The train was “autonomous”. It was not following instructions or orders from some higher authority. Rather, a few drivers and conductors had got the train going on their own initiative in order to flee from Kraków.
We grew desperate for food. The meagre provisions we had taken with us were already exhausted. Since the train was barely moving, our comradesjumped out “while the train was in motion” and dug up some potatoes from the fields. They also [6a] collected some bricks.
We then built a small stove in our carriage, collected dry branches andwood from outside, and we baked potatoes, cabbage, and other vegetables from the fields on our stove. Along the way hundreds of refugees jumped into the carriages; they had been fleeing on the roads and when they saw a train crawling along, they climbed onto it. There were hundreds of us, like one big family, Jews, Christians, men, women, children, and even babies. Stray Polish soldiers, the remnants of defeated armies, were constantly climbing on board.
The train “travelled” only a few hours a day. The rest of the time it stoodstill. People would then leave the train to look for food. In the villages the peasants refused to sell anything. However, we came across empty manors and estates from which wealthy landowners and proprietors had fled. There we found all kinds of good things, but we took only food. The Poles took clothing, linen, and household articles as well. [7] It was the same in the smalltowns by the railway lines from which the population had fled. So we had plenty to eat.
We reached Tarnów.370 In the station we saw many corpses strewn about, victims of a bombing raid. We didn’t stop but kept going. During the stops and starts of the train, many people, and whole families, abandoned it for fear of being bombed by the German planes constantly flying overhead. Even the engine drivers abandoned the train; they were replaced by other drivers who had been travelling on it.
Fuel and water for the locomotive were running short. The passengers fetched water from nearby streams and “watered” the locomotive. They col-lected wood and coal to heat the boiler.
