Free The Woman from Hamburg by Hanna Krall Page A

conspiracy against Bolesław Bierut and the authorities. Bierut personally approved the sentence. It was carried out in the Lublin castle. Eleven people were executed during a fifty-five-minute period. They were young people, patriotic and brave. The Supreme Court recently absolved them of all the crimes they were accused of. Several articles appeared in the press in relation to this. All of them included references to Blank. The journalistsagreed that since it was Home Army people who killed him, they must have had a reason. Evidently, Blank was an agent of the UB, the secret police. One journalist wrote: “One may assume that Blank was suspected of being an informer.” Another journalist didn’t assume. He knew that the Home Army men suspected Blank of collaboration. The third journalist was certain: Hersz Blank was a collaborator with the UB.
    In the meantime, the Home Army men were charged not with Blank’s murder but only with participation in his murder. The murderers were not sentenced at all. Even their names were not mentioned during the investigation. Pseudonyms were used: “Rabe” and “Mietek.” Why weren’t their names revealed? Why weren’t they charged? Why did the authorities guard these secrets till the end?
    Who killed Hersz Blank is not known. Home Army soldiers? Members of the UB? Or perhaps murderers hired by the security organs, either the Polish or Soviet ones?
    No one is trying to explain this death. The Supreme Court, which declared the innocence of the Home Army men, dismissed the Blank case as beyond the statute of limitations.
    Hersz Blank was twenty years old. He was religious, from a Hasidic family. When he was murdered, his older brother was sitting over the Talmud, as was his custom, talking with God about the most important matters.
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    Thomas Blatt parked the car before entering the village. We walked through a ravine.
    Along the right side, there were houses at intervals of about two hundred meters. If you have to ask for food, these are the kinds of houses to approach, Thomas Blatt said with expertise.
    A forest stretched along the left side. If you want to disappear, this is the kind of forest you need.
    He believed that he would recognize the trees from behind which they saw the light in Marcin B.’s house. And also the trees behind which Szmul Wajcen had disappeared. That was obviously absurd. Those trees had long since been chopped down for fuel.
    He began counting how many shots had been fired. First one, at Fredek. Then another, at him. Then many shots, but how many? Four? Three? Let’s say four, so six altogether, two plus four. But what if there were five shots? Then it would have been seven all told. At the same time, he was counting the houses. When we passed the third house, he became noticeably agitated. “Oho,” he kept repeating, “the fourth house will be soon.”
    With every passing year there were fewer traces. At one time, the walls were still standing; then only the corner room (by some strange chance, it was “their” corner room, with the hiding place), then the foundation, then only rubble—rafters, boards, stones.
    This year, there was nothing. Nothing. Other than an unpruned apple tree with crooked, rheumatic limbs. Thomas Blatt wasn’t even sure if he’d found the right place. He walked back and forth, looked around; the brush and grass reached his chest. There was no such brush growing anywhere else in the area.
    We walked straight ahead. We noticed a farm. An old woman was standing in the yard. I said that I was collecting material for a book. About what? Oh, about life. This wasn’t a precise answer, but she invited us into her kitchen. It turned out she was the sister of Zosia B., Marcin B.’s wife. Blatt was again preoccupied with arithmetic. If she heard shots, how many were there? She knew immediately what he was talking about. She hadn’t heard, but Krysia Kochówna, who was spending the night with them, had said, “There was shooting