eat and created a rumpus. Then, all of a sudden, several hundred young people
from Ciechanów, Płońsk and neighbouring towns arrived in our shtetl.
They were fleeing to Warsaw and explained that the police had told people
to leave because the enemy was coming, and that forces would be formed in
Warsaw [. . .]. [2] Soon afterwards, troops appeared, crushed and broken, the
same troops that had marched to the front a few days earlier. They talked of
betrayal and shouted at us to flee.
That gave rise to panic. Jews and Christians grabbed what they could
and ran. For the first time, we saw Christians fleeing. During every [previous]
evacuation, the Christians had stayed on and had plundered the things left
behind by the Jews. Owing to its location near the Modlin fortress, only the
Jews from our shtetl had been evacuated during every war. [Now] everyone
was fleeing despite an announcement that flight was premature. The panic
kept growing, and suddenly tongues of flame appeared over Modlin, greatly
perturbing the remaining population.
There was a shortage of carts to transport possessions. There was one
automobile, but it was requisitioned by the army, as were the horses. The horses
that were left were the worst ones, incapable of pulling heavy loads. People
[. . .] the carts with the weak horses, and there were tragic scenes: the rabbi
running [. . .] to hide the Torah scrolls from the synagogue and prayer house
in a [. . .] place where they were burnt when the shtetl was set on fire; a priest
running to hide the [. . .] in the underground of the Capuchin church in our
shtetl, where a lot of Jewish possessions were hidden. In two days, the shtetl
was deserted. There remained poor and sick Jews, and the worst reprobates
waiting to loot the abandoned dwellings. A few stubborn tradesmen also
stayed, reluctant to part with the possessions they had toiled to amass for
many years. And thus women with children, old people, pushing children’s
prams loaded with salvaged belongings, dragged themselves 40 km to Warsaw.
Aeroplanes flew overhead, dropping bombs. In the shtetl there remained
20 families who hadn’t wanted to leave until the last minute. This is what
happened to them. The others who had stayed behind walked calmly through
all the flats and shops and looted everything that was left. They had time
enough, even though the town was bombed continuously.
On the eve of Yom Kippur, the first incendiary bomb was dropped and the
shtetl began to burn. The remaining inhabitants tried to put out the fire, but
it was impossible, and part of the town burnt down. There were casualties too.
