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And we were looking for partisans; there were already rumors in the area that we really wanted to join them. I have never told anyone about this period, this is really new. The chief of police was there, from the White Guard. Once, when we were going to the second warehouse in the woods near Svaritsevichi, we were hoping to find the partisans along the way. And this chief of police invited us for vodka and some food and he says, ‘So, are we going to meet with partisans?’ That’s what it looked like.
So we finally decided to give it all up, our situation was unstable and we wanted to join the partisan troops. So we decided to go into the woods, to go east. And this peasant, his last name was Shchur, who was once the manager of the warehouse, took me to a woman from the village of Ozery, who had a Jewish husband or friend. I stayed with her for one night and she went to get Grzegorz herself and walked him to that place. I had some baked chickens which my friend, Pogorzewiczowa, made for me. We were helped the most by the researchers of the Holy Scriptures – some sect [probably Jehovah’s Witnesses]. They were deeply religious people, whose faith obligates them to help others. They led us from one village to another.
The Gestapo looked for us in the first house, because we burned all the documents from the warehouse and all the grain, with Shchur’s help, was taken by the peasants. This Shchur was later tortured by the Germans, beaten, but he didn’t tell them anything. The peasants, when they got their grain, didn’t say anything of course. The Germans never got the grain and all the documents were burned. Such an act of sabotage was death for us. So they were looking for us. They sent out arrest warrants and the Gestapo.
We were in the barn and the peasant was in the house. The peasant slipped out and he led us through mud to another village. These villages were so-called ‘chutory’ [old Polish word], settlements where each house is surrounded by an entire estate. This was all in Palyeskaya Nizina. But nobody knew we were Jewish. They only knew that the Gestapo was looking for us for sabotage, for the grain warehouse. Perhaps they suspected it, I don’t know. We had these backpacks with all our things: the Jews with whom we had stayed in Vysotsk gave us some rags, sheets, such things. We had a deal that if they survived, we would give everything back to them. This Jewess told me that if her child ran away to me, I would manage to somehow save him. I wanted to tell her – the blind leading the blind. But there were such situations.
So we finally decided to give it all up, our situation was unstable and we wanted to join the partisan troops. So we decided to go into the woods, to go east. And this peasant, his last name was Shchur, who was once the manager of the warehouse, took me to a woman from the village of Ozery, who had a Jewish husband or friend. I stayed with her for one night and she went to get Grzegorz herself and walked him to that place. I had some baked chickens which my friend, Pogorzewiczowa, made for me. We were helped the most by the researchers of the Holy Scriptures – some sect [probably Jehovah’s Witnesses]. They were deeply religious people, whose faith obligates them to help others. They led us from one village to another.
The Gestapo looked for us in the first house, because we burned all the documents from the warehouse and all the grain, with Shchur’s help, was taken by the peasants. This Shchur was later tortured by the Germans, beaten, but he didn’t tell them anything. The peasants, when they got their grain, didn’t say anything of course. The Germans never got the grain and all the documents were burned. Such an act of sabotage was death for us. So they were looking for us. They sent out arrest warrants and the Gestapo.
We were in the barn and the peasant was in the house. The peasant slipped out and he led us through mud to another village. These villages were so-called ‘chutory’ [old Polish word], settlements where each house is surrounded by an entire estate. This was all in Palyeskaya Nizina. But nobody knew we were Jewish. They only knew that the Gestapo was looking for us for sabotage, for the grain warehouse. Perhaps they suspected it, I don’t know. We had these backpacks with all our things: the Jews with whom we had stayed in Vysotsk gave us some rags, sheets, such things. We had a deal that if they survived, we would give everything back to them. This Jewess told me that if her child ran away to me, I would manage to somehow save him. I wanted to tell her – the blind leading the blind. But there were such situations.
Period
Interview
Janina Duda
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