Page 228 - LEIBY

228 Leiby – Border Smuggler

“The orphanage on Kilinsky Street?”

“Yes. A Jewish woman by the name of Sarah Zeinoviev, who
returned to Lodz at the end of the war, found about a dozen
children, emaciated and wearing tattered clothing, who were
being sheltered by a Russian soldier. He begged her to take
over their care and informed her that there were more children
in his charge too. He took her to meet them and she found
them huddling in an old, neglected apartment, its windows
broken and exposed to the elements.The children were barefoot
and shivering from cold. They were the initial, core group of
the Kilinsky Street Orphanage. Later, the Central Jewish
Committee undertook to aid with the funding of the home and
transferred it to the aegis of the Bund.”

“The Bund?”

“Yes. They support the idea of the children integrating into
‘New Poland’ society and have no intention whatsoever of
taking them out of the country. The absurdity is that their
budget comes from the Joint… At the moment, those Jewish
communists hold prominent government positions, and
smuggling the children away from the orphanage will require
an extra measure of caution.”

Leiby nodded in consent. A faint hope flickered in his heart,
that maybe, just maybe, he’d find Miriam in the orphanage.
Perhaps a breichnik had found her somewhere and brought her
there?

Lodz, two weeks earlier:

It was early afternoon. Sandy wandered around the area near
the Jewish committee offices that were housed in the building
adjacent to the orphanage. A lengthy line of people snaked in