Chapter Twenty-Five

THE HOURS TICK in slow motion as we wait restlessly inside the bunker. All the fighters have been divided among the different buildings, spanning all four sections of the ghetto. I am positioned on the third floor of our Mila Street outpost, standing guard at the window as the day bursts forth into a flood of sunlight.

Sammy, still wearing his oversize jacket, was scouting outside, and now runs into the room announcing loudly: “The Nazis are coming!”

Everyone grabs their gun. Zelda heads for the rooftop with her prized possession—“Hitler’s buzz saw”—a highly advanced machine gun smuggled inside by Manny, who did not stay and fight. He’d made his own escape into the forest while I was away, taking off after his family was rounded up and murdered. But Manny did not leave the ghetto fighters empty-handed. He bequeathed his massive headquarters and suitcases stuffed with zlotys and a cache of weapons to the resistance. Just before he parted, he gifted Zelda his prized MG 34, a Maschinengewehr 34, a Nazi specialty. It can reach nine hundred rounds per minute. How Manny obtained it—like everything else he did to survive and thrive here—no one will ever know.

Pausing at the door, Zelda stares hard at our small core group: me, Jakub, Aleksander, Tosia, and little Sammy. “No one here is getting on a train today.” Her eyes are piercing bullets. “Or ever again.” Every muscle in my body draws in tightly. I know this means this is the last I will ever see of her. She is assuming the riskiest position of all: the lone sniper on the rooftop. The most visible and most potent.

I leave the window, run to her, and take this stoic woman into my arms. She is so compact. The gun wrapped around her is practically bigger than she is. I never realized how small Zelda is because in our world she is larger than life. “We will never forget you. All that you’ve given us.” I can’t help it. I kiss the top of her head, feel her flinch at the intimacy, but I don’t want to let her go. As she pulls away, I see the small bubble forming in the edge of her eye, and then it disappears quickly. Squaring her shoulders, our fearless leader takes one last look at us, nods, and heads into battle.

With a heavy heart, feeling the weight of the gun in my hand, I return to the window. The streets below are still empty and oddly glittery, as though covered with snow, from all the feathers and down bedding once belonging to those whose homes the Nazis smashed up in their daily raids. I will never get used to the sights and sounds of this hellhole, and yet I will fight for it down to my last breath.

I think of my father, sister, and my mother. I touch my barren stomach with the barrel of my gun and tighten my grip. Whatever this is and however it all goes down, it will be worth every damn bullet.

Suddenly, they come. Nazis enter the ghetto goose-stepping in unison and singing! Singing, as though they have already crushed us. Singing, as if they could push us off the map with one eye closed and a mere finger flick. My body ignites. On cue, a series of explosions resounds through the air. Arms, legs, bodies go flying. It’s the most glorious sight I have ever seen. None of us utters a sound. What we are witnessing before us on the ground is unfathomable.

Minutes later, the tanks roar in, the backup bullies, and Zelda makes her first power move from the rooftop. She lobs a grenade. Thrown with the precision of an Olympian, it lands smack in the middle of the first armored vehicle. A Nazi tank! Bang, bang, bang. And it, too, blows up. The colors—a massive mushroom-like burst of yellow, red, and black—fill the entire window.

“She did it! She fucking did it!” I scream with sheer elation as I watch the monstrous tank destruct, witness more bodies flying out—hearing and seeing with my own eyes Nazis screaming and scrambling, crying out for help. It’s magnificent. Feeling drunk on our first successes, I grab one of Tosia’s homemade miracles from the floor next to me and toss it through the open window onto the clambering, unsuspecting soldiers trying to regroup beneath us. I watch as Tosia’s gem wreaks havoc below.

“Jakub!” I scream at my husband, who is crouched in the corner furiously writing. “Two tanks down. Dozens dead, maybe more! Mark it!”

And the battle begins.

The reverberation of bullets and bombs can be heard on all sides of the ghetto, from every broken, smashed-up window. Everyone who lost someone—which is everyone—carries those souls on our backs as we fight for our lives, fight to take lives, fight for our dignity. I am no longer a woman but a she-wolf starving for blood. Aleksander is shooting wildly from the far window. Aleksander and Jakub, the three of us fighting together. My men, my family.

And then, everything changes.

A bullet flies through my window and right past me. I feel the wind of it whoosh against my face, followed by a young scream behind me. Oh no. I turn.

“Sammy!” I drop my gun onto the closest chair, scoop up the boy, hold him in my arms as the blood oozes from his coat’s breast pocket. I press my hands against the bullet wound with all my might, but there is nothing I can do to stop the hemorrhaging. I won’t let him go like this, alone, a child. An orphan.

“My coat,” he musters. “My father’s...” His words trail off, his breath rattles. His father’s coat. It didn’t shield him, but it gave him courage.

“You are so brave,” I whisper, as Sammy’s eyes begin to roll back. I kiss his wet forehead and wipe my fingers over his thick boyish lashes and gently close his lids. His nose is still running. I cradle his small head, and his newsboy cap falls into my lap. One tiny last breath, and our young soldier is gone.

“Bina, now, goddamn it, we need you!” Aleksander shouts out, his voice cracking. He sees the dead boy. “No time. Get back to the window. Fight!”

I gently lay the child down on the floor, then remove and place his treasured coat over him. Wiping away the tears rolling down my face with my dirty sleeve, brokenhearted, I return to my window and try to regain my footing. The ghetto as far as I can see is under siege.

BY NIGHTFALL, THENazis, with their state-of-the-art artillery and enough armament to capture all of Poland, retreat. Retreat! Surprised by our attack, damaged, and beaten. I will never feel this way again—this triumph, this victory, this life-defining standing ovation. I hear the victory howls up and down the street—wolves to the moon. We did it! My heart beats recklessly. We took them by surprise and fought back. Those monsters were afraid of us. Us!

“Zelda!” I scream out our window, hoping she hears two floors above me. “Zelda!”

No matter what happens in my life—if I make it out alive—I will never again feel a win as great as this. Justice has been served. Even if it was just one helping.

I picture Zelda above us on the rooftop, dripping with sweat, her mud-black eyes gleaming like a she-devil possessed as she wields Hitler’s buzz saw. A young woman led her inexperienced fighters to take down S.S. Major General Stroop’s warriors just in time for Hitler’s birthday. No greater gift.

Today, we won.

I read those exact words ten times. Jakub’s last sentence scrawled on his reporter’s page. We all gather around to see it, to witness each curved letter, with our arms draped around one another’s shoulders in a close-knit huddle. I glance over at Sammy covered by his father’s jacket. In our greatest victory, we say the Mourner’s Kaddish—a prayer for the dead—for our Sammy.

We lost, and we won.

Without warning, the door suddenly bursts open and the unimaginable storms in. The one face who will steal this stunning victory right out from under us, with his oily black Luger pointed in my direction, decked out in full Nazi regalia. His mismatched eyes are fixated and furious, but his cold, lying, punishing, traitorous mouth is smiling.