Through Blood

Chapter 11: Rescue

"I'm sorry, it was too quick for me," Ethan lamented.
"It's alright, sweetheart, you tried," Sara smiled at the skinny boy. He had tried to catch a big fat bird that sat on the windowsill every now and then. It would have made a delicious meal.

Since the Spring, Sara and the Althaus family had been eating much better than they did in the Winter. There was something on the newspaper about a good harvest that year and lots of rain and sunshine. Sara got a job as a maid, cleaning the house of a large, wealthy Polish family. They only hired Aryan servants because they distrusted people of any other race. Sara didn't tell them of her current living conditions or of her recently amplified Jewish status.

With the money she earned she was able to buy healthy rations of bread, milk, vegetables, and sometimes if she saved up enough and it was discounted, she could buy some fish or ground meat. Meanwhile, Channah, Ethan, and Livna would walk to a park on the edge of the city, where a lush forest flourished and there they would gather wild berries. It was a long walk, but always a welcomed treat.

Things were looking up, the sun was shining a little brighter. At the end of May, more people were moved in into their little community. Among them was a rabbi, and when Edel heard news of this she felt happy for the first time in a long time. "We must invite him to dinner," she said.

Channah asked around until she found him, and that evening he joined them for dinner.
They had a very special and hearty dinner that night, eating more than they had since before the invasion. Edel and Sara together cooked baked potatoes, latkes, challah, borscht, and a honey cake. It had taken up an entire monthly savings to pull it off, but it was worth it. Just the idea of having the rabbi over for dinner and cooking for him had cheered Edel up greatly.

"Thank you again for this most delicious meal," Rabbi Moshe said to them. He was an older man with a long white beard and green eyes that had a kind and compassionate sparkle.
"Rabbi, what do you think of the recent news of war between the British and Germans? Do you think it will last long?" Sara asked.
"My dear, I wish I knew. I don't know if this war will last long, if we learned anything from the last one it's that war is exhausting. And four years was far too long, I don't think it will stretch out that much this time. At least, I hope it won't," he replied.

"What about the German occupation of Poland, Rabbi, what does it all mean?" Channah asked.

"I have no clue, dear child, no clue as to what it all means. The German government has a strong attitude against us right now, they expel us, segregate us, demonize us. But this is not new to us. Our people have been suffering these hardships since the beginning of our faith's history. During the Spanish Inquisition they expelled Jews from their homes and from all of Spain, unless they converted to Catholicism. Those who refused to do either were tortured and sometimes murdered. Yet, that is just one example of many. But the lesson we must learn from it is this, we will endure. We can get through these obstacles that God has put in our way. We have been doing it for almost three thousand years," he smiled with hope.

His words indeed gave Sara a sense of hopefulness. Perhaps very soon the British and French will end Germany's war efforts. And, when that happens, they'll have no choice but to remove themselves from Poland. They'll have no choice but to leave us alone. Perhaps then I can return to Germany. Perhaps then I can return to... to my old life. Her old life, in Berlin, now just a distant memory. All she could remember from it was a face. A beautiful face, blue eyes the colour of the deep sea, strong arms that wrapped around her when he hugged her, the guilt she felt from the way she left him, the sadness it caused her. She'd had to write her letter to him twice, because the first time she cried so much her writing had been skewed and her tears had splattered the ink. She had made it a personal goal to stop thinking about him, to stop remembering him. But it was at times like these, when she felt hope again, that she would dream of returning to him. She knew it was just silly daydreams, but in her dreams he still loved her. In her dreams they got back together, as if no time had passed at all.