Gertruda's Oath: A Child, a Promise, and a Heroic Escape During World War II by Ram Oren Read Free Book Online

looked around a few minutes later, Lydia had gone.
    Gertruda’s fears vanished in the following days. Life in the Stolowitzky house was easier and nicer than she had imagined. Lydia Stolowitzky never made her nanny deny her faith; she let her hang the pictures of Jesus and Mary on the wall of her room and put a crucifix on her nightstand. Lydia herself wasn’t observant, and while her husband, Jacob, did contribute a lot of money to the synagogue, he didn’t attend services frequently. He was a busy man and didn’t spend too much time at home. Lydia was devoted to volunteer work in social organizations, read for pleasure, entertained a lot, and played the piano. Gertruda chose Sunday as her day off, when she attended church.
    Michael came to love her as a member of the family. Her comfortable room was next to his and she was always willing to come to him. When he grew a little older, she taught him to read and write, and took him to museums, holding his hand. She loved taking care of him. She sent photos of the two of them to her parents and wrote them that she had never been so happy in her life.
    In the evening, before he went to sleep, she sang him the lullabies her mother had sung to her when she was a little girl, and when he was sick, she sat at his bed day and night until he recovered. She watched him as the apple of her eye, bought him gifts with her own money. In time, he became much more to her than a child she was paid to care for: he was the child she had wanted so much to have but couldn’t. “You’re my dear son,” she whispered in his ear every night after he fell asleep. “My only beloved son.”
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    Gertruda walked around the big house quietly, trying not to bother anyone. She made friends with the servants and helped the cook when there were guests. Her salary was decent and she managed to save a large part of it.
    Michael was a talented child. At the age of two, he began playing the piano, with a private teacher who came to the house twice a week, and he loved reading children’s picture books. Gertruda adored how he looked, his pleasant manners, his clear voice when he sang popular songs with her. He spent more time with her than with his mother, loved to hear the bedtime stories she read to him, and missed her when she went to visit her parents.
    On Sunday, when she went to church, he would go with her to the gate and wait for her in the yard. Often he wanted to go inside and see what was going on, but she refused to let him. “You’re Jewish,” she said. “You don’t belong in church.”
    Once a week she went with him to visit Martha, the former nanny, who had now recovered. The two women became friends and Gertruda offered to give up her place if Martha wanted to return to work. Martha was glad, but Michael wasn’t. “I love Martha,” he told Gertruda, “but I love you more.” Lydia insisted that Gertruda continue as Michael’s nanny. That week, Jacob Stolowitzky paid Martha a large sum of money for her retirement.
    Michael didn’t budge from the new nanny: He wanted Gertruda to eat with him at the family table and not in the kitchen like the other workers, and when she told him that her birthday was coming, he begged his mother to give her an expensive gift. Lydia went to a fine shop, bought her a nice dress, made a small party, and gave her the gift. Gertruda wept with joy.
    Her whole world was enclosed within the four walls of the Stolowitzky house, as if it had always been her home. Lydia treated her as a sister, the servants respected her as someone superior to them. They honored her and obeyed her and she was careful not to take advantage of her position. She had little to do with the outside world and when the principal of her old school pleaded with her to come back to teaching because the children missed her, she replied politely that she was happy where she was, with people who appreciated and loved her. She exchanged letters with some of her old