[11] A neighbour comes running.
– Listen, our friends are going to Sobota.⁹³¹ So is our family. Come
with us.
Mama looked at us. We looked at her…
– But we can take only two persons – said the neighbour.
Two persons… It is bad… Who should go? The question lingers…
Our parents should go and we will stay! They should get out of this hell.
We will manage.
– Hurry, hurry, the neighbours rush us.
We hand them our backpacks. Do you have everything? Food? Soap? Go,
go, before it’s too late.
God! How much would I have given for them to have already left the
town! For them to be safe!
My sister stays at home and I escort my parents. We walk behind the
houses so that [12] nobody sees us. Mama is weeping. People keep rushing
forward. I do not cry even though tears are welling up in my eyes. Where are
they going and for how long? And what awaits us here? I bid farewell to my
parents at the crossroads. We are separating. Nobody knows what will happen
in town.
– Goodbye!
– May God protect you.
I follow them with my eyes until I lose sight of them….
I can finally cry now that nobody can see me. I begin to sob violently.
Why do we have to suffer so? Why do they drive us from place to place? I go
past the cemetery. Can’t they at least leave the dead in peace? Where is the
beautiful, old Jewish cemetery with all the trees? Where [13] are the pines,
which had seen so much, so many funerals of so many generations? The pines
were cut down, destroyed in January 1940. The poor Christian mob got to the
cemetery at the crack of dawn and began to cut down the trees. You could
hear the sound of chopping for two days. Two days were enough to strip the
cemetery of dignity and majesty. The priest’s appeals to stop the robbery and
leave the dead in peace proved fruitless. So did the persuasion of better-off
Poles. The mob continued chopping. And it was not enough for them that they
931 Sobota (Łowicz County).
