My companions — along with the bag I was counting on to keep us alive— vanished in the chaos
As told to Yael Schuster by her grandmother, Chana Reich
October 1939
Soviet-Occupied Lemberg (Lwów)
The homes on the outskirts of the city come into view. There is stunning relief — against unwinnable odds, I made I made it — and even greater fear. What will I find?
I put one calloused, blistered foot in front of the other as I make my way toward the tiny flat Shimon and I have been renting. The soles of my shoes are so worn down that every pebble is a dagger, and the fabric of my dress crunches with stiffness from river residue. My hands are empty.
Shimon must be crazy with worry about me. Two weeks ago, I traveled back to German-occupied Poland to check on his elderly mother who had been too frail to run east with us. And I was sick with worry about him, risking his life each day by bartering what little we have to buy food, a “capitalist crime” punishable by slave labor in the gulag.
Create a free account to keep reading.
