All this time, the group kept up the Akiva tradition of Oneg Shabbat. On Friday, November 20 they met for festivities from dusk to dawn. They’d spent two days preparing the meal, and came together in white blouses and shirts, at a table set with a white tablecloth. After a moment of silence, they bellowed the same songs they’d been singing for years in a deluge of harmonies. But tonight they greeted the Sabbath bride together for the final time. Someone called out, “This is the last supper!” Yes, that’s right, they all knew. At the head of the table, a leader spoke at length about how death was near. It was time “to fight for three lines in history.”
Activity ramped up. The group had to leave the ghetto because of deteriorating conditions. One night the leaders hid in a park and shot a Nazi sergeant as he walked by. They sauntered out of the bushes, mixed into the scared crowds, and zigzagged back to Jozefinska; no one even followed them. But this bold act was more than authorities would tolerate. The Nazis, determined to crush this humiliating rebellion, lied to the public about what had happened, beefed up security, moved up curfew, took hostages, made a list. They were after the leaders, who were themselves planning for their climax: an open-air fight.
After a few more successful Nazi killings in town, the movement decided to escalate activity and combined forces with Jewish members of the PPR for their crescendo. On December 22, 1942, when many Nazis were in town shopping for Christmas gifts and attending holiday parties, forty Jewish men and women fighters headed into the Kraków streets. Women distributed anti-Nazi posters throughout the city, while men carried flags of Polish partisans and left a wreath of flowers on the statue of a Polish poet—all so that Jews wouldn’t be blamed for what was about to happen. Then, the fighters attacked military garages and set off fire alarms across town, causing confusion. At seven o’clock in the evening, they descended upon three coffeehouses where Germans gathered and bombed a Nazi Christmas party. Fighters threw grenades into the Cyganeria, a café in the magnificent old town that was an exclusive meeting spot for eminent German soldiers. This effort killed at least seven Nazis and wounded many more.
Though resistance leaders were arrested and killed afterward, Jews continued to bomb targets outside the city, including the main station in Kraków, coffeehouses in Kielce, and a movie house in Radom—all with Gola Mire’s help.
*
A few weeks after the December attacks, Hela was on a train, panicking about where to sleep and what to eat, when she struck up a conversation with a young Polish academic. He reassured her, “The war will soon be over.”
“How do you know?” she asked.
He explained that Polish forces had started to move. He was so proud of the Polish underground—they had blown up the café!
Hela could not control herself. What if she was the last Jew? She needed him to know the truth. She had no one left to betray. “You ought to be aware, kind sir,” she said, “that the attack to which you referred, on the Kraków cafés, was the work of young Jewish fighters. If you live to see the end of the war, please, tell the world about it. And by the way, I too am a Jew.”
The man was stunned. The train approached Kraków.
“Come with me,” he said firmly when they arrived. Was this Hela’s end? Did it even matter?
Then he brought her to a warm apartment to safely spend the night.
Chapter 11
1943, a New Year—Warsaw’s Minirebellion
Zivia and Renia
JANUARY 1943
At six in the morning, a few weeks after the inspiring uprising in Kraków, Zivia was awoken with news: Nazis had infiltrated the Warsaw ghetto. A surprise Aktion.
The ZOB had assumed the Nazis were distracted with a large-scale manhunt on the Aryan side, where they’d been arresting thousands of Poles. In fact, the organization had asked all its couriers to come back to the ghetto, which seemed to be safer. Even the Polish underground had hidden in the ghetto.