people in four-room flats. Refugees were put in halls and even staircases. Whenever children turned up they were given something to eat and then the ladies sent them to the nearest police stations. As for women it should be stated that they were holding up fine, both those whose husbands were around and those whose husbands were absent. They worried about their husbands as there were rumours going round that they had been killed on the way. The women having the zeal of social activists and young girls were especially diligent.
In the House Committee there was just one lady member. Women became more active only after the creation of the Ladies’ Circle. Before the closure of the ghetto people frantically stocked up on food products. Later on, kitchens were organized where those products were used up. They issued soup rations for 20 groszes, while the wealthy residents paid even 75 groszes. The Ladies’ Circle of the House Committee ran those kitchens. After the products run out, that is after three months, the tenement kitchens ceased to operate and the Ladies’ Circle was simultaneously dissolved.
The interlocutor adds that in November 1939 she went to the territories under Soviet occupation to look for her husband. Initially, she travelled without obstacles. No official passes [11] were issued. She reached Białystok at night where they charged 2−3 zlotys for a place to stay for the night. She then set out again, but her son was taken ill. She then looked for the road to Zaręby Kościelne441 in order to turn back. On the border they divided the incoming people into Poles and Jews. The informant joined the Polish group and managed to get through the German post. The Germans were not letting any Jews in. While she was on her way she was surrounded mostly by smugglers—young Jewish woman from the lower class. Thanks to their impudence they were good at posing as Poles, and that was how they freely walked through the German posts. On the Soviet side they shouted that they were walking to Warsaw and the Soviet border guards let everybody through to the Soviet side.
Before the war this woman was active only in her son’s school. The war-time conditions gave her an impulse. She felt responsible for a certain community and she became active.
