have a future in Palestine or America, but none seemed on offer in Poland, and now several thousand were leaving each month. A figure likely to rise and rise over the coming year.
Russell asked Rosman and Lippmann how the government in Prague viewed their efforts.
‘Oh, they seem to have realised that something not quite legal is going on,’ Lippmann said. ‘The police even arrested one man for sheltering an illegal immigrant. But there was an outcry straight away — everyone here supports us. I mean, it’s not as if the Jews are planning to stay, either here or anywhere else in our country — we’re just helping them get where they want to go. How could anyone in Prague object to that?’
How indeed, Russell asked himself that evening. He, Albert, Lippmann and around a dozen other locals were sharing a convivial time in one of the town’s inns, and looking round the faces, Russell thought he detected an absence of the fear and resentment that still haunted most of Europe. Maybe he was imagining things, but Nachod seemed proof of the old adage that doing good was good for the doer.
Thursday was cold and clear, the line of mountains that marked the border stretching far into the distance. Jews travelling south were usually led along unwatched paths by friendly guides, but Russell and Albert had only to walk down the road and present their papers at the Czech and Polish frontier posts. They were soon parting company, and Albert was full of messages for his family in London, should Russell see them first. He also invited Russell and Effi to Palestine: ‘Come and see what we’re doing. It’s not often you see a country built from scratch.’
Russell asked if he had any plans to visit England.
‘If my letters won’t persuade my family to join me, then I may have to do it in person. But not for a few years, I expect. Only when we have our homeland.’
They said their goodbyes in the small village just beyond the Polish frontier post, Albert walking off to see the local Haganah organiser, Russell engaging a decrepit-looking taxi to take him down to Glatz, or Klodzko as the Poles had re-named it. He felt immensely pleased that his and Albert’s paths had crossed again, and looked forward to telling Eva, Marthe and Ruth what an impressive young man their son and brother had become.
In Glatz he found a bank that was willing to sell him Polish currency for dollars. At the station he discovered that trains were still running to Breslau, or Wroclaw as the ticket-seller testily insisted. And yes, the next one stopped at the former Wartha, or whatever he called it. He purchased a through ticket and walked out to the waiting carriages, which were German with Polish markings. A locomotive was huffing its way backwards to join them.
Soon they were off, and hurrying down the valley. Wartha Station looked unchanged, save for the Polish flag and stationmaster. There was even a Polish taxi, and with no little help from the stationmaster, Russell managed to explain his hoped-for destination. On his first visit here he had walked the six kilometres there and back, and the taxi ride seemed almost insultingly brief.
They stopped first at the neighbouring farm, which Torsten’s parents had owned. They had once been friends of the Rosenfelds, but fear and the local Nazis had put an end to that. And now it was a Polish woman who answered the door, suspicious and slightly aggressive. ‘Zniknal,’ she said several times. Gone. When Russell tried to asked her where, she shut the door in his face.
They drove on down the lane to the Rosenfeld farm. In September 1939 both house and barn had been blackened shells, but the house had at least had been partly rebuilt, and smoke was rising from a hole in the ramshackle roof.
The reception there was just as hostile. He wasn’t at all sure that the man understood his questions, but there was no mistaking the answer. ‘Polska,’ the man said, encompassing the landscape with sweeping waves of his arms, one hand to the right, the other to the left. ‘Polska,’ he repeated angrily when Russell tried to speak. ‘Polska.’
He too slammed the door in his visitor’s face.
Back at the station he read the chalked-up times and groaned — there were almost two hours to wait. After a while the stationmaster took pity on him, opening up the waiting room and even starting a fire in the small grate. A few shared smiles was the best they could manage when it came to communication, but by the time the train arrived the official had done more than he knew to salvage his nation’s reputation.
The land seemed emptier than the last time Russell had made this journey, the fields more neglected, the skies clear of smoke. If the Germans had all been driven out, not enough Poles had arrived to replace them.
As the train approached Breslau the residue of war grew commonplace — gapped rows of houses, the shattered trees and craters strewn across the fields, a cemetery of scorched and mangled rolling stock where the marshalling yard had been. The station was a functioning wreck, the city itself looked a lot like Berlin — the parallel lines of empty facades stretching north towards the Oder, and probably beyond. He should have known what to expect. Breslau, like all of Hitler’s so-called ‘fortress cities’, had been promised eternal glory if it fought to the very last German. Refusal had not been an option.
And the Poles were inheriting the ruins. Their uniforms were everywhere, mingling with those of their Russian liberators. Too much history there, but appearances would be maintained, probably for decades. The men now ruling Poland were no less in thrall to the Soviets than Ulbricht and his gang. They’d all shared digs in Moscow, all learned to toe the collective line. National feelings would be repressed, at least for the conceivable future. The Moscow Poles would give great chunks of their country to the Russians, and the Moscow Germans would compensate the Poles with great chunks of theirs. All smiling as they did so. What their people felt was neither here nor there.
The only vehicle in the station forecourt was a horse-drawn cart piled high with scavenged bricks. No fire was visibly burning, no smoke curling up to the sky, but a faint smell of scorching hung in the air, reminding him of Berlin in the last days of the war. He started walking towards the city centre, down what he guessed was the old Taschenstrasse. The name itself had been whitewashed out, and replaced by something Polish.
As he crossed the old moat on a makeshift footbridge he began to wonder whether anything survived in the centre. The streets seemed desolate, particularly for the middle of the day. Whatever municipal offices there were — Russian, Polish, even German — must be out in the less damaged suburbs.
He turned left towards the Ring, and found himself walking toward a group of young men in uniform. They were Poles, he realised — some sort of militia. One held up a hand to stop him, while the others all looked at his suitcase.
The leader barked something incomprehensible in Polish.
Russell was about to ask if they spoke German, when he realised how mistaken that might be. ‘Speak American?’ he asked, with what he hoped was a winning smile.
This had them glancing at each other, uncertain how to proceed. Was the suitcase still fair game?
Disinclined to lose his notes, let alone his cigarettes and post-war wardrobe, Russell pushed his advantage. ‘Do you speak Russian?’ he asked in that language.
‘A little,’ the leader admitted.
‘I’m looking for the Russian administrative headquarters. NKVD,’ he added, enunciating each letter with a hint of relish.
‘Ah, Russians,’ the leader said sadly. He gestured down the road in the direction of the Ring, then passed on the bad news to his comrades, who couldn’t resist a few rueful glances at the suitcase before resuming their patrol.
Russell watched them go. If he’d just been an ordinary German, there seemed a very good chance that they’d have stolen his suitcase and clothes, and left him lying in his own piss and blood. ‘And the first shall be last, and the last first,’ he murmured to himself.
He walked on to the ravaged Ring, and searched in vain for a building in use, let alone a working office. There were two Red Army officers sitting side by side on a salvaged bench, staring out across the rubble-ringed square with the air of experienced conquerors surveying their recent work. He approached them with suitable humility, and either that or his use of their language earned him a friendly response. The Soviet administrative HQ was in the big building behind the station, they told him in response to his question. As for the Germans, they had an office that dealt with their own affairs and made representations to the occupation authorities. It was housed in the cellars of the old Market Hall, up near the river.
Russell thanked the two of them, and headed north along another devastated street. Around a quarter of the
