His eyes riveted on the perilous spot, Jan listened as his wife spoke in whispers: ‘When Krumpf ordered that the querns be brought in, I gave them the old one my mother used. Our good one is hidden. But when we need to use it, we shall.’
Jan, aware of the terrible risk his wife was taking, grasped her hand and pressed it. Then he kissed her, and the hidden quern was not mentioned again, but as he worked his fields he sequestered larger and larger quantities of wheat, which he smuggled home beneath his pants, and sometimes at night, he would awaken to hear in the darkness the turning of the stones and he would know that the Buks would once more have extra flour to bake into secret loaves for those in the cities who were starving.
In the other sections of Poland, those contiguous to Germany, terrifying rules against the movement of Poles were in effect: a Pole could be shot if caught on a train, or executed in a public square if caught moving about without a pass. No Pole could own a bicycle without a license from the Nazis indicating the specific streets on which he was allowed to ride to and from work. And even when on foot he had to step into the gutter if a German approached; if tardy, he could be shot.
In the General Gouvernement these harsh rules did not apply, for here the job of the Pole was to produce food, and it was realized that to do this, a limited amount of travel was obligatory. Nevertheless, the peasants were tied to their land, just as they had been a thousand years earlier, and it was assumed at headquarters in Krakow that this would continue sometime into the future, until the Polish race died out and its place was taken by Germans.
During 1939, 1940 and the first half of 1941 living conditions for farmers in the General Gouvernement were bearable; their food was taken from them, but they were always clever enough to steal just enough to sustain their strength. There was constant repression, and the list of hostages remained in the public square; nineteen had now been shot in retaliation for various offenses committed by hotheads, but the general opinion in the countryside was that it was useless to try to oppose the Nazis: ‘They have the guns and they’re ready to use them.’
They also had the ropes, and these made an even deeper impression on the farmers, because when a disobedient person like Jadwiga Buk was hanged, the Germans left her or his body swaying in the wind, this way and that, legs not tied together, until some morning when Konrad Krumpf would come by and shout in his high-pitched voice: ‘Get that filthy thing out of here.’ Then the villagers were allowed to bury the corpse.
In his seventeen villages Krumpf had now executed more than sixty Poles, but never viciously, as some commanders did, and never without just cause, as he interpreted the rules. But even so, he was not able to stamp out the first beginnings of resistance in the countryside, and the more he studied the instances of sabotage or major thefts of food, the more he was convinced that some mastermind like the missing Szymon Bukowski was in command, and that the acts were by no means isolated or accidental. Placing all his cards before him on the table in his headquarters, he studied them, and had to conclude that it was Bukowski, even though so young, who was somehow communicating with the farmers of the district and causing trouble.
On three widely different occasions he had picked up rumors of an underground cell which operated from hiding places in the Forest of Szczek, and he wondered if Szymon Bukowski might have anything to do with this. Gnawed by doubt and irritated that he had not been able to run the missing man down, he returned to the Bukowski palace to talk with its real owner, and not that rather difficult American woman who might once have been its mistress.
He had always found Ludwik Bukowski a pleasant man to do business with: smallish, well-groomed, perfect in his German, an apparent conservative who had nothing to do with the rabble, and recognized in Krakow as a potential friend. Now as Krumpf sat with Bukowski, he spoke frankly: ‘We have persistent rumors of an organized underground operating in these regions. Have you heard anything?’
‘No. And I rather think I would have.’
‘Who could be commanding such a body of men?’
‘I haven’t the vaguest idea. Perhaps some patriot who dreams of reviving—’
‘Could it possibly be Szymon Bukowski?’
‘My goodness, he’s only … what … seventeen?’
‘Aren’t you his uncle, in a manner of speaking?’
‘There’ve always been twisted rumors …’ He twirled his thumbs, looked at the portrait of his father, and said: ‘There always are, in a village like this.’
‘I’ve been thinking about this village,’ Krumpf said cautiously, ‘and I believe I ought to transfer my headquarters here.’
