the Jews in Poland now had a real opportunity to repay the Hitlerites for
all their persecution of Jews in Germany, Austria, Bohemia and Moravia.
After a few kilometres, the train stopped. The driver said he did not
know when it would be able to move off again, because the route was closed.
We Jews did not feel comfortable among the crowd of goyim, and we decided
to make the journey by ourselves on foot as far as Pabianice, and from there
take the tram to Łódź. And so we did. We left the stalled train and began
walking along the road to Pabianice. The road was completely empty of civilian
carts and walkers, but along the side of the road there was a long trail
of Polish troops on military carts and horses. [3] We recognised many Jews
among the soldiers, and one of them hastily passed us a letter to his parents
in Łódź. All the carts, the heads of the horses, and the light machine
guns were camouflaged with a great many green branches to hide them from
the enemy pilots.
We reached Pabianice around two in the afternoon, where we received
our first real foretaste of the war. The streets looked dead. All that could
be seen were policemen standi ng at street corners with gas masks on their
arms, and pgas rescue teamsp with their armbands. It was half an hour after
Pabianice had been ‘visited’ by German aeroplanes, and the civilian population
was hiding fearfully in the houses and courtyards. It was only then
that we got hold of a Polish newspaper from Łódź, from which we learned
of the world-shaking events: Hitler’s 16-point ultimatum to Poland,³⁷ the
cancellation of Lipski’s³⁸ meeting with Hitler, and the outbreak of war with
Germany at 5 a.m.
In Pabianice some of us decided to return to Kolumna and wait for further
developments, not imagining that within two days the front would rapidly
draw nearer and the area would soon be lost. Since I personally had
exhausted my financial resources and would need some cash in order to transport
my family to Łódź, I left Pabianice for Łódź by bus. I arrived in the city
around two in the afternoon. The streets were almost deserted. There were
only a few people about, apart from the OPL rescue pteamsp. The tram was
37 German ultimatum of 30 August 1939. It was never delivered to Polish authorities, but its acceptance would have meant unconditional surrender.
38 Józef Lipski (1894–1958), Polish politician, diplomat and officer; from August 1933 to August 1939 Polish ambassador in Berlin.
