[1] I was born in Łódź. So was my mother. My father is dead. My grandparents always lived in Łódź, too. They were wealthy. I am writing about this because I have left Łódź and I am not sure if I’ll ever return.
The sad story I am about to tell began on 23 March 1939—the day of the Polish Army’s first mobilisation. My only brother was mobilized. I was not at home. It was 9 p.m. A police sergeant came for him. When I came back home, our mother ran to the railway station to see her son one more time.
Initially, we were regularly receiving letters from Skierniewice,224 where he was stationed. They were positively cheerful and witty. He always wrote in such vein while on active duty. But then his spirits suddenly sank. My cheerful and vivacious brother became depressed. So we knew something was wrong. He wrote that he was sitting there idly, aimlessly, that the situation was tense, and the future was uncertain. The worst thing was that he could not get a furlough. He—always so resourceful! I remember that my mother pined for him and went to visit him. When she returned from
