particularly as the voice from the radio kept trying to lift our spirits. But we
did not really feel uplifted. Moreover, my father began to hint at leaving the
town. Somebody was willing to lend him a cart. I flinched with terror from
the very mention and I absolutely did not want to hear about it.
It was similar with the war. Unlike to most of my friends, to me war did
not seem something exciting, something that promised change, entertainment,
or variety. It seemed something menacing and, most of all, incomprehensible,
something that I unsuccessfully tried to bend my consciousness to.
Similarly, I did not understand what for, why, and where we were to escape.
But we could not meditate on it too long because we had to go downstairs to
the gate again. At home we prepared several sacks with underwear, clothes,
etc., “just in case.” I was checking all the corners one last time and locking
the door when I heard a horrible crash as if a heap of stones had come tumbling
down. The whole room shook and the panes clinked. I rushed ahead in
panic and fear, grabbed the keys, [5] and ran downstairs. Some people from
the town were already there. They told us that a bomb had been dropped on
a church, which had been full due to a service. A few people had been killed
and the priest had been wounded.
Before we managed to take in the news, some aircraft roared over our
heads again. That was when the sirens wailed — way too late! Moreover,
somebody suddenly seemed to smell gas. Of course, everybody began to inhale
the air through their noses and… they could smell gas too. The people started
screaming, the shouts were ear-splitting. They violently pulled the packs about
and pressed them to their mouths and noses. The people went completely mad.
They thought that their survival depended on what their neighbour possessed.
They were trying to tear it away from him, without paying attention to anybody
and obedient only to their instinct of self-preservation. My father was
also squeezing a small bottle with healing liquid in his hand, shouting that
he “had had to save his own children,” despite the fact that grandfather was
literally begging him for a drop.
When that psychosis passed we ran across the courtyard and broke the
garden fence. Everybody rushed after us even though we begged them not to
follow us. Naturally, nobody listened. There were a lot of people in the garden.
There was shouting and running from one place to another, none of the
spots seeming safe enough. In the end we lay down on the ground on our
eiderdowns and blankets. That was when all hell broke loose.
