air rather than the oppressive smell that always lingered.
I felt almost hopeful at the sight. There was something so pure about the way they looked around as they walked, taking in the streetscape of the ghetto as if they might spot something worthy of their interest. No wonder that one boy had reminded me of Dawidek. He wore the same expression of wonder sometimes, despite everything he had seen and done.
I must have only watched the children for seconds before a group of Kapo and some Germans also passed, and the true context of the march became apparent. These children weren’t just being taken on an outing for their amusement. They weren’t flanked only by nurses and older children. They were under armed guard, and when I considered where they were coming from and where they were headed, a jolt of shock ran through my body.
They were walking to the Umschlagplatz.
Hundreds of children, marching happily toward their deaths. A burst of adrenaline overtook me, and I moved to run toward the children, but I took only a few steps before a man stepped in my way.
“Kid, don’t do it,” the stranger warned me, his voice low, desperate and hoarse. How quickly I had shifted from quiet amusement to this...burning, seething shock and horror and fury. It raced through my veins, urgent and determined, until I was vibrating with the force of it.
“I have to warn them,” I said, pushing the man back so I could see the line of children. I considered the direction they were walking from and realized that this was probably the Korczak Orphanage, the largest orphanage in the ghetto, famous for its generous care and its immense size. There was still time... Maybe if I caused a scene I could—
“Kid,” the man said, more urgently this time. “There is nothing we can do. Think this through, will you? So I let you run over there—you’ll be shot, and the children will see you shot. They aren’t scared right now. They don’t know...” His voice broke. I looked up at him and saw that his eyes were shiny, despite the stubbornly high set of his chin. “Look how calm they are. Maybe they’ve been told they are going for a grand adventure. It’s a mercy to let them walk out of this place in peace. No one benefits if they are scared.”
“But it’s not right,” I said choking, looking back at the seemingly endless line of children.
“None of this is right, kid,” the man said, and he pushed me abruptly back and shook his head. “Don’t get shot in front of them. Don’t let that be the last thing they see here.”
I leaned back into the wall again, and this time, I counted the SS soldiers, supervising the Jewish police as they supervised the children, layer upon layer of oppression, as if children had any hope at all of resistance. And at the back, I saw the orphanage director, walking between two children, holding each child’s hand tightly in his. His chin was high, his eyes clear and wide.
I hated the moment, and I hated the world, and most of all I hated those German bastards who would take hundreds of children and march them through the streets of a prison to load them onto a cattle car and—if Chaim was right—to execute them. Imprisoning us was one thing, starving us to death was another, torturing us day by day for years... Maybe I had almost grown numb to those things. But the wholesale murder of hundreds of children, in one monstrous act? I knew in theory that this had been happening and that children had been rounded up every single day. But I hadn’t seen it. On some level, I hadn’t believed it.
I suddenly realized that the street around me had cleared and that the only people left outside were those who were being marched away under armed guard. I swore under my breath and pushed at several doors at street level, only to find them all locked. Now my heart was racing with panic. I tried to clear my head so that I could consider my options. The youth center wasn’t far, just ahead, the entrance on the opposite corner, but to cross the road would be to draw too much attention to myself.
I ran to the next door and pushed at it frantically. It was locked, too, but the latch was weak. I pulled back, and with all my strength rammed my shoulder into