Jacob then recited the one Hebrew prayer he knew. Luc, in turn, asked God to comfort Abby and Josef and the rest of their friends back at the camp. He prayed for each of the men who had escaped, that God would keep them alive and give them favor. Finally he prayed for the strength and the courage to complete the mission for which they had been chosen.
It was a longer prayer than Jacob’s, and it was odd to Jacob because it was not a written or memorized prayer. It was as though Luc were having a conversation with someone. But Jacob didn’t want to talk about it. His only thought was of Abby. If he ever saw her again—or rather, when he did—he wanted to be able to say he had honored her request.
With that, they both curled up and tried to sleep.
The cave provided some much-needed shade from the summer sun, but it certainly did not solve their problems. They had no bread or vegetables or food of any kind. Their stomachs were grumbling. They were losing more weight and growing weaker by the day. The only good news was that Jacob’s fever had finally broken. But Luc’s had not. And so much walking had created numerous blisters on their feet that were now oozing pus and blood and hurt something terrible. But as night fell, they knew they had to keep moving.
Jacob had been told the entire journey was roughly 135 kilometers. But walking or running through unfamiliar terrain—especially at night and especially hungry and ill—was slow going. Jacob figured they were making no more than ten or eleven kilometers a day. At that rate, he feared they might not reach Žilina until the eighteenth or nineteenth of June—if they were lucky.
This was not good enough, Jacob told himself. Every day trains of Hungarian Jews were pulling into the gates of Birkenau, and every day thousands of them were going straight to the gas chambers and the ovens. They couldn’t afford to slow down. They had to pick up the pace. They had to warn the Jews of Hungary what the Nazis were really doing.
Jacob discussed this with Luc, and Luc readily agreed.
“We have no choice,” Luc said, his hands and face and arms now blotchy from a strange rash. “We have to keep going.”
They headed first toward the river. They desperately needed to wash and cool down and fill their canteens again. This stretch of the Soła River had no houses, no barns, no signs of civilization whatsoever, so they followed the riverbank for a time.
As they walked, they talked about what they were actually going to say when they met with the Jewish leaders of Hungary and what they would say if they had the opportunity to meet with Churchill and Roosevelt. They speculated about whether any of the others had reached such leaders already. Maybe they weren’t needed. Maybe a rescue operation was already being set into motion.
Just then, however, they heard the rumble of several aircraft rapidly approaching from the west. The two men scrambled for cover under a grove of trees. Moments later, they saw two Luftwaffe fighter planes roar into view. It was unusual to see them flying at night. It was more unusual still to see them flying so low.
The planes’ presence rattled Jacob. Were they running a surveillance mission? Were they flying cover for a ground unit? Were they here for them, or was it merely an unnerving coincidence?
89
When the planes were gone, the two men headed out again into the humid night air.
As they walked, Jacob did his best to recall what Steinberger and Frenkel had told him about the route they would be taking and the dangers they would face.
“If we’re still on course,” he said to Luc, “we should eventually reach a small dam. There’s a train station there and a German military base, so we’ll have to be careful. Otto said it’s heavily guarded. Nazi troops everywhere and roving patrols every hour, all day and all night. We won’t want to go anywhere near the dam or the base, but we’ll keep moving south into the mountains.”
Once they crossed the mountains, if they were still alive, they would reach Żywiec Lake. The plan called for them to stay on the west side of the river, in the forest, until they reached a place where the river forked. The smaller tributary to the right would lead them to Milówka, only about ten kilometers from the Slovakian border.
After they had hiked another several days, Jacob realized everything Steinberger and Frenkel had told them was proving accurate. By June 13 they had passed the dam and steered clear of the heavy concentrations of Nazi troops, grateful for the warnings. Now they were approaching the second large lake. They were making progress. They were nearing their objective, and they weren’t dead yet.
