tone and with the same impatience was always jarring, but in this case, I was dizzy with relief, and so I messed up his hair and let out a weak laugh.
“For a nine-year-old, you are awfully wise.”
“Wise enough to know that you didn’t get any food for Mother.”
“We were too late,” I said, and then I swallowed the lump in my throat. “But she said that we should come back tomorrow. She will set something aside for us.”
“Let’s walk the long way home. The trash cans on Smocza Street are sometimes good.”
We were far from the only family in the ghetto who had run out of resources. We were all starving, and any morsel of food was quickly found, even if it was from a trash can. Still, I was not at all keen to return to our crowded apartment, to face the disappointment in my stepfather’s gaze or to see the starvation in my mother’s. I let Dawidek lead the way, and we walked in silence, broken by his periodic bursts of commentary.
“We picked one up here... Another over there... Mordechai helped me with one there.”
As we turned down a quiet street, I realized that Dawidek’s Kapo supervisors were right in front of us, walking a few dozen feet ahead.
“We should turn around. I don’t want any trouble with those guys,” I muttered. Dawidek shook his head.
“They like me. I work hard and don’t give them any trouble. Now that you have stopped trying to get yourself killed, they won’t bother us, even if they do notice us.”
Just then, the shorter policeman glanced toward the sidewalk on his right, and then he paused. He waved his companion ahead, then withdrew something from his pocket as he crouched low to the ground. I was much too far away to hear the words he spoke, but I saw the sadness in his gaze. The Kapo then rose and jogged ahead to catch up with his partner. Dawidek and I continued along the street, but only when we drew near where he had stopped did I realize why.
We had been in the ghetto for almost two years. Conditions were bad to begin with, and every new day seemed to bring new trials. I learned to wear blinders—to block out the public pain and suffering of my fellow prisoners. I had walked every block of the ghetto, both the Little Ghetto with its nicer apartments where the elite and artists appeared to live in relative comfort, and through the Big Ghetto, where poor families like my own were crammed in, trying to survive at a much higher density. The footbridge on Chłodna Street connected the two and elevated the ghetto residents above the so-called Aryan Poles, and even the Germans, who passed beneath it. The irony of this never failed to amuse me when I crossed. Sometimes, I crossed it just to cheer myself up.
I knew the ghetto inside and out, and I noticed every detail, even if I had taught myself to ignore what I saw as much as I could. I learned not to react when an elderly man or woman caught my hand as I passed, clawing in the hopes that I could spare them a morsel of food. I learned not to so much as startle if someone was shot in front of my eyes. And most of all, I learned to never look at any unfortunate soul who was prone on the sidewalk. The only way to survive was to remain alert so I had to see it all, but I also had to learn to look right through it. The only way to manage my own broiling fury was to bury it.
But the policeman had drawn my attention to a scene of utter carnage outside what used to be a clothing store. The store had long ago run out of stock and had been repurposed as accommodation for several families. The wide front window was now taped over with hessian sacks for privacy; outside that window, on the sidewalk, a child was lying on her stomach. Alive, but barely.
The ghetto was teeming with street children. The orphanages were full to bursting, which meant that those who weren’t under the care of relatives or kindly strangers were left to their own devices. I saw abandoned children, but I didn’t see them. I’d have passed right by this child on any other day. I couldn’t even manage to keep my own family safe and well, so it was better