I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree Read Online Free PDF Page B

refuse.
    Mama was assigned a job in a lamp factory. It would become available in a few days, she was told, as soon as the present holder of the job was transported out. Again there was this talk about deportation and transportation out of the ghetto. Did it mean this was a temporary place?
    After our ration cards were stamped, we looked for Wolfgang and Selly, who were on the men’s side. When there was no sign of them, Mama began to worry.
    â€œThe boys are smarter than you think,” I assured her. “If they have been taken to work,they will find their way home all by themselves.” But inwardly I was just as worried about my brothers as was Mama.
    Mama and I decided to explore the ghetto. There would be time enough to go back to the dreary room later. Besides, we needed to acquaint ourselves with the place in order to learn how to survive.
    Walking up and down cobblestone streets and alleyways, we encountered many people from Germany and Poland. Some were still nicely dressed, looking well fed, while others, dressed in rags, appeared hungry and defeated. The ghetto seemed to be a paradox between hope and hopelessness. We passed children carrying books, singing Hebrew songs. The moment I saw them and heard them sing, I felt the ghetto’s spirit and realized that in spite of poverty and despair there was a life force here too.
    The winding streets led us to an especially narrow alleyway. There was barely enoughroom for pedestrians to move, yet an SS man on a horse rode through the center, intimidating people in his way. The stripes on his uniform and the medals pinned to his jacket indicated a high-ranking officer. Mama pulled me into a doorway until he passed. Only when he was some distance away did we allow ourselves to breathe.
    We walked for hours, and still there was so much more to see, including a bakery where people received bread if they had the required ration cards and the ghetto marks to pay for it. Although it wasn’t funny, I couldn’t help but smile at the fact that the ghetto money looked like the play money my brothers and I used in a board game we’d owned. The bread looked wonderful and I would have loved a piece of freshly baked bread, but we didn’t dare spend any of our ration cards or the funny money, not knowing how long it had to last.
    Then all at once the sun went down. Only moments before, it had been light outside.Mama and I returned to our room feeling cold and hungry, waiting for Wolfgang and Selly to return. Mama listened to every sound coming from the corridor, hoping they would appear any moment. But it wasn’t until late that night that my brothers returned, covered with dust and grime. They had been working in a quarry loading rocks onto trucks.
    â€œIt was grueling,” Wolfgang said. “I have never worked so hard. Our foreman was a Ukrainian with little patience. He beat anyone not working fast enough. It was obvious he hated us.”
    Our daily visits to the Judenrat offices turned into days of wandering through the ghetto as we awaited our job assignments to begin. One morning we came upon a post office and believed it to be just a hoax. Still, I wrote a short note to Papa’s sister, Hannah, and her husband, Karl, who had fled to Holland. I never expected the note to reach my uncle and aunt, but weeks later wereceived a package with rice and beans from them.
    We saw people lining up at soup kitchens, trading ration cards for a bowl of soup. Ration cards alone never provided enough food, and people traded clothes and other items they had brought with them for a handful of beets, potatoes, or onions.
    I lingered near the ghetto’s store at times to check what was available that day. The items were listed on a chalkboard, including the amount of ghetto marks needed to purchase them. Poles came into the ghetto to make deals. It was also a place to get news from the outside and speculate on the duration of our situation.
    One day I saw