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By Root 354 0

at the end of the block where there was a well and a pump. The training I had received from Pan Kramer in T. became useful again; I could show Warsaw grown-ups at what rhythm to pump, and how a bucket that was only three-fourths full was easier to carry and would not spill. Once again, there was very little to eat. Someone from another building—the general opinion was that none of us could have been guilty of such ignominy—broke into the kitchens of several apartments and looted them. The loss of provisions was considerable. Guards were posted. The building decided that the remaining food would be pooled and rationed by a committee of cooks. Several of the older people were sick. Tania volunteered to be a nurse, dispensing aspirin, which was very scarce, applying compresses and cups. A.K. soldiers became a regular presence in the cellar; they needed to sleep for a few hours, some were wounded. The fighting in the streets was drawing closer. We were constantly being bombed and strafed by the Luftwaffe. The A.K. had no antiaircraft guns; they tried to shoot at the planes from the roofs with rifles. Machine guns were scarce and ammunition for them was running out. Once, before it became too dangerous to go to the roof, we watched them hit a plane that had been flying low, from time to time dropping a bomb. It began to smoke and then burn and finally disappeared among distant buildings. Perhaps it returned to the airfield. Now there was no going to the roof or resting in an apartment during pauses in the bombardment. We waited for the end in the cellar.

ONE afternoon, an A.K. officer came to speak to the people in the cellar. He said that the A.K. would have to withdraw at once from the neighborhood through the sewers; the Germans could be expected within a few hours. We should stay calm and, when the Germans did come, follow their orders promptly and without argument. They would make us leave the building; it was a good idea to gather whatever clothes we needed and have a little suitcase ready. The Germans had Ukrainian guards with them. The Ukrainians were like wild animals. It would be best if young women put shawls over their heads and faces and tried to be inconspicuous. He saluted and wished us all luck. Soon afterward, a bomb fell on the building next to us; another made a hole in the street. People from the building that had been hit came to our cellar. There was less gunfire, and after a while both the gunfire and the bombs began to seem more distant. It was already dark, and the Germans had not come. Few people slept that night. Families sat together talking. Some people prayed aloud.

Tania told me to lie down on our mattress. She lay down too, put her arms around me and talked to me in a whisper. She said it was lucky that we had not forgotten for a moment we were Catholic Poles and that nobody seemed to suspect us. Our only hope was to be like all the others. The Germans weren’t going to kill every Pole in Warsaw; there were too many of them, but they would kill every Jew they could catch. We would make ourselves very small and inconspicuous, and we would be very careful not to get separated in the crowd. If something very bad happened and she was taken away, I wasn’t to try to follow: it wouldn’t help her and I might even make things worse for both of us. If possible I should wait for her. Otherwise, I should take the hand of whatever grown-up near me had the nicest face, say I was an orphan, and hope for the best. I shouldn’t say I was a Jew, or let myself be seen undressed if I could avoid it. She had me repeat these instructions and told me to go to sleep.

We were awake when they arrived late the next morning. It was the same bellowing as for Jews in T., the same pounding of rifle butts on the gate and then on the cellar door and the apartment doors and people trying to hurry and stumbling on the stairs. A Wehrmacht officer and a couple of German soldiers stood on the sidewalk in a little group apart while the work was done by Ukrainians: they rushed around, pushing and hitting people as they came out into