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Chapter Nine

 

The Second Escape

I was officially transferred to the Leather Trust and got an important position as planning engineer for the whole industry but my mind was constantly occupied with how to get out of the country. There were, as I mentioned, two ways of doing this. Since my last visit to Vilnius, however, another way had been developed and it was a very attractive one. We found out that there were some planes available leaving Vilnius and going directly to Bucharest. I was given the address of a person to talk to but I didn't find him. That was lucky because the whole thing was a provocation of the secret service. Among the victims of the scheme were Lisa Polovine and her husband and daughter, the people who shared the suite with us in Vilnius in 1944. Their plane got off the ground, cruised several minutes around the city, then landed back where it had come from where the police were waiting. The parents were sent to Siberia and the daughter, a minor, a friend of Ruth's and a schoolmate of hers, was released in Vilnius. We heard the story from her. The parents spent several years in prison and were returned home only much later after the death of Stalin.

There were several people with whom I met, mostly for the same purpose. Every one of them had a different plan but all of the plans had dangerous loop holes. When I met with the various people it naturally had to be in secluded spots and, as a rule, before starting to talk business, we would agree on the "official topic" of our conversation. It might be tickets for the ballet or any other innocent matter and we would agree on the details of the conversation. Thus, if the police were to later question us about our meeting we would have an acceptable story that would stand up even if we were questioned separately. This policy proved later to be a very useful one.

It took some time before we decided to join a group whose leaders made a good impression on us. We gave them a down payment and it was planned that we would go in the early days of April, 1946. Soon the time was closing in and we got the new papers identifying us as Polish citizens with permission to leave. The amount of goods we could take with us was limited and to be able to take some valuables I had with me I decided to order a double-lined suitcase for myself. I ordered it from a man familiar with this job and who had been recommended to me as a reliable person. A few days later it was ready to be picked up. I made arrangements with my office to take an inspection trip for two weeks to cover all the leather and shoe factories in the country and I decided to leave the office the first day of Passover, the holiday celebrating the flight from Egypt.

During this trip we planned to escape, keeping in mind that the office wouldn't notice our disappearance too soon. The first Seder we celebrated with Chezia, his brother and Etale. They didn't know, at that time, that our plans were so advanced.

Next day I took leave of my boss and my co-workers and I tucked my Polish documents into my pocket. I left the office with the intention of going to pick up the "smart" suitcase. I took a quiet little street but I had the feeling there was somebody following me. I slowed down to let the man pass. I didn't like the idea of being followed.

When he came abreast of me he stopped and asked, "Are you engineer Kron?"

"Yes."

"Do you work at the Leather Trust?"

"Yes."

"Are you going on a business trip?"

"Yes, I am."

"You are under arrest," he told me.

He wore civilian clothing but, when I asked him, he produced his card indicating that he was an officer of the secret police.

"You have no right to arrest me," I said. "For this you need an order of the Sovnarkom (Council of Ministers)."

He had it ready and presented it to me. He kept his right hand in his pocket and indicated to me that he was holding a gun.

"You go ahead," he said. "When you meet people you know, greet them but do not speak. I will indicate the way."

He led me to the famous building of the secret police. Still, on the way down, I met one man from Shavli. I didn't know his name but he sure knew me. When I saw him I took a couple of faster steps.

"Say at home that I am in trouble," I told him in Hebrew.

He was a smart man and he followed us, keeping far behind, until we reached the gates of the NKGB building. It was not easy to find me in Vilnius because I lived incognito. Still, as I found out later, this man got the message to Gita.

Once inside the building that housed the secret service I was taken directly to an office where I was confronted by an investigator. He started interrogations. I was astounded to find out that he knew every step of mine for the last couple of months. Undoubtedly, apart from other sources, they received information from the office of the Leather Trust. He knew all my friends. He asked me about Isya Shapiro and Schnider and other friends of mine who had escaped to Poland previously. He knew about several of my appointments with people. He knew the dates and had checked all the details of the meetings. For most of them I had the answers ready. The time passed and the Polish papers I had were burning in my pocket. Finally I had an idea and I told the man I had to go to the bathroom. He called a guard to take me down. There were several toilets in the men's department and luckily they had doors on them. As soon as I closed the door I tore my Polish papers in pieces, put them in my mouth, chewed them well and swallowed them.

