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"Snow was up to my knees and we had to go all night through the woods and through the snow 'til we came on the other side of the border." | |||
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Martin Strauss Born 1923 Leipzig, Germany 
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We were waiting for either one of Shanghai, Israel, or England visas to give us permission to leave. And the Israel visa came first. Two days later, the England visa came, but fate wanted us to go to Israel--or Palestine, at that time. Uh...the chauffeur took us to railroad, dumped us into a car, got us to Italy where at the border line, the Germans knowing we had the passports, knowing that we were emigrating, took us apart. By...by taking us apart, I mean literally. They took my father's wooden leg off and searched it for money, contraband. But we knew better than that, because by that time we already had learned our lesson. Uh...they took and stripped my mother, totally naked, and checked in places you wouldn't dream of checking, and they took my little sister who at that time was an eight-year-old kid, and stripped her. I don't know exactly how much they checked her, but I know my mother told me that she was totally and utterly checked. And then they put us back together again, our luggage and so forth, and we got to Italy. From Italy, we got to then Palestine. | ||
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Mary Nowogrodzki Born 1920 Lodz, Poland 
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And we...we were taken by a Polish peasant who lived near the border, German-Russian border, which was formed by the Bug River. And he was supposed to guide us across the river into the Soviet side, where we thought there will not be this kind of a persecution that we would have encountered in, uh, Warsaw. Uh, so he...we...we went by horse-drawn cart to his house. And there we waited in his, uh, home which was a little hut, uh, to cross the river at night. And we were waiting--it was December--and we were waiting for the ice to form on the river so we can walk across the river. There were no bridges there. Well we wa...we started one night, we walked halfway across and the ice gave in. My leg went through the ice. I got all wet and they pulled me out. And we decided...they...the guide actually decided to turn back because there was no point going further, since the ice was very thin. | ||
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Susan Bluman Born 1920 Warsaw, Poland 
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We finally got to Vilna because it was not very easy because we had to steal across the border and the snow was up to your waistline. It was very hard crossing, but we were very fortunate. Somehow we made it across, but some people who were with us, they were caught by the border police, by the Lithuanian border police. So we had to hide and we hid behind a small building, just like a small little village. It was a very small village called Eishishki [Eishyshok ]. And uh...because we had a guide who lived in Eishishki and he took us to this little village. But were caught...the other people were caught. We were younger and we were kind of ahead of them. And we hid behind a small little hut, it was like two o'clock in the morning. And the dogs started to bark and we were just petrified that the dogs are going to give us away. But somehow they didn't. And we noticed a light in one of the houses, so we knocked on the door and the lady let us in. And she gave us some straw to sleep on. And we were just extremely tired after this on foot, going through this deep, deep snow. So we slept there, but in the morning when we woke up, she was no more there. And the guide knocks on the door and he--a small village, they knew exactly what's happening--and he said, "You have to run away right away from here," because this woman was an informer and her house was right on the border, you know, right. So anyhow, so then we got to this guide's house and the guide took us by sleigh to Vilna. | ||
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Motl Goldberg Born 1914 Janow, Poland 
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It was the...one of the hardest winters in my memory. Snow was up to my knees and we had to go all night through the woods and through the snow 'til we came on the other side of the border. And the other side was also a little town and we didn't know where to turn but they told us the rabbi lives in this...in this place. We went to the rabbi. Maybe it was...by the time we came from twelve o'clock to four o'clock we were walking. And at the rabbi's home, of course, they took us in right away and gave us some hot food and, uh, and some place to...to lie down to sleep. And we slept till about eight o'clock. At nine o'clock there was a train going to Vilna from there. We have to disguise ourself as local people, like, uh, peasants and we put on, uh, peasant clothes and a...a peasant hat, and they gave us even a basket to hold in our hands as if carried with something....as if we are taking some produce to Vilna because the police were all around looking for refugees which are...are pouring into Lithuania, into Vilna. And this way I came to Vilna. | ||
| Copyright © United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C. | ||||
