The War Girls

by V.S. Alexander

Genres: World War II; Jewish Fiction

Synopsis

Based on the true stories of the ghetto, life in Warsaw during the Occupation, and the women who served the Allies as agents and spies...
Two Jewish sisters one in London, the other in Warsaw, see their worlds fall apart as Hitler invades Poland. Hanna narrowly escapes The Blitz, while her sister and parents are forced into the Ghetto. Hanna joins the Special Operations Executive in a daring attempt to free her family from the ever-tightening Nazi stranglehold, and is aided by a Polish woman who befriends them.
Casting light into one of the darkest periods of World War II, acclaimed author V.S. Alexander's powerful historical novel tells of two Jewish sisters of Polish descent who unite in a fight to save their family from the Warsaw Ghetto.
It's not just a thousand miles that separates Hanna Majewski from her younger sister, Stefa. There is another gulf--between the traditional Jewish ways that Hanna chose to leave behind in Warsaw, and her new, independent life in London. But as autumn of 1940 draws near, Germany begins a savage aerial bombing campaign in England, killing and displacing tens of thousands. Hanna, who narrowly escapes death, is recruited as a spy in an undercover operation that sends her back to her war-torn homeland.
In Hanna's absence, her parents, sister, and brother have been driven from their comfortable apartment into the Warsaw Ghetto. Sealed off from the rest of the city, the Ghetto becomes a prison for nearly half a million Jews, struggling to survive amid starvation, disease, and the constant threat of deportation to Treblinka. Once a pretty and level-headed teenager, Stefa is now committed to the Jewish resistance. Together, she, Hanna, and Janka, a family friend living on the Aryan side of the city, form a trio called The War Girls. Against overwhelming odds and through heartbreak they will fight to rescue their loved ones, finding courage through sisterhood to keep hope alive...

Release date: July 26, 2022

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 448

Sample

September 1st, 1939

When the bombs fell near Krochmalna Street in Warsaw, Izreal Majewski called for his family to take shelter under the heavy dining room table. He worried that his wife, Perla, who often succumbed to nerves, the news of war having already preyed upon her mind, might cry out and run into the street—not a safe place to be as far as he was concerned. Aaron, his son, would do just the opposite and fly to the window to watch the bombers.

“Quickly, under the table,” Izreal ordered, as the air-raid sirens droned their rise-and-fall song.

“It won’t protect us from Nazi bombs,” Aaron said. As Izreal suspected, his son, small for his twelve years, thin and lanky, his trousers cinched at the waist, his white shirt blossoming around him, bounded for the window.

“Oh, God, why is this happening to us,” Perla said, shuffling around the table, massaging her temples, her fingers extending toward the kerchief that covered her black hair. “Where is Stefa? Where is that girl? And on Shabbos, they come to bomb us.”

“She’s gone for a walk,” Izreal said, beckoning Aaron to step away from the window.

Grinning, Aaron looked over his shoulder. “She’s gone to see her boyfriend.”

Perla stopped and pointed at him. “Never dishonor your sister by saying such things. Stefa holds a place in this family as an observant girl. She obeys the laws.”

Izreal bent to his own curiosity, a trait he had instilled in his son, and stood in front of the window. The clouds hung low and gray over Warsaw, with occasional patches of blue sky that succumbed to the overcast as quickly as they appeared. The normally busy street had come to a standstill: Pedestrians stopped with their eyes to the sky; coachmens’ heads tilted upwards; automobile drivers had pulled over, doors open, their faces peering out the side window. Neighbors from the many tenement buildings that stretched down Krochmalna stood on their balconies or took refuge behind the fragile protection of glass.

Aaron bolted toward the small balcony that jutted out from their apartment on the top floor of their building. Izreal caught him by the arm and pushed him toward the table.

“Go,” Izreal said. “I will see what’s happening.”

“Not fair,” Aaron said, as his mother pulled him under the table with her.

“Life is filled with injustice,” Izreal shouted back while opening the double doors to the balcony. He stepped outside and put his hands on the wrought-iron railing that rose up to his waist. Above him, the stone-carved head of a smiling man looked down from the decorative turret of the fifty-year-old structure. A warm breeze struck him, ruffling the buttoned edges of his shirt and nearly lifting his yarmulke from his head.

