Renia thought of the harmonica and wanted terribly to see Rivka, to connect with her kindness, her courage. But—this was no longer possible. To Renia’s absolute horror, she arrived in the border town to see that the entire ghetto had been razed, burnt down to the ground. Not one trace of her people anywhere. Extinguished.
“What happened?” She managed to find her words. Local Poles related that a few weeks earlier, there had been a battle in the ghetto. Young Jews, poorly armed with few guns and a few hundred Molotov cocktails, resisted by hiding and firing. Some managed to steal weapons from Nazis. Others had used vats from the ghetto kitchen to smuggle in aluminum, lead, carbide, mercury, dynamite and chemicals for explosives from ammunition factories. They’d dug several tunnels. They were easily outmanned and outgunned yet managed to sustain fighting for five full days. Many Jews ran into the forest; now they were living there like animals. The Germans, afraid of partisan activity in the woods, sent the local police to search for hidden Jews. They rooted them out one at a time—but not everyone.
All Renia could find out about Rivka Glanz was that she’d been killed in battle, commanding a unit, weapons in her hands. “How my heart cried over her!” Renia wrote. “She was like the mother of every Jew in Cz?stochowa.” She thought about how, when Rivka had wanted to leave, the remaining Jews in the town hadn’t allowed it. As long as Rivka was with them, they said, they felt secure.
Renia swiftly headed back to the train station, blinking back any emotion. She needed to get home, now. The train rumbled through the forested countryside the whole night. Her stinging eyes begged to shut, but no, no, no, she could not fall asleep. Renia had to maintain clear thinking the whole time. Awake and aware. Who knew when an inspection, a check of documents, anything would come? Who knew what would be?
Only later did Renia find out that Ina had been caught by a female Nazi guard at a checkpoint near the border. While the Gestapo drove her to Auschwitz, Ina jumped out of the car and ran. Exhausted, depressed, and beaten, she took refuge with a friend in a local ghetto. But the Nazis put a high price on her head （Ina or twenty Jews killed）， and the Jewish militia handed her over. This time the Gestapo supervisor personally transported her to Auschwitz, commanding a dog to attack and bite her in the car. She spat in the officer’s face and died in transit.
Chapter 22
Zaglembie’s Jerusalem Is Burning
Renia
AUGUST 1943
August 1, 1943.
At last, Renia arrived in B?dzin, dirty, broken, tired from the road. But as soon as she got off the train, everything—the platform, the recognizable large square Deco clock—turned black before her eyes. Nazis were chasing the passengers away from the station.
From afar, Renia could hear piercing screams, turmoil.
“What’s happening?” Renia asked some Poles who were gathered nearby, trying to make out what they could.
“They’ve been taking Jews out of the city since Friday. One group after another.”
It was Monday, the fourth day. And it was not the end.
“Will they expel all the Jews?” Renia asked in a voice that was nothing like her own, pretending that not only did she not care but also that she was glad. Pretending to be one of the world’s bystanders. Pretending this wasn’t the moment she had both anticipated and dreaded for months.
All this, she later wrote, while “my heart was ripped into pieces of pain.” They were expelling all of Renia’s friends, her sister, everyone in her universe. She had no idea what would happen to them or if she would ever see them again.
The ghetto was completely surrounded by SS squads. There was no way to enter. Renia eavesdropped, heard rumors, tried to see as much as she could. Inside, Germans were exposing bunkers and murdering people on the spot. For fours days without stop, they had been pushing Jews into cattle cars, shooting into the ghetto from all directions. The Jewish militia brought out stretchers of the wounded and dead, covered in rags. In the streets, Germans led rows of youth, chained with shackles like criminals, to the trains. They kicked at their feet. These boys and girls had tried to run away, but Poles had caught them and handed them over. Civilian-clothed Gestapo dashed through the city like wild dogs, checking documents, peering into each person’s face, looking for more victims.