Mila 18 - Leon Uris [159]
A detail of Jews from Koenig’s labor pool carted the clothing across the street to a building which served as a warehouse. Linings of coats were ripped apart for hidden valuables. Personal mementos—family letters, pictures, keepsakes—were burned in a large oven alongside the building.
When six thousand people had been gathered, they were loaded on the trains. At three o’clock promptly each afternoon the train pulled out for an “unknown eastern destination.”
The Wild Ones who had volunteered in the first days of the Big Action had been cowed to such a state that they offered almost no resistance. But anyone who balked inside the Umschlagplatz courtyard was pounced upon immediately, mercilessly, by the guards.
Outside the courtyard, Polish Blues and Jewish Militia kept order in the lines feeding people into the selection center.
The aged, cripples, and those obviously unfit for labor were taken from the Umschlagplatz and shot by SS firing squads at the cemetery several blocks away. In this way the Germans “proved” they were taking only the healthiest people to the new labor camps.
Despite the passivity of the Orthodox community, men like Rabbi Solomon continued to wield great influence over the people. As more and more rabbis went to an unknown fate, diminishing the numbers leading the Orthodox Jews, the remaining inherited more responsibility.
On the fourth day of the Big Action the remnants of the underground had the Umschlagplatz under observation and scurried desperately around Warsaw trying to learn the destination of the trains.
Alexander Brandel visited Rabbi Solomon in an attempt to convince him to go to the Jewish Civil Authority. The old man had drawn a rigid circle binding his duties. The Civil Authority, he argued, was beyond his sphere of activity. Through Talmudic reasoning and arguments Alex weakened his stand by drawing parallels with ancient exiles. Finally the rabbi agreed to a rabbinical court and allowed Alex to plead before the five rabbis they were able to assemble.
They decided it was morally correct for Rabbi Solomon to petition the Civil Authority.
The old man was partly blind, able to see only in shadowy images. Months before, he had been forced to give up his work on the Good Fellowship notes and Brandel’s journal. He entered tine Civil Authority building at Zamenhof and Gensia streets on the arm of Stephan Bronski, his favorite student.
Paul Bronski was more nervous than usual. The sight of Stephan with the rabbi in broad daylight in a place which was a rats’ nest of informers unnerved him. Stephan was sent home. Although Solomon could not see Paul, he was able to sense the uneasiness in the man’s voice.
“Dr. Bronski, there has been much talk about these deportations. In fact, little else is spoken of.”
“That is certainly understandable.”
“We hear that there are continuations of the eastern massacres in death camps.”
“Nonsense. Can’t you see it is the same group of agitators we have had to contend with since the first day of the occupation? We have only their propaganda that there have ever been massacres in the east.”
“Has the Civil Authority ever questioned the Germans about the validity of the stories of the eastern massacres?”
Of course not. Paul clamped his teeth together. Sightless though the old man was, none of the keen edge had gone from his mind, nor had he lost the acid manner of setting verbal traps.
“My dear Rabbi Solomon, no one claims that life in the ghetto has been easy. We are the losers in a war in which we have been chosen as the scapegoat. Yet, through orderly process, the fact is that we have kept most people alive and here.”
“Then, Dr. Bronski, I assume you are ready to assure us that most of us will still be alive and here in three or four weeks?”
Paul had spoken about the deportations only to Boris Presser. His own hopes were that within a week or two the Germans would restock their labor camps and the deportations would stop.
“I am waiting