He could hardly believe what he was seeing and hearing. Bombs were falling on the city. The explosions seemed far away, almost dreamlike, and the faint whir of the bombers sounded more like bees buzzing over spring flowers, but even he—an untrained civilian—could tell that the cloudy conditions had inhibited a prolonged bombing. Poland should get down on its knees and beseech God for rain—days and days of water turning roads to mud, halting the tanks, the artillery, and Hitler’s Wehrmacht—shielding the city from the bombers.

The Nazis were well aware of their military limitations on this day, he thought. If September was clear and warm, and the Polish Army was ineffective at repulsing a German advance, the month ahead would be hellish. Hitler had made it clear that he intended to crush Poland. Rain or no rain, the family had better be prepared. He hated to think about such an unimaginable situation: an educated, analytical mind torn from its focus on family and tradition.

Across the Vistula River, to the east, a blast vibrated through the air, followed by a rising column of grayish white smoke. He’d not seen the black speck of a falling bomb. The unannounced, invisible, utterly random hand of Death scared him and shook his confidence. However, he knew he needed to be strong for the sake of his son and wife.

He left the balcony and returned to the table to find Perla, her face flushed and her eyes red with tears, sitting beneath it across from Aaron, both huddled against its heavy oak legs. Their faces were barely visible through the airy handiwork of the lace tablecloth. Izreal got down on his knees and slid between them.

“I’m worried about Stefa,” Perla said, blowing her nose into a white handkerchief.

“She’ll be fine and home soon, I’m sure.” Izreal said. “The bombing is erratic—not much of a threat.”

“Daniel will protect her.” Aaron smiled and leaned back against the leg that supported his back.

“You know this Daniel better than we do, child that you are,” Perla said. “I must talk to Stefa. She’s much too interested in this man—more than she should be. Her husband should come from our arrangement or not at all.” She winced, apparently thinking of her daughter who had left Warsaw for the same reason.

Another bomb fell closer to Krochmalna and a shudder rippled through the building.

“Who can think of marriage at a time like this?” she asked. “I’m glad, at least, that Hanna is safe in London, despite how it ripped my heart out to see her go. Now I worry that she’ll have nothing to come home to.”

Izreal pretended not to hear his wife, wanting to scold her for even imagining the worst, but Perla had always been sensitive. He knew that from the moment he met her, when she had dared not even steal a look at him. She was prettier than he’d expected when they gathered at her family’s farm outside Warsaw, with her skin reddened by work outside, her body lean and taut. Her shy face caught the shadows from the ash trees circling the house, along with a play of sunlight flashing on her body. Despite Perla’s display of modesty in this arranged marriage, he knew that she and her family were proud of him—a mashgiach—an educated man who supervised the kashrus of a Warsaw restaurant, a man who gave blessings to the kosher slaughter of animals.

His profession and his wife’s homemaking skills had allowed them to build a family with only a few tragedies along the way: the stillbirth of a girl between Stefa and Aaron, and the departure of his eldest daughter, Hanna, who had left nine months ago to stay with relatives in London and never returned. But he didn’t want to concern himself with Hanna as the bombs were falling in Warsaw, other than to think that she was safe as war began. His eldest daughter had ripped out his heart as well, and she had not done it as neatly as he would have done when he was a younger man, a shochet—a butcher—at the slaughterhouse.

“This is silly,” Aaron said. “If a bomb hits, it will go through the roof and blow up the building. We might as well get out from under this table.”

“Hush,” Perla said, shaking her head. “The young have no fear of death.”

Aaron sighed.

Izreal lowered his head and twisted his legs under his torso. Sitting with his neck arched against the bottom of the table was uncomfortable, but at least it offered some protection should the ceiling crack. After ten minutes of agony, he was about to agree with his son’s suggestion to leave their shelter when the apartment door opened. Stefa had returned, her sturdy legs showing beneath her calf-length gray dress, her feet in the low-heeled black shoes that Perla had purchased for her.

Aaron held a finger to his lips.

Stefa called out for her parents, her voice rising in panic with each cry.

When she stepped too close to the table, Aaron reached from under the lace and grabbed his sister’s ankle.

Stefa screamed, hopping away in terror.

Laughing, Aaron slid from the under the table, across the polished oak floor, as his sister sank into a chair.

“Got you!”

Izreal and Perla poked their heads out from under the table.

“You little brat!” Stefa fanned her red cheeks with her hands, a sprig of light brown hair protruding from her kerchief fluttering in the breeze. “I’ll kill you someday.” She stopped, placing her hands over her mouth, thinking better of her words as the bombs continued to fall.

