Date unknown, Warsaw ghetto, [Mordkhe Schwartzbard?], “ לאָדזש ” [Łódź].
First days of the war in 1939. Flight from Łódź. Battle outside Brzeziny.
[1] Łódź.
At 5 o’clock in the evening, a rumour spread through the city that the authorities
had ordered men to leave Łódź and head for Warsaw.
Panic broke out in the city. Crowds of people poured through the streets.
The majority decided to follow the troops. Only a small number remained
in the city. Tens of thousands of people with packs on their backs and suitcases
in their hands walked to the outskirts of the city to set out on their
journey. There were several routes. Most people streamed in the direction
of Brzeziny. The highway was thick with people, carts, trucks, and troops.
The crowd was so huge that it was impossible to get through. Sensible people
set out in the same direction but through the fields and woods, on tracks
and paths parallel to the highway. That was thought to be a safer and better
route, but the tracks and paths close by were also thronged with thousands
of people. Their number was so great that in the evening many wells
were drained dry, so people had to go to more distant villages to get a drink
of water. From time to time, a noise was heard from above. It was a signal to
fling oneself on the ground and [. . .] or under a tree. The noise repeated itself
almost every hour, and we often had to lie down and take cover for as long as
half an hour at a time. In the evening we reached the outskirts of Brzeziny,
where we lay hidden in a wood for quite a long time, waiting nervously until
we could move on. In the distance we saw clouds of smoke — Brzeziny was
burning. The shtetl was partly destroyed. The finest buildings were on fire.
The peasants in the villages received us amicably, sold us food, and showed
us the best way to go. They proposed that we rest and sleep the night, but we
decided not to stop and to get as far ahead as possible under cover of darkness.
Since it was impossible to walk through fields and meadows in the dark,
we went down to the highway, but it was crowded with military wagons and
trucks, and people fleeing in all directions. There were peasant carts loaded
with possessions, with dogs and cattle tied to them; peasant women, frightened
and weeping, carrying bundles of bedsheets; children with packs on their
backs. The panic was terrible. Suddenly, there came the thunder of gunfire
