Lublin to Kowel, Beyond the Bug.
Lublin had been one of the most important centers of Jewish life in Poland for centuries, and I was somewhat aware of that as I approached. The view / skyline was memorable; as I found out when decades later I encountered a passage in Sholem Asch's book "Kidush Hashem" about the Cossak massacres of 1648 (the worst in Jewish history until what was about to follow now) where he describes the view as the wagon of the protagonists coming to the famous Lublin fair arrived. It must have been on the same road.
After the three months at the Czestochowa kibbutz, where conversations with the members from Poland had to be almost always in Yiddish, I had no problem making myself understood by an evidently Jewish man, that I was looking for the people of that kibbutz. It may be an indication of the significance of the Hashomer Hatzair then (hard to imagine these days) that in less than an hour I was with the only one left in Lublin, all the others having continued on toward Kowel, of which I had never heard. He had been unable to walk any further and was in bed at what must have been an emergency shelter maintained by the Jewish community.
When I indicated that I'll continue to Kowel, he wanted to come along and indicated that he shouldn't need much help. When he started to get out of bed, his feet turned out to be bloody all over; clearly from walking all that distance in ill fitting shoes, a problem I was completely free of due to my dad's parting present of made to measure boots when I left Zbaszyn. So instead of putting on his shoes, he just wound rags around his feet. Before he got done, all had to go to the ground floor during an air raid. It was one of the worst, largely because of children (and others) howling, and probably because there also was much anti aircraft fire which cannot be distinguished easily by novices from exploding bombs.
We tried to get a train ride, many tried. Indeed a freight train full of people started going east almost as soon as we got there. It also stopped again almost as soon as it got started. After a while it continued , then stopped again. Other trains obviously had preference. When a stop seemed to be endless, we got off and continued on foot. At first my buddy (I forgot his name but believe not that of he town he came from [Luniniec ?]) barely had to lean on me a little. After some distance, he got worse; so when we saw another train like the earlier, we got on, and it started to move after a while, then stopped, continued, stopped, until my companion suggested walking again, now to Chelm.
If you are a Jew, you surely have heard of Chelm; if a goy, ask a Jew about Chelm and observe him /her smile. It works every time (due to the wondrous tales of the wisdom of the Assemly of Chelmer, who never repeated a mistake, always finding new ones). But there wasn't much to smile about at that time. We passed a Jewish bakery with a long line of people evidently expecting serious events. My buddy led to the head of the line and used me to get some compassion / bread from the owners (the Zbaszyn affair was well known all over Poland, especially to Jews). I felt uncomfortable about it and would have preferred going longer without, having almost got used to it. In retrospect it was fine; and I only had to endure a squeeze of my cheek for good, free, still warm bread; with which we continued toward Kowel at once. I assume we had got some sleep during a train ride and stop; of which we got one more later. The road probably ran close to the railway.
When we got off this time, it was not just because the halt had been too long, which had made us discuss walking. Then we heard the planes, got off and away from the train which got bombed. We were beyond the river Bug,which was about to become the new border, but it still must have been quite a distance from Kowel. We were about to reach it, when we were stopped by Polish soldiers recruiting arrivals to dig trenches in expectation of the German attack. That came almost two years later when Kovel was part of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic.
After the three months at the Czestochowa kibbutz, where conversations with the members from Poland had to be almost always in Yiddish, I had no problem making myself understood by an evidently Jewish man, that I was looking for the people of that kibbutz. It may be an indication of the significance of the Hashomer Hatzair then (hard to imagine these days) that in less than an hour I was with the only one left in Lublin, all the others having continued on toward Kowel, of which I had never heard. He had been unable to walk any further and was in bed at what must have been an emergency shelter maintained by the Jewish community.
When I indicated that I'll continue to Kowel, he wanted to come along and indicated that he shouldn't need much help. When he started to get out of bed, his feet turned out to be bloody all over; clearly from walking all that distance in ill fitting shoes, a problem I was completely free of due to my dad's parting present of made to measure boots when I left Zbaszyn. So instead of putting on his shoes, he just wound rags around his feet. Before he got done, all had to go to the ground floor during an air raid. It was one of the worst, largely because of children (and others) howling, and probably because there also was much anti aircraft fire which cannot be distinguished easily by novices from exploding bombs.
We tried to get a train ride, many tried. Indeed a freight train full of people started going east almost as soon as we got there. It also stopped again almost as soon as it got started. After a while it continued , then stopped again. Other trains obviously had preference. When a stop seemed to be endless, we got off and continued on foot. At first my buddy (I forgot his name but believe not that of he town he came from [Luniniec ?]) barely had to lean on me a little. After some distance, he got worse; so when we saw another train like the earlier, we got on, and it started to move after a while, then stopped, continued, stopped, until my companion suggested walking again, now to Chelm.
If you are a Jew, you surely have heard of Chelm; if a goy, ask a Jew about Chelm and observe him /her smile. It works every time (due to the wondrous tales of the wisdom of the Assemly of Chelmer, who never repeated a mistake, always finding new ones). But there wasn't much to smile about at that time. We passed a Jewish bakery with a long line of people evidently expecting serious events. My buddy led to the head of the line and used me to get some compassion / bread from the owners (the Zbaszyn affair was well known all over Poland, especially to Jews). I felt uncomfortable about it and would have preferred going longer without, having almost got used to it. In retrospect it was fine; and I only had to endure a squeeze of my cheek for good, free, still warm bread; with which we continued toward Kowel at once. I assume we had got some sleep during a train ride and stop; of which we got one more later. The road probably ran close to the railway.
When we got off this time, it was not just because the halt had been too long, which had made us discuss walking. Then we heard the planes, got off and away from the train which got bombed. We were beyond the river Bug,which was about to become the new border, but it still must have been quite a distance from Kowel. We were about to reach it, when we were stopped by Polish soldiers recruiting arrivals to dig trenches in expectation of the German attack. That came almost two years later when Kovel was part of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic.
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