the most indispensable things and those for which she would “perhaps find a place in the new room.” She sold the rest of her things because she did not need them so much or because she had to. She moved the day before the deadline, that is on 20 December 1941. A wagon pulled up in front of her gate at 8 a.m., at sunrise. The porters then carried her furniture, chests, and suitcases downstairs. Mrs G. supervised the removal of her things from the flat, while her daughter and husband supervised the loading. She had mixed feelings while walking behind the wagon to her new accommodations. “I felt as if something were dying in one part of [94] my body and awaking in another.”
For Mrs G. the real war started when she moved into the sublet room. The most prosaic burdens she had always flinched from suddenly fell onto her shoulders. She had to clean up, do the laundry, and cook. Moreover, she had to keep doing business as her husband’s earnings were infrequent and meager. But Mrs G. has adapted to the new conditions rather quickly. She neither grumbles nor gives up, and she treats them as a temporary necessary evil. And she does everything she can to derive as much joy from them as possible.
“I am very upset that we do not have our own flat,” Mrs G. confesses. When you interact with other people the small things that make up the fabric of your days, your whole life, assume different proportions—they become excessively important. The lack of space and the frequent arguments over trifles with the landlady in the kitchen—these are things that can really bring a woman onto the brink of a mental breakdown. But I am still burning with a lust for life. More than anything, I want to survive.”
And Mrs G. keeps seeking oblivion in the café and cards. The excitement of the game and the human passions boost her immunity and lift her spirits.
* * *
The town of Krośniewice402 is three kilometers from Kutno. The Germans seized it as [95] early as during the first days of September 1939. It was incor
