Rescued from the Ashes by Leokadia Schmidt

Author:Leokadia Schmidt [Schmidt, Leokadia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-94-93056-07-7
Publisher: Amsterdam Publishers

42

Christmas Holidays, 1942

Toward the end of November 1942 I learned from my landlady that the Warsaw ghetto had once again been surrounded by German gendarmes, and Latvian, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian detachments. During Henryk’s next visit I found out that a new purge had taken place, with more than a hundred people being taken from the K. G. Schultz factory. In all, several thousand people had been taken away. The ghetto continued to be surrounded, and communication with the outside world was almost impossible.

During the time I was staying at Mrs. Zieliński’s several dozen Jews from the Warsaw ghetto were working on the railway in Wołomin. They would arrive each Monday in a specially sealed freight wagon and stay all week in a one-story workshop especially constructed for the purpose. On Saturday evening they would be taken back to Warsaw. In Wołomin their supervisor was a Pole by the name of Biernacki. He had first choice of all the things they brought to sell, after which the others had their chance. So on Monday all the inhabitants of Wołomin would go to the shop in order to buy various things from the Jews. Mrs. Zieliński and Ewa went there themselves more than once. I was eager to hear news from the ghetto, and who would have known better than they what was happening there? However, I knew that it would be foolhardy of me to visit them, so I had to satisfy myself with the sparse information provided by Mrs. Zieliński and Ewa.

One night Biernacki locked them as usual in their shed and went home for the night, taking the key with him. During the night a fire broke out. The wooden building was instantly enveloped in flames, feeding greedily on the straw on which the unfortunate men were sleeping. Some were able to jump out through the window, but all the rest perished in the flames. Those who managed to leap through the window were badly burned and injured. Next morning the local German gendarmes came and finished off all the wounded. Such was the tragic end of the Jews working in Wołomin on the railway. I wasn’t able to put the event out of my mind for a long time.

The first frosts had arrived, and the earth was enveloped in a white snowy shroud. The wind whistled mournfully outside the windows. After the fire had gone out the nights were worst of all, for the temperature in the room fell to several degrees below freezing.

I slept on a worn-out cot without a mattress, covered only with a single blanket and an overcoat. I was so cold that I didn’t even get undressed. Fear accompanied me day and night, never giving me a moment’s peace. The nights were a terrible agony, and in the morning I would finally fall briefly and restlessly asleep. The days were monotonous and cold, and the kitchen was smoky.

The Christmas holidays had already passed. That year they fell on Friday and, together with Saturday and Sunday, they lasted three days.

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