Renia walked up several flights to the top of the building and entered the supervisor’s office. Her vision was hazy, she felt weak. A Gestapo man awaited her with a strict gaze and bulging eyes. He was the one who’d been sitting at the desk when she and Ilza had first been brought in. “Go get dressed,” he ordered. Where were they taking her?
Renia put on her skirt and sweater. She took nothing with her. The supervisor and the Gestapo man discussed her arrest. The Gestapo agent whispered, then said out loud, “For now, her name is Widuchowska, but in the interrogation, she’ll sing, and we’ll find out her real name.” （Ironically, the other meaning of Kukielka is “cuckoo”—a songbird who is solitary and secretive.）
The supervisor asked if Renia would be returning to the prison. The Gestapo man said he didn’t know.
Again Renia found herself walking in the street, chained, led by a Gestapo guard. “Take a good look at the dress you’re wearing,” he said to her in German, which she pretended not to understand. “After the beating, it will be torn to shreds.”
Renia was amazed at herself. She did not feel fear. His words did not shake her. It was as if he were talking about someone else. She was distancing herself from her bodily experience, preparing to endure.
Back at the Gestapo building. Renia was asked if she understood German. She said no. In return, two thunderous slaps. Renia stood calmly, as if nothing had happened.
Four more Gestapo entered, along with a female interpreter. Chief Gehringer, the deputy head of the Gestapo in Katowice and the one who’d brought her here, was the lead interrogator.
The cross-examination began. Renia was drowned in questions. The men kept outsmarting one another, trying to confuse her.
But she toughened in response, sticking to her story: The papers were authentic. Her father was a Polish officer taken prisoner by the Russians. Her mother was dead. She made a meager living working at an office and selling family valuables, until they’d run out. One of the Gestapo men withdrew a bundle of papers from a drawer, saying that all the people with these papers were caught at the border. The documents were identical to Renia’s, with the same forged stamp.
Renia’s blood froze. Luckily, her cheeks were still flushed from the slaps, or they would have seen her turn pale.
They awaited her response. Of course she knew that the counterfeiter had sold these papers to anyone who paid. But she didn’t blink. “Those people’s documents may be fake, but it doesn’t prove that mine are. The company I work for is real. I’ve been working there for three years. My passage document was written by a clerk from the firm. The stamp is from the mayor of Warsaw. My documents aren’t forged.”
Agitated, the Gestapo plowed on: “Everyone who was caught said the same thing and were later found to be Jews. They were all shot the next day. If you admit your crime, we’ll ensure that you stay alive.”
Renia smiled ironically. “I have many talents, but lying is not one of them. My papers are authentic, so I can’t say they’re fake. I’m Catholic, so I can’t say I’m Jewish.”
Her words angered them, and they hit her viciously. The interpreter, purely of her own volition, vouched for Renia not being Jewish—her features were Aryan, she stressed, her Polish perfect.
“Then you’re a spy,” the Gestapo head said. Everyone agreed.
A new line of questioning. For which organization did she serve as a courier? The socialists or that of W?adys?aw Sikorski, the late prime minister of the Polish government in exile? What did they pay her for her services? What did she transport? Where are the partisan outposts?
One of them played good cop. “Don’t be na?ve,” he told her. “Stop protecting your superiors. When they hear that you failed, they won’t help you. Tell us the truth, and we’ll set you free.”
Renia fully understood these “kind” words. “Okay,” she said slowly, “I will tell you the truth.”