The Second Landing

CHAPTER 1

THE DISTANT RUMBLE

Be careful when crossing the main road to Chojnice, Walka, as the traffic of lorries has become very heavy lately, called Mrs Warski after her daughter, who was about to leave for school in town. She was attending a state boarding school which had students from all over Poland.

The traffic has been getting heavier for a year now, mother, and I have no intention of getting run over by an eastbound lorry on my sixteenth birthday, 17 April, 1939, shouted Walka in mock seriousness, giving her voice an exaggerated pomposity, her eyes laughing with youthful exuberance. Her voice was carried by the chill wind from the north-east tugging at her worn-out but neatly mended jacket, an obvious hand-me-down that had seen better days.

Mrs Warski returned to the house and set about preparing breakfast for her boarder, an ethnic German who worked as a mechanic in town. His board money was badly needed to support Mrs Warski’s three children since her husband had died four years ago.

Ludwig Lehman came into the kitchen and greeted Anna Warski in Polish. He had grown up in this so-called Polish Corridor, situated between Germany and East Prussia and the free city of Danzig, ever since his ancestors had left East Prussia after the religious wars of the seventeenth century, because they had not wanted to become Protestants.

****

Many German Catholics had found an affinity with the Poles because of their religion and had settled in the area, forming German enclaves in the rich ethnic checkerboard of the Corridor with its small settlements of old Prussians, Lithuanians, Danes, Kassubians, Wendts, Sorbs, Slovinci and Warmians. Some of the earlier Polish inhabitants, like the Warmians, had preserved an older Polish language that dated back to the Middle Ages. This language was called the Low language, in contrast to the High language of the court, which had become modern Polish. The newly arrived Poles looked down upon the people who spoke this Low language. There were even traces of Vikings and Swedes in the area and of course there were the Poles who had settled here in successive waves for the last 900 years, even since 1918.

Before 1918, the Prussians ruled this land after having conquered it, and therefore still considered it their own. The Poles on the other hand, considered the area rightfully Polish. They pointed to the Polish origin of ancient place names, like Pommern or Pomerania, having been derived from Po-morze, meaning the land up to the sea and Lubeck or Lubeka, meaning darling from the word Lube, while the suffix ka denoted its Slav origin.

Claims and counterclaims made each protagonist more patriotic and chauvinistic. While conquest had stopped, cultural and linguistic chauvinism continued. Acculturation of the diverse minorities had been the aim of whoever happened to be in power at any given time: massive Germanisation before 1918, and equally determined imposition of Polish culture since then.

It was rare for the inhabitants of the area to speak only one language. It was equally rare to find someone who had a pure bloodline, originating from only one ethnic group over several generations.

The public servants were Polish, but they came mostly from other parts of Poland. As some poor Poles had also drifted into the area, they had earned themselves the rather spiteful nickname bosy Anteks, or barefoot Tonys, because a couple of them had married some well-off Kassubian girls, taken their money and cleared out. Not surprisingly, these incidents did not contribute to any feelings of tolerance amongst the local community.

The influx from the south of Polish public servants and transients, however, was more than offset by the influx from the west: German settlers who took up land, usually the best land, mainly along the banks of the Vistula river.

****

Ludwig Lehman looked up from his porridge and studied Anna Warski’s face. She was an attractive woman in her late thirties, no stranger to hardship. She was eking out a meagre living for her family by raising chickens and growing a few vegetables. The money he paid for board was the only cash income she had, apart from any produce she might sell. Lucky that Walka and Zbignew were bright and received scholarships to go to high school. Olek, the youngest, was just completing primary school.

Ludwig looked at the fine-boned profile, her blonde hair swept into a knot at the back of her head. Her face that had never come in contact with face creams or make-up, showed the fine lines of early wrinkles, too soon for her age. She had heard that well-off women slowed down the aging process with expensive face creams. Even among her not-so-well-off acquaintances there were those who indulged themselves with yoghurt masks, oatmeal and honey facials and used oil and butter to soften their skins. But not Mrs Warski. Food was scarce enough and it was meant to be eaten, she had declared scornfully, not pasted on a woman’s face. And besides, a widow like herself had no business trying to make herself attractive to any man. It would not have been proper.

She turned to him and said, Did you hear the constant rumble of lorries again last night, going from west to east?

Yes, I did, he replied. They’ve been rumbling along for weeks now, almost bumper to bumper. But it seems that the traffic that used to move at night only, for months before, is continuing right through the day now.

Whatever could they be carrying from Germany to East Prussia? And so much of it? asked Anna Warski with a puzzled look.

I don’t know, said Ludwig, but I heard on the radio this morning that diplomatic talks are to begin between Germany and the Soviet Union today.

Maybe they are planning some massive trade venture together? put in Anna tentatively. Ludwig shrugged his shoulders.

