Part VIII

So I was in those weeds, and I saw that I was a little further off, I said to myself, “I’ll cross the tracks. I’ll try.”

And I was about to go into the ravine which would lead me up. Some Polish teenage kids came with a dog, and screamed, “A JEW is ESCAPING from the GHETTO!!” If I tell you that I looked like a puny nothing. And the dog was barking and started to bite me. I was so scared!

But I said, “You are the JEWS!! You are the JEWS!!” I was like hysterical. And my aunt was still in the hospital, watching this. And the other people were watching it. It was like a show. They were all seeing what is going to happen to me.

Suddenly I saw a woman, dressed all in white, and she was approaching me. Where she came from, God knows. She didn’t come from the ghetto, and she didn’t come from the tracks. I don’t know. She was there.

And she was saying to the kids, “Get away from her! She’s a Catholic! Don’t you see that? Get away!” So they looked at her, and they got away from me. They went back to the Christian side. And she said to me, “Follow me. I’ll show you the bridge.”

So I said, “Can I take your hand?”

She said, “NO!”

“Can I go home with you?”

“Get away from me! Do you want them to get me too?? I’ll just show you the bridge.”

So I just followed her and followed her. And she was all dressed in white. And suddenly she said, “Go a little further up. To the left there is a bridge. Cross over to the Christian side.”

And I looked, then I looked back. She was gone. She was GONE! She just disappeared. My aunt saw this, and she said, “Where did she go? I was looking and she disappeared!” She said she looked like an angel from heaven! She disappeared!

Well, I continued, and I went to the bridge, and there was no SS. I crossed over to the other side and I was saying: “My father is going to be so proud of me! That I managed to do this!” And I started to pick flowers, a bunch of flowers.

Now this is all taking 5 hours, all total. Suddenly, the kids with the dog were there, and they were screaming, “She is here, the Jew is here! Let’s get her now!” They were on the Christian side. They belonged there.

And just then the streetcar came, I hopped on the car, and off I went. And they were left behind. I didn’t go inside the streetcar, but on the outer side. I was facing out, with my back to the people, because the back (of my dress) was not dirty. The front was very dirty. And people were still looking at me like this. There was something very strange about me.

I had a rash, because in those four weeks, we had so little water, and we couldn’t wash, and the sweat was all over, so I had a rash. And here I was so dirty. I looked disgusting. And I knew it.

So, 5 stops later I got off. At this point I totally blacked out. I had no idea where to go. I didn’t remember a thing. After what I had gone through already, I didn’t remember. What did she say to me? But I knew the address. I knew the street number, and the name was Ulica Dziewicza 29.

So I saw an old man. I figured, I’ll ask. I said, “Where is the street Dziewicza?”

And he looked at me and he said, “Are you a JEW?” So I was afraid already to discuss it, so I ran away. I said that’s it. I can’t ask anybody. And then he left.

I went back to that spot where I got off to remember the directions. She had said, “When you get off you do this and that…” I stood there. I was so desperate that I started to remember. And I went there, to the right house. The only thing is, they didn’t have numbers. G-d forbid they should have numbers! And I didn’t know the house. I had never seen it from the front. Always from the back door. But I figured I’d take a chance.

And I screamed, “Mrs. Cicha, I have alterations!” And I heard the dog barking. I figured that’s it, this is the right house.

She opened the door, and she looked at me like, “Oh my G-d!” She said, “Come in before anybody sees you!” And she brought me in. And she said, “What is going on??”

My uncles were there. One was my mother’s brother, and one was my father’s brother. And they said, “What happened, what happened??” And of course I told them what happened. Terrible things happened, that’s what happened. The whole ghetto was dissolved, everybody was practically dead…

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