But all was not well. Despite their spirited conversations, Luc’s health was steadily worsening. Jacob was barely finding enough fruits or vegetables to keep them going. Their stomachs were in constant pain. Their feet were swollen and blistered. And Luc still had a serious fever. He was beginning to stumble as he walked. His breathing was becoming raspy and painful. He was increasingly too tired to talk.
Rather than accelerating, they were slowing down.
– – –
“Papa, Papa, come quickly!”
On the night of June 14, one of the teenage girls burst into the kitchen just as her mother was setting plates of roast pork and boiled potatoes and peas on the table and her father was washing his hands for a late dinner.
“What is it?” the farmer asked, alarmed at the panic in his daughter’s voice.
“In the barn—quick!”
Without hesitation, the farmer bolted out the front door and raced for the barn, fearing the worst, his adrenaline surging. Was someone sick? Injured? Dead? Was one of the animals in distress? Was there a snake or a skunk or some other animal putting the children in jeopardy? A thousand fears crossed his mind, including the fresh warnings from the constable.
When the farmer reached the barn, he found his other teenage daughter and several of his younger sons up in the loft.
“What is it, children?” he asked, scrambling up the wooden ladder to join them.
When he reached the top, he found his children pointing into the hay in a corner of the loft. It was growing dark outside, and it was darker still in the barn. He called for a kerosene lamp, and when it was brought to him, he lit it and looked closer at what the children had discovered. But all he saw were a piece of string, several crumpled pieces of brown paper wrapping, and a few pieces of white tissue paper, equally crumpled and cast aside.
He began to relax and couldn’t decide whether to laugh or scold them. Foolishness was bound up in the hearts of children, he reminded himself.
He took a deep breath and was about to ask the children where they had gotten these things and why they were bothering him with such trivialities when his little boy pointed to something sticking out of the hay.
When he looked closer, the farmer could see that it was a dark sock. Carefully he pulled at it and brought the lamp closer. It was a man’s sock, and it was covered in blood.
His heart began to pound again.
Now, as he looked more closely at the hay in the corner, he saw drops of what appeared to be dried blood in several places and numerous footprints on the dusty floor.
Someone had been here, he realized, and not his own children. A man had been here. A wounded man. Possibly two of them.
He ordered his children into the house. It was time to call the constable.
90
“It’s time,” Jacob whispered as darkness fell upon the land.
Thunder rumbled over them. The wind had picked up. It was getting cold. A storm was moving in, and Jacob was concerned it might be a major one.
They had holed up for the day in an old, dilapidated loggers’ shack they had stumbled upon in the middle of a forest. It had protected them from the sun and the heat, but Jacob didn’t trust staying there any longer. He had found a yellowed newspaper on the floor dated just a few months before, and there were several empty beer bottles lying around. Clearly locals used this shack from time to time. They couldn’t afford to be anywhere near here when the next person or group came around.
“Come on, Luc, on your fe
et,” Jacob pressed.
But Luc would not budge. “I cannot.”
“Of course you can,” Jacob said, putting on the backpack and preparing for the all-night trek southward. “We’re almost there. Just a few more days.”
“Leave me here,” Luc groaned.
“I’m not going to leave you anywhere,” Jacob said. “Come on—you can do it.”
Still Luc would not get up. His eyes were bloodshot. His skin was burning up.
Jacob poked him, tried to rouse him, but Luc wasn’t moving, and Jacob suddenly grew scared. “Please, Luc, get up,” Jacob pleaded.
“I’m sorry, my friend,” Luc whispered. “But I cannot.”
It dawned on Jacob that Luc wasn’t complaining, and he wasn’t being lazy. The man truly was in extreme distress. When he said he could not go another step, he was being utterly honest, and Jacob found himself facing a moral conundrum he had never contemplated. He couldn’t imagine leaving the man, but they couldn’t stay here either.
The crazy thing was that they were likely less than twenty kilometers from the border. They might be able to cross the border in one night, and they certainly could do it in two—if they were both healthy. But they were not.
