Millions of Pebbles Read online

  MILLIONS

  OF PEBBLES

  Book 3 in A Holocaust Story Series

  By

  USA Today Bestselling Author

  Roberta Kagan

  Copyright © 2019 by Roberta Kagan

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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  DISCLAIMER

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  CHAPTER 66

  CHAPTER 67

  CHAPTER 68

  CHAPTER 70

  CHAPTER 71

  CHAPTER 72

  CHAPTER 73

  AUTHORS NOTE

  MORE BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

  Spring 1941

  Benjamin Rabinowitz’s heart sank as he heard the door of his apartment slam shut. The Lodz ghetto was bursting with life as he ran to the window and looked out and down onto the street. It would be getting dark soon, but children played and women huddled in groups. His palms were wet with sweat as his eyes were glued on his wife and child, who were walking across the street and turning the corner out of his life forever.

  Everything in his small world was changing. Ben felt a chill run down his spine as he watched Lila through the dirty glass window. She was carrying their son in her long, slender arms. She was leaving him. This could very well be the last time he would ever see her. And even though she’d always been a difficult woman, he knew he would miss her. Their arranged marriage had not been easy. So when she’d decided that she was going to find a way to escape so she could get their son out of the ghetto, Benjamin knew that he might as well just agree with her. It was dangerous, but if she succeeded it would probably be the best thing that could happen to his son, Moishe.

  Moishe was a small, skinny child, with pale skin that was so transparent that it was easy to trace the markings of his blue veins, a sickly and weak boy who looked half his age of four. It broke Ben’s heart to see that Moishe was not growing properly. And at four years old, Moishe still had trouble getting around without falling down on his skinny, bowed legs. Ben knew that Moishe’s chances of survival in this filthy and disease-ridden place were slim. And he also knew that Lila was determined that her son would not die. This determination was both Lila’s greatest asset and her most devastating weakness. When she wanted something she could be relentless. And this was not the first time that Ben had seen Lila’s indestructible will at work. She had stood up to their entire Jewish community when Moishe was born, refusing to have Moishe circumcised. The rabbi had come to their home to try and convince her. But she was immovable. Everyone suggested that Ben take the child to the mohel and have it done without the mother’s consent. But he didn’t. He was afraid of the power of her wrath. And he knew that she would have been furious. Her strong will was something he would not miss.

  She got what she wanted. All during their marriage she’d had a way of making him feel powerless, and he hated it. So he had secretly rebelled by being unfaithful: not with one woman but with many. However, none of them had ever captured his heart even though they made him feel like a man—something Lila failed to do.

  Now as he watched Lila carry his only son out of his view, he wondered if he would ever see the boy again. Tears filled the corners of his eyes as the figures of his wife and son grew smaller.

  “God be with you, Moishe,” he whispered. Then he added softly, “And you too, Lila.”

  He’d only returned from his ten-hour shift at his job at the ghetto tailor shop on Lagiewnicka Street a few minutes ago, where he spent all day making coats for the German army. This was work he hated. He had been going to university to become a teacher when the Nazis invaded his country and forced him out of school. But his hatred for this job was not because he thought it beneath him or because he was lazy, but it was unbearable for him to think that his hard work was helping the Nazis in their war effort. He would never have chosen this particular job. And before he started, Ben had never even operated a sewing machine but been assigned to it. And since so many others had no work, and without work starvation was lurking right around every corner, he was grateful for the small amount of money his job provided and the noonday meal every worker was entitled to. But more importantly, he was happy to have any job because it helped him to provide for his wife and son. So when Rumkowski, the head of the Judenrat, had assigned him to the tailor factory he accepted without complaining. And silently thought that at least his family would eat for another day.

  For a long time Ben sat at the window gazing out at the misery of the Lodz ghetto. He watched as a group of children, who had been strapped to a c
art like horses, made their final deliveries for the day. They were just children, boys of perhaps ten or twelve, he assumed, but their bodies slumped with defeat, and their heads rolled forward like those of old men. He watched them working like animals and thought, I hate to admit it, but Lila was right to get Moishe out of here. The Nazis work the Jewish children to death. And if the hard work doesn’t kill them, the lack of food, the filth, or the rampant spread of disease will. My boy, my only son, my only child, for that matter, is gone. Tomorrow morning, for the first time since he was born, I will not wake up to his smiling face. I will not be able to hold him in my arms and be in the presence of his childlike innocence, even if only for a short time, and forget that we are prisoners here in Lodz and put the horrors of what we are facing out of my mind.