About half an hour later, when I was back in his office, the interrogator realized with horror that they hadn't even searched me yet. They found a letter from my sisters in Moscow in my pocket and that was all. It was a very innocent letter and they already knew about this connection anyway. They questioned me all evening all night, the following day, then another night and another day and into the third night without interruption. The officer changed every several hours but they kept me in the same room all the time. They had a very bright light on me and I was forced to remain sitting. I was not allowed to get up at all. Until that time I had no idea what torture it is to remain in a sitting position for a long time. However, I think that I was lucky to be able to spend the time this way rather than in the cellars in the building which were known throughout the country as the inquisition chambers. They kept me there for a total of sixty hours. Through their questions I was able to find out what they knew about me and it came to my attention that they knew about the meeting I had had earlier--the meeting in the bakery when I was introduced by Nachman Daitch. They kept asking me if I had something to confess, something I had not told them, so I decided it would be best to tell them something. I told them the story of being at that bakery shop. I had to put the story in writing. I told them that I was there and I heard talk about some people making arrangements to leave the country. However, I said that I didn't plan to leave and therefore I didn't make any arrangements.

About four in the morning on the third night my interrogators changed their tune and they started to praise me. They said I was a good worker and that I had done very much for the leather industry. When asked if I was a friend or a foe of the Soviet system my answer was naturally clear. I was the best friend the Soviets had. Then they came to the point. Would I cooperate with them secretly, work with them as an agent and help them discover the enemies of the people? Well, it wouldn't be too hard to find Lithuanians or others who had collaborated with the Nazis against the communists. There were hundreds of them. But the officers were not interested in that. What they wanted me to do was spy on Jewish friends and report to them on people who wanted to leave the country or do anything else "antisocial". We agreed on a certain code name for me, Speetchka (which means "match"), and I was given the address of a remote little house where I was to report to them at regular intervals. Then they sent me on my way with a clear warning that if I didn't give them any reports or if I gave them false reports I would be shot and my family sent to Siberia. Carrying this new burden, I left the big building in the early hours of the morning.

To tell the truth, I don't know to this day what, exactly, caused them to release me. They had enough proof that I was not very loyal. My behavior in pulling out from Shavli and taking a new job in Vilnius and my plan to take an inspection trip were too transparent to be believed. However, later on I found out that there were forces working for me. The top man of the secret police of the Republic, who was much higher up than the little officers who had interrogated me, was a good friend of mine. When he used to come to Shavli with a requisition for leather he could always be sure that he wouldn't have to wait too long for it. On several occasions we met and drank a bottle of Vodka together. He was, apparently, astonished when he found out I had been arrested. The case was brought to his attention by Irene Schochet, a very close and devoted friend of mine and a wonderful person. Irene used to work in our factory before the war. During the war she was in Russia and was mobilized to the secret police. She spent the rest of the war working for them. Only later on, in 1945, was she demobilized. She married our leather chemist, Sam Barit, and they moved to Vilnius. She took the chance--and it was risky--to approach the chief of the NKGB while I was still in custody and to speak on my behalf. After her visit the chief must have exerted pressure. That would explain the change of attitude in my interrogators and their subsequent attempts to enlist me as a spy could well have been merely a way for them to try to save face.

I arrived home to Savich's in the earlier morning. I was desperate. I said to Gita, "Up to now we have tried to escape together. However, now we have to find a way for me to escape first because I will not work as a spy against my friends." The only alternative would have been suicide. Gita and Ruth would have to go into hiding until a way for them to escape could be found.

