Prisoner B-3087: Chapters 1–6

Hitler was always talking about the “Jewish menace”...

“He’s already annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia,” said Uncle Abraham.

I liked to have musical accompaniment, like a movie sound track. When the radio warmed up, I found a Count Basie song that was perfect and started my show.

Aunt Gizela would often ruffle my wavy hair and say, "You look like a movie star, Yanek—with your dark-blond hair and big eyes."

They marched in their smart gray uniforms with their legs locked straight and thrown out in front of them the way ducks walk. It was silly, but eerie at the same time.

There were so many of them, all marching in time together, their shiny green helmets and polished black jackboots glinting in the sun.

Each of the soldiers wore a greatcoat and a pack on his back, and they carried rifles over their shoulders and bayonets at their sides.

There were tanks too—panzers, they called them—great rumbling things with treads that clanked and cannons that swiveled on top.

There were tanks too—panzers, they called them—great rumbling things with treads that clanked and cannons that swiveled on top.

“Jews are not to make money!” Moshe said. “We have ration cards now for food. With Js all over them. J for Jew.”

It was true: no more parks, no more libraries, no more movie theaters. And there was to be a nightly curfew for all Jews, young and old.

I sat down at the table to eat, and my mother brought out a small tureen of tomato soup, a loaf of bread, and a wedge of cheese.

“Is our building on fire? What do we do?”
“No,” Father said. “It’s the synagogue.”

The synagogue was the place where we worshiped every Sabbath and where I was studying for my bar mitzvah. I leaned out the window and saw it down the street, engulfed in flames.

Podgórze was now the Jewish ghetto.

I watched the German soldier breathe out a long cloud of smoke. The red ember of his cigarette glowed in the darkness.

I had learned to live with hunger, but now that my body knew there was fresh baked bread to be had, it could barely contain itself. I shook with anticipation.

We worked into the wee hours of the morning—Father and I feeding wood and coal into the ovens, Uncle Abraham making dough, Aunt Fela pulling those delectable loaves from the racks and putting them in sacks.

Five zloty! A loaf of bread usually cost no more than half a zloty!
“I hate to be so mercenary, but the price of flour has gone up too.”

He opened his mouth to say something, got flustered, then hurried out past me.

Pipes and conduits stuck up out of the roof here and there.

But each day we returned to our little sanctuary on the roof and slid the steel bars down tight to protect us.

The home invasions continued without warning, slowly bleeding everything of value the ghetto still hoarded.

And once a week—on the Sabbath—the Nazis would conduct "Resettlements,” when they came and took more people away.

The director signaled for everyone to settle down.“My friends, I come to you with a terrible request, but one which I have no choice but to accede to. The Nazis have ordered me to give them seven thousand Jews, to be deported from the Kraków ghetto tomorrow morning.”

Others in the crowd shouted angrily that they were starving. I nodded, feeling my own hunger pangs.

“I am trying to save lives!” the director roared. “Do you understand? Which is better, that forty thousand of us remain, or that the whole population perish? We must choose!”

The crowd yelled and argued with the director, surging toward the stage.

There would have been a kiddush after the service, with challah rolls, potatoes, chicken—my stomach growled just thinking about it.

There were stairs at the back, narrow and rickety, and occasionally missing a tread, and down we went into the basement.

It wasn’t exactly where I had imagined celebrating one of the biggest milestones of my life, but I followed along without a word.

I muddled through, and if God or man heard anything amiss, neither of them called me on it.

I muddled through, and if God or man heard anything amiss, neither of them called me on it.

When I was finished, my father chanted a blessing over me in the place of our rabbi, who had been killed by the Germans.

“Yanek, my son,” he said, looking at me solemnly, “you are a man now, with all the duties of an adult under Jewish law. You are now responsible for your own sins, but also for your own goodness. Remember what the Talmud teaches: Life is but a river. It has no beginning, no middle, no end. All we are, all we are worth, is what we do while we float upon it—how we treat our fellow man. Remember this, and a good man you will be.”