WEEK OF NOVEMBER 7 - 13
The Girl in the Green Sweater: A Life in Holocaust’s Shadow
by Krystyna Chiger with Daniel Paisner
Non-Fiction
St. Martin’s Press
October 2008
Pitch dark, damp, dirty, freezing cold, musty and swarming with rats describes the pitiful conditions in a refuge for 21 displaced Jews. Determined to escape the final liquidation of the Lvov ghetto, their underground hiding place, ironically located beneath Our Lady of the Snow Church, is a maze of narrow pipes that lead to a small chamber in the sewers of Lvov.
Who could survive in such a dreary place and for how long? Witness the endurance of a desperate family.
“The Girl in the Green Sweater: A Life in Holocaust’s Shadow” is Krystyna Chiger’s first-hand account of the broken and beaten “leftover Jews.” With the help of Daniel Paisner, you can almost feel the turmoil of Jews during the German occupation. Krystyna and other survivors witness the extermination of innocent family and friends. First, their freedom is taken away by the Russians, and then the Germans finish the assault with their heartless labor camps and death camps.
Desperate for his family to survive, her father Ignacy Chiger, one of the finest carpenters in Lvov, is steadfast in his attempts to provide a hiding place from the ruthless German regime. And with the help of Leopold Socha, one of three sewage workers, they are all hidden underground. Even the daily ritual of gathering water is grueling and risky. Freedom costs, but money and expensive trinkets can only buy so much. When the money runs out, what keeps the sewer workers coming back to help the helpless?
Krystyna’s mother works 12-hour shifts making uniforms for the German army, the same men responsible for the extermination of her family. And after marching several miles to work, flanked by Germans with rifles, her only reward is two bowls of soup.
“There was no room for crying,” these words from a young girl who knows more about oppression than dolls:
“Whenever I could, I would listen to the playful cries of the children in the square above our underground hiding place. This was where my mind would wander. In the afternoons, I could hear the children most of all, particularly on Sundays, before and after church. Such joy! Such innocence! I longed to be among such children once more, to play their games, share their jokes, sing their songs, breathe their fresh air, smell their flowers.”
Stripped of their dignity, fortune and heritage, some things remain intact despite wear and tear: A green sweater, knitted by Krystyna’s grandmother and the will to survive. How many will emerge from the sewers of Lvov on July 27, 1944? Their plight will remain in your memory and penetrate your dreams long after the last page.
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