I lived with my parents in Otwock, a resort town 28 km south of Warsaw. The town is situated in the midst of a pine forest, on sandy soil and those features gave the town its specific characteristic as a health resort. There were several well-known sanatoriums, most of them were located on the other side of the railway tracks, at the very end of the villa section of the town.

However, one health resort called Sanatorium Marpa was at the end of Swiderska Street. There, beside the sanatorium, was the villa owned by Mr. Gelblum where we lived and where I spent my happy childhood years. Gelblum’s villa was surrounded with those pine trees, which my friends and I used for climbing races, to see who could shinny up the trees the fastest and highest.

I attended an elementary school named simply School Number Two, which was located at the end of Karczewska Street, on the outskirts of Otwock, beside a large bread bakery.

My home teacher was a lady named Mrs. Zajdman, and the name of the principal of the school was Mr. Misniakiewicz. Not far from our school on the opposite side of Karczewska Street was School Number One, which only Polish Catholic children attended.

It happened quite often that on the way to school we had to defend ourselves from attacks by boys from the other school. Because of these fights the entrance to our school was changed to Androlliego Street, in the back of our school building. Many of us considered this change to be beneficial because there was an open field beside the new entrance where we could freely play ball. At the beginning of Androlliego and Kolejowa Street, during the winter, there was an ice rink where we could skate as long as we wanted for a minimal charge of a few Groszy - Polish coin currency. Every day on the way to school along Swiderska Street, I passed by the bakery of Bezik Bursztyn, where every Friday we used to bring our cholent pot to be baked in his oven, overnight, for the Sabbath meal. I vividly remember how proudly I carried home the warm cholent pot and the aroma and taste of it at our Sabbath table.

Both of my parents worked in Warsaw and they commuted there every day by the newly constructed, fast electrical train. Father was the co-owner of a small variety store, and mother tutored children who attended public school, but needed extra help in certain subjects. During the summer vacation we lived in Swider, a summer resort, only a few kilometres from Otwock, where many families from Warsaw used to come for the vacation months. Among these families were some of my mother’s pupils, who would continue to study with her.

I was the only child in my family. My older brother died when I was a small child, and I do not remember this. Thus I remained an only child, although this did not hinder me from becoming quite independent later on. In the meantime I enjoyed my privileged status, especially during those summer months.

Back in Otwock while we walked to the synagogue early on Saturday mornings, with me carrying my father’s prayer shawl bag and trying to match his footsteps, my father taught me to remain a faithful Jew, and explained the significance of the tallis as an ancient Jewish religious garment. As it was only a few years before my Bar-Mitzvah, celebrated by boys reaching the age of thirteen, Father urged me to study the Torah more eagerly (the first five books of the Bible) so that I could prepare for reading my Torah portion at my Bar-Mitzvah. The following summer I would be twelve years old already, and I had to be aware of my impending responsibilities and gradually be able to take part as an adult.

Next we had to start preparing for the High Holidays and school. I promised my father to study more eagerly and thus be ready for my Bar Mitzvah. But nothing my father could have told me prepared me for September 1, 1939, and the German occupation of Poland. Very soon I had to think and act as a grown-up and it was Hitler and his army, not my father, who took care of that. Fear, hunger, and deprivation forced me into adulthood and taught me to maneuver through the cruelties of war. No teaching of Jewish moral principles by my father, our Rabbi, or my schoolteacher were relevant under these new conditions, as I had to conceal my Jewish origins in order to survive.

In that tragic month of September 1939, I lost my father. He perished in besieged Warsaw, as a soldier of the Polish army defending the capital of Poland. Only much later, I learned of his death. Unfortunately, it happened that I also learned some time after the fact of the death of my mother at the end of 1941.

When the Germans invaded Poland on September 1^st of 1939, I was eleven years old. My idea of life and all that happened at that time was perceived from the point of view of an ordinary eleven year-old boy.

Conditions and circumstances created many occasions whereby, very soon I had to think and act like an adult. I had to learn and very quickly how to adjust to the new situation.

The German Nazi policies carefully arranged that from the very beginning of the occupation, Jews were deprived of their basic human rights. Laws directed against the Jews were put into effect swiftly, for example, forbidding attendance in public schools.

I can recall how that order impacted on my own life. When the German authorities finally permitted the re-opening of the elementary schools in the town of Otwock, I began to attend School Number Two again. The walk to school from our home was a long one, but I did not mind this. Walking every morning to school and busying ourselves there and at home with our studies, gave us a feeling of normalcy, and made us temporarily forget the mounting difficulties of life under the occupation. However, this did not last long! During the short period of renewed school attendance, all of us, teachers and pupils alike, awaited the return of our school principal who was mobilised into the army at the beginning of the war. Everyone believed that he was alive and would soon return to his post as the head of our school. Somehow I connected in my mind the absence of my father with that of my school principal, and hoped that both of them would return alive and well.

A few weeks passed when suddenly everyone heard that the principal had returned to Otwock and would be back in school any day. In fact, he was back in his office soon - not to begin work again, but to announce the closure of the school. We assembled in the courtyard in front of the school and there the principal announced the sad news.

Pale, and in a trembling voice, he read the official decree:

"In accordance with the instructions of the German authorities, all schools in the Warsaw district will be closed".

He did not mention the fact that only schools for Jewish children were closed. Of course, in comparison to what happened later it was a small event, but it was my first negative experience.

Thus I became free of school, staying home all the time with my mother in our empty home. To add to our misery, we soon learned the truth about my father’s tragic death. One day we received a note from the Jewish Burial Society in Warsaw, called: Ostatnia Droga - (Last Way), asking us to come at a certain time to the cemetery, where we witnessed the exhumation from a mass grave of the bodies of soldiers fallen in Warsaw during the fighting. My mother was not able to recognize her husband among the laid-out bodies, still in military uniform, with blackened and unrecognizable faces. But from the documents we knew that he was really Abram Finkielman, my father.

My mother signed some papers, and with the help of a man from the Burial Society I recited the mourner’s Kaddish. Afterwards they proceeded with the individual burials of my father as well as of the others. My father was lowered into the grave wearing his military uniform, the few attendants began to shovel the sand over him, and my silent stone-faced mother took my hand and led me out of the cemetery.

I was eleven years old at that time, and I am not sure if I realized the consequences of the loss of the head of our small family. On the way back to the train station, a motorcycle column of German soldiers thundered by, and we, together with other passers-by, hid quickly behind one of the gates of a building, until the Germans disappeared. Tired and broken-hearted, we returned to our home in Otwock. Here, we had to face the new reality - how and from what to draw our livelihood? The little store in Warsaw, of which my father was a partner and where he invested most of his savings, was reduced to a heap of ruins during the bombardment of Warsaw.

The German discrimination against Jews intensified from month to month, and new anti-Jewish orders and proclamations appeared constantly. One of the policies, which was issued on November 18, 1939, to be enacted December 1, 1939, concerned the orders of the Nazis requiring all Jews over the age of twelve to be distinguished from the rest of the Polish population by wearing white armbands with the Star of David.

The armbands signified not only a distinct separation of the Jews from the rest of the population, but also served to degrade the Jews. The Jewish Council of Elders (later called the Judenrat) was responsible for making sure that all Jews were aware that they must follow the Nazi orders precisely with regard to the size and clarity of the armband. The order was signed on 18 of November by the Governor, named: Wachter (see Appendix C).

The fall of 1939 passed, as did the year 1940, which was filled with more orders of persecution against the Jews. At the time, I constantly heard about the worsening situation for the Jews, and about what might happen to them next. Not long afterwards, those questions were answered by the invaders. In the beginning of November of 1940 announcements appeared on the streets, of the creation of Special Jewish Quarters, which came to be known as ghettos. This as we now know, was the prelude to the imminent extermination of the Jewish people. For the ghetto in Otwock, that fated time was August 19, 1942.

The German Nazi propaganda included untruths to lull people into a false sense of security. For instance, they announced a number of administrative measures, such as forbidding raising the rent for those to be resettled into the Jewish Quarter. Thus, the Germans tightened the noose around the Jewish population, while pretending to be good rulers and administrators.

In reality, according to the Nazi plans, the victims themselves were supposed to help in their own destruction. The Germans transferred the task of moving the Jewish population to the proscribed city section to the Jewish Council, the Judenrat. Of course, no one could have foreseen the Nazi atrocities and the murderous plans to eliminate the whole Jewish nation. When the German authorities ordered the ghettos to be established, the task was given to the Jewish representatives, formerly called Kehillot, and changed by the Germans to the name "Judenrat".

ANNOUNCEMENT

 

To be posted in all places, informing about the establishment of Jewish living quarters on certain streets listed.

Paragraph 3: The resettlement of the Jews is to take place December 1^st, 1940, after which date the right to reside in this section will be restricted to Jews only. The Germans and the Poles must relocate to other sections of the City.

The Polish stores and businesses must begin to move out from the Jewish Health and Residence Quarters right away. The final date for liquidation of the Polish establishments is January 1^st, 1941.

Up to the date of December 1^st, 1940, the Jews are allowed to take their belongings to their new living quarters, after which date they are forbidden to remove them.

The living quarters vacated by the Jews during the resettling, and which will then be occupied by the Poles, are to be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected before the Poles move into them. This is to be done by the Jews themselves or at their cost and supervised by the City’s Medical Officer.

Paragraph 6: Jews do not have the right to be outside their place of residence on weekdays between 7 p.m. and 8 a.m. and between 7 p.m. on Saturday till 8 a.m. Monday.

Paragraph 8: The Mayor and the Jewish Council are responsible for the above resettlement to the new Quarters. The Mayor of the town, when performing these duties, can use the help of the Polish police.

Paragraph 9: After the 1^st of December, 1940, it is prohibited for Jews who come from other places, to enter the Jewish living quarters. Exceptions are permissible only by a written permit from the Captain of the Civic Guard.

Signed,

Sub.Lieutenant, Dr. Rupprecht(see Appendix D)

 

Shortly afterwards the following announcement was posted, indicating an answer to concerns that Jews had about the resettlement process (see Appendix E).

ANNOUNCEMENT

Regarding the order of The Captain of the Civic Guard, I inform you of the following :

1. The decision of the Captain of the Civic Guard to establish Jewish Quarters is final and there will be no changes. Therefore any requests about changing the borders are to no purpose.

2. The date fixed by the Captain of the Civic Guard to remove the Poles from the Jewish Quarters and to take up new places of residence and the movement of Jews to the Jewish Quarters is December 1, 1940, it is definite and final. Not following these orders on time will lead to very serious consequences.

3. In order to precisely and promptly execute the above order pertaining to changes of the living quarters, one should not leave it to the last day.

Otwock 20, XI, 1940 MAYOR Jan Gadomski

The following letter to the Mayor of Otwock was sent by the weekly Der Sturmer, edited by Julius Streicher. (See Appendix F)

Nurnberg, November 20^th, 1940

Respected Mr. Mayor!

 

Because all Jews in Otwock were displaced, they have left behind them all kinds of Hebraic books, pictures, and ritual objects. Because those things are of great interest and value to us, we request that you kindly send them to us. We thank you kindly in advance. We will pay all the expenses for packaging and shipment.

 

Heil Hitler!

Der Sturmer

 

The Judenrat overwhelmed by the new tasks and responsibilities, quickly began to effect the formation of the ghetto. They notified the Mayor of the city, Mr. Gadomski, in writing about the completion of the transfer of the Jewish population of the Jewish living Quarters in the city of Otwock. (see Appendix G)

 

To the Mayor, Town of Otwock:

According to the correspondence of Mr. Mayor, dated 29.XI.1941 Nr. 1- 12, the Jewish Council in Otwock have the privilege to inform Mr. Mayor that the relocation of the Jewish inhabitants in Otwo the established Jewish Quarters has been completed on 30^th. November, 1940.

Chairman of the Jewish Council.

Otwock, 4 December, 1940

 

Taking into account the specifics of the resort town, and the large numbers of the Jewish population, three separate Jewish living sections were formed in Otwock. One was the city centre, consisting of a number of streets beside the bazaar and along Swiderska Street, with all the small streets connected to it. Another Jewish area was designated among the villas, on the other side of the railway tracks. The third one comprised the sanatoria which, on their own, formed an entity.

By the middle of January 1941, the three established Jewish Living Quarters were changed into closed ghettos. On January 13, 1941, a circular was sent to all Mayors of towns and administrators in Poland, placing responsibility on them for preventing the free movement of Jews. Copies were sent to the German Gendarme stations, the Criminal police and the Polish police, informing them that the police were responsible for the Jews’ compliance of the laws forbidding exit from the ghetto. Their instructions began with the statement that punishment should be meted out ruthlessly to transgressors of the laws governing the ghetto. (See Appendix H)

 

REGARDING THE JEWISH LIVING QUARTERS:

1. By the order of the Governor the Jewish Quarters are closed ghettos. From this date on it is prohibited for Jews to leave their living quarters. In places where special Jewish Quarters have not been established, it is prohibited for Jews living in separate houses to abandon their dwelling.

2. Entry to the Jewish Quarters is to be closed by putting up wooden or wire fences, leaving access only for the police, fire department, and first class transportation.

3. In order to leave the ghetto, Jews must have passes issues by the Kreishauptmann, or by an authorized Gendarme station, or by a German civil servant, Criminal Police station, or by a German clerk of a proper department labour office. With such a pass it is possible for Jews to leave the ghetto in a working team escorted by the police.

4. It is prohibited to Germans and Poles to enter the ghetto. Such entry is permitted only to the Kreishauptmann, or his deputy, a district doctor, or his deputy, German police, Polish police including the Criminal Police, the manager from an appropriate office of the Labour Department and Mayors of certain places, as well as those who have a pass issued by the Kreishauptmann, or one of the departments mentioned under section #3.

5. The pass to authorize departure from or entry to the ghetto has a fee of 5-500 zloty, and the money is meant to be divided between the coffers of the municipality and the Kreishauptmann.

6. On the streets approaching the ghetto are to be posted signs in German and Polish declaring: "Judisches wohngebiet Betreten durch Deutsche und Polen verboten"-"Jewish Quarter: Entry prohibited to Germans and Poles".

7. Transgression of these orders will be punished as follows: a fine of up to 1,000 zloty, forced labour, or imprisonment. In cases where a Jewish transgressor cannot pay the fine, the Jewish Council is responsible for the fine. Those who trespass are to be arrested.

8. The closing of access roads and posting of signs with orders should be reported to me no later than 5.11.1941.

9. Copies of such orders should be delivered to the Jewish Council who will issue a receipt.

10. All mayors and administrators are held responsible to apply the aforementioned acts in order to prevent the free mobility of Jews.

Dr. Rupprecht

Two days later in January of 1941, Mr. Gadomski, the Mayor of the city had posted another announcement with very specific instructions (see Appendix I):

Further to the announcement of Mr. Kreishauptmann of Warsaw District

Dated the 10^th of this month, regarding Jewish Living Quarters and Health Resort Quarters in Otwock, these Quarters are now acknowledged as a closed ghetto. In addition:

1. All incoming roads leading to the ghetto are supposed to be closed at the expense of the Jews.

2. It is prohibited for Jews to leave the ghetto. Entry to and exit from the ghetto are only permitted to those Jews who have special permits issued by the Kreishauptmann or German Civil Service, Criminal Police or Civil Service of the German Labour Office in Otwock. Also, all labour columns escorted by police protection and with proper permission can leave the ghetto.

3. Entry to the ghetto for Germans and Poles is prohibited without special passes issued by German offices mentioned above in paragraph 2.

4. Any transgression of these rules will lead to a fine of 1,000 zloty, or forced labour or imprisonment. The responsibility of collecting fines from Jews is that of the Jewish Council; if fines cannot be collected, then the Jewish Council is responsible.

5. Jews are prohibited to walk on the sidewalk along the road connecting the Jewish Living Quarters with the Health Resort on Reymonta Street.

Otwock, 15 January, 1941.

Mayor of Otwock

Jan Gadomski

 

The three Jewish Living Quarters were connected by special passages from the main living section, from Gorna Street over the railway tracks to the villa area, and from there along Reymonta Street. A Jew could walk only while wearing a white armband with a blue Star of David, and only in the middle of the road. To walk on the sidewalk was, for Jews, strictly forbidden. Somehow, later on, in April of 1941, this connection to the sanatoria from Reymonta Street was eliminated. (See Appendix J)

ANNOUNCEMENT

This is to bring to the public knowledge that from this day on the only street connecting the Jewish Living Quarter to the Health Quarter (Sanatoria) is Samorzadowa Street - from Reymonta to Klonowa Street. On this section of the street, the Jews are forbidden to walk on the sidewalk.

 

Walking on Reymonta Street, permitted for Jews up till this date now has been cancelled.

Signed:

Local Commander M a y o r

Schorr Jan Gadomski

Captain

Otwock, 30 April, 1941

 

Although there are many documents, books and diaries, most of them are from the Warsaw ghetto or from other large cities. There are few accounts of the conditions in small town ghettos.

At the time I was in the Otwock ghetto I was 12 and 13 years old. Even though many things were not clear to me and my interests were limited, I can still recall many events in Otwock, particularly the conditions there.

In the town, there was no lack of rooms or space, unlike in the other ghettos. In spite of that, just being in a closed-off area and cut off from the outside world created strange living and economic situations. Enclosed in the three ghettos the livelihood of most of the Jews became precarious. Otwock was a resort town which supported itself mainly from the summer vacationers from Warsaw and other places, however, the vacation business collapsed. The hotels and villas were empty. With the erection of the ghetto fences the Jews were also cut off from any business dealings with the Polish population in the city and surrounding towns and villages.

Many of the Jews were left without a livelihood and after spending their life-savings, many people were lacking food and many turned quickly into beggars and paupers. As I mentioned already, my mother used to tutor children that needed extra help in their schoolwork. Under the German occupation all the private tutoring stopped; my mother could no longer earn a living from teaching as she had before. Soon we had spent the little money that we had and were left without any means of existence. There was no other way to survive but to sell various household articles in order to buy our daily necessities.

After the formation of the ghetto many people were forced to do the same, the sellers multiplied and the prices for the articles went down in value.

Not having any income, we struggled to stay alive by selling even our most precious belongings. From the early spring of 1941 I started to be involved in the selling of the household articles as well as acquiring groceries, first inside and afterwards, outside the ghetto. Following my mother to the bazaar I slowly learned the value of clothing and other items we sold, as well as of the necessary products we had to buy, along with how to examine and bargain for them. Then by chance I ventured outside the ghetto, carrying a small parcel that an acquaintance of ours asked me to deliver there.

I left the ghetto early in the morning and delivered the parcel to the proper address. I wandered for several hours outside the ghetto, over familiar streets that were now "Judenrein" without their former Jewish store merchants and villa-dwellers. I was properly dressed and my Polish was quite fluent; nobodysuspected that I was a boy from a ghetto. This encouraged me to enter a few stores to buy bread and some other products. In the afternoon I returned to the ghetto the same way I had left. This was the beginning of my career as a "smuggler".

The main ghetto was in the old section of the city, beside the bazaar at the beginning of Swiderska Street and the market place on the Karczewska Street. The large bazaar area was divided into Jewish and Polish parts, and beside the bazaar on Karczewska Street they erected a turnstile dividing the Jewish section from the so-called Aryan side.

In the beginning I tried to sneak out of the ghetto beneath that turnstile, but was caught several times and beaten with a rubber bat by the Jewish policemen who guarded the crossing. The Jewish ghetto police consisted of about a hundred young male volunteers. Their station was in the villa section above the rail tracks. They were formally under the supervision of the Judenrat but in reality a force unto themselves, feared and hated by the Jewish population. This group was easily recognizable for its uniform of knee-high boots worn year round, police caps, arm bands, whistles and batons. No Orthodox Jew belonged to that police organization.

