had been deported, others 1,500. The opinions of Polish female smugglers
(urban element) were characteristic: “They (Jews) should be poisoned when
still little.” “I’d poison them right after birth.” “Their blood is so foul.” I heard
only such opinions. It seems to me that they were afraid. (It is common knowledge
that there are plenty of various spies in the area).
[7] In Werbkowice we waited for a long-distance train from 4 to 11.30 p.m.
We underwent an unpleasant identity check there. It was truly a miracle that
we managed to free ourselves from the hands of the controllers: a gendarme,
pyziak, and Polish policeman. I proved my identity with some savings book
and declared that I wanted to go to Warsaw to buy clothes for my fiancé,
Franek. Having changed in Rejowiec,³¹¹ we stopped for several minutes at one
of the small stations. We saw a train consisting of about a dozen freight cars,
standing parallel to ours, and filled with Jews. A little Jewish boy, aged about
four, stuck out his tiny hand through a crack in the door, begging, “yGive me
a piece of bread.y” I saw tiny faces of the Jewish children pressed against the
small freight cars’ windows.
After various adventures were arrived in Warsaw on Thursday, 11 June.
A Polish policeman recognized us [as Jews] on Zbawiciela Square and escorted
us to a station on Poznańska Street, where after long negotiations with participation of the police superintendent himself, we struck a deal that we would be escorted to the ghetto for 2,000 zlotys.³¹² My husband had to first get into the
Jewish district and obtain that enormous sum, while I sat in the jail as a hostage
until 6 [o’clock]. I was escorted to the ghetto through the gate on Leszno
and Żelazna streets only after he paid the said sum to a special messenger,
a Polish policeman, by the building of the central jail of the Judenrat in Warsaw.
On Friday, 19 June, a Polish woman we knew brought my baby. She
informed me that a 1,000 Jewish souls remained in Hrubieszów and that
a Jewish district was to be established there. There are also rumours that
only 600 Jews will be allowed to stay (which means that there will be
another Aktion).
311 Rejowiec (Chełm County).
312 The ghetto area was considerably reduced in October-December 1941. On 15 October 1941 the Governor-General, Hans Frank, issued an ordinance introducing capital punishment for Jews who left designated residential districts without permission and for people who sheltered them.
