At seven in the morning on a chilly autumn day in 1942, the small corner of a dimly lit café in the center of the Aryan area of the Warsaw ghetto offered a quiet refuge from the chaos of a nation torn apart by war.
Seated at the table, Doctor Nowak was reading a newspaper. In his late thirties, he had well-groomed light brown hair with grey streaks running down his temple. His light eyes peered sporadically toward the entrance as if waiting for someone—or something—to appear. Large windows on either side of the door allowed the café to view the street.
Outside these windows, the world seemed indifferent to his existence, save an attractive blonde named Zofia Nowak, his wife.
Around him, the aromas of an earthy, thick, and warm Warsaw breakfast whirled in the air: the delicious odor of fried onions and eggs blended intermittently with the pleasant aroma of coffee, freshly made rye bread, and crisp kielbasa.
All of this together produced a warm, friendly environment that provided solace amidst the brutal realities of life outside.
Nowak watched a tall woman walking elegantly towards the café.
He called the waiter, “You can serve the breakfast, please.” He waved to her when she entered and stood up as she approached his table.
“I did not want to wake you up, darling; I decided to get an early start to see the neighbourhood before rush hour.”
The day was sunny, and Nowak took Ewa for a stroll. As they walked down the lively main street, the energy around them was palpable—so different from the deathly silence she had just left behind.
As she walked, she could not help but notice the stark contrast.
On the Aryan side, life continued in a way that seemed almost obscene, given what she had witnessed. Vendors lined the streets, selling baskets of bright fruits and vegetables. She saw plump chickens hanging from hooks while baskets of gleaming apples, pears, and oranges caught the sunlight. Butcher shops displayed meat, and the streets were brimming with healthy, well-dressed people. The ease of a world untouched by the horrors of starvation or disease registered on their faces.
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Her people, reduced to skeletal figures, just across the wall, had their faces hollowed out with hunger and their eyes sunken with the terror of what lay ahead.
Ewa’s stomach tightened when she breathed in the smells of freshly baked bread, grilled sausages, and roasting poultry. It all seemed like a cruel illusion, a dream she could not reach out to grasp. There, food was the most valuable commodity, smuggled at grave risk to the lives of those involved. Yet, it was never enough to prevent little orphans and solitary elderly from dying of starvation.
Once a hub of active civic life, fear, desperation and disease now plagued her community.
As she moved through that world, she became acutely aware that she did not belong there. She was a ghost, moving among the living. However, the tour brought back memories of her life before the invasion. The Nazis snatched every bit of happiness from her life. For that, they would pay.
During the next two hours, she and Nowak pretended to search for a place to live, posing as a married couple newly arrived in Warsaw. They even entered a few buildings, nodding politely to the landlords and asking vague questions about the apartments.
Finally, they reached the designated house for their lodging. This was a hideout of the Polish resistance and was part of a compound of four adjacent houses secretly connected through trapdoors in the basements.
An elderly couple greeted them, saying, “Hello, my dears.” You must be exhausted from spending the entire day looking for decent accommodation. I am Marcin Wojciechowski, and this is my wife, Alina.”
He showed them to their chambers upstairs, where Ewa shared a room with two other female partisans. She was the only Jewish occupant in the nest. As she lay down to sleep that night, she sorely realized that while she spent the day wandering leisurely on the Aryan side, some ten to fourteen thousand Jews were blatantly hustled to their deaths.
In the morning, when they were in the kitchen, Ewa shared her concerns regarding the urgency of the situation on the Jewish side.
Marcin commented, “Your side of the resistance does not have the required firepower nor the necessary intelligence services to enable them to put up an effective fight and stop the deportations.”
“That is exactly what Hozea Itzkowitz said,” Ewa tried to reinforce her point. “He instructed me to get in touch with the Home Army to procure weapons.”
The older man turned the other way to help his wife assemble breakfast. He continued, “My dear, let me emphasize that in the underground, one must have a reputation to fulfil their wish list. Had Hozea been here, he would have returned with a couple of guns and grenades the very next day.”