Tag #106654 - Interview #78163 (danuta mniewska)

It's the first day of the deportations, 22nd September 1942, and our street has been named. It's terribly hot, and my mother is pacing the room in a warm coat - up and down, from the door to the window, like a lioness - and trembling. My father still had some money, some gold rubles, so he gave two to my sister and two to me, sewed them into the sleeve of my jacket. And he said, 'Remember not to touch it. You can touch it only if you need to buy bread or to save your life. And go to the hospital, you'll be safer there'. And I flew out of the apartment. Quite like in those Chagall [18] paintings - simply flew... How can you bid somebody goodbye if you know you won't see them again... We already knew for sure at that point that it was death coming.