Vladka also helped Jews in forced-labor camps, most of whom were in horrific physical and spiritual condition. She had great difficulty accessing the Jews in a brutal labor camp in Radom. She asked locals where she could go to buy cheap goods from Jews. They explained that the Jews had nothing good left to sell but informed her about the Jewish bathing time, when one could approach the fence. Vladka found it crowded with smugglers selling scraps of food. They didn’t want competition and tried to kick her out, but she convinced them she was a buyer. Eventually she managed to speak to a Jew, but he didn’t trust her—even when she used Yiddish. Another contact kept the money she handed him for himself.
Finally, she spoke with a Jewish woman who was responsive. The woman was overjoyed that they hadn’t been forgotten and asked Vladka for news, mainly curious about hidden children. While she was conversing, local kids threw stones at Vladka and yelled “Jew!” Vladka ran, found a horse and carriage, and sped to the train station, where she waited all night. Soon after, she returned to the camp with 50,000 z?otys. She asked a Ukrainian guard for permission to enter to buy shoes from the Jews and successfully delivered the cash. The guard expected to take her out on a date that evening, but by dinnertime, she was gone.
Through all this harrowing work, each courier had to maintain her own life fiction, dealing with extortionists and informants. Marysia was once recognized on the street by a Pole from her childhood neighborhood who offered her a choice: come with me to the Gestapo or to a hotel room. She ran into a candy shop, and the owners walked her “home” to a nearby house. To avoid being found out again, she spent the night in the forest.
Vladka moved flats several times. She had hidden the head of the Bund youth movement at her place, and her apartment was “burnt,” or ratted out, by an informant. The Poles locked them in. She set fire to all her papers, and she and the Bundist tried to escape from the window by climbing down bedsheets, but the leader was badly wounded. They were both arrested, but comrades bribed the prison guards, and she was released for 10,000 z?otys. The Bund leader, however, died. The movement sent Vladka to the countryside for a while so that she’d be forgotten by authorities. Though she felt free in the forest, where she didn’t have to pretend in front of the trees, she found the constant pretense—in particular, spending Sundays at a village church—to be particularly oppressive.
When back in Warsaw, Vladka continued to search for good ID papers for herself, and to move around, pretending to be a smuggler to explain why she was out all night. She rented a tiny, dreary apartment passed on by another Jewish courier. Benjamin, the operative who was living in the cemetery shed, helped her create hiding places like a valise with a double bottom and a ladle with a hollow handle. The neighbors found out that the former tenant was Jewish and began to suspect Vladka. But if she left, it would reinforce their suspicion and detract from the Christian identity she’d spent so long cultivating. She stayed and acted ultra Polish: she arranged for a Polish friend, her “mother,” to visit her frequently; she obtained a phonograph and played cheerful music; she invited her neighbors over for tea. In order to prove themselves, Jews in hiding mailed themselves letters from nearby towns to make it seem that they had local friends and family; Chasia had a “suitor” visit her. Vladka’s “mother” hosted her patron saint day party, to which Vladka invited her surviving Bundist friends. They sang only in Polish, with Yiddish whispers. A party was a difficult thing for the young Jews—the more joy they pretended, the more sadness they felt.
Like Vladka, roughly thirty thousand Jews survived by “passing,” their lives a constant act. Most were young, single, middle-class and upper-middle-class women with “good” Polish accents, documents, and looks. Half were—or had fathers who were—in trade or worked as lawyers, doctors, and professors. More women than men tried to pass because of the relative ease of disguise. Women also asked for help and were generally treated more courteously. Many Jews were galvanized into saving themselves once their parents （in particular, mothers） were killed, and they finally felt alone and free. Men usually made this decision alone, spontaneously, while women were often encouraged by friends or relatives. Some parents urged their children to flee to the Aryan side, giving them the mission, and permission, to “live for their family.” Most passers had previously been mistaken as non-Jews, so they felt confident they could pull off the role. They usually had to share rooms, giving them no privacy or reprieve.