Before releasing me, the police had told me to keep my arrest secret and to go about my usual business as if nothing had happened. The fact was, the moment I was arrested everybody in the Republic knew what had happened to me. Later everybody knew I had been released and everybody knew also that people who were released by the NKGB were most likely engaged in their activities. Nobody would take the chance of talking to me about illegal things again.

At first I had to obey the instruction and I went to Shavli for inspection as if nothing had happened. I left Gita in Vilnius to try to find new connections because the one we had arranged had collapsed. The people involved were afraid to talk to her again.

In Shavli I stayed with Shumkauskas. He knew the whole story. Doctor Goldberg was still in Shavli at that time and had the same ideas as I had - namely, to escape - but he had no definite plans. I also found out that Jocas was in town. He had heard that somewhere around Suvalki there was a certain spot where it was easy to cross the border to Poland and he offered to go in person to investigate this route. Several days later he returned with good news and even gave me names of places and of people to contact to proceed this way. As it turned out we did not use his plan, however.

That was the last time I saw Jocas. I had no chance to bid him goodbye or to thank him for his love and devotion to all of us for so many years. Thanks to him we are here and alive and maybe Tamara would be alive too if we had accepted his offer to take one of the girls.

We lost contact with Jocas until about eight or ten years ago when we found his address in Lithuania. We began to correspond with him and now send him gifts. We have sent him a television, a bicycle and many other articles and try to help him materially as far as possible.

I can still visualize Jocas coming in smiling, with his mass of unruly blond hair and sturdy figure, always shaking my hand with both of his and inquiring as to every detail of my home and family. He was a devoted man not only to me. He cared about his mother when she was alive. Later on, when he was married and always on the move, he helped many people in those hard times. I found out about this only later. He never bragged about his deeds and he did them on his own, not because of religion (for which he cared very little) or for any remuneration. I was proud to have his friendship and proud of the fact that I was able to hide him from the Germans who wanted him to go to the front to dig fortifications in the last days before their retreat. He joined us at Barbara's shortly before our liberation by the Russians. Later, I hid him again when he was in trouble with the Soviet authorities for his black market activities.

In the middle of one night, while I was at Shumkauskas' in Shavli, somebody knocked at the door of Shumkauskas' house. A truck, a dilapidated Gazik, was waiting for me. There were two fellows I had never met before and their message was a short one: Gita had sent them to pick me up. They had come directly from Vilnius. I woke up Shumkauskas to tell him that I was leaving and asked him to find an acceptable excuse for my sudden departure for official announcement. He knew that my actions were very risky for himself as well as for me but he took the news calmly and wished me luck. I found out later that Gita had been desperate to find help because everyone refused to talk to her after my arrest and when she got in touch with these two fellows (they were dressed as Polish officers) she offered to give them everything we had if they would help us to escape.

They had drawn up an outline of how to proceed. We were to go directly to Vilnius, cross the city and proceed eastward toward White Russia. They had decided on a certain place on the other side of Vilnius where they would leave me while they returned to pick up Gita and Ruth and the others of the group. They would then pick me up again on the way east.

Not everything went according to plan because the truck was in very poor condition and we had to stop several times for repairs. When we reached Vilnius it was much later than we had planned on. Passing through town, I laid down on the floor of the truck and they covered me so that I would escape notice. At the other side of town we had to stop at a different place than the one planned on because of the late hour. It was a peasant's home. I had on a leather jacket and high leather boots--a sign of great prominence--and I played the role of the big shot, sending the other two fellows, as my subordinates, back to Vilnius, telling them I would wait there until they came back. The peasant had nothing against this. He was a friendly fellow and treated me very nicely. However, the time passed and I became worried when they didn't return for me on time.

