Free Gertruda's Oath: A Child, a Promise, and a Heroic Escape During World War II by Ram Oren Page B

pulled her hair, and cursed at her. Helga tried to resist but he punched her and pushed her down on the sidewalk. Her nose started bleeding. The boys laughed. “Stinking Jew,” shouted their leader, and he kicked Helga. “That’s only the beginning. We’ll be back here tomorrow.”
    In pain, she stumbled home. She wiped the blood off her nose, hoping her mother wouldn’t notice. But Mira saw it at once.
    “What happened?” she cried in amazement.
    Helga told her.
    Mira washed her daughter’s face and bandaged her nose. Helga locked herself in her room. The house felt dreary. Mira walked around like a shadow of herself. She thought of what had happened to her daughter and knew that such things would happen again, maybe worse. Yes, she’d tell her husband everything, but she didn’t believe he could do anything. She knew it wasn’t easy for him, that he was torn between the party and his family. Her heart ached at his refusal to resign from his job with the SS. She smoked nervously and drank a glass of wine, unable to think properly.
    Karl Rink didn’t come home much and today, just when his wifeand daughter needed him the most, he wasn’t there. When he did come, late at night, Mira was lying on the sofa in the living room, smoking.
    She gave him a brief account of the incident. Karl Rink sighed in pain, went to his daughter’s room, and hugged her.
    “Don’t worry,” he said in a soothing voice. “It will pass. Everything will be fine.”
    Helga lowered her eyes. She knew that nothing would be fine, nothing would go back to the way it was.
    “Do you know who did that?” He pointed to the bandage on her nose.
    Yes, she knew. His name was Paul, the neighbors’ son. In the past he had always smiled at her. She couldn’t imagine that someday that nice boy would turn into a monster.

6.
     
    On June 20, 1939, the train from Warsaw to Berlin was unusually empty. Jacob Stolowitzky sat tensely in his compartment, upset by the gloomy thoughts about the danger lurking for his business in Germany. His only consolation was his upcoming meeting with his attorney. He wanted to believe that, in spite of everything, things could still be done legally in Berlin.
    Facing him, in the first-class compartment, sat a German couple. The husband rode silently the whole way, and his wife clutched a whining baby. A waiter passed among the compartments, offering hot drinks and food. Jacob Stolowitzky wasn’t hungry. Nausea climbed up his throat and grew worse every moment.
    At the border station, the train stopped and German guards entered the car, carefully examining Stolowitzky’s Polish passport.They asked the reason for his trip to Berlin. He said he was traveling on business.
    “Jew?” they asked.
    “Yes.”
    They grimaced. “What business do you have in Berlin?”
    “I’ve got a factory.”
    “It won’t belong to you for long,” hissed one of the guards mockingly and his companion asked, “When do you intend to return to Poland?”
    “This week.”
    They stamped his passport reluctantly and left.
    When the train continued, Jacob Stolowitzky looked out the window and saw military traffic on the roads. Trucks packed with soldiers and cases of ammunition moved along slowly in long columns, towing machine guns and field kitchens. In the railroad station in Berlin, there were more soldiers carrying equipment and weapons.
    Jacob took a cab to his lawyer’s office. He saw JEWS OUT written on smashed display windows of shops on the main streets and Nazi thugs marching on the sidewalk with wooden cudgels in their hands.
    The lawyers’ office was locked, and a sign on the door read: CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. After feverish searching, Stolowitzky came to his lawyer’s house. He saw a man who seemed to have grown old overnight. He invited him in. The lawyer corroborated all his client’s fears: the Nazis were quickly taking over factories owned by Jews, limiting the movements of the Jews, and imposing heavy