Some trade-off or other is certainly going on, he said.

Oh look, said Anna, peering out onto the main road through the window, there are some very elegant black limousines passing the convoy of trucks.

Ludwig got up from the table to take a look.

The front one’s a Mercedes-Benz, he informed her proudly, and the other two are Opel-Kapitans.

He was pleased to show off his knowledge of cars. The fact that they were

German-made cars made him feel even more self-satisfied.

Some very important people must be travelling east, observed Anna Warski. I wonder whether these goings-on have something to do with the German demands to change the status of the free city of Danzig. The Polish government would have none of that.

Hitler believes that Danzig is a German city and should belong to Germany, said Ludwig.

Hitler believes that a lot of places should belong to Germany, said Anna. Only last month, 15 March, his troops marched into Czechoslovakia, and that had never been part of Germany, and a few days later his troops took the city of Memmel in Lithuania. I suppose he will want our corridor next, she added.

Ah, but a fortnight ago, Britain declared they would support Poland if Germany were to invade. I don’t think Hitler will want war with England, said Ludwig.

****

Walka was hurrying to school through the narrow cobbled streets of Chojnice, a beautiful medieval town that had once been a fortress. The ruined city walls and towers had often run with blood during the fifteenth century and again in the Thirty Years War of the seventeenth century.

She entered the heavy doors of the red brick building that had once been a German teacher’s college, built by the Prussians at the beginning of the nineteenth century, an up-to-date, comfortable, roomy building, with excellent sporting facilities, laboratories, kitchens, showers and other amenities. The Prussians had built it with the intention to stay. They had not forgiven the Poles for reclaiming the land.

In the doorway, Walka met Maria, their neighbour, who had just brought her young grand-daughter to school. As befitted a young girl, Walka greeted the elderly woman first. Maria answered in the ancient Polish language that she knew Walka also spoke.

‘Tis a pleasure to hear someone as young as you still speak the old language, Maria beamed. Not many like you, little one. All the others are either too ashamed or too afraid to speak it. But you...you are different.

I love the old language Busha, (Busha meant Old Mother), it sounds so beautiful and I don’t care if they laugh at me.

When the old ones die, the old language will die too, because there are not enough young ones like you, Walka, said Busha with a sigh of resignation as she moved on.

A group of girls just behind them had heard the conversation.

How very common! exclaimed one of them as she turned to Walka. You wouldn’t find respectable people speaking that language.

The girl turned away with contempt. A look of defiance crept into Walka’s eyes that seemed to intensify their blueness. Her usual wide-eyed soft look gave way to a narrowing of the eyes, a setting of the chin and a tightening of the lips. She turned after the old woman and said in a deliberately loud voice, Goodbye Busha, I enjoyed speaking to you.

May God bless you my child, said the old woman softly, her eyes brimming with tears.

Greeting several passing teachers, Walka climbed the stairs to the second floor, where the senior students’ classroom was situated. The class teacher was already in the room, preparing the blackboard for the lesson ahead. The bell for commencement of lessons had not yet gone, so there was still a relaxed low murmur of voices in the classroom. It was a buzz of activity, not of mischief. Not that there was much misbehaviour at any time. The students knew that to go to high school, or gymnasium, as it was called all over Europe, was a great privilege in 1939. Only a minority had the opportunity to go on to secondary education, and ever fewer continued on to tertiary studies.

When the bell went, the girls stood up respectfully. Miss Helena Gorkowna greeted them and the class said morning prayers. The phrases of the Lord’s Prayer rolled off rhythmically, carried by the subdued voices.

The first lesson of the day was Polish literature. Miss Gorkowna turned to Walka with a gentle gesture of the hand, which expressed both an invitation, as well as a direction.

Would you start reading the epic poem Pan Tadeusz by Miczkiewicz, please Walka? said Miss Gorkowna.

Walka read about the epic hero Pan Tadeusz who had dedicated his life to a great cause, the freeing of Poland from German and Russian occupation in the nineteenth century. The epic expressed the hope that Napoleon would be instrumental in helping Poland gain its freedom. The poet idealised the spirit of resistance, and expounded the desirability of harmony and tolerance in an ideal society that had the courage to resist oppression by a spirit of solidarity.

Miss Gorkowna asked several more girls to read the poem in relays, then stopped the reading and began the discussion of what had been read.

Helena Gorkowna was different from the other teachers. Her method of teaching avoided the traditional authoritarian approach which imparted set pieces of knowledge or set interpretations. Some of the senior teachers had been known to mutter disapprovingly about Helena Gorkowna’s new-fangled methods of teaching, but because she was known to be highly respected and well liked by the students, the disapproval had not reached a more serious stage.

