“Nothing in the world would make me passively give in to bad fortune,” she announced to the people closest to her.
The next day, after midnight, she left her family home wearing a warm coat and kerchief and holding her nine-month-old daughter in her arms. She encouraged her mother and sister-in-law to flee with her, but they were too scared to take the risk.
Mrs Z. had no baggage or passport. Her only document was the “fingerprint”405 she got from her Polish schoolmate. Nobody would take her for a Jewess as she looked very much like her “guide”—a Christian smuggler from [97] the town. She knew the woman, who often smuggled food into the ghetto.
The night was dark and the heavy frost made it difficult to breathe. The unguarded stretch of the border was 3 km away. Mrs Z. was wading through banks higher than her hips. She fell into holes and tripped on icy potholes. Her arms and legs grew numb with the cold. At times she felt she would not take another step but the wild power of fear motivated her to endure. So she went ahead, choking her baby, clasping it tightly in her arms. After she had crossed the border of the Reich she collapsed, unconscious. When she came round she broke out in tears of joy and began to pray. She was so exhausted that she could not move. But the “guide” hurried her, reminding her about the dangers awaiting her on the new territory. Still under the cover of darkness, she made a superhuman effort and proceeded through forests and across desolate fields. She took a rest only after she had reached Kuźniewieczki—a village near Łowicz. Mrs Z. spent the night in an inn posing as an Aryan relative of her traveling companion. She stayed in the inn until dusk the next day. She then walked to Łowicz, where she boarded a train to Warsaw. The carriage was stuffy and crowded so she slumped on a makeshift seat, that is, on somebody’s suitcase lying in the corner between two benches. She bent down over her baby and sat stooped until the end of the journey, pretending to be asleep. Her “guide” took care of all formalities on the train.
[98] Mrs Z. spent the first night in Warsaw and the next day with her companion’s relatives. She did not go out that whole time. A Polish policeman came at 6 o’clock. Thanks to the help of her guide’s relatives Mrs Z. managed to arrange her passage into the ghetto. The policeman himself escorted her beyond the ghetto wall in exchange for 50 zlotys. It was on the eve of Easter.