Although the Otwock ghetto was less crowded than ghettos in other places undernourishment and the deteriorated sanitary conditions resulted in the outbreak and spread of illnesses, especially typhus. It began with individual cases but grew quickly into an epidemic and later nearly everyone was stricken with it. Many families hid their illness in order not to be sent to quarantined areas for those ill with typhus. Because of this, the Germans issued a special order regarding the Jewish Living Quarters at the end of May 1941, and letters were sent to the Mayor of Otwock and the Jewish Council.

Along with the epidemic of illnesses grew the hunger of the ghetto dwellers. The hunger also began with individual people and families, but soon the hunger grew in its scope and enveloped most of the people in the closed ghetto. One could see hungry people on the street with grey-blue faces walking on swollen legs in their brave search for food.

Thus hunger, combined with sickness, began to decimate the Jewish population of Otwock. Death was all around and funerals were a common everyday sight. The carts with the deceased continued to move along Karczewska Street, across the turnstile beside the bazaar. There was a tragic irony in this: while living Jews were forbidden under threat of death to leave the enclosed ghetto, even for very important reasons; but dead Jews were allowed to be carried to the cemetery, on a sandy dune near the little town of Karczew.

Food was always on everyone’s mind. Everyone was talking about and thinking of food while the shortages were increasing. Because so many people were in danger of starvation they became desperate and panicky. Since there was no means of earning a living, and no demand for home articles in the ghetto, desperation made some people turn to markets outside of the ghetto on the "Aryan" side of the town.

It was common knowledge that everyone had some friends over there. Of course everyone also knew that if caught outside the ghetto, he would be shot or sent to a concentration camp, but in the closed ghetto people were dying of hunger and disease anyway so what meaning did the German order not to leave the ghetto have? It became a question of either dying by simply staying where they were or risking getting shot while obtaining food. So whoever was able attempted to sneak out of the ghetto to the so-called Aryan side of town, carrying his possessions to sell in order to buy some food. Many succeeded but some were not so fortunate and never returned.

In those degrading dealings not only were adults involved but boys like myself who became their families’ bread winners, especially those youngsters whose appearance was not at all typically Semitic.

I was fair-haired and blue-eyed like many Polish boys so I often sneaked out of the ghetto to the other side, returning with some provisions. An "Aryan" appearance and a good bag hanging over one’s shoulder were like requirements for this kind of job. I started my venturing in the Spring of 1941, earlier than others, not knowing that others were doing the same later on. With a small package of clothes I used to go to the "other side" and return with food.

It may sound strange but I started to enjoy the thrill of this dangerous business. I began to like these hazardous excursions on the "Aryan" side of the city, which I knew well. It became for me a kind of sport, a distraction from the gloomy reality inside the Jewish Quarter, and most importantly I provided food for my mother, and myself.

The main Otwock ghetto was connected with the villa section by a passage over the railway tracks. Between the tracks were wire fences which resembled a large animal-like trap with several openings.

There in the villa section lived a school-friend of mine named Juda Cytryn. He was a bit older than I was. In the summer of 1941 when the Jewish police rounded up several hundred young people and sent them away to a labour camp, Juda was among them. All during the summer he worked together with other young men at straightening and draining the ground for a larger labour or death camp. Luckily he returned at the end of November. At that time some people were still returning from the camps. We can assume that this was the psychological preparation of the Jewish population for the so-called "Resettlements" which were to come later.

The spoken language of the European Jews was Yiddish - an old German dialect to which there were some Hebrew words added and other words from the languages of the countries where the Jews resided. In Poland, except for the intellectuals and some assimilated Jews who spoke mostly Polish, the common Jewish people spoke Yiddish in their everyday life. Because Polish was not their first language many of them spoke with a Jewish accent. During the German occupation in Poland this was disastrous for many. If they found themselves outside of the assigned closed ghetto, even if they had an Aryan appearance, their speech gave them away.

Encouraged by my successful excursion into the Aryan section of the town, I began to broaden my smuggling activities by venturing into villages around Otwock, where it was easier to exchange clothing and other articles for foodstuff. In those villages there were no informants to advise others who I might be and I had my "Aryan" features, no different from that of any other Polish boy. Besides, I spoke Polish without any trace of a Jewish accent thanks to my mother’s tutoring. Therefore, I could pose as someone I was not. I disregarded the German proclamations forbidding Jews to leave the ghetto under the threat of death, and boldly began to visit the neighbouring villages in search of food.

I had to disregard these warnings and move around posing as a Polish Catholic boy even though I did not know the village customs or the basics of practising the Catholic faith. I started this adventure as an impostor because I had no alternative. Sometimes I thought of my friend Janek with whom I used to go fishing on the Swider River the previous year, but I realized I knew next to nothing about his home and his customs. Luck was on my side and the rest I made up with lies and false confidence born more out of ignorance than anything else.

I needed to create stories and fantasies, because the women in the villages with whom I dealt, used to ask me many questions. In that situation logical and convincing answers somehow materialized. I used to tell my half-true story:

"Father went to fight the Germans and didn’t return. My mother has to take care of my two smaller siblings at home." Of course, I did not have any siblings. But the tale about my father who fell fighting the Germans in 1939 was especially helpful in arousing the sympathy of the peasant women.

I played the role of a Polish Catholic boy well. I learned the specific value of different items that were in demand in exchange for food. In spite of my young age, I learned to be a good businessman as I took advantage of the basic premise of a free economy - the laws of supply and demand. With a large sack full of clothing, boldly slung over my shoulder, I marched to various villages to exchange my treasures for all kinds of produce: Grains, flour, beans, and all manner of dry goods, which I put in separate little bags that I carried in my knapsack. As my business evolved, I learned what kind of clothing or other items were in demand, and if I did not find them at home, I got them very cheaply from the street sellers in the ghetto.

By the end of May 1941, the Nazis issued a directive signed by Lieutenant Rupprecht, which was posted in the ghetto regarding the Jewish Living Quarters, in which it was stated that any Jew found outside the ghetto would be shot. (See Appendix K)

Captain of the Civic Guard

District Warsaw May 28, 1941

To the Mayor, Otwock.

Regarding the Jewish Living Quarters:

Because in the Jewish Living Quarters in Otwockt the typhoid has broken out it is prohibited for Jews to leave these Quarters.

All passes, regardless by what authority they were issued, for departure and entry to the ghetto have lost their validity.

New passes will not be issued for the foreseeable future. This prohibition also applies to those Jews who are called to work.

Entry to the ghetto for all Germans and Poles is strictly prohibited with the exception of the police and Government sanitary personnel.

Any Jew found outside the ghetto will be shot. Furthermore; in each case of breaching this order a fee of up to 1000.oo zloty, or detention of up to six weeks will be administered.

A copy of this order should be delivered at once to the Jewish Council, with a receipt required.

 

Sub. Lieutenant Rupprecht

In accordance with the original, Otwock, May 1941.

K. Chlond, Town Secretary

 

In June of 1941 I was approaching my thirteenth birthday. According to Jewish religious tradition I was to have a Bar-Mitzvah ceremony after which I was supposed to accept the obligations of a Jewish adult. This would involve the privilege of being included in a Minyan (a group of ten men) prayer service at the synagogue. In normal times such an event is a happy occasion in the life of a Jewish boy and celebrated by his family and friends. However, when it was my turn to have a Bar-Mitzvah in June of 1941, I lived in a closed ghetto and my father was no longer alive and able to instruct and bless me or share in my joy. In spite of that I still wanted to go through with the ceremony even though it was to be conducted in the harsh ghetto conditions.

I was called to the Torah in the large synagogue downtown during an ordinary weekday, unlike the customary Saturday. And there was no celebration afterwards. It wasn’t important for me that it was held during the week without a celebration. What was important was that I would have religious acceptance and would be able to pray with the other men in a Minyan during the prayer sessions and recite Kaddish, the mourner’s prayer, for my father like any adult.

On the day of my Bar Mitzvah I recited my Torah passage, from the bima in the middle of the synagogue, and additional chapters from the prophet Zachariah. Then the attending rabbi encouraged me to remain a faithful Jew in his sermon and spoke of love of one’s faith and to be brave. The rabbi also tried to cheer us up by saying that what we were experiencing in the ghetto was a temporary predicament and would soon be over. "The Highest One blessed be His Holy Name is testing us Jews in the hard times." The rabbi encouraged us not to lose hope and that difficult times would soon pass.

Another memory links me to the synagogue at Merchant Street: when the typhus epidemic became widespread the synagogue was turned into a place of quarantine for the sick. It was there that in the fall of that year, 1941, I lay unconscious for many days.

My Bar Mitzvah allowed me to achieve a spiritual connection and leave behind for a short while the harsh conditions imposed on us in the ghetto.

The preparation for my Bar Mitzvah caused me to interrupt my smuggling activities for some time. The situation was critical. In normal times parents provide the necessities of life for their family. In my case, in 1941, I had to take care of, and obtain food for, myself and my mother. It was not difficult to get out from the Otwock ghetto. Walking along Swiderska to the outskirts of town through an area called Kresy, I arrived at the narrow tracks of a small steam locomotive railway called Kolejka in Polish, running from Warsaw up to the town Karczew. I crossed the open field on the other side of the tracks and marched straight into the little town of Karczew, about 4 km from Otwock. There, outside of Karczew were a few paths, which led to several villages where I began to visit.

Later on I liked to venture into the other villages. To get there I continued to walk over the open field across the Kolejka tracks, up to the dike along the shores of the Wistula River. Walking along this dike I avoided the town of Karczew. On the right was the majestic view of the Wistula River and the town of Gora-Kalwaria on the other shore and to the left of the river and dike were a number of villages in which I began to trade.

Eventually I discovered something that helped immensely in my wanderings to remote villages: how to stay there overnight. I learned to get a night’s accommodation "legally", with the assistance of the village administrator (Soltys in Polish). It was as if a new horizon opened up for me. It happened by coincidence when a woman directed me to the village administrator. From that time on, whenever I had to stay overnight, I sought out the head of the village who would write down on a piece of paper the name of a farmer. I would go and stay with a farmer overnight where I would get an evening meal and in the morning a very good breakfast, with no questions asked.

In order to authenticate my identity I obtained a Catechism book and learned most of the prayers and the basic concepts of the Catholic religion. In addition, there were certain manners and customs unique to the people of the countryside. I assimilated as best as I could by making these characteristics and behaviours my own. I learned the importance of knowing the social strata and to operate by their rules in order to be accepted and to blend in, thus ensuring my safety. No fugitive from the ghetto would be suspected of going to the very head of a village seeking proper and legal sanctuary.

I assume that when an adult needed to stay overnight in a village he would have had to show a document of identification. However, in my case the village administrator never inquired about it.

How could they imagine that this boy, who approached them so casually to ask to be allowed to stay overnight in the village, could be a runaway Jewish boy?

Thanks to that I was able to move around in the village environment and could freely move outside of the ghetto. When I had any problems they were usually on my way back, when I had to cross the Polish area of Kresy before entering the ghetto. There I was attacked by Polish boys more than once, some of whom I knew, who tried to take away all the goods I was carrying with me. Once they succeeded in robbing me of all the food I had with me and in addition I got beaten up. Luckily an older, more reasonable Polish boy arrived and he reproached the attackers and made them return my goods, which were considered real treasures in the ghetto.

I never told my mother about this, or the other adventures and misfortunes outside the ghetto. Still, I tried to avoid leaving the ghetto through the Kresy area and began to walk to the villages by an entirely new direction via Reymonta Street. I reached the settlement of Sr�dbor�w and from there the Lublin highway. Several paths from the highway led to various villages, which I began to visit and like in the villages on the Wistula, exchanging things for foodstuff. Walking in the direction of the town Garwolin along the highway, I came to a small town named Kolbiel, where a number of Jewish families resided. The Jews there were always helpful and friendly and I became more closely connected with one of these families. I was surprised that in Kolbiel no ghetto existed: the Jews there could move freely and thus they did not suffer such deprivation and poverty as in Otwock. Regrettably, no one could foresee that the lack of a ghetto in Kolbiel was no more than a trap for runaways from other places where ghettos existed and that the liquidation of the Jews of Kolbiel was only postponed to a later date.

I had a very dangerous experience while venturing in the Kolbiel area. I was walking to a certain village and noticed a path that led over a meadow. Instead of walking on the regular road, I turned through the meadow. This path seemed to me much shorter and I began to walk on it not realizing that it would bring me to a narrow but quite deep river, which ran right in front of the village. Over the river there was a primitive bridge consisting of a wooden log, with the barrier missing half way. While I crossed the narrow bridge, I looked down for a moment into the water and at that moment I slipped into that river. Instinctively I grabbed at the log of the bridge and began to call for help.

A few farmers arrived and they helped me crawl out saying one to the other, "He is the second one to get a bath in here". I didn’t pay attention to their mentioning of who was the first. I was thoroughly wet, water was streaming from my clothes and boots. Luckily I kept my sack with the merchandise over my arm, so I did not lose it, although everything in the sack got wet.

In this state, I had to walk some 5 - 6 kilometres to Kolbiel, where my friends provided me with a set of underwear, and helped me dry my clothes, and the things I carried for sale.

Like of my fights with the Polish boys outside the ghetto, I was afraid to tell my mother about this event. Even without knowing about these encounters my mother kept telling me that this was my last excursion outside the ghetto each time I returned home.

In normal times, a 13 year-old boy would obey his mother but these were not normal times. As soon as we consumed the food I had brought home I had to venture anew into my "territories". This was basically the reason for my disregarding the strict decree not to leave the ghetto area and new decrees appeared every month. It was a dangerous undertaking. Large printed announcements were on the walls warning of dire consequences for breaking this rule and the Jewish police that ruled inside the ghetto were quite eager to fulfil the German directives.

In the fall of 1941, while preparing the death camps, the German authorities introduced a number of administrative orders against the Jewish population strengthening the ghetto isolation, and in October 1941, issued a proclamation in which we read (See Appendix L):

PROCLAMATION

Regarding:

THE DEATH PENALTY FOR LEAVING THE ASSIGNED JEWISH QUARTERS.

Recently, it has been documented that Jews who have left the assigned Jewish living quarters have spread the typhus virus.

In order to prevent this threat for the general population, the Governor General decided that a Jew who in future will leave the assigned living quarters will be punished by death.

Those persons who knowingly provide Jews with shelter or any other type of assistance (e.g. nightly accommodation, transportation of any kind) will be subject to the same punishment.

Convictions will take place in Warsaw in front of a special court.

I am drawing attention of the General Population in the Warsaw District to the seriousness of this proclamation. From now on adherence to the law will be executed without mercy.

Warsaw, 10 November, 1941

Dr. Fisher

Governor

Despite this threat there was the attraction to go and visit familiar villages where life was, in contrast to the ghetto, progressing "normally" and where I could get food. I was familiar with every street and corner of the main ghetto as well as the villa district and was able, without any difficulty, to reach the other side. These crossings became for me a kind of "sport" and gave me great satisfaction each time I succeeded in them. But in the late fall the weather was bad which made it difficult to walk. The month of December 1941 was very frosty and the blowing snow made it impossible for me to leave the town. In the ghetto people were dying from hunger, sickness and cold.

Do living conditions form a person’s character? In my case it was definitely so. The conditions of life in the confinement of the ghetto surely dictated my actions, especially in my constant venturing into the villages in search of food. So in spite of that great danger I continued my excursions from the ghetto to the villages and back. This went on during the summer and fall of 1941, nearly up to the end of the year. At that time I didn’t know and could not know that my mother’s days were numbered. While I ventured into other villages to obtain food for our household I enjoyed the good meals I received in the houses of the peasants where I stayed overnight. At home, in spite of her fear and worries about me, my mother was also glad of the products I brought. Regrettable my help in providing my mother with provisions was only temporary and it soon ended tragically. The typhus epidemic that spread like a wildfire in the ghetto soon engulfed both of us. I was sick for a lengthy period and through part of it I was unconscious. When I was finally let out of the hospital my mother had passed away. After so many years how can I now describe how I felt and what was going on inside me? Is there any possible way to express the feelings of grief and loss I felt at that time?

Naturally deaths in the ghetto were widespread and common but in this case it meant the loss of my own mother, the only person I had. Bewildered and full of pain and despair, I ran like a ghost over the Otwock streets without knowing what to do next. After some time I came into the villa section of the ghetto on Dluska Street where my friend Juda Cytryn lived. By that time he had already returned from the work camp where he was taken earlier. Both Juda and his mother received me warmly. Seeing how thin I had become after my illness Juda’s mother tried to comfort me saying, "Do not worry, as long as you have bones, there will be meat". This was her way of saying that I return to my former self. And she was right.

Physically I improved quickly but my emotional well being was far from good.

I was alone in the Otwock ghetto with no hope. In the beginning I did not know what to do. It is common knowledge that in very terrible conditions people become selfish and indifferent to each other. I needed help which I could not expect to find from my cousins whom I had stopped visiting a long time before. I was disturbed by their indifference and lack of empathy. Thus I remained alone and could not count on anyone’s help. I therefore appreciated greatly the warmth and sympathy I found with the Cytryn family.

To increase the bitterness in the ghetto, the Germans ordered that at the end of December 1941 the Jews were to hand over all the fur coats in their possession. For not obeying this order the penalty was death. (See Appendix M)

In addition to the lack of food, fuel such as coal and wood was of great value in the ghetto. In the villa section where my school friend Juda Cytryn lived, there were many young pine trees. Juda and I were cutting down one of these trees, when a Jewish policeman suddenly appeared and interrupted our work. He grabbed our axes and led us to the police station, which was located nearby. Inside the station they wrote up a report and warned us that our parents would have to be responsible for what we did. I did not mention to them that I was already an orphan. However Juda and I did not pay much attention to their threats. A few days later, we cut down another tree, this time without any interruption. The winter of 1941-42 was exceptionally cold and hard to bear by the Jewish population of the enclosed ghetto. Cold, hunger, and the still spreading typhus epidemic cut short the lives of many. In this gloomy environment I walked around alone, still reliving the loss of my mother. Despite my emotional difficulties, and in the wintry weather, I began anew to walk into the villages in search for food. This probably saved me from becoming psychologically unstable. Finding myself again outside the ghetto, I was forced to concentrate all my attention and energy on fulfilling my dangerous task, and was thus saved from the sadness and despair caused by the death of my Mother. So whenever the weather allowed, I walked along the Lublin highway to the various villages.

I posed as a Polish Catholic youth wandering from village to village in the countryside. There was no way I could tell anyone that I was an orphan or to confide feelings of despair and pain.

After my illness, I was pale and thin, but nobodypaid attention to this change. It was quite the opposite. In some villages the farmers offered me to come and work for them in the spring to take their cows out to pasture, and even promised me "solid wages". These proposals I indeed took advantage of in the spring, but in an entirely different location. In the meantime, I tried as much as I could to prolong my staying in the villages, away from the ghetto. As I said, I did not have any difficulty in obtaining night accommodation from the village administrator. I also learned to ask for more money or goods than I was offered in exchange for the articles I sold. Also, because of the winter and bad weather, I was often forced to remain in the villages for longer periods of time. When I finally returned to Otwock, I again felt that I was left without anyone close. I felt an emptiness, and could not find a place where I belonged.

When I returned to Otwock ghetto during the winter months of 1942, I stayed at the house of my schoolmate Juda Cytryn where I found comfort.

I can say that the Cytryn’s became like a family to me. The food I used to bring from the village, I handed over to them.

