Chapter Forty-Three

WARSAW

TWO WEEKS LATER

WHEN SIENNA AND I enter the magnificent National Philharmonic Hall located on Jasna Street, there is no one clamoring for my autograph or hers, no one notices us at all. We are both heavily disguised, thanks to her skilled makeup artist, who accompanied us on the journey. No one pays any attention to an elderly woman with a short gray old-lady wig (never would I ever), whose black silk-covered arm is looped through her granddaughter’s, also unrecognizable in a short dark-haired wig, oversize eyeglasses, and a frumpy dark frock.

“See, I told you,” Sienna whispers triumphantly, as we settle into our third-row center seats.

The packed room silences immediately as the lights dim, and I realize I am barely breathing as the musicians file into their designated spots, awaiting the appearance of the reclusive Diana Mazur, whose work I never heard of before because I shunned anything Polish the moment I landed on Ellis Island. But once I learned Dina is still alive, all I have listened to from morning until bedtime are recordings by the gifted Polish treasure, Diana Mazur. Buried beneath every single haunting note, I see them: Eryk; her parents playing in the ghetto square; the girls in the synagogue. I have cried so many invisible tears with each glorious strike of her piano keys, feeling and remembering it all.

A hush engulfs the auditorium as Dina walks across the stage. I press both hands to my chest, as the lovely enchantress makes her ethereal, sweeping entrance. She is tall like her brother, her dark glossy hair is elegantly laced with zebra stripes of gray hanging loosely to her shoulders in soft, easy waves. She emits a regal presence in her midnight-blue silk gown, wearing the same pearl choker she wore in the picture accompanying the newspaper article. She also carries a silver beaded clutch purse with her. Who carries a purse onstage?

And then, the inconceivable occurs. Dina, standing in front of the baby grand piano, opens the purse, reaches inside, and unfolds something that looks like a rag. The audience gasps when she displays the frayed cloth for all to see. It’s a faded white armband affixed with a washed-out blue Star of David. Our Nazi-imposed badge of shame: Jew. Garbage. Vermin. Disease. Beware. Dina holds out the band for several uncomfortable moments and then slips it onto the right upper sleeve of her dress, as we were once forced to do. The Nazis made sure we stood out like a warning, a walking, talking contagion for all to see, despise, and avoid.

Dina begins to speak. Her voice is rich and melodious, unrecognizable from the timid little girl I once knew, and surprisingly commanding.

“Good evening. You know me as Diana Mazur, but tonight, I am who I once was and will always be—Dina Behrman, a Jewish survivor of Nazi tyranny. My parents were forced to cut ties with this beloved orchestra when the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939. This orchestra hall was once my parents’ sanctuary, their passion, their whole life. But in November 1940, we were seized from our family home just blocks from here. My parents, my older brother, Eryk, and me, imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto with more than four hundred thousand other Jews. We were stuffed inside a room as big as a closet. My parents, as you know, were brilliant musicians and an inspiration to so many. Despite our hellish existence, they would not stop the music no matter what, even though their music—all this—was stolen from them.” Dina’s voice amplifies and chills course down my spine. “No one—not even those criminals—could steal their passion, their God-given talent. My parents played in the ghetto’s central square every Sabbath to bring light to the darkness, to remind everyone of what we all once cherished together: the music.”

The rich Polish language that I shunned for decades fills my soul. Each word, each nuance coming from Dina’s mouth is like fresh air pumping through me. No one moves, no one blinks. I glance over at Sienna, whose eyes are fixated on Dina.

“My parents were murdered in cold blood in the Treblinka concentration camp,” she continues. “My brother, Eryk, only seventeen, was forced to take care of me and protect me until”—she squeezes her eyes shut, cuts off her own story—“we were separated. He died fighting Nazis. Died a hero. He will always be my personal hero. After escaping the ghetto, he refused to give up the struggle and insisted on helping others rather than claim his own hard-fought freedom. He searched for me day and night. And then one day”—she inhales deeply—“we learned of each other’s existence.”

I squeeze Sienna’s arm so hard that she muffles a cry. Eryk knew Dina was alive, my heart shrieks with joy. He knew.

“Sadly, my brother died just before our reunion, after bombing a platoon of Nazis at a railway station. He was shot dead by a traitor among his group. This”—she points to the armband—“was his. After the war, a brave Polish soldier who was in the forest fighting alongside Eryk saved this, found me, and gave it to me. A Polish hero who has since passed, but his son, Milos, is here tonight.” She pauses, smiles at the audience—her mother’s radiant smile that lights up her entire somber face. Everyone turns as Milos stands with his palm to his heart. There’s not a dry eye in the house—except, of course, mine.

“My name is Dina Behrman,” she repeats loudly, her voice vibrating throughout the auditorium. “My brother’s last words were: ‘Find my sister.’ This first composition is for you, Eryk, for my parents, for the Polish heroes who stood up to evil. Some who are in this very room.”

Her eyes land on me. Am I imagining it? She turns to the musicians behind her and nods. They respond with music. Little Dina, scared of her own shadow, sits at the piano in total control.

I close my eyes, swept away by the evocative rapture of the melodies. When she hits the final note of her performance, the crowd stands and roars. She touches her necklace, and I know what that means: This is for you, Mama. She looks down at the piano, rises, and turns to the audience.

I clap and clap and clap until my hands ache.

Dina silences the audience, gestures for everyone to resume their seats, and reaches inside her purse once again. I know exactly what she is getting. I don’t even need to look. I feel it, smell it. The note. From the synagogue basement. Her promise, her responsibility to the girls who died there. It happens right here, right now.

Dina clears her throat. No one moves.

