Tag #110284 - Interview #78196 (leon solowiejczyk)

But they started bombing out in the fields. They killed a boy who was minding the cows, our cow came running from the field. So we - me, my two younger brothers [Izrael and Mojzesz] and our mother, together with our neighbor, went across the bridge, because it was the only way out of the town. As soon as we crossed the bridge, we hadn't even gotten off the bridge completely, a plane came along and bombed the other end of the bridge. And we had to run away. Our neighbor said we'd go to Polock [at the mouth of the Polota River, on the bank of the Dzwina], because her sister Basia was in Polock. So we turned left with her towards Polock, but we only went for one or two kilometers when we started wondering what it would be like if Father came back and didn't find us.

We had some packages with us, pillows, all the valuables we could carry. It wasn't much, but it was something. And there was one cow walking with us. Mother decided to stay with the middle brother [Izrael] and wait for Father and we went to Polock. It is 35 kilometers from Dzisna [correctly: approx. 60 km from Dzisna], but it is closer if you walk along the Dzwina River. We didn't have to take a ferry, because we had managed to cross that bridge which was later bombed, so we were in Polock by nighttime. We found the house of the neighbor's sister and found a place to stay there.