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And so the decision was made – we must flee immediately! There was no time to look back. We knew people were fleeing east [30], through Malkinia [town some 100 km north-east of Warsaw, between 1939 and 1941 the German-Russian border passed through there]. We discussed it and my parents decided to stay. ‘No, we were born here and here we’ll stay, it’d be a pity to forgo this old wardrobe, some old rag, we’re not going! But you go, save yourselves!’
And so in the evening, after the curfew, we set off, to save ourselves. We ran from Kozla Street, down the stairs to Koscielna, and there was Bugaj Street, the fishermen. We got to one of those fishermen and for two zlotys he took us to the other side of the river. He dropped us off near the zoo. It was dark. We waited there until 6am, in some bushes, the same kind of ones that are there today. At 6am we went towards the Wilenski train station. Country women in head scarves came to Warsaw with milk, they had those 20-liter cans, two cans each. They delivered the milk to their customers across Warsaw in the night and returned on the morning train. And we got through to the stock car among those women. They were returning home, and we rode among them.
There were checkpoints on the way, but somehow we managed to hide ourselves among them. Eventually we got to Malkinia, and my brother says, ‘Everyone’s getting off that side, and the Germans are yelling to be getting off the other side, so let’s follow the others.’ And we followed the women. We walked through the fields, and suddenly, ‘Halt!’ [German for ‘Stop!’] They started searching, ‘Jude, Jude,’ fished out a dozen persons from among those ladies and told them to go in that direction. Us too. The women went their way, to their villages, their homes, and us they drove in another direction.
We walked perhaps a kilometer and we came upon a crowd of people, a huge crowd! Thousands of people sitting in the neutral zone. On the one side the Russians, in those tall hats of theirs, and on the other the Germans. If you entered the neutral zone, it was neither this way nor that, nor any other. There were several dozen thousand people there. It was cold, freezing, people were dying. Some delegation went to Moscow, they let them pass. There came orders from Stalin to let the Jews pass to Bialystok [city 120 km north-east of Warsaw, in Russian-seized territories between 1939 and 1941]. There were mostly Jews there and some Poles, communists, but not many. Those were refugees from all those places that the Germans had captured.
At first, no one thought about fleeing to Russia, nor did we believe in what the German Jews were telling us about the suffering they had gone through there. A great crowd of people had gathered. Then we managed to get by train to Czyzew [small town 25 km north-east of Malkinia on the rail route to Bialystok]. That’s how we got through. There was no way of going back to the German side. Later people established transfer routes and paid to return, to bring their parents, friends with them. We didn’t want to go back. Our friends, my brother’s friends, went back to get their parents and visited ours to collect them, too. Our parents didn’t want to go. There is this Yiddish saying, ‘What happens to everyone will also happen to the bride.’ They didn’t want to, weren’t aware what would happen to them.
And thus a new epic journey east started for us. I was 14, had had my bar mitzvah, my brother was 15 years older than me. We were in Bialystok. My brother went to Choroszcz, to our sister [Pola], and learned all patients had been taken away and there was no trace of them. The Russians decided all those patients had to be liquidated [Editor’s note: There are no records of the Red Army murdering mentally ill patients. Perhaps it was a one-time action by an isolated unit]. We thus learned our sister was dead, something our parents knew nothing about.
And so in the evening, after the curfew, we set off, to save ourselves. We ran from Kozla Street, down the stairs to Koscielna, and there was Bugaj Street, the fishermen. We got to one of those fishermen and for two zlotys he took us to the other side of the river. He dropped us off near the zoo. It was dark. We waited there until 6am, in some bushes, the same kind of ones that are there today. At 6am we went towards the Wilenski train station. Country women in head scarves came to Warsaw with milk, they had those 20-liter cans, two cans each. They delivered the milk to their customers across Warsaw in the night and returned on the morning train. And we got through to the stock car among those women. They were returning home, and we rode among them.
There were checkpoints on the way, but somehow we managed to hide ourselves among them. Eventually we got to Malkinia, and my brother says, ‘Everyone’s getting off that side, and the Germans are yelling to be getting off the other side, so let’s follow the others.’ And we followed the women. We walked through the fields, and suddenly, ‘Halt!’ [German for ‘Stop!’] They started searching, ‘Jude, Jude,’ fished out a dozen persons from among those ladies and told them to go in that direction. Us too. The women went their way, to their villages, their homes, and us they drove in another direction.
We walked perhaps a kilometer and we came upon a crowd of people, a huge crowd! Thousands of people sitting in the neutral zone. On the one side the Russians, in those tall hats of theirs, and on the other the Germans. If you entered the neutral zone, it was neither this way nor that, nor any other. There were several dozen thousand people there. It was cold, freezing, people were dying. Some delegation went to Moscow, they let them pass. There came orders from Stalin to let the Jews pass to Bialystok [city 120 km north-east of Warsaw, in Russian-seized territories between 1939 and 1941]. There were mostly Jews there and some Poles, communists, but not many. Those were refugees from all those places that the Germans had captured.
At first, no one thought about fleeing to Russia, nor did we believe in what the German Jews were telling us about the suffering they had gone through there. A great crowd of people had gathered. Then we managed to get by train to Czyzew [small town 25 km north-east of Malkinia on the rail route to Bialystok]. That’s how we got through. There was no way of going back to the German side. Later people established transfer routes and paid to return, to bring their parents, friends with them. We didn’t want to go back. Our friends, my brother’s friends, went back to get their parents and visited ours to collect them, too. Our parents didn’t want to go. There is this Yiddish saying, ‘What happens to everyone will also happen to the bride.’ They didn’t want to, weren’t aware what would happen to them.
And thus a new epic journey east started for us. I was 14, had had my bar mitzvah, my brother was 15 years older than me. We were in Bialystok. My brother went to Choroszcz, to our sister [Pola], and learned all patients had been taken away and there was no trace of them. The Russians decided all those patients had to be liquidated [Editor’s note: There are no records of the Red Army murdering mentally ill patients. Perhaps it was a one-time action by an isolated unit]. We thus learned our sister was dead, something our parents knew nothing about.
Period
Interview
Feliks Nieznanowski
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