In Vilnius, in the meantime, things didn't go properly either. Gita was at that time seven months pregnant and Ruth happened to have contacted scarlet fever. They were given instructions to be in a certain part of a suburb of Vilnius, Lipovka, at a certain time in the afternoon. The exact place was unclear to Gita as she had never been there before. Gita and Ruth left Savich's house early with no baggage and without taking any documents with them. In case they were followed, she didn't want to look as if she was leaving. All she took was some valuables. Doctor Savich, dressed as a colonel of the Soviet army, left separately in another direction and met them at the entrance to a movie theatre. There they stood, side by side, looking at the displayed pictures. Savich carried their documents and took them out of his pocket. He put them in Gita's pocket, then quietly disappeared.

Now Gita and Ruth had to go to meet the group. The only way to get there was to hire an Izvoshchik, a horse-drawn carriage with a driver. The man they found was not too willing to drive them because he didn't trust them to pay and he was suspicious because Gita couldn't tell him exactly where they were going. However, Gita paid him in advance and he agreed to drive them to Lipovka.

In the meantime, as I noticed evening drawing close, I became very worried and left the peasant's house. I left a message that, if anyone came, the peasant was to tell them I had gone back to the "dentist" (meaning Savich's). I was sure the arrangements had collapsed. I was now in a very dangerous situation. I walked in the direction of Vilnius and when I approached Lipovka I noticed an Izvoshchik with Gita and Ruth sitting in it. Not knowing it was me, both turned their faces away as they were scared of being recognized, but I recognized them. I took them off the carriage and let the driver go. Just minutes later the truck with the rest of the group came by at the exact place where we were. It was a very narrow escape. They took us in and continued on. The time, the place - nothing - had gone according to plan, yet all of us got in the truck together.

There were around ten people all told, including the two leaders. The truck drove in the darkness toward White Russia. We were to proceed to a railway station and from there take a train to Brest, a border station between White Russia and Poland. At first it looked as if the trip was going smoothly. We were on our way to the station when, suddenly, in the early hours of the morning just as the sun was appearing on the horizon, the truck stopped. It turned out that the bridge there had been blown up.

What to do now? Our group was in the middle of the world and looked very suspicious. The first thing to do was run for cover. About a half a mile away there were some trees and bushes at the bank of the river. There we were able to catch our breath and look for further transportation. We found a small boat hidden in the bushes which could accommodate three persons. In three trips we crossed the river.

On the other side we landed in no man's land. After that it took a full half day for us to find out where we were. It turned out that, not far away, there was a military detachment with a truck and a driver who was willing to take us to the next railway station for a good price. I can still visualize now how difficult it was for Gita, being pregnant, to get in the truck. She was grey in the face and scared to death. However, she went heroically with the group and worried more about Ruth than about herself.

At the railway station, Baranovich, thousands of people were lining up for tickets. Our leaders changed again into Polish uniforms and played the role of big shots. They got the necessary tickets just in time to board the train. Next morning, when we approached the border station of Brest, border policemen took up positions at the door of each car. They led everyone to a field nearby. There we had to wait until the train to Poland arrived. A good part of the day passed before we were ready to board. New documents were given to us then by our leaders. They were made out haphazardly identifying us in a way that made it appear we all belonged to different families. I belonged to one family (my name was Wallach) and Gita and Ruth to another. Our leaders told us they had good relations with the border police and I am inclined to believe them because the slightest scrutiny of our documents would have revealed that they were fake. We waited a whole day in the open field, hiding our faces so as not to be recognized. We were terrified whenever anyone approached, fearing he might be of the secret police. Finally, however, we got into the train.

