a fire broke out and the kitchen cauldron burned down. From then on, the
kitchen was closed for a long period of time. Even though a new cauldron
was brought from Warsaw and there were even bricks, there was a shortage
of several hundred złotys, and, most importantly, energy to finish the work.
About the time when the fire broke out in the kitchen, the life of the
Kosów Kaliszers underwent [. . .] changes. On 7 March 1940, [6] 150 Kalisz
Jews were resettled to Sterdyń, a nearby small town, which had had no refugees
until then.
That sad day became engraved in the memory of all resettled Jews. Not
to mention the fear everybody felt and the anxiety aroused by the hunts and
searches conducted by the authorities. It was enough to take a look at those
carts loaded with bundles and the people sitting beside them, depressed and
shrunken from cold, to make one grieve. One could see the despair in the
faces of the departing. It looked as if they had settled down in Kosów and that
their lives were returning to normal, when the wound resulting from their
departure from Kalisz would perhaps begin to heal, they had to set out into
the unknown again, not knowing who would take them in, how they would
be treated, or how their new life would be.
sbSeveral days in advance, after the announcement of the order regarding
the resettlement of the Jews from Kalisz, the Jews from Kosów went on their
own initiative to the Kosów commandant to ask for the plan to be abandoned.
They used all their influence to limit the resettlement campaign to a minimum
even though they knew that it meant that they would have to continue
carrying the heavy burden of providing for the refugees or of aiding them.
The result was that only 150 souls were resettled (of whom several families
soon returned).sb
Life in Kosów went on as it had before. Only a handful of the Kalisz refugees
were e a r n i n g m o n e y, most of the employed being [7] craftsmen
who found employment immediately. The rest lived either off their meagre
capital, or, first and foremost, off the funds they obtained selling their possessions.
Therefore, they benefited greatly from the care provided by the Kalisz
Committee.
sbThe Committee did everything it could to normalise the life of the Kaliszers.
Despite the activity of its vital sections, it was unable to provide the
kind of help provided by the Jews of Kosów. The soup kitchen and the bread
campaign were meagre efforts in comparison with the efforts of the Kosowers.
