Uprising

Over the next several weeks, things change in Warsaw as the Nazis take over. Professor Jasinski holds school briefly in the church, but then all educational institutions are forced to close. Shortly thereafter, he goes missing, along with several other prominent members of the Jewish community.

Bubbe warns Lidia and her family that things will only get worse. She tells them about radios becoming illegal, prison camps, and the method that the Nazis use to control a country: They make the citizens “mistrust” each other, isolate them, take them “one group at a time” to the camps, force the few who remain to “fall to their knees,” and then repeat the cycle (54).

The signs of German occupation are everywhere, particularly in their propaganda. Nazi flags replace Polish flags, Nazi radio broadcasts run on speakers in the streets, newspapers praise the Nazis, and signs are posted on Jewish businesses warning Polish citizens to stay away.

On a day in December, Lidia walks with Mama home from the shops. They see Nazi soldiers escorting a line of Jewish men with shovels in their hands. The soldiers force them to dig, shouting instructions at them. Lidia watches, but Mama tells her to keep her eyes down and not draw attention to herself.

A few days later, Lidia is home with only Doda and Bubbe when a Gestapo agent knocks on the door. She answers it and lies, saying that she is home alone. She sees her father’s automobile in the driveway. The Gestapo officer tells her that they found it in Mr. Adelstein’s possession; they don’t believe his story that Papa traded it to him. Lidia insists that his story is true, but the Gestapo officer ignores her. When he asks where Papa is, she lies and says that he is in Rome at the Polish embassy. When the Gestapo officer tells her that Poland is safe now from “thieves” because of the Nazis, Lidia thinks that they are the ones that are stealing.

In January 1940, Lidia and her family suffer a freezing winter, where they struggle to find oil for heating. However, she is thankful for the cold some days, reminding herself that it helps her ignore her extreme hunger.

On January 18, German soldiers knock on their door in the middle of the night. Ryszard and Lidia have been learning German to converse better with the soldiers, so Ryszard answers the door. They tell him that they are going to search the house.

One of the officers brings out the radio—now forbidden—that they hid in the cupboard. Mama pretends to be surprised, telling them they had lost it months ago and had no idea it was in there. The officer asks about Papa. Mama tells him that he joined the fighting in eastern Poland but that they haven’t heard from him in a long time. The officers tell her that he is likely dead or in a prison camp, which upsets Lidia upon overhearing.

The officers find Doda and Bubbe and demand to know why Mama is hiding them. However, she insists that they are simply employed there. The officers warn them that, before too long, all Jews will be in camps.

On April 2, Lidia is home alone when Mr. Katz—her father’s driver who went with him to fight months before—visits her. He tells her that her father is in a prison camp in Russia. Mr. Katz was there, but he was released along with a handful of other people because they were workers; the Russians are only interested in elites who have “influence” in Poland.

Mr. Katz tells Lidia about his time with her father. He recruited hundreds of men to return and help defend Warsaw, but before they could come, Russian tanks arrived. Papa refused to take off his officer’s uniform, insisting that he wouldn’t hide who he was, so the Russians took him. Papa wanted Mr. Katz to tell Lidia that she should fix things with Mama in case Papa never comes back and that “mother really does love [her]” (73).

After Mr. Katz leaves, Lidia sits and writes a poem for her father, promising that she will wait for him to return. She cries onto the page.

A week later, Mama tells Lidia that she is going to have to get a job. Papa left them money in the bank, but the Germans took it, leaving them with next to nothing.

That afternoon, Jakub Baker, one of their old neighbors, comes by. Lidia is angry that he is wearing a German uniform. However, he warns them that he heard the Germans talking and that they plan on taking their home the following morning. He says that their family was always kind to his family, so he wanted to return the favor. Ryszard thanks him, but Lidia is angry that Jakub “sold out” to the Germans.

Mama comes home with the news that she got a job working in a restaurant. However, Ryszard tells her about the Germans coming for their home. Doda offers to let them live in her old apartment. Mr. Katz and some of the others who worked for Lidia’s family have offered to pay their rent in exchange for all Papa did for them. However, the apartment is only one bedroom, has no bathroom, and is in the Wola District—an impoverished part of Warsaw. Mama gratefully accepts Doda’s offer.

When the Germans come, they give Lidia and her family half an hour to grab their things. They had already packed what they could take with them while moving out some of their more valuable stuff overnight.

When they get to the apartment, Lidia notes the rundown state, with peeling paint and a draft. However, Doda tells her that they are “with the ones [they] love,” so they are “home” (85).