Bukowski, who had a shrewd ability to anticipate trouble, said: ‘Isn’t it rather far from your other villages? Also, the Vistula cutting you off on one side?’
‘But the more interesting … I mean, the more critical things seem to happen here.’
During the months of occupation Bukowski had tried to estimate just how far Krumpf’s authority extended, and he had seen proof that the Gestapo man could order the execution of anyone who provoked him, but he also noticed that like most middle-class Germans, Krumpf was respectful of authority and had handled the Bukowskis and Count Lubonski with deference. Ludwik decided he could ignore the man’s rather heavy-handed suggestions. ‘You’d probably find it rather dull here, so far off to one side.’
Krumpf smiled, moisture showing at the edges of his eyes, and with carefully chosen words he said: ‘Dr. Hans Frank … the governor general, you know. He sent us a memorandum last week. He wants his representatives properly housed. With right of requisition anywhere in the General Gouvernement.’ He looked directly at the wealthy Pole and waited for a response.
Bukowski could not imagine sharing his palace with such a man, a murderer, a tyrant, so he said nothing. Then, when Krumpf’s silence grew frightening, like that of a watching adder, he licked his lips and asked: ‘Have you identified any place in our territory you would deem acceptable?’
Krumpf rose, took his host by the arm, and walked him purposefully toward the room in which the Holbein portrait hung. ‘I have been thinking that I would like my office here. In this room. With this great German painting.’ And before Bukowski could respond, the Gestapo man led him back to the hall, where they stood before the portrait of Wiktor Bukowski: ‘ “The Hero of Zamosc.” I like that. Your father was willing to fight the Communist atheists. I liked this place from the first time I saw his portrait. But at that time chance made us allies of the Russian monster and I was not allowed to speak.’
‘I would have to consult my mother,’ Ludwik said feebly. ‘She owns the palace, you might say.’
‘Not at all. In the Third Reich—and the General Gouvernement is practically a part of Germany now—widows own nothing and title should properly pass to their sons. This is your palace, and I shall expect an answer from you.’
‘I will consult with my mother,’ Bukowski said with a surprising show of stubbornness. And he went to his mother’s apartment, where the beautiful little Correggio graced her sleeping area. In his absence, Krumpf returned to the Holbein room, studying the floor plan to determine how his desk and files would be placed.
Ludwik and his mother found him there, sitting in a chair once used by Wiktor Bukowski, and he did not rise when they entered. Before they could speak, he said sharply: ‘To avoid any statement that might be regretted later, let me say this. I have been empowered by the General Gouvernement to requisition any quarters I require.’
‘I am aware of that,’ Madame Bukowska said quietly, ‘and my son and I hope that you will choose to stay with us, if the rooms suit your purposes.’
‘They do,’ he said, rising to give the Nazi salute. ‘Heil Hitler!’
By the peculiar rules operating in the General Gouvernement, any Pole to whom these words were spoken had to be meticulous in his response. He was forbidden to use the sacred phrase himself, but he was required to stand quickly, in a posture of supreme respect, hands at side, eyes straig
ht ahead. The two Bukowskis stood at attention.
Laboriously Konrad Krumpf continued to file his notes on cards of five colors—red, purple, green, blue, brown—and the two clerks he had brought with him, or even ordinary soldiers, were allowed to study these cards and could make entries upon them. But he also maintained a sixth file on golden-yellow cards, and these no one ever saw but himself. He was reluctant to title the top card in this pile by one of its honest names: traitors, betrayers, committers of treason, apostates; or to use either of the two new words: quislings or collaborators. Instead, with Germanic ponderousness, he titled them MEN OF PRUDENCE WHO CAN BE EXPECTED TO ACT IN THE INTERESTS OF THEIR NATION: It was not a good definition of treason, but it was a justification.
On the golden-yellow cards he recorded the shame of Poland: those few who betrayed their friends for money; those few who sought to pose as Germans, not Poles; those few who believed that the war was lost and that Poland would continue to exist as it did in these terrible times; those few who sought advantage of one trivial kind or another; those few who by nature always sided with the victors; those who preferred Germany to Russia; and those dreadful few, who could have been found in any nation, who actually supported the doctrines of Adolf Hitler and worked to spread them.
