Pauline Kleinberg - October 28, 1982
Żarki
Spell that, could you spell that?
Ża...ah, blow me down. No, I wouldn't know. Żarki. It's Z with the umlaut.
Husband: Ż-a-r-k-y...
It's not just a "Z" it's not--Żarki. It's, it's, uh...
Husband: They don't have here that expression...
The umlaut. It's like uh...
Okay, it's a "Z"...
With a thing.
So Ż-a-r-k-i. Żarki. Is that near a large town anywhere? Like could you, could you--if I were to look on a map, what large town would it be near, do you know?
I wouldn't have an idea, because I didn't know where we were going. I didn't know--we, we were going where the eyes were carrying--I just--we were little kids. There were many like us. We just go where the eyes were carrying us. But once we were uh, maybe a mile or two under--out from our town, we see the whole city lit up. It sounded like everything's burning, but it wasn't. They were looking for people that were hiding in the basement. They had bunkers. You know, people--and my--I found out later that my mother got away from that punkt with some distant relatives into a bunker. She didn't want everybody to be together. She felt if we're going to go, maybe one's going to be saved. But if we didn't--I didn't feel this way. I thought if we be together, it's going--we going to be together. And she thought--she didn't think that me and my sister are going to be together again. She thought if forever, let's be all different places, maybe some of us will survive. She possi...probably think of the worse. There's going to be no come back. So we seen the city is lit up. And we stayed somewhere on the, on, on roads. And then we were walking. And finally we wind up after a few days in this Żarki. What I heard later--so there, when we got into this city, me and my--and this one sister, we--her--I had a whole history until, until we were liberated but, she didn't make it--the day of liberation. So uh, the Żarki there was an epidemic called czerwonka. What, what is the czerwonka?
Husband: ???
It's an epidemic disease and, very contagious. They were telling the people that only happens, you know, under those conditions. I, I don't know what, what sort of it, what it's called here.
Husband: People really coming out with blood.
With blood.
Typhus, do you think?
No, typhus is something else. This was...
Tuberculosis?
No, this was an epidemic...
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