Lidia and her family do their best to make the apartment into a home. Lidia shares the attic with Doda, while Ryszard sleeps in the kitchen. Lidia often looks out the window, which overlooks the Jewish neighborhood. The Nazis place a speaker directly outside it, playing messages from Hitler constantly.

Walking home with Ryszard one day, they discuss the possibility of a resistance movement in Warsaw. Lidia had heard about it, but Ryszard is adamant that she needs to stay out of it. A soldier named Schubert—the same one who hit Ryszard before—overhears them and demands to know what they’re talking about. Ryszard is apologetic, saying that they are just discussing surviving the winter. When Schubert tells them that they can do so by aligning with the Germans and accepting their fate, Lidia becomes angry, telling him that they will “survive better on food and a warm place to sleep” (90). Schubert warns her that they are only alive due to Hitler’s grace but that that will change soon. He forces Lidia to beg permission to leave, which she does again, sarcastically. He calls Lidia and Ryszard “slaves” and then walks away.

Ryszard demands to know why Lidia acted how she did, and she insists that she will not be anyone’s “slave.” Ryszard warns her that she is risking her life and that she needs to stay out of it. He again tells her to forget about the resistance and just try to survive.

Over the summer, Lidia watches as a wall is built outside her attic window, surrounding the Jewish neighborhood. It has broken glass and two rows of barbed wire at the top and signs on it warning people to stay out.

On November 15, she comes home and finds that Doda and Bubbe are gone. She rushes to the attic and finds that the window has been boarded up and has a sign on it that warns against removing the boards and helping the Jews, which is punishable by death. Lidia realizes that the neighborhood now has a camp for Jewish people and that Doda and Bubbe must be in there.

Lidia packs a bag, determined to get it to Doda and Bubbe. She watches the guards at the gates and tries to build up the courage to ask them to go in. However, she watches as a man runs up and tries to sneak a slice of bread into one of the prisoners. The guard shoots both him and the prisoner dead.

Shaken, Lidia turns and runs home with her head down. She is ashamed of herself for not helping—knowing that Doda would help her if their roles were reversed—but is overcome by fear. She tells herself that she will find a way to help Doda and Bubbe.

For weeks, Lidia tries to figure out how to help Doda, but the camp—which people are now calling the “ghetto”—is well guarded, and people are regularly executed for doing things like trying to throw a loaf of bread over the wall. One day, however, Mama is tasked with taking a bag of potatoes from the restaurant into the ghetto. Lidia convinces her to wear an extra dress and a coat to leave behind, while Lidia straps bread under her shirt and puts coins in her pockets.

At the gate, Mama and Lidia are questioned, and Lidia is overcome by fear and nerves. She tells the guard that she is just afraid of the disease within, and after a few moments of staring at her, he lets her in.

Once in the ghetto, Lidia is overwhelmed by the “grief” she sees there, as people seem to wander around aimlessly with no signs of happiness. She asks about Doda, but no one knows her. Mama decides to give what they have brought to a group of women, adamant that it is better to help someone even if they can’t find Doda. Lidia reluctantly agrees.

Throughout that winter, Lidia and her family struggle with the cold and with food. Mama gets a can of soup each night from the restaurant, which they add water to and occasionally find a vegetable to add in. Lidia learns not to cry, as her tears freeze on her face when she does.

One day, the family gets a letter from Papa. He writes very little, only that he is in a prison camp and hopes that Lidia and Ryszard are still learning even if they can’t be in school.

Lidia befriends a young girl who lives nearby named Maryna. Maryna also lost her father to the war. She tells Lidia that there is a secret underground school above a shop nearby and how to get there. However, Mama is adamant that it is too dangerous.

In February 1941, Lidia gathers some earrings and valuable porcelain dolls. She secretly goes into the shops and sells them for money, which she then uses to pay her tuition at the school. She tells the shopkeeper that Maryna sent her and receives a pencil with instructions on where to go. As she goes up the stairs, she thinks of how “it [i]s illegal. It [i]s dangerous, and it [i]s one of the best moments of [her] life” (110).

In December, Ryszard comes home with a secret Polish newspaper, written on butcher’s paper and kept between the pages of the Nazi one. They read about the bombing at Pearl Harbor. They learn that Japan is fighting and that the United States might enter the war. Lidia also reads about Chelmno, where there is another prison camp. Her family learns for the first time that the Nazis are not just detaining but also killing Jewish people. Lidia is distraught. She insists that they help Doda and somehow sneak her out, but Mama insists that there is nothing they can do.

In her room, Lidia secretly takes off one of the boards on her window. She looks out over the ghetto and sees how many more people there are than before and how thin and frail they all look. She watches as a young boy goes up to a hole in the fence, drops an apple through, and runs away.

