June 2020

To protect themselves from Hitler, Ayden’s family must split up MARCH. MARCH. The sounds and sights of the dozens of uniformed men who walked beneath our fourth-floor apartment were tormenting. The street, located in a nice part of Warsaw, Poland, used to be so pretty. Flowers would bloom in the spring, and in the summer we would play on the stoops. In autumn, the leaves would dance to the ground in the crisp air. In winter, the snow came. It fell in beautiful heaps, covering the frozen ground. Now it was spring. The street was drab and ugly, and Hitler’s flags hung from every building. I ran to the window, my three sisters flocking behind me. I poked my head out the window. “Who’re they?” I wondered of the men on the street. “Ayden! Get away from the window!” Papa snapped in a low, urgent voice. “Why?” I wondered. I was only nine then. “Just do it.” My sisters and I pulled away from the window. “How about the four of you go to your bedroom. Bring a game,” Mama suggested. “But stay there. Papa and I need to talk.” I groaned. It was awful to have to share a room with three younger sisters, and my parents had been promising that we would move. At this point, however, it was impossible for Jews like us to move anywhere. We reluctantly went into the room and shut the door. We were in there for the majority of the afternoon. We tried eavesdropping, but it was to no avail. Eventually, Mama and Papa came to let us out. Over the supper table, we learned of the news that would change our lives. “Ayden, Rachel, Leah, Sarah,” Mama said. “We have something to tell you.” Papa continued. “Hitler is making it unsafe for us here. We must leave. And to do that, we must split up.” His words pounded in my head like a gong. Unsafe? How could we be unsafe here, on this street where I’d lived my entire life? How could we split up? Where would I go? “Mama and I are going someplace safe, but we can’t tell you where. Girls, we are sending you to friends in England. Ayden, we must smuggle you to Switzerland . . .” Switzerland? Why did I have to be separated from my sisters? How would I survive? The table swirled in front of me, and Papa’s voice became muffled. “. . . in a curtain. Understand, Ayden?” “What?” Papa pursed his lips the way he did when he was annoyed. “A curtain. We are smuggling you to Switzerland in a curtain. An old friend of Mama’s works on a train. We are going to wrap you in a curtain. Then we are going to put you and the curtain into a crate. You will go with the cargo on the train. Mama’s friend will watch you. She will get you to a safe place.” Papa spoke slowly and in short sentences to soothe me. Mama rubbed my back, and gradually my shortened breaths lengthened to normal. Still, I blinked back tears and tried to swallow. “When?” I managed to choke out. Papa and Mama exchanged a glance, as if they knew their next words would break me. “Tomorrow afternoon,” Mama said softly. I began to sob, wiping my tears on the rim of my shirt. Tomorrow? No! I couldn’t just leave my home like that! I don’t remember the rest of that night—my sisters breaking down as well—but the next morning we all woke on the couch with red-rimmed eyes. Papa tried to make the morning cheerful, saying that since we were leaving, there was no need to ration the food in the pantry, while Mama went to talk to her friend on the train. We had an excellent breakfast, but none of us could hide the fact that we could hardly bear to go. Just past noon, my sisters left. Papa and Mama told me to say goodbye quickly, and then Rachel, Leah, and Sarah, with Mama to accompany them, were gone. I wanted to cry, but there was no time. Papa pulled down the curtain over the sitting room window and wrapped me in it. He threw me over his shoulder, and we left the apartment. All I had with me were the clothes on my back. In my left hand was a sandwich, and in my right, I clutched the mezuzah from my bedroom door: a small, ornate box containing verses from the Torah. To me, it was a sign of home, a sign that I would be reconnected with my family. I couldn’t see even the faintest spot of light through the curtain, so I only knew we had reached the train station by the WHOOT! WHOOT! of the train. I felt Papa be pulled aside, and I was set down. “Ayden?” he asked. “Yes.” “I have to go soon. Ana will take good care of you on the train.” “Okay.” I tried to keep my voice level, but underneath the curtain, I was crying. “Hi, Ayden,” said an unfamiliar voice. “I’m Ana.” I was squished a bit to fit in the box, but it wasn’t too bad. “Goodbye,” I heard the muffled voice of Papa say, choking on his words. “I’ll see you again, Ayden.” I began to shake, tears streaming down my face. Why was this happening? Then I was lifted up and placed on the train. The trip took a few days. I settled into a half-awake, half-scared-to-death state for most of it, startled every time the train hit a bump or jerked to a stop, terrified that someone would find me. Ana slipped bread and a bottle of water into my crate two or three times a day and, as far as I know, sat by me all the time. The only times I made noise were when I had to relieve myself. Ana would guide me to a corner, and when I