Words on Fire, page 22
And there, below the names of my parents, Henri and Lina, and beneath the name of my grandfather, I wrote A-U-D-R-A.
On my final journey toward the border, I spent the hours between sleeping and waking reading from the locked book. Years earlier in his life, Ben must have recorded the full story of his role in the uprising, the catalyst for the ban on our books now.
The uprising had failed—catastrophically failed—and Ben had never gotten over that. He didn’t consider himself a hero for the role he had played back then, nor did it matter that they had come so close to gaining freedom. Instead, he felt guilt, wondering if they had never fought, would Lithuania still have its books, its language?
That’s why he smuggled, constantly hoping to undo the damage done to our country because of the uprising.
My heart ached for Ben. He had gone to his death believing that the smuggling didn’t matter, either, that his defense of the church in Kražiai didn’t matter. How wrong he was.
The church never was burned, and after the news of that night spread throughout the country, our relationship with Russia became worse than ever before. Which meant the demand for books—for knowledge and ideas—became stronger than ever as well.
Russia’s hold on us was weakening. Every year we pushed harder for our independence, and every year their laws softened. But not enough to allow us our books. Still not enough. So there was always more work to be done.
From the first day I returned to Milda’s home, we devoted every waking moment to preparing books to be smuggled into Lithuania. We raised funds for printing, collected book donations, left books in drop points near the border, and managed the orders that flooded in.
I met dozens of book smugglers, those who continued to risk their lives to carry the books into the country. They were heroic and determined and passionate about their work. Every smuggler who walked through our door lifted my spirits.
But not once did Lukas ever come through that door.
I watched for him every day, and the days of missing him turned to months, which became years. He must have stopped smuggling; perhaps he had even become a respectable person in his father’s home. In his Russian father’s home.
Milda and I spoke often of Lukas, of our favorite memories of him. The way he laughed, the way his eye turned to food whenever it was nearby. His kindness, his bravery. Milda seemed to have a new story of him every time his name came up in conversation.
Until conversation became too difficult for her. Until she became confined to her bed, unable to speak more than a few words at a time, but with a mind keen on listening to every page I could read to her.
Until one day, when the last words of the book I was reading said, “The end,” and I looked up to see Milda’s eyes closed, a pleasant smile on her face, having reached the end of her own story.
I had her buried in a church plot as close as I dared get to the border. As close to her home as she could ever be again. Then the entire task of getting books printed fell to me.
And not only books, but I wrote for the newspaper about the power of words and why the fight must continue. My words were true and came straight from my heart, although deep inside, beyond thought and reason, in that place where there were only feelings, I wondered if the fight mattered. I wondered, like Ben, if maybe none of it would ever make a difference. Because how could a nation as small as ours ever defeat an empire?
I got my answer on the one-year anniversary of Milda’s death. The year was 1904 and I was now twenty-three years old. I had a wreath of flowers for Milda, but when I went to lay them on the arch of her gravestone, I saw a bouquet of rue already there. Curious, I stopped. Who would have brought these … and why? The bouquet wasn’t appropriate for remembering a death. They would have come from—
Drawing in a sharp breath, I set my wreath down, then began looking around. “Lukas?” I knew it must be him!
He was standing directly behind me, as grown up as I’d become, more handsome than I remembered, but with the same playful grin as always.
“I haven’t seen you in more than ten years and all you bring me are flowers?” I asked, a twinkle in my eye.
Lukas’s grin became crooked as it widened. “Those flowers aren’t from me, Audra. But I did bring you this. I thought you might want it.”
He’d had one arm behind his back and he brought it forward, with my father’s shoulder bag in his hand, the one with the tricks that had saved my life and introduced me to real magic.
I reached for it, uncertain of how I’d feel to have it back again, empty now. Empty forevermore. Still, I was glad to have it. There was so little I had for memories of my childhood. I would treasure this like it was gold, like it was everything to me.
“How did you find this again?” I asked.
Lukas shrugged. “It wasn’t easy. But if you want to thank me, then I hope Milda taught you to cook. We’re definitely hungry.”
My brow arched. “We?” When he didn’t answer, I added, “Lukas, where did that bouquet of flowers come from?”
He must’ve been so eager to answer that he began bouncing on his toes. “I can see I’ve traveled faster than the news. It’s happened, Audra, it’s finally happened! The press ban is over! Our books will be legal again. And if our books are no longer a crime, then—”
“Then those who smuggled them are no longer criminals!” My heart leapt. That meant I could return to the land I loved, the place I belonged. I could go home.
If only I had a home there.
Lukas stepped closer to me. “It took my last coin to purchase two train tickets.”
Then I understood. I glanced again at the flowers. I had once been nicknamed for these flowers.
“Don’t say it.” By then, tears had welled in my eyes. “Don’t say it if they aren’t here.”
“Then we’ll say it,” a woman’s voice said. More than ten years later, I knew that voice. I’d heard it every night in my dreams.
