quite black. Here, too, the power of imagination painted the most frightening
pictures of the new expulsion to the barracks.
[26] First of all, a Jew arrived who claimed to have seen, next to the barracks
where he was working, a sign bearing the inscription “Jewish camp”.
So it was certain that the barracks were meant for the Jews. A disagreement
now broke out about which Jews would be driven out and packed into the
barracks. Some Biała residents, including my landlady and her daughters,
maintained that only the newcomers, the refugees, would be expelled, those
who had no home, no linen, and no clothes. The refugees, on the other hand,
argued that the Biała Jews were no greater aristocrats than the refugees, that
if Jews were to be driven out of Biała, no difference would be made between
residents and strangers, just as there had been no distinction made in all
of the towns and villages from which Jews had been expelled [previously].
Meanwhile, the Jews had forgotten the “seven good years”, i.e. those few days
when people had spoken of the border change, and their faces became gloomy
and sad. Those who still had a few zlotys or something to sell began to flee
from Biała. The majority fled to Warsaw, although the journey to Warsaw
by train was very difficult and dangerous for Jews. They were beaten on the
trains, sometimes to death, and robbed of their remaining possessions. Some
refugees went to the closest villages, to Łomża and Janów. The situation once
again became tense and difficult. For many refugees, it had worsened because
of the frost and the extreme cold which had set in. Not all of the refugees
had received lodgings, so many of the refugee families had been settled in
the shtibls and study houses, of which there were many in Biała. I have said
“settled”, [27] but they were spread out on the floors of the abovementioned
“quarters”, women, the elderly and children, all of whom shivered from cold
and hunger, unwashed, uncombed, in the greatest filth and the worst sanitary
conditions. I don’t know why, but it is a fact that in the abovementioned quarters,
the shtibls and study houses, there were only refugees from Suwałki and
not from Serock. One evening, together with the other representative of our
town, Mr Kronenberg, may he rest in peace, and I carried out an inspection
of the shtibls and we concluded that there was no one from our town living
in those “quarters”. As I have indicated above, I am not writing in the role of
a representative of Serock, but I must remark that we were always at the disposal
of our refugees, for whom we would intervene in many cases where the
refugees would forcefully occupy lodgings which the owners were not willing