By that time the wagons were filled to capacity and it took several more hours before the train started moving. On the steps by every door was a Soviet border policeman. The distance from Brest to the actual border with Poland was only several kilometers but the train moved very slowly and it seemed to us that hours passed and that the distance was endless. The tension was tremendous. Finally, the borderline was passed and the Russian police jumped off the steps. There was a search at the border but we had no luggage with us and what we had in our paper bags - food for the journey - we kept open on the table under the window. The few valuables we had were some dollars rolled in plastic and tucked in the bellies of salted herring that were lying in the open. These were too sticky and smelly for the men to touch and as a consequence they didn't search them. We also had two gold coins inserted in toothpaste tubes. We probably didn't look too suspicious and the border police just passed us by. It took some time after that before we realized what had happened and that we were now free people. A big "hooray" sounded in the train and we all embraced each other when we realized that we were over the border. We gave a great sigh of relief and I celebrated by having a good drink of Vodka with our rescuers. The train took us to Lodz, a famous industrial center in Poland, and from there we had to look for additional ways to get out of Poland and into either the American or the English zone of Germany. Our leaders were responsible fellows and they arranged a room for us for a couple of days until we could find our way in this new place.

Lodz, at that time, was a bursting city with thousands of people coming and going. A large number of them were refugees with false documents like us. Many came from Russia and were running away from Stalin's empire. To get money and food we had to sell some of the valuables which we still possessed. Gita met a professor of hers from university. He was a Polish man who knew his way around and found a way to sell my mother's gold chain for a pretty good sum. That kept us alive for awhile. We also met Leibale Peisachovitz, Gita's cousin. He had just come out of the woods where he had spent the war time with partisans fighting the Germans. He introduced us to his new girlfriend, Janina. They were married soon after and now live happily in New York.

Our next step was to get out of Lodz as soon as possible. I was under the impression that the whole world was after me and I couldn't delay. There were too many people in Lodz with the same idea as we had but we heard that there was a better arrangement to be made by going to another town, Breslau. I left Gita and Ruth in their awful room in Lodz. It was a middle room which other tenants walked through at any time. The bed was half- broken and there was no toilet. They had to go down several flights of stairs to attend to that business in a dirty, seatless corner.

I took a bus going to Breslau. Before boarding, I put most of the money I had realized from the sale of the gold chain in my back pocket.

I enjoyed the sight of this German city, Breslau. It had been completely wrecked during the war by the heavy bombardment it had suffered. There was no way to even find an address or a street. While walking around I met a Jewish fellow who had been in Breslau for more than a year. He helped me to find a place to stay. When it came time to pay my rent, though I realized with horror that all the money in my back pocket had disappeared. Somebody on the bus had taken care of it and I was left penniless. However, my new landlord, Kabrovski, didn't care about my rent. He was very helpful and gave me advice on where to go to make further arrangements. It turned out that, at that time, transportation to the American zone of Germany was being arranged for Jews who had been born in Breslau. The problem now was to get papers saying we had been born there. I found a person who offered to do the job but he asked me for a large sum--I think it was about fifty thousand zloty. With this report I returned to Kabrovski to ask his advice. I had a ring with small diamonds which I said I would sell to get the necessary money. I gave it to Kabrovski and he went to find out if he could sell it. He came back with the report that he could get the money - just enough to pay for the documents. He admired my ring and asked me where I had got it. I told him that it was my father's and that it had been passed on for several generations in my family.

"In that case," he said, "Don't sell it." When I told him that there was no other way I could get the money he replied, "Don't worry. As long as that ring is your own family heirloom don't touch it. I will lend you the money and you can pay me back later." That is what happened. I still have the ring.

Kabrovski planned, as did most Jews who had survived the concentration camps, to move to Munich in the future. Kabrovski was a good businessman and after being liberated from the concentration camp he did very well in Breslau. His generosity and trust were outstanding. Many people I had to deal with during this period were generous and self-sacrificing. I was lucky to have met him. Kabrovski gave me more cash as well - enough to enable me to pick up Ruth and Gita. When the time finally came to move toward Germany he even gave Gita his sister's fur coat which he picked up many months later in Munich.

