We Were the Lucky Ones

Halina is on her way to visit her parents at the Górskis’ house when a Gestapo officer demands to see her papers at the train station. Halina adopts an attitude of irritation, to avoid suspicion, but the officer takes her in for questioning. Halina has just started working as a housemaid for an Austrian businessman named Herr Den, so she gives his name and number when the Gestapo asks for her employer. The frequency with which people in Warsaw try to turn in people they suspect of being Jews—for measly rewards from the Germans—exasperates Halina. On several occasions, others have accused her of being Jewish. Once a friend of her former boss “whispered a spiteful ‘I know your secret!’ as she came shoulder to shoulder with Halina on the sidewalk” (280). Halina bribed her to keep quiet but became so worried that she soon found a new job.

Halina found it hard to keep silent when she overheard some Poles remarking on the burning of the Warsaw ghetto, as the last resisters there were exterminated. Halina felt tempted to join the uprising: “To play a part, no matter how doomed the effort was, in standing up to the Germans. But she reminded herself at the time that she had her parents to think of.