Juda had a younger brother, Szmulek, and a sister my age named Baila. During the summer, when Juda was away at the work camp, I took Baila and Szmulek with me several times to the villages. On the road, I taught them how to exchange the things they took with them for food. Both of them looked "Aryan" and their Polish was quite good, and they could have continued like myself in this undertaking. However, to my great disappointment, they gave up these ventures. Both Szmulek and Baila, survived the Holocaust, and in 1946, they left Poland for Palestine (according to the Book of Survivors in the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, Poland.).

I continued my dangerous occupation wandering constantly in the country visiting various villages, thus living in two entirely different worlds.

Officially I still had my house in the main ghetto, near the Marpa Sanatorium. I seldom went there, but stayed in the villa ghetto on Dluska Street, Number One, where the Cytryn’s lived. But most of the time, I was on the road, wandering from village to village, back and forth from the ghetto: really, I lived nowhere.

I began to wonder if these dangerous trips from the ghetto to the villages and back made any sense. For a short time, I found comfort at my friend’s house. How comforting it would have been to be with relatives. How I longed to be with those who really had empathy for my situation, who knew the people whom I had lost. What was I supposed to do by myself in the Otwock ghetto? After thinking it over, I decided to leave Otwock for Dubeczno, a town near Wlodawa by the Bug River, where my uncle lived. I only knew that town from the map, the correspondence of my parents with my uncle, and by a couple of photographs we had at home. It was on these bits of information I pinned my hopes, that by joining my uncle and his family I would change or improve my lot. I also thought that maybe there was no ghetto in that town. I felt that the farther I could get from the ghetto, the better my chances to live.

I found out how to get there from the head of the train station in one of the villages, which I visited. A train to Chelm, in the Lublin area, passed by this station and stopped there briefly every day. After getting this information, I quickly decided to actualize my plan. At the end of March or beginning of April 1942, I said good-bye to my dear friends, the Cytryn’s, who treated me like their own.

While I knew ways to get in and out of the ghetto, I wasn’t going to risk being captured by leaving Otwock from the railway station, or being checked out when buying a ticket. Instead, I hiked out of town to the village station where I got the information from the station- master, and I boarded the train there.

The journey to Dubeczno, including the change of trains in Chelm, and stops on the way, took 24 hours. This was not a pleasure trip. Jews were forbidden to use public transportation. The journey seemed endless because I fully expected the German gendarmes to check the passengers. I did not sleep, or if I did, I could not distinguish my nightmares from  my conscious fears. Luckily no German gendarmes checked this train.

I arrived without any problems at the last station before Wlodawa, because the train wasn’t going any further, and I had to continue to my destination on foot. It was nearly evening and through a heavy mist we could see the city slowly become more visible. Together with other passengers I marched for some time until we reached Wlodawa. It was dark, and I was afraid to walk the streets to find some of my other relatives that lived in town of Wlodawa.

I decided to go directly to my uncle’s. I began to inquire for the directions to the road going to the town of Dubeczno, and finally a passer-by pointed me in the right direction. Surrounded by darkness in the midst of nowhere, on the outskirts of a city, I felt insecure and tired, with all the dangers that threatened a Jew at the end of March 1942. I knew I was at the outskirts of Wlodawa, but where? How could one walk in the dark of night to an unfamiliar destination? So I decided to look for night lodging by the method I used in my previous wanderings in search of food in villages around Otwock: to get the village administrator’s assistance.

I must stress that no matter whether this way of spending the night in a village existed already before the war, or was ordered by the Germans, this was for me as if "heaven-sent", because it provided me with the possibility to move around outside the ghetto. Without this opportunity, I would not have been able to go anywhere.

As I was looking for such a village administrator outside of Wlodawa, I found myself on a road where there were only isolated farmhouses, far away from each other.

These houses were more like shacks with thatched roofs. I went into one of these houses and bravely asked directions to the village administrator. I added that the reason I was looking for him was to obtain a note for a night’s lodging at any farm because I was stranded.

I was offered night lodging outside Wlodawa, in a house like this with a thatched roof, on my way to my uncle's in Dubeczno.

The farm occupants were friendly and seemed glad to have a guest, and laughed at the very official way I was going about trying to get a night’s lodging. They said that the village administrator lived a long way off, and because it was already dark, "You may stay the night with us - you don’t need a piece of paper, you may sleep here". Of course they asked me a lot of questions over supper and in my exhaustion I dreamed up answers almost naturally, and my reward for telling half-lies was a warm bed and a hot breakfast the next morning.

Such hospitality, and kindness from strangers? Would they have acted in the same way had they known I was Jewish? Or perhaps I should say, could they have acted the same way, since the Germans were not only shooting Jews outside the ghetto, but also any Poles who were found assisting Jews. I had seen some posters on the train equating Jews with lice and typhoid, which were supposed to incite hatred and disgust among the Poles toward Jews.

After breakfast I thanked my hosts for their hospitality, and struck out for the little town Dubeczno. I walked a whole day to reach my destination, but it turned out to be a short stop in my wanderings.

Dubeczno looked surprisingly like a village, not a town, except that a huge industrial chimney marked the local glass factory. As well, one could smell in the air and almost feel on the cheeks the smog from the burning of peat. Of course, in the town everyone knew one other, and I was told where I could find my uncle Nachum Rottenberg. His house was located on the very edge of town, close to an irrigation ditch. This section of the town was called "Argentina."

News that a relative of Nachum had arrived spread quickly, as it usually does in a small place, and by the time I knocked on my uncle’s door, many neighbours had shown up. Among them was a Jewish family which was displaced from Lublin at the beginning of the occupation. The Nazis had thrown them out of their home in downtown Lublin quite early on in the war. I actually thought them to be lucky to be in Dubeczno, where the ravages of war had not reached them, and the Jews lived relatively peacefully.

That there was no ghetto in that little town was the most important thing, and therefore no hunger like in other places. At that time in closed ghettos such as Otwock, Warsaw, etc., people were starving and in the Spring of 1942, the Jews in Dubeczno were still eating potatoes and vegetables from their own gardens. In Dubeczno, as in Kolbiel near Otwock, the Jews were only forbidden to leave the town, but were not confined in a ghetto. So not far from the death camp Sobibor, that was being erected at that time, the Dubeczno Jews lived in peace, for the time being.

How could they know that their fate had already been decided at the infamous Wannsee Conference held on January 20, 1942. According to a decision adopted at this Conference regarding the Final Solution of the Jewish Question, the Jewish population of Europe was deprived of all human rights and were sentenced to death, without reprieve. In Dubeczno it would become a reality later that year in October. But how could the Dubeczno Jews know this? Meanwhile every male adult was obligated to work in the glass factory one day a week, without pay of course, and as in other parts of Poland, they had to turn over their furs to the Nazis.

In the beginning of the typhus epidemic only farmers in the villages were stricken. Slowly the sickness was carried over to Dubeczno. This was the situation when I arrived there and met my uncle for the first time. He was older than my mother, but this does not mean that he was more sensible. What amazed me was that my unexpected arrival seemed to be for my uncle and his family a quite unpleasant surprise. They greeted me with coolness and indifference.

I poured out to them my account of life in the closed Otwock ghetto, of the deaths of my parents, of my survival by sneaking out of the ghetto and exchanging clothes for food by pretending to be a Polish Catholic boy. True, my uncle expressed his sorrow and somehow mourned the loss of his sister, my mother. But he did not mention the death of my father at all.

My uncle seldom bothered about me, and thus I found myself in Dubeczno without anyone’s care and without anything to occupy myself. After a while I found myself in a kind of lethargy. Where I expected relief, I found uneasiness. To make matters worse, my cousin, who was the same age as I was, had a caustic sense of humour and was extremely sarcastic. I found it unbearable and I knew I had to leave my uncle’s house.

During a time of stress, the situation often dictates conduct and sometimes decisions spring up of their own accord. Like before, in Otwock, when I had decided to leave and go see my uncle; this time I decided again to leave the unpleasant house of my uncle in Dubeczno and find a farmer who would hire me to take his cows to pasture. I was offered such a position before, by peasants in the villages near the Lublin highway, around Kolbiel. What I then had turned down now seemed to be of immense value, a chance to earn my own living in a real job. I decided to act on this plan as soon as possible. So I made secret journeys from my uncle’s house out into the countryside - every day I ventured to a different village. Some of the villages around Wlodawa and Dubeczno were settled by Ukrainians and Bielorussians. In the beginning I was not aware of this. For instance, in the villages in the Warsaw area the peasants speak with a special Mazur dialect. This led me to believe that the way the farmers spoke around Dubeczno was also a local dialect.

Once, while inquiring for work, I had a dangerous experience. It happened in a nice, newly built looking village, entirely different from the other villages, where most of the cottages had thatched roofs.

How could I have known that this was a new settlement of German colonists? I was glad to come to such a nice looking village and hoped to find work there. Even before, in search of food, I preferred to visit the well-kept houses first. But this time disappointment awaited me. When I entered one of the cottages, I saw a young officer in German air force uniform and a woman, the owner of the house. I turned to her, explaining that I was looking for a place to work taking the cows to pasture. The woman looked at me attentively and smiled as if she had discovered something. When I began to answer her question about where I came from, she interrupted me and said: "You are from Argentina. Run back to your home and don’t come here anymore." She announced bluntly to the German officer who was sitting nearby on the bed, "He is a Jew". The officer reached for the holster with the pistol that was lying on the table, but the woman asked him to leave me alone. And she repeated to me that I should run home. She did not have to say it again; I ran back to Dubeczno.

The part of Dubeczno where my uncle lived was called "Argentina" . It so happened that soon after my arrival, my uncle was forced to sell his cow, because he could not feed her. The cow was a good milking animal. Many farmers showed up at the public auction and the woman who told me that I was from Argentina had probably been there. This incident did not discourage me from continuing to look for work so that I could leave my uncle’s inhospitable home.

One day I found myself in a village named Kozaki, about 8 km. from Dubeczno. Before the village at the crossroads there stood three crosses: one Catholic and the other two of the Greek Orthodox faith. Of course at that time I could not differentiate between the crosses, as I could not differentiate between a Polish farmer’s dialect and the Ukrainian spoken language. Walking through the village, I passed by a house where a man came out, and we began a conversation. I told him that I was looking for a job tending cows during the summer. He started asking questions. When he heard I was from near Warsaw, he told me that in the village there was another boy from Warsaw who worked for a farmer, and told me where to find him. More importantly, he offered me work for the whole summer by taking his cows to pasture. I had finally found what I was looking for. He didn’t offer me any fees for my services, nor did I ask to be paid, because all I cared about was being able to leave behind my uncle’s family, especially my sarcastic cousin.

As soon as I returned to my uncle’s, I told him that I had decided to leave, the reason being that I would prefer to be hired in service as a herdsman. Shortly after that I reported to the farmer for the agreed upon work.

So in the spring of 1942 I entered a world, which was unknown to me, the world of a servant-herdsman in the village of Kozaki. It was a way of life in which I encountered many dangerous adventures and which would not end until May 1945.

In the beginning, as the grass hadn’t sprouted yet, I tended the cows on the heather in the young forest. There I met a Russian soldier who escaped from a prisoner of war camp near Wlodawa. The area had a large Ukrainian and Bielorussian population and the escapees found help among them, as they provided lodging and care in case of sickness. In the winter of 1941-1942 there was a typhus epidemic in the area, and the master of the house where I worked kept a few of the sick, escaped prisoners. One of them was the soldier I met in the bushes where I pastured cows.

The son of my employer, a soldier in the Polish Army, was a war prisoner in a German camp. My employer used to send food packages for the Russian with me to the forest hideaway, saying; "Maybe somebodywill also help my son, wherever he is". After awhile, I did not see the Russian soldier/escapee any more.

The village was set among open meadows and young forests where I tended the cows at the beginning of my service. Later on when the grass grew, I tended the cows on the common pasture together with other village boys. There I listened attentively to their Ukrainian speech and soon I began to talk with them in their language.

The attitude of my master toward me was quite friendly at the beginning, and I thought that I would remain with him for a long time. It turned out however, that it was easier to pretend to be a Polish Catholic boy, when I had been wandering in the villages near Otwock in search for food as I usually had only stayed in farmer’s houses overnight. It was entirely different to be in steady service and above all with a Ukrainian. This was in the early stages of my new occupation and consequently I often did not behave according to custom. I also did not possess any identification document and when I agreed to the conditions of my employment I made several basic mistakes. As a result, the farmer figured out my identity right away, but he did not disclose it to me in the beginning.

It wasn’t long before I realized the mistakes I had made when I arranged for that job. Who would not ask to be properly paid for his services? I told him that I came from the district of Warsaw. Surely it could only be a Jew on the run, from the vicinity of embattled Warsaw. The other boy in the village whom the farmer had mentioned as coming from Warsaw, was also Jewish, with the same idea as I had had: to find refuge in a Christian village where no one would think of finding a Jew. When I told the farmer I had been staying with my uncle in Dubeczno, the old farmer knew right away I was Jewish. Thus my playing the role of a Polish boy was not too convincing. Perhaps because there was no ghetto in Dubeczno, and the peasants could freely travel there, the old farmer was not afraid to keep a Jewish youngster on his farm, especially a Jew who did not look like one. Finally, after keeping me on for several weeks, he told me that he had guessed what my background was. Of course, he took precautions by telling me not to say who I was to anyone. However, stories of how the Germans dealt with the Jews circulated among the local population, but at that time he didn’t tell me the grisly details which I later heard from the farmer’s wife.

Meanwhile, everything seemed to be going well, at least in the beginning. I trusted my hosts. I even told them about some of my experiences in the Otwock ghetto; my hosts were greatly moved by my stories and treated me well. So I hoped to remain at this farm for a long time as I was adjusting to my new occupation as a herdsman. On the other hand, at times I felt that this was really just survival - almost on a primitive level - there were no books, no playing, and no sense of adventure or accomplishment.

From the moment that I began to tend the cows of the farmer, I did not have any contact with my uncle in Dubeczno. Although the village Kozaki was only eight kilometres away, it was surrounded by bush and meadows. Since I had started my duties as a herdsman I hadn’t walked beyond the village of Kozaki. Consequently, I had no knowledge of the liquidation of the ghettos being carried out by the Germans with the aid of special Ukrainian units in the big cities. In my childish mind I thought that if the Jews were not in a ghetto then things were all right. Not only Dubeczno, but I remembered Kolbiel, a town not far from Otwock, another town I had visited where the Jewish population did not seem to suffer persecution and hunger as they did in Otwock. So I had a relatively pleasant time as a herdsman in the village of Kozaki.

Once, during lunch-time while I was leading the cows back home from pasture, I saw a bicycle in the yard leaning against the house. It didn’t take me long to get on that bike and start to circle around the enclosure. Behind me I could hear the farmer’s wife shout out: "Look, he can even ride a bike, surely he’ll survive these evil times". Then she beckoned me to go over to her, and whispered to me: "Listen, don’t tell anyone in the village who you are, so that no one can betray you in the event that the Germans, or police arrive."

"Did you know the Germans are putting Jews into trucks and gassing them with carbon monoxide?" Under her breath she said something about avoiding extermination but I didn’t know what she meant. That was the first time I heard of the Nazis’ mass killings, but did not clearly grasp the seriousness of what she was saying as it seemed quite unbelievable.

The next day, when I met Jurek on the pasture, the Jewish boy from Warsaw who also was serving as a herdsman, I told him what the wife of the farmer had told me and what she had advised. He, too, didn’t know or understand what carbon monoxide or killing the people in the trucks meant. He seemed scornful of the farmer’s wife, and said: "You think everyone in the village doesn’t know you’re a Jew? You see what kind of stories she is inventing? That is exactly why she is not to be trusted." Yet, how could we know whether these stories were fabricated or true?

Jurek had run away from the Warsaw ghetto one year earlier and, like me, had found his way to the village Kozaki in 1941. He, too, was working for room and board. Every time the police came to the village he would run away. He was told by his farmer that if by some accident he were caught, under no circumstances should he tell by whom he was helped and where he was staying. Once, in the middle of winter, when he had heard that a policeman had come to a neighbour’s house, he ran into a field without wearing his boots, only in his socks. He told me that when he returned his feet were frost-bitten so that he could scarcely walk, much less run.

It struck me as strange that the farmer had not told me what I should do in case I was spotted by the Germans or the local police. Luckily, during my stay there from April through July 1942, nobodycame. Also, none of the inhabitants of the village, Ukrainians or Poles, informed of Jurek’s or my existence.

It seemed that there were no informants in this village, or that their hatred of the German occupants prevailed over their anti-Jewish sentiments.

My life in Kozaki was limited to the short path from the farm to the pasture where I spent all day tending the cows. At night I slept on the hay in the barn. This, indeed, was why I didn’t know what was happening all around me. I did not encounter any danger, and I enjoyed the company of the other boy-herdsmen. I had also started to like my new occupation as a herdsman.

I was looking after the farmer’s cows, not only on the pasture where they were grazing with other cows from the village, but sometimes I also went with them to different places, particularly to narrow patches in between crops in the fields, or in between crops close to the farm. One day I was with the cows not far from the farmhouse, on a narrow path between the corn fields where there was plenty of nice green grass, when one of the stubborn cows insisted on going into the corn. Just then the farmer’s wife happened to show up to pick up something from the garden. I hit the cow with a whip to get her back onto the green grass at that very moment. The woman started to swear at me in a vulgar manner and yelling: "How dare you hit my cow with a whip? I’ll put a rope on your neck and deliver you to the Germans!"

What was I supposed to do? How else could I herd the cows without a whip? Wasn’t I trying to protect her crops? I had always thought she liked me but to my surprise, at noon time, when I came back with the cows from the pasture, she went on about the incident and repeated her threat of delivering me to the Germans. I couldn’t answer her back but her daughter-in-law Paszka came to my rescue and said "Please leave him alone! At least let one of them remain alive to carry on the race!" I wasn’t sure if the woman was going to realise her threat, and her words forced me to decide on a new course of action.

I asked myself, why did I deserve such rage? I didn’t like what I had heard, and that incident ended my stay in the village Kozaki. That same afternoon when the cows were in the pasture, I told Jurek what had happened. He then reminded me about our previous conversation in which he warned me not to trust the farmer’s wife, and then I thought that he had been right. For hitting her cow in order to prevent it from damaging the corn, this woman was able to consider handing over a Jewish boy to the Germans, knowing very well what would then happen to him. I made a decision quickly.

I told Jurek that I had to go away and look for another place in some other village. The next day in the morning, I led the cows out, this time to the meadow, and left them there. Then I walked ahead to the roadway hoping to soon find another place of work. A job was the only possibility for me to survive. However, I was naive and not familiar with the village customs of hiring a shepherd for the summer. First of all, farmers who were hiring someone for that purpose would do it before the start of the summer season. They would also use their own children to tend the cows or would hire the children of poor neighbours.

These youngsters spent their whole summers tending the cows of their neighbours, or went into service to other villages. But for me at that time, in the middle of July 1942, my whole existence depended on finding work. I decided to make every effort that my new employer should not learn my identity.

I thought that I was the only one looking for employment. In 1941 and 1942 many young Jews wandered from village to village, offering their services in exchange for room and board. The peasant farmers knew who they were, and for some time took advantage of their help, just as the farmer in the village of Kozaki benefited from my situation.

I arrived soon in a large village and began my search for work. As it was mid-summer nobody was home, because they were working in the fields. When I did find someone they did not require my services. I did not have better results in any other villages. I was tired and worried. At night I found places to sleep in the haystacks in the meadowland and during the day I walked from village to village without any success.

