me coldly, saying, “You can rest for half an hour and then leave,” but my need
was so great that I paid no attention and stayed two days.
On the second day, everyone was expelled, myself among them. The family
that I had known so well was apportioning the packages to be carried on
their backs. I had sympathy for them in their misfortune and, [38] so that
they could take something else with them, I told them to give me a pack. Show
a pig a finger and it will want the whole hand. With them it was the same.
Since I’d offered to carry something, they burdened me with a pack consisting
of a bedcover, two pillows, and something else too. I had counted on them
hiring a cart on the way, but the family had a reputation for being stingy and
didn’t catch on. I hoisted the pack on my poor shoulders. Still weak and starving,
I dragged myself along with the others, like Mendele’s mare.¹⁷⁷¹
I lost them on the way and remained alone with my bundle. I stopped
in a village and waited to see whether they would arrive, but they had disappeared
like a stone in the water. Everybody else came, but no sign of them.
I wanted to leave the bundle in the field, but my conscience didn’t let me.
So I had to carry it further on my shrivelled shoulders. As they were nowhere
to be seen, I set off again and reached the town of O[strów Mazowiecka?].
at nightfall. [39] After spending the night there, I set off the next morning
for Suriah. I crossed the border unimpeded, except that the German¹⁷⁷² border
guards searched me. When I saw the first Russian soldier, I wanted to
say a blessing over him. I went on a little further and came to a major road
junction leading in many directions, including to Z[ambrów?] but the patrol
wouldn’t let me go that way. Instead, they ordered me, along with other people,
to walk across the sands for some twenty kilometres, which would take us
to a small town by the name of A[ndrzejewo?]. I’m not writing anything about
food because this whole time I had nothing to eat and no one took pity on me.
I reached the little township in the evening, but nobody would give me
a place to sleep. Everyone just shut the door. So I had to sleep in the bet hamidrash. In the morning I got myself examined by the town’s military doctor.
He bandaged my wound and told me it was healing. After that, I set off again
for C[zyżew?¹⁷⁷³]. On the way, I was [40] ravenously hungry. Then I saw a group
1771 A reference to Mendele Moykher Sforim’s novel, Di Klatshe (The Mare).
1772 In the original yevonishe.
1773 Czyżew (Wysokie Mazowieckie County).
