Exodus - Leon Uris [66]
What Mendel Landau gave his children was an idea. It was remote and it was a dream and it was unrealistic. He gave his children the idea that the Jews must someday return to Palestine and re-establish their ancient state. Only as a nation could they ever find equality.
Mendel Landau worked hard as a baker. His world consisted of feeding a family and providing them with shelter, education, clothing, and love. He did not believe, in his wildest moments, that he would ever see Palestine, nor did he believe his children would ever see Palestine. But he did believe in the idea.
Mendel was not alone among the Polish Jews. Of Poland’s three and a half million Jews, there were hundreds of thousands who followed the same star, and from them spouted the wellspring of Zionism. There were religious Zionists, labor Zionists, small militant Zionist groups, and middle-class merchant Zionists.
Because he was a trade unionist, Mendel’s family belonged to a labor-Zionist group who called themselves the Redeemers. The entire social life of the Landaus revolved around the Redeemers. From time to time there were speakers from Palestine, there was recruiting work, there were books and pamphlets and discussions and songs and dances and endless hope to keep the idea alive. The Redeemers, like other Zionist groups, ran agricultural centers where boys and girls could be trained to work the land. And every so often the Redeemers sent a group to Palestine to cultivate newly purchased land.
There were six members of the Landau family. There were Mendel and his wife Leah. There was the oldest son, Mundek, who was a strapping boy of eighteen and a baker himself. Mundek was a natural leader and was a section head in the Redeemers. There were the two girls. Ruth, who was seventeen, was horribly shy as Leah had been. She was in love with Jan, who was also a leader of the Redeemers. Rebecca was fourteen, and there was little Dov, who was the baby of the family. He was ten and blond and wide-eyed and actually too young to be a member of the Redeemers. He idolized his big brother Mundek, who patronizingly allowed him to tag along to meetings.
SEPTEMBER 1, 1939
After manufacturing a series of border incidents the Germans invaded Poland. Mendel Landau and his eldest son Mundek went into the army.
The German Wehrmacht ripped Poland to shreds in a campaign that lasted only twenty-six days. Mendel Landau was killed in battle along with more then thirty thousand other Jewish soldiers who wore the uniform of Poland.
The Landaus were not allowed the luxury of prolonged sorrow for this was a time of peril. Mundek returned from the gallant but futile defense of Warsaw as head of the Landau family.
The same moment the Germans entered Warsaw, the Redeemers met to discuss a course of action. Most of Poland’s Jews, being more hopeful than realistic, felt nothing would happen to them and adopted a “wait and see” attitude. The Redeemers and other Zionist groups throughout Poland were not so naïve. They were positive that grave danger lay ahead with Germans in occupation.
The Redeemers and many of the other Zionist groups decided to stay together and to take group action which would be binding on them all. Some groups chose to flee to the illusion of safety in the Soviet Union which had moved in to gobble up the eastern half of Poland when the Germans invaded. Other groups began an underground operation, and still others worked on the establishment of an “underground railway” for escape.
The Redeemers voted to remain in Warsaw and build up resistance inside the city and remain in contact with other Redeemer groups throughout Poland. Mundek was voted the military leader although he was not yet nineteen. Jan, Ruth’s secret love, was made Mundek’s second in command.
The moment the Germans established themselves in power and Hans Frank became governor, an immediate series of laws were levied against the Jews. Worship, forbidden; travel, limited; taxation, excessive. Jews were thrown out of public office, civil or elective. Jews were barred from bread