was careful not to be noticed by the Jewish policemen walking in the streets.

As she walked towards them, a siren and shouts were heard from all over. Two German vehicles entered the main street from both directions and blocked the exits; a commando unit entered, accompanied by terrifying German shepherd dogs barking loudly. The soldiers held weapons in their hands and began picking up the men and among them young boys.

The "action" lasted no more than an hour, with Violette standing in the middle of the entrance to a high-rise building, and one of the soldiers who entered the building passed her without looking at her. When about a hundred young people were gathered on the street, they were pushed in two rows towards the trucks waiting outside the ghetto district. They loaded them onto the trucks and drove away, accompanied by the commando, who kept anybody from jumping from the trucks.

"Where are they taking them?" She asked one of the weeping women who remained standing in the street, looking after the disappearing trucks.

"I do not know; they came in and pulled my son out of bed; he is only sixteen; how will he cope with the hard work on the roads? He is weak and thin" She wept bitterly.

"I understand you, be strong; he's coming back, you will see." Violette did not believe in her own words, but she felt the need to strengthen the woman and give her hope.

Violette took out some bills and gave them to the woman. "Please take it; it will help you for a while to buy food" The woman stood with her outstretched hand holding the money, and tears dripped down her cheeks. "Who are you? Did God send me an angel?" the woman wondered, and her voice broke.

"May you be blessed that your son will return to you safely," she replied and left.

Violette returned to Juziek's house without any obstacles, she felt safer, but still, she was prepared for any possible event.

Juziek opened the door for Violette with a flushed face; he led her into her room. On the bedside table was the pistol she had hidden before leaving for the ghetto. "Do you want me hanged? Why did you not say you had a weapon? If the Gestapo had come to "visit" me and in a quick search found the gun, I would not see the morning light. I did not expect you to be so irresponsible."

Violette stood awkwardly and did not know what to answer. "You are right, sorry," she replied, stuttering.

"Throw the gun tomorrow morning, take it, and don't come back with it, and if you get caught with the gun, don't mention my address; otherwise, I will pay for it with my life."

After he calmed down a bit, he invited her to eat with him 'Golonka' - a cabbage stuffed with meat in tomato juice that he had prepared himself.

"Dear Violette, I'm angry because I'm afraid for my life like any other mentally healthy person; I take the risk of having you in my house, the discovery of the gun in my house is instant death, a bullet in the head, and that's it. Now that I have calmed down, I hope you will be more careful in your operation. Now, tell me a little about your pre-war life."

"Just the thought of my pre-war life breaks my heart," Violette says

"I should not think about our previous life, but one thing I can say: I believe with all my heart that my earlier life will return and will be better than it was. My parents are not in Europe; they traveled to New York a year before the war broke out due to my father's work. He is a professor of physics and a lecturer at Columbia University. He and my mother are both natives of Warsaw who moved to Vienna before I was born. The relocation was due to his studies at the University of Vienna and later his work there. I also went to university, but the war caused ..." Violette stopped talking, tears choked her throat, and she got up and poured herself a glass of water. "Maybe we should have some tea? What do you say, Mr. Juziek?"

"I'd like to have a cup of tea with you, provided you don't call me sir anymore, just Juziek."

Violette smiled, "All right, dear Juziek."

As she lay down to sleep and closed her eyes, Johan and Jaroslaw suddenly appeared in her imagination intermittently; this time, Johan was insulting and sullen. He entered the room where she was lying on the couch with her legs on the coffee table, and he addressed her in a blunt tone "Are you putting your feet again on the table as the rich and arrogant Jews? Would you also like a nice woolen blanket to cover you?"

Before she fell asleep, she wondered what this strange dream meant. Or maybe it was not a dream but a wish?

The next day she got up early; it was six o'clock, and she decided not to wake Juziek; she walked out on tiptoe, holding a brown paper bag with the gun inside.

When she came out into the street, except for one man out with his dog, no one was around. She walked towards the Saski Garden. At the garden entrance, there was usually an SS checkpoint. This time, oddly enough, there was not. She walked through the curved paths in the park and noticed a low stone structure erected by the municipality to store the gardeners' tools. Garbage and scraps of cans and bottles were thrown behind the building; she moved some next to the wall, dug a small hole, put the bag with the gun in, covered it with sand, and then returned some of the garbage and covered the hiding place.

When she left the park, she saw how the SS men had arrived to cover the position. She recorded the event in all its details.

The streets were suddenly flooded with people hurrying to get to their place of work. She walked at an increased pace towards the tram station. No one would have suspected the well-dressed lady who was walking secure and with her head held high that she was a Jewish girl, a partisan, who had come from the forests on a mission to set up a cell of Jewish freedom fighters and sabotage the Nazi extermination machine aimed at extinguishing the Jewish race.

She was sitting in the back car due to lack of space; when the tram stopped at the third stop, three SS men entered. And they went from car to car and checked the passengers' IDs; at the fourth stop, before they reached her, she got off the tram and continued on foot.

Since the labor camp was a long way away, she decided to take the next tram after him. She stood and waited at the station, followed by some people in line. When the tram arrived, and she was about to get on it, a loud explosion came from one side street. People began to flee in all directions, and with them, Violette. She was running after a young man without knowing where, when suddenly he entered one of the yards. "Come quickly, come in here," he called to her and opened the iron gate for her.

"I live on the first floor, come with me," he said, holding out his hand to her. They both ran up the stairs when shots and sirens were heard in the street.

"I live with my parents and my younger sister; you have nothing to worry about," he reassured her as they entered the apartment. She greeted his parents, who were happy to see him. The young man went to the window and looked out at the street. "The partisans probably put a bomb somewhere; now they will kill everyone who is out," he said. Violette went to the window and looked through an opening between the curtains, and her eyes darkened; corpses were lying all over the street, "they shot anyone who didn't escape," she said, and profound anxiety was heard in her voice.

'Where is your accent coming from? You are not from Lublin? 'Asked the young man's mother.

"No, I'm from Vienna, my parents are polish, but I was born and raised there," she replied.

"I immediately recognized that you were not a local; what are you doing in Lublin?"

"I am a Red Cross observer, sent from Vienna to see the situation of the Jews in the ghetto," she replied.

"The Jews are the cause of everything we go through, and God has punished them and sent them the Typhus."

"The typhus epidemic is a result of the hardships in which they live and the poor hygienic conditions," Violette responded, with disgust evident in her voice.

The young man tried to reassure, "this is a war, and we are all suffering."

"I should go; I thank you for the hospitality; by the way, my name is Bozena Kulak."

"I'll accompany you downstairs to see that the street is safe," he said, grabbing her elbow as they walked toward the door.