Gertruda's Oath: A Child, a Promise, and a Heroic Escape During World War II (6 page)

“I came back to ask your advice.”

The elderly priest had known her since she was a child. He also knew her devout Catholic parents, regular churchgoers.

“How can I help you?” he asked.

She told him about her attempt to find work in the Stolowitzky house in Warsaw. “The problem is that they’re Jews,” she said softly.

The priest waited for her to go on, but she had nothing to add. She hoped he’d understand.

“You came for me to tell you if it’s all right to work for Jews?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Did they make a good impression on you?”

“Yes.”

“And what exactly bothers you about them?”

“Nothing specific, but I don’t know their customs. I don’t know if they’d let me go to church or even hang the pictures of the saints in my room. I’m not sure I’ll feel comfortable there.”

The priest put his hand on her shoulder.

“There are good Christians and bad Christians and good Jews and bad Jews,” he said. “The most important thing is that they’re good people, who will love you and whom you will love. I’ve got a feeling that you’ll be happy there.”

“I hope they really are good people,” she said.

“So do I, my child. Go in peace and may God protect you.”

She left the church, went to her parents’ house, and told them about her conversation with the priest. They begged her to stay but she refused. Her father tried to persuade her to find work where there were no Jews.

The next day, all the way back to Warsaw, through the monotonous rattle of the train wheels, Lydia Stolowitzky’s last words echoed in her ears: “Come back to me, I’ll be glad to talk with you again.” She hoped no one else had taken the job in the meantime.

Lydia Stolowitzky greeted her with a broad grin.

“I was expecting you,” she said. “I had a feeling you’d come back to me. Come, I want you to meet Michael.”

They went up to the second floor, to a fine nursery. A rosy-cheeked boy sitting on the carpet and playing with an electric train, raised his blue eyes to her.

“Say hello to Gertruda,” said his mother. “She’s your new nanny.”

The boy looked at her inquisitively.

“Want to play with me with my train?” he asked in a clear, ringing voice.

Her heart skipped a beat. He was so beautiful, so well-groomed, and so polite that she wanted to press him to her heart and kiss his soft cheeks.

“I’d love to play with you,” she replied, and sat down next to him. When she looked around a few minutes later, Lydia had gone.

Gertruda’s fears vanished in the following days. Life in the Stolowitzky house was easier and nicer than she had imagined. Lydia Stolowitzky never made her nanny deny her faith; she let her hang the pictures of Jesus and Mary on the wall of her room and put a crucifix on her nightstand. Lydia herself wasn’t observant, and while her husband, Jacob, did contribute a lot of money to the synagogue, he didn’t attend services frequently. He was a busy man and didn’t spend too much time at home. Lydia was devoted to volunteer work in social organizations, read for pleasure, entertained a lot, and played the piano. Gertruda chose Sunday as her day off, when she attended church.

Michael came to love her as a member of the family. Her comfortable room was next to his and she was always willing to come to him. When he grew a little older, she taught him to read and write, and took him to museums, holding his hand. She loved taking care of him. She sent photos of the two of them to her parents and wrote them that she had never been so happy in her life.

In the evening, before he went to sleep, she sang him the lullabies her mother had sung to her when she was a little girl, and when he was sick, she sat at his bed day and night until he recovered. She watched him as the apple of her eye, bought him gifts with her own money. In time, he became much more to her than a child she was paid to care for: he was the child she had wanted so much to have but couldn’t. “You’re my dear son,” she whispered in his ear every night after he fell asleep. “My only beloved son.”

•   •   •

Gertruda walked around the big house quietly, trying not to bother anyone. She made friends with the servants and helped the cook when there were guests. Her salary was decent and she managed to save a large part of it.

Michael was a talented child. At the age of two, he began playing the piano, with a private teacher who came to the house twice a week, and he loved reading children’s picture books. Gertruda adored how he looked, his pleasant manners, his clear voice when he sang popular songs with her. He spent more time with her than with his mother, loved to hear the bedtime stories she read to him, and missed her when she went to visit her parents.

On Sunday, when she went to church, he would go with her to the gate and wait for her in the yard. Often he wanted to go inside and see what was going on, but she refused to let him. “You’re Jewish,” she said. “You don’t belong in church.”

Once a week she went with him to visit Martha, the former nanny, who had now recovered. The two women became friends and Gertruda offered to give up her place if Martha wanted to return to work. Martha was glad, but Michael wasn’t. “I love Martha,” he told Gertruda, “but I love you more.” Lydia insisted that Gertruda continue as Michael’s nanny. That week, Jacob Stolowitzky paid Martha a large sum of money for her retirement.

Michael didn’t budge from the new nanny: He wanted Gertruda to eat with him at the family table and not in the kitchen like the other workers, and when she told him that her birthday was coming, he begged his mother to give her an expensive gift. Lydia went to a fine shop, bought her a nice dress, made a small party, and gave her the gift. Gertruda wept with joy.

Her whole world was enclosed within the four walls of the Stolowitzky house, as if it had always been her home. Lydia treated her as a sister, the servants respected her as someone superior to them. They honored her and obeyed her and she was careful not to take advantage of her position. She had little to do with the outside world and when the principal of her old school pleaded with her to come back to teaching because the children missed her, she replied politely that she was happy where she was, with people who appreciated and loved her. She exchanged letters with some of her old friends, learned English by correspondence, knitted sweaters for Michael, and turned up her nose at the clumsy courtship attempts of Emil, the chauffeur. After her great disappointment in love, she wasn’t interested in men.

Hava Stolowitzky, Jacob’s mother, died in her bed on September 22, 1938, after a long and difficult illness. Less than three months later, her husband, Moshe, suffered a stroke at a business meeting in his office and was taken to the hospital, where he lay unconscious for a week. When he finally came to, half his body was paralyzed and he spoke only gibberish. His son, Jacob, hired the best doctors for him, sat at his bed day and night, and no one was happier when at long last his father opened his eyes and looked at his son.

