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4 Several weeks went by, filled with the daily struggle to find food and avoid the German soldiers on the street. One day the Polish newspaper that the Germans published in Kraków flashed a bold headline in red ink: france surrenders to german forces! english troops trapped in dunkirk! This was terrible news. Germany had occupied Denmark, Norway, Holland, and Belgium. France had surrendered. The English had been cut off at Dunkirk and retreated. Italy had made a pact with Germany and entered the war against France and England. The German military seemed to be invincible. No English troops were moving north from Hungary to rescue us. With the German victory no one could think of a country in Europe that had the might or desire to come to our aid. The future of Poland and our future were bleak. In the locksmith shop Mr. Gorzelec was distraught. We bent over our work and tried to avoid his temper. “I don’t want to hear any mention of Paris or Dunkirk today!” he insisted. “We have work to do! I will not allow any lazy boys to work in my shop!” We worked swiftly and silently, though our hearts were heavy with worry. That night I found an atlas among Manek’s books and searched for a map of Europe. I found Germany , France, and Italy, the Low Countries, Scandinavia, and Russia. They were all under German control or allied with Germany. And we were here in Tyczyn, a tiny speck too small to even be on the map, in the middle of immense enemy territory. I felt like we were drifting in a little boat, in the middle of a stormy ocean, with no oars and no sight of land. German troops moved into Tyczyn and were quartered in houses and apartments throughout town. They moved into our home and took over two bedrooms, my father’s office, and the waiting room. Twelve or fifteen soldiers were living under our roof. We tried to stay out of sight 32 while they were around. They insulted and cursed us and ordered us to do their chores. We cleaned their rooms, polished their boots, and washed their laundry. Sometimes in the evenings they would get drunk, and then we would stay away from the house for hours. My parents, my brother, and I moved into the kitchen and the dining room. We carried most of our furniture and belongings up into the attic and pushed two small beds and a dresser into the dining room. We traded our better furniture to neighbors and local farmers in exchange for firewood, potatoes , and flour. During the next few days the farmers arrived in filthy wagons and carried off our piano and polished mahogany furniture. More German combat troops were stationed in Tyczyn. Every morning they demanded that the Judenrat provide a group of Jewish workers for menial jobs. On the streets they stopped Jewish men and women marked by the Jewish armbands and made them do all kinds of demeaning work and humiliated them by ordering them to scrub the sidewalks with their handkerchiefs. One German, the Unteroffizier Pitchkie, was a hateful and cruel soldier who supervised the Jewish workers. The German soldiers jokingly called him the “king of the Jews.” He took pleasure in hitting and kicking the Jewish workers. He forced them, along with any other Jews he grabbed on the street, to march in step until they were exhausted. Sometimes he made them strip to their underwear and do calisthenics. The German soldiers and some of the Tyczyn Poles followed him around and laughed at his violent antics. No Jew was safe from Pitchkie. I traveled the back alleys and went through people’s yards just to avoid him. I was too young to have to wear a Jewish armband and hoped that this would save me from harm. Afew times he singled me out, but I pretended that his shouts and commands were not directed at me and walked on. I was lucky that he let me go. Someone must have told him that I was a Jew. One time he spotted me walking near the market square. He shouted and pointed his gun at me and yelled for me to join a group of Jews whom he had rounded up for one of his tirades. He ordered us to march and run and march again until I was ready to drop. I was filled with dread and...
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