Izreal, his body cramping, crawled out from under the table. He stood up and checked for dust on his trousers and jacket, but found nothing, a testament to his wife’s immaculate housekeeping.

Perla followed her husband, apprehensively inspecting the ceiling, before chastising Stefa. “At last you’re home. I was worried sick.”

“I feel safer outside than I do in here,” Stefa said. “On the street, I can run away.”

“You could never run as fast as Hanna.” Aaron rested his head on his intertwined hands, his body stretched across the floor. “How was Daniel?”

Stefa sniffed. “I took a walk—and even if I did see him, it would be no business of yours.”

“We must talk about this man,” Perla said.

Stefa held up her hand. “I know what you’re going to say, Mother, about arrangements and marriage rites, and what a woman must do for her husband.” She looked down into her lap. “But I’m not ready for marriage . . . and now the war seems to have begun.”

“Your mother and I will make the arrangements,” Izreal said, judging his daughter’s discomfort. Stefa’s words led to his own uneasiness because they reminded him of Hanna and her self-imposed break from the family. Two daughters of like mind would bring him no comfort.

She stared at him, her hazel eyes flashing. “I did see Daniel today from across the street—me on one side, he on the other. He thinks I’m beautiful, and I think he’s handsome, and we like each other. Doesn’t that count for something?”

Izreal turned and looked across the tops of the buildings that lined Krochmalna, and the gray sky above. The family should remain firm and strong. Did it matter anymore? The war was real now—he could feel it in his bones, in his soul, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. He had little confidence that the Polish Army could match the German soldiers. Hitler had stopped his lies about amassing a Nazi war machine: the bombers, fighter planes, the millions of troops and armaments that he had ordered, as the world offered him appeasement gifts but still prayed that Germany would come to its senses.

Such thinking had been swiftly destroyed in one day—on the eve of Shabbos.

He had looked forward to eating the Sabbath meal, had always looked forward to Friday sunset and Perla’s lighting of the candles on the sideboard. He could smell the meal that she had already prepared: the baked chicken, the potatoes, the summer squash that would be served this evening, the cholent that would simmer overnight to be eaten at lunch on Saturday after synagogue.

Izreal looked back at his daughter, still sitting in the chair. She, sixteen years old, was the second child after Hanna, more pliable than her older sister, but used to getting what she wanted. She had a temper and could be stubborn, but she also had used her fair skin and modesty to charm as well, a mystery to him at times, as if she had been born of another mother and father. Stefa had Perla’s softer, rounder, face, while Hanna favored his longer facial structure and angular lines.

In a few hours, it would be sunset and time for blessing, prayers, and songs. The drone of the bombers seemed to have drifted away, thwarted by the cloudy weather.

He wondered what Stefa saw, perhaps loved, in this man, Daniel. He wouldn’t say anything to Perla yet, but the Nazis had changed everything, including love. Would happiness last in the years ahead? Would the fighting be over quickly? Arranged marriages might be a thing of the past—like peace—in a future too terrible to behold. Maybe the time had come to be flexible—in the face of disaster.

“Get up,” he told Aaron, who was still sprawled at his sister’s feet. “Let’s look out on Warsaw. See what we can see before the world . . .”

He took in the faces of his wife and children and silently prayed for God to save them from a world consumed by war, wondering if his prayer would work.

The bombs faded and the afternoon grew long, darkening the clouds and her spirit.

Perla had a few moments alone in the bedroom before sunset, and she used the time to soothe her nerves and still her shaking hands. She sat on her bed and grasped them firmly in her lap, aware that the flesh had become more fragile, the first faint, brown spots showing irregularly between her wrist and fingers, knowing that at thirty-eight years of age these minor distractions would only get worse. The only luxury she afforded herself was a tin of petroleum jelly, which she applied lightly twice a week to keep her hands smooth. Stefa and Hanna, when they were younger, were fascinated by this routine. Her younger daughter had taken after her, secretly buying a jar of krem kosmetyczny, face cream. Perla had found the white porcelain container stashed at the back of a drawer. She hadn’t told Izreal and wouldn’t unless Stefa became too wasteful with its usage. That was unlikely to happen.

As she looked out the window at the failing gray light, she patted the bed’s coverlet and thought how wonderful it would be to fall into a deep sleep and awaken anytime before this day. The sun would shine brighter, the spring sun would be warmer, the winter snow would land lightly on her shoulders and melt on her coat before a fireplace. She tried to banish the memories of the afternoon: the sirens, the bombs, the neighbors screaming and yelling in the halls as destruction rained from the sky. How could life change so fast? Yet, what had happened was real. She hoped the Polish troops would rally—they would give their lives to save their homeland—but would it be enough?