“How was I saved?” she asks. “How could I go through what I endured and stand here tonight and play piano?” Her voice reverberates amid the excellent acoustics. “I am here only because of those who risked their lives to save me. It began with one courageous woman and ninety-three young girls—religious Jewish girls—who had been seized from their school in the ghetto by Nazi soldiers and taken to the basement of our city’s most beautiful synagogue. We were hosed down, deloused... and prepared.” She points over her shoulder, and it’s as if the Great Synagogue of Warsaw is materializing in the auditorium before us. “I was one of them. Barely ten years old. We had two nights together before we were to be turned into sex slaves, Nazi whores. One brave woman snuck inside the synagogue, disguised as a maid, and offered the girls a way out of hell—with poison and a choice: die with dignity or die after being used and abused. That was the only choice. Not if we were going to die, but how we were going to die. We chose dignity. And me”—her eyes glisten like water pearls—“I was appointed the designated survivor, to one day tell the story if I survived the war. I was the youngest and the smallest so I could hide. Believe me, I wanted to die with the others. I was afraid of the dark, afraid of spiders, afraid of everything. I hid for hours alone in a storage closet.”

The silence in the auditorium is deafening. “I was saved by a man I will never know and given the gift of life.” She sighs deeply. Her heavy harnessed breath is heard loud and clear. “But you see, I couldn’t tell the story. The truth became buried with everything else in my life. I only survived because of this.” Her hand tenderly grazes the sleek black lacquer of the piano behind her. “But I carried this note with me every single day.” She waves the tattered piece of paper. “And today, as I honor the memory of my parents, I am reminded that it is time to honor the note too. A sixteen-year-old courageous girl named Lilah, representing all the girls, scribbled this before her death and stuffed it inside my shoe. ‘Don’t let our deaths be in vain, Dina,’ she told me. ‘You must tell the world what happened to us.’ Here are Lilah’s last words:

“‘I do not know when or if this letter will reach someone sometime. But if it reaches anyone, we shall not be alive by then. Please recite Kaddish for ninety-three clean, innocent Jewish girls who decided to take their lives in their own hands and not be mutilated and dishonored by the dirty S.S. officers.’”

Dina looks up. “Those girls all died by poisoning. I saw each brave girl’s last breath with my own eyes. I was there, the sole witness. And now I’m here, on this stage. I survived for them. Playing piano is survival for me.”

Sienna’s cameraman captures the entire performance from the side of the hall, where the other international journalists and crews are standing. Much later, I would learn that the cameraman was given alternate instructions by Sienna. He was told to zero in on Dina’s face and then mine, back to hers, back to me, showcasing a tennis match of unfiltered emotion. This exchange would later become one of the most poignant moments of her film.

When the performance ends and the musicians take their leave, there is a light tap on Sienna’s shoulder accompanied by muted instructions. She leans over and whispers to me, “Diana Mazur will meet you in her dressing room. It has been prearranged. She is waiting for you, Lena.”

I CLING TOSienna’s arm as we make our way to the dressing room, terrified my shaking legs will give out on me. The security guard knocks and Dina answers. He steps aside and we face each other. Time, past and present, slams together. We both don’t move.

“Dinale,” I whisper. Little Dina.

“Bina.”

She knows. She saw me in the audience. Sienna had sent word earlier that we were there. She ushers me inside the dressing room, and we fall into each other’s embrace—two old women, two young girls merging—forgetting time’s passage and those milling around us. Our clinging bodies express everything we need to say, and we are unable to peel away from each other.

I look into her teary eyes when we finally break apart, and she leads me to the small couch in the corner of the room. She instructs her assistant, Sienna, and the cameramen to leave the room. They were permitted to film the moment we reunited, but now the rest is ours alone, she told them.

“Did you know about me... Lena Browning?” I ask her once the others have left the dressing room.

“Yes.” She averts her lovely gaze. And I get it. The tarnished memories, the note she never shared with the world, and the guilt of surviving prevented her from reaching out. “I knew,” she admits, but that is all she says. I don’t push it. It doesn’t matter. We are here now. Survival is about secrets, about extraordinary measures taken to stay alive. The equation is absolute: If you survived, it meant others did not. The trauma of a second chance at life, a second act, is at once miraculous and unendurable.

“The violin,” I say softly. My heartbeat quickens. How do I tell her that I traded in her parents’ prized possession for my life, when it was meant for her? For once, I choose truth. “I saved it, Dina, hid it for as long as I could. And then I was forced to trade it to get across the border. I had nothing else. I’m so sorry.”

She leans forward, places a gentle finger to my lips to stop the words from running. “What matters is that I got it back. I searched for it for ten years after the war and then learned through a colleague—a prominent violinist—where it landed. It was sold during the war to a crooked art dealer, and ultimately it ended up in the hands of someone who didn’t know its history. An old friend of my father’s, who was high up in the government, helped me get it back.” She bites down on her bottom lip, and I know without her telling me that it must have cost her everything.

“Eryk knew you were alive,” I say, and change the subject.

She presses her hand to her heart. “Yes, he knew.”

Over the next thirty minutes, puzzle pieces from our past meld together. I tell her all about Stach and ?egota, that he was the one who rescued her from the synagogue basement. That I’d heard she made it to the forest, but never knew for sure—one of my deepest pains. A long excrutiating silence passes between us. Blame, perhaps? I see the agony growing inside Dina’s wounded eyes. The toll of the past has become too heavy. It is time for me to go.

I say the thing that normal people would say, If you ever come to Los Angeles ... but we both know, given our age, our history, that this is it, our lone moment of reconciliation. I rise slowly, wanting to leave, yet yearning to stay. “The girls, Dina. You made them proud.”

As the tears stream down her lovely face, I take her genius hands in mine for a final embrace, and then we hold on for just a little longer.