Читать книгу We Were Young and at War: The first-hand story of young lives lived and lost in World War Two - Sarah Wallis - Страница 15

God! What’s going on! Panic, mass exodus, defeatism. The city has been deserted by police and other state institutions and is just waiting in terror for the entry of German troops. What’s happened to people? They just can’t stay put, running around in fear and confusion, pointlessly shifting worn out pieces of furniture. My duty ends at one in the morning. I go and wake up Rysiek for the next shift. He’s in a pessimistic mood, it’s from him I hear the so-called plans to evacuate the city. He says that in the office where his father works everything is packed up and that they’ll be leaving Łódź any moment. But how? I’m told the Germans are going to take the city any moment now.

Run, run away, further and further away, step by step, wade, cry, forget—anything to be as far as possible from the danger. My dear, oversensitive mother is showing self-control. She comforts Mrs Grodzieńska and talks her out of her crazy plan to run away, gradually calming down the mass psychosis of a crowd about to be slaughtered. Father’s losing his mind, he doesn’t know what to do. Other Jewish neighbours come to talk. They talk about the order given to all those fit to carry arms to leave the city so as not be sent by the enemy to labour camps. They don’t know what to do. They deliberate, then decide to stay put. People are leaving all the time: hordes of men are walking to a rallying point in Brzeziny. Reservists and conscripts are leaving the city. Behind them, women with bedding, clothing and food in bundles on their backs. There are small children with them. All our commanding officers have left the city and their posts, so we appointed ourselves as a joke and kept up the pretence until noon.