Operation Gomorrah

That night it was unnaturally hot even for the last week of July, and breathlessly still despite the distant flashes of dry lightning. Mother and I went to bed soon after sunset. Although I was tired and glad to be in the same bed as her, I couldn’t sleep because of the heat and because Mother soon began writhing and gasping and occasionally crying out in her sleep. I didn’t know whether this was because of all the gas she had inhaled or because she was so upset by our deportation order. Both thoughts distressed me and I was still wide awake less than an hour later when the air-raid sirens began to wail again.

An explosion shook the building seconds later. Walls, ceilings and windows shattered and showered us with plaster and glass. Lamps and picture frames were hurled around the room. A second blast sent gale-force winds gusting through the apartment, crashing the front door to the floor, stripping mouldings, sills and sashes, overturning bookcases and tables. Then a sheet of flame flashed outside our window as a third explosion seemed to detonate inside my skull. The shock wave sent our bed skittering across the room until it tipped and spilled us on to the floor.

I was stunned. I couldn’t catch my breath and I desperately had to pee, but I was too worried about Mother to stay on the floor for long. The air was thick with plaster dust and the floor slippery with broken glass. As I urinated on a crumpled heap of rug, managing somehow to remain upright and keep my panties dry, I thought I could see Mother doing the same in another corner. I tried to call out to her but we were entirely surrounded by screaming bombs and explosions. Through a large hole that had been a window I watched as the balconies of the building next door were sprayed with shards of white phosphorus, some landing on table tops, where they glowed and smouldered like strange food from outer space. Every geranium on every balcony was clearly visible in the glare of the flames. As I searched for my shoes, an incendiary bomb thudded through the roof of our building. I found one shoe and Mother the other. Unable to speak, we embraced and felt one another all over. Finding that nothing seemed to be broken or missing, we cautiously picked our way down the darkened, debris-cluttered stairway towards the courtyard at the bottom.

Draping blankets over our heads like huge shawls, we ran to the large metal door that led to the basement shelter. Mother took the nozzle of a fire extinguisher and banged on the door until it opened. A man’s head in a large steel helmet poked out: it was our neighbour Block Warden Wiederman. ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded.

An ear-splitting explosion answered and he slammed the door. Mother banged some more and Herr Wiederman’s head reappeared. We wedged our way inside.

‘You have to let us stay!’ Mother shouted. ‘We’ve been bombed out! It’s certain death outside!’

Several of the people lying or sitting on bunks in the shelter got up and came over to the door. One, a rumpled, whiskered walrus of a man, held a lantern near Mother’s face.

‘It’s the Jews!’ a woman shouted. ‘The Jews! The damned Jews!’

The voice was neither young nor old and there was no quality of mercy in it. In fact it seemed that the woman had progressed from surprise to indignation to outrage as she repeated herself. Explosions smothered whatever else she said and I desperately hoped others would be more compassionate; the explosions, although horrific, were much less frightening inside the bunker. But the next voice to rise above the din was Frau Wiederman’s. She yelled at her husband that he had to put us out because he was in charge and it was his duty to enforce the rules against sheltering Jews.,p> ‘You’ll be held responsible!’ she yelled. ‘Think of your family.’

‘Think of us, Daddy!’ It was their daughter Monika, my former playmate. She was holding her favourite doll, holding it tight and turning slightly away as if she feared I might try to snatch it from her. ‘Think of us!’

The man with the lantern spoke up, his voice and breath thick with schnapps: ‘Listen to your family! Put the Jews out!’

‘They’re going to be deported in two days,’ Herr Wiederman said. ‘I’ve seen the order myself.’

‘All the more reason to boot them out,’ the walrus man said.

Herr Wiederman turned to tell us to leave, but Mother interrupted, pleading with him and with the others to allow me, at least, to stay, an idea that was very upsetting to me but seemed to find some support from others in the shelter. To my relief, louder voices shouted down the soft-hearted.

‘The Bolshevik Jews are behind this!’ a hoarse voice growled. ‘They sold us out. They told the English where to bomb.’

I found the idea exciting, but Mother said it was ridiculous.

‘My husband is in the Luftwaffe,’ Mother shouted. ‘He’s on his way here now. You will answer to him if you put us out!’

The response was angry insistence on our immediate expulsion. Frau Wiederman gave her husband a shove and he pushed open the door. Instead of going out, Mother stepped deeper inside the shelter.

‘You will answer…’ she shouted, and the room became silent. She didn’t say anything more, but stood for several seconds looking into their faces, her eyes glistening in the lantern light. She looked hurt and angry, but cleansed of fear, almost triumphant. Instead, many of the faces in the gloom began to look fearfully at us, apparently sensing that they had damned themselves by refusing to share their private donjon. When another explosion shook the building, Mother bent with a calm, protective look and adjusted my blanket so that it covered my head. Herr Wiederman grabbed her arm to force her towards the door, but she wrenched free. Then she picked me up and walked into the street as the door slammed behind us.