Chapter 4

(AUG 1939 ENGLAND AND POLAND SIGN A MUTUAL ASSISTANCE TREATY)

“A Frenchman’s self-assurance stems from his belief that he is mentally and physically irresistibly fascinating to both men and women. An Englishman’s self-assurance is founded on his being a citizen of the best organized state in the world and on the fact that, as an Englishman, he always knows what to do, and that whatever he does as an Englishman is unquestionably correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets. A Russian is self-assured simply because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe in the possibility of knowing anything fully.”

― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

Exactly one day after the signing of the German – Soviet Union Non-aggression Pact, the British in their infinite wisdom and astute feel for the need for a firm response signed a “Mutual Assistance” agreement with Poland. This ill-conceived document was the trigger for World War Two in a way that Hitler never really wanted nor anticipated to be the cause for a global war at a time when he yearned for more time to build his war machine.

I sat in my little communications hub in the center of the abandoned Jewish sector of Berlin and I wondered what all the absent German Jews thought of this news of the beginnings of all-out war for the control of the civilized world. I opined that a number of them were already regretting putting off plans to re-locate to a safer part of the world and were bogged down in the tentacles of a repressive regime.

The brown shirts were still roaming the streets of the city making chaos wherever possible. I hid my knowledge that these vocal assholes would soon be crushed under the same heel that they so willingly praised with each breath they took in this pre-war period.

I looked at the German foreign affairs teletype and saw that no mention was made of the British-Polish Mutual Assistance Treaty and that was par for the course because the less media attention to the Polish question, the better in the Nazi point of view. The feed line from Moscow was equally silent and I knew right then that the wheels of invasion of Poland had already been set in motion and the two super-powers were well past the point of no-return and had no intention of changing their planning at this late stage in the gaming of diplomacy to gain advantage in a future conflict involving military might.

I took lunch at a superior restaurant adorned with the striking red and black Nazi symbols doing my best to ignore the decorations whilst concentrating on the fine cuisine.

Of course, I knew that within the month Poland would be carved up like a Thanksgiving Turkey by the Nazis and the Soviets leaving the Polish people with no place to hide and total inability to protect the Jewish citizens of the country. A large number of them had already fled to France thinking that the French promise to protect them equally as well as their own citizens was better than chancing their fate in places like Warsaw. In fact, it was the French decision earlier in the decade to rely on the Maginot Line as their military strategy that caused Poland to sign their own Non-Aggression Pact with Germany and the newly installed Hitler with the thought that France had abandoned them to the will of the Nazi or Soviet war machines. That pact had a ten year “drop dead” clause in it but it was enough to satisfy the fears of the diplomats that they would be the next shoe to drop in the Nazi quest for world domination.

I stopped by the Polish Embassy and found them in the midst of packing up all their papers and heading to the rail station to return to their offices in Warsaw. There were no smiles on any face and I saw the Gestapo “watchers” taking down the plate of any car that stopped outside the Embassy and decided it would be best for me to pretend to be a tourist and not there on business at all.

I noticed several of the workers in the Embassy were wearing the required “yellow stars” and I had this sudden feeling that they were all “dead men walking” just waiting to be rounded up and shipped east for labor or re-education or something a lot more sinister.

A young girl with a yellow star stamped my visitor’s book and I was given a brochure on the sights and benefits of vacationing in Warsaw that was probably written by some optimist with no sense for the urgency of the time and the place.

Her name tag said “Rachel” and she wore the largest black frame glasses I had seen in my entire life. I wanted to ask her if they were her choice or was there a shortage in her size. I kept my mouth shut because these were the times that one did not make a joke about any subject without careful thought as to any misinterpretation by the informers in our midst.

I offered to take her to lunch but she was afraid to walk on the street with the Jewish symbol on her coat. I could understand that and I suggested that she simply wear my coat over hers and we only got to the one directly across the wide street that was more concerned with the speed of the food delivery than in nuances of service for their customers with a hunger in the belly and no interest in silly chit-chat for the purpose of taking their minds off the problems of the day.

We sat on a long bench table in the rear of the establishment and nobody paid us any attention at all. I spoke to her in English because she had a good understanding of that language. I could have spoken to her in German but hesitated because I thought too many unknown people were close enough to hear our words and I did not want them to know the subject of our conversation.