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Seeing how things were, my parents decided to go to Warsaw. There were six of us: my parents, Grandma, me, and Mr. Rozen, a friend of my parents. We decided to walk apart from each other, so that if one of us got caught it wouldn't cause us all to be killed, but still close enough to see the others. We were supposed to meet at the railway station in Krasnystaw, in the house of a railway worker, whom Grandma knew. We got on a train and got as far Rejowiec, when I saw my mother and Grandma being escorted by two 'Bahnschützer' [German for 'railway guards'] to the guardhouse. We saw them being arrested. And so we kept on our way to Warsaw - Father and I in one compartment, Mr. Rozen in the next.
We got off the train at the Dworzec Glowny station in Warsaw; it used to be where the Warszawa Srodmiescie station is located today. Father had the address of a hotel on Widok Street, where they in turn had the address of the place my mother's sister, Rachela, stayed at. We stepped out on the platform and saw at least ten people from the Zamosc ghetto had been on the same train. One of them, a very pushy gentleman, didn't know Warsaw at all and started to shout to my father, 'Where's Zlota Street?' Father wanted to leave him behind, he was afraid we'd get caught, because the man had a Jewish appearance. We started to walk away fast, he ran after us and, forgetting himself, shouted, 'Garfinkel, where's Zlota Street?'
The Warsaw police probably knew there were going to be some Jews on that train, they had some operatives at the station, some navy-blue policemen [36], anyway - they caught us all that day. The precinct was just opposite the station, on the other side of Jerozolimskie Avenue. They dragged us all there. The navy-blue policemen were questioning us: 'We're going to take you to the ghetto' [37]. It was already after the main July-August deportation action [38], of course, but several tens of thousands of people still lived in the Warsaw ghetto. We started to speak with the policemen to make them let us free, and in the afternoon they eventually agreed, letting us go in groups of two or three every couple of minutes, without informing the Germans.
We got off the train at the Dworzec Glowny station in Warsaw; it used to be where the Warszawa Srodmiescie station is located today. Father had the address of a hotel on Widok Street, where they in turn had the address of the place my mother's sister, Rachela, stayed at. We stepped out on the platform and saw at least ten people from the Zamosc ghetto had been on the same train. One of them, a very pushy gentleman, didn't know Warsaw at all and started to shout to my father, 'Where's Zlota Street?' Father wanted to leave him behind, he was afraid we'd get caught, because the man had a Jewish appearance. We started to walk away fast, he ran after us and, forgetting himself, shouted, 'Garfinkel, where's Zlota Street?'
The Warsaw police probably knew there were going to be some Jews on that train, they had some operatives at the station, some navy-blue policemen [36], anyway - they caught us all that day. The precinct was just opposite the station, on the other side of Jerozolimskie Avenue. They dragged us all there. The navy-blue policemen were questioning us: 'We're going to take you to the ghetto' [37]. It was already after the main July-August deportation action [38], of course, but several tens of thousands of people still lived in the Warsaw ghetto. We started to speak with the policemen to make them let us free, and in the afternoon they eventually agreed, letting us go in groups of two or three every couple of minutes, without informing the Germans.
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Interview
henryk lewandowski
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