time we found out that a train was leaving for Białystok later that evening.
We decided not to wait and to leave on that train.
[13] Once again, we got on the train without tickets, and we arrived safely in Białystok at daybreak on 31 September (or 1 October). The militia didn’t allow us to leave the station because it was so early. They promised we would be given food and a place to sleep. We went into town at around 6 a.m. The streets were very busy. Jewish militiamen took us to the kehilla building at 7 Sosnowa Street. There we found a long queue of refugees who had fled or been driven out by the Germans from areas occupied by them. Everyone was waiting for soup to be given out. The gmina rooms were full of homeless people in a very neglected state, which made an exceptionally depressing impression on us at the time. Red Army trucks kept drawing up in front of the kehilla building, bringing old people, generally Jews whom the Germans had expelled to the Russian side from Przasnysz, Płońsk, Pułtusk,272 and other shtetls.
Standing in the queue, we met the comrade whom we had lost on the way from Biała [Podlaska] to Brześć. We were overjoyed. He led us out of thequeue and took us round to some acquaintances of his. We were all given a place to sleep and plenty of food. The Białystok Jews who took us into their homes treated us like their own children. They also gave us things to wear,because by then we were barefoot.
Białystok Jews talked a lot about the few days they had spent under the Germans. They told of many horrible deeds: a woman who went out on the street before the end of the curfew and was shot with a child in her arms; eight people who were shot dead after being made to dig their own grave, and so on. On the whole, however, Białystok seemed not to have suffered at all from the war. The inhabitants had stored up large food supplies, which they later lived on for months. Apparently, the Białystok Jews had lived quite comfort-ably before the war.
One of the first things that came with the arrival of the Soviet troops were queues outside bakeries. Most of the people queueing were refugees.
