her volunteers a larger kitchen in whichto prepare their alms for the poor, but gave them no other material help. ‘We did it for six months until we ran out of our money. Then we had to close it down.’
Rachel switched her focus to acquiring clothing for those most at risk of dying of cold in the winter. With fuel for heating and cooking in short supply, there were already corpses in the streets and the small cemetery filled so quickly that mass graves had to be dug. She was especially concerned about the ghetto children, many of whom had limited resistance as they were already half-starved and sick. She went with a couple of friends to see Janusz Korczak, the sixty-two-year-old doctor, educator and children’s author, who’d first set up an orphanage in Warsaw in 1912. Korczak had turned down several chances to escape from the ghetto because he refused to leave his two hundred street children behind.
At his orphanage in Dzielna Street, the women offered their help and Korczak asked them to find warm clothes for his ‘little ones’, which they did. It was almost certainly those coats and dresses that the children wore when Korczak told them to look their best the day they left the ghetto the following year. Deportations East had begun by then and young, old and sick were some of the first to be summoned to the trains. Having announced, ‘Where my children are going, I must go as well,’ Korczak was with them as they were marched, two by two, to the Umschlagplatz (loading point) at the Warszawa Gdańska freight station, from which a train delivered them to the gas chambers at the Treblinka concentration camp. He died at their side.
Adam Czerniaków, the head of the Judenrat , who failed in his attempts to stop the Nazi demands to provide 6,000 deportees per day, swallowed a cyanide capsule rather than comply. He wrote notes to his wife and a member of the Judenrat in which he said, They demand me to kill children of my nation with my own hands. I have nothing to do but to die … I can no longer bear all this. My act will prove to everyone what is the right thing to do .
The borders of the ghetto were heavily guarded but people couldpass through the gates if they had the correct papers. Deprived of the goods they’d grown accustomed to buying from Jewish merchants, the Gentiles of Warsaw relied on black market traffic. Those sympathetic to the needs of the people trapped inside also risked death to take in vital items such as food and fuel, while men and boys crawled through tunnels and sewers to carry mail and other goods.
Using his false documents, Monik occasionally risked travelling beyond the walls to buy essential provisions or to seek news of Rachel’s family in Pabianice. Every time he left, Rachel knew there was a chance that he might not return. It was always a relief when he did and, lying together whispering into the night, they tried to reassure each other that their nightmare would soon be over. Even when the deportations began, they told each other, ‘This too shall pass.’ And when the Nazis promised those who volunteered to be ‘resettled’ extra food and the chance to work on farms and live in spa resorts, the family refused to be swayed. They were determined to stay together until they were forced to leave. Still they clung to the hope that the war would end any day.
It was clear that the screws were tightening, however. SS officers, accompanied by Jewish police who wore special hats and uniforms embellished with a yellow star, began to round people up and summarily execute anyone identified as ‘subversive’. There were public hangings in the main square. Families lived in terror of a knock at the door, especially after curfew. Almost all the ghetto’s smugglers were rounded up and shot, cutting off contact with the outside world. It became too risky to use false papers, and increasingly acute food shortages hastened the deaths of still more Jews.
Monik, feeling increasingly
Rachel switched her focus to acquiring clothing for those most at risk of dying of cold in the winter. With fuel for heating and cooking in short supply, there were already corpses in the streets and the small cemetery filled so quickly that mass graves had to be dug. She was especially concerned about the ghetto children, many of whom had limited resistance as they were already half-starved and sick. She went with a couple of friends to see Janusz Korczak, the sixty-two-year-old doctor, educator and children’s author, who’d first set up an orphanage in Warsaw in 1912. Korczak had turned down several chances to escape from the ghetto because he refused to leave his two hundred street children behind.
At his orphanage in Dzielna Street, the women offered their help and Korczak asked them to find warm clothes for his ‘little ones’, which they did. It was almost certainly those coats and dresses that the children wore when Korczak told them to look their best the day they left the ghetto the following year. Deportations East had begun by then and young, old and sick were some of the first to be summoned to the trains. Having announced, ‘Where my children are going, I must go as well,’ Korczak was with them as they were marched, two by two, to the Umschlagplatz (loading point) at the Warszawa Gdańska freight station, from which a train delivered them to the gas chambers at the Treblinka concentration camp. He died at their side.
Adam Czerniaków, the head of the Judenrat , who failed in his attempts to stop the Nazi demands to provide 6,000 deportees per day, swallowed a cyanide capsule rather than comply. He wrote notes to his wife and a member of the Judenrat in which he said, They demand me to kill children of my nation with my own hands. I have nothing to do but to die … I can no longer bear all this. My act will prove to everyone what is the right thing to do .
The borders of the ghetto were heavily guarded but people couldpass through the gates if they had the correct papers. Deprived of the goods they’d grown accustomed to buying from Jewish merchants, the Gentiles of Warsaw relied on black market traffic. Those sympathetic to the needs of the people trapped inside also risked death to take in vital items such as food and fuel, while men and boys crawled through tunnels and sewers to carry mail and other goods.
Using his false documents, Monik occasionally risked travelling beyond the walls to buy essential provisions or to seek news of Rachel’s family in Pabianice. Every time he left, Rachel knew there was a chance that he might not return. It was always a relief when he did and, lying together whispering into the night, they tried to reassure each other that their nightmare would soon be over. Even when the deportations began, they told each other, ‘This too shall pass.’ And when the Nazis promised those who volunteered to be ‘resettled’ extra food and the chance to work on farms and live in spa resorts, the family refused to be swayed. They were determined to stay together until they were forced to leave. Still they clung to the hope that the war would end any day.
It was clear that the screws were tightening, however. SS officers, accompanied by Jewish police who wore special hats and uniforms embellished with a yellow star, began to round people up and summarily execute anyone identified as ‘subversive’. There were public hangings in the main square. Families lived in terror of a knock at the door, especially after curfew. Almost all the ghetto’s smugglers were rounded up and shot, cutting off contact with the outside world. It became too risky to use false papers, and increasingly acute food shortages hastened the deaths of still more Jews.
Monik, feeling increasingly
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