around. On it sit 6 soldiers, their rifles pointing at the sky. A naïve defence
against the steel birds... and the steel birds appear. The rifles fire at them and
there is an immediate response from above. The panic assumes dreadful proportions. People abandon their carts and trusty horses and flee into the cellars.
There, in the underground shelters, terrible scenes take place. Elderly Jews
lying on pallets, with little children next to them, say their last prayers, and
the children respond, weeping bitterly: baruch shem kevod malchuto le’olam
va’ed.¹³⁸⁰ The women weep. People beat their heads against the wall. The men
are deathly quiet. Nobody knows whether we are buried already or are being
blown into the air. The walls shake and the earth shudders. Hearts pound.
It seems as though the earth is being split open. The bridge over the Vistula
is being bombed, the roads too. A short pause. We go looking for our 3 carts.
The horses are standing behind the trees with their heads down and rejoice
to see us, their masters. They probably thought we were no longer alive.
The attachment and loyalty of a horse to its master is almost indescribable.
Thus the whole day passes with short breaks.
Tuesday 5 September in the evening. People stream out of all of the shelters,
cellars and holes. Everyone’s eyes are turned towards the bridge. Will we
still be able to cross? Is it still standing? Will we be able to cross such a long
bridge? Thousands of minds are wondering about the bridge, and I can hear
it groaning under the heavy load of all the thoughts concentrated on it. [9]
The hill [. . .] to the bridge is a battlefield. New types of hills and valleys have
formed here, hills that are a mixture of wheels, human heads, cart ladders,
legs, arms and other body parts, piled on top of each other. Whole horses, or
halves of horses, are sticking out. They are the remains of a wagon convoy that
tried to cross the bridge, but the wrath from the skies did not allow it, and
they were transformed into a pile of bones.¹³⁸¹ We make our way through with
difficulty, striving to avoid driving over the mounds, from which are protruding
hands and feet that only a few hours before were living parts of human
bodies. It is already dark as we cross the long bridge. It is deathly quiet, you
can barely hear the horses’ hoofbeats. An officer riding alongside our cart tells
us that the front is moving to Warsaw. We have reached the other side. It is
1380 (Hebrew) Blessed be the name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever; the second line of the Shema prayer (“Hear, O Israel”), which is recited every day.
1381 Reference to Ezekiel 37:1–14.
