Page 32 - LEIBY

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32 Leiby – Border Smuggler

week.” Leiby told Yosef about a woman who had arrived a few
days earlier at the offices of the committee where he worked.
She said that she had been saved from the Nazis thanks to
forged Aryan identity papers that she had and was now on her
way to Lvov. She had come to the office to check the lists of
survivors, but was devastated when she found that no relatives of
hers had survived. Leiby sighed. The crushing disappointment
that he witnessed almost daily in the committee office was
heartrending.

“The woman told me that she had to rush to the train station
to catch a train and requested that I accompany her, for she
had something important to tell me. On the way, she told me
her story. ‘We were confined to the ghetto and I shared an
apartment with Rav Wiedenfeld’s daughter, Chana. One night
she went into labor and she and her husband succeeded in
sneaking out of the barbed wire fence that enclosed the ghetto.
They made their way to the home of a non-Jewish midwife,
Natasha Ignatz, and a few hours later Chana gave birth to a
healthy baby girl. She left the baby under the midwife’s care,
and she and her husband returned to the ghetto empty-handed.
A short time later they were killed, together with most of the
ghetto residents.’

Leiby glanced at Yosef to make sure he was listening, and
continued speaking. “The train arrived, and the woman hurried
to push her way through the throngs waiting on the platform.
‘Tell me everything you know about this Natasha Ignatz,’ I
requested. ‘I’ll try to find her and the baby.’

“’Natasha lives on the same street as the Jewish committee
in Lida – 18 Zumenhoff Street,’ the woman replied before
disappearing into the crowd. ‘Please write to me, to the Jewish
committee of Lvov, and let me know what you manage to find
out.’

“I left the train station and ran as quickly as I could to Zumenhoff
Street,” Leiby went on. “I found the house easily. It is one of the
few houses that was not damaged in the war, with a paved path
leading up to the front door, and tall shrubbery surrounding it,