posals. In the end she achieved her aim: he released her in return for 1,500 zlotys. To help Mrs C. avoid being captured in the future the agent escorted her to her meta and then warned her, “You’d better not come here again. It might cost you your head.”
Mrs C. never returned to the “other side.” She is still engaged in smuggling, but she operates only within the ghetto border. Today her clients come to her or sometimes send middlemen in their stead. The scale of her business has decreased and so have her earnings. But even though she earns too little to get by and she has to patch up her budget through the sale of [. . .] objects from her home, she does not dare go over the wall. “For life is the most important thing,” says Mrs C. “I used to take risks to survive. But it would be nonsense to take risks to die.”
* * *
Mrs C. had often gone to the “other side” in the company of another smuggler, Mrs F.356 Mrs C. had known her since before the war and knew she could rely on her cunning and discretion. She was one of those Jewish women in whom the war awoke some biological vitality which defended them against the increasingly severe blows.
Mrs F. was 42 years old. Before the war she was a small-scale footwear retailer. She used to sell footwear on payment plans or on the street to pedestrians. Her husband was a craftsman.
[15] Mrs F. had three children. The oldest was 13 years old. After the arrival of the Germans her life entered a thorny path. Both her merchandise and the money owed her in installments was lost. Her husband was once captured for imposed labour and he was hit so severely that he suffered a concussion and was bedridden for a long time. They were living in hunger and poverty. There was no alternative: Mrs F. had to take over the whole burden of their struggle for survival. She had had good relations with her Aryan neighbours. Now they helped her work as a go-between in trade. She bought things from her Aryan neighbours and in turn sold them various products. She was earning enough money to get by. In November 1940 she had to leave her flat
