Breathless. At any second their existence could be blown apart. A relentless soundtrack of shooting.
This went on for three full days. Ten times a day.
No word from the outside. No ability to communicate with the other ZOB hideouts. They feared they were the last Jews. Zvi decided to go check on the Freedom kibbutz. Chajka and the comrades were terrified for him, their beloved, respected leader, brother, and father.
He left. Another horrible day of hammering, pickaxes, “bated breaths, mortal fear, and nervous tension.” Nazis worked near their bunker for three hours, tore up half the floor, calling at them to come out. Panic. Chajka used all her willpower to calm everyone. A quiet hiss: “On the floor.” They obeyed. “I have instinctively taken command,” she wrote later. “I hoped for one thing: their laziness. And I was not disappointed.” The Germans left.
Zvi returned, a tremendous relief. But there simply were not enough supplies. The group ran out of water. They opened the hatch. Heard shots. Someone in the hall. They could not move. But they would die without water. They lifted the oven door, creating “a hell of a noise.” Everyone was terrified. Zvi, always first, went out with another man. They returned with water. Thank God.
But what now? “How long can we endure staying in this dungeon?” It was too stuffy. People were getting weaker by the day. By any definition, said Chajka, this was hell, “no matter if you heard about it or saw it in a painting.”
They were a mass of thirsty figures, individual faces unrecognizable in the dark. “You can see young bodies, stripped, half naked, lying on rags. Lots of legs, one next to another. . . . Arms, so many of them. . . . Palms so wet and sticky, pressing on you,” Chajka wrote. “It’s disgusting. And the people make love here. These might be their final moments. Let them at least bid their farewells.” Chajka couldn’t resist reproaching Zvi and his girlfriend Dora about their lack of dedication, the time they’d all wasted.
The next day, no water again. This time nothing above ground. The Nazis had cut the water supply. Pesa, Zvi’s sister, spiraled into a hysterical episode, screaming at the top of her lungs that she wanted the Nazis to kill her already. Everyone tried to quiet her. Nothing worked.
Zvi decided they needed to move to the Freedom kibbutz bunker. Dora and a woman named Kasia went. Zvi and his sister. Chajka left with a comrade, Srulek, creeping out of the oven and into the world. At first, the road was clear. Then—suddenly—rockets lighting up the entire street. Shots fired, lights blared, shrapnel and stones, from all directions. They hit the dirt. Chajka’s heart pounded. Why did she have to die this way, not having done anything, alone in a field, fleeing instead of fighting? The misery, the loneliness, it was all too achingly unbearable. But she’d also had some good in her life, she consoled herself as she lay on the ground. She’d had companions, deep intimacy, wonderful moments with David. Now she too would be shot, destined to die like he did. “Tough luck,” she told herself.
Somehow Chajka managed to crawl to a nearby building and entered a flat. She felt her body: Could she still be alive? She and Srulek kissed in celebration, they drank water. They made it to the Freedom kibbutz. It was three o’clock. Everyone was there. Twenty people, more.
Zvi’s sister was placed in a flat above ground; they hoped that open space would calm her, but she was still hysterical. A Nazi found her.
Zvi shot him down from behind.
“The first shot,” Chajka wrote. “I am so proud. I am so happy.”
Her delight was short-lived. One German down, but before Chajka could even catch her breath, she found out that so many comrades had been killed. “We were supposed to all go together and not like that, like pieces of living, healthy flesh being torn off piece by piece. Why, we were to do something, something great,” she later wrote. “[It] makes me furious, screams inside me, and rips my intestines apart.”
This new hiding place, where Meir and Nacha had taken refuge, was worse than the one she’d left. There were no guns except the two they’d brought with them. It was stuffy, sweaty. Everyone’s skin glistened. They walked around half naked in pajamas or shirts. Mostly they lay on the floor, like corpses. Chajka could barely breathe and was grateful for the electric fan, its blades turning nonstop—chop-chop-chop—a small relief. Plus, they had an actual kitchen with an electric cooker. Everyone was supine, but Chawka Lenczner, the Freedom medic, cooked semolina for Aliza Zitenfeld. The group, including Renia’s sister Sarah, ate warm lunches together instead of slices of bread. Chajka liked Chawka, who stood by the hot stove and looked after the comrades, bandaging wounds, handing over talcum powder for skin, ordering people to wash so that they didn’t become infested with lice. “It’s so nice to look at her,” Chajka reflected fondly, “so clean and kind.” At first, Chajka had been mad at Hershel for keeping her in the bunker when she had such a fine Aryan appearance, but he’d said that without her, they’d all be finished.