From his villages, Krumpf had assembled the names of thirty-seven ‘Men of Prudence,’ not yet fully confirmed, and on the night that he established his permanent headquarters in the Bukowski palace he riffled the golden-yellow cards, nodding appreciatively at remembrance of those few who had actually volunteered to aid the Reich. When he passed the thirty-seventh card he came upon a dozen blank ones, each waiting for the name of its traitor, and at the last card he hesitated a long time: What about this fellow Bukowski? He speaks German well. He’s never married, so he could possibly be a sexual pervert. Definitely he’s subject to pressure. And from the ideas I’ve heard him express, I’m sure he’s more favorable to our side than to Russia’s.
Very strongly did he want to add Ludwik Bukowski’s name to his list, for to snag a member of the gentry, and one who would be extremely wealthy when his mother died, would offset the anger he felt over the fact that he had not yet captured the other Bukowski, who was now spoken of openly as a leader of one of the forest gangs. It would be a neat exchange, but he hesitated before lifting the pen which would convert Ludwik into an acknowledged traitor, for this privileged list contained only persons who had committed open acts of loyalty to the Third Reich.
He would wait to decide about the master of the palace, a weakling whom he did not trust, but as he was about to wrap the golden cards in their protective covering, he paused to weigh another name as a possible entry, and over this one he pondered a long time.
Count Walerian Lubonski, of Castle Gorka up the river, was a difficult man to assess. His card in the green file, ‘Men of Importance,’ showed that he was fifty-four years old, sole inheritor of the Lubonski estates, son of a distinguished servant of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was almost as meritorious as having worked for Germany, and a man of pronounced leadership. A penciled note, in the handwriting of Hans Yunger, who had conducted the initial executions in Bukowo, said: ‘Do not shoot. Cultivate for future use.’ A similar note, appended to Ludwik Bukowski’s card, had first aroused Krumpf’s suspicion that this Bukowski might one day prove to be a ‘Man of Prudence.’
Count Lubonski was much more complex. Gracious in the style of nineteenth-century diplomats, he lived spartanly at the old castle, his room overlooking the Vistula. He had one son, who had been at Oxford University at the outbreak of the war and who still resided in England as a postgraduate student; the reassuring thing about this boy was that he was not engaged in any way in the Free Poland movement which infected England.
On the brief and chilly occasions when Gauleiter Krumpf visited the castle, he found the count punctilious, obedient and aloof. Soldiers watched the castle continuously, one detachment being billeted in the Gorka farmhouses from which the peasants had been expelled, but they reported no subversive activities. And on the two occasions when Dr. Hans Frank, the governor general, visited Bukowo he stayed with Lubonski, who entertained him not lavishly but with proper deference. It was thought by the Gestapo in the area that Dr. Frank was saving Lubonski for some important gesture, when his obedience to the Nazi rule would carry weight with the locals.
Krumpf, uneasy at having a man of such obvious importance in his district but not under his personal command, kept careful watch on Castle Gorka, endeavoring to pick up any clues as to Lubonski’s fate or, indeed, his own. Once when he asked a senior Gestapo official from Krakow: ‘What will happen to men like this Count Lubonski in my district?’ the man had replied: ‘What happens? Like all the others. We use him till our position is secure from Berlin to the Kurile Islands, then we allow him to die. Slowly, inescapably he will die.’
Count Lubonski had only one black mark prominently noted. In the flush of Nazi victories, when German armies stood poised at the gates of Moscow, at Leningrad, at Kharkov and at Stalingrad, prior to the sweeping pincers that would destroy the Russian nation, Heinrich Himmler and Dr. Rosenberg promulgated an ingenious plan whereby those young Polish girls who looked German—and because of constant infusions of Swedish blood and German in past centuries, there were many—would be deported to cities in western Germany, where they would serve in factories and become impregnated by German soldiers on leave. Their children, when born, would be taken from them and placed in good German homes to be reared as true Germans, thus replacing any manpower losses incurred on foreign battlefields.
