Pauline Kleinberg - October 28, 1982
Escaping to Sisters House
Husband: Smuggle.
He smuggles. So, and he's going to go and drink with them. We had no choice. We had to take another chance. That was a couple days later. He walked us across. And it was already December. You know, it was already cold too. So when we walked, when we came to the borders, we heard them talking, we heard the dogs. He said, "Now or never." He took us across to a little river. We walked but we had to go through the waters. And then he said, "When you go over that little fence, you stay there 'til the morning. When the people go to the Luftwaffe"--it's like--Luftwaffe is like, um...
Husband: Airport.
...not the airport. Luftwaffe is not a airport. There people were working in the ammunition factories.
Factory.
Yeah, they said, "When the traffic is there at five o'clock in the morning, go with the traffic, wherever you, you want to go." They didn't know that we have there a sister, but we knew where we want to go. And I knew--we knew the city. We didn't know where we was before, but we knew there where to go. In the city we knew, we knew. It's a bigger city than ours. So when we snuck up five o'clock in the morning when it's real, you know, half dark, when we walked--our legs--it was cracking like glass. We were frozen from the, you know, the uh, the water uh, froze on us, so we were cracking. We tried to shake it. So we, we walked. I walked into my sister. It was dark. I didn't know if she is behind me. We didn't want--I didn't know she was in front--we just--I just went. We were without uh, the uh, Star of David. I walked into my sister. She start--she's now hysteria, and she got clothes hanging for us. I said, "What happened?" She said, "My husband thinks that I lost my mind. I told him a few days ago that I was dreaming and papa brought you over to my house." She didn't know that we are living. She said, "Where's, where's Manya?" I said, "I don't know, but she's walking. I'm with her." I didn't know. So, so her husband--when she woke up probably the same time when I said that our father walked us across, she said, "My--mine uh, husband thought that I lost my mind. I said, my sister's are little, but they're very dirty." We were lousy. We were all full of louse, you know, li...lice from dirt because we hadn't washed--bathed for the longest time. So she came in too and I don't know what happened to other people. Then we, we parted, because we were uh, in come together. From there, there were raids every single day. And we hadn't been by people they had their relatives. You know, there were guys. The--they knew. In those places they searched even more. So uh, she said, "I'm going to see that you go to Sosnowiec. That's a bigger city somewhere, where, you know, to--we would not be"--yeah, what happened. So one time, it's all right. Here, all right. They were, were on the watch out all the time. They pushed us there on a attic. And we heard the Germans walking on us. And my sister was almost going to scream. They were walking on us. We were covered with--we were covered with lumber, with straw, and they were walking. My sister knew. They walked on us. I've seen, I've seen the boards. And they walked away, and we safe. And from then we went to Sosnowiec.
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