20 zlotys extra by way of an ‘anti-Semitic fee.’ Both my janitor and our servant
were outraged at that, but there was nothing that could be done. Then
[. . .] [6] started loading the luggage on top of the bus and demanded additional
payment from the Jews. I protested, saying that I had only a backpack, which
I intended to keep with me. The janitor bade his farewell and left, and the
maid decided to wait until the departure of the bus. Around 1 p.m. I sent her
home to prepare dinner for my wife and I continued waiting. 2 p.m. passed,
3 p.m. passed, but the bus had not left. We became nervous. We were told
that someone had gone for a new pass and had not come back. People began
to fear that the bus would never leave. The evening came and with it the curfew.
We set off to Stryków⁸⁴ in the evening, as late as around 8 p.m. We drove
along deserted streets, with the driver choosing side streets to avoid patrols.
There was an empty bus driving ahead of us for safety reasons. The busmen,
three of them, were constantly conferring with one another, which worried
the passengers. As regards the three mentioned busmen, the driver was
boorish, and the remaining Volksdeutsche looked half-educated; one of them —
with his nice, steel-blue eyes and an energetic expression on his face — seemed
to be a chekist.⁸⁵ The men kept listening intently and looking into the distance.
At first, the passengers were silent because the busmen forbade us to
talk while leaving the city. Quiet conversations began only when we were far
away from Łódź. The passengers were a diverse group, but most of them were
women from wealthy [. . .]. Next to me sat a Polish girl wearing a scarf. She
was holding on [. . .] to the right [. . .] was sitting [. . .] [7] it proved that he was
a convert, a well-known trade-union activist, who used to have communist
sympathies. At the other end of the bus I saw another famous trade-union
activist, a former S.D. activist, who was travelling with his wife and son.
There were also Hasidim in disguise, who were recognisable by their movements
(a Hasid dressed as a European moves in a strange way). At some point,
our bus stopped in a forest, as it turned out, to wait for the reconnaissance
bus’s return. The drivers of the two vehicles had a talk and then both buses
set off again. The ‘chekist’ alighted near the border⁸⁶ in order to talk to the
84 Stryków (Brzeziny County).
85 Functionary of Cheka (All Russian Special Commission for Fighting Counterrevolution and Sabotage), the secret police in Soviet Russia in the years 1917-1922.
86 Between the Reich and the General Government.