Walka loved the discussion part of the literature lesson. It was like soaring on the wings of thought, pushing back the limitations of the narrow world of reality, getting into the realm of universal human experience. The understanding she gained from these discussions made her feel glowing and excited inside. She showed her enjoyment and absorption by her shining eyes, as puzzle after puzzle was unravelled or interpreted in search for the answers. Even if an answer was not found, the search for meaning was exciting. It was exhilarating, this overcoming of mental obstacles, like a mountaineer’s joy after climbing yet another peak.

The bell interrupted the lively debate. Miss Gorkowna was excited too. This was a good group. There were five students out of a class of forty who had Walka’s ability. And that made teaching exciting. It was like playing a game with a handful of young champions. It wouldn’t be long before these youngsters would beat her at her own game. But she didn’t mind that. It would be a pleasure to go down before such up-and-coming adversaries.

.

As she was walking home from school, Walka’s thoughts were still preoccupied with the topic of the last lesson concerning the history of the area.

The moves and countermoves, plots and counterplots, betrayals and double dealings, treaties and broken treaties of the Thirty Years War, presented a sorry record of humanity. Emperors, kings and princes fought each other for supremacy, each trying to enlarge his domain by acquiring someone else’s land. And as if this was not bloody-minded enough, they tried to satisfy their own greed for power and domain, under the guise of fighting for the true religion.

Walka was sickened by all this. She continued with her train of thought, how in the midst of the comings and goings of the armies of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II and the Danish King Christian IV, the Swedes invaded Poland in 1655. No doubt King Gustavus Adolphus had some very noble reason for that too, thought Walka ironically. All invaders have idealised justifications for their actions and even more grandiose excuses for staying in the conquered lands which they then conveniently annexed to their empire.

A thought suddenly struck her: Invasion of Poland. I wonder what that was like? A shiver ran down Walka’s spine.

After school, Walka usually called in twice a week at the local amateur theatre rehearsals, as she enjoyed drama. One of the members of the troupe was a family friend, who let her come in and watch. She did not intend to stay long today, as she wanted to go home early for her birthday celebration. Curiosity about the progress of the rehearsals of Hamlet , made her call in. The actors were in the middle of rehearsing Act IV, Scene 4. Hamlet, on a plain in Denmark, was asking questions from the captain, who was about to take his men into battle. Walka sat down quietly at the back of the hall and listened intently.

.

Hamlet: Goes it against the main of Poland, Sir, or for some frontier?

Captain:"Truly to speak, and with no addition,

We get to gain a little patch of ground

That hath in it no profit but the name.

To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it; Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole

A ranker rate, should it be sold for free."

Hamlet: Why, then the Polack never will defend it.

Captain:Yes, ‘tis already garrisoned.

.

Walka had heard the passage before, but today it suddenly acquired an added meaning. The happenings of the last few weeks, the vague rumours, the uneasiness of the population when they heard news of political developments and perhaps today’s history lesson, all contributed to a tension that she felt, sitting on the edge of her seat. She was engrossed in Hamlet’s soliloquy: How all occasions do inform against me..., her hands gripping the back of the chair in front.

.

Hamlet: "And let all sleep, while to my shame, I see

The imminent death of twenty thousand men,

That for a fantasy and trick of fame,

Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot

Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,

Which is not tomb enough and continent

To hide the slain...."

.

Walka listened no further. She was perturbed, but did not know exactly why. She walked out of the theatre with a kind of fear a mother feels when her son has not come home at the expected time. A fear of what might be, not of what is. Who can explain irrational instincts? She walked quickly in the direction of home.

The main road loomed up ahead. Walka had come to the outskirts of town, without realising it. She had to wait for a pause in the lorries’ heavy traffic before she could cross to her mother’s house on the other side.

The wind picked up in strength here, close to the open fields. She was glad to return to the warmth of home, particularly today. Mother would have made something special for her birthday dinner. She was not mistaken. The moment she entered the door, delighted she could smell the delicious yeast dough cake that had just been taken out of the oven. The table was set with the best table cloth and napkins that Anna Warski had in her glory box, and plates that had belonged to Walka’s German great-grandmother. In the middle of the table stood a steaming soup tureen, its ladle protruding from the opening of the lid. Going towards the kitchen, Walka sensed the tangy, sour smell of stuffed cabbage rolls and the savoury aroma of potatoes fried in onions. But the piéce-de-resistance was undoubtedly the enormous plate of fresh doughnuts dusted with icing sugar. With those and the logs of walnut rolls on the side table, for the Warski family this was a feast.

Anna embraced and kissed her daughter. I haven’t a special birthday present for you, she said through tears.

And what do you call all this? asked Walka, making a sweeping gesture. "Thank you, mother, for everything.:

Mr Lehman will be in shortly, then we will eat, said Anna.

Must he have dinner with us, even on my birthday? said Walka irritably.

Anna was taken aback. For some reason she felt on the defensive.