She ran her finger along the intricate pattern of the spread, a wedding gift from her Hungarian grandmother. Flowers of yellow, red, and blue burst forth in blossom from intertwining green vines. Izreal allowed this ornamental display, the bright spot in the house, because it made her feel happy. She was not as good with the needle as her mother and grandmother, although she had crocheted the lace tablecloth that graced the Sabbath table.

She and her husband had pulled together what they could to decorate their home. Two landscapes from the Holy Land hung in the living room. The mizrach in praise of God took its place of honor on the east wall between the windows. Displayed on the sideboard and small cupboard positioned against the wall in the dining area were the precious objects of their religious life: the Shabbos candlesticks, the Seder plate, a wooden spice box, and the silver kiddush cup, all as necessary and meaningful to her as any limb of her body. And, when not in use, tucked away in the top drawer of the sideboard were Izreal’s knives, the steel gleaming, and the blades free from nicks, pits, or other obstructions that would go against the laws of slaughter. In their way, those instruments were the most precious of all because his use of them, first as a butcher, had allowed the family to thrive.

Her hands shook again at the thought of their future in Warsaw. . . their lives threatened, perhaps disappearing. Horror had been thrust upon them by a madman from Germany. If only European leaders hadn’t capitulated, if only Britain and lagging America had stood up to Hitler’s bullying, Poland might continue to enjoy pleasant summers and warm falls. Now, everything was in question. Even the radio reports had given them some hope, never once mentioning the threat of an invasion or the start of a war. The broadcasts were always about Hitler, the ravings of a man obsessed with Germany’s power.

She rose and ran a finger over the plain gray blanket covering her husband’s bed. The cotton pillowcase and the sheet that extended beyond the blanket were pressed and as white as a blinding desert sun. Everything was in its place.

It’s growing late. I must attend to my duties.

She walked, head bowed, from the bedroom to the table.

Inner peace and the spirit of joy. Holiness. My family. We are here at the table.

Izreal smiled, hoping to lift his family’s spirits. The Sabbath was supposed to be joyous, but this evening, the first of September, was different. Sabbath was a time for putting aside problems, communing with God, and contemplating the blessings given from above.

Perla kept her head bowed and eyes closed, as if tears would pour out if she looked up at her husband. Stefa looked sullen and out of sorts, bearing the world’s weight on her shoulders, probably concerned about Daniel’s well-being. Only Aaron, in the naivety and freshness of his youth, looked bright-eyed and ready for the Sabbath meal. Izreal wondered if his son might have enjoyed the first day of the war, likening it to a game played by adults instead of children.

Izreal put his hands on Aaron’s bowed head, resting his fingers on his son’s black yarmulke. “May God make you like unto Ephraim and Manasseh.” He walked to the other side of the table and placed his hands on Stefa’s head. “May God make you like unto Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah.”

He returned to the head of the table and stood for a moment, looking out upon them, his children on either side, Perla across from him. What might he offer as a personal prayer, something that might lift the evening, hopeful words devoid of woe and despair?

“I thank God for the many blessings that He has given us,” he began, clasping his hands together. “Even upon this day which the world will mark in future generations as a dark stain upon humanity . . . but let us not think of that now. Let us rejoice and enjoy our time together as a family, the time that God has given us. We must be strong and know that God will protect us from our enemies as He has always done in the past. That is all we can do—have faith and praise Him for our many blessings. Let us remember the light as we have through the generations.”

Kerchief in place, Perla rose from her chair, and stood in front of the candles on the table. She struck a match, lit both of them, then, circling her hands three times and drawing the light toward her, she closed her eyes and recited the blessing: “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has commanded us to light the Sabbath candles.” Through the years, she and her husband had worked as two separate religious individuals, instilling the holy traditions in their children. Still shielding her eyes, Perla lit the second taper. Izreal recited, “Observe the Sabbath day.”

Izreal said the blessing over the wine and the bread before starting the meal. The usual chatter at the joyous table was limited to Izreal and his son. Perla and Stefa ate slowly, Perla often gazing toward the window to see if Warsaw would suffer again from the Nazi bombers.