One day, I climbed on a cart for a while which was passing by. When I told the owner of the cart that I was looking for work, he provided me with some valuable advice on how to proceed. He told me also that it wouldn’t be easy. It was mid-summer and farmers had already fixed themselves up with herdsmen for the season. He advised me how to reach the village of Berczewo where I might find employment. As we were parting he pointed out the way to the village of Berczewo and he turned off the road at his field. I went ahead towards the village he had told me about. By the road were farmhouses far apart from each other, and I decided to turn into the next one that I came to. I was fortunate, for they did need someone. It seems their previous hired hand had suddenly left without explanation, they said, leaving the cows in the field. There I was, three days after leaving Kozaki, employed again as a herdsman with a roof over my head. Except that this time I acted wisely and did not tell them I was from Warsaw, as I had done in Kozaki, but said I was from Dubeczno where my mother lived. As well, I asked for a fee for my services, and they agreed.

The owners of the farm were a young couple who had recently married. Their uncle who lived with them, managed the farm and was the one who hired me as a herdsman. During the day I tended the cows in the pasture and in the evening I helped out by looking after livestock on the farm.

After about two weeks had, passed the uncle of the farmer asked me if I would agree to stay with them for a whole year and do various tasks around the farm in the winter. Naturally, I agreed, but then he told me that if I were going to be a permanent farm labourer I would have to register with the village administrator. I would have to go home to Dubeczno on a weekend to get my birth certificate, which would be required for the registration.

It was one thing to tell that I was born in Dubeczno, and to tell stories about my background as long as I did not have to provide proof by way of a document. To be able to register I needed a Catholic birth certificate, which I did not possess. Thus, I had no choice but to leave the place and look for work again. The next morning I left after taking the cows to pasture. I felt sorry to do it, because I was losing a roof over my head again. I don’t remember the name of the village anymore, or the farmers with whom I stayed and who I left after a short period of time, then hounded by the fear of being discovered. It was the beginning of August of 1942, and all over Poland the Germans openly were liquidating the ghettos, one by one.

I was on the road again, and heading for the village of Berczewo, to which the farmer who had given me a ride, had advised me to go. Again I was wandering and heading for the unknown! I speculated, with some hope, that I would find a job again with some farmer. While walking to Berczewo, for the first time, I was thinking about how I could obtain a Catholic birth certificate as I realized that the knowledge of the Lord’s Prayer and some knowledge of the basics of the Catholic religion would not be enough to survive. I was also thinking about the boy who had also left the cows in the pasture.

How could such nice people have lost two herdsmen in such a short time? Then it struck me: the boy who left before me, had the farmer also asked him to register and show a birth certificate? That would have been the easiest way to check some one out. If the boy was Jewish, he would have left because he could not prove that he was a Catholic. The farmer must have been afraid to be found sheltering a Jew. Once more I realized that my Polish appearance and pretending to be a Catholic was not enough to survive.

Walking and meditating I found myself in Berczewo, in front of a house with a sign - village administrator--Soltys. I recalled that when I was searching for food in different villages near Otwock, it was usually with the assistance of the village administrator that I would get night accommodation. I asked him if he knew someone who needed a herdsman or farmhand. It seemed as though he was already waiting for my question because he handed me a piece of paper with a farmer’s name on it and told me how to reach him. When I arrived at the farm, which was nearby, only the farmer’s wife was at home but she very quickly hired me as a herdsman without asking many questions at all. I couldn’t tell whether she was interested or whether she was simply discounting whatever I said about myself. It could be that it was not important to her and, probably, she realized right away who I was, because similar to my job in Kozaki, she did not offer to pay for my services. I went to sleep on the hay in the barn and the next morning I started my duties as a herdsman. The cows looked the same as those I had accompanied to pasture on other farms, but here, I would be seeing even more of them. The farmer’s wife told me that in this village it was the custom for herdsmen to stay in the pasture all day long, take their lunch with them and not return to the farm until dinnertime. For me it did not make any difference. I was happy, I had food, a place to hide away from problems and the raging war; nothing else had any meaning for me.

I settled quickly into this village life. In the pasture in Berczewo, as in other places, the boys used to get together and tell each other "stories". They were all about twelve to fourteen years old and talked in Ukrainian. I felt strangely at ease with many of them and also spoke Ukrainian with them. In the beginning I did not know that many of the boys from that group were Jewish.

It so happened that my stay in that village was short. It was mid August, right after the harvest. There was a lot of fresh green grass after the crops had been cut and taken away. During this period the cows grazed in the fields. One day, I was with "my" cows in the field but because they didn’t know any boundary strips, the cows wandered over to join another herd which was in the care of a girl who had a small boy with her. After turning the cows back I approached closer to the children and heard them talking, but the girl changed the topic of the conversation as I drew nearer. I had an inkling that we were in the same situation. After several days I met her again in the field with "her" cows and this time she was by herself. So I asked her where she came from. She mentioned a small town in the district of Lublin. I took a chance and started talking to her in Yiddish, and sure enough she understood. She told me that there were eight Jewish boys from different towns working in this village. This was not counting the little boy I had seen with her, who she said was her brother, but that they found it best not let it be known that they were related: "So far, it is better this way". Then she asked me why I had confessed my origin to her. "I can trust you", I said. She interrupted me and said:

"No! It’s not good! You shouldn’t even tell that to me. I am certain that some day the Nazis will come here and round us up. They’ll beat us until we are forced to point out others." "Therefore", she said sadly, "it is better not to know"".

It stuck in my mind how she rebuked me for my careless conduct. She was a little older than me and probably cleverer. But even if I hadn’t told her about my origin, would I have remained in this village for long? It occurred to me that since the farmer for whom I was working had not arranged any fees for my services, it could be that he had suspected who I was. The situation had started to appear hazardous to me when I had left the farmer in the village of Kozaki because of the threat of being delivered to the Germans, since he had known who I was. I was afraid the situation could repeat itself and since I was not getting any fees anyway, I quickly made a decision to leave the village of Berczewo.

One day, later that week, I got up earlier than usual, left the barn where I had been sleeping and took a short cut through the fields to once again take my chances. I passed through several villages but no one wanted my services. I had a dangerous encounter when I was asking for work as a herdsman. A woman came right out and said: "Now, at this time of the summer? Only Jewish boys are looking for farm jobs…" I didn’t listen to her any more, but walked quickly back to the road. I knew that I didn't need to search any longer in that village.

In the summer of 1942, the number of Polish ghettos being liquidated increased. In some places, the Germans informed the population of the pending liquidation of the ghetto in their area. (See Appendix N)

TO THE UKRAINIAN AND POLISH POPULATION

District and City of Przemysl.

Information about evacuation of Jews ordered by the leader of the SS and police for the District of Krak�w.

I. On Monday the 27.7.1942 will commence the evacuation of Jews in the District and the town of Przemysl.

II. Any Ukrainian or Pole, who by any means endeavours to obstruct the action of evacuation of Jews will be shot.

III. Any Ukrainian or Pole who will be found in the Jewish Quarters plundering Jewish apartments/flats will be shot.

IV. Any Ukrainian or Pole who will try to hide a Jew or help him to hide will be shot.

V. Obtaining Jewish property for money, or without is prohibited

Infringement of this order will be punished with most strict severity.

 

Captain of the Civic Guard

Dr. Heinn…(Full name illegible on original document)

 

ANNOUNCEMENT
(See Appendix O)

To carry out the order of expulsion of Jews from Wieliczka ordered by the leader of SS and the Police for the District of Krakow, I am announcing the following:

1. On the 27.8.1942 starts the expulsion of the Jews in Wieliczka.

2. Any Pole who by his actions in whatever form would hinder or impede the carrying out of expulsion or would try to help the Jews will be shot.

3. Any Pole who during the expulsion or after it will take in a Jew, will hide him, or help him, will be shot.

4. Any Pole who without permission will enter an apartment or flat of displaced/ expelled Jews will be shot.

5. Standing in the streets during the actions is prohibited. The windows must be closed.

6. Individuals who since 15.8.1942 obtained from Jews any objects whatsoever for money or without payment must return them before 1.9.1942 to the designated Mayor, or to the head of the Municipality and receive a written receipt.

Transgressions will be severely punished.

Kracow, 22.8.1942.

Captain of the Civic guard

Dr. Schaar

 

After the war, I learned that while I was herding cows in Berczewo in August 1942, the Otwock ghetto was liquidated. It was a horrific day. The Germans, with the help of the special Ukrainian units, rounded up eight thousand people and shipped them by freight train to the extermination camp, Treblinka. The remaining population of over four thousand hid anywhere they could, so for a whole month the hidden people were hunted, rounded up and shot. When this stage of liquidation ended the remainder of the Jewish population of Otwock were left in two mass graves, and many single graves in the part of Otwock where the ghetto was formerly located.

Because of what happened, at times I think it was probably better that my parents did not survive up to the terrible time of the ghetto liquidation. At least they did not have to go through all the suffering the others had to endure.

The events that caused rumours and whisperings amongst the farmers when I was in the village of Kozaki turned out to be true and became common knowledge. It was strange because in the little town I came to next, in spite of all the signs and rumours, the Jews did not know of the liquidations - or maybe they did not want to know.

Walking from village to village I lost my sense of direction and walked in a circle to where Ukrainian villages were located in that part of the area.

It was early September 1942, and by that time a large number of Polish Jews were already dead. There was a different atmosphere in the air. When I was looking for work, sometimes the villagers’ remarks put me on guard, and I realized that they were suspicious of me in spite of the fact that I was posing as a Polish Catholic boy. I knew that I would be in serious danger if they discovered who I was. Naturally, I thought I should avoid the village administrator and forget proper night accommodation as I used to ask for, and not to ask for food from farmers so as not to arouse suspicion. Again I ate carrots or turnips that I picked out of gardens, slept in haystacks, and walked to villages searching for a place to work with a farmer who needed my services. One needed real luck at this time of the summer to find a farmer who needed someone to take his cows to pasture. But for me it was the only work I could do, through which I could have food and be able to survive. In spite of all the difficulties, I stayed in the countryside and explored villages where, by instinct, I felt my survival and my existence was possible. For that purpose I wandered to many places, sometimes returning to a village where I had been before, because someone informed me that in that particular place a farmer was looking for a herdsman. So I would walk there, very happily.

During my wanderings I came upon a village named Sokoly, where a sign post indicated the direction to the small town of Persow, 5 kilometres away. So instead of looking for a job in the village of Sokoly, I decided to go to the town of Persow. It was already evening as I was passing through the centre of the village and I walked by a group of women. It was common in those villages for women to gather together in the evenings and exchange information and gossip while their husbands talked in another group close by.

One of the women, seeing a strange boy alone, asked me where I was going. On the outskirts of the village I had just seen a sign pointing the way to the town of Persow, 5 kilometres away, so I said with seeming confidence: "To see my uncle in Persow". She shot back, "What’s your uncle’s name?" She caught me off guard. I blurted out Pinkowski, a name I had heard elsewhere.

She called out to a group of men standing by, "Hey Franiuk - in that Persow town, is there a man by the name of Pinkowski?" "No!" came the answer, but I stubbornly insisted that my uncle did live there. With that, I strode off in the direction of Persow to my imaginary uncle leaving the interrogators behind me. I started walking to Persow, not realizing that in this little town located not more than 5 km away, and not bigger than the village I was just passing, people knew each other. And so I went to Persow and headed to my imaginary Uncle Pinkowski, the name which I soon came to adopt.

At that time of summer the gardens were full of vegetables which I ate. I slept in haystacks and dressed in a homespun coat jacket made in a village, which I had received somewhere during my service. Autumn was approaching. I had cracked heels from walking barefoot. With this "baggage" I arrived in the town of Persow. I was surprised at how small the town was. There weren’t any sidewalks and the road was bare dirt pressed down by use. On both sides of this dirt road there stood single houses with no barns attached. There was one main road and a few more houses were scattered around with one or two shops.

On my arrival in a new place, I first used to explore what kind of people lived there. This time I was concerned about a roof over my head. So I entered some homes right away. It was too good to be true: the people were not only pleasant, but also Jewish. It turned out the whole town was populated by Jews mostly, and because it was small (and therefore similar to Dubeczno) there was no ghetto there.

It didn’t mean, however, that the German invaders had forgotten them. Close by, the extermination camp of Sobibor was already working at full capacity. Perhaps it was too small for the German occupiers to be bothered with, or perhaps it was their policy to leave Jews alone somewhere to allay suspicion until their extermination was completed. But now I stood before a kindly Jewish tailor who was asking me to stay the night at his place. In the course of our conversation they learned about my difficulties and my attempts at finding work. The head of the household told me not to worry. "I have three children, and will welcome you as my fourth". I felt grateful and secure. At last I had found a guardian who welcomed me as part of his family. But the future had different plans for me.

Because that good man was a tailor, farmers from nearby villages came to him to sew their clothing. Several days had passed when my guardian called me to his sewing room to tell me that I would be going to a nearby village to look after the cows "for this gentleman". When I was finished for the season I should come back to my newly adopted family.

But how surprised I was to see sitting in the sewing room, the man from the village of Sokoly whom the woman had called Franiuk, who had said that in Persow there wasn’t any family named Pinkowski.

The farmer took me to his home. While riding with him on his horse-cart, he instructed not to tell anyone where he had brought me from or my origin.

So it turned out that contrary to my intentions, the farmer Franiuk for whom I was to work, knew that I was a Jew. He then gave me the following suggestions, and advised me also, that the name Czesiek would sound better than my previous name Grzegorz (Gregory), as I had been called in the village of Berczewo. During the ride to his home, I also adopted the family name "Pinkowski". From then on, I called myself Czeslaw Pinkowski. It felt strange and ironic to be with a farmer who was aware of my true identity. All summer I had run away from farmers who suspected my origins. Here I was conspiring with a farmer in the hopes that no one else would learn of my identity.

The next day I led Franiuk’s cows to the pasture where I met other boys looking after cows. I introduced myself as Czeslaw Pinkowski and from that day on I tried to blend in and be part of the boys’ community. I was the only stranger among them. Unlike in other villages, in Sokoly there were no hired servants except for me, every boy was looking after his own family’s cows. The boys treated me as one of them, I was part of the group, even dressing like them, with bare feet in the summer. I was tanned from being out of doors all the time and spoke like them. There was only one difference. They were Ukrainian, and since I had spoken Ukrainian before in Kozaki and Berczewo, I had the opportunity to further my knowledge of the language. I spoke with the boys in Ukrainian only, and this would soon prove to be helpful to me. The boys were industrious and I soon learned from them to weave and shape baskets. We collected our materials on our way to the meadows. White willow trees grew by the roadside and the drainage ditches. At the other end of the village there was a forest of mixed trees, among them, slim junipers that were useful to us for basket making. I was very proud to bring some new baskets to the Franiuk’s from time to time.

One day when I was herding the cows on the other side of the village, in the forest, I discovered an ideal spot for building a hiding place. Jurek, the boy from Warsaw, and I used to discuss such plans as these when we were together in Kozaki. But it wasn’t just because we were interested in child’s play. The idea of a hiding place was, again, only a dream.

Time was passing and the potato harvest had started and the rainy days became more frequent. So with a sack over my head for protection against the rain and with a whip in my hand, I looked after Franiuk’s cows, and in exchange for that I had quite a comfortable living along with the friendship of the Franiuk’s. In addition, the boy-herdsmen, not knowing my real origin, were very friendly towards me. I thought to myself that life in Sokoly was good to me. Unfortunately, good times don’t last. The German Nazis took care of that.

In the autumn 1942, the Nazis proceeded with their attempt to exterminate all the remaining Jews in Poland, particularly those still living in the small towns, which were surrounded by villages. There was no opportunity for the Jews to run away until it was time to transport them to extermination camps. Consequently, the Nazis permitted small Jewish communities in towns like Dubeczno, where my uncle lived, to exist, just as the Jews of Persow were left alone until the order would come. Unfortunately, the time for the liquidation had arrived, and all the village administrators in that area received orders from the municipalities to send villagers with horse wagons to transport Jews from the little towns to the railway stations where they would be loaded on freight trains.

Franiuk was the village administrator in Sokoly and one day he returned from a session in the municipality and told me I had to leave because he had been ordered to observe the law and register all strangers temporarily residing in the village. He told me that he couldn’t register me, so I should go. My immediate thought was to go back to the tailor in Persow, but a cloud came over Franiuk’s face at this idea. I felt he was hiding something from me, and was pretty sure when he said: "No! Not to Persow, maybe to your uncle in Dubeczno, but not to the tailor in Persow". I said to him that it was already autumn and since no one needed the service of a boy to take care of somebody’s cows, should I be going to Dubeczno to my uncle? "It is better", he said.

So I was to go back to my "not so hospitable" uncle, to my sarcastic cousin Jankiele, and the rest of my uncle’s family and to tell them about my experiences in the villages during the summer. The next day, when Franiuk gave me some food for my journey, he said again: "Remember, don’t go to Persow!" He knew exactly why. Shortly, I was to know why he did not allow me to go to Persow.

Setting out with a heavy heart for Dubeczno, I wandered through fields, meadows, and grass pastures. I arrived at a highway just as a horse drawn wagon driven by a farmer, with four Jews in the back, was approaching. I asked them in Yiddish where they were going. They said they were representatives of the Jews of Persow on their way to Sobibor, to try to persuade the Commandant of the camp to postpone the moving of the Jews for work at Sobibor until the spring of the following year instead of now in October.

It was tragic to see elderly Jews sitting in a cart with such determination on their faces as they rode toward the extermination camp of Sobibor to bargain with the Commandant of the camp, not realizing where they were travelling to. One had to guess that they had no one to warn them, and how could they have known? Correspondence between towns with a Jewish population at this time was forbidden, radios had been confiscated and even the names of the camps were always used in the context of "work camps". Those representatives must not have known what "work camps" meant. The Germans were doing everything they could (up to that point in time) to create an impression that the Jews they were transporting were going to work at the camp. Franiuk knew something that those Jewish representatives from Persow did not.

The cart with the Jews from Persow drove to the camp Sobibor, while I went in the opposite direction to Dubeczno. In a very short time, I too became informed of what the Sobibor camp meant. After walking all day, I turned to the meadow in order to sleep in a haystack. The next day I walked all day again and, in the evening, arrived at my uncle’s front door after an absence of five months. My uncle’s family and the neighbours from Lublin were sitting in the kitchen. When my aunt saw me, she greeted me by shouting:

"So here you are! Why did you come here? Tomorrow morning are all going to Sobibor. Not only that, but we are supposed to transport ourselves there".

It was not very far from Dubeczno to Sobibor, and in that town people already knew what was going on in Sobibor and what the place meant.

The neighbour said: "You know what, let’s start a fire in the oven and put in all the shoes we have in the house, and then we’ll drink vodka and when everybodywill fall asleep, the carbon monoxide will kill us here. Why do we have to go out of the way - all the way to Sobibor - to be put into an oven?"

I jumped up and shouted: "I will not go to Sobibor. I would rather die from a bullet in my back running away than ride with an escort to the camp. I will hide as long as I can, and if in the end I will be caught, at least I will be shot on the spot".

As I said these words, complete resignation swept over me and I felt at that moment that I could agree to such a fatal end. Then I said I was tired and I wanted to sleep. I begged my aunt to wake me up at dawn so that I could leave. I lay on the bench by the oven and fell asleep right away until I was startled by a sharp poke in my back. I heard my aunt saying, "Get up! It‘s already six o’clock in the morning and the Germans might come here to escort us to Sobibor at any time". This was the nicest thing she had ever done for me. As I rubbed the sleep from my eyes I saw her whole family, and the Lublin neighbours, sitting stiffly in the same place and in the same way as I had seen them the evening before, when I first arrived. Their faces were tired with despair. It suddenly struck me that cousin Jankiele hadn’t said a word, and because of that I hadn’t even recognized him. I had wished so often that his tongue would be still, but I hadn’t meant it to be like this.

