Page 148 - LEIBY

148 Leiby – Border Smuggler

through tiny, outlying villages, occasionally throwing pieces of
meat to the menacing guard dogs that tried to prevent him
from entering their villages.

He had only a few more kilometers to go when a horse-drawn
cart stopped beside him. “You can come with us,” a young man
called to him from the cart.

A familiar-looking woman sat in the cart, and Leiby racked his
brains in an effort to remember where he had seen her before,
but in vain. He scrutinized the young man who was dressed
in a suit that he pulled at constantly, as if it was a cloak, and
suddenly it struck him. Of course – the woman was Mirushka’s
adoptive mother, and the young man was the village priest who
had volunteered to help her to rescue her daughter from the
Jews who had kidnapped her.

“Are you local, from this village?” The pair asked Leiby.

Leiby nodded. With his blond hair, smooth skin, and round
face he could easily pass himself off as a Pole.

“Do you have any idea where the Jews’ farm is?” they queried.

Leiby shrugged in surprise. “The Jews’ farm?”

“Yes,” the priest replied with a rueful expression on his face.
“This woman lost her only daughter, the Jews kidnapped her.
We have been informed that the group of Jews with the girl is
waiting to cross over the border into Slovakia and are staying
on the farm in the meantime. Our plan is to mingle with the
group and get the girl out.” The man lowered his voice. “Will
you help us?”

“Of course,” Leiby nodded seriously, with only the hint of a
smile on the corner of his lips.

“Don’t laugh, boy,” the priest was irritated. “We need to protect
our Polish children. So many Poles were killed in the war. Why,
in the Warsaw uprising alone, two hundred fifty thousand
people died, and a child that has been baptized is just as