Selected text
My sister with her fur coat under her arm, I didn't have much in particular, just what we had in our hands and could take, we took. We slept by the roadside. And we walked as far as Kolbuszowa, that's before you get to Rzeszow [the distance from Bielsko to Kolbuszowa is approx. 150 km].
In Kolbuszowa we met a Jewish family; they had a farm in the village. We stayed there for a period of some two weeks, just over, but the Germans invaded there too. There was no hope of them leaving that area because they had occupied everywhere by then. And so we went back, and that time we headed for Cracow - on foot, through various places; I remember that on the way were Radomysl, Debica, Brzesko and Bochnia. Wherever there was the chance we would go a bit by cart.
By then we didn't want to go back to Bielsko because in Bielsko it was already the German Reich, and there's a difference between the General Governorship [21], and the Reich, right? Here [in the GG] Poles and Jews had some rights for the time being. But not there. And so, mostly on foot, we reached Cracow, and the aunts on Matejki Square.
Once we were in Cracow, my brother [Maksymilian], decided to go abroad, to Russia. Right after 17th September [22], he tried to cross the border with Russia, somewhere near Nisko, I think, but he was unlucky. The Russians turned him back. Lots of Jews crossed the border at that time. They thought they would be a lot better off with the Russians than with the Germans. Everyone thought that. In the end my brother came back to us in Cracow.
In Kolbuszowa we met a Jewish family; they had a farm in the village. We stayed there for a period of some two weeks, just over, but the Germans invaded there too. There was no hope of them leaving that area because they had occupied everywhere by then. And so we went back, and that time we headed for Cracow - on foot, through various places; I remember that on the way were Radomysl, Debica, Brzesko and Bochnia. Wherever there was the chance we would go a bit by cart.
By then we didn't want to go back to Bielsko because in Bielsko it was already the German Reich, and there's a difference between the General Governorship [21], and the Reich, right? Here [in the GG] Poles and Jews had some rights for the time being. But not there. And so, mostly on foot, we reached Cracow, and the aunts on Matejki Square.
Once we were in Cracow, my brother [Maksymilian], decided to go abroad, to Russia. Right after 17th September [22], he tried to cross the border with Russia, somewhere near Nisko, I think, but he was unlucky. The Russians turned him back. Lots of Jews crossed the border at that time. They thought they would be a lot better off with the Russians than with the Germans. Everyone thought that. In the end my brother came back to us in Cracow.
Period
Interview
Leon Glazer
Tag(s)