Ludwig came in and congratulated Walka, shaking her hand. She accepted his formal good wishes rather limply and for her mother’s sake tried to muster as much grace as she could under the circumstances.

The joyous occasion, as well as the afternoon’s baking and cooking, had put some colour into Anna Warski’s cheeks. She had changed into her Sunday-best dress, a navy blue polka dot, long-sleeved, high-collared dress of severe simplicity, which paradoxically drew attention to her handsome face. The high Slav forehead, grey eyes, high cheekbones and finely-chiselled face, now flushed with excitement, acted as a magnet to Ludwig Lehman’s eyes. He followed Anna’s every movement. Walka noticed it with annoyance.

Keep your eyes to yourself, you stupid German, she thought to herself. Her anger surprised her. Why should she begrudge her mother a man’s admiration? After all, she had been a widow for four years, she was a beautiful woman in a severe sort of way, mainly because she never ever thought of emphasising her appealing features. Why should Walka feel so resentful? Not that she could find any particular fault with Ludwig. He just didn’t have the right to look at her mother like that.

Suddenly her younger brother Olek kicked her shin under the table. Walka looked at him sternly. Anna had turned away to fetch something. Olek grimaced, sticking his tongue out at Ludwig, whose eyes were elsewhere. Olek gestured to Walka, indicating big eyes by putting his thumb and forefingers in the shape of glasses over his nose.

Walka met her elder brother Zbignew’s gaze. He motioned imperceptibly towards Ludwig with his eyes.

The three of them were like conspirators, united in their opposition and disapproval. For once it was not a protective parent clucking over children, but possessive children disapproving of intruders into their secure little world.

Anna Warski tried some cheerful conversation. Ludwig joined in gratefully. But the three young ones sat there glumly. In his fondness and desire, Ludwig was blissfully unaware of these undercurrents. Anna caught his vibrations, but also the negative ones of her children. She felt confused, embarrassed, a little guilty - she did not know about what - and a little frightened.

****

School had come to an end not long after Germany and the Soviet Union had reopened their trade agreement on 20 May. The summer vacation found Walka wishing that school would start again. Learning for her was a window on the world. She loved reading and when she closed a book, it was like closing the gate on the Realms of Gold.

She watched Ludwig becoming more insistent in his wooing of her mother and perceived a slight faltering in Anna’s reserve. Anna was obviously keeping him at arm’s length still, but her resolve was weakening as she struggled with her own conflicting emotions of duty to her children, the reserve of her traditional upbringing and her own inclinations. She was beginning to feel that she was not made of marble after all. Impulses stirred in her that she had kept buried for years.

Today was 23 August and normally Walka would have been looking forward to the new academic year that always started on the first Monday in September. But things had not been normal in the last few weeks.

Wherever she went, she saw people standing around in groups, talking in hushed, worried voices. Some talked loudly and aggressively about the enemies of Poland coming to regret the mischief they were planning. Their talk was a shade too loud, their laughter too raucous. It was like the child that sings in the dark to prove that it was not afraid.

Walking towards the town hall, in order to look at the bookshop window next door to the town hall, Walka noticed a crowd of people. On coming closer, she discovered that they were listening to a radio that had its volume turned up to its limit. There was a stir in the crowd as the voice finished and martial music followed by patriotic songs blared from the loudspeaker. Walka heard agitated voices saying:

So Molotov and Ribbentrop have signed a mutual non-aggression pact, have they? Stalin and Hitler have become allies. One cut-throat making a pact with another cut-throat.

What does this mean for Poland though? asked another.

I suppose it means that whatever Hitler or Stalin chooses to do, the other will look the other way, said one man. Or maybe they will both do the same thing and split the prize in half, said another. A woman, her voice trembling, came up with a surprisingly practical proposition.

We are only a few kilometres from the border, she said, I am going home to pack. Maybe we can go and stay with my brother in Warsaw.

Walka heard all these remarks and felt her own heart climb into her throat. Her heart pounded, a tightness gripped her stomach, a cold fear that made her struggle to suppress a feeling of nausea. Her mouth went dry and her palms became clammy. This was not time to be looking at books in the bookshop. She realised with a start, that schools and universities would not be reopening this September.

She turned and headed for home. Along the streets she noticed writing in bold letters on a few of the houses: Bojkotuj Niem ca. There were other anti-German slogans too, all slashed across the facades of houses belong to German citizens living in Poland.

Only a year ago, German culture had been looked up to. There had been a romantic adulation of the works of Goethe, Schiller and the other German poets; the music of Beethoven and Brahms were played next to that of the great son of Poland, Frederick Chopin; the German language was respected as the language of technology and commerce, and as such it was widely taught in schools.