“I don’t know if I’ll stay alive,” said Moshe Stolowitzky with a great effort. “Something is worrying me, my son. The situation in Germany is getting worse by the day. Hitler is building a big army, too big, and he’s crazy enough to go to war to conquer all of Europe. I’m afraid that chaos will rule the world, and many businesses will
fail. I intend to sell all my property and transfer the money to a bank in Switzerland. That money can be withdrawn in a crisis, invested wisely, and earn several times over. If I die, I suggest you do that instead of me.”

Moshe Stolowitzky died a few days later. Thousands attended his funeral in the big Jewish cemetery in northern Warsaw. He was buried next to his wife, near the grave of the writer Y. L. Peretz. On the Stolowitzky couple’s marble tombstone, inside a stylized iron fence, was a tablet of a hand contributing to a charity box, a reference to their generosity.

With the death of Hava and Moshe Stolowitzky, the mansion and the rest of the property was transferred to their son, Jacob. His wife, Lydia, spent a few months redecorating the mansion to suit her taste. Jacob worked hard to master the many deals his father left him and to guarantee his clients that every contract signed by his father would be honored in full.

Michael grew up like a prince in the fairy tales. His clothes were made by a well-known tailor, the cook made sure the child ate only high-quality food, and Gertruda didn’t let him out of her sight from the minute he woke up to the time he went to sleep.

Lydia was very proud of the new look of the mansion and wanted to impress others with it, too. The housewarming for the new interior was celebrated with a ball for the dignitaries of Poland and the wealthy of Europe. The famous bass singer Feodor Chaliapin, accompanied by the best musicians of Warsaw, entertained the guests with opera pieces in the big ballroom. Wine flowed like water, and the mood was lively.

Jacob Stolowitzky followed his father’s orders and sold most of
his properties for good prices. With the help of his friend, the Swiss attorney Joachim Turner, he deposited the millions he received in a few banks in Switzerland. He was sure he was doing the right thing. His father’s advice and his instincts about coming events always turned out to be right.

Ever since her grim struggle to have a child, Lydia Stolowitzky had become superstitious and feared that someday their good luck would run out. Even though there was no obvious reason to fear an impending disaster, she was afraid that something bad would happen to her only son, that happiness would vanish, that the business would collapse. Her husband patiently put up with her long monologues and her accounts of bad omens, and tried in vain to dissipate her anxieties.

If Lydia wanted triumphant proof that her fears had some basis, she got it one Saturday afternoon. It was a warm sunny day and the Stolowitzky family was at the usual Sabbath meal. One maid cleared the plates of the first course and another brought the second. There was a good mood at the table. Jacob told of a new contract he was about to sign with the Soviet government to lay iron tracks from Moscow to Tashkent in Uzbekistan. Lydia suggested that, to honor the event, she would hold a reception and invite a famous violinist. Michael fluently and proudly recited a comic poem from a new children’s book and everyone applauded him.

As they were finishing the soup and the maid was putting a pair of stuffed pheasants on the table, a knock was heard at the door. Everyone looked surprised, since family meals were a strict ceremony and the servants knew that they were not to be disturbed.

The door opened and Emil stood there. He bowed and apologized for the disturbance.

“Come back later,” grumbled Jacob.

“This is urgent!” the chauffeur insisted.

“What’s so urgent, Emil?”

“A woman gave me a letter for you and said it’s a matter of life and death.”

Jacob Stolowitzky put down his fork and opened the envelope. Urgent letters about business were an everyday affair. Messengers came and went from his house even on the Sabbath, but never had they dared disturb him at lunch.

His eyes ran over the note and his face turned pale. He gave the letter to his wife and Lydia gasped.

“What is this supposed to be?” She was amazed.

“I have no idea,” said her husband. “I’ve never gotten a letter like this.”

“I knew it,” groaned Lydia. “I knew our good life couldn’t last.”

The unsigned letter said:

He read the letter again and again, finding it hard to digest the words.

His wealthy businessmen friends were often targets of blackmailers. One of them was shot as he came out of his house after he
refused to agree to their demands. For a long time, Jacob Stolowitzky had repressed the fear that such a thing could happen to him, too, someday. Now it was his turn.

He turned to Emil.

“Who gave you the letter?” he asked.

“A woman I don’t know gave it to me at the house and disappeared.”

“Describe her.”

“Not young, thin, in a black coat. Her head was wrapped in a brown kerchief. She wore sunglasses.”

“Were there other people with her?”

“I didn’t see any.”

“How did she know you work for us?”

“She waited at our gate. When she saw me she approached and waited until the gate opened for me, came to me, and asked if I worked for Mr. Stolowitzky. I said I did and then she gave me the letter for you and ran off.”

Jacob dismissed Emil. Michael looked at his father inquisitively and Gertruda refrained from asking what had happened. Jacob quickly finished eating and withdrew to his room. From there he phoned the police.

An officer and two policemen soon came to the mansion on Ujazdowska Avenue. They collected testimony from the chauffeur and the servants, took the letter, and warned the family members not to go out alone. Jacob took his gun out of his desk drawer and put it in his pocket. Lydia canceled visits to her friends and closed herself in the house. Gertruda was ordered not to take the daily walk with Michael until the police caught the blackmailers.

For a few days nothing happened, and then Emil came with another letter. He said he was driving slowly at a busy intersection in Warsaw when the letter was suddenly thrown through the window
of the Cadillac. “It was the same woman who gave me the first letter,” he said.

This letter was also addressed to Jacob Stolowitzky.

Like its predecessor, it, too, wasn’t signed: