to obtain the tickets. But my father induced me persistently, and I went and
showed the registration slips and obtained the tickets. In the station hall every
passing soldier or gendarme looked suspiciously at our shiny pink sacks. Some
stopped us, thoroughly examined our tickets, and walked away. We had difficulty
getting on the train. Of course, we travelled in darkness. We were really
scared in Koluszki: Jews were being called out and removed from all carriages.
We could hear the loud sound of the opening and slamming of doors. The Polish
railwaymen were the most zealous. One of them peeked into our compartment,
but somehow failed to see us in the dark. That was the last of the ‘miracles’
of that ‘miraculous’ journey. One of our sacks was stolen near Warsaw. [. . .]
the Poles in the neighbouring compartment informed us that some peasant
woman [. . .] in Milanówek.¹²⁴⁵ It infuriated me [. . .] the Polish [38] conductor
scolded us: “Don’t you know that from this day on Jews are not allowed to travel
by train?” He took away our tickets but he returned them as we were getting
off. When we wanted to leave the train station, the ticket inspector refused to
give us passes for the same reason. So we reached home at night without them.
My father twice set out on a journey to Łódź again. Those escapades
involved a great deal of danger. Both times he went by car to Głowno; from
there he sneaked into the Łódź ghetto at night. We waited for him impatiently
each time, dying both to see him and to hear news from Łódź. When
he returned the first time, in March, we learned that on Bloody Thursday,¹²⁴⁶
when many people were shot on Piotrkowska Street (including the fathers of
two of my girlfriends) as a result of which everybody escaped into the ghetto,
my aunt and her children were among the people who were rushed along
Piotrkowska Street and then detained for several days in a camp. During my
second aunt’s move she was thrown off a cart by a gendarme near the ghetto
gate. The reason was that “Jews were not allowed to use any means of transport.”
She was also severely beaten up. Lastly, the third of my aunts from Łódź
returned several times to her old flat, which had been taken over by a German
family resettled from the Baltic coast. The German woman complained to her
[. . .] had left such a fortune and now she had to leave it all behind. At first,
she gave [. . .] various objects from the flat but later she refused, claiming that
she was afraid [. . .] check.
1245 Milanówek (Warsaw County).
1246 See Introduction to Part One.