Several thousand such girls had been rounded up and sent to Germany, where in due course quite a few of them did become pregnant, and since the mothers were never allowed to see their children, not even in the hospital, the plan was working well. But when Walerian Lubonski heard that Gestapo special forces were rounding up young blond girls along the Vistula, he hurried to Krakow without having been summoned, stormed into Wawel Castle and informed Dr. Frank, who had enthusiastically approved the new procedure, that if any girls were taken from his district, he, Lubonski, would personally intervene and ensure that everyone in Poland knew why he was being shot, if he was shot.
Dr. Frank backed down. In those areas contiguous to Germany, young fair-haired Polish girls were still snatched off the street and shipped like cattle to western Germany, some to factories, some to brothels, and their children were expropriated, but this did not happen in Lubonski’s district.
Why don’t they shoot him? Krumpf asked himself that question many times that first night in his new quarters, and the answer he came up with was a half-truth: Dr. Frank must be toying with him. The total truth was that Dr. Frank was exactly like his subordinate; as a man from the German middle class, he had a fawning respect for anyone with a title, a big house or a fortune, but he was also convinced that he was clever enough to bend that important person to his purpose. Could Krumpf have entered Count Lubonski’s name with certitude in his golden file of German patriots, he would have been overjoyed, but like the cautious man he was, he refrained from doing so, for he had a nagging suspicion that the Lubonski case was far from settled. In the meantime, he would keep watch.
Krumpf’s decision to move his headquarters to the Bukowski palace created many new problems for the family of Jan Buk. Now additional troops moved through the village, and surveillance of Polish movement intensified. Under directions from the General Gouvernement in Krakow, renewed drives were made to increase food production, and when a neighbor of the Buks was caught baking more bread than permitted by her quota, the assumption being that she was sneaking the extra loaves to the partisans in the Forest of Szczek, the woman was apprehended by Krumpf’s soldiers, dragged to the village square, and hanged. Again, her body was allowed to remain dangling from the gibbet for seven awful days before Krumpf gave the order to take it down.
Jan Buk was one of the three men assigned to bury the woman, and that night he was awakened by two s
ounds which terrified him: from his own kitchen he could hear Biruta moving about and he knew she must be grinding illegal wheat, an offense for which she, too, could be hanged; and from the outside he was certain he heard the stealthy approach of steps, which meant that Krumpf’s soldiers were spying again.
Trembling, he slipped into the kitchen to warn his wife to hide the quern, immediately, but before he could alert her the door opened quietly and a man slipped noiselessly into the kitchen: ‘Buk? Are you awake? Don’t make a light.’
It was Szymon Bukowski, creeping in as he sometimes did from his hiding place in the forest. He was in need of food for his men, desperately in need, and had come pleading to his cousin Jan Buk.
He was barely eighteen, not powerfully built, but a young man of enormous resolution. He moved like a panther, always alert, always checking his escape routes. He was tired and cold and hungry, and as he sat in the darkness, munching bread and cheese, he gradually became aware that Biruta was grinding wheat. ‘Thank God, someone is. They’re drawing the net very tight.’
‘You know they hanged Zosia last week?’
‘We know. We keep records.’
‘What’s it like … in the forest?’
‘We harry them. We let them know we’re still in existence.’
He told the Buks that in the autumn days of 1939 the men in the forest had been a brave lot, hoping that the Germans would break their teeth in the west and be forced to withdraw from Poland. ‘We dreamed. But by 1940 any hope of such victory … vanished … gone. Now we had another dream. That Russia would save us from the east. I remember Piszewski warning: “Russians will prove as bad as Germans.” But we continued to pray for their victory. Now it looks as if the Nazis are going to occupy all the Soviet Union. And where does that leave us?’ Despair momentarily crossed his face. ‘German occupation forever.’
‘But you will still fight?’
‘Won’t you?’