Page 237 - LEIBY

Chapter 31 237

Sometimes, Sandy ventured into the kitchen, where he helped
Chantche, the cook, peel vegetables for the massive pots that
bubbled in the corner. And every day without fail, when he
returned to his room in the evening, he found his personal
belongings thrown onto the floor, the small gifts that he had
received from Chantche nowhere to be found, and the few
coins that he had managed to save had somehow found their
way to the small aluminum box on Pavel’s desk.

Sandy didn’t bother to hide the paltry coins that he occasionally
received from Andz’ei, the Jewish teacher. On the contrary, he
was happy to let Pavel steal them. He knew that as soon as his
box was full, Pavel would take out all the money and go to buy a
train ticket to his village. He’d return to Stefanya and the farm,
and perhaps a more pleasant boy would come to share his room
in his place.

The orphanage grew in size. The children who had been there
first were those who had been hidden in Christian homes
during the war, but now the majority of the children who were
housed there had come later on, by train from Russia.

As more and more Jews filled the streets, the area grew more
and more dangerous. The Poles looked balefully at the Jews
who kept on coming in never-ending waves. “Didn’t Hitler
finish you all off ?” they asked, disappointed. “We’ll finish the
job he started, before you take back the Jewish property that we
accumulated during the war.”

The Poles considered the Jews to be representatives of the hated
Bolsheviks, who were coming to Poland in order to dominate
the Polish republic and to spread communism there. The anti-
Semitic atmosphere was fanned by the right-wing movements
and the men of the church, who incited their parishioners and
encouraged and endorsed acts of violence against the Jews. The
new government, headed by Ossovka Moravcki did not have
enough power to protect the Jewish minority, and besides, they
had no wish to be branded as Jew-lovers. Every day brought
new incidents of violence and murder, and in the orphanage, the
staff exhorted the children again and again to be cautious and