Jews, we would under no circumstances be able to cross the border, and the way back was deadly dangerous. We rejected [38a] his proposition, cursed himthoroughly, and got out of the car immediately.
We crossed the border as Poles without any problem. At the border they took away our przepustki. In Mińsk Mazowiecki we bought tickets for the train to Warsaw. All the carriages were filled with Polish smugglers. At 10 in the evening we arrived at the main railway station in Warsaw.
Now we were faced with the serious problem of getting into the ghetto. We spent the whole night at the station, looking for a Jewish face among the hundreds of Poles and smugglers. Finally we spotted two young Jewish children. We asked them discreetly how we could get into the ghetto. They informed us that the best way to manage it was at dawn, when it was stilldark, through the Królewska Street–Graniczna Street wall.
That’s what we did. We got to Królewska Street [39] without any problem. As we approached the wall, two Polish policemen stopped us and demandedto see our papers.
We began to cry and plead with them. We told them we were Poles from a distant village and had no papers because they had been burnt during the bombing. They wouldn’t accept our excuses. They said that they would hand us over to the German guards for attempting to smuggle ourselves into the ghetto. After we had given them our last possessions, 20 German marks and two spools of good yarn, they pushed us over the rubble into the ghetto.
Our first moment after falling into the ghetto was joyful, but the Jewishpoliceman, who had watched our transaction with the Polish policemen on the other side, approached us immediately and demanded money. We explainedthat we had none, but offered him two spools of yarn, the last that [39a] wehad. He didn’t want them – only money. He threatened to send us back if we didn’t pay up.
The two Polish policemen saw that the Jewish policeman was arguingwith us and pushing us back, and so they thought we really were Poles andthat was why the Jewish policeman wouldn’t let us into the ghetto. So theystarted to move towards us in order to take us back. We began shouting atthe policeman in Yiddish. A few Jews approached. We seized the opportu-nity to slip through the gate at 10 Grzybowski Square and from there onto Grzybowska Street, where we mingled with the passers-by. Thus we avoided
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