With eyes alight, Aaron said, “I wish I had seen—”

Perla glared at him, her look vicious enough to cut off his words. “Don’t speak of war tonight. I know what you wish you had seen.” She rested her fork on her plate. “People died today—I’m sure of it . . . no one around us, but what of our relatives in the country, our cousins in Kraków, or those living on the Polish border? Were their bodies ripped apart? No one should wish they had seen the bombs explode.”

The excitement in Aaron’s eyes died and he looked down at his chicken and potatoes. “I’m sorry, Mother. I will pray for our relatives.”

Perla nodded. “And for your sister, Hanna, as well. She deserves our prayers—she is still a member of this family.” She lifted her fork and positioned it in her hand so the tines pointed toward Izreal.

Hanna had driven a furious wedge between Izreal and his wife in January, the most troublesome and argumentative time of their married lives, when Hanna went to live in London with one of Perla’s five sisters, a woman who had renounced Judaism and converted to her husband’s Episcopalianism. Her other sisters were scattered throughout Poland.

Hanna had left Warsaw the day after she turned eighteen on January eighth. The “plot,” as Izreal called it, had been clandestine and deliberate, even down to the travel schedule arranged by Perla’s sister Lucy—her Christian name. There had been one day and one terrible night to consider the consequences of Hanna’s actions.

“You will no longer be my daughter,” Izreal had said while hardening his heart to her.

“I don’t love the man you’ve chosen for me. I will love my family always, but he won’t be my husband. I will not raise his children, wash his clothes, cook and clean for him. So much of life is forced on us. The world is changing.” Hanna beseeched her mother. “Look at your sister! Happy and carefree in London! I pleaded with her to let me come, and, after many tears, she relented. It was the most difficult decision of her life. She didn’t want to hurt either of you, after having gone through the same trouble herself when she left the family.” Hanna looked at Izreal. “My aunt hoped you would eventually forgive me.”

Stefa and Aaron had sat silent during the argument before they were told to go to their rooms. Hanna’s argument failed to melt the icy shield that protected Izreal. Perla’s subdued sympathy for Hanna added to his irritation.

“You are going?” was all Perla could ask. “Truly going to my sister’s?”

“Yes, Mama. Aunt Lucy has worked with the Immigration Service and will be my sponsor—I can work in England as long as I don’t take a job from a citizen who needs it.” Hanna looked down at her dark blue dress. “Look at us. Could we be any more drab?”

The question set Izreal off, as if he had been personally insulted. “Drab! You are a beautiful Jewish woman who we’ve raised to honor the laws and traditions set forth in the Torah. Yet, you spit in our faces.”

Hanna straightened, her tall figure matching his. “Papa, I would never spit in your face. You know I love you more than life itself, but if I stay here I will die, and what good would that do either of us? That I know as sure as I’m standing here.” She threaded her fingers through her long black hair.

Perla gasped and Izreal looked away.

Suppressing his anger, he’d remained silent. The words tried to rise from his lungs, but they caught in his throat, a maddening combination of fury and disbelief, stopping him from speaking and forcing him to fling open the balcony doors and thrust his fists into the freezing January air. Sleet peppered his coat, but after a time, he didn’t feel the cold at all, only a quaking rage that shook his body until it finally subsided like a spent earthquake.

When he returned to the living room, all three bedroom doors were closed. Hanna had gone into the one she shared with her sister, to spend her last night in the apartment. He softly pushed the door open to his room.

Perla lay in her bed, her back turned toward him, legs curled close to her body, hands covering her face. A beam of silver light from a streetlamp fell like a knife across the blankets.

Izreal touched her shoulder.

She flinched and choked on tears. “She won’t come back,” she sputtered. “We’ll never see her again. I’ll die and I’ll never see my daughter again . . . but I must obey my husband.”

He took off his coat, placing it over a chair, sat on the edge of his bed, and sighed. “She will come back.” He said nothing for a time, but then chuckled. “She’s a strong girl . . . I’ve always known it. She used her brain as well as her body—who ran and swam behind our backs because I would not allow it for modesty’s sake. The child who could do things neither of us could do. A sharp mind can get you into trouble.”

Perla, balling a handkerchief in her hand, turned toward him, her eyes dim in the blackness.

“I thought she had tamed herself—come to know her religion and herself—as only a woman can, but I was wrong,” he said. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he lay back on the bed and stared at the white speckled ceiling. “The spark was always there, but I thought she had controlled it. The arrangement—Josef must have been the feather that broke her back.”

“Marriage is no feather,” Perla said.

“It is an eternal union sanctified by God.”

