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I convinced my brother [Emanuel]: ‘Listen, we have to leave. We have to!’ We weren’t ready [for the trip]. [They only thing we had] was a small sack of sugar. Maybe 5kg, maybe 3kg. So we brought it along and left on foot. We knew the area. We went through a forest, through fields.
We walked and walked, but that was just the beginning of the Gehenna. All the way to the Soviet border? To that old border, in Rowne [a city in the western part of Ukraine, the capital city of the district. It’s located on the main road between Warsaw and Kiev, about 200km from today’s Polish border.] Somewhere on the way to Dobromil [a town in Ukraine located in the Lwow county], fortunately, we met a group of ladies from our town. Glansberzanka, Wilner’s wife, with a small child in her arms, and some other [woman was with them]. Three of them. And my brother says: ‘Listen, you sit down here, I’ll walk them off the main road for a bit and then come back.’ I said: ‘Good’. I sat down. What difference does it make? Sitting or walking. I sat there until late at night. [Finally] I said: ‘There’s no point for me to stay here. He must have stayed with them.’ And I decided to go on. Without him. I can see a ‘tachanka’ coming, Russian vehicles. Those were some kolkhoz [8] men, I ran after them and wanted to get on. I ran up, jumped on at the back [of the ‘tachanka’], and they lashed me with a whip: ‘Hola, kuda, kuda [Russian: where]?’, but I gave them such a speech, such an interpretation, that they understood.
And we drove and drove, I don’t know how many days, nights. I was hungry, simply hungry. Why not? I always had a good appetite. And I had nothing there. That sugar [only], [but] I don’t know what happened to it, did I leave it out [on the road] there, did my brother take it? Well? I ride with them and see that they’re eating. They had provisions, butter in a barrel, food. And they were bored and didn’t like they had a freeloader on board. ‘Listen, you can’t be like that. You’ll be driving the horse.’ ‘Not a problem.’ At first those horses did whatever they wanted with me. I had never driven a horse carriage [before], and they kept scorning me for it. And finally we got somewhere to Rowne. I remember it more or less. And they went to a military point there.
I can see they’re murmuring there on me, I think, that I’m a who-knows-what. And they took me for questioning, for a conversation. Fortunately I had a passport on me. But, if I had known what I know today, that I had a wrong passport, because I had a note in it that I have a sister abroad. [My] sister, Minka, when she wanted to go home [to Przemysl] from Cracow, she had to cross the border. And they must have noted that somewhere there. And later, when I got a Soviet passport, I also had a note [in it] that I have a sister abroad. [So they asked me] if I had anyone abroad. They always asked whether you had anyone on the other side of the ‘kordon’ [Russian: border]. So I say: ‘Yes, my sister is abroad, in Cracow.’ ‘All right.’ And they started talking to me [in Russian]. Fortunately I was able to talk to them. They spoke [Russian], I spoke some similar language and we managed to communicate. ‘OK, you can go’ and they left me alone. All right. Off I went.
Where to? To a train. Besides, it wasn’t far from a train station. What kind? A cargo train. Cars were divided with wooden planks, upstairs and downstairs, so that more [people] could fit in. [And] there [on the train station] entire Soviet families, with children, were running away home. Excellent, whichever way was good for me. On larger stations, since it was still the Soviet side at the time, the trains would stop. They [the Soviet families] we unhappy because they had money, but nothing to eat. They would ask to get them some groceries. [So] they’d give me those rubles, I’d jump out of the train whenever it stopped to buy food. And so I rode with them, buying them food, eating at the same time, right. We went together, but I don’t know how long because it was still on the cargo train. First we got to Turkmenistan, later all the way do Ashkhabad. That’s the capital city of Turkmenistan, on the Caspian Sea. It wasn’t far to Iran from there.
We walked and walked, but that was just the beginning of the Gehenna. All the way to the Soviet border? To that old border, in Rowne [a city in the western part of Ukraine, the capital city of the district. It’s located on the main road between Warsaw and Kiev, about 200km from today’s Polish border.] Somewhere on the way to Dobromil [a town in Ukraine located in the Lwow county], fortunately, we met a group of ladies from our town. Glansberzanka, Wilner’s wife, with a small child in her arms, and some other [woman was with them]. Three of them. And my brother says: ‘Listen, you sit down here, I’ll walk them off the main road for a bit and then come back.’ I said: ‘Good’. I sat down. What difference does it make? Sitting or walking. I sat there until late at night. [Finally] I said: ‘There’s no point for me to stay here. He must have stayed with them.’ And I decided to go on. Without him. I can see a ‘tachanka’ coming, Russian vehicles. Those were some kolkhoz [8] men, I ran after them and wanted to get on. I ran up, jumped on at the back [of the ‘tachanka’], and they lashed me with a whip: ‘Hola, kuda, kuda [Russian: where]?’, but I gave them such a speech, such an interpretation, that they understood.
And we drove and drove, I don’t know how many days, nights. I was hungry, simply hungry. Why not? I always had a good appetite. And I had nothing there. That sugar [only], [but] I don’t know what happened to it, did I leave it out [on the road] there, did my brother take it? Well? I ride with them and see that they’re eating. They had provisions, butter in a barrel, food. And they were bored and didn’t like they had a freeloader on board. ‘Listen, you can’t be like that. You’ll be driving the horse.’ ‘Not a problem.’ At first those horses did whatever they wanted with me. I had never driven a horse carriage [before], and they kept scorning me for it. And finally we got somewhere to Rowne. I remember it more or less. And they went to a military point there.
I can see they’re murmuring there on me, I think, that I’m a who-knows-what. And they took me for questioning, for a conversation. Fortunately I had a passport on me. But, if I had known what I know today, that I had a wrong passport, because I had a note in it that I have a sister abroad. [My] sister, Minka, when she wanted to go home [to Przemysl] from Cracow, she had to cross the border. And they must have noted that somewhere there. And later, when I got a Soviet passport, I also had a note [in it] that I have a sister abroad. [So they asked me] if I had anyone abroad. They always asked whether you had anyone on the other side of the ‘kordon’ [Russian: border]. So I say: ‘Yes, my sister is abroad, in Cracow.’ ‘All right.’ And they started talking to me [in Russian]. Fortunately I was able to talk to them. They spoke [Russian], I spoke some similar language and we managed to communicate. ‘OK, you can go’ and they left me alone. All right. Off I went.
Where to? To a train. Besides, it wasn’t far from a train station. What kind? A cargo train. Cars were divided with wooden planks, upstairs and downstairs, so that more [people] could fit in. [And] there [on the train station] entire Soviet families, with children, were running away home. Excellent, whichever way was good for me. On larger stations, since it was still the Soviet side at the time, the trains would stop. They [the Soviet families] we unhappy because they had money, but nothing to eat. They would ask to get them some groceries. [So] they’d give me those rubles, I’d jump out of the train whenever it stopped to buy food. And so I rode with them, buying them food, eating at the same time, right. We went together, but I don’t know how long because it was still on the cargo train. First we got to Turkmenistan, later all the way do Ashkhabad. That’s the capital city of Turkmenistan, on the Caspian Sea. It wasn’t far to Iran from there.
Period
Location
Poland
Interview
Sokal Jan
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