Jacob stared down at Luc and for the first time considered the possibility that his friend might die from his illness, even that very night. He knew for certain now there was no point trying to push the man to get to his feet. It simply wasn’t possible. Luc needed two things above all: food and medicine. Without both, he was not long for this world. Even with both, it might already be too late.
Some good it was doing them to read the Scriptures to each other or pray, Jacob decided. They had been doing both every day. Yet had it helped them in the slightest? Jacob could see no evidence of anything positive.
“Okay, listen; you stay here and rest,” Jacob said, changing tactics. “I’m going to go find you food and medicine. I’ll be back by morning. Don’t go anywhere, all right?”
Luc smiled ever so faintly at the last comment and then closed his eyes, his breathing heavy and labored.
Jacob sprinted out of the old shack, fueled not by hope that he could save his friend but by fear that he could not. But he was determined to try.
For more than an hour he ran through the forest until he reached a ridge overlooking a quaint little hamlet several kilometers south of Żywiec Lake. Surveilling the sleepy village consisting of no more than two dozen homes at best, Jacob found himself drawn to a wooden house built on the outskirts of the tiny community. He noticed that while nearly all the other homes had laundry drying on clotheslines in the backyards, the clothesline behind this home was empty.
Jacob considered the options. Maybe these folks were tidier and more efficient than the rest of the hamlet. Or maybe they weren’t at home. He didn’t have time for an assessment more thorough than that. He was desperate for provisions he could take back to Luc, and it was already well after midnight. If he didn’t move now, he was unlikely to make it back to the shack before the sun came up.
Almost forty minutes later, Jacob was down in the river valley, creeping alongside a small barn behind the house. Peeking through a dusty window, he confirmed that no car or truck was parked inside the barn, but he found tire tracks near the doors to the barn on the other side of the structure, suggesting that normally a vehicle was parked there. Moving from tree to tree, he made his way to the back door of the house and then stopped and crouched down to catch his breath and control his breathing.
Listening intently, he strained to pick up any sound that could be coming from inside the house. He heard nothing. He moved around the corner of the house and again stopped to listen. Again he heard nothing. It wasn’t proof there wasn’t someone—or an entire family—inside, of course. But at the very least, they were likely sound asleep.
As quietly as he could, Jacob continued moving around the side of the house until he came to a door. He tried the handle, but it was locked. He doubled back to the rear of the house to see if there was a door there he had missed. There wasn’t, but he did find a door on the far side of the house. Unfortunately, this, too, was locked.
The only option left, aside from smashing through a window, was to try the front door. It seemed risky, but what choice did he have?
He carefully stepped onto the front porch and tiptoed toward the door. Wiping his hands on his pants to dry off the perspiration, he turned the doorknob.
To his shock, it kept turning, and before he knew it, the door was opening.
Jacob knew he was taking a terrible risk. Steinberger and Frenkel had warned him in no uncertain terms against making any contact with the “real world” until they were in Žilina. But the situation had changed, and in Jacob’s judgment he didn’t have a choice. He knew the stakes if he were found and caught. He would be hanged or shot by a firing squad if he didn’t manage to kill himself first, and Luc would be left to die alone in the shack. But they desperately needed food—and medicine, if it could be found—and he was willing to take a chance to save his friend and, by extension, himself.
Without giving it another thought, Jacob entered the house. He did not see any dying embers in the fireplace. Nor did it seem as though the smell of a fire were lingering in the air. It was a simple home with simple wooden furniture. There was a wooden cross on the wall, and the floor creaked with every step. He noticed a cane by the front door and picked it up. Perhaps he could use it as a club if someone came upon him.
He moved through the front room, then stopped again and listened carefully. Hearing no one stirring, he kept moving forward, through the dining room with its table and six chairs, and down a hallway. He crept forward like a cat burglar, holding the cane so tightly his fingers were white. He tried to imagine what he would really do if the owners woke up and surprised him. Would he really hit them, here in their own home? It went against everything he was raised to be, and yet he could not allow himself to be captured and returned to Auschwitz.