In one stroke, all this had changed. The uneasiness of the last few weeks had turned into fear, and fear bred hatred. There were even some Poles who accepted German anti-semitism, yet hated the Germans themselves. Many of the anti-semites were people of few possessions, who looked enviously at Jewish-owned shops and businesses. Jews had not been allowed to own land in Europe, so they had to live by trade and trade was profitable. As soon as they were well off, the locals began to hate them.

Walka arrived at the main road outside of town. To her surprise, the eastbound traffic had stopped. Instead, Polish army reserves were heading west, in the process of taking up positions just outside Chojnice.

Breathlessly, Walka reported to her mother all that she had heard and seen, but Anna had already learnt it all from a neighbour who was fleeing to central Poland for safety and had come to say goodbye.

Are we going too? Olek asked his mother.

My goodness, where would I go? This is my home and here I stay, said Anna determinedly.

Mother, what are we going to do? asked Walka worriedly.

There is only one thing we can do, Anna replied. We are going to collect, secure, buy and hide as much food as we can lay our hands on. If there’s a war coming, food will be the first thing to disappear. I have heard your grandmother say that about the last war, many times.

.

In the next few days the whole family worked feverishly to harvest the potatoes, hang up the onions to dry, salt down the cabbage for sauerkraut, then kill the pig, salt away the meat, smoke the ham and the bacon, make sausages and stack everything away as unobtrusively as possible.

Normally, pigs were slaughtered in November to provide meat for the winter, but there was an urgency now that went against all established practice. Ludwig Lehman helped with the work, silently, earnestly. He dug a bunker alongside the house and covered it with logs and tree bark, then replaced the soil on top to form a mound. He dug the trench in a zig-zag form and explained that it was for structural safety’s safe. Anna was quick to see the potential use of the last zig-zag in the bunker. She stored food in it and camouflaged the entrance. It was as though the last section of the bunker did not exist.

Ludwig could not help feeling awkward, confused and guilty, even though he himself had done nothing to feel guilty about. He became withdrawn and took refuge in hard work, helping Anna and the children.

****

Dawn was about to break on Friday, 1 September, 1939. It was 4.25 am and the first heavy autumn fog lay clammily upon the undulating green countryside with its rivulets, woods and chain of lakes. Fog enveloped the fir trees and birches, dripping with morning dew, that lined the roads leading into Chojnice. In the cold grey light of the dawning day, the full beauty of the countryside on the edge of the glacial moraine could not be seen.

A series of dull thuds broke the silence of the sleeping land. After each thud, a tremor shook Anna Warski’s house. The thudding noise continued without stopping.

Walka got out of bed, to find her mother already in the kitchen. The two boys and Ludwig followed.

Artillery fire, said Ludwig.

Swallowing had suddenly become rather difficult for Walka. They all went outside. The fog had an acrid smell.

Must be poison gas. Remember, we’ve been warned against it, said Anna. Tie wet handkerchiefs around your noses and mouths and then put a shawl around that, she directed.

I think it’s the smell from the exploding shells, countered Ludwig.

That may be so, but until we’re certain of that, do as I say. Walka and the boys obeyed.

The earth shook and one of the bedroom windows shattered. We must go to the cellar assigned to our neighbourhood, Anna directed. Take your warm clothes and the survival bags.

Without a word, the children did as instructed. They felt their way to the nearby cellar, marching single file. Inside, it was already full. Walka heard a little boy on the cellar steps say to his father, Daddy, Friday’s a bad beginning. That’s what grandma always says. The man turned around, smacked the child and told it to keep quiet.

To Walka, the child’s comment sounded like Cassandra’s prophecy before the fall of Troy. A shiver ran down her back. The moment of realisation that war had indeed broken out, was an unnerving experience. It felt like a fatal moment, a moment that was to be a watershed in Walka’s life. In that one moment, one phase of her life had ended, a great door clanged shut on her past life, never to open again.

The pounding went on for what seemed to be hours. The rat-tat-tatting of machine gun bursts interspersed like punctuation the rhythmic thuds of the big guns. When the shelling finished, the people dispersed from their cellars to their homes. What else could they do? Those of them who were better educated hoped that a civilised nation which had produced Goethe, Schiller, Heinrich von Kleist, Emmanuel Kant and the greatest musicians of the last three centuries, would not be too bad as invaders. Those of German descent were happy about the impending invasion.

****

It was two o’clock in the afternoon when the Wehrmacht spearhead of a motorcycle column entered the town, followed by armoured cars and the infantry.

Sympathisers lined the streets, smiling and waving. Walka was watching from behind the wooden fence of their house. She looked at the faces of the young soldiers riding in on their motorcycles. Their expression was one of fear and distrust. It was, after all, their first invasion of another country. By the time columns like these were to enter Paris ten months later, the expressions of both officers and men would reflect an arrogance based on acquired confidence. But not yet. The success of the Blitzkrieg was still in the future.