From the pile of shoes on the floor, I took a pair that fit me - without so much as asking - put them on, and headed for the door. My uncle, aunt, and all of them suddenly drew themselves up with effort and came to the door and accompanied me outside to bless me on my way and to wish me good luck in hiding myself. This was the last time I saw them. It was also the beginning of the most dangerous experience of my life. It was easy to say I would hide, but how and where? Leaving my uncle’s house once again, I did not know what to do, or where to go.

In folklore books I used to read of magical happenings, and now such a happening occurred which carried me in the direction from which I had come the day before. Or was it the gift of the shoes? I slipped into the irrigation ditch and ran along it to the outskirts of town. While walking an idea occurred to me. I would return to the village of Sokoly. In the forest, where I sometimes took the cows, there were mixed trees, deciduous and coniferous. I had seen many good places for hiding; I could dig a hole, and cover it with moss and plant some small trees, slender juniper trees.

I would pad it with dry leaves on the inside, and be safe in my basket from the unfair world. As I walked, I dreamt, and in my dream I had already built my hiding place.

After a whole day of walking, I arrived at the same grass pasture and the same haystack where I slept before when I was going to Dubeczno. The next morning I wandered ahead to my hiding place, which I had already built in my dreams. In the evening, after having walked for two days, I found myself again in the village of Sokoly. I thought that Franiuk would support my childish idea and permit me to build a hiding place.

When I approached closer to Franiuk’s house where I had been employed only a few days ago, this time only his dog greeted me in a friendly way. When I opened the door to the entrance hall, I could smell freshly baked bread. As I entered the kitchen Franiuk’s wife gave a start as if she had seen a ghost. She made the sign of the cross and cried out in Ukrainian:

"Oh God! Why did you come here?"

I informed her of the German decree and that my uncle and the Jews of Dubeczno were supposed to deliver themselves to the extermination camp of Sobibor. Then I asked her where her husband was, and told her that in the forest I wanted to build a hiding place and wanted to ask him for an axe and shovel, to which she only said: "And if you will be spotted, then what?" I promised her I would say I had stolen the axe and shovel somewhere, but she asked, "Where will you get food?".

I assured her I would only come in the dark to her back door to pick up food. She ordered me to go behind the barn and wait there until her husband returned. In a while Franiuk came behind the barn. I attempted to ask for a shovel and axe so that I could build a hiding place in the forest. Franiuk gave me no chance to speak any more. Words tumbled out of his mouth:

"Forgive me, I can’t take the risk and help you build a hiding place in the forest and then have you come to my house to get food. I have children! What about them? Go away! Maybe someone else will help you and hide you, I can’t! Go! But not through the village, but through here, behind the barns, so no one will see you." Then he gave me a small, freshly baked bread.

That evening, behind the barn, for me the world ended. There was nowhere to go and Franiuk insisted that I should leave. What was I supposed to do? I did what he told me - I slipped behind the barns into the fields to the end of the village, walking toward the meadow where not long ago I was looking after the cows. The dog who often accompanied me to the pasture when I was looking after Franiuk’s cows walked behind me till I got to the pasture, and turned back to his master as if he knew I was no longer the herdsman. In order not to be found in the morning by the boys who would come with their cows, I went to the other side of the meadow and "buried" myself. Crying and at the same time trying to console myself by eating the bread Franiuk gave me, I fell asleep.

The next day was very cold and rainy. Although no one came to the meadow with their cows, it didn’t change my situation, for I could not stay on the pasture in a haystack, and did not know what to do and where to go. I was lost and overwhelmed. At that moment I realized my powerlessness: all around was an open space, yet in my hopelessness I felt surrounded as in a cage. Could I expect help from anyone? Franiuk comforted me that maybe I would find someone who might help me, but if he didn’t want to risk his family for my sake, how could I expect people who did not know me to risk their lives?

I walked to a village on the other side of the meadow. I knocked on a door and talked to some people and found out that outside the village there was a highway leading to a town called Komarowka about 20 kilometres away. And not knowing what else to do, and because it didn’t make any difference, I walked towards it.

I was ignorant of the danger, for at that time, under the code name Reinhard, the Germans were proceeding with the final solution of all the remaining Jews in the towns of Poland.

I walked in the rain to nowhere, on the road that the Germans had planned for people such as me, a path to the extermination camp. But I marched, with what must have been faith, through the mud as the rain poured down, still under the illusion that somehow in another small town it would be different. With that kind of optimism, I arrived soaking wet to the town of Komarowka. For a moment I had hope, because I saw people walking about openly and talking in an animated manner. But then I noticed that many of the houses had their doors flung open. The houses were empty and people’s belongings lay around on the street but no one was paying any attention. I asked a boy about my age the meaning of all the chaos. He told me that the previous day a lot of people from this town had been sent to the camp, and tomorrow would be the same, therefore some people were running away to the forest. When he found out that I had spent the summer working as a shepherd, surprised, he asked me, "Why did you come here? You were in a village, you were supposed to stay there."

What was I supposed to tell him? Precisely because I had been roaming around in the villages during the summer, up to the time I went on my traumatic visit to my uncle in Dubeczno, I hadn’t known what was happening. Talking with him did not make sense, and because I was tired, cold and wet from walking all day in the rain and it was already evening, I looked for a place to sleep. I tried to find accommodation, and entered several homes. I was appalled: In that tragic moment, the very people who knew they would be transported out of town to an extermination camp were harsh towards me. They refused me a place to sleep even though it wouldn’t have made any difference to their situation. Bitterness had hardened these people so that they had no feelings of fellowship for me. For instance, there was a carpenter in one of the houses where I asked for a place to sleep. He had a workshop with a floor covered with wooden shavings - big enough for ten people to sleep on comfortably. But I was refused. The carpenter’s son - about my age - seemed to take special satisfaction in telling me, "Here we work for the SS and SD, so we don’t have a place for anyone to sleep."

I left the house of those people and with dread and wandered towards the empty houses, which I had seen earlier when I entered the town. I wondered about sleeping in one of the houses. As I explored this possibility, I picked up a camera which had been left on the ground in front of one house, and put it in my pocket. When I got accustomed to the area, I entered one of the houses and found a spot to sleep. But it was not meant for me to have a comfortable rest that night.

I must have been seen entering, for a Jewish "policeman" suddenly came in and ordered me to go with him. He escorted me to a barn right across the street from the carpenter’s workshop. In the barn I joined other people, and then more people joined us. The Jewish policemen were in charge of bringing in individuals who may have tried to evade the German orders of going to the extermination camp. After a while, they brought in the Rabbi of the town with some of his followers, who had tried to run away from the town. I pitied them for having been caught. Soon their prayers were drowned out by the curses of newcomers, which were directed at the police. It became a routine that the individuals whom the police brought in were swearing at them. One man was beside himself, swearing and yelling, "Why did you stop me and drag me here when I was already out of town? I promise you that you’ll be the first to be killed when the transport arrives at the camp. This is the way the Nazis have their work done." Again and again he asked them why they took him by force. More people arrived and were forced into the barn. By dawn, the barn was so jammed with people that none of us could sit on the floor, we had to stand side by side. After that "nightmarish" night, the gates of the barn were thrown open to a beautiful sunny morning. But when my eyes grew accustomed to the light, they focused on a long line of horse carts, one after another, rolling up to the front of the barn. So this was to be our transport. The policemen directed the traffic, ordering us to get in and sit down, four people to each wagon.

It struck me as a rather comfortable arrangement after being herded together in the barn, but maybe the local farmers were being considerate of their horses and didn’t want to tire them out on a long journey, for they had much work to do.

I thought to myself, "What irony! So that was what Franiuk wanted me to avoid when he attempted to persuade me not to go to Persow. And here it is happening to me in Komarowka."

While waiting in line to climb up into the wagons, I noticed on the other side of the street, by the fence, near the carpenter’s house, there was a narrow gate. People from the town were being ushered through one at a time to be seated in the wagons. They had small bundles for their journey. With shock, I recognized the face of the carpenter’s son who was so proud of working for the SS. and SD. and whose parents refused me accommodation. He had his little bundle too and was now climbing up into a wagon. I had memorized his face and what he had told me, so I was surprised to see him. I thought to myself: " The Nazis rounded up all of them." I remembered what the girl who was herding the cows in Berczewo told me, that she and all the Jewish boys would be rounded up and taken away. I wondered, had she and her little brother been captured too, as she had suspected might happen?

It was no time for feeble thoughts for the policemen commanding the traffic were continuously yelling orders as they filled people into the wagons in a smooth and efficient manner.

Soon I found myself up on a wagon, and I knew that we were headed for the extermination camp, for the people in the barn had been talking about it all night. All the rumours became very real. The wagon was like a scaffold and I asked myself, "Was I like a criminal, doomed for execution?" I convinced myself that I had to run away, and the thought did not leave my mind. From my vantage-point on the wagon, I could see the long line of wagons with people in them, and the "caravan" started moving. The policemen were watching that everything was in order with the wagons on the road, and the German soldiers holding their rifles at the ready were guarding us, so that no one could escape. In spite of that, all through the drive I didn’t stop looking for the possibility of escape and of finding a place to hide.

We were driven through fields and small forests where it was impossible to make a getaway. After several hours the "caravan" was passing through a dense forest which seemed to provide me with the best opportunity for escape. As I tried to figure out from which side I should jump from the wagon, I noticed a soldier waiting behind a tree with a gun ready to shoot. When my eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness in the woods, I detected more soldiers in the distance behind the trees, waiting in ambush. I had heard no rifle shots, so I knew that not one of these people had had the nerve to attempt to run for it, and here I was considering it. Was I insane? So the caravan drove all day without stopping, through small forests and fields without incident. Sitting in the wagon with me were two girls, who were sisters, and a Rabbi. At intervals the policemen would allow people from wagons, which were close by, to come and talk to the Rabbi and seek solace.

It was close to evening when a young man of about eighteen approached our wagon to ask: "Have you seen my parents?" The older girl, instead of answering, asked him: "You are with us on this transport too? How is it possible?"

It turned out that he had already been transported two days earlier. He explained that he came from the town of Miedzyrzec, which was not far away. He had run away the moment the Germans had started loading the people onto the freight train. At that moment, there was a lot of commotion and disarray. He was waiting all day in the bushes for our transport in search of his parents, hoping that he could help them escape, and hide his parents somewhere from the Nazis. He advised us:

"If any one of you intends to run away, this is the only chance - on this road before you reach Miedzyrzec which is not far away. Because once they take you to this town, it’ll be too late! Directly from these horse wagons, the Nazis will take you behind barbed wire to await the freight trains. Once you will be taken into the cattle cars, that will be the end. So run away!"

Then he went on to wagon after wagon, looking for his parents, and I could hear his voice gradually fading away; saying, "Have you seen my parents? Run away!" I envied him in his hope to be reunited with his parents.

On the wagon I was riding, I overheard a conversation. The younger girl sitting with me on the wagon asked the Rabbi,

"Rabbi, does the other world exist?" The Rabbi answered, "Yes, it exists". The girl said, "Good, in that case we will be living in that other world". The Rabbi said, "You see, my child, the other world is quite different, it certainly exists, but it is better to live in this world".

That was the conversation that took place while we were in the wagons, but how can one know what was going on in the minds of people who knew that they were going to be annihilated? Probably some of them had the same thought as I did - to run - because the older girl started to think out loud, saying: "It would be better to run away". She started to ask the farmer driver for help; she and her sister would jump down from the wagon and hide in the bushes. They would wait there for him to return and then, since they had hidden away all kinds of expensive possessions, they would reward him. She started to specify what she would give him for his help. He didn’t answer.

The girl must have not known that the Nazis had proclaimed special orders to kill Poles who were caught helping Jews. He of course didn’t answer her. He knew the consequences all too well.

After a while, the girl started to think aloud again: "It would be good to have a Catholic birth certificate, because then one could go voluntarily to Germany to work there, and it would be much easier to survive the war.

Several people have already done this". She started to recite a list of names. Then again she asked the farmer who was driving the wagon for help: "Couldn’t he help her to obtain two Catholic birth certificates of some village girls?" The farmer was silent again and she did not get an answer.

The wagons escorted by the German soldiers and by the Jewish policeman were driving without disturbance and complications, and finally drove into a big village, the name of which I cannot remember. In the middle of that village was a pond, where the Germans permitted the coachmen to water and feed their horses. The horses surrounded the pond. To our surprise, the Germans allowed the people to climb down from the wagons and help themselves to water from nearby wells. I jumped down from the wagon and went to a house located on the opposite side of the road and found that no one was following me. Although some people like me were running in different directions to find water, others did not leave and simply sat barely alive in the wagons. As I approached the well, I did not see anyone on the farm. It was the potato harvest and it was possible that the owners of that particular farm had not yet returned from the field. So as I came to the well, I passed it without stopping to drink, and went in the direction of the barn, and from there a footpath led to a little gate in the fence that enclosed a garden and then to a meadow, where a haystack stood. I walked ahead, not daring to look back. I felt a terrible anxiety: maybe a German soldier in ambush will shoot at me? So it’s better not to see it. Or maybe some strong hands will take me back to the transport. Only when I was safely behind the haystack did I venture to look around. I didn’t see anyone. I was standing and listening, and my heart was pounding. It was hard for me to believe that I was free again.

It was a beautiful autumn day and the sun was setting, and for me everything was beautiful again. I started to pull hay from the haystack and make a hole, and while I buried myself in there, I could hear noises from the village: yelling and rifle shots. The noises and turmoil must not have lasted long, but to me it seemed to last for ages. I was afraid someone would show up at the haystack where I was hiding and take me back to the transport, but I was fortunate.

Sitting in that haystack I thought of my last few days’ experience. I was also thinking, with terror, of how my relatives must have been moved from Dubeczno, and to be sure, someone here had just been shot for trying to do what I had done just now - run away. And I wondered if what I had said several days ago in Dubeczno - that "I would rather end my life running way with a bullet in my back, than being escorted to the death camp" - would really happen. I still questioned, "Is there a place in which Nazis allow Jews to stay alive?"

Early in the morning when I came out from my hiding place, I cleaned the hay off of me and proceeded through the pasture in the direction of a village located on the other side of the meadow. When I got closer, I took a short cut through bushes and not even realizing it, I found myself in an orchard on a farmer’s property. There was a group of people, a farm family and their helpers, sitting and eating breakfast out of doors at tables laden with food. It really looked like a picnic. I could tell each type of delicious food from its smell in the air and I got a stomach ache from hunger. I hadn’t eaten a thing for two days, except fear, so impulsively I stopped in my tracks and looked at those banqueting villagers. I didn’t say a word but a woman in the group saw me and said: "Look, for sure this must be a Jew. Yesterday they were transporting them through the village." Another villager in the group asked me if I was a Jew. I flatly denied it. I told him that I had also seen the Germans transporting "them" through the "village". It so happened that I was getting potatoes from the farmers in that village. So the farmer asked me:

"Are you walking through villages begging potatoes?" I answered: "Yes, I already have several sacks of potatoes in different villages and in "that village", at the house where I was sleeping last night, I left one sack of potatoes too. I intend to pick up a little more, and take everything home by horse cart if I find the opportunity. Right now I need a sack, because I’ve already used all that I have."

He asked me where I was from. I told him that I was from Dubeczno. I didn’t know how far this place was from Dubeczno. I found out that this village was Polish, not Ukrainian. Although I didn’t have any idea if it made logical sense that I turned myself into a beggar, in that very critical moment it seemed the only possibility of getting out of a difficult situation.

During the German occupation of Poland, it was not unusual for beggars to be wandering through villages asking for potatoes. So my story had some credibility, but in spite of my story, the villager proceeded with his questions. He told me to make the sign of the cross, and then to say the Lord’s Prayer. I recited it perfectly, and suddenly the farmer became friendly and asked if I wanted to eat. Without waiting, he continued, would I join them at the table please? I saw excellent food and wonderful baking in front of me, which only made my stomach ache more, but I couldn’t let him know that I was hungry, so I controlled myself and told them that I had already eaten a good breakfast where I had spent the night. Also I told them it was an early breakfast, because the farmer had to drive to his field to dig potatoes. The villager said to me, "We are also going to dig potatoes. Maybe you can come with us to help, and I will pay you with a big basket of potatoes." I refused politely and not waiting for another question, I walked out from the farmyard. And instead of going into the village begging for potatoes as I had just told them, I passed the village and went in the direction of the train tracks which I saw in the distance.

Going through the fields toward the railway tracks, I picked up a turnip: after two days of fasting, it tasted like the best apple. After eating, I was able to think more clearly. I managed to run away from the transport, I was free! But where would I go? What next? Should I ask someone in some village to help me and hide as Franiuk suggested? I didn't want to take that chance of putting myself and others at risk, because since September 1942 the Nazis had circulated a proclamation warning the Polish and Ukrainian populace that anyone assisting Jews by any means would be liable for the death penalty (See Appendix P).

Taking into account my dangerous circumstances, I became convinced that in order to survive, I had to rely solely on myself.

It was the middle of October 1942, the German invaders were in the middle of a special action coded Reinhard, the final solution of the Jews in Poland, part of it named "General Government". The ghettos were being liquidated and transports with Jews were arriving from all over Poland to the death camps built by the Germans. Under these conditions, what kind of a chance would a Jewish boy who just ran away from the transport have? Where could I expect any help in such circumstances? I had nothing else to rely on except my appearance and my wits, my ability to speak Polish fluently without an accent, and of course my limited knowledge of the Catholic faith which I had learned from a prayer book some time previously. But my situation could be compared to a rabbit fleeing from a hunter, who for a moment was able to elude him, but for whom a trap was set and ready somewhere. I felt I did not have much of a chance to survive.

Completely wrapped up in my thoughts, I approached the railway tracks and not knowing where I was going, somehow turned in the right direction and walked on the tracks till I reached a small railway station. From the information tables I found out that those tracks led to a "town", and then to the next town - Siedlce.

One can ask what forces guide a person’s life: God, fate, or simply accident? If I had continued walking in the direction of "the town" without stopping, I would have fallen into a trap, the same as I had in the town of Komarowka. But I did not go there.

On the left side of the railway tracks there were bushes, then a grass pasture, and in the horizon I saw a village. I stepped off the tracks and went and hid down in the bushes for a while. From behind the bushes I could see that it was a beautiful day and I was as free as the birds perched on top of the bushes in which I was hiding.

I was hungry. Where should I get food? From my previous experience I already knew that if someone wanted lodging in a village he would need a slip of paper from the village- administrator-(from the "Soltys").

In the Warsaw district I used to follow this kind of procedure. So I thought it would be the same here.

I waited until sunset, then I took a short cut through the pasture to the village and looked for the village administrator. When I met with the Soltys he saw a village boy with blue eyes and blond hair. He gave me the slip of paper with a farmer’s name. For me it was no problem at all, while older individuals had to show some identification. So I went for a night’s sleep and of course as I expected, I was given a good supper and a good breakfast in the morning.

I went back to the railway tracks in the morning and started walking, dreaming about how good it would be if in the town to which I was headed the Nazis didn’t round up Jews and transport them to camps, but permitted them to live. The "town" was far away, so why hurry, when every evening and morning I could have good food? When I spotted another village, far in the distance, I left the railway tracks, and as I had done the day before, sat down in some bushes waiting for evening to arrive.

