Page 112 - LEIBY

112 Leiby – Border Smuggler

slowly out of the cemetery, inhaling the cool evening air.

“Where do the Jews of Warsaw live?” Leiby asked.

“The Jews who’ve returned to Warsaw have settled in Praga,
a suburb in east Warsaw. It was damaged less than other
neighborhoods in the bomb attacks, and some buildings there
have remained whole.”

“Let’s go there.”

Leiby, accompanied by Alexander, set out in the direction
of Praga. The walk was disheartening for both of them, with
destruction and devastation everywhere. Among the wreckage
they spied the bent figures of survivors, wandering about
the remnants of their former homes, the suffering they had
undergone clearly discernible on their faces.

As they neared Praga and could already see tall Jewish
community building from a distance, they heard the sound of
bloodcurdling screams and terrified shouting that grew louder
as they approached the neighborhood.

“Pogrom!” The blood drained from Alexander’s face.

“Pogrom? Have we gone back to the Middle Ages?” Leiby
found it hard to believe.

But when they turned the corner, the sight they beheld was truly
chilling. Hordes of rowdy Poles were running wild in the yard
of the Jewish committee building, tough-looking high school
students and hardy workmen throwing masses of stones and
metal sticks towards the shuttered windows of the building,
and respectable-looking Polish women in urban clothing
urging them on with cries of “death to the zhids, murderers of
our children!” At the head of the group of women stood a young
lady, dressed in a flowered peasant dress, a wicker basket in her
hands, crying and shouting crazedly. “Yashko, my Yashko…”

“What’s going on here?” Leiby raised his voice.

No one there suspected him of being Jewish, and a young Pole
with an impressive mustache and gleaming boots volunteered