had suffered hunger back in Warsaw due to bread shortages. Consequently, they bought [73] a horse, slaughtered it, and ate it for a week. “I strained my imagination to cook the horse meat in as many different ways as possible. How delightful it was to eat our fill!”
The burden of obtaining food was on Mrs R.’s shoulders. But she did not wait in queues to buy bread and other products. Instead, she walked to nearby fields to dig up small potatoes, small cabbage heads, etc. She once made a longer trip to see the ruins of the burned Farming Institute. She met a boy there who gave her five kilos of fine potatoes—a priceless treasure in that period. Even though she was pregnant, she lugged them home herself. Content that they would have something to eat, she was beaming with happiness.
She spent a week [tidying her?] flat. During the day she [strained herself?] working, trying to maintain home and hearth, and fighting for food. She felt uneasy in the evenings. Late in the evening, while waiting for her husband to return from work, she often approached the window to look out onto the street. She had the sensation that she was living in a wild and desolate area. Grochów was dark and dead silent.
After a week Mrs R. decided to return to the office, which in the meantime had changed its location for the third time. She had to walk 12 km, quite a distance in her condition.
In the office, work was in full swing. [Organisation] of k]itchens had become the burning issue of the day. Mrs R. was made the organisational [74] director of the kitchen division. She burned with enthusiasm for the task. Her work was her passion. She breathed it in like refreshing air. She could spread her wings. Every day she had to walk 12 km to the office and then back home as buses were not running. She worked in the office until three or four in the afternoon, without stopping. The number of customers increased much faster than the capacity to satisfy their needs. Mrs R. made every effort to find new locales for kitchens, as well as to introduce sanitary and dietary improvements in each one of them. Work was progressing, its results both concrete and visible. She was earning money. Her husband too was working in his field. They also had their own flat. Mrs R. was happy.
On the evening of 6 October 1939, the lady tenement superintendent came to her flat and said, with embarrassment, that as per an order of the German authorities all Jews would have to surrender their radios. The news shocked the whole tenement. Mrs R. and her husband were the only Jewish