That night, she goes to the same hole with two potatoes. When she drops them through, she hears a young girl thank her, and Lidia promises to come back with more.

By April 1942, Lidia has continued to take food to people in the ghetto for several months. However, one morning, when she leaves home, a woman who lives in their apartment stops Lidia. She confronts Lidia, angrily warning her that she is risking everyone’s lives by helping the Jewish people. Lidia runs back into her home to hide, angry at herself for not being more discreet.

As she sits on her bed, she hears a boy singing what sounds like “a funeral dirge” (118). She removes the board from her window and sees him in the ghetto. He is a boy about her age but frail and thin, with a guitar that has only one string. She motions to the boy and, using a piece of string, slides bagels down it to him.

Signs of resistance pop up all over Warsaw. They do things like make fake notices that look just like the Nazis’, confusing the soldiers. They mark anchors with the initials “PW” each time they commit an act of resistance. Lidia knows that helping those in the ghetto is dangerous but acknowledges that going to school and reading the resistance’s newspapers are just as bad: All of this could lead to her death, and she is willing to risk it.

One day, Maryna comes and gets Lidia for a plan that she has. They go up onto the roof of the apartment and over to the drainpipe. Maryna discovered that the wall of the ghetto is built around the pipe because it’s so close to the apartment. When Maryna drops a bag of wheat inside, Lidia is amazed as she realizes that it lands inside the wall.

Maryna and Lidia continue to drop food through the drainpipe for the next month. However, in May, they find a sign posted on the rooftop warning people against helping the Nazis. They become paranoid, concerned that someone is tracking their movement, so they skip school.

Instead, the two girls decide to visit Ryszard at work. He found a job working for the Nazis as a builder, a job he hates but that pays better than anything else. To get to him, they cross the train tracks near the ghetto. However, they stop short when they hear people yelling and gunshots. They watch as Nazi soldiers load Jewish people onto the train.

Maryna insists that they need to leave. However, Lidia stops when she hears Bubbe’s voice. She turns back toward the tracks but finds Officer Schubert standing in her path. He tells them to leave, but Lidia asks if she can see Bubbe. In response, Schubert slaps her across the face. He warns them that if he sees them again, he will load them onto the cars as well.

After Maryna and Lidia get away from the tracks, Maryna insists that they need to be more careful. She tells Lidia that she wants to survive the war—along with everyone she loves—and that helping is becoming too dangerous.

Lidia agrees, but she thinks to herself that “cooperating” isn’t a guarantee to save their lives but could cause them to lose those they love “because [they] backed down” (126). The thought makes her hurt even worse than getting slapped.

For the rest of 1942, Lidia avoids doing anything dangerous and does not help the people in the ghetto. She is ashamed of herself for giving in to her fear.

On December 23, she tells Mama about school. Her mother is angry, but Lidia insists that she needs to learn. When Mama tries to argue, bringing up Krystyna and how she would never do something like this, Lidia simply leaves.

On the way to school, Lidia overhears two German soldiers talking. They talk about Krakow, where a resistance movement blew up a café, killing 11 soldiers and wounding 13 more. After they walk away, a young boy makes a comment to her about how he also heard them. She is hesitant to talk with him, but he tells her that his name is Stefan and that he heard her play piano at an orphanage years ago. He also explains that he knows Ryszard, saying that they will continue to be friends “[t]oday, tomorrow, and the day after” (131)—a phrase that she had heard Ryszard use before. He tells Lidia that he gives Ryszard his newspapers and that if she ever wants one, she can find him there.

Lidia realizes that Stefan is a member of the resistance. She is excited by the idea of meeting someone who is involved with it. She asks him what the news is today, and he warns her to avoid the ghetto, as “a new kind of war will begin very soon” (131).

On January 18, 1943, Lidia wakes up to the sounds of fighting in the ghetto. She removes the board from the window and looks out to see German soldiers shooting at a building. Inside the building, she hears Jewish people shouting as they throw explosives out among the soldiers. Then, four young people run out. Lidia notes that they are only a few years older than her. One of the girls stops and hides behind a building, and Lidia sees her smile and raise her fist in the air. Lidia makes the same gesture—even though the girl can’t see her. Through it all, Lidia is shocked at how little fear the girl shows. Instead, she acts excited and proud of what she is doing.

In response, Lidia tells Ryszard that she knows he is working for the resistance. She explains that she met Stefan and realized that the phrase “today, tomorrow, and the day after” is the motto of the Gray Ranks (135). She tells him to stop because it has become too dangerous, but he insists that he is an important part of the movement. He has been delivering newspapers and providing information about the Germans to help fight them in the war.

