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Before my return from Kielce, my father had made an attempt to run away with my sister, in a group with other people, to Pinsk, to wait things through there [25], and it was then he sold many things to have money for that. But my sister broke down, she got hysterical at the border, cried she wanted go back to Mama, and Father had to go back with her.
After my return, preparations started for another journey in that direction. My father and I set off somewhere in early 1940. Even before the ghetto was set up [26], because afterwards fleeing was no longer possible. It’s hard for me to talk about it, because we left Mother behind. Obviously the calculation was that she would watch over those few things that we had left, that the war would soon be over. Perhaps there was no money to pay for us all – the guides charged per head, after all. What did Father hope for, how did he think we’d meet Mother again? I don’t know, maybe he thought we’d find each other [after the war] if all of us survived. It’s hard to say.
My sister stayed with Mother. The parting was very hard. Mother plead, begged for Father not to take me, I remember the argument in the kitchen when my father actually got angry: it was out of the question that I’d stay. I had to go to school. I don’t remember being emotional in any way about leaving. Perhaps because that was precisely how I had been brought up – riding the train with this person, riding the train with that person, I don’t know, perhaps I was simply unemotional.
We had to cross the bridge in the evening to get to Praga [Warsaw district on the right bank of the Vistula], sleep there, and then from one of the train stations we went in the direction of Sadowne [70 km east of Warsaw], and there we got off. There were six or seven of us. There were two kids, me and Mietek, the son of our neighbor, a tailor. We were in one group with my father’s brother, the one that had studied law [Uncle Srul], and with Aunt Dora [his wife]. We got off, it was Sunday, a church opposite the station, a crowd of people in front of it. We got off that train, with backpacks, and were supposed to meet the guide. He was to take us over to the Russian side. You had to cross two borders, the German one, and then the Russian one.
Earlier, following the Ribbentrop pact [27], the Russians were letting people in, and many people fled then and got through the border easily. When we were fleeing, the Russians had already closed the border, and the Germans could basically arrest and murder us, and the Russians arrest us, certainly, or simply refuse passage. And that guide’s job was to show us the way so that we’d meet neither the Germans nor the Russians.
And there, right in front of the church, a scene just like from that Lanzmann film [‘Shoah’ by Claude Lanzmann], those churchgoers attacked us. I don’t remember whether those were the youths only, I remember they snatched our backpacks, we were robbed of everything. And only Aunt Dora refused to let go of her things, and we went back to Warsaw, to spend the night at Praga. From there Mietek and I went on foot to Muranow, back home. The adults had decided to send us forward, because they didn’t want to stick their heads out in the case of a roundup [and it was necessary to let the families know about the unsuccessful excursion].
My mother almost fainted when she saw me. And that time she went with us to Praga. We spent a week there, and Mother again organized funds for an escape. I remember the second departure better because my mother and my sister this time came to the station to see us off. I had a heart-shaped brooch, you know, a little thing with a photo of Shirley, I think it was, [Shirley Temple, born 1928, American actress], and Hanka [from Chana] had always been pleading that I give it to her, and I’d always refuse. That time, at the station, she asked me again, I broke down, that’s how I remember it today, and I gave it to her. And that was the last time... I can still see the scene, the platform, and me with Mother. I even remember how she was dressed. She was in a collarless coat, a dark one, and a small toque, a kind of small hat. I don’t remember, though, how my sister was dressed.
And so we embarked on the same voyage again. This time in Sadowne we managed to find a guide who took us on a horse carriage to the other side of the bridge on the Bug river. The Germans somehow didn’t bother us. Then we left the carriage behind and the guide started leading us through some woods and fields. It got dark, I remember we were walking, and there were some ditches, my father fell into one and pulled me with him, and we both got wet.
After that we’re walking a long time through the woods, and suddenly, out of nowhere, there appear two guys on bicycles, and they’re like, you know, typical szmalcowniks [28]. They were Polish. As I remember it today, they were middle-aged individuals, in peaked caps, the so-called cycling caps. And they started demanding money, that we give them everything we have. We didn’t have much to give them, we refused to give anything, and they simply rode away to let the German gendarmerie know, and all of us, including the two Poles and the guide, were subsequently arrested.