Walka noticed that some of the motorcyclists had flowers stuck into their helmets and buttonholes. There must have been some very pleased people near the border. Then she saw a sight that she was to remember for the rest of her life.

Two of the motorcycle riders spearheading the next wave of infantry, had garlands of welcome no doubt hung around their necks by some German butcher near the border. The garlands were not flowers. but strings of sausages. Walka gaped incredulously at the grotesque sight. A garland of victory made from ground meat, she thought. Goosepimples appeared on her forearms as the symbolism struck her.

Columns of German soldiers were to keep marching past Walka’s house for days and nights on end. For some reason this reminded her of Xerxes’ Persian army crossing the Bosphorus on the bridge of 300 ships in the fifth century BC.

Saturday, 2 September, dawned. A neighbour came running and told Anna between gasps that a group of Poles had already been arrested. A few of them had been known to have been Polish nationalists - fierce anti-Germans, members of the National Democratic Party - others had no political affiliations.

I wonder how the Germans knew whom to arrest? mused Anna out loud, more in the tone of a theoretical question, than one that expected an answer.

All that day the Warski family stayed behind closed doors as Anna gave strict instructions that no-one should venture outside, saying, In these uncertain times, it’s better not to draw attention to yourself. Only Ludwig went out to look around and came back with the news that the Wehrmacht had made their headquarters in the town hall, had requisitioned the town’s hotels, and had taken over the schools to use as barracks. He had heard rumours of further arrests of Jews, priests and teachers. A whispering grapevine had sprung up instantaneously in the town.

By five o’clock on Sunday night, something more than whispers was heard. The first shots of the execution detail pierced the deceptive quiet of the town that appeared to be sleeping, yet fear and apprehension would not bestow the blissful release of sleep on its citizens.

The shots brought Walka out of the house. Her mother was already there, watching fretfully, straining eyes and ears. The shots continued in wave after wave. There was a pause between each volley of shots. Walka could not have known at the time, but there had to be a pause between taking away the dead bodies and the lining up of new bodies-to-be against the wall of the barracks. These barracks, recently occupied by the Polish army, were now occupied by those citizens awaiting execution.

Mother, look! exclaimed Walka. She pointed in the direction where a cloud of smoke billowed above leaping flames of fire.

The Synagogue must be burning, Anna replied.

And so it was. The first of many synagogues outside of Germany, was now slowly burning to the ground. The fate of the Polish Jews was sealed henceforth.

Events were moving fast. On 3 September, Britain declared war on Germany. The Poles were jubilant. The occupation forces did their best to cut off radio communications but Radio Warsaw was still broadcasting at this stage. A few people had managed to pick up the broadcasts.

I told you not to despair and lose hope, said old Busha to Anna. God will not allow evil to defeat what is good!

Busha’s son was saying, The British will help us, you will see...the French are also sure to help us.

But how can they help us? asked Anna. They can’t march through Germany to get here.

They will come by aeroplane of course, said Busha’s son, and people believed him. Many used to go out of town under the pretext of working on the potato harvest just so that they could crane their necks upwards to watch for those liberating British planes.

There, can you see him, that’s an English plane, would say some hopeful soul while some more knowledgeable person would answer, No, that’s a German Stuka, can’t you tell the difference?

.

When the first snow fell and the British planes still did not come, the people said that the planes couldn’t fly in winter but were sure to come in spring.

But the days rolled by and no British planes came, and the people of Poland realised that they were on their own. They had no way of knowing that years of appeasement and a peace in our time attitude was to culminate in the British retreat from Dunkirk. They had no way of knowing that Britain was in no position to help them at the time. They only knew that they had been let down. A few of them put it even more strongly: We have been sold out, they said.

****

On Monday morning Ludwig went to work in the garage as usual. He had nothing to worry about because he was German and spoke German. Business was brisk in the garage, with dozens of Wehrmacht vehicles needing attention. However, not all shops carried on business as usual. Jewish shops were boarded up and the shops of those arrested were closed.

From his garage, Ludwig could see posters being pasted on several buildings. He went to look and read that the German command had found it necessary to establish a Kriegsmassnahme - a war regulation, by calling on all Arbeitsfahige , those capable of work, between the ages of fourteen and sixty-five, to enrol in the Arbeitsamt, to be assigned to work. Anyone refusing to do so would be prosecuted.

During the lunchbreak, Ludwig hurried home to tell Anna because two of her children would be affected by the order. However, she had already heard. And that was not all. News had arrived that her younger brother who, unable to find work in Poland and having gone to Berlin several years ago for that purpose, had now been conscripted into the German army because he had been born in an area that had been annexed to Germany and as such was now considered to be part of the Reich. When an annexed territory became part of the Reich, its citizens could be called upon to serve in the army, regardless of their ethnicity, personal feelings and political convictions.