Having money in my pocket I went back to Lodz to pick up Gita and Ruth and we returned by train to Breslau. It was an awful trip because we were surrounded by Polish-speaking people and none of us knew even one word of Polish. Now, being back in Breslau, we had new names, Meyer, Gita and Ruth Wise, all, naturally, born in Breslau. With our new documents we were able to register for the transport, which was supposed to leave in a short time. It was not far from the British zone but the journey nevertheless took several days. It was not pleasant at all because we travelled in freight cars with no facilities and there was, as well, a scarcity of water. Worst of all, everybody was angry and nervous and, as a result, there were lots of quarrels between the real German Jews of Breslau and the fake Breslau Jews who were mostly Polish. It was no problem to find out who was who and the legal passengers of German origin blamed the Polish Jews for making their lives miserable in the train. When we finally arrived in an English camp we were placed in a large compound where we waited our turn to be screened. Everyone had to appear before the British officers to give the details of their life and then they gave us new I.D. cards. From there we had to proceed along a narrow corridor where departure took place.

Being taller than the crowd I could see that there was another screening place in front where the authorities were sending some people through a door to the left and others through a door to the right. I didn't know, at that time, what the selection was about. When it was my turn I was asked once more when I was born. I told them I was born on the seventeenth of March, 1905. I found out later that that was the key question. When we returned to the compound we were missing several people. They arrived a couple of hours later. It turned out that these men were held separately and were told that they were not German Jews and didn't belong to the transport. They were going to be sent back to Poland but, later on, when they were on their way to the jail guarded by German police they just beat up their guards and ran back to the transport. It turned out that the real German Jews, after all the quarrels in the train, had told the British authorities that many of the passengers were illegal. This was a terrible thing for them to do. That is why we had a second screening and for this the authorities applied a tricky method. Generally, the western people (those from Germany and westward) would give the day, month and year when asked when they were born while the the eastern people (those from Poland eastward) would give only the year. Thus, since the English couldn't tell the difference between German and non-German Jews, they based their decision at the second screening point on the answer to the question, "When were you born?"

When they found out that their plan had collapsed and that many people had run away from the German guards and come back, they had to screen everyone again.

After we had waited a long time in the field the loudspeakers called us to a different place for re-registration. Gita and I went to the barracks indicated and left Ruth in the field to stay with a couple of things we had. I was worried about her staying alone so I went ahead of the line with Gita and asked them to examine me first. This time they didn't like my answers and disqualified me as a German Jew. They put me under guard to be transported back to Poland. They believed Gita and let her out and she went immediately to pick up Ruth. While she was gone, quite a group of people joined me. We were in a fenced-in area adjacent to a door and, while the screening continued, we saw trucks pull up and stop. They were waiting to pick of the "legal" passengers to take them to the train. Finally, I saw Gita and Ruth outside the door of the shed and I saw that a truck was ready to load them. I found an appropriate moment, jumped over the fence, darted through the door and jumped on the nearest truck. Gita, from outside, threw several packages that were sitting there on the ground on top of me so no one would see me. This happened very quickly - just a matter of seconds. Then Gita and Ruth were loaded on top of the same truck and we left immediately. Finally we were again together in a train. When the train moved I felt it was time to make use of the delicious Italian cognac which Kabrovski had given me for the trip.

We disembarked at another DP camp in the British occupied zone. Since the British were not too easy to get along with we decided we wanted to go to the American zone but to get there we had to go through another screening. Some of the screening there was done by the British but most by the German police who were more interested in the food and other things we were taking with us than in our legal status. We had little food but we were worried about our valuables which were now out of the herring and hiding in a "smart" sausage which a friend of Kabrovski's, a butcher, had made for us. Our valuables were in a built-in hollow of this sausage which, to make sure that the police didn't cut it, was already cut in the right place so that the cut could be seen and prove that there was nothing suspicious about the sausage.

The British officials had no questions for me but they stopped Gita and started to question her about her large stomach and whether or not she had anything hidden there. Whether they were just joking or whether they were serious didn't matter to Gita. That kind of questioning irritated her very much and she gave them a good fight which took several minutes. In the interval, Ruth smuggled the bag of food across the line. When we joined the train we felt that that was the best time to liquidate the rest of the cognac.

 



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