I headed for my “hotel”, the goods station. I found my other companions there. Almost the same thing had happened to everyone. They had all stood firm. In the morning, we went back to Government House and kickedup a fuss again. Finally, someone came out and told us to assemble outside the train station at 5 p.m.; we would be leaving. Around 5 p.m., all 150 of us, including some Poles and a Belorussian family, were sitting there waiting. At about half past five, a […] in a leather jacket showed up, a slim, good-looking young man of twenty or so […] Kalinin.312 He told us there were no carriages for us that day, but that two carriages were reserved for us at 8 a.m. the following morning. We demanded individual przepustki.313 He said that tomorrow he would [40] have them for everyone. We spent another night at thestation. […] much faith in his words, but we had no choice and […] wait. By the way, our group consisted of such bold, daring, and resolute young people that they would not have been lost in Siberia either. It was almost hard to believe that there were such daring and courageous Jews in this day and age. In their midst, you felt safer and calmer. The local inhabitants, who had heard that we had already been in the NKVD, kept away from us. A young man from Minsk Mazowiecki, Yosl O., […] years old, was particularly notable for his exceptional courage and daring. He had been a communist back home and had lost two brothers in the Spanish Civil War.
Because the station was so crowded, I slept the last night in an unheated Pullman carriage. Kalinin arrived in the morning. We got on a train and departed. We weren’t given any przepustki. At first we thought, “Who knows? Maybe they’re taking us Siberia?” Then we saw that we were moving in the direction of the border. We felt relief. We passed through Negoreloye. The border officials didn’t bother us. All the formalities appeared to have been taken care of. We got to Baranowicze. Kalinin collected 12 roubles from those going to Białystok. He was supposed to buy tickets for us with it, but in Baranowicze he disappeared with the money. We found out from one of the passengers, a man from Warsaw, that for the price of a good watch he had given to Kalinin,he did in fact receive a przepustka in his name.
