we would be [13] sent back home. The militiamen, however, suspected us of nothing less than wanting to return to Germany. On hearing that, we kicked up a fuss. We were hurt by such a crazy accusation. The women wept hysterically, pleading that they had barely got out of the inferno of pain and suffering and were seeking refuge in the land of socialism. We had nothing to lose and had no intention of going back to our torturers. This, however, had little effect on the peasant militiamen, who repeated stubbornly that we were trying to pull the wool over their eyes and were really deserting to Germany. We barely managed to persuade them to let us rest and warm up in the mill beforethey took us to the border guards. At the Jewish miller’s, we found a couple of dozen people lying fully dressed on the floor and on benches. There were both fugitives and returnees. We explained our problem to the miller’s son. He reassured us that we could buy off the militiamen for a small sum. On theone hand, we were pleased to hear this; on the other hand, it came like a cold shower. Bribery in the Soviet Union? It was so far from our ideas about the Soviet regime that we were quite shattered. Having been almost completely fleeced by that peasant, we scraped our pockets and put together a certain sum as a bribe. We were afraid to give it to them ourselves and did it through the mediation of the miller’s son. The militiamen took the money withouta word and disappeared from sight. It is possible that they were ashamed in front of us; in any event, they didn’t even say goodbye. Later, the miller told us that a much larger group had stayed with him the previous night andhad “bought themselves out” in similar fashion. It was a frequent occurrencewith the militiamen. In the miller’s house there were also returnees. Therewas no great wave of returnees yet; some were people who were going backto fetch things or to bring family over. They said nothing enthusiastic aboutthe Soviet Union. They [14] tried to weaken our faith by describing the coun-try’s negative sides. We didn’t take them seriously, as we were convinced thattheir comments were superficial and random. Our first thought was to findthe rest of our group, especially my brother-in-law. At daybreak, we inquired where the colony was, because, by our reckoning, that was where they must have stopped off. However, when someone assured us that a cart had left the colony at 6 a.m. heading for the Siemiatycze railway station, we gave up looking for the colony and got on a cart bound for Siemiatycze station. The cart was full of people and baggage. We were exhausted from the journey and short of sleep (in the mill, we had had a short nap at the table), and the danger of
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