Page 28 - LEIBY

28 Leiby – Border Smuggler

of your son.’

“Vanya just sighed wistfully and said goodbye once more. He
gave the farmer a couple of bottles of vodka and a pack of
cigarettes and disappeared.

“The farmer actually looked after me well, and I, in turn, helped
him on his farm. The farm was big, and there was always plenty
to do. I fed the chickens and collected their eggs, and sometimes
I also took the sheep out to pasture. He told his fellow villagers
that I was his nephew, his sister’s son, and that my mother had
been forced by the Germans to go to work in a labor camp in
Germany and so I had come to live with him.

“One day, the gunshots and explosions that we were already
accustomed to hearing seemed closer. Apparently, the fighting
soldiers were approaching our village, and soon enough, our
farm became the battlefront. The Germans lost no time. They
overtook our house, set all the farm animals free to roam in the
fields, and installed their horses in the barns, in place of the
animals who had been there before. I fled with Ivanov and his
family to a nearby village, but something aroused the villagers’
suspicions and they started snooping around and asking
questions about me. We realized that they suspected that I was
Jewish, and Ivanov instructed me to run to the forest and hide
there. Once every few days, he’d come to bring me food, enough
to last me until he came again.

“One day, Ivanov burst into my hiding place, picked me up and
waved me in the air, and began to whirl around and dance with
me. ‘The war is over! The Germans have lost! I saw a long line
of Russian tanks passing by right near here!’”

Yosef fell silent and looked at Leiby. “The war is over and now
I have to fetch Mirushka and bring her back. I’m sure that she
has survived, just as I have. I miss her so much, and she must
miss me too. She always insisted that only I take care of her, and
whenever I wasn’t at home and someone else was looking after
her, she refused to play with any of her toys and just sat looking
out of the window, waiting for me to return.“