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So how were we to board the train? We went into the toilet and barricaded ourselves in there, there was no water in there, but after a long time we finally got to Bialystok. And as soon as Mama crossed the border, she got a quart of cold water from some peasant and lost her voice, because of everything. Yes, but we got to Bialystok. And there Mother went to that MOPR , or waiter's union, and she found out that Dad wasn't there.
So we decided to go to Lwow. We had never been in Bialystok before. Mama with me - a ten-year-old child - holding my hand. We couldn't even get a ticket from Bialystok to Lwow. People were lying there on the floor, at the train station. I was really scared, because the Cossacks [10] were there in those long coats, in those high boots, and Mama kept telling me how before World War I a Cossack got into their house through the window... When I saw those Cossacks... That was already in Polesie, in the area of Bialystok, the Russian cavalry was there. And some officer was there, Mama was a young woman, he helped us get a ticket, board the train. [Editor's note: The interviewee means to say that it was easier for a young woman to get help along the way.]
All in all, we ended up in Lwow. Since that moment, I remember everything better. We arrived in Lwow at night. We had never been to Lwow before, now can you imagine a woman with a child and a bundle of clothing standing at the train station in the middle of the night and not knowing whether to turn left or right. The civic militiamen were there, the ORMO [a formation created in the Soviet occupied territories, which took over law enforcement duties]. A man came up and asked, 'You're walking around with a child at night?' Mama said, 'I've come from Lodz.' And it turned out that he was from Lodz as well, a refugee. And he said, 'You know, all these politicals, they stay at the former Brygidki prison.
So we decided to go to Lwow. We had never been in Bialystok before. Mama with me - a ten-year-old child - holding my hand. We couldn't even get a ticket from Bialystok to Lwow. People were lying there on the floor, at the train station. I was really scared, because the Cossacks [10] were there in those long coats, in those high boots, and Mama kept telling me how before World War I a Cossack got into their house through the window... When I saw those Cossacks... That was already in Polesie, in the area of Bialystok, the Russian cavalry was there. And some officer was there, Mama was a young woman, he helped us get a ticket, board the train. [Editor's note: The interviewee means to say that it was easier for a young woman to get help along the way.]
All in all, we ended up in Lwow. Since that moment, I remember everything better. We arrived in Lwow at night. We had never been to Lwow before, now can you imagine a woman with a child and a bundle of clothing standing at the train station in the middle of the night and not knowing whether to turn left or right. The civic militiamen were there, the ORMO [a formation created in the Soviet occupied territories, which took over law enforcement duties]. A man came up and asked, 'You're walking around with a child at night?' Mama said, 'I've come from Lodz.' And it turned out that he was from Lodz as well, a refugee. And he said, 'You know, all these politicals, they stay at the former Brygidki prison.
Period
Interview
Halina Leszczynska
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