As if this calamity was not enough, Anna’s older brother was serving in the Polish army and was stationed in Warsaw. The vision of her two brothers facing each other across the battle lines, horrified Anna. And now her children were to go to a labour camp. Anna Warski stood dazed, frozen into shock.

Ludwig felt her anguish and his own initial pleasure on seeing the German troops turned into guilt from the moment he heard the execution guns. He had never associated the invasion by the German army with the shooting of people he knew. Before he had come face to face with the reality of being a citizen in an enemy-occupied country, Ludwig had imagined the expansion of Germany as a kind of progress of a civilised and enlightened people, bringing the benefits of an advanced technological civilisation to others that were less advanced. It was all glorious, romantic and noble. But Ludwig was beginning to see, with shock accompanied by guilt, that there was more to Germany in 1939 than great literature, divine music and superb technology. He had never considered the darker side of the struggle for power and the search for Lebensraum that Hitler envisaged for the German people. When Ludwig understood what the search for Lebensraum meant for the people in whose territory this room for living was to be found, he was horrified.

Ludwig grabbed Anna by the shoulders and said to her, What is happening to you and the people around here is terrible, I know. But to disobey orders at this stage is dangerous. Send Zbignew and Walka to the Arbeitsamt to register for work before the Gestapo comes looking for them. Second, marry me as soon as possible, so that my name can give you a certain amount of protection, as it will now be merely a matter of time before I too will be conscripted into the German army.

Ludwig’s outburst had the effect of bringing Anna out of her freeze and she dissolved into tears. He held her comfortingly, while she shook with sobs.

I cannot marry, she said. What if the Russians march into Poland too? Ludwig smiled soothingly, stroking her shoulder gently. That’s unthinkable he said. Hitler and Stalin have signed a non-aggression pact, remember?

.

The next day Zbignew and Walka registered in the labour office. Zbignew was immediately sent off to Germany to work in the Ruhr munitions factories. His family was not told about it, though. Walka was sent to help bring in the potato harvest, some kilometres away, where in months to come, due to malnutrition, cold, mud and sleeping in a draughty barn, she became very ill with a kidney infection. Anna heard of it and panicked. I can’t bring Zbignew back from wherever they have sent him, but I must at least save Walka and Olek, she thought.

That night, when Ludwig came home, she told him that she would marry him. Anna had got used to Ludwig over the year that he had lived in the house and she was surprised that her agreement to marry him turned out to be much easier than she had expected. A load fell from her shoulders, after having struggled for years to support the children on her own.

As marriages between Poles and Germans were forbidden, Anna, a Pomeranian, had to apply to be enlisted on the so-called Eingedeutschte Liste (Germanisation list) before being permitted to marry Ludwig. On the morning of 16 September they applied for such a permission, which would be some time in coming, but the procedure still enabled Ludwig to intervene on behalf of his would-be stepchildren. Olek was apprenticed in the garage, while Walka got a lighter job in town, undoubtedly saving her life.

****

The next day, 17 September 1939, the Soviets also invaded Poland. Hitler and Stalin had agreed to divide Poland between them. It was clear to many cynical Poles that it was now merely a matter of time before one of the two signatories of the famous non-aggression pact would doublecross the other.

****

The habitual gamblers, who still managed to meet in a run-down inn at the edge of town, were laying the odds and accepting bets. Most said that Russia would attack first, because it was inevitable that she would want a bigger slice of Poland. It had always been so under the Czars, they said. Old habits, like trying to acquire someone else’s land, were hardly likely to change under communism, no matter what Marx said about the noble, selfless socialist society, putting an end to war, acquisitiveness and greed, all of which were supposed to be purely bourgeois attributes.

Time alone would show whether the gamblers in the shabby little inn at the edge of town were right.

CHAPTER 2

THE DOUBLE CROSS

On the 28 August 1939, Marek Dobkowski, a signals expert serving with the Third Polish Signals Battalion at Benjaminov, was ordered to Warsaw for special duties. Together with Lieutenant Jan Majewski, a serious, gentle, thoughtful young man in his late twenties, and a stockily-built peasant-faced sergeant by the name of Eduard Kowalski, Marek was ordered to train men for a new signals company, to be stationed at Visoki Masowietck near Lomza.

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With his orders and requisition papers in his hand, Lieutenant Jan Majewski, who was in charge of the mission, turned to Marek: I’m only a reserve officer, used to be a lawyer by profession. You are a technical expert. Tell me what we need to establish a signals company.

We’ll need several wireless stations: one listening station to monitor Radio Warsaw and the communications sent out by headquarters at the pre- appointed times, several correspondence stations that transmit to the army units and one goniometric station to pinpoint any possible wireless stations of the enemy.

How many men do we need for the operation? cut in Sgt. Kowalski, who had been listening intently all this time.

