Ewa and Helena disappeared around the time the bakery was closed, and Professor Engal lost contact with them. In February 1952, however, the American Joint Distribution Committee was able to supply me with more information. Writing to me in Yiddish from New York, a researcher for that relief organization informed me that Ewa and Helena had been on the transport that left for Treblinka on 3 August 1942. They were gassed on arrival. My correspondent added that Rowy Klaus was transported to Treblinka several days later. From a camp survivor I later met while visiting Łódź, I learned that the young musician played violin in the camp orchestra that summer, but in the autumn he became ill with tuberculosis and was sent to the gas chamber.
Through my research, I have also learned that Zachariah Manberg – the little acrobat whom Erik hoped to save – managed to go into hiding with his mother and sister in Christian Warsaw in December 1942. Shortly after liberation, they moved to Canada. Zachariah is currently enrolled as a law student at the University of Toronto and we have established a correspondence.
I never learned whether Bina Minchenberg or Benjamin Schrei survived. They have vanished, like so many others.
Izzy was the person I most wanted to find out about, but I was unable to discover anything about his whereabouts – even if he had survived. Times were hard in Poland and it was impossible for me to travel to France to pursue my investigations. It took me years to accumulate enough savings and obtain the necessary papers from our Communist government. Finally, in the summer of 1953, I received authorization. Realizing that my wallet was as full as it was ever likely to get, I packed a bag and left.
Unfortunately, I didn’t find his sons at the address in Boulogne-Billancourt that Erik had given me. By then, I had learned that Erik had made an anagram of Izzy’s surname, which was not Nowak but Kowan. I located two Kowan families in Paris, but they weren’t Polish Jews and they had no relatives who were watchmakers from Warsaw.
To protect his old friend, Erik must have lied to me about Boulogne-Billancourt. Izzy’s sons were probably living in some other Paris suburb or elsewhere in France. I wished I had asked him to give me Louis’ full name – and made him swear to me that it wasn’t an anagram.
