From Buchenwald to Carnegie Hall

Musical Worker

Through it all I managed to keep attending classes at the Conservatory without getting captured. Then one day the director called the ten students without passports into his office. He had very good news. He told us he had managed to acquire documents from the military governor stating that we were "musical workers" needed by the state. Now wehad papers. Now wewere safe. Now nobody could touch us. That night I finally went back home to Dr. Lobaczewska'sapartment . When I turned my key and opened the door, who should be standing there but Ishchuk, my Russian tormentor. But I wasn't afraid of him anymore. He was dumbfounded to see me come back. "Where were you?" he asked. This was my moment, and I couldn't resist. "Oh, I met this wonderful , wonderful girl, and, well, you know how it is. God, she is so beautiful! You'd be jealous if you sawher." He tried to take that in, but I don't think he got it. All he could say was, "You don't live here anymore." 45 Musical worken 46 Fires of War "Oh? Youthink so?" I walked past him and went to my room. After I saw firsthand how the Russians rounded up refugees and sent them to Siberia, I thought I should try to warn my brother Michael and my sister Lucy and her husband Ben in Bialystok. I went to the basement of the main Lembergpost office and filled out a telegram form, handing it to a beautiful young lady about my age. Of course, I couldn't write, "The Russians are sending people to Siberia," so I wrote, "Watch out! Youcan get terribly sick," which apparently wasn't very clever. The young lady at the window took one look at my telegram and said to me in a low voice, "I'll pay for it. Now run, before they read it and catch you." "Thank you," I said. "I'll be back." I got out of there as fast as I could. After I received my "musical worker" document, I went back to the post office and paid for the telegram. I thanked the girl for her help and took her to lunch. We became good friends. Later, after the Germans entered Lemberg,she came to my apartment and, fully aware of the risks she would be taking, offered to hide me. I was very grateful to her, this lovelyPolish girl, but I had to refuse her offer. My parents in Warsaw needed me more than ever. I couldn't abandon them. Unfortunately, my telegram wasn't enough to save Michael, Lucy, or Ben from capture, for they too had registered to return to Warsaw, and when the Germans didn't take them back, the Russians came after them. First they grabbed Michael and sent him to Siberia. Then, a few nights later, they came and took Lucy and Ben away. They sent Michael to one gulag and Lucy and her husband to another. As bad as Siberia was, however, it saved them from later getting captured by the Germans. In Siberia they forced Lucy to walk ten miles each day to her workstation, where they made her saw wood in subzero weather. One dayher husband, trudging along next to her, collapsed. "I can't go on," he said. "I can't walk anymore." Lucy, who had been a nurse, rubbed his legs with snow and got him going again before the guards came and shot him. Later, when she became too weak and Musical Worker 47 ill to work, the authorities said that she wasfaking it and put her in solitary on bread and water. Although she survived Siberia, she never fully recovered her health. After Professor Drzewiecki returned to Warsaw, I chose as my new Conservatory teacher Professor Halina Levitzka, a Ukrainian. Professor Drzewieckihad recommended that I work with her, saying that she wouldn't be able to teach me all that much, but whatever she said wouldn't be detrimental either. Professor Levitzka was happy to have me as her pupil and soon found students for me to teach privately. One day she came up to me very excited and happy. "I've found you a Russian big shot," she said, "a general. He has a young son and daughter who want to learn piano. Maybe he can help get your sister and brother out of Siberia." Since...