Lidia then demands that Ryszard let her join the resistance as well. However, he is insistent that it is too dangerous. He also tells her that he has an escape plan, one that would allow him to get out the moment the Nazis come to their door.

After Ryszard leaves, Lidia decides to go back to Stefan and join the resistance anyway, adamant that she can keep the secret from both Ryszard and Mama.

Lidia finds Stefan where she met him before, but he immediately tells her no. He tells her that she is too young, and Ryszard is already there to warn Stefan not to let her join. After Lidia argues with him, he agrees to let her do a trial. He gives her a newspaper and tells her to hide it as she goes around the block. He tells her to count the German soldiers and report back what she overhears.

Lidia starts down the street but immediately runs into her piano teacher, Madam Kazowska. She tells Lidia about shoes that she just got from the butcher. When he finds Jews who snuck out of the ghetto, he demands that they give him something in exchange for his secrecy, and then he resells it. Lidia is shocked that Madam Kazowska would do something like that, imagining the woman who is in the ghetto in winter without her shoes. However, she realizes how long she has been talking and makes up an excuse to leave.

As Lidia walks, her fear and anxiety over getting caught overwhelm her. She comes across two officers talking about “liquidating” the ghetto. One of them sees her and warns her that she should not be on the street. She apologizes and then keeps walking, struggling to remember to count the soldiers as she goes.

When she gets back to Stefan, he tells her that she is three minutes late. He asks how many Germans she saw, and she guesses, but he tells her that he was following her and knows the correct number. He tells her that she was late, was too nervous with the officer, and did not follow his instructions about counting the soldiers. In her defense, she tells him what she heard the officers talking about. She asks what “liquidating” means, and Stefan tells her that they plan to kill everyone in the ghetto. Lidia is shocked, insisting that they are moving them to different camps, but Stefan tells her that the trains go to death camps. Lidia is distraught, wanting even more to help, but Stefan tells her to “come back when [she] can complete the assignment” (145).

Over the next few months, Lidia goes each week to see if she can find Stefan again. Although he is never there, she practices her trip around the block, learning to count the Germans and listen for information while making it back in exactly half an hour.

On March 26, she feels that something is different but can’t figure out why. When she gets back around the block, she spots Stefan standing with a few other Polish people. She starts to go to him, but then a truck comes down the street. Stefan yells to the others and pulls out a gun, stopping the truck as more armed resistance fighters run out into the street. She is shocked when Ryszard appears, opens the back of the truck, and pulls out a prisoner. After everyone is gone, Lidia sees several dead people, including Stefan.

After several days, Lidia finally gets Ryszard to talk about what happened. He tells her that it meant nothing, as the prisoner died anyway, and the Germans executed 140 prisoners in response. However, Lidia insists that they just need more people to join the resistance, but Ryszard again tells her that she can’t join.

A few weeks later, Lidia and Maryna look out the attic window into the ghetto. There is very little movement. Maryna insists that something is going to happen. She asks to stay over, and the two spend the night occasionally looking out the window.

They wake up in the middle of the night to the sounds of fighting. They look out the window and see the Jewish people carrying weapons. German soldiers arrive, and a fight breaks out. The soldiers eventually retreat. Maryna is optimistic, but Lidia insists that they will simply come back with more people and stronger weapons.

The fighting continues for the next few days. Lidia and Ryszard watch it from the window while Mama complains about the noise making her head hurt. Lidia gets angry, telling her that people are dying. When Mama argues with her, Lidia angrily leaves to go to Maryna’s house.

At Maryna’s, her uncle, Lieutenant Halama, is visiting. Maryna tells her that he is in the resistance and that Halama is his code name. Then, she invites Lidia to stay for dinner. When the conversation turns to the uprising, Halama tells them that they are planning to burn the ghetto. Lidia interrupts the conversation, knowing that she is being rude but not caring. She asks why no one is helping the Jewish people and then argues with Halama when he says that there is nothing anyone can do. When Halama asks what the underground has to gain by joining the fight, Lidia insists that it would be “for the gain of [their] souls” (157). Realizing that she has disturbed Maryna’s family’s dinner, Lidia leaves and goes out into the courtyard.

After a few minutes, Maryna comes out. She has a note from Halama with an address inviting Lidia to a meeting of the resistance. Maryna tells her that it is her choice and then leaves Lidia alone to think. Lidia considers how there is “so little [she] c[an] win, and so very much that [she] c[an] lose” by joining (159). However, as she hears sounds from within the ghetto, she starts to smell smoke and realizes that the Nazis have begun to burn it. As she sobs, she realizes that she must go to the meeting.