Again I had success with the village administrator and got a slip of paper and went on to a night’s accommodation and food as before. And so during the days I sat in the bushes, and in the evenings I went to the village administrator for my slip of paper. One can say I made a good living following those railway tracks. In other words, I temporarily exploited the occasion without any knowledge of what the next day would bring. One day while sleeping at a farmer’s place, I "borrowed" a prayer book to replace the one I had left behind somewhere long before. I thought it would stand me in good stead in the villages I was going through. Next day I was back on the tracks in the direction of the "town" and contemplating how many villages I would encounter before arriving at my destination of Siedlce.

On the tracks, I passed a railway tower the size of a telephone booth where there usually was a rail worker on duty looking after junction signals on the tracks. When I approached the booth the railroad man who was just coming back from checking the signals, spotted me and shouted: "Hey boy, why are you walking on the tracks? Do you want to pay a fine? Where do you think you’re going?"

I concocted a story in a hurry, telling him that my mother ordered me to go to "town" to see how my uncle was because we had not heard from him for quite some time. When I arrived at his house I was supposed to write to my mother back home. He said: "Okay, and what does your father do for a living?" I responded, truthfully, "I don’t have a father. He went into the army in 1939 to fight the Germans and did not return".

"Let’s say you can’t find your uncle, what will happen then?"

"In that case, I will go home to Dubeczno to my mother, or I will look for some place to become a servant, because during the summer I intend to herd cows anyway"

He seemed to like my answer, because he said to me: "In that case, if you have to look for employment why don’t you come to my place? You would be of help on my farm."

When he told me that, I had to control my emotions in order not to show how happy I was. I tried to appear unconcerned and said: "Fine, if I cannot find my uncle in "town", I will come to work for you, but if I don’t like the work conditions, I will be free to leave at any time." I had to say something.

On a slip of paper he wrote his surname, the name of his village and directions on how to find his farm, he also explained how to get there. Happily, I took the little piece of paper from him, which at that time was like a "ticket for my salvation", my hope for continuing my life. If one would think of this in a religious way one would say that this man was sent to me by God to offer me refuge in the form of work on his farm. It proved to be of great help later on in my survival.

Now, since I had said I was going to my uncle’s in "town", I had to go there to find out what the town was like, in case it came up in future conversations, and I was curious as well. Not leaving the railway tracks, I went ahead to "town", with an offer of a job as a servant on the farm for the coming winter. The slip of paper with the address on it I safely put in my pocket. On the right side there lay the village as the rail worker - Victor - told me, it stretched out with single houses surrounded by land. One of those houses belonged to Victor. Closer to town, and almost by the rail tracks, was a small house belonging to another rail worker. Close to that house, on the slope, I saw boys who were watching their cows, enjoying the last warm days of October.

The station of the "town" was on the right side of the tracks and I turned toward the town on the left. When I arrived there I noticed that the streets were empty. Other small streets were also empty. There seemed to be no people anywhere. I turned back and walked toward the railway station. By the road I came across a kiosk-like store, so I went in to buy some food. Inside I discovered that one could buy and sell anything. I had something: the camera which I picked up in that terrible town, Komarowka, where I was put on a transport. The owner started to bargain: "How much do you want?" "45 zloty." "Ho, for that amount of money I can buy a good chicken, I will give you 20 zloty." Finally the camera changed hands for 25 zloty.

What is significant about this story is that one year later, I paid for a real Catholic birth certificate with this money. But at that point in time, that thought had not occurred to me yet. I left the kiosk and walked again along the railway tracks toward the village where I was supposed to go to work. But I had to spend some time before going to the rail worker, since I was supposed to be looking for my imaginary uncle, and it was still too early to go to the railwayman. So I sat down on the slope, by myself, not far away from the group of boys I had seen taking care of cows on my way to the "town".

Five of the boys lost no time in coming over to me and started drilling me with questions: Who was I? I explained that I was intending to become a servant for the rail worker Victor and that evening he expected me to turn up for work. I showed them the slip of paper with the name of Victor, and I explained that I was supposed to be there in the evening after he finished work. My explanation didn’t sound authentic enough. One of them said that a few days earlier, the liquidation of the ghetto had taken place, and that there were still some people on the run. "Are you by chance a Jew?" Of course I flatly denied it, and I reminded them that not long ago I was going on these tracks to "town" and they must have seen me, because I saw them. "Okay, in that case recite the Lord’s Prayer!" This was a repeat performance and I started right in, but half way through the prayer, the most aggressive lad told me to say the prayer to the Virgin Mary. When I finished that prayer, they decided that obviously, I wasn’t a Jew after all. They all sat down beside me and started to chat in a friendly way, and pointed out to me the house belonging to the rail worker, which could be seen from far away.

After talking to the boys for some time, I went to Victor’s house, but at that time only his wife was at home. I introduced myself and told her of my conversation with her husband. I also told her he was right, because it had turned out as he predicted, I could not find my uncle in "town".

My imagination had no limits. In fact, I said, I found out from my uncle's neighbours that the Gestapo were after him, so they suspected he had gone over to the partisans. Although the story of an uncle I could not find in the "town" was made up, I knew it could have been very well true, because at that time, to avoid arrest, many people were running away and joining the resistance.

I showed her the slip of paper her husband had written on. Here I was and willing to accept her husband’s offer of room and board with very little pay in exchange for work on the farm through the winter.

In the evening, when the rail worker returned home, he and his wife accepted my service. They had a five hectare farm, one horse and one cow, and next morning I was told to run her to the pasture. I was with her in the pasture on the slope, by the railway tracks together with the boys who on the previous day had told me about the ghetto liquidation, and had "examined" my knowledge of religion, wanting to hear the Lord’s Prayer from a stranger. Later, in the conversation with my employer and some neighbours, I found out that it happened exactly at the time that I was sleeping in different villages, in order to have food. Had I started my journey to "town" a few days earlier, I too might have lost my life. On the other hand, Victor - the rail worker, not knowing my origin, offered me work on his farm, struck a bargain with me, which was to his advantage, and at the same time unknowingly helped me at a most critical moment.

At the time it was customary for farm owners to employ people as farm help. This practice was so common that in every large village one could find employment for minimal pay. The circumstances were favourable, because half of the country’s population were farmers, living in numerous villages some of which I happened to wander through in search of work.

When the season of taking the cows to the pasture ended, I would perform a variety of duties on the farm: chopping wood, cutting straw into chaff for the horse, threshing corn with a flail, and grinding the wheat into flour. When I was performing all of these duties, I finally realized why the rail worker took me in. First of all, if he did not deliver a certain amount of wheat to the Germans as required by their orders, the so-called "contingent", then he would not receive the special permission to grind his grain in the community-grinding mill from the municipality. So in order to have flour to bake his bread, I carried the threshed grain to the parents of my employer every week, and ground it into flour on a stone grinder. Which meant that every week I walked for 8 kilometres on the railway tracks carrying a sack of threshed grain weighing about 10 kilograms, and then returned back again, with the flour, another 8 kilometres. On these journeys, I was aware I was in great peril, for any passing army patrol or policeman could have spotted me and started to interrogate me, and my fate would have been determined. My dangerous journeys with food were sort of a recurrence. Just as a year ago when I was returning to Otwock ghetto carrying the provisions with me, this time I walked on the tracks carrying grain and flour. The danger was the same, or perhaps more considerable, and I was fortunate that no one spotted me.

At Victor’s, I was finally able to take care of my shoes. Days before I arrived, while I was walking in the rain to that fatal experience in the town of Komarowka, my shoes fell apart, the soles separating from the tops. I had no choice then but to continue walking with what I had on, so I had bound the shoes with a piece of wire I found, and a rope. But here, at Victor’s, I remembered how I used to observe Franiuk in the village of Sokoly, and realized I had learned how to fix my problem. I badly needed shoes for the winter. Franiuk used to cut out shoe bottoms from alder wood, then shaped the soles, carving a concave for the heel so the foot would rest on it comfortably. Then, around the top edges, he would make grooves with a chisel in order to nail the shoe top to the wood. At Franiuk’s I watched all this with youthful curiosity. So when my shoes fell apart completely, I knew what to do. At Victor’s, not far away from where I was taking the cow to pasture, on the other side of the railway tracks, was a meadow in the midst of which was a ditch where willow and alder trees grew. I cut down a young alder tree, and from it, I cut a piece sufficient for two wooden soles. Like Franiuk, I shaped the bottom parts following the pattern of my old shoes, then I nailed the old top leather part to my new soles of wood, and I had shoes for the winter. That winter I had plenty of walking to do on the muddy and frozen ground.

As if the work on the rail worker’s farm wasn’t enough, Victor’s daughter added to my load. But in the end it turned to be more of a humorous episode. Genia, Victor’s daughter, attended school in "town", and in class she mentioned that her father had a servant who threshed wheat by hand with a flail. The teacher, a good friend of Victor’s, asked him if I could be sent to his place. Apparently he had a barn full of wheat still in ears, and he needed some grain.

I was sent to the teacher’s place to work. For six days I threshed the wheat with the flail. Every evening I carried a bunch of straw to the living room on the polished floor to sleep on, where there was a piano, but no bed for me. After a week of this, the school teacher told me to go back to my master - Victor - which was just fine with me. I never found out why my stay at the teacher’s was cut short. Was it because I wasn’t productive enough, or that I littered the room with straw?

Despite this hard work at Victor’s, I was in many ways treated as an equal in his household and it felt good. During the long winter nights I had the opportunity to read books - the school books of Victor’s daughter, who was my age. Especially important reading for me at that time was the Catholic Catechism. I also occupied myself by weaving baskets, and for that I had to prepare the proper materials from out-doors in advance. As I wove the baskets, I sang all kinds of songs, among them Ukrainian songs, which were supposed to prove my origin from the town of Dubeczno. In the vicinity of Dubeczno lived many Ukrainians, and that was the truth.

One day the Ukrainian connection caught up with me. It turned out that there were Ukrainians in the service of the Germans at the railway station in "town". Not far from the station the Germans were holding a small group of Jews in a shack, whom they were using as slave labour for all kinds of work (this was after the liquidation of the ghetto). The Ukrainians were guarding the Jews, but in their free time, some of the Ukrainians used to go around the villages in the vicinity looking for adventure. Across the road from Victor’s was a farm where two girls lived, who were popular with the "boys" from the railway station and so the Ukrainians were often guests in their house. The neighbours knew of these visits. They also knew that I was a servant at the rail worker’s house. It was a time when the Nazis were liquidating the last ghettos in Poland, and hunting for all those who escaped.

I realized my situation was dangerous; therefore, from the very beginning of my stay there, I tried to create some form of "alibi" about myself.

There is a saying that "offence is the best defense". And that’s exactly what I did. I talked a lot about the surrounding of Dubeczno, from where I was supposedly came. This was the reason I had made much of my connection to the Ukrainian population there, even long before I knew that there were Ukrainians who worked at the railway station in "town".

I had to continue the role of being a boy who came from the town of Dubeczno where the Polish and Ukrainian population lived side by side, and that it was common for a Polish boy like me to be able to use Ukrainian language and expressions. I stated often that this was the reason why we Poles used the Ukrainian language.

One evening while I was sitting and weaving a basket, a Ukrainian in blue uniform rushed into the room, along with a small boy from the neighbourhood who was his guide. When I saw him, a chill went down my spine. But his tone was friendly as he asked me where I came from, because in the house where he was visiting with his friend, he was told there was a Ukrainian servant next door.

"So I came over right away", he said. "The more the merrier, and in these times we Ukrainians have got to stick together and make friends".

I calmed down, and in my already good Ukrainian I told him that I was actually a Pole. The last thing I needed now was for anyone to find out I had been lying about anything. He asked me to sing something in Ukrainian, since he had heard I had a nice voice. I started to sing a well-known Ukrainian song, he helped me out with his deep bass voice and, satisfied, went to join his "lady" across the road. I was relieved, because my story was accepted as the truth; all was well.

At the time Victor offered me work on his farm, I was using an assumed name: Czeslaw Pinkowski. I didn’t have any documents to show who I was, so in spite of my posing, I was aware of the danger, and knew that without Polish documents I wouldn’t be able to survive. The question was, where and how to obtain a Catholic birth certificate. Meanwhile my only "documents" were my knowledge of farm work, and weaving baskets, so I started to produce them, to make myself useful. And most importantly, in spite of the cold weather, I did my everyday duties with enthusiasm. I cut straw for the horse, chopped wood, threshed wheat with a flail, and carried the grain once a week to my employer’s parents and ground it into flour.

It sometimes happened when there were heavy snow-storms in December that I did not go to grind the wheat but would finish my regular work and return home to listen to Christmas carols which the mistress of the house liked to sing. After listening closely for a while, I would join in and also sing. In order to suppress my worrying, when I was working outside, I sang all the songs I knew.

Christmas was approaching, and on Christmas Eve I had to participate in decorating the Christmas tree. I should point out that when I was taking care of the cows in the summer, in different villages, there were no conversations about any holidays or religious customs. When I had been in Ukrainian villages, some of the farmers had suspected my origin. I was with my employers only when I ate in the kitchen, otherwise I slept in barns on the hay. But in Victor’s house, I slept in the same room as the family and so, willingly or not, I had to participate in everyday life. I had to be careful in my conversations with Genia, Victor’s daughter. When answering her questions, I had to be accurate, for one wrong word could have created some suspicion. This was also the case when I was decorating the tree. Because I did not have any documents, there was another possibility that could betray me: I slept in the same room with the rest of Victor’s family, and therefore I was afraid that during my sleep I might say the wrong thing, make an unconscious slip, because my dreams were scary. I was under constant pressure and afraid of everything.

The farmer’s wife often spoke of existing customs in that area. For instance, the family name that ended in "ski" were noblemen’s names, and that accounted for some of the villagers’ pride, who claimed that they came from "noblemen". While it was nice to listen to her talk, I was beside myself that one of these days something would happen to reveal who I was. Although nothing dangerous happened to me at that time, in the beginning of 1943 I had a lot of scary moments. It was early 1943, on a nice sunny day, when the snow, which had fallen, was already beaten down on the roads. From the direction of the "town", an army car drove slowly and turned into the farmyard. An officer got out of the car. At first I thought that maybe someone had informed him that there was a boy at this rail worker’s place and so he had come to check on who I was. But when he was standing in the farmyard I noticed that instead of a machine gun, he was carrying a hunting gun. Victor came out from the farmhouse and seemed to know the officer, because after some conversation with him, Victor beckoned to me and asked me to accompany the fellow to the forest for hunting. It turned out that this German was a railway officer. So, some of my anxiety left me, but I was still in shock. Here I was, going to the forest with the German officer, so he could hunt.

As we trekked through the forest, the snow was up to my knees, and the only paths were the narrow ones beaten down by hares. The German pointed out the remains of a hare lying on the path where it had been caught in a wire snare. Probably it had been eaten by dogs. All the time he talked and asked me questions, but even though I understood him, I pretended not to, because I was afraid to answer him in case I used a Yiddish word instead of German. Finally, he seemed to have become annoyed, and waved me to go home. I was pleased to see that he had not caught anything when he returned to his car.

On Victor’s farmyard there was a big barn, and the house with a big veranda was situated to the left of it. The house consisted of a kitchen which was used also as a dining room and one big bedroom, which doubled as a living room, in which we all slept. The other half of the house was used as a stable for the horse and the cow. On the same side that the house was situated stood a little mound, built like a basement with a gate-like small door. In the winter- time the mound served to keep potatoes and in the summer it was used to hold milk and dairy products. I am giving these precise details about the location and nature of the building, because one winter night, this mound became a hiding place for Jews.

It was a cold and bitter winter in 1943 and the snow and frost lay heavy on the ground. Because of the weather the Nazis no longer needed the Jews which they held in the shack behind the railway station so they were going to be killed. Somehow, by some miracle, the Jews learned of their fate, and even more miraculously, they managed to escape. In the middle of the cold night there was a knock on the bedroom window of Victor’s house, and there they were - men and women, begging Victor to permit them to stay the night. We were already crowded into one room, so some of the fugitives had to stay on the veranda, while others went into the mound. In the morning, after a fitful sleep, we woke up to find no one on the veranda, or in the mound. There was no trace of the fugitives. They must have run into the near-by forest and the wind had blown snow over their tracks.

As the winter progressed something must have happened, because I noticed that Victor’s attitude towards me began to change. He and his wife started to become impatient with me. I could feel it. In spite of my hard work on the farm, something changed in their everyday relations with me. Had Victor discovered that I had told him some lies? It was a terrible dilemma for me, for where could I go now?

In the middle of March, while I was walking through the village on some errand for Victor, one of the farmers called out to me: "Aren’t you the boy who is at Victor’s?"

I told him I was only there through the winter, and soon I would be looking for another place of employment to take cows to pasture as a herdsman.

The farmer said: "If that is so, then after Easter, come to my place! I need a herdsman for the summer". I demanded new clothing and shoes for my service. He introduced himself as "Jan Siedlecki"(not his real name) and we shook hands as we agreed on a fee. So by chance I arranged another job for myself in the same village. Again, I thought myself lucky and everything was turning out well. At Victor’s, something was suspiciously wrong and I was afraid that some day the situation could erupt. Therefore, I did not wait until the Easter holidays.

The first available occasion I told Victor I was leaving. In this way, after being at his house almost six months, and sleeping in the same room as the rest of the family, I took my leave, though in the back of my mind I always felt indebted. I can’t say that was the same feeling I had later for my new employer.

It was on a rainy Saturday, near the end of March 1943, when I arrived at Jan’s farm for my job as herdsman. I came to his place with my belongings; some willow-wood branches, and a half-finished basket. It turned out to be the last one that I wove during my stay in the villages, for it so happened that I didn’t feel like weaving baskets any more, and there was no time for it, later, in other places.

From the very beginning of my stay at Jan’s place, I slept in the Grandmother’s room, who was called Babcia in Polish. I continued to be religious, like I had been at the rail worker Victor’s: in the morning and evening, before I went to bed, I kneeled down and said my prayers. It appeared as if I was in fact religious and honestly believed in my faith. I also showed interest in the religious periodicals the grandmother had on her bedside table. Sometimes I would discuss topics with her that I had read. She was happy to see me praying every day, and reinforcing my behaviour by saying what a good boy I was. When I started to sleep in her room, I showed her my prayer book which I had "borrowed" in some village. I told her it was from my first Communion. Necessity forced me to lie. It could be that the Grandmother believed me, but it would have been much better if her son Jan was also convinced.

Soon after I came to Jan, he arranged for me to look after the neighbour’s cows also, a man by the name Selwin, who lived across the road. Because it was too early in the season to take the cows to the pasture, I helped out on the farm. One day I was told to deliver milk to the dairy station. I put the containers of milk on the wagon, harnessed the horse to the cart, and drove away. It was a cold, rainy day, and to make matters worse it was very windy. When I was driving back home, the rain lashed against my face. To avoid the rain, I was sitting a little sideways and in this position I drove into the farmyard. A neighbour farmer was approaching the farm at the same time, and must have noticed how miserable, I was sitting on the wagon.

I unhitched the horse from the wagon, put away the milk containers and walked into the kitchen. The neighbour, I’ll call him "Klimek", was in a heated discussion with my employer, which he ended with: "You can tell me what you want, but I am telling you he is a Jew!" With that, he walked out. I didn’t know who he was talking about, and was not sure if there was any danger here for me, or not. I felt secure in my service at Jan’s farm and had no reason to suspect anything. But from that day on, Klimek was at Jan’s place everyday, and Jan soon became arrogant towards me, swearing at me without any reason in such a crude fashion that I couldn’t believe it. He was also abusive to his own family, so I was not on guard.

