Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Write in the ADVENTURE genre (05/24/07)
-
TITLE: Rickshaw | Previous Challenge Entry
By Virginia Lee Bliss
05/30/07 -
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE
SEND A PRIVATE COMMENT
ADD TO MY FAVORITES
“This is where we lived until we were bombed out.”
Necha smiled. “Were it not for that we might never have met.”
After the Germans bombed Stare Miasto in September 1939, Jan with his mother Wladislawa and his two younger sisters, moved to Mirowski Square.
Across the courtyard lived Ajzyk Wierzbicki, a widower, with his extended family and his teenage children, Nathan and Necha.
Ajzyk often read to his children, inviting Wladislawa’s children to join them.
For Wladislawa, a Catholic single mother, Jewish Ajzyk filled a void in her family life.
“A clever woman like you should do well as a fruit trader,” suggested Ajzyk.
She took his advice and soon her business prospered.
In October 1940 the Germans forced the Jews into a ghetto. One third of the city’s citizens jammed into 2.4% of the city area. In November the ten foot wall was built.
The two families became active participants in widespread smuggling. Jews climbed ladders and extended ropes with hooks over the wall while Aryans attached bundles of food to the hooks and hoisted them over the wall. Their activities were camouflaged by the bustle of the Mirowski Square marketplace.
One day Jan stuffed his pockets with bread and slipped under a barbed wire fence that connected two sections of the wall, tearing his clothes and ripping his skin.
The stench. The smell of death, of unwashed bodies, of excrement.
A child lay in the gutter, matchstick legs, balloon belly, eyes pools of despair.
He was about to give the child some bread, when he felt another child tug at his sleeve.
“A crust, Pan?”
“Here.” The grave of the other child is sealed, he thought.
He walked on, surrounded by the sights, sounds, and smells of starvation.
“Jan!”
“Nathan!”
They ran to the Wierzbicki’s apartment.
Nearly every day he stole through the fence to smuggle food and to visit his friends.
Wladislawa stood before the Polish warden of Pawiak prison.
“Your son was caught trying to get inside the ghetto. You know the penalty.”
“Officer,” explained Wladislawa. “You know how boys are. He was playing soccer with some friends when the ball rolled under the fence to the other side.”
She pressed 100 zlotys into his hand.
“There will be no more trips into the ghetto,” said Wladislawa as they left the prison.
“But Mother-----!”
“Until tomorrow.” She smiled.
Carrying food bundles, Jan boarded a streetcar that passed nonstop through the ghetto. Once inside the ghetto he jumped off the speeding trolley.
Thump! The bundles cushioned his fall, so he suffered only bruises.
Five minutes later the streetcar was boarded by Gestapo and all occupants arrested.
“Necha let’s go the cinema!”
“Jan, there is no cinema in the ghetto.”
“We will go over the wall and….”
If Jan’s previous trysts could be considered dangerous, what he was suggesting now was nothing short of perilous.
At dusk, he helped Necha climb over the wall. Fearing being trapped in a streetcar, they walked from Mirowski Square along Przechodnia and Senatorske Streets until they reached the cinema in Stare Miasto.
Safely inside the movie theatre, they sat back to enjoy the glamorous American film It Happened One Night starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert.
When they came out of the cinema, Jan hailed a rickshaw, and they climbed aboard.
“I wish I could buy you ice cream.”
Ice cream had disappeared from Warsaw with the arrival of the Germans.
Seeing a flower peddler, Jan signaled the cabby to halt.
“For you, my lady.” He presented her with a bouquet of wildflowers.
As they continued their ride, they rolled and bounced in their seat with the cabby’s vigorous peddling. Necha’s hair ribbon fluttered in the gentle summer breeze wafting from the River Wisla. City lights sparkled on the rippling waters.
“Maybe I’ll be a reporter like Clark Gable,” said Jan. “Or a writer.
“But I’ll need more education. Like your father has.”
“It is so long, Jan, since we’ve been to school.”
“Papers, Bitte!”
The German sergeant signaled the rickshaw to halt. The cabby pulled out his papers.
“Jan,” Necha whispered. “I have no papers!”
Jan smiled. “My papers, Haupttruppführer. And the young lady’s.”
„Sehr gut!” said the sergeant. „Gute Nacht!"
“Jan, where did you---?” asked Necha as they rolled away.
“Mother bribed a city official. Your new name is Agnieszka Kostanska.”
*************************************************************************
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This story is based on the adventures of Jan Konstanski.
http://www.ushmm.org/uia-cgi/uia_query/photos?hr=null&query=kw182048
Jan Kostanski’s photo album
http://warsawghetto.epixtech.co.uk/WarsawGhettoMap.htm
General information about the Warsaw Ghetto
The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.
If you died today, are you absolutely certain that you would go to heaven? You can be right now. CLICK HERE
JOIN US at FaithWriters for Free. Grow as a Writer and Spread the Gospel.
