Read Online I Shall Live by Henry Orenstein - Free Book Online

preoccupations, Mother had thought to prepare andbring with her many of our favorite dishes. We couldn’t stop for long, though, and before dark Father found a Ukrainian peasant who was willing to let us sleep in his barn. As we lay down exhausted in the hay, it smelled good. Despite all our worries, our flight, I thought, at least had an element of adventure.
    It rained that night, and when we started out early in the morning, we found the road very muddy. We kept getting stuck, and it took all our combined efforts to get the wagon moving again. The horse was not cooperating; now even whipping him didn’t help.
    At last we reached Włodzimierz, a town of about twenty-five thousand inhabitants, and passed through it without much trouble, since most of its roads were paved. But after we left the town it started to rain again, and the going became even rougher. The horse grew weaker, and we had to push the wagon to help him. Late in the afternoon the wagon got stuck so deep in the mud that we couldn’t get it out by ourselves. Father went searching and found a peasant who brought another horse with him to help pull us out. After we got going again traffic was lighter because of the rain, but our horse was too tired to make much progress.
    We decided that we had traveled enough for one day. Luckily we found a
karczma
(inn) with a room available. They even served us a hot meal, which was a comfort after all the hours on the road. We slept fully dressed. In our room there were two beds, which made it very uncomfortable for the six of us, and the next morning we were all tired. It had begun raining again, and soon after we got started we realized that we were fighting a losing battle—our progress was too slow. A couple of times the horse actually fell down, and it was harder each time to get him up again. At last it stopped raining, but we were moving at a snail’s pace.
    Father, who normally dealt very energetically and capably with any problem, found himself helpless. We were dirty and exhausted,and we still had covered no more than a quarter of the distance to the Russian border. In a small town twenty miles or so east of Włodzimierz we found a Jewish family who were willing to take us in for the night. We were gratefully resting and drinking tea when a neighbor came in and said, “Did you hear the news? The Russians are coming.”
    We were stunned, but the man assured us that it was true. The Soviet government had announced on the radio that because of the “unstable situation” in Poland they felt compelled to enter eastern Poland in order to protect the Ukrainians and White Russians who constituted the majority of the population.
    This changed everything as far as we were concerned. Obviously, it made no sense to proceed toward the Russians when they were coming toward us. We knew of course that the Russians hadn’t made a major move of this kind without the prior knowledge and probably the cooperation of the Germans. The critical question for us was: What would happen to Hrubieszów? Would it be occupied by the Russians or by the Germans? It seemed clear that the Russians would occupy the entire territory east of the river Bug. Hrubieszów was on the other side of the Bug, but there were many Ukrainians in the area, and it could therefore be considered part of the Ukraine.
    We discussed these new developments late into the night. For the time being, at least, we didn’t have to face the onrushing German army. As far as our hosts were concerned, of course, the war was over. The nightmare of German occupation no longer threatened them. Our own situation, though, was different. We were glad of the respite, however temporary, but now we were faced with a new set of difficult decisions. Should we go back to Hrubieszów, perhaps now occupied by the Germans, or should we stay where we were, with only a few of our belongings?
    We decided that in the morning we would head back