“My little Rue, you brought us home. How we’ve missed you.” I knew that voice as well. It had been imprinted onto my heart.
The tears rolled down my cheek as I turned around, then rushed forward with my arms wide open.
“Mama! Papa!”
They looked older than they ought to have, and tired, and their clothes were worn into threads. Yet they were smiling and their eyes shone with excitement and love.
My parents folded me into their embrace and there we cried and laughed and cried some more. After we parted, Lukas was invited in, where I noticed he stared at me with a very different smile on his face.
It would be another fourteen years, a world war, and an occupation by Germany before Lithuania finally gained its freedom. By then, Lukas and I had children of our own, children who were growing up with books in their language, being taught in schools in their language and of their culture. By the time we formally received our independence, Lithuania had long considered itself free.
And always would, no matter what other troubles would come.
So tonight, like every other night, I picked up a book and sat beside Lukas in front of the fireplace of our home. Our children gathered around us for story time. Like every other night, I would read a page, then Lukas, then the children would beg him to tell a story from back when we were book carriers. A true story.
And like every other night, Lukas would begin the same way.
“Well, as you all know, your mother’s name, Audra, means ‘storm.’ And so she is, children. She was a storm that helped bring freedom to all of us.”
The work of restoring Lithuania’s independence began not in 1918, but rather at the time of the book carriers. With bundles of books and pamphlets on their backs, these warriors were the first to start preparing the ground for independence, the first to propagate the idea that it was imperative to throw off the heavy yoke of Russian oppression.
—Father Julijonas Kasperavicius
Turn the page for a sneak peek at another historical thriller by Jennifer A. Nielsen!
October 5, 1942
Tarnow Ghetto, Southern Poland
Two minutes. That’s how long I had to get past this Nazi.
He needed time to check my papers, inquire about my business inside the ghetto. Maybe he wanted a few seconds to flirt with a pretty Polish girl. Or for her to flirt back.
But no more than two minutes. Any longer and he might realize my papers are forged. That it’s Jewish blood in my veins, no matter how Aryan I look.
“Guten Morgen.” This one greeted me with a smile and a hand on my arm. I learned early not to smuggle anything inside the sleeves of my coat. You only had to be stupid once, and the game was over.
This officer was younger than most, which I once believed would give me an advantage. I’d thought the younger ones would be more naïve, and maybe they were. But they were also ambitious, eager to prove themselves, and fully aware that capturing someone like me could earn them an early promotion.
“Guten Morgen,” I replied in German, but with a perfect Polish accent. I smiled again, like we were old friends. Like I wasn’t as willing to kill him as he was my people. “Wie geht’s?” I didn’t care how he was doing, on this morning or any other, but I asked because it kept his attention on my face rather than my bag.
Like other ghettos throughout Poland, Tarnow Ghetto had been sealed since nearly the beginning of the war, cut off from the outside world. Cut off from Jews in other ghettos. This isolation gave total power to the German invaders. Power to control, to lie, and to kill.
For the past three months, I’d worked as a courier for a resistance movement known as Akiva. My job was to break through that isolation, to warn the people, and to help them survive, if I could. But we were increasingly aware that time was running out. We’d seen people being lured onto the trains with promises of bread and jam, pacified into thinking they were being relocated to labor camps. Then they were crammed into cattle cars without water or space to move. And their destination was never to a labor camp.
They were headed for death camps, designed to kill hundreds or even thousands of people a day. I’d seen them. Been sickened by them. Had my heart shattered by them.
The Nazis called these camps their solution to the so-called “Jewish problem.”
Yes, I very much intended to be their problem.
Which required me to stay calm now. Just inside the ghetto, I saw an open square that used to be a park. Now it was a place for trading, for begging, for a population with little more to do than wander about and wonder when their end would come. Maybe some even wished for it.
As was generally the case at the gates, there was one other Nazi on duty, this time a man in an SS uniform, the more specialized military force. There were also two Polish police officers and two members of the Jewish police, whom we called the OD. They often were as brutal as the Gestapo, and no more trustworthy.
I offered the soldier my Kennkarte before he could ask, because he’d need to see the identification anyway and my two minutes were halfway up. The passport-sized bifold contained my picture and fingerprints. Everything else inside—the dates, the stamps, the personal information—was forged.
One of our leaders, Shimshon Draenger, did all the forgeries for Akiva. He was so talented I believed he could forge Hitler’s signature and fool Hitler himself with it. We sold Shimshon’s forged papers inside the ghettos as our way of funding the resistance.
“You are Helena Nowak?” the soldier asked.
I nodded, a lie that I’d told many times over the last three months, and one that I would certainly tell again. A thousand other Polish girls might have the same name, which was the plan. If all went well, he’d believe me, then in the same instant, forget me.
“Why are you coming to the Tarnow Ghetto today?” he asked in German.
I scrunched my face into a pout, a careful balance between hinting that I wished I could go on a picnic with him instead, but not enough to actually encourage him to invite me. I replied, “Shawls for the women. Winter is coming. I can make money in there.”
