Journeys with My Mother (14 page)

She came home from her night shift much later than expected, tired and upset. The hospital was in a state of chaos: blasts had torn out the windows of the operating theatre, meanwhile, the first of the wounded soldiers began to arrive. Their numbers grew throughout the day and soon they had to be placed on the floors, side by side. Some were redirected to nearby schools and offices. The medical staff were not prepared for such a catastrophe; they had difficulty keeping up with essential care.

Over a hurried breakfast, Ola and Władek discussed what to do. Ola had to return to the hospital so Władek walked her up to the park. At midday, Russian foreign affairs minister Molotov spoke on the radio, addressing the nation. Everyone stopped to listen. His voice, booming from the street loudspeakers, sounded uncertain but every word was important:

‘Today at four in the morning, without a declaration of war, the Germans fell on our country, attacked our frontiers in many places, and bombed our cities … an act of treachery unprecedented in the history of civilized nations … The Red Army and the Fleet, and the valiant falcons of the Red Air Force will drive back the aggressor … the whole country will wage a victorious Patriotic War for our beloved country, for honour and liberty. Our cause is just. The enemy will be beaten. Victory will be ours.'

Ewa's husband Leon came to see Władek. He was in a hurry and would not come in. Both stood at the threshold, discussing their arrangements. Leon's plan was to leave the moment he and Ewa were ready.

It was already dark when Ola came home again. She stretched out for a few hours, trying to sleep before returning to the hospital. Father went to bed fully dressed, just in case. The night was quiet but sleep would not come as he tried to work out what to do. In the morning he went to work, as usual. His job was to manage one of the cinemas in town. I wish I'd asked him the name of it. Now, of course, I have no idea how to search for it. So I console myself with the insignificance of such a detail. In the scale of things.

I also cannot imagine what prompted him to go to work that day. I wouldn't have thought that screening schedules or his few administrative duties were top priority. Perhaps he had a sense of responsibility for the property and the people who worked there. In the end, he and his colleagues spent several hours digging trenches. Again.

He remembered it all from Warsaw: the panic and food hoarding, the random movement of people desperate for reassurance, the earnest exchange of rumours and bits of odd news, and mutual consolations. In reality, no one knew anything. The most urgent question was whether the city would be defended. There was nothing to cheer him up as he watched local troops and soldiers marching eastward, the tanks and artillery moving noisily away from the advancing front line.

He could only conclude that the Red Army was in retreat. My mother's hospital was to be evacuated, the wounded transported to the railway station, and Ola was preparing essential medications and instruments.

Władek volunteered to join the hospital staff. Outfitted with a uniform, issued with a revolver as well as a rifle and ammunition, he was immediately ordered to take part in transporting the wounded.

They had just enough time to get home to fetch me, some clothes, linen, photographs. All the chattels were left to the crestfallen Aleksandra. After bidding their tearful goodbyes, they walked through the park for the last time, hurrying towards the train station. It took a few hours to load everything into the carriages. Theirs was the last train in the convoy.

Five days later, on 27 June, the first German motorised units, followed by the infantry, entered Białystok for the second time. On that day, the atrocities began.

The town looked different when my parents lived here, and later, when the ghetto was established. A small ghetto, with a great many people, just across the street from where Annette and I sit drinking tea.

This town remembers the Jews. We take a walk around Jewish Białystok, the ghetto, reading plaques, looking at memorials and photographs. Finding the street where Reginka, Leon and Haneczka lived while in the ghetto is easy, but the house is no longer there. Annette, tears in her eyes, lingers at every corner. I am trying hard to make connections, wishing for something. Instead, I feel numb.

Not far away, there used to be a big synagogue. The photos show a large and imposing edifice, crowned with a Byzantine dome. It was burnt down on the very first day the Germans entered the town, together with one thousand men and boys who'd been herded inside. My parents, Ewa and Leon, all of us, were gone by then, but heavily pregnant Reginka remained alone, only a few streets away from the conflagration. Białystok is a small place, and whatever happened touched them all. There were many fires and more people killed in the following days. The destruction of the city was so extensive that those standing close to the clock tower could see the faraway forests. It must have been gut-wrenching.

Jankiel Szlang, Halina's maternal great-grandfather

Izaak Leib Bąk, paternal great-grandfather

Henoch Bąk, paternal grandfather

Ola's birth certificate

Halina's father's family, Władek (back left), Różyczka (front right) with siblings and mother (Babcia Luba), c. 1921

Władek (front) on Yarkon River in Palestine, 1926

In Zakroczym, Ola (right), her sister Ewa (front), 1929

Half photo of two sisters, Reginka and Ola, 1929