Escape from the Ghetto by John Carr

Author:John Carr
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2022-04-05T00:00:00+00:00

XI

German soldiers would be all around that section of the riverbank within minutes. I had to get out of there. No dawdling, no thinking or reflecting on the horror of what had happened. It was over, and if I did not get out of there, I would be the next and last victim.

Flashing across my mind almost immediately was the thought that the plan to get across to the Soviet Union and find Nathan, a plan that had given meaning and coherence to my life – if only briefly – no longer existed. I had no idea what would replace it. Getting across to the Soviet Union suddenly felt impossible. My attempt had not been a mistake, but it had been in vain.

I needed time to think and come up with another scheme, another vision or strategy, and collect together new resources to help me achieve it. The only place I knew where I might have a hope of doing any of that was back at the bakery. It wouldn’t be safe to try to get there this instant. If I was spotted going into or approaching the shop after dark, it might bring trouble both to me and to Jakub. The Germans might well be putting extra patrols into the town to remind people that messing about at the river was deadly.

For what felt like hours, I walked around, ducking and diving like a hunted animal. I could hear a major din coming from the river, a lot of shouting in German as soldiers looked for survivors or accomplices. Eventually, I hoisted myself up into a tree that I judged would be able to support me and provide a vantage point to survey the near horizon, although the noise from the river was fading fast. I think they must have concluded that no one had gotten away alive. Everyone was dead on the ice. Their work was done. They were giving up and going somewhere warm. I didn’t sleep a wink for fear of falling out of the tree, then, at around what I judged to be midmorning the following day, I walked, as casually as I could, back into Jakub’s shop.

Jakub’s face was a study. Without giving anything away to any of the people present, he just nodded towards the back, and I vanished in the direction of the welcoming glow of the oven. I stayed in that room, nibbling on scraps of bread and crumbs, trying to collect my thoughts, until Jakub closed up and called me out.

After I told him what had happened, he said he’d guessed it had been something along those lines. Everyone in Wlodawa and Warsaw had heard the large explosion and the gunfire. Then, this morning, eight frozen dead bodies had been brought up from the river to be dumped outside the shell of the main synagogue. Jakub had gone to look. From his description, Albert, his wife and children were among them, buried within layers of frosted ice. None of the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.