Jan had not mentioned anything to me about a fee for the additional service so I thought that I would arrange the fee with the other farmer on my own. But I didn’t know that for my service to Selwin, Jan would be the one to receive a fee, not me.

For some reason he wanted to humiliate me and it became unbearable. Jan knew that I didn’t have any documents with me, and that I wasn’t in any hurry to write "home" to Dubeczno, where I supposedly came from. It appeared that my employer had started to distrust me. My previous work in the same village, at Victor’s, had not made an impression on him. Did he suspect who I was? I did not realise that I was that close to the truth. When he swore at me, many of the curses he’d used were distortions of abusive Polish expressions aimed at Jews.

So, why didn’t I run away from this farm, from this village, like I used to? I was one year older, and in the spring of that year where could I go? At that time any remaining Jewish boys could not wander freely through villages looking for work, and no farmer would be willing to hire a youngster without any documents. A Polish boy, of course, was hireable because a Jewish boy at that time, according to the German law, did not have the right to live.

My employer’s arrogance was limitless. For instance, one day we were working together; I was filling up sacks of grain with a shovel, for the spring sowing in the field, while he held the edge of the sack. After filling several sacks, I became tired and started to pour the grain more slowly. Jan became angry and lashed out at me with vulgar words, saying that I was the bastard son of a father who had the poor taste of taking up with a Jewish prostitute in some attic. Did he suspect that I was a Jew? Was he trying to check my response? What could I do but shrug my shoulders and smile.

My employer and his friend Klimek hatched a scheme that I was not to learn of until a few months later from the farmer’s wife. Jan arranged in advance that he and Klimek would go to the forest to cut trees and that I should bring them lunch at noon. I thought nothing of it and did not suspect anything. I was reminded of this pending duty several times before the occasion. I found this strange, especially when Klimek himself reminded me about it. The situation was cooked up. Probably Providence guided me, because when that day came, I went to Jan’s wife to ask for the lunch I was to take to the forest, as I had been told to do. When I asked Jan’s wife for the food, to my surprise, she informed me that her husband had already taken food with him to the forest. She told me to do something on the farm instead. It looked like a mere change in plans in my everyday work. In reality she had put a stop to the conspiracy her husband and Klimek were planning. Had they executed that plan I would have lost my life.

Now, as I write about it I suppose that the person who was against the plan was Jan’s mother - Grandmother. I slept in her room, as I mentioned already. To aid my situation I had become a religious Polish boy. Grandmother was happy to see me praying every day. Our conversations were always on the topic of religion. Luckily for me, Jan’s mother was a force to be reckoned with in that household. I assume that it was due to her intervention that the whole conspiracy came to nothing.

To Jan my employer I was worth more alive than dead. He was quite greedy and it is possible that he was afraid of losing a good herdsman whom he had obtained at a bargain price. As I already mentioned, soon after I had started working for him he arranged that I should look after his neighbour Selwin’s cows too. But for my service to Selwin Jan would receive a fee. Therefore, it could be that Jan had been afraid that if he had checked me out and he had been mistaken, I would have been insulted by what he did and would leave. Consequently he would have lost a herdsman as well as the fee from his neighbour Selwin. Really, it’s not important what the reason was that prompted Jan to change his mind. The fact is that because of that small incident, I continued to live, but it wasn’t until later that I learned the rest of the story.

I wondered if Klimek had stopped being interested in me? It is hard to know. I continued to be suspicious of his intentions. When one conspiracy ended I imagined new ones he must have arranged for me.

One day I was preparing a garden that was close to the farmyard. At lunchtime, while we were sitting in the kitchen eating, a policeman on a bike drove into the farmyard, dismounted, and came into the kitchen. I broke into a cold sweat when I saw him. Sitting at the table, I had to control myself and not show any sign of fear. Even though no one had told me that anything was planned for me, I felt tension in the air. When that policeman showed up, I was alarmed, but Jan was happy to see him: "

"Zenek! My good friend, I didn’t know you were in the police".

The big fellow, who looked to me more like a gangster than a policeman, explained to Jan: "This is my new occupation because of the Jews. I am getting paid for each head I catch, and on top of that I get to take everything they have from them. It is common knowledge that Jews who are hiding have money or valuables. Give them to me! I line them up, one behind the other in groups of three, and mow them down with one bullet". Then he went on to brag about how good he was at recognizing Jewish traits and who possessed them: "It’s enough to look into their eyes, and right away I know if it is a Jew or not".

I felt hot and cold, listening to the policeman, as he ranted on in a long monologue, sitting at the same table. They finished off several glasses of home made potato vodka-bimber, then the subject changed and Zenek, the policeman, tried to enlist Jan in the police, but he refused.

Although Jan turned down the position he seemed very happy with the visit, for at least he did not have to drink alone while looking at himself in the mirror as he sometimes used to do. Finally the policeman left. He never showed up again, but there was a possibility that his coming was not accidental. That day I noticed that since morning, Jan’s wife had not been home; she had left to go to her parents for the day to help on their farm, I was told. It could be, I thought, that the policeman’s visit with Jan and Jan's wife’s absence during the whole day were not accidental. She did not go to her parents’ again during my stay on their farm - for all of the seven months. In this kind of everyday atmosphere, late in April of 1943 while I was chopping wood, Jan, my employer, approached me and said, "You know, the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto started an uprising. They captured a few wagons with ammunition and claimed that they can now fight a whole year". I knew the conditions in the Warsaw ghetto, and thought that what he was saying was a product of his imagination, or a gross exaggeration. At the same time, I was curious about where he got this information about the ghetto uprising. However, the way he mentioned it to me was enough to put me on guard. He might have been testing me to see how interested I was in what he was talking about. He often talked to me about Jews, and made them subjects of vulgar, coarse jokes. He had also told me how, during the liquidation of the ghetto in the "town", a few women endeavoured to hide in a large water tank.

The women were pulled out and shot on the spot, together with the other fugitives.

On the other hand, I did not know if the Warsaw ghetto still existed. I thought it probably didn’t, because everybodyknew that the Germans were liquidating the ghettos, for the extermination camps were no longer a secret. So how could there be an uprising in the Warsaw ghetto? Therefore , I didn’t say a word and was on guard.

At the end of April, I again started my real occupation as a herdsman taking the cows to the pasture. The pasture was the same forest of mixed trees, to which I was supposed to have brought food for my employer and his friend Klimek. I was taking Jan’s and Selwin’s cows to pasture. Jan had profited twice from the deal between Selwin and himself, because every second week I would eat at Selwin’s place. That necessitated me being doubly on guard. I continued to sleep in the Grandmother’s room. For me it did not really make any difference where I slept or in which of the farmers’ homes I ate. I was continuously worried that I might be discovered.

My employer, Jan, liked to drink. On such occasions he would invite company which would increase my sense of danger. It was characteristic that these farmers had a special favourite topic of conversation, and no matter what else they talked about, their conversation would always return to the subject of Jews. What I heard was horrendous and macabre. In order not to hear them I tried to find excuses to leave the room. Sometimes I asked Jan if I had to take care of the horse but he would already be a little drunk on his home made vodka. I wouldn’t wait for an answer, and left the room. I would linger at my duties: curry-combing the horse, checking the horseshoes, while tears ran down my cheeks. At the same time I was afraid someone might see me crying.

In the forest where I tended the cows I felt normal and comfortable. There, I met the boys from the village and made friends with them, and yet I was jealous of their carefree, happy life. I was continuously thinking about how to obtain a Catholic birth certificate in order to ensure my future safety.

In the summer of 1943, it was not enough to claim to be someone, in occupied Poland; it was necessary to have documents, which confirmed one’s identity that one was a Pole and a Catholic.

But how was it possible to obtain that kind of document without help? I started to imitate the behaviour of the other boys from the village. That included going to church on Sundays. The village life had its customs, attending Sunday service, besides the religious obligation, was also a social event. Therefore, in order not to draw any suspicion I participated in that too. But again I realized that without Polish documents, I wouldn’t be able to secure my survival.

In the previous year when I was being driven to the railway station of the town Miedzyrzec, the girl, sitting next to me in the horse wagon, had begged the farmer-driver to help her obtain a Catholic birth certificate for her and her sister. She was willing to exchange all of her valuables for that. The farmer had remained silent, maybe he had been afraid, or was not able to do anything for her. I was determined to help myself to obtain the necessary documents in the village not far from the "Town". Although at the time I did not know how I would do that, when I think of it now, I can say that at that time in 1943 I somehow had figured out the appropriate steps to take. First of all, while going to church, I was able to find out the open hours of the church office. When I was attending the service in the church, I would make myself very visible by sitting up at the front, so that everyone could see me. And as I had anticipated, the women from the neighbouring homes in the village started to whisper among themselves that Jan had a good boy for a herdsman. This talk probably reached the ears of the Grandmother. In this way I went on with my everyday life.

I lived in constant fear and anxiety that something might happen, and I would be discovered. And so I pretended to be religious and attended mass in the church. I took care of the cows seven days a week so I occasionally sought help from the farmer Selwin, in order that I would be able to attend mass on Sunday. Selwin, like the Grandmother, praised my religiousness. He would come to look after the cows for a few hours in the morning, to fill in during the time I went to church. During mass in the church, people would sing and ask God to perform miracles. This was precisely what I was thinking, and when returning back to the cows in the pasture, I silently prayed and begged God to help me survive these terrible times. When I think about it now, I have to conclude that Providence guided me. Maybe it appears simple to explain the events as coincidence. I avoided dangerous occurrences so often, particularly when I was in a village shepherding the cows for the two farmers.

In fact, I took care of Selwin’s cows for only two months.

One day I was told to run the cows on Selwin’s field, which was located closer to the town, and not to the pasture in the forest of mixed trees, where I usually went with Jan’s and Selwin’s cows. It was already close to noon, when two men with heavy clubs in their hands appeared from nowhere and asked me, "Eh, have you seen any Jews running this way?" They were the so-called "Szmalcowniks", the same kind of informants and blackmailers that were operating in the cities, outside the ghettos and thriving on Jewish misery. I told them that I had not seen anyone and they ran off into the bushes, to the forest, looking for Jews who might be hiding there. After a while, I panicked at the sound of yelling and screaming, and a short time later I saw these bandits together with German soldiers strong-arming a Jewish family along the path, a couple with two children, and another older couple who were probably grandparents.

Where had the Jews come from? I had heard that the "town" ghetto had been liquidated in October the previous year, so they must have been hiding in this vicinity all this time. They were caught by the informants and soldiers while trying to change hiding places. I saw the Germans prodding them like cattle to the field next to where I was tending the cows. The Jews were lined up as if to pose for a family portrait, lined up in rows. A series of rifle shots killed them where they stood.

It is for Your sake, that we are slain...Arise!  Why Do You sleep, O Lord?...

                                                                                     Psalms, 44: 23-24

How could I remain standing still in such a predicament? I remembered how the previous year, in October, I had said at my uncle’s house that I would rather be shot in the back and die instantly, than go to the extermination camp at Sobibor. Now, standing in the field, while people were being slaughtered around me, my previous wish almost came true. I didn’t want to be killed by any means. I wanted to live. The instinct of self-preservation turned my thoughts to life, and the sunny weather gave life a special meaning. The cows wandered, grazing closer to the slope and the railway tracks. I pretended that I was returning them to the field, but really I was prodding them away from this terrible scene which was embedded in my mind.

The Germans brought some workers from nearby houses to dig a pit to dump the bodies into. The whole procedure became a spectacle: swiftly the clothes were taken off the murdered family, and to complete the degradation, one young woman even removed their underwear. I learned about that last event the next day, since everyone in the village was talking about it.

I prodded the cows onto another road, to come home, and when I was trying to eat lunch I vomited. I had to explain what had happened to make me sick to my surprised employers. I also told them that I would never go to that place again with the cows. From that time on, through the whole summer, the only pasture I went to was the pasture in the mixed forest.

One beautiful July day, when my employer was not at home, his wife gave me lunch and sat down at the table to talk with me. She informed me that the real reason to get me to deliver food to her husband and "Klimek" in the forest was that they could have lured me into a trap. According to Jewish religious tradition, all baby boys are circumcised on the eighth day of their life. Non-Jewish boys were not circumcised at that time. To find Jews who may have been hiding amongst the general Polish population, it was common practice to find out whether the person was circumcised or not. If they had taken off my trousers it would have been as they suspected; they had intended to tie me up with a rope, and drive me to the police station in town.

She asked me if I would have been offended, or insulted if they had checked me in this manner. "Because", she said, "Jan and Klimek suspect you are a Jew, and as you know, in these times, it is very dangerous to keep someone on, who might turn out to be a Jew, the penalty is death!"

The farmer’s wife’s conversation caught me by surprise and I wondered what I was supposed to tell her? I had to tell her something, so I said, "If they had taken off my pants like a little boy, I would have immediately left the forest and gone to Selwin to be his servant, and I would not have looked after your cows any longer."

Meanwhile, I was thinking of what I had said in Dubeczno about preferring to be shot instead of going to the camp, and that had I been discovered, it would have probably happened that way. It looked as if Jan’s wife wanted to tell me everything. She asked me why I went to town so often, and that if I didn’t have any documents, and I was stopped by the police, they might take me for a Jew. Again, the dilemma confronted me: what to tell her? I knew I had to make a good impression, so I laughed and said that I was going to town to the church and sometimes I also went to the post office to write a letter home to my mother. If by chance the police were to stop me, they could check in the Dubeczno municipality where I was born. Maybe my pretence of haughtiness gave me some courage, for I seemed to have persuaded the woman that I was telling the truth. I was aware that I was in danger, and the reality of my precarious situation did not go away, but was always on my mind. The stories I had heard from the villagers about what happened to the Jews who had been caught were terrible and frightening.

The forest where the cows were grazing had various names amongst us herdsmen depending on the location.

The part where the railway tracks passed on their way to the town of Siedlce from Brzesc had the name "Brzesc pasture". Often freight trains passed on these tracks. One day an old villager by the name of Wladzio was tending his cows with me. We used to call him Old Wladzio. He played a harmonica well. I knew him since I had been at Victor’s house; he lived not far away from the rail worker’s and sometimes he showed up at Victor’s.

Wladzio used to play the harmonica in the forest, and when we got together he played and I sang. One day while we were performing our "concert", a freight train approached from the direction of Brzesc towards Siedlce. From the distance we could already hear rifle shots.

When the train came closer I noticed people in the freight cars and up on the roofs stood soldiers with their rifles at the ready.

Whenever someone stretched an arm through the slats of the freight car the soldier shot at it. It was a terrible and surreal scene. I thought that probably these people who had been cooped up in these freight trains for a long time were stretching out their hands to the outside world to persuade themselves that they were still alive . Although it was a hot day a chill went up my back and cold sweat broke out on my face. I realized that the same misfortune would have awaited me if I had not run away from the transport wagon carrying me to the station of Miedzyrzec.

"Old Wladzio" was standing beside me when he started lamenting: "So they are transporting them to be executed". He made a sign of the cross, and started to cry.

Looking on that passing freight train with its human cargo, I was terribly affected by the dreadful destiny and misfortune of those people. But how much more secure was my life? It was the end of July, and by that time, I already knew what Jan and Klimek had planned to do about checking me out. And although Jan had decided not to carry through with this plan, I was afraid that they might change their minds. In my mind, the best thing I could do was to leave the cows in the pasture and run away as I had a before. But here I was, a year older and still without any documents.

My only means of survival was to obtain a job in a village. I could not just go anywhere to look for a job, in spite of my appearance. I knew that if I continued to stay on at Jan’s place I could be in great danger. I had already started to work on a scheme to obtain documents and so I stayed in the village, in spite of the danger, so that I could carry out my plan to the end. Every freight train that passed by struck terror in my heart. Because of my fear I contemplated how I could take the cows far away, to another part of the pasture.

About that time, for some reason, Jan, my employer, could not agree with his neighbour Selwin, and during the month of July tension grew between them, so much so that by the end of the month Jan told me to stop tending Selwin’s cows. From then on, to the end of the summer, I only looked after Jan’s and Grandmother’s cows. Grandmother also had a plot of land and during harvest time, when I came home for lunch, she used to return with me to the field close to the farmhouse. She taught me how to scythe wheat, and she did it in a gentle way. She had become my friend and mentor.

My mind was preoccupied with the idea of obtaining "Aryan" papers, and I believed in good fortune. Also the fact that I was sleeping in Grandmother’s room, I can say that what happened was Heaven sent. Many older folks like to talk and that was certainly the case with Grandmother. The old lady liked me and she was always telling me all kinds of stories about the people in the village. In this way I learned all the local gossip. There was one particular boy whom I often saw in the pasture and I found out about his family from Grandmother. According to her he came from a "better family", a nobleman’s family, and it turned out that it was he, who, without knowing it, helped me to obtain documents. If I were to believe in miracles, then I would have to say that God sent that Grandmother to intervene on my behalf. Thanks to her story telling I obtained all the information I needed to get a birth certificate of a Polish Catholic boy, which in the most critical time helped me to survive. It also must have been her arguments that had stopped the conspiracy of her son and his friend against me, thus saving my life in April of that year.

Although it took a long time, finally my hopes to get a birth certificate started to develop. I learned from the boy in the pasture his birth date and the names of his godparents, and from the Grandmother, other essential information to aid me in getting proper documents.

As summer drew to a close, it was time for my service at Jan’s to end. I was supposed to get some home-spun clothing and shoes as compensation for my work on his farm and for tending his cows. We had agreed from the beginning when I was first hired, that it was for the summer only, and that I would not stay at his place for the winter.

It was November of 1943. Fortunately, at this time I had worked out all the details in my scheme to obtain documents. What made it possible to carry it out was the fact that the parish church was located not in the village where I was staying, but in town. Many small villages belonged to that parish. Therefore, it was impossible for the priest and his staff in the parish office to remember and know every one of the many boys from the villages.

I had not led the cows to the pasture for some time. Instead, I was doing other chores on the farm and waited two months to get the promised clothes and shoes for tending the cows for the other farmer, Selwin. Above all, I was waiting for an appropriate day to go to the parish office in town. One rainy day I told the farmer I was going to the post office to write to my mother.

Did those falsehoods help me? I don’t know for sure, but these were the games I played in order to stay alive.

Finally, I went to town, to the parish office and told the lady that I needed "my" birth certificate. Fearful, I stated "my" first and family name, then the names of "my" parents and godparents. She looked into the book and everything was correct: on a sheet from the register book, printed in Polish and German, she wrote down all the necessary information and told me to pay 10 zloty (Polish currency). She also told me to go to the presbytery to see the priest for his stamp and signature. When I arrived there and opened the door I saw the priest in the room, sitting at the table with two German officers. Confused and surprised I didn’t say anything but just stood there. The priest looked at me and asked, "So what do you say?" At that moment my wits awakened and I said the common Catholic greeting: "Praised be the Lord Jesus Christ. . . ". I walked up to him and gave him "my" birth certificate and asked for his signature. The priest finished the procedure and told me to pay another 5 zloty, which I did.

Outside it was a drizzling rain but it did not bother me. I was walking slowly and calmly, in my pocket I had a real Catholic birth certificate which had a value far greater than the 15 zloty I had paid. While walking I thought of those two sisters with whom I had been driven on that horse cart to Miedzyrzec and I wondered if they had been able to run away as they intended? Were they able to obtain Catholic birth certificates? I hoped that they had.

When I returned to my employer I told him that I had written a letter home to my mother informing her of my return. I also told him that I would like to leave in a few days. Jan was happy that he had had a servant for seven months for next to nothing and I was happy that nothing had happened during the time that I had stayed in the village. I also got new clothes, which I had earned with my work, and I was very happy that I had fulfilled my dreams.

