a couple of nights’ walking. The curfew never applied properly to rural areas and I was careful to travel at night and to stick to the fields and forests. I had a little suitcase I had picked up in the stables which contained not much more than a dirty towel and I tried to drop it to the ground if anyone saw me so as not to arouse suspicion and make them think I was just an agricultural worker plodding his way home. Once I reached the Bug, though, there was nothing for it but to cross the river by one of the bridges, and this meant confronting the German guards who were stationed on both banks.
‘Hands up!’ the first one shouted. My suitcase fell to the ground.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Hrubieszow,’ I replied and there followed a few more words in German that I did not understand. I knew he could shoot me there and then if he felt inclined to do so, but something told me he was not the sort to do that. Instead he led me into the barrack room to see the sergeant who was sitting at his desk fiddling with his papers and I prayed that my student card would do the trick yet again. The German respect for documents really is unfathomable. He stared at it, noted it was stamped in Hrubieszow, then stared at me, not quite believing that anyone, even a filthy Polack, could be quite as dirty as I was. I had several months’ grime ground into every pore of my face and no doubt I stank too; my clothes were black and threadbare; it had been four months since I had bathed or changed. He then opened my case and prodded around with his stick, evidently afraid of soiling his hands on what he found there. Apart from the blackened towel, I had a kilo or so of yellow tobacco leaves I had carried from Kremenets, hoping I could get some money for them somewhere. He seemed more bewildered than curious and reacted as if I represented a life-form he had not previously encountered, perhaps only read about in books.
After checking once more where I was heading, he asked where I had come from. I said I had been visiting an aunt whom no one in my family had seen since the Bolshevik invasion and retreat. He accepted this, perhaps reassured that I had relatives like other human beings, but still wanted to know why I was so filthy. He then gestured in the direction of the river and, calling me a ‘filthy Polish pig’, suggested that I wash myself. This made me seethe with anger. I thought that if he had slept rough for as long as I had and then walked and ridden as far as I had, then he too would be filthy. He then escorted me onto the bridge, picked up the phone and informed his comrades on the other side that they should let me pass. The cross-examination had been painless and much quicker than 1 had dared expect. I was free to move on and not far from home, but for some reason the insult hurt me and I had difficulty swallowing my pride and anger.
Back in Hrubieszow I had two choices of accommodation: my Polish landlady with her Ukrainian lover or Uncle Edek’s. My family had all survived: Kasimir, Stanislaw and Anthony were all still alive. The Germans had changed, though, and there were still lots of black armbands to mark the defeat at Stalingrad. Returning after a lengthy absence meant I noticed the decay and devastation more than I had previously. By this time there were very few Jews left in the ghetto; those who were left were too old and infirm to escape and they did not seem to be guarded properly any more.
In May my mother insisted I go to Zakrzowek to lie low after another batch of Poles had been taken hostage and shot. My grandmother gave me a suitcase full of meat to take to my father’s family, who, despite their estate, had far less to eat because of the German overseer. Ironically, peasants and small landowners had more food at their disposal than the owners of larger farms, say over 100 acres, which the Germans administered themselves. My maternal grandmother had plenty, as she could always declare fewer piglets to the German authorities than actually arrived in the litter. She wanted me to take my father’s family more than the five or six kilos of bacon that fitted into my case.
I took the train to Lublin, where I met Aunt Sophie who was setting off for her parents’ farm because of the danger posed by staying in Lublin. We found various members of the extended family in Zakzrouvek, including my five female cousins whose brother Peter had fled to join the RAF at the beginning of the var. Everyone was astounded at the quantities of fatty bacon I dumped on the kitchen table; there was enough to feed us all for more than a week. Apart from the shortages, life continued relatively peacefully in Zakzrouvek, except that the German overseer poked his nose into all our business and had effectively taken over the running of the farm, in particular the hydroelectric flour mill, from my uncles.
I returned to Hrubieszow later in the summer after partisan activity and the resultant reprisals made Zakzrouvek just as hot a place to be in as Lublin or the western Bug. I went first to Modryn and then stayed with my parents, who had moved to a hamlet on the other side of the river, away from the main road. They wanted me to stay with them, saying it was safer than anywhere else, but I could not stand my mother’s nagging of my father – I thought she humiliated him and felt humiliated in his place. My wish was the same as it had been a year ago: I wanted to fight and the opportunity to do so was now not far away. The fighting came to me; there was no need to go in search of it.
4 The Ukrainian Massacres
In the forests where Baron had dug his hide-out I had a friend named Karma, a poet and an idealist, who organised a few local youngsters to attack German buildings after dark. He put me in touch with the local Peasants’ Battalion, who at first told me that I was too young to fight with them. Had I had my own weapon, the story might have been different, and I cursed my aunt for refusing to tell me where the arms were buried. Instead I joined Karma’s small group in order to prove what I could do. Armed with five rifles and a couple of dozen hand-grenades, we attacked a German storage depot, scaring off the sentry with a few pot-shots. We blasted off the locks and then tossed in the grenades but, although we damaged the stores of food and equipment, we failed to open a heavy safe we came across inside. That was my first taste of real action. It had been easy and I wanted more.
The next month Karma again proposed me to the local unit and they reacted more positively, quizzing me on military tactics and equipment. During the summer they sent me back to the technical college so that I would have a cover for collecting information on German troop movements in Hrubieszow. My student ID still served as a passe-partout and, despite my height, I still managed to look younger than my age. Yet I was still furious that they would not let me fight with them and took the rebuff as a personal slight. A sergeant heard me complaining and took me aside.
‘Look, young fellow,’ he said, ‘we need every available man, also on the inside, working in the towns. You have the perfect documentation, the perfect cover. You can walk the streets without fear of arrest. That’s why we’re sending you to Hrubieszow. It’s a vitally important job.’
His comments made me feel slightly better.
They wanted to know everything: the number of military trains, passing through the station; their, cargo; what insignia were painted on the military vehicles they unloaded; the nationality of the troops (German, Ukrainian, Lithuanian or Latvian) and whether they belonged to the Wehrmacht or the SS. I identified Lithuanian. and Ukrainian troops by the colour of their shoulder flashes. The skull and crossbones on the SS uniforms made them unmistakable.
If I could get within earshot, without arousing suspicion, I attempted to understand what the soldiers were saying to each other. The Slav languages presented me with no problems and I memorised all the details by repeating them over and over to myself. Only when there was something I did not understand, German lettering or symbols, for instance, did I make a note to show to someone afterwards. In these cases I always scribbled in the back of a school exercise book and, if stopped and questioned, planned to say that it was homework. It was imperative never to jot anything on a separate piece of paper and always to write in a rough code if I had anything urgent to report, I jumped on a bicycle to reach the unit fifteen miles away in Laskuv. If there was a danger of running into a convoy, I did the journey on foot, weaving my way through, the woods past Ukrainian villages.
Конец