He frowned. “Where do you get these shawls?”
“My grandmother knits them.”
My grandmother, whom I recently smuggled into hiding with a Christian family in Krakow. She sews, cooks, and cleans for them. In exchange, they don’t have her killed. They saw it as a fair bargain, and maybe it was. If they were caught, they’d be killed too.
“Let’s see your bag,” the officer asked.
It was worn on my back, and was narrow and deep. Deliberately sewn that way. I had packed the top half of the bag tightly, making it difficult for him to dig around, if he felt the need to do so. But I hoped he wouldn’t because today, the thick shawls hid the potatoes I was smuggling in, along with some forged identification papers. For sneaking in a single potato, this Nazi could shoot me here on my feet. For the papers, my punishment would be far worse.
I turned and hummed a little tune while he looked the bag over. This was by far the most dangerous part of my mission. If I’d raised his suspicions. If he wanted to impress his commander. If he looked at me and saw the Jewish girl inside, the one who has trained herself to look these evil men in the eye and to smile and make them think I sympathize with their slaughter of my people. If he saw that, it was all over.
But I’d get in today. And tomorrow I would lie my way into another ghetto, and do the same every tomorrow after that until my last breath, or theirs. After three years of war in which I’d felt helpless against the overwhelming force of the German army, I was finally doing something. I was bringing my people a chance to survive.
Ghettos themselves were nothing new to the Jews. Many times throughout our history, we’d been forcibly segregated, often behind walls. Which made it harder to get people to listen now. They believed the German lie that if we cooperated, we would get through this, as we had in the past. They wanted the ghettos to be what they’d always been: a separation, and nothing more.
But it was different this time. The German plan was not to divide us from the population. It was to eliminate us from the population. To exterminate us.
The ghettos played a key role in their plans, suspending the Jews in a halfway point to everything. Half-starved, treated as much like animals as humans. Existing halfway between hope and despair.
Halfway between life and death. The one became the other in the ghettos.
And I was doing everything I could to stop it.
It began with smuggling. I’d become creative about how I brought things in: weapons baked into loaves of bread; fake identification papers sewn into the linings of my coat; or, occasionally, the smuggled object might make my bust appear larger than it really was. Whatever I was secretly carrying, I always brought information to the residents of these sealed ghettos about what was happening elsewhere, and then learned everything I could to warn the next ghetto.
But that was only the beginning. My mission today was bolder than usual, and I was nervous.
“You must leave before the ghetto curfew at seventeen hundred hours,” the Nazi told me, then with a smile added, “Come out through this gate, pretty girl, no?”
I offered him a smile of my own, one that shot bile into my throat. I couldn’t come out this gate now. Not if he was specifically watching for me.
He let me pass, and then I was in.
I wondered if he’d sensed how hard my heart was beating back there, if he’d known my palms were dampened with sweat. I’d talked my way past the soldier by making him think I was Polish. Now came the harder part: convincing my own people that I was one of them. For if they did not trust me, coming here was a waste of time.
I turned down the nearest street, hoping to get out of sight if any guards looked back. It was time to be Jewish again. I put the necklace with the Catholic crucifix in my pocket and repeated my true name under my breath: Chaya Lindner.
I was named for my grandmother, as she was named for hers. Every time I passed myself off as a Christian girl named Helena, I wondered: Was I dishonoring my name, or preserving it?
Maybe it didn’t matter. I was committed to my fate. I’d be a courier for as long as a courier was needed. I’d be a fighter if that was needed.
If a martyr was needed, I’d be that too.
But for now, this ghetto needed to see a Jewish girl. If it was difficult to pass myself off as a Pole back at the ghetto gates, it was no easier now to make the people here trust me as a Jew. I was a stranger with a Polish look, and that made me suspicious.
I was supposed to make contact with a resistance member here, but until he found me, I began distributing the potatoes. Like everything else, I passed them out as quietly as possible. I didn’t want to be recognized, or remembered. Even among my own people, there were some who might point me out to a Nazi if they thought it’d buy their family another day to live.
So whenever possible, I distributed food to children, slipping a potato into their bag or coat pocket, then quickly moving on. I sometimes looked back to see their eyes light up when they felt it with their hands, but they were always smart enough not to bring the potato out in the open, and too excited to look around for me. Usually, I didn’t look back. It wasn’t worth the risk. I moved fast, eyes down, trying not to think about who got the potato and who I’d passed over. They didn’t deserve hunger more than the child whose bag happened to be open, but such was the randomness of life. I would never be able to bring in enough food for everyone.
At my best, I could not save them all.
That thought always destroyed me. Always.
Far too soon, the supply of potatoes was gone. So what if twenty families had a potato to eat today? Couldn’t I have snuck in even one more? I lowered my eyes and clutched my bag in my hands. I couldn’t give out the shawls—no matter how cold it was about to become, I needed them for the second part of my mission. But I had to find my contact soon.
