Resistance

Chaya realizes the flaw in the ZOB’s plan; they expected to progress to hand-to-hand combat and did not account for something like a single armored vehicle obliterating an entire street of fighters and civilians. She begins searching the ghetto for Yitzchak and Esther, desperately hoping that they are still alive. She eventually finds Yitzchak, who hasn’t seen Esther since the beginning of the day; with some other fighters, the two of them immobilize yet another German tank.

The fighting intensifies, and Chaya and Yitzchak run around dropping as many Molotov cocktails as they can; in the process, Chaya gets shot in the leg, and Yitzchak drags her aside into a nearby building. Esther finds them there and helps Yitzchak carry Chaya to a nearby bunker, where an older woman named Rosa Kats sews up her wound. The name sounds familiar to Chaya, but she can’t remember why. Esther and Yitzchak insist that she needs to rest, and Chaya settles in for the night along with the rest of the people in the bunker.

The next day, Chaya remembers where she heard the name Rosa Kats; she tells the older woman about meeting her son back at Lodz, and his message for his mother. Rosa is glad to hear that her son is still alive and tells Chaya that “children never know how much (mothers) love them” (279). Rosa ensures that Chaya rests well, and Chaya sleeps for most of the day, glad to have someone to mother her again.

In the evening, the bunker listens to a broadcast from BBC London on Chaya’s radio. A conference is taking place between several European and American leaders regarding what to do about the Jews trapped in Nazi-occupied parts of Europe; however, no one seems able to agree on a way forward. At the end, the broadcaster reads out an Allied message in Yiddish to the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, acknowledging what is going on there, calling them “heroes,” and promising, “For every one of you who falls, we will take revenge” (281). It is the first time the Allies have acknowledged their situation or called them “heroes”; though Chaya recognizes that there is nothing heroic about having to fight for one’s life, it still feels good to be called so.

The firing resumes early the next morning, and despite her injury, Chaya joins the fray. Being unable to engage in hand-to-hand combat, she throws Molotov cocktails and creates as many explosions as possible. However, the Germans are relentless; in addition to their machine guns, they bring in flamethrowers, and ZOB’s death toll continues to rise. Chaya shelters in a bunker with other fighters when the fires begin, and she is relieved when Yitzchak and Esther join her. All of them sense that the end is near, but when Esther asks Chaya if she regrets coming here when she could have remained safe in Krakow or left the country entirely, Chaya responds: “No regrets” (286).

Unable to sleep that night, everyone in the bunker exhaustedly prepares for another day of fighting the next morning. Over the radio, they hear a message from the resistance leaders asking for help and resources from the Polish Underground and anyone else who is willing. However, Yitzchak sneers at this, telling Chaya that most of the weapons that the underground sold to them turned out to be defective.

The ZOB resume fighting but are unable to get close enough to the soldiers to be very effective. Yitzchak decides to break away and move closer, telling Chaya to find him later. Chaya and Esther stay together, shooting as much as they can. They overhear other fighters discussing how fighting has begun outside the ghetto as well, which gives them some hope.

The girls run into Rachel, who asks for their help to recover a fresh supply of weapons from the tunnels, sent in by the Polish Underground. When they reach the supply point—a church connected by the tunnels—Rachel tells them to bring all the weapons, food, and water back in one trip, as they cannot risk a second. However, the air around them suddenly thickens with smoke; they realize that the building is on fire and that Germans will be waiting to shoot them at every exit. Rachel instructs the girls to go back into the tunnels with the stash of weapons and stay there until it is safe to exit; she plans on collecting other supplies stored elsewhere in the building, buying the girls some time. Rachel leaves, and it is the last time the girls will see her alive.

It takes Chaya and Esther most of the night to drag the supplies out of the tunnels, by which time the Germans and their flamethrowers have killed hundreds of Jewish fighters. The girls manage to get the weapons to a supply bunker, after which Chaya changes her goals; she is a courier first, and she decides to focus on helping people escape rather than continue fighting. She explains her plan to Esther, who agrees immediately.

As they go building to building evacuating occupants, Esther and Chaya get separated as they each run from approaching Nazi soldiers. The soldiers shoot at Chaya, but she falls before they hit her, pretending to be dead. After they pass, Chaya darts into the nearest bunker, which has a tunnel that passes back into the ghetto. As she walks into the tunnel, she sees people approaching, dressed in German uniforms. Chaya prepares to shoot, but a voice calls out in Yiddish asking her to stop. A man whom Chaya remembers to be a Mr. Pilzer recognizes Chaya; he tells her that he and the group are going back up the street to try and stop the flamethrowers, hoping that the German outfits will confuse the soldiers. He also reveals that all of the remaining OD and Judenrat were shot this morning and that the Germans know about the tunnels know. Mr. Pilzer advises Chaya to go wherever the soldiers aren’t and stay there as long as she can, as the ZOB is losing the fight; the end is inevitable. Wishing each other luck, they part ways.

