Heartbreak

Author’s note: In response to Milkweed, a historical fiction by Jerry Spinelli, I am writing to Janina, a young girl who lived in the Warsaw ghetto during the Nazi occupation of WWII. Janina’s Jewish family was forcibly relocated to the ghetto, a section of Warsaw that was sealed off from the rest of the city with a wall. Her character haunts me.

Oh, Janina, you obstinate girl, you break my heart with your stubbornness. Why couldn’t you just accept that your life from “before” was over? No more hair ribbons or birthday parties with bakery cakes. No more gardens and toys. It wasn’t just you; every Jewish child lost their innocence along with their possessions. But you! You just could not accept this! You screamed, you fought, you refused to exist in this new world with any kind of peace.

Yet the worst was that you would not listen. Not to Misha, who warned you how dangerous it was to follow him as he escaped the wall to smuggle food. Not to your father, who echoed Misha’s warnings. Could you not see that they wanted to keep you safe? And finally, Janina, your absolute refusal to escape once and for all.

Do you remember, Janina, that last night that you and Misha slipped through the hole under the wall? How Misha pulled on your arm and begged you to run away with him, implored you to run away from the ghetto, the wall, the war, and keep on running? Did you not realize that your father had asked him to do this, had asked Misha to help you survive? But no, you stubborn girl, you broke free of Misha on that last night, and you ran straight for the trains, choosing your father and certain death over Misha and life. That last image of you, screaming as the Nazi soldier picked you up and threw you into the boxcar, burned itself into Misha’s memory – and into my own.

Neither Misha nor I can ever be the same now. Your choice haunts us. Misha spent the rest of his years babbling incoherently about the bits and shreds of that hellish time in the ghetto, unable to function competently in a post-war world. And I? I watch the milkweed pods burst open, sending seeds and fluff flying gently into the summer sky, so much like angels and ash.