Other Germans came to our flat to fetch a big kettle to prepare food for the
prisoners of war and one other time to obtain soap. They were very cordial
and admired my mother’s portrait. They claimed that the war in Poland
was already over and that everything would go back to the way it had been.
Prisoners of war were detained in several spots in our town. I was among those
who brought them some food several times. They usually let us through, but
there were some who did not.
In late October my girlfriend and I decided to obtain a pass to Łódź. We
went to the commander’s office, where we quite easily obtained that valuable
document on the basis of our student IDs. The pass was valid for three weeks
and paid both ways. From then on I set out by train every day at noon and
came back the next morning. Once my father even came with me for several
days in secret. There were then [. . .] many conversations. I listened attentively
to various [. . .] For example, “What do I care about the Germans?” [17] some
fat woman was perorating, interrogating a former Polish soldier returning
from German captivity, which he praised a lot. “The important thing is that
they feed you well. To stuff your belly, this is the most important. And how
was it in Poland? You only slaved away!” Similar judgements were very often
uttered in trains, mostly by representatives of the same social class as that
peasant woman. People forsook their country. Nonetheless, I also heard contrary
opinions. Once I had an opportunity to listen to a discussion between
a former female student deported from the Poznań region and a former Polish
soldier. Both of them were ardent patriots. They were talking about the reprisals
against Poles in Pomerania and in the Poznań region, about England’s
power and achievements, and about Poland’s resurrection. But they would
not have been true Poles had they not taken up the Jewish issue. Both the
student and the soldier had been in the territories under Russian occupation
and they agreed with regard to taking revenge on the local Jews for what they
were doing to the local Poles. The woman thought that all that had befallen
them was still not enough and that it would not hurt if the Jews living here
did suffer a little. During that period I saw many Polish families resettled from
Wielkopolska and Pomerania. The hopes for the future that most of them had
were similar to the ones we, Jewish passengers, had.
One day a soldier stopped me at the train station in Łódź. He examined
my pass, crumpled it, and put it in his pocket, saying that it was a useless
piece of paper. He then ordered me to immediately leave the train station.