Chaya hides out the rest of the day in a building from which she continues to fire at soldiers in the street. After she runs out of ammunition, she waits for an opportunity to escape and join the others, but SS soldiers are patrolling everywhere she looks. The street outside her building is being used as a collection point: Resistance fighters are brought there to be shot, and civilians are being rounded up to be sent to camps.

Chaya tries to make a run for it when the soldiers line up to shoot the resistance fighters, but a soldier spots her. She continues to run even as he yells for her to stop, only to hear shooting from behind her. When she turns around, she realizes that some of the civilians have risen up and are fighting with the soldiers to give her a chance to escape. Chaya manages to make it into the nearest building with a tunnel; she climbs into it and closes the door above her, hoping that the Nazis will not find her. Wondering what she can possibly do, she falls asleep.

Chaya is shaken awake by Esther and Yitzchak, whom she is relieved to see alive. They tell her that everything above ground is burning and that the Nazis are flushing the bunkers out with poison gas. Although the fighting continues, Esther has received orders from the top: She finally reveals that she herself is the “package,” sent here to help the people in the ghetto escape when there is no alternative left. Esther knows a way out through the sewer lines, as it is how she escaped before.

Esther leads them out of the building and into the streets, avoiding detection by the SS soldiers, and they finally descend into a sewer line through a manhole. Twenty Jews are already waiting there, including Mr. Pilzer; other groups are leaving through the sewers elsewhere. Esther delivers strict instructions to the group that they are not to make a sound as they walk; they will be walking single file, with one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of them. Esther will lead the line with Chaya right behind her. The group walks for a distance without any incident, until a manhole opens up behind them and a grenade drops in; they hear a German soldier telling his companion, “…occasionally throw in a little poison gas, in case there are any Jews” (305).

As the poison hits the back of the line, Mr. Pilzer heads to the back and succumbs to the gas, spreading himself out as he does so to absorb most of it. Chaya thinks it is one of the most heroic things she has ever seen. The group continues, walking for hours. Suddenly, they hear sounds behind them, and Chaya is sure that it is a Nazi official sent in to inspect the sewers for escape attempts.

Despite Chaya’s protests, Esther breaks away from the group to meet the Nazi, claiming that since her father was a Judenrat, she can talk to him. Before she leaves, she gives Chaya a piece of paper with a message that needs to be read out on every underground radio station. She also gives Chaya directions to the exit point, where a truck from the Polish Underground will be waiting.

Esther goes up to the official and introduces herself, saying that she has lost her way in the sewers and wants to surrender; she claims that she is alone except for her guide, who succumbed to poison gas a few kilometers back. Esther is led away, and shortly after, the group hears a single shot fired.

Despite Chaya’s urge to scream and sob, she continues forward, wanting to complete Esther’s task. They reach the exit and see the Polish Underground truck, accompanied by Rubin. The group is loaded onto the back of the truck, and as they drive away, Chaya opens the note Esther passed to her and reads it aloud to everyone. It is a message from Mordecai Anielewicz, declaring, “There will come a time of reckoning for our spilled, innocent blood” (311). He urges people to keep sending help to those who continue to “elude the enemy—in order that the fight may continue” (311).

The truck takes the group to a farmhouse where the young farmer and his wife usher them into the attic; a Catholic priest distributes food and Polish clothes to them. The farmer had organized safe houses and identification papers as well. The priest notices the crucifix around Chaya’s neck and realizes that she is a courier who has seen much of the war already. He hopes that, along with the villains, she has also met people with “uncommon courage […] who will look evil in the face and say, ‘This is where it ends’” (313). Remembering Esther, Chaya affirms that she has. Chaya spots a marking on the priest’s forearm, and he reveals his Auschwitz tattoo; it reminds Chaya that hatred cuts across religions and nationalities.

Chaya and Yitzchak decide to join Rubin and the partisans instead of going to one of the safe houses. Chaya resolves to fight on behalf of all those who have already lost or sacrificed so much; she reflects that even if history describes every Jewish resistance movement during the war as failures, she would disagree: Their efforts prove that “a righteous resistance was victory in itself, no matter the outcome” (316).