Troubled Memory by Lawrence N. Powell

Author:Lawrence N. Powell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2010-06-14T16:00:00+00:00

They went directly to Natalia Piotrowska’s apartment at Lochowska 15 when they arrived in Praga that evening, grabbing a bite to eat. “Thank God, everything was all right with her,” Ruth said. “And she was very happy to see us and happy that we had saved our lives.” The news about other acquaintances was less cheerful. “Plenty of her friends and plenty of the men had been taken away by the Germans”—presumably to do forced labor in the Reich. The Skoreckis stayed only long enough to eat dinner. Mark was anxious to return to the office shack, to check up on things in the lumberyard and the factory. He and Ruth had heard that abandoned businesses were being indiscriminately rifled by local inhabitants.

The walk back along Zabkowska Street confirmed their worst fears. The looting was rampant. “We saw hundreds of people carrying off different things because hundreds of business places were unoccupied,” Ruth said. The anarchy had already invaded the lumberyard, where everything not nailed down seemed to be disappearing. Wood was vanishing by the cord, and this on the eve of the harsh winter months ahead. “The whole neighborhood was carrying out material,” Ruth said. The only thing spared by the mob was the buried suitcase and other Skorecki family items.

Just then, Mark took a big chance, given the fact that in prewar Poland looting and pogroms often went hand in hand and that his identity was probably under some suspicion in the neighborhood. He forthwith ordered everybody to return what they had taken. “I’m in charge of this place right now,” he said. “This belongs to Mr. Smolenski and his partner, and he gave me the authority to take care of his property.” And, miraculously, the looters not only desisted, but some even returned what they had already plundered.

Leaving Ruth and the girls in the shack, Mark locked up the lumberyard and ran over to the factory. “There the picture was the same,” Ruth said. “People were taking whatever they could. So Mark told them the same. The owners are not here, but I have the power to take care of the factory, too.” “We were happy that we had come in time, because in this time plenty of places like this were cleaned out,” Ruth noted. “Nothing was left.”

It was another risky gesture, though. Neither Mark nor Ruth had the slightest inkling of how the owners were faring. From Smolenski they had heard nothing at all; presumably he was still in the summer resort of Otwock with his family. When he or his partner might return to Praga was an open question. The roads were still heavily mined making travel extremely dangerous.

But Mark was proud he took the risk. It was the right thing to do, he felt. “In our mind we were thinking of what we could do for our bosses,” Ruth explained. “We were grateful for all the things that they had done for us. They knew who we were. We felt like we were paying back a bill which money could never pay back.

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