After my return, preparations started for another journey in that direction. My father and I set off somewhere in early 1940. Even before the ghetto was set up [26], because afterwards fleeing was no longer possible. It’s hard for me to talk about it, because we left Mother behind. Obviously the calculation was that she would watch over those few things that we had left, that the war would soon be over. Perhaps there was no money to pay for us all – the guides charged per head, after all. What did Father hope for, how did he think we’d meet Mother again? I don’t know, maybe he thought we’d find each other [after the war] if all of us survived. It’s hard to say.
My sister stayed with Mother. The parting was very hard. Mother plead, begged for Father not to take me, I remember the argument in the kitchen when my father actually got angry: it was out of the question that I’d stay. I had to go to school. I don’t remember being emotional in any way about leaving. Perhaps because that was precisely how I had been brought up – riding the train with this person, riding the train with that person, I don’t know, perhaps I was simply unemotional.
We had to cross the bridge in the evening to get to Praga [Warsaw district on the right bank of the Vistula], sleep there, and then from one of the train stations we went in the direction of Sadowne [70 km east of Warsaw], and there we got off. There were six or seven of us. There were two kids, me and Mietek, the son of our neighbor, a tailor. We were in one group with my father’s brother, the one that had studied law [Uncle Srul], and with Aunt Dora [his wife]. We got off, it was Sunday, a church opposite the station, a crowd of people in front of it. We got off that train, with backpacks, and were supposed to meet the guide. He was to take us over to the Russian side. You had to cross two borders, the German one, and then the Russian one.
Earlier, following the Ribbentrop pact [27], the Russians were letting people in, and many people fled then and got through the border easily. When we were fleeing, the Russians had already closed the border, and the Germans could basically arrest and murder us, and the Russians arrest us, certainly, or simply refuse passage. And that guide’s job was to show us the way so that we’d meet neither the Germans nor the Russians.
And there, right in front of the church, a scene just like from that Lanzmann film [‘Shoah’ by Claude Lanzmann], those churchgoers attacked us. I don’t remember whether those were the youths only, I remember they snatched our backpacks, we were robbed of everything. And only Aunt Dora refused to let go of her things, and we went back to Warsaw, to spend the night at Praga. From there Mietek and I went on foot to Muranow, back home. The adults had decided to send us forward, because they didn’t want to stick their heads out in the case of a roundup [and it was necessary to let the families know about the unsuccessful excursion].
My mother almost fainted when she saw me. And that time she went with us to Praga. We spent a week there, and Mother again organized funds for an escape. I remember the second departure better because my mother and my sister this time came to the station to see us off. I had a heart-shaped brooch, you know, a little thing with a photo of Shirley, I think it was, [Shirley Temple, born 1928, American actress], and Hanka [from Chana] had always been pleading that I give it to her, and I’d always refuse. That time, at the station, she asked me again, I broke down, that’s how I remember it today, and I gave it to her. And that was the last time... I can still see the scene, the platform, and me with Mother. I even remember how she was dressed. She was in a collarless coat, a dark one, and a small toque, a kind of small hat. I don’t remember, though, how my sister was dressed.
And so we embarked on the same voyage again. This time in Sadowne we managed to find a guide who took us on a horse carriage to the other side of the bridge on the Bug river. The Germans somehow didn’t bother us. Then we left the carriage behind and the guide started leading us through some woods and fields. It got dark, I remember we were walking, and there were some ditches, my father fell into one and pulled me with him, and we both got wet.
After that we’re walking a long time through the woods, and suddenly, out of nowhere, there appear two guys on bicycles, and they’re like, you know, typical szmalcowniks [28]. They were Polish. As I remember it today, they were middle-aged individuals, in peaked caps, the so-called cycling caps. And they started demanding money, that we give them everything we have. We didn’t have much to give them, we refused to give anything, and they simply rode away to let the German gendarmerie know, and all of us, including the two Poles and the guide, were subsequently arrested.
Period
Interview
Estera Migdalska
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