Every wireless station needs five men, went on Marek. One to transmit, one to receive, three operators and one mechanic. In addition, we need drivers, cooks, someone to look after supply and of course we need protection.

Right, said Lieutenant Majewski, I’ll hassle with the brass, red tape and general organisation, you Dobkowski, get the equipment operational, while Sergeant Kowalski gets the men.

****

In the midst of their efforts, the Germans invaded Poland. The confusion that followed resulted in complications and thus it came about that by the time they were on their way to Visoki Masowietck, it was 12 September and the German army was at their heels advancing on all fronts.

Polish frontiers of 1,250 miles, were extended to 1,750 miles by the German occupation of Czechoslovakia. In peacetime the Polish army had comprised thirty infantry divisions and twelve cavalry brigades with no armoured or motorised divisions and only a sprinkling of light tanks.

The Polish cavalry was an object of gallant but absurd pride for the Poles. A third of their forces were concentrated in or near the Corridor - the Polish Pomorze, where they were exposed to encirclement from East Prussia and the west from Germany.

Far in the south, facing the main avenue of approach, Polish forces were thinly spread, but were massed in the north between Lodz and Warsaw.

In the north, young General Heinz Guderian’s armoured corps, spearheading General Georg von Küchler’s army, had pushed across the river Narev and was attacking the line of the River Bug in the rear of Warsaw.

General Guderian drove southwards in a wide outflanking thrust to Brest- Litowsk, while General Paul von Kleist’s armoured corps reached Lwow on 12 September, from where they spread north, to meet Küchler’s forces.

While the Germans were completing the encirclement, isolated bodies of Polish troops dissipated their energy in random efforts.

****

Lieutenant Jan Majewski looked at his map.

We are here, and that is the dwor where we are to set up our signals communications post, he said, pointing to the large country house and its outbuildings about 400 metres away from the main road where their company had halted. We’ll set up our listening and communications posts in the barns. There’s no need to disturb the family that lives in the house. It is enough that eighty-six of us are taking over the rest of the place.

The farm lay on flat land, surrounded by stubble fields, part of which had been ploughed. At the back of the house was an enormous cabbage field that reached as far as the orchard some distance away, and the orchard in turn faded into the forest beyond.

Sub-Officer Marek Dobkowski, signals expert, set to work, delegating what duties he could to others while doing the skilled technical tasks himself. Meanwhile Lieutenant Majewski was explaining to the rather stupefied landlord that his company had orders to station itself on his farm.

The next morning, 13 September, Marek relieved the duty operator. He had hardly settled into his post when a distant rumble from the direction of the main road gradually turned into a deafening roar. Lieutenant Jan Majewski burst into the barn.

German tanks approaching from the south-west. Relay the message to HQ, keep out of sight and hope that they will pass. We can’t fight them with rifles and the few grenades we have.

But not all of the men heard him, as some were outside attending to the various tasks they had been given. By the time Sergeant Eduard Kowalski managed to relay the order, the lead tank was turning towards the farm and seventeen other tanks followed, forming an encircling arch that encompassed two thirds of a circle, the farm its fixed point.

Marek managed to signal the message, Eighteen German tanks surrounding farm....... but did not get any further, as the first tank shell burst, hitting part of the main house which caught fire. Other shells fell and pandemonium broke out. A wipe-out. Rifles and a few grenades against an armoured group.

Jan passed the word around. Every man for himself. Retreat to Wilno as best you can. We will meet at Bialystock - if we are still alive.

The last phrase was almost inaudible - an afterthought, not meant for the ears of his men.

Marek ducked and rolled on the ground, just as the tank shell burst on the spot where he had been standing a moment ago. Around him the ground was strewn with the bodies of his fellows. He realised that it was the dip in the ground into which he had rolled that had saved his life by having been placed at an angle from the gunsight of the tank. Dodging behind the outbuildings, he finally came to the cabbage field. He crawled and rolled along the furrows between the cabbages which mercifully were very large and leafy, ready for harvesting. As he moved, flattened to the ground, those large cabbage leaves gave him some protection from the gunsights. One tank was shooting into the field at random, on the chance of hitting anyone who was escaping.

Several times Marek rolled into freshly dug shell craters. The acrid shell burst smell clung to the soft, damp earth.

From the cabbage field, to shrubs, to fruit trees, to forest, Marek finally slipped past the pincer of the encirclement. How long he had crawled and rolled thus, he did not know. His hands were full of prickles, his nails broken, his body bruised. He felt no pain yet. That would come later.

The exertion strained Marek’s lungs to the limit. Gasping for breath, sticky with sweat, his mouth and throat dry, he finally stopped. He lay down, trying to listen and take stock of the situation. All he could hear just now was the thumping of his heart and the throbbing of his pulse in his ears.

He lay on the thick leaf-covered matting