“Izreal . . . you don’t need to lecture me. I know the law nearly as well as you do. I’m not happy, but I want my children to be happy. If that means they must go their own way, so be it—I won’t stand in their way, no matter how painful. Eventually, they will leave us for their husbands and wives no matter what we do . . . or say. You don’t need to give her your blessing, but you need to understand.”

“I don’t know if I can, for what I am is all I know.”

Perla turned toward the window as he undressed. He slid into bed, the cold sheets sending gooseflesh skittering over his skin. He stared at the ceiling for an hour and then at the blade of light falling across Perla’s body, watching her chest rise and fall beneath the blankets, before he fell asleep.

Izreal was up early and off to work, the house still and silent as he closed the apartment door.

He saw Hanna in his mind as he walked the dark, empty, streets: from her birth on that cold January day in 1921, through her schooling, her teachers telling him what a gifted young girl she was, how fortunate it was that she picked up languages so easily—she could speak Polish, Yiddish, and German, with ease, as well as some English—and what a lovely daughter and woman she had become . . . until yesterday.

All the time, the fuse was burning and he didn’t know it.

When he returned home that day, Hanna was gone.

Bombs fell on Warsaw, morning, afternoon, evening, and night the month of September. Stefa stood in bread lines near Daniel’s home in the Praga District across the Vistula, while Aaron remained closer to home. Both siblings felt somewhat guilty about taking two helpings of bread for the family. They weren’t starving; however, the leftovers from the restaurant where Izreal worked had become their main source of meals as food staples disappeared during the siege. “We should have thought ahead,” Perla lamented one day, despondent about not being prepared for the war. Shaking his head and muttering that he feared the war would grow worse, Izreal told her that women harvesting potatoes in fields around Warsaw had been strafed and killed by Nazi planes. “We are lucky we have food. Those women took a chance rather than starve to death. In the end, the Nazis made sure it didn’t matter.”

The Germans bombed the city on the eighth, and the fifteenth, on the eve of the Sabbath, but living in Warsaw had become a matter of survival, not of observing the holy days. Izreal tried to keep the family together as hope for an early peace faded. The Sabbath prayers, the lighting of the candles, the blessings, the songs, seemed hollow, professed to a God who didn’t care whether they lived or died.

Stefa called out to Daniel as they helped the men and women of Warsaw dig fortified barricades around the city center. “Dig harder, drogi.”

Daniel smiled at the Polish word of affection, pushed the low-slung wool cap back from his head, and wiped his brow with a handkerchief. “Dig harder?—I’d rather be in the army.” He stabbed his shovel into a ditch and watched the line of volunteers, conscripted men who had come back from losing battles, move the earth. “My father says we are of the Jewish Nation, not Poles. I told him I was a Polish Jew, and I’d be happy to go to war.” He grabbed the shovel’s shaft, pulled the blade from the dirt, and held it like a lance in front of him. A Polish army man, attired in his brown uniform jacket and brimmed field cap, rifle slung over his shoulder, shot Daniel a look of disgust.

He dug into the earth again, looking away from the man’s eyes.

Stefa knew her parents would be angry if they found them together on this Sunday, the seventeenth of September. Her father was at work. Her mother had stretched out on the bed after suffering a headache while trying to figure out how to make the most of their remaining supplies. Stefa had excused herself to take a walk, mentioning a bread line even though most of them were closed on Sunday. She thought Daniel’s parents would be angry, too, if they knew they were together. She had met them briefly once. They were courteous, but distant, making it clear to Stefa that she was not on the list of his intendeds.

“Wouldn’t it be nice, if . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“What?” Daniel asked, digging deeper, tossing the brown dirt with ferocity to the top of the ditch.

“I was just thinking it would be nice if we could go for a walk by ourselves and be happy.” Down the street, the blackened shell of a bombed building stared back at her. Hardly a block had been spared from the destruction. Industrious Poles had moved the rubble into piles, clearing the debris wherever possible, but now railroad tracks were being torn from the earth and positioned at forty-five degree angles near the trenches to stop the anticipated advance of Nazi tanks.

The Warsaw of her childhood had been delightful—lovely tall buildings constructed of pale stone with red striations gracing their façades, stately apartment buildings with carved cornices and lacy wrought-iron balconies, domed government buildings and churches, verdant parks with an abundance of summer begonias and roses of all colors, a lively Jewish quarter with so many people she couldn’t count them, and a magnificent synagogue.

But so much had changed since the first