Sewer Girls: Chapter 4

I'm outside playing in the morning light with Izabella when Mother runs towards us from a nearby street.

“Get inside! Hurry! We need to hide!” She says forcefully. She grabs our hands and pulls us inside. “They're taking people off the streets.”¹

The sounds of people drift in through the cracked windows. I hear a familiar voice belonging to my friend, Krystyna Kwiatkawskas. I never knew she was here, in the ghetto. Her shrieks and pleas tempt me to at least peek out the door. A gruff voice of a soldier and Krystyna's responding cries tell me enough. I huddle with Mother and Izabella in a corner of the room as we listen to the heavy footsteps of soldiers passing by our tiny shack.

I look at Izabella. Her eyes are as wide as a startled faun's. Her lower lip trembles and her face has gone pale. I feel her shaking beside me. I reach out a hand to comfort her.

I move my gaze over to Mother. Her face is ashen and grave. She looks grief-stricken and worried, looking at Izabella with concern.

If I looked at myself, I'm sure I'd look like a frightened rabbit, hiding in the bushes, hoping no one will see my face. I push back my hair, then pull a lock back and start twirling it around my finger. I nearly bite my fingernails when I remember that I haven't showered or washed for weeks. The sound of footsteps fade, and I shakily peer out the door. Not a single person is in the street.

1“From July 22 until September 12, 1942, German SS and police units, assisted by auxiliaries, carried out mass deportations from the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka killing center. During this period, Germans deported about 265,000 Jews from Warsaw to Treblinka; they killed approximately 35,000 Jews inside the ghetto during the operation” (“Warsaw” 2).