  CHAPTER 1

  Ben was still gazing out the window when he caught sight of a familiar figure: the bastard who was known as the Jewish king or the eldest of Jews. His name was Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski.

  Rumkowski moved through the ghetto with the confidence of a king expecting the obedience of his subjects. Ben hated him, perhaps even more than he hated the Nazis. That was because Rumkowski was born a Jew, but he collaborated with the Nazis against his own people. He was a mean, heartless man, who worked the Jews in the Lodz ghetto as hard as any Nazi would have. Age did not give a person exemption from painstaking, physical work. The old and the young must earn their keep: this was Rumkowski’s motto.

  It was a beautiful spring afternoon just before the sunset of evening. Rumkowski wore a light jacket and black-rimmed glasses. His white hair erupted out the back and sides of his black fedora as he surveyed the ghetto with a serious frown. Ben spit on the floor three times as he watched Rumkowski enter an apartment building across the street.

  I’ll bet Lila let that old, ugly bastard have his way her so that he would look the other way when she took Moishe out of the ghetto. Lila would do that. She would do whatever she had to do for her son. And how can I blame her. I couldn’t help her or Moishe. I am worthless. I can’t count the number of times I would see my wife standing on the streets and flirting with Werner, that SS guard. He might have been the one who helped her. I don’t know. But I doubt she would have been able to leave this place without Rumkowski looking the other way; he is far too powerful. What kind of man am I that I can sit here and think about my wife spreading her legs for other men? I hate myself. I hate that I am too weak and helpless to protect my family. My wife had to behave like a common whore to save her child. And all I could do was sit back and feel sorry for myself. This was not the life I had planned when I married Lila. I never saw all this coming—this ghetto, this starvation, this suffering. I have always hated the fact that Lila is stronger than I am. I wanted to be the man in our marriage. I wanted to protect her and our children. I wanted to provide for them. But even before the Nazis came, everyone said Lila was a tremendous force. Her will was always stronger than mine. She was always relentless, and she always won. I am not sure whether I ever loved her. Sometimes I think I did, other times I think not. But I know for certain that I love that boy of ours, and I will miss him. There is nothing I can do to change this. Lila and Moishe are gone. And even if I could change it and keep them here with me, I wouldn’t. The boy is better off with his strong mother than his weak and worthless father. All I can do is pray for him.

  The following day several guards came to question Ben about the whereabouts of his wife and son.

  “My wife left me,“ Benjamin said, trembling. He was so terrified not only that he would be beaten but that the guards would find Lila and Moishe. “She took my son.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “I am sorry; I don’t know. Perhaps to live with another man in the ghetto,” he said, deliberately lying in hopes of buying Lila and Moishe more time to get away.

  The guard shook his head. “She didn’t show up for work today.”

  Lila worked at the knitwear shop on Brezinka Street just a few streets from the apartment.

  “Perhaps she is ill and stayed at home today? I don’t know. She left without telling me where she was going,” he said.

  “Why did she leave you, Rabinowitz?”

  “She said she’d met another man, and she was going to move in with him.”

  The guard nodded looking disinterested. “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me his name.”

  The guard took a whip that had been attached to his belt and hit Ben across the face. Ben felt the leather cut into his skin like a razor blade. Then the guard shook his head. “You are a poor excuse for a man. I can see why she left you,” he said and walked out of the apartment.

  CHAPTER 2

  Not even a full week after Lila left, the Lipman family moved in to the already crowded rooms where Ben and the other couples lived. There were four Lipmans. Asher, a strong and coarse man who spoke very little; Zelda, his young and pretty wife, and their two children: Sarah a quiet girl of five, and Solomon, a precocious and funny nine-year-old boy. Ben liked the boy. Having Solomon in the apartment made Ben think of Moishe. He watched Solomon’s curiosity at the world and wondered what Moishe might have been like as he grew up.

  Asher Lipman worked at the metal works factory on Krotka Street. He was a rough but handsome man with hard features and perpetual dark stubble on his cheeks and chin, who often came home dirty, covered in sweat, and in a foul mood. Wiry muscles stood out like snakes in his otherwise slender arms. He never spoke to Ben only huffed at him in passing. And although Ben had no justification for his feelings other than his own insecurities, he felt that Asher thought of him as a soft and useless man.