Finally Jacob entered the kitchen. He just stood there for a few moments, taking in the sight in the moonlight coming through the windows. There were no dishes stacked in or around the sink, either clean or dirty. There were no crumbs on the counters, no food left out. The kitchen was clean and tidy.
But what made Jacob’s eyes go wide were all the foodstuffs on the shelves and in the adjacent pantry. There were loaves of bread and jars of pickles and boxes of walnuts and almonds. There were bowls of fruit—apples and pears and even some grapes. There were baskets of freshly picked tomatoes and sacks of potatoes and bags of rice and flour. There were jars of sugar and salt and all manner of spices. There was even a plate of freshly baked cookies sitting on the counter alongside a basket of neatly folded laundry.
Jacob’s mouth began to water. But as much as he wanted to, he didn’t dare eat anything. Not here. Not yet.
The cookies and laundry scared him. They suggested to him that either the owners of the house were, in fact, upstairs sleeping or just away for a brief trip and would soon return.
He moved quickly to the laundry basket and found a freshly ironed pillowcase, one of at least a dozen. Using it as a sack, he loaded it with a little bit of everything except the flour and sugar and spices, which had no practical value for them since they could not bake or do anything but boil. As tempted as he was to clean out the kitchen completely, he tried to take only what he thought would not be noticeable. He even resisted taking a cookie, though that might have been the hardest decision of all. He couldn’t afford to have the masters of the house think for one moment that they had been robbed. That would draw in the local constable and raise all kinds of questions that he did not want asked, much less answered.
Then, just as he was preparing to leave, he noticed a small bottle on the windowsill by the sink. Looking more closely, he realized it was filled with aspirin. He opened it quickly, poured out a dozen or so pills, and then replaced the cap and returned the bottle to its exact spot.
Would the pills
actually help Luc? Of this Jacob was doubtful. What his friend needed was a hospital. He needed a team of trained medical professionals, not a couple of pills. But what else could he do? If he could get Luc to Žilina, he was sure the underground leaders there could put him under the care of good doctors and nurses. The question was how in the world Jacob was going to get Luc out of Poland before it was too late.
91
More than two dozen Gestapo agents took up their positions.
Acting on a tip from a suspicious neighbor, they moved toward the house under cover of darkness, guns drawn. Their orders were to capture this man alive, but they were taking no chances.
“No warnings,” the officer whispered to his deputy. “We don’t know who else is in there, and I don’t want a hostage situation. Understood?”
The deputy nodded, and the Gestapo officer gave the signal.
Then agents stormed the house from every direction. They crashed through several windows and simultaneously kicked in the front and back doors. Gunfire soon rocked the night, and then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over.
– – –
“Colonel, you have a phone call.”
Von Strassen was still in his office, as was his staff. Theirs were the only lights burning so late at night. Everyone else in Auschwitz had long since gone to sleep, save a few roving patrols of soldiers and the men who now manned the guard towers twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to prevent yet another escape.
He picked up the phone on his desk. “This is Colonel Von Strassen.”
“Colonel, this is Commander Strauss,” said the voice at the other end of the line. “I have news.”
“Yes, Commander, what have you found?”
“Tonight my men and I stormed a farmhouse in Płońsk. Two men are dead. Six more are under arrest. But they were running a house of ill repute, not a safe house for the underground. I’m afraid your man Poczciwinski was not among them. I’m sorry. We’ll keep looking. But we’ve been at this for several days, and I can’t find any evidence that what your prisoner says is true. We’ve searched the monastery. We’ve searched more than two dozen houses in the area. If Poczciwinski and his men are operating here, we have not found them. But I must tell you that I highly doubt they are here. I think you have been sold a bill of goods, Herr Colonel. Sorry to be the bearer of such bad news.”