were unaware of that development. The two women went on to complain about their difficult situation—they had been working non-stop for almost 24 hours, etc.
In the meantime we agreed that it was necessary to send a delegation to the director and demand his assistance with the distribution of the incoming parcels. The delegation would also make sure that they be given to their rightful owners. We were at the director’s office door as early as 8 a.m., but it turned out that it was difficult to get a permission to see him. Before that we had to check in with the constable guarding the door. He did set our minds at ease as far as our fears were concerned, but he claimed that the director was too busy at the moment to be able to see us. In the meantime somebody complained to the head about having been offered to buy a parcel for 100 zlotys. After a while more people came with the same complaint [4] and the director started an investigation. It lasted several hours and achieved nothing. We were waiting at the door the whole time. One of us used a trick to get into the director’s office. He asked for four delegates to be given passes to the city. The director demanded 200 zlotys for the favour.
After several hours our delegation was finally admitted in. As far as our release was concerned, the director said that he was unable to give us an answer right away. As for the suitcases, he decided to send all of them to the Community storeroom, because he did not have enough employees to take care of them. He was willing to make an exception for better fellows (für bessere Leute). When we asked whom he had in mind, he said that he meant those who would pay more. Seeing our consternation, he added after a while: “for the benefit of the Community.” Reluctant to listen to any more of our complaints, he stood up and commanded us to leave his office because we were disturbing him.
We knew we were in trouble. We left the office and, while we were passing through the rooms, every now and then middlemen approached us with very tempting propositions: such-and-such a sum [5] would get us released right away, while for such-and-such a sum we would swiftly get our parcels back, etc. While we were walking I saw a man nonchalantly carrying one of my suitcases. I raised an alarm, and a functionary of our Order Service came running. He then escorted the thief with the suitcase to the director. The matter was straightened out, but I did not get the suitcase back. In the meantime it become known that a new group of deportees was about