  Even though she had the two young children, Zelda worked as a carpet weaver. Her fingers were always red, covered in small cuts and callouses. The children worked too. Instead of going to school as Ben thought they should have, Sara and Solomon spent their days sewing Nazi insignias on uniforms. Partially, this was Asher’s decision, but Rumkowski, like Asher, saw no need for the children to attend school. However, each night, regardless of how exhausted they all were, Zelda sat down at the table with her two children and forced them to practice reading with the precious books she’d hidden inside her skirt when she was arrested and forced into the ghetto. Asher scoffed at her and went to bed. He thought it was more important to get his rest than to worry about whether his children could read or write. Ben overheard him say to Zelda that they were all doomed, so what was the point in learning. Sometimes after a bad day at work Asher would lash out and hit Zelda. The other men living in the apartment tried to look the other way. They didn’t want to come between a husband and wife. But even though Ben had always been a coward, he longed to stand up to Asher. It broke his heart to see the way Zelda’s husband left her hurt and humiliated.

  Asher had another bad habit. He liked to drink, and drink in excess. Many times he drank away all his earnings leaving his family struggling to pay their rent and still have enough money to buy food. But poor Zelda was a quiet girl, not a complainer. Ben knew by the way Zelda obeyed her husband that she was afraid of him. So rather than argue with Asher about his wasting money they needed for food, Zelda just didn’t eat. Ben didn’t interfere, but it broke his heart. Each week, everyone who had enough money in the ghetto was able to buy one loaf of bread. This loaf had to last for an entire seven days. Asher bought his own loaf first, then if he had enough money he bought the loaves for the rest of the family. Once he finished his, which only took him a couple of days, he ate what he wanted of his wife's and children's.

  Solomon was growing fast and always hungry. He gobbled his food quickly. He was a courageous child who forged friendships with street-savvy children. They formed gangs and stole from the vendors. Zelda was worried about Solomon. Sometimes he would go out at night and not return until morning, and she'd heard from other people that he snuck out of the ghetto in the middle of the night. She didn’t know for certain that he was leaving the ghetto and engaging in ill
egal trade, but what she did know for sure was that he was often outside of the apartment after curfew. And if he were caught, he would face Rumkowski, who was not at all kind or understanding toward children. It was rumored that Rumkowski had once run an orphanage, and he’d treated the unfortunate orphans very badly. However, as hard as Zelda tried to reason with Solomon, there was no talking to him. He would not listen. One night Asher returned late from work. It was getting dark, and Solomon was preparing to leave for the night. Asher walked into the apartment stumbling as if he had been drinking. He turned and grabbed the sleeve of Solomon’s shirt. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

  “Out.”

  “Oh yeah? I am sick and tired of you running around here like you're some kind of an animal. You are just a child, and you’re going to act like one.”

  Solomon pulled his arm free of his father’s grasp. “Leave me alone,” he said.

  “I’ll leave you alone. When your ass is black and blue. That’s when I’ll leave you alone. You disrespectful, ungrateful piece of shit.”

  “Grateful? What the hell am I supposed to be grateful to you for? You are nobody. You can’t stop the Nazis, and you are scared to death of Rumkowski and his Jewish thugs. I have no respect for you.”

  Asher pulled the belt out of his pants, then he doubled it up and began whipping Solomon. For all his bravado, Solomon was still only a child. He fell to the floor. Asher continued to rain blows on him. His lips were bleeding, and he raised his hands to cover his face. Ben was terrified of Asher, but he couldn’t stand by and watch this. He had to do something. His palms were sweaty as he gripped the corner of the wall with a white-knuckle grip.

  Zelda was crying. “Please, Asher,” she begged, throwing herself on top of Solomon. “He’s just a little boy. Talk to him; reason with him, but don’t hit him. You’re hurting him.”

  “Shut up, you stupid bitch. You should learn to keep your mouth shut when a man is disciplining his son.” Asher turned around and slapped the leather belt in Zelda’s direction. She let out a yelp and moved out of the way, then Asher turned his attention back to Solomon. “You are the most disgusting little ingrate I’ve ever seen. A man works hard all day to feed his family, and this is the thanks he gets. A wife and son who conspire against him.” Asher cracked the belt across Solomon’s shoulder. Solomon let out a cry and tried to stand up. Asher took his foot and knocked Solomon back down to the floor.