Renia’s head was throbbing. On the floor, a pile of hair that had been yanked from her scalp. The interrogation had been going on for three hours. It was four in the morning.
They made her scrub the floors.
Renia looked around for a way to escape, any opening. But the doors and windows were covered in metal lattices. She was guarded by an armed gendarme.
At seven, the gendarmes began their workday. Renia was thrown into a narrow cell. She’d never been locked up before. Would she be shot? What inhumane torture awaited her? Her thoughts began to spiral downward. She envied those who had fallen, wishing they’d just shoot her now, end her suffering.
In her exhaustion, Renia nodded off for a second while sitting on the floor. She was awoken by the turn of a key. Two gendarmes, one old, one young, entered the cell, then took her to the main hall for further investigation. The young one smiled at her. Wait a minute: she knew him! He used to check her passport at the border. Whenever she carried contraband items from Warsaw to B?dzin, she’d ask him to hold her bag during the inspection, explaining that it contained food and she didn’t want the border patrol to confiscate it.
Now it was his shift at the jail. What wonderful luck! He patted her head and told her not to worry. “No harm will be done to you. Chin up, you’ll be out in no time.” He took Renia back to her cell, locked her in.
If he had any idea I was a Jew, Renia thought, he wouldn’t be so nice.
She could hear the guards arguing in the main hall. The young gendarme kept his word. “No, we can’t assume she’s Jewish,” he said. “She crossed the border with me many times. Just last week, I inspected her papers en route from Warsaw to B?dzin. We should release her right away.”
But the older, stricter officer—the one who’d beaten her the night before—was not having it. “You didn’t know that her papers are fake,” he said. “Now we know that Warsaw papers with this stamp are frauds.” Wild laughter. “This is her last ride. In a few hours, she’ll sing like a canary and tell us everything. We’ve had plenty of songbirds like her.”
Every few minutes, the gendarmes opened her cell door to see what she was doing. They laughed mockingly. Renia wanted so badly to retaliate, to taunt them for their smugness. She did not stay silent. “Does this make you happy?” she jabbed. “To hurt an innocent woman?” Silently, they shut the door.
At ten o’clock, the door opened wide. Ilza was there. The gendarmes led them both to the main hall, handcuffed them, and told them to take all their belongings. Renia’s watch, jewelry and other valuables were put into the bag of a Gestapo officer who now accompanied them back to the train station.
As they left, the young gendarme looked at Renia sympathetically, as if to let her know he’d tried to help but was unsuccessful because her crime was too severe.
The train arrived. The passengers stared as the Gestapo man shoved them into a special car and locked it. A prisoners car. Through the small window, a ray of light tried to comfort them, provide a momentary reprieve from the bleak thoughts about the hours to come.
The Gestapo man kept warning them of the terrible things that lay ahead. “We’ll find out everything at the Gestapo office in Katowice,” he said. He slapped their faces and didn’t allow them to sit the entire way.
When they disembarked, a crowd of passengers followed them, wondering why these two young women had been arrested.
The girls were tied together. The handcuffs were tight, cutting Renia’s skin. Ilza was pale, shaking. Renia felt sorry for her. She was so young, just seventeen. Renia whispered to her, “Do not to confess that you are Jewish, ever. And do not say a word about me.”
The Gestapo man kicked her. “Move faster.”
After thirty minutes of walking, bound, they reached a narrow street and a large, four-storey building decorated with German flags and swastikas. The Gestapo office took up the entire edifice.