On the whole, the scourge of the dishonest smugglers – crafty swindlers who skinned and criminally cheated their naïve victims – was no less tragic in its consequences than the cruelty of the border guards. Apart from that,the forests and fields of the border areas, through which the flood of thousands of migrants passed, were infested with thieves who robbed migrantsof the bundles and sacks they were carrying. Many peasants from the bordervillages came to specialise in this handy trade. [2] Therefore, a great deal ofcaution was needed in choosing a “fixer” to smuggle you across the border. Infact, the fixers were intermediaries between the fugitive and the actual smug-gler, the peasant from a border village who carried out the border crossing. However, the migrant’s trust was placed in a fixer who, through recommen-dations, had acquired the reputation of a good and honest broker, because the Jews of the border shtetls knew the peasants from the neighbouring villages well and had tested their integrity over many years. The area was thus swarming with “fixers” and their agents, who solicited clients and passed the sign of the agent to each other in great secrecy, pretending that it was being entrusted to them only and that no else should know it, God forbid. Thosesecret signs, which passed through thousands of hands, were an excellent means of gaining popularity.
The flow of emigrants reached the border by two routes: via Małkinia or via the Bug. The Małkinia route, known as the dry route, had its advantages. It was the shortest, you could get there directly by train and, most importantly, you could try to steal across the border by yourself without recourse to a fixer. It had great drawbacks, nonetheless. Above all, the Małkinia German border guards were notorious for their cruel treatment of refugees. Then there was the existence of the neutral border strip, where thousands of emigrants were often stuck for weeks before the Soviet guards allowed them to cross the border. This frightened people off, so they sought fixers who could get themacross the Bug.
When, after some hesitation, I decided to set off together with my wife, sister, and brother-in-law, we started to look for fixers. Various routes were proposed to us and we didn’t know which to choose. We saw only dangers everywhere and looked at every offer with distrust. We could not afford tospend a lot of money, but we looked at those who asked for smaller sums as swindlers. Then there was the no less difficult problem of what to take withus. We couldn’t set out without any money to get through the first couple of
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