Dressed in my new clothes I happily left the village. At the same time I left behind my imaginary name, which I had assumed the year before when I was in the village of Sokoly. I also left my prayer book, in the Grandmother’s room. I simply forgot to take it with me. But in this new situation and under these new conditions it was not as necessary for me to have it. I was equipped with a document, which gave me a new identity. This time I walked briskly in the opposite direction, away from the town. In the evening when I arrived in a new village, I visited the village administrator with whose help I obtained a night’s accommodation.

The next morning I started to look for work as a farm hand. I knew of the custom in the villages of hiring new help for the whole year, starting at Christmas time. I also felt more confident now that I had a Glejt, so-called in Polish, in the form of a real Catholic birth certificate. I had also broadened my experience on the farm, therefore, I could ask for "good wages". After several days of wandering to various villages I found someone who needed help; I was hired to work on a farm in a village named Ustrzesz. The farm was run by a woman whose husband was in the resistance and was seldom at home because he was afraid of being arrested.

That evening, as if by chance, the husband showed up and of course complimented his wife on making a good decision by hiring me. He told me that I came to him "as if Heaven-sent" because he very much needed someone to work on his farm. Because I was intending to stay at his place a whole year he said, I had to register with the village administrator, therefore, in addition to the certificate I had I would also need a document from the registry "of my previous place of residence". It reminded me of the time when the farmer had told me something similar the previous year, that to work for him I would have to bring my birth certificate and so at that time I had left the cows in the pasture, and left that job.

This time I did have a birth certificate so I decided to try my luck. Early the next morning, I left the farm in order to go "home" to take care of the business of getting that special certificate.

I had to go to the municipality located in a village not far from where I had worked at Jan’s place and it was just on the other side of the railway tracks. Again, I was walking back towards town, and in the evening obtained a night’s accommodation. I arrived at the village with the municipal office before evening the next day and although it was late the office was still open. A clerk sat at the desk. For a while I hesitated because he might know the family that I was going to pretend to belong to. The village where that family resided was just a few kilometres away on the other side of the tracks; could I take such a big risk? On the other hand I knew I needed proof of my previous place of residence, so in spite of the danger, I approached the clerk and said that I was leaving the village for a while and needed to be taken off the records of residence. He asked me: "Do you have some kind of identity document with you?" I gave him the birth certificate. Not asking any questions he filled out a form, the size of a birth certificate, then signed it, stamped it, and told me to pay the fee of 3 zloty. When I walked out from that municipality office, at that moment, I experienced something like limitless happiness. I now had the real documents which I had been dreaming of for more than a year. Now, even though I was still so close to the village of the family whose name appeared on "my" birth certificate I went to the local village administrator to obtain a night’s lodging. Then I returned to my new employers, and shortly after I registered myself with the village administrator as a resident of Ustrzesz, and employed as a farmhand by the farmer (I don’t remember his name).

From that time on, I had a new identity, and as proof of it a real birth certificate. But according to the certificate I was supposed to be a little older than I really was. According to the German regulations I was obligated to have an identification card called a Kenkarte, so I started to apply for one. I needed pictures of myself so I went to a photographer in the nearby town of Radzyn-Podlaski. I asked the photographer to make me appear to be a bit older in the picture. Of course I could not tell him why so he playfully scolded me, wagging his finger at me, but took what he called "such good pictures" in which I did look older than I really was. With the new pictures, which made me look older, and with the birth certificate, I applied at the municipal office of Radzyn for a Kenkarte.

I was given a temporary document at the municipal office and told to pick up the Kenkarte from the village administrator in two months. I had new documents and a new place of work, and from then on my identity would be like any other Polish boy.

But in spite of that, I began to have misgivings. First of all, my new employer belonged to the resistance movement, but to what political faction I didn’t know. No matter to which faction he belonged, if the police or the Germans were to come to the farm looking for him and found me and checked on the authenticity of my documents, what then? Even with my new identity I preferred not to meet anyone from the authorities. So far so good I thought, but I wasn’t going to press my luck. I was afraid I was going to be uncovered as an impostor. It would have been really quite simple for someone to discover that I was not the person whose name appeared on the birth certificate, especially given the special ways in which village activities were governed. In order to have flour, the farmers used to grind their wheat in a mill - a wind or water mill. During the occupation, the Germans made the grinding a special privilege. To grind his wheat a farmer needed to obtain a permit from the municipal office where he would receive special coupons, after he delivered a certain amount of grain, the so-called "contingent" to the Germans to keep the troops fed.

These coupons were issued in accordance to the number of family members. This was a cause of reflection for me - what would happen if the family of the boy whose birth certificate I had, were denied a coupon for their son, because residence records showed he no longer lived with them? Wouldn’t they in their own interest defend their rights to the full number of coupons, and go to the police to inform them that there was something suspicious going on? The clerk of the municipality would state that he himself filled out the form for the boy according to the birth certificate the boy showed him. So it would turn out that while the real person continued to live with his parents, someone in his name, an impostor, had taken him off the register. Tracing that incident the police might discover the rest of my activities, such as applying for a Kenkarte. Being afraid of this possibility I made the decision to leave the village Ustrzesz quickly and go elsewhere so as to avoid discovery.

One day in January 1944 I told my employers that I didn’t like working on their farm. The next day I was on the road in search of a new job with another farmer. Only this time my walking was not "wandering" to the unknown because the temporary document from Radzyn municipality and the birth certificate gave me courage, and I felt somewhat protected from the threat of suspicion.

In a short time I found work with a farmer by the name of Albin, whose farm was located on a hill on the outskirts of the village . This farm was about ten kilometres from the village of Ustrzesz where I had been previously, and an equal distance from the town Radzyn, where , I had applied for the Kenkarte. I showed the farmer my temporary document and told him I was awaiting my Kenkarte. I also mentioned my short stay in the village of Ustrzesz but I obviously did not tell him the real reason I had left my previous employer. Albin was really impressed by my potential usefulness on his farm, and since the fee I asked for my services was a bargain for him, he took me on.

In the very beginning of my employ at Albin’s place, before I had received my Kenkarte, I had a dangerous encounter with some armed men. One evening some "Partisans" came to the house, made themselves comfortable in the chairs and started asking questions about whether or not the farmer had already delivered wheat as "contingent" to the Germans. Albin said that he had done so. Then they started to ask about everybodyin the house. Pointing to the farmer’s wife, one of them asked:

"Who is that woman?" The farmer replied, "This is my wife." "And that girl?" He answered, "This is my niece." "And that boy?" The farmer told him: "This is my servant - my farmhand". The partisan immediately said, "That is a Jew." Looking at me, he said: "Come outside, we will check you out, and if it turns out you are a Jew, you see that?" He showed me the end of the barrel of a rifle he was holding.

In the vicinity, different factions of partisans were operating, some were fighting the Germans and were really resistance fighters, others were posing as partisans but were really robbing the local farmers. Who were these armed men who demanded that I should go outside with them so that they could check me out? The terrible threat of being checked out was repeating itself but this time at rifle point. If I had gone outside with them at that moment, I would have lost my life. Luckily my employer, although in reality he didn’t know who I was, came to my aid using every means to persuade them:

"What are you doing, gentlemen? I know his family who lives not far from the town. I myself brought him here. Show them your documents! As you can see, gentleman, this is a temporary document issued at the municipality office in Radzyn where he applied for a Kenkarte."

In the meantime his wife had put a few bottles of moonshine vodka on the table, and plenty of sausages, and these "gentlemen" treated the food and drink as serious business. It was strange that their visit seemed to be for the sole purpose of checking me out because they did not take anything from my employer except what they ate and drank. And as they left, they promised: "We’ll be back!"

Shortly after that visit, I went to the village of Ustrzesz to the village administrator, and he had my Kenkarte ready, which I picked up. It was the beginning of February 1944 when I finally held in my hand the document that had my picture on it. I felt I did not have to live in fear any more. I did not register myself with the village administrator at Albin’s place, and because of that, no one could find me. I had applied for the Kenkarte first. What would happen if the real person applied for the document and submitted the same birth certificate? What would he be told in the municipal office?

Although I never saw those "partisan gentlemen" again who had tried to check my identity, but in the winter of 1944, several other groups of partisans passed through our vicinity. Once while his group were taking food from Albin, one partisan snatched away my new pants for which I had worked so hard at Jan’s place. Another time when a group of partisans passed through the village, one of them tried to persuade me to go with them. I hesitated because I was suspicious of their intentions.

At Albin’s farm my duties were to look after four horses and four cows, which I later learned to milk. This skill added to my value in my occupation as a farmhand. Kazia, Albin’s niece, profited from my work. I filled in for her by milking the cows when she went to church on Sundays, or out with her girlfriends. I no longer had to go to church to prove my religiousness as I had to do when at Jan’s place near the town.

I had a short-lived "romance" with Kazia, Albin’s niece. She was about two years older than I was at the time. She looked like a typical peasant girl, with large breasts, which attracted me, like any fifteen-year-old boy. When we were alone, my hand automatically reached towards her bosom. Since she did not show any displeasure, I became a little bolder each time. Finally Kazia reproached me, saying: "You are too young for these things." I did not quite understand what she meant, but I was offended and it brought this short romance to an abrupt end.

The village of Ossowa is at a fair distance from the train tracks and the railway station, but in spite of that, from time to time smugglers from Warsaw would turn up there in order to trade goods. I was astonished to see how similar their way of trading in the villages was to the way mine had been. Just as I used to come for food two years previously from the ghetto, these people brought with them all kinds of goods which they exchanged for foodstuff.

The only difference was that they did it on a much larger scale. The Warsovians lugged huge bundles of things which they exchanged for provisions and pork fat or meat products.

Albin was often visited by a married couple who had befriended him, and when they were trading in the vicinity they would stay overnight at his farm. Besides this couple other traders would turn up there too, and all of them claimed that they tried to take short distance local trains, which were not searched by the German militia. As a penalty for transporting a large amount of foodstuff or pork fat, the Germans were sending people to the concentration camp.

Albin did not have children of his own. Still, he was as greedy as if he had a large family. Because he had a large farm there was a lot of work to be done, and in the spring my responsibilities increased. For certain I can say that during all my work in different villages, at Albin’s farm the work was the most difficult. Moreover, he did not deal honestly with me, because I was hired basically to look after the cows, and to help out on the farm only from time to time. Albin disregarded this agreement, and loaded me mainly with farm work. In spite of that I did not mind. I was grateful for his help by intervening when the partisans were trying to take me outside and check me out. Although Albin had no knowledge of my origins, he had still protected me, and thus saved me from a certain death.

I therefore tried to carry out even the heaviest work willingly, like cleaning out the cowshed of manure, mixed with straw and trampled by the cows during the winter, or to scythe the grass all day long.

Formerly, when I had worked in the village near the town on the Grandmother’s part of the field, I used to cut the grain, and she collected it. The work took only an hour or two, daily, and it was a pleasant diversion. At Albin’s I had to cut the grass in the meadow together with the other cutters all day long. Although I was used to hard work I could not do it at the same speed as the others, and I usually remained far behind.

Work such as this, which was beyond my strength, Albin did not spare me. But as I said, I did not mind this hard physical work, as I felt greatly obligated to Albin.

In the summer of 1944, the war activities were moving quickly towards the western part of Europe, and at the end of July, at harvest time, the Lublin area was liberated from German occupation. In the village where Albin’s place was, Russian soldiers arrived through the fields and farmyards. When they came through Albin’s farmyard I was sitting by a steamer making moonshine.

It didn’t take the soldiers long to find out what was in the steamer. I brought them some cups and they drank the warm moonshine until the kettle was empty.

With the Lublin district liberated, I could go anywhere I wanted as a free man, but where? I knew that no one from my family or relatives were alive. Taking into account my own experience and information I had received I thought that no Jews had survived. Therefore, in spite of my own cleverness and resourcefulness, I adapted myself to the village conditions and the work there. I did not know anything else and because I had learned to count only on myself, I was a little confused and did not know what to do now, or where to go.

At that time the war action on Polish territory moved to the Wistula River and in Warsaw, the uprising took place at the beginning of August 1944. Consequently in the Lublin area where I was, the underground Home Army started to congregate in order to give support to the Warsaw uprising. But one day before the planned time to march toward Warsaw, the Russian army started to encircle the place where the Home Army had concentrated. Realizing what was going to happen, the "A.K", Home Army, dispersed and the partisans ran away. This event, and the fact that Marshal Rokosowski and his army was standing by on the other side of the Wistula River, watching how the Germans were butchering the people in the city, brought out agitation in the population of Lublin district and they promised revenge. It was this kind of atmosphere and all I witnessed that caused me to be confused.

With Lublin being liberated, but the war still going on - the activities of war stopped just at the Wistula River, near Warsaw. I thought, if I don’t have anywhere to go, and I have already adapted myself to village life, I should remain in the village for the time being. Therefore, I remained at Albin’s place, till the end of the year, and from January 1945 I started to look for a new place of employment.

I went again to the village of Ustrzesz, again, intending to visit the farmer I had left after applying for the Kenkarte. Only the farmer’s wife was home again. It turned out that the Germans had not seized the farmer in spite of his involvement in the underground. After being liberated from the Germans the Polish communist regime arrested him for belonging to a so-called right wing group, the "A.K" Home Army.

I looked for jobs in many villages and found a farmer who needed my services. His farm was close to the town of Radzyn. I was already a qualified farm and field worker so I demanded what were fair wages for a boy my age and experience: 100 kilograms of grain and 100 kilograms of potatoes per month. The farmer agreed to pay me what I asked. I wanted everything in cash based on the price for that quantity of produce.

Every month the farmer paid my wages. My job was acceptable, however, I didn’t like his behaviour. Before the war the farmer had been the head of a municipality – (W�jt in Polish) - of his region. It seemed that the position had left its mark in terms of the way he dealt with people and certainly in his relations with me. Nor did I appreciate the manners of his wife. For instance, when I received food it was at a different time than my employers and so I ate alone. And when they had guests, which was almost every weekend, I could not enter the house. The arrangement seemed strange to me.

Although Poland had already been liberated from the German occupation in the spring of 1945, some groups of resistance fighters still remained. I guessed that my employer probably had connections with them because they frequently came to his house at night, and sat in his bedroom talking for hours. Those partisans were called the "people of the forest". On one occasion when my employer had sold a young cow at the market, the "forest people" came at night, and as usual sat in the bedroom talking while I slept in the kitchen. As they were leaving they woke me up. One of them pointed a machine gun at me and demanded to know where my employer kept the money that he had received for the cow earlier that day. How could I have known? Besides, how could I also have known that this was their idea of a joke? After frightening me badly they went back to the bedroom, talked for a while, and left.

The next morning while giving me my breakfast, the farmer’s wife informed me that those "forest people" had taken all the money that they had had. At the time I believed her, because the year before at Albin’s place I had been robbed of my new pants by people such as these, an incident I had told her about. Although it was the last farm I worked at, I don’t remember the name of this farmer, maybe because everyone called him by his title, W�jt.

One morning a woman from a nearby farm, came shouting: "They’ve killed the Jews in Wohin!" She did not say who had done it.

Although she described exactly how it had been done. In a little town of Wohin, close to the town of Radzyn-Podlaski lived several Jewish families who were somehow surviving the Holocaust and were living in their own house. One evening, the group was rounded up and herded into one room: men, women, and children were shot. While shooting, the bandits were throwing the bodies, one on top of the other. One boy fell down and the other bodies were thrown on top of him. After the bandits finished the execution and left, the boy pulled himself out from under the corpses and ran to a neighbour’s house where a woman took care of him, washed him and changed his clothes. As I listened to these details, I was in a state of shock. I was standing up and then sitting, and couldn’t finish my breakfast. It made me wonder how just a few kilometres away Jews had lived whom I knew nothing about. I also thought about the night visits of the "people from the forest" who visited my employer, the W�jt. Were they the ones responsible? Who could have known? There were so many political factions at that time.

Near the end of April I came across an item, by accident, in a newspaper that said that in Poland fifty thousand Jews had survived. Reading that, I said to myself: "I am one of those 50,000 Jews". From that day on, I was no longer interested in working on a farm. I decided to leave and did not ask for my last month’s wages. With his bad manners this W�jt fellow didn’t deserve the kindness of any notice from me. Early one morning, instead of starting on my farm duties of looking after the animals and milking the cows as usual, I dressed in my good clothes, wrote a good-bye note, and left it on the table. I went straight from the farm to the railway tracks and walked in the direction of Lublin. I followed the tracks and wandered into a town called Parczew, located close to the tracks. It was the last time I wandered that way, and also that day I left my occupation as a farmhand servant, and the whole way of life connected to it.

In a small store, in Parczew, I encountered a surprise. One can say the second one; the first being my reading that 50,000 Jews had survived.

In the store stood a young girl speaking to someone in Yiddish. I started to speak to her, and mentioned the place from which I had come by the railway tracks. Surprised, she asked me: "You walked from as far away as Radzyn-Podlaski?"

Then her father arrived, he listened to me for a while, and then asked why I had been "sitting" for so long in the villages, as the Lublin area had been already liberated for nine months. I told him the reason, and mentioned my reading in the newspaper of the survival of 50,000 Jews.

I showed him my Kenkarte, and explained how I had obtained it. Of course he commended me on my resourcefulness, and asked for my real name. He wrote it down and then gave me food and money to buy a train ticket to Lublin. I told him about my criss-crossing Poland: from Otwock near Warsaw, to the village Kozaki near Dubeczno, escaping from the transport, and then back toward Lukow, and then again in the opposite direction to Radzyn-Podlaski.

I arrived in Lublin from Parczew by train. At the railway station I saw people with suitcases going to a train, so I followed them and found myself with them in a freight train. On the second day I arrived in Warsaw. The train stopped at the Praga station on the other side of the river, because the main station had been damaged. From there, people walked to Warsaw across a wooden bridge over the Wistula River. I went along with them. Everyone had a definite destination but I didn’t know what to do next. The scene was terribly depressing: half-ruined houses stood here and there among the rubble. After walking a little I turned back to the railway station of Praga. I asked myself, where should I go? The distance from Praga to Otwock was only 28 kilometres, but just thinking about that place I recoiled. Too many unpleasant and painful memories were connected with it which I wanted to forget. No! Back to Otwock I could not and did not wish to return.

Discovering an easy and free way of travelling by train, I continued my wanderings looking for a place to live. From Warsaw, I went to the city of Lodz, then to Wroclaw, to Walbrzych where I intended to work as a coal-miner, and then back to Wroclaw. There were shelters at the railway stations for people returning from all over the country, and I was able to get food there. The trains were not arriving and departing on schedule. Sometimes I had to wait for a very long time at the train station. During one such waiting period at the Wroclaw station I got to know several people by chance, who were going to the town of Rychbach, formerly called Reichenbach in German. I went with these people to Rychbach. I liked the town, and settled there. It had previously belonged to Germany, and after the war it was in the so-called Polish recovered territories.

So there I was in another new town, under new circumstances, and having to adjust all over again to completely new conditions of life.

My only experience in my short lifetime had been to work on farms in the countryside. The adjustment to town life on my own, without any help from any adults, was unspeakably difficult as I had no knowledge of how to make arrangements - the everyday kind that most people take for granted. I needed to find a place to live, make arrangements to return to school and carry on the business of everyday life. I started to work and attend school at the same time, to complete my education.

At the time, I also attended a professional photography course. While attending that course I met a boy my age, named Kazik Dabal, who like me spent the years of German occupation hiding in villages at the opposite end of the country, in eastern Poland. He now lives in Israel and we have kept in touch over the years; he is a close friend.