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What Mattered Most

By Charlene Schiff

My sister Tia came home from work ill. She couldn’t even eat the soup that Mama prepared for supper. We were putting thin slices of potato on her forehead to bring down her fever—precious potato slices that should have been put in the soup instead.

Mama stayed up half the night trying to comfort her. Early the next morning Tia felt a little better but was in no shape to go to work. I asked Mama if I could take Tia’s place in the warehouse where she and a group of older girls were knitting articles of clothing for the German soldiers. This way I could collect her food ration for the day, which would have been lost to us otherwise.

Mama was skeptical at first since I was only 11. I tried to convince her that the Ukrainian guards in the warehouse were not very strict. As long as the head count was correct they were usually satisfied. Tia had told us how fortunate she was to work in the warehouse.

Finally, Mama gave in and allowed me to take Tia’s place. I walked out with Mama—she joined her group and I joined Tia’s.

When we ended up at the warehouse, Tia’s friends pointed her seat out to me. I sat down, trying to be inconspicuous. I picked up the needles and a half-finished scarf and started working, watching the older girls who were encouraging me with their eyes and nodding their heads approvingly.

Suddenly, there was a commotion outside. A group of Germans burst in, positioning themselves at various points of the huge warehouse. We didn’t know what was going on. One of the Ukrainian guards told us to continue with our work. We were all wondering if this was a lapanka—a round-up—and if all of us would be taken away in trucks, never to be heard from again. The Germans were walking back and forth. The sound of their boots was terrifying to my ears; it always connoted something bad. One of the Germans walked up and stood close behind me. He shouted at me to knit faster. I knew I was not as efficient as the older girls, but I tried to do my best. The more he yelled and cursed, the slower I knitted. I wished that I could disappear. The German became enraged and jumped in front of me, his face red, twisted in anger, foam coming out of the corners of his mouth. He spat and cursed and screamed at me. He pulled the needles out of my hands and stuck one of them in my right forefinger. I don’t remember what happened after that. I was told later that I passed out, and the older girls had taken care of me the rest of the day. This visit by the Germans was one of their surprise inspections. It had been my exquisite bad timing to have found myself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

There were no medications and no doctors in the ghetto. My right forefinger became infected and I lost the tip of it.

Lost also was the food ration for that day, and that was what mattered most.

©2005, Charlene Schiff. The text, images, and audio and video clips on this website are available for limited non-commercial, educational, and personal use only, or for fair use as defined in the United States copyright laws.