We jumped into the car and followed it until it crashed and burst into flames. We were amongst the first to arrive there and we helped put the flames out. What a Godsend it had crashed in a field of oats. We found no bodies in the machine. So we began to search then news came through that two had escaped by parachute, one had been captured by soldiers and the other by members of our Home Guard platoon. That left two to find. We spread out and Dad found another parachute, open, and the harness undone. So he called me and three others to search. We were going to turn past a stream when someone shined his torch in the water, and there was a body lying face upward in the water. He was dead. I’ve never felt like being sick in all my days as at that moment. I turned away and someone said to me: ‘I shouldn’t be sorry for him if I were you, he’s killed lots of women and children tonight.’ I said ‘true’. And my heart hardened and I turned towards him. He had been badly shot, and how he found the effort to crawl from the parachute to the water nobody knows. He was an NCO about twenty-three years of age and very broad and well built. The other man, the pilot, was found by a dog, his parachute had failed to open. These two are to be buried with full military honours tomorrow, by the men of the squadron that shot him down.
Well things have not gone too grand in Greece and we realize our heavy lack of equipment. Mere courage is no good alone. We are relying on America to send us tackle. And I think it should be conveyed by you. We can’t fight Hitler with all the resources of Europe in his hands, alone. I don’t see now why your men can’t participate in the war. Enough of this war. Lets talk about ‘somat’ else.
Talking about carrots, I like raw ones over grated, but have not the slightest idea what pea-nut butter is. What is it? Did you know our night-fighter pilots eat carrots to give them keen eyesight?
Well must get some shut-eye before Jerry arrives tonight. You and yours keep well………
Lots of love!!!!
Brian
In Łódź, Dawid would have come across the dead and the dying regularly. In May 1941 alone almost 1,000 ghetto inhabitants died from starvation and disease. Over the following two months, Chairman Rumkowski clamped down on any signs of dissent, which threatened the smooth running of the ghetto, targeting strike leaders in the workshops and Communists. Dawid had been a committed Communist since prewar days.
16 May 1941
I was examined by a doctor today and she was terrified at how thin I was. She’s sending me for some X-rays. Maybe I could get double soup at school. Five portions wouldn’t hurt but two would still be good. One isn’t enough, for sure. But the check-up left me frightened and worried. Lung disease is the latest craze in the ghetto. It wipes people out, just like dysentery or typhus. And the food situation is getting worse. There haven’t been any potatoes for a week and there won’t be any for a long time.
Today Niutek Radzyner came to me with an unusual proposal. He and some of the best members of our organization have formed a closeknit group, a commune almost, to study theory together (they have Marx’s Capital and Lenin’s works) and work for the organization in general. Niutek asked me to join them, which would mean personal contact of the kind I’m not used to. I agreed, but I wonder what will come of it. Anyway, it’s an interesting initiative and I’m sure I’ll gain a lot from it.
24 May 1941
I’ve been catching up with schoolwork all day today. I am hungry as hell, not a crumb left of the bread which was meant to last till Tuesday. I console myself that I am not the only one. It is hard to control myself, I feel so weak that I just have to eat and so the bread disappears. Then I suffer even more. But there’s nothing to be done. And so we dig our own graves.
25 May 1941
At last it feels like May, and although emaciated and famished people (like me, for example) still can’t wear summer clothes yet, the winter coats have been put away. It’s dry everywhere, and the smell in Marysin reminds me of life before the war and makes my heart pang. If these were normal times we’d be three weeks away from our exams [after four years of secondary school] and looking forward to the summer holidays. Some school outing, then youth camp or a trip to the countryside. It makes me want to cry, just thinking about it. To hell with everything!
26 May 1941
At school everything seems normal. No tests so far but we’re working our way through the course. We’re doing Cicero’s famous speech against Cataline; in maths we’re on quadratic equations. We’re behind in most other subjects, except German. School soups are quite good, and my extra-curricular soup is much appreciated. But five portions wouldn’t be too much.
A school gazette is being set up. I contributed some caricatures and they might include one of my Jewish articles. All the ones I’ve written so far turned out to be unpublishable—even the ghetto has its bourgeois ideology, clearly formulated and defined.
Things are not too good at home, but Mum has a job now. She leaves at seven in the morning and comes home at nine in the evening. Father goes out to day shift from eight to eight. All the housework is on [my sister] Nadzia’s shoulders, she does all the queuing, cleaning and so on—all this on just one soup a day with 300g of bread (she and Mum each give Father 100g of bread, but he is very ungrateful and treats them as badly as he does me—it just shows how selfish he is). As she works in the kitchen, Mum gets one extra portion of good soup—the same as every worker in the ghetto. We don’t cook at home any more—there’s nothing to cook. It’s getting harder and harder to find food. There are no potatoes or barley, bread has 8 per cent chestnut flour added and its daily ration won’t increase. There is a real food crisis. And it’s only the second year of war!
27 May 1941
Everyone is impatient to hear Roosevelt’s speech, which is supposed to be today. People are pointing out it was the 27th May 1917 that the United States declared war on Germany, and they hope they will do so again on the same day. I have no textbook to check the date but, even if it’s correct, I don’t think that America will enter the war today. I hope I’m proved wrong. Everyone is teasing me for my pessimism. But, sadly, they usually have to admit that I was right. And that kills me…
28 May 1941
Sure enough, he didn’t say anything special. We have to wait, and wait, and wait—it’s enough to make a person mad, listening to this empty blabber. Here, the statistics are showing an incredible increase in the numbers of children and young people with TB but, over there, they wait and see. To hell with them!
15 June 1941
This sadist, this moron, Rumkowski, is doing terrible things. He sacked two Communist teachers. The stated reason: they were organizing a teachers’ protest. The likely real reason: alleged Communist activities at school. We are keeping a low profile and taking our leaders’ advice not to organize any meetings for a week or two. There’s a risk of expulsion, they might even shut the school down.
28 June 1941
A very difficult problem today, it has upset me a lot. Niutek Radzyner told me that, since all the Party’s work in the ghetto has been suspended, a core group will meet in great secrecy, consisting of people dedicated to the cause, body and soul, to the exclusion of everything else. They are to be at